Three Sisters

17/05/2011

A stellar cast perform one of the classic plays of the last century at the Theatre Royal this June

Evgenia Dmitrieva, Irina Grineva and Nelly Uvarova. Pic: Igor Zakharkin

Seen by some in the know as perhaps the greatest play of the 20th Century, Anton Chekhov's Three Sisters was considered a pertinant comment upon the spiritual decline of the Russian privileged class long before the Revolution, and is now a firm part of the modern theatre canon. Three Sisters tells the tale of Olga, Irina and Masha, whose lives are turned upside down by the arrival of glamorous officer Vershinin to their remote town. Their eternal struggle to live and love is charted by Chekhov’s sharp eye and unfailing humanity.

As part of NEAT '11, the inaugral Nottingham European Arts and Theatre Festival, a very special collaboration between Cheek By Jowl and the Chekhov International Festival will see his most famous play performed the Theatre Royal in June.

The Company, Three Sisters. Pic: Mikhail Guterman

Cheek By Jowl were formed by Declan Donnellan and Nick Ormerod in 1981, and in the thirty years since its creation, the company has performed in 330 cities in over forty countries spanning six continents. Described as 'one of the ten great theatre companies in the world' by Time magazine, Cheek by Jowl has been one of the Associate Companies at the Barbican in London since 2005, where they present an annual season of work.

They have also been working closely for the last decade with Moscow's Chekhov International Festival, who have created an extensive repertoire of international classics in the Russian language including Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night and The Tempest and Pushkin’s Boris Godunov. This production has toured the world to unanimous acclaim, with five-star reviews in The Times ("I cannot imagine a more delicate, luminous and emotionally piercing production...Heartbreaking simplicity; simply heartbreaking") and The Independent ("Luminous.... brilliantly performed"). Performed in Russian with English subtitles, this could well be the theatrical highlight of the year.