Three Sisters Vanishing
LaGuardia Performing Arts Center Updates A Chekhov Classic
April 18, 2010 / Long Island City LIC / Queens Buzz. Three Sisters Vanishing is an adaptation of Anton Chekhov’s play entitled Three Sisters by Queens playwright / director Handan Ozbilgin Bromley of the LaGuardia Performing Arts Center.
Adaptation Of Chekhov's Three Sisters - At LPAC
The original story is about three sisters living in the Russian countryside who, following their father’s death, long to return to the bright lights and sophistication of Moscow. Moscow, in the Chekhov story, is analogous to the sisters’ dreams and aspirations. As the play progresses through four acts, the sisters’ hopes of returning to Moscow fade [as does their dreams], as they come to grips with the realities of their lives. Click here to view the rest of the review of Three Sisters Vanishing at LaGuardia Performing Arts Center in LIC.
Handan Ozbilgin Bromley - Queens Director & Playwright
Continued Handan adds three ‘other’ sisters to the story. These ‘other’ sisters act out the inner voices of the main characters. By creating these additional roles, Handan amps up the emotional expressionism of the Chekhov’s three sisters, enabling her to capture and convey the complex subtleties of the original characters. And in so doing, she distills the philosophical essence of the original work and transports its meaning and relevance through time onto the 21st century stage.
Queens Theater At LaGuardia Performing Arts Center
The stage was set in the living room of the spacious genteel home left by the sisters’ father. The three sisters wear similar grey dresses leaving them to distinguish themselves from each other by their character’s performances. The ‘other’ sisters also wore similar dresses, but their dresses were altered [messed up a bit] to distinguish them from the characters they complement.
Three Sisters Vanishing - Live Dramatic Performance In Long Island City LIC
The performance takes us through each sister’s struggle in life to find happiness. For Olga, the older sister, her struggle is to rejoin a cultured society in Moscow wherein the fine education she has accumulated will not be wasted. For Irina 
the youngest sister, her dream is to fall in love with someone from Moscow, which we’re led to believe is an ideal – not real. And for the middle sister, Masha, life seems a merry-go-round of failed love.
In the story background, the sisters’ brother Andrei, has mortgaged their handsome home to pay off his gambling debts. He has also fallen in love and marries a lower class woman, Natasha. In time, Natasha through Andrei, comes to dominate the home.
In Three Sisters Vanishing, Handan's use of the ’other’ sisters enables the audience to share in the actresses conflicting emotions. After the show, one theater-goer expressed this dynamic in Freudian terms, as the struggle between the super-ego and the id. Handan’s creative adaptation enabled her to impart and emote Chekhov’s philosophy inventively, as the inner thoughts and feelings written into Chekhov's work are difficult to portray onstage and has made performing Chekhov’s Three Sisters one of the great challenges.
Dramatic Arts In Long Island City - Meet The Cast
The cast presented an intriguing performance of a difficult-to-perform play. The three main sisters held their ground as the leading actresses, while the ‘other’ sisters played their complementary roles with real panache. Chekhov’s work is about what lurks beneath the surface of one’s consciousness and Handan’s adaptation provided an inventive means of expressing the inner struggle that inhabits not just the three sisters, but us all.
The performers were as follows: Olga was performed by Alena Acker and Jessica Marie Smith [the 'other'], Masha was performed by Rebecca Lynne-David and Melissa Ramon [the 'other'], Irina was performed by Amanda Yachechak and April Evans [the 'other'] and Michael Anthony Munoz portrayed Vershinin. Khan Ruksana Razzaque was the stage manager and Cigdem Tankut was also a contributor [narrator].
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