The Three Sisters, Anton Chekhov | Howard Moss (essay date 1977-1978)
Howard Moss (essay date 1977-1978)
SOURCE: A review of Three Sisters, in The Hudson Review, Vol. XXX, No. 4, Winter, 1977-78, pp. 525-43.
[In the following essay, Moss examines the subtle elements of Chekhov's character and thematic development.]
In Three Sisters, the inability to act becomes the action of the play. How to make stasis dramatic is its problem and Chekhov solves it by a gradual deepening of insight rather than by the play of event. The grandeur of great gestures and magnificent speeches remains a Shakespearian possibility—a diminishing one. Most often, we get to know people through the accretion of small details—minute responses, tiny actions, little gauze screens being lifted in the day-to-day pressure of relationships. In most plays, action builds toward a major crisis. In Three Sisters, it might be compared to the drip of a faucet in a water basin; a continuous process wears away the enamel of...
[The entire page is 8276 words long]
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