Three Sisters (Три сeстры) is a play by Anton Chekhov, first produced by the Moscow Art Theatre in 1901.
It follows the lives of three sisters, Olga, Maria ("Masha"), and Irina over the course of several years. Significant supporting characters include their brother Andrey and his selfish, manipulative wife Natasha.
This play contains examples of:
- Awful Wedded Life: No married character is happy:
- Masha married at 18 Kulygin but now that she's grown up she can't stand him anymore and starts an affair with Vershinin.
- Vershinin has a wife who is mentally unstable.
- Andrey quickly becomes miserable with Natasha, who is controlling and shallow. Also, she's cuckolding him.
- The Bad Guy Wins: We meet Natasha as a middle-class towns girl, eventually, she grows more controlling of the Prozorov family, as well as the maids.
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Natasha. She plays the wounded gazelle gambit (the sisters were judging her fashion sense) to endear Andrey but she's revealed to be a manipulative and controlling wife.
- German Russians: Tuzenbach, although he's quick to state that he doesn't know a single word in German and his father was even an Orthodox Christian.
- Henpecked Husband: Andrey, eventually.
- He Who Must Not Be Seen: Protopopov.
- Hope Spot:
- Old Retainer: Anfisa is too old and feeble to be much good as a servant anymore, but is kept on out of loyalty, until Natasha starts running the house.
- Military Brat: The Prozorov children, and they used to move around Russia a lot.
- Missing Mom: Sergey Prozorov raised his children by himself after his wife's death. Irina couldn't have been older thank nine when she died.
- Rags to Riches: Natasha's story arc.
- Small Town Boredom: All the sisters, but especially Irina. They wish they could go back to Moscow, where they used to live in their childhood, but nope, they're stuck.
