At one moment in the Brecht and Weill opera The Rise and Fall of the City ofMahagonny, a whore is playing 'The Maiden's Prayer' and a roughhewn client takes the cigar out of his mouth and comments, 'Das ist die ewige Kunst' ('Such is eternal art'). Chekhov's technique is considerably more subtle, but his inferences are not dissimilar. Three Sisters does not try to show how three gifted women were defeated by a philistine environment, but rather that their unhappiness is of their own making; if they are subjugated and evicted by the Natashas of this world, it is because they have not recognized and dealt with their own shortcomings. At one point or another, each of the sisters is as callous and purblind as Natasha herself. Olga rather cattily criticises Natasha's belt at the party, though she has been told that the girl is shy in company; in Act Three, she refuses to listen to Masha's avowal of love, will not voluntarily face facts. Her very removal to a garret is as much an avoidance of involvement as it is an exile imposed by Natasha. Irina is remarkably unpleasant to both her suitors, Tusenbach and Solyony; in her post as telegraph clerk she is abrupt to a grieving mother; and at the last refuses to say the few words of love that might solace the Baron, even though, as Chekhov informed Olga Knipper, she is prescient of an impending misfortune. Masha talks like a trooper, drinks, abuses Anfisa almost as badly and with less excuse than Natasha does. Her flagrant adultery with Vershinin may even be more destructive than Natasha's with Protopopov, for Kulygin genuinely loves his wife, whereas Andrey tries to forget that he has one.
This litany of faults is not meant to blacken the sisters or to exonerate Natasha, Solyony and the others. It is meant to redress the balance: Chekhov selects the Prozorov family (who, along with the officers, were based on acquaintances) to sum up a way of life. With all the benefits of education, a loving home and creature comforts, the sisters stagnate, not simply because they live in the sticks, but because they have established nothing of value to give meaning to their existence. The ennobling labour that Tusenbach and Vershinin rhapsodise over, that inspires Irina, cannot be equated with doing a job every day. Olga's teaching, Irina's work at the Council and the telegraph office, the position at the mines to which Tusenbach retires offer a prospect of meaningless drudgery.
The abiding state of mind is to be 'fed up' (nadoelo). In his brief moment alone with Masha in Act Two, Vershinin blames the average local intelligent for being 'fed up with his wife, fed up with his estate, fed up with his horses'; but he is clearly characterising himself, for he soon draws a picture of his own wretched marriage. Masha, whom Vershinin would exempt as an exceptional person, is 'fed up with winter', and when her husband proclaims his love with 'I'm so content,' she bitterly spits back, 'I'm fed up, fed up, fed up'. Even the genteel Olga pronounces herself'fed up'-with the fire. The unanimous response to this spiritual sickness unto death is a commonplace fatalism. Chebutykin's 'It's all the same' (Vsyo ravno) is echoed by most of the characters. Vershinin quotes it when denying differences between the military and civilians; Tusenbach describes his resignation from the army in those words; Solyony dismisses his love for Irina with the phrase.
According to Irina, Andrey's debts are vsyo ravno to Natasha. This willed insouciance is the counterbalance to the equally deliberate velleities about the future.
To represent the slow disintegration of these lives, Three Sisters unfolds over a longer period than any of Chekhov's other plays. It begins on the fifth of May, Irina's twentieth nameday, and ends in autumn, four years later. The characters talk incessantly about time, from the very first line, 'Our father died, just a year ago today,' almost to the last. The passage of time is denoted by such obvious tokens as Natasha's growing children, Andrey's problem with overweight, Olga's promotions. However, this is more than a family chronicle. Chekhov insists on the subjectivity of time, what Dr. Johnson called its 'elasticity'. Each act indicates that what had gone before is now irrevocably swallowed up, lost not simply in the distant past, but in what had been yesterday. The youth in Moscow, aglow with promise, to which the sisters retrospect is undercut by their initial response to its survivor, Vershinin: 'Oh, how you've aged!' The party of Act One is spoken of in Act Two, a few months later, as if it belonged to a bygone Golden Age; by Act Three, Tusenbach is referring to it as 'Back in those days'. Time measures the increasing negativity of life: it has been two years since the doctor drank, three years since Masha played the piano, or maybe four. It's been a long time since Andrey played cards, i.e., the few months since Act Two. If time passes in a steady process of diminution, perspectives into the future are not enough to replace the losses. Chebutykin smashes a valuable clock, demolishing time, but his chiming watch in the last act continues to announce fresh departures.
Setting up markers for time, Chekhov structures each act around a special event that catalyses routine responses and sticks in the memory. Irina's nameday party serves a number of dramatic functions: it commemorates a date, assembles all the characters in one place, and is the high water mark for the sisters' hope. It is the last time we see them as sole mistresses in their own domain; each of them is on the verge of a promising situation. Coming-of- age opens the world to Irina; the arrival of Vershinin enlivens Masha; and Olga still enjoys teaching. The Shrovetide party in Act Two is a sharp contrast: it takes place after dark, with several habitues absent (Olga must work late as must Kulygin, Vershinin is called away by his wife's suicide attempt). Twice the party is broken up by Natasha, and finally the revellers realize that amusement is to be sought outside the home. No tea is forthcoming from the usurper Natasha any more than carriage horses were from the insolent overseer Shamraev in The Seagull.
The eating at these events, the metaphor for shared experience, disintegrates as the play proceeds. Act One had ended with the cast gathered round the table, regaling themselves with roast turkey, apple pie and too much vodka. The odd men out were Natasha and Andrey, furtively conducting their romance at a remove from the teasing family. But in Act Two, Natasha is now seated at the festive board, criticising the table manners of others; Solyony has eaten up all the chocolates. The Caucasian mutton dish chekhartma becomes a bone of angry contention. Once Natasha gains a foothold, the indiscriminate feeding ends.
The fire in Act Three is a tour de force; physical danger, mass hysteria and crowd movement, although kept offstage, have forced the characters into their present situation, both topographically and emotionally. Gradually, like Andreyev's image of steam rising in a boiler, all of them are pushed upwards into the compressed space under the eaves. Even though the conflagration does not singe the