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ADHERE + DENY | THREE SISTERS: A
STILL LIFE
Three
Sisters: A Still Life is a distillation of Chekhov’s The Three Sisters,
reducing the master work to a portrait of Masha, Olga and Irena. It visits
the three sisters on their island of inertia surrounded by an ocean of
entropy, resulting in a microscopic examination of their pathos, their
Ivan Ilyich non-existence. Out of the reconstruction of Chekhov, Three
Sisters: A Still Life, we can firmly see the important impact Chekhov
has had on contemporary theatre, clearing the way for Beckett, Albee and
Mamet. In The Three Sisters, when the décor has been removed, we
have a reductive theatre, a theatre that bears witness to an internal
essence. It is a theatre that speaks to the landscape of our soul. At
the heart of this reconstruction is Chekhov’s wonderfully impressionistic
and innate comic brush.
". . . and he also has done some very interesting changes, and the
changes move it in the direction of this idea of silence. Masha, the younger
sister, at one point, says, something like, "the rest is silent",
in the version Grant Guy does. Now, that is a very famous line, of course,
that comes out of the final line that Hamlet has in Shakespeare’s
Hamlet. In the actual play she didn't say that. She says, "I’m
going to be silent", like the lunatics in Gogol's short story. So,
the change he makes is one that shifts towards this idea of being a still
life. And at every point, I think, the changes Grant Guy has made, and
the way he selected the play, make it quite beautiful, and quite focussed."
-Robert Enright. CBC Radio Stereo One, April 11, 2003.
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