Three Sisters at UW


I left the theater after the UW School of Drama production of Three Sisters with the idea that life is grim and absurd, which made me laugh because it was as if I was thinking like one of the sad characters in the play. That, in turn, made me feel, unlike those characters, at least I can look at the grim and the absurd and laugh – which only made me even more like a Chekhov character. It’s as if you can’t reach an escape velocity. And like the sisters, you go around and around in circles and never get anywhere. The staging captures this well. The Glenn Hughes Penthouse Theater on the UW campus is in the round. The playing space has exits at four corners, allowing actors, as they enter and exit from opposite poles, to display the distance and disconnect of the characters. The lights, sound, and movement in the final moments of the play will stun you. It was my favorite part but to say more about it would be like a spoiler.

Photo by me of the stage. 

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