Yale Bulletin and Calendar

October 26, 2001

Volume 30, Number 8

"Three Sisters" is as "poignantly relevant today as it was 100 years ago," says director Jackson Gay. This image is from the publicity poster for the play.

Drama school stages Chekhov's
'compassionate meditation'

The School of Drama will celebrate the 100thanniversary of Anton Chekhov's "Three Sisters" with a production of the classic drama Oct. 29-Nov. 3.

Widely regarded as a masterpiece of 20th-century drama, the play is Chekhov's "compassionate meditation on society's struggle to fulfill its hopes and aspirations," says drama student Jackson Gay, who is directing the production.

The story of the Prozorov siblings, "Three Sisters" chronicles Olga, Irina and Masha's hopes, desires and attempts to fulfill their dream of a better life in Moscow, away from their provincial garrison town, ill-fated love triangles and the domineering wife of their brother.

"Over the course of this play, individuals are struggling with the task of self-actualization, grappling with the undeniable facts of their lives -- the emptiness, isolation, jealousy, pettiness and fear that comprises them -- and yet they are still able to endure their circumstances and themselves with compassion, wit and humor," says Gay. "As Masha says, 'I think a person has to believe in something, or has to look for something to believe in, otherwise his life is empty, empty... .' Falling in the centennial year of the play, this production strives to celebrate what Chekhov celebrated in life: the profound drama of the development of a civilized individual. Given recent and ongoing world events, this play is as poignantly relevant today as it was 100 years ago."

Chekhov was considered a master dramatist of social realism and a master observer of the human condition because of his skill in juxtaposing the comedic and the catastrophic in everyday life. "Let the things that happen onstage be just as complex and yet just as simple as they are in life," he once said. "For instance, people are having a meal, just having a meal, but at the same time their happiness is being created, or their lives are being destroyed."

Gay is in her final year of the drama school's directing program. She has worked regionally, assisting Joe Mantello at the Williamstown Theatre Festival on "Hot 'L' Baltimore" and Evan Yionoulis on "Glimmer Glimmer and Shine" at both the Mark Taper Forum and Manhattan Theatre Club, where she was a Jonathan Alper Directing Fellow. At Yale, she has directed "Farmyard/Ghost Train," "After the Show," "Measure for Measure" and "Interlude" for the School of Drama and "Woyzeck" for the Yale Cabaret. Before coming to Yale, Gay studied acting and directing at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia.

Featured in "Three Sisters" are Annie Worden as Olga, Jeanine Serralles as Masha, Lucia Brawley as Irina, Nancy Kim as Natasha, Sarah Elliott as Anfisa, Peter Macon as Andrey, Matthew Humphreys as Kulygin, Derek Lucci as Vershinin, Frank Liotti as Tuzenbach, Jacob Blumer as Solyony, Andrew Guilarté as Chebutykin, William Theodore Thompson as Fedotik, Greg Felden as Ferapont, Eric Gilde as Rohde and Christie B. Evangelisto as the Maid.

The artistic staff for the production includes scenic designer Leiko Fuseya, costume designer Meredith Palin, lighting designer Scott Bolman, sound designer Phillip Pegow, dramaturg Heather Jeanne Violanti and stage manager Laura Jean MacNeil.

Performance times are Monday, Oct. 29, at 7 p.m.; and Tuesday-Saturday, Oct. 30-Nov. 3 at 8 p.m., with a 2 p.m. matinee on Saturday. Individual tickets range from $15 to $18. Discounts are available for students and seniors. For more information or to order tickets, call the Yale Rep box office at (203) 432-1234, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday-Saturday.

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Legal scholar John Langbein is named Sterling Professor

Historian Cynthia Russett is appointed Larned Professor

Conference honors economist William Brainard

Environmental Science Center opening Oct. 26

Event to celebrate 'Cultures of Native America'

Drama school stages Chekhov's 'compassionate meditation'

Yale Opera students to perform scenes from famous operas

'Practical Logic' series opens with talk on challenge of intersexuality

Talks about Sept. 11 aftermath to focus on questions of gender

Symposium to explore 'material culture' of Colonial New York

Project teaches Head Start parents about computers, cancer

Conservation of biodiversity in China is subject of talk

Stephen Bright to speak at tea

Getting the low-down on downtown

Honoring an 'unsung hero'

Campus Notes