74 THENEWYORKER,AUGUST 5 &12, 2019
Halley Feiffer translates “Three Sisters” into today’s ditzy online-speak.
THETHEATRE
HEY, SISTERS
A cheeky update of Chekhov, and “Moulin Rouge!” on Broadway.
BY ALEXANDRASCHWARTZ
ILLUSTRATION BY ELENI KALORKOTI
I
t can feel almost cruel to watch Che
khov’s great late plays from the smug
vantage point of the present: we can
see, all too clearly, the future that awaits
his bewildered Russian gentlefolk. In
2016, I saw the Maly Drama Theatre
of St. Petersburg perform “The Cherry
Orchard” at BAM. When the ambitious
serf ’s son Lopakhin announced that
he had bought the aristocrat Lyubov
Ranevskaya’s estate out from under her,
the director, Lev Dodin, had him croon
“My Way,” a startling anachronism that
perfectly transformed the boorishly tri
umphant upstart into a vainglorious
karaoke hero. Lopakhin represents the
overthrow of the Russian landowning
class by capital and those who wield it—
though things didn’t quite work out that
way. Dodin ended his production with
the cast members lined up as if before a
firing squad; Chekhov was right about
what would happen to Ranevskaya, but
we know that the Revolution would
claim the Lopakhins of the world, too.
Political upheaval is one thing, hu
man nature another. How much has the
heart changed in the past century or
so? Hardly at all, according to Halley
Feiffer’s antic and sneakily affecting
“Moscow Moscow Moscow Moscow
Moscow Moscow” (zippily directed by
Trip Cullman, at the M.C.C.). The play
is at once a rude millennial reboot and
a fairly faithful adaptation of Chekhov’s
“Three Sisters,” which was first per
formed in 1901. The year is still 1900,
the place still a house in the Russian
provinces, where the Prozorov sisters,
Olga, Masha, and Irina, have languished
since their father, now dead, transplanted
them from their beloved Moscow, eleven
years ago. Home is the usual Russian
affair—chaise longue: check; samovar:
check—but the women’s clothes, and
their language, are jarringly modern.
Irina (Tavi Gevinson), freshfaced and
cheerful, wears a sparkly unicornhorn
headband; the disillusioned school
teacher Olga (Rebecca Henderson)
sports a chic Rodarte Tshirt. She’s sexy,
but telling her so would only feed her
ferocious selfpity. “I look like shit, but
what else is new,” she complains to Irina
and Masha (Chris Perfetti), who reads
poetry in order to tune her out. “Even
when I was born, I looked like a little
babyshaped turd. ‘Hey, Shit!’ That’s
what everyone calls me. That’s not true
I’m just making a joke but still. ”
Only male attention can diffuse Ol
ga’s competitive selfloathing, but Irina
gets the lion’s share of that. Chebutykin
(Ray Anthony Thomas), the old doctor
who loved the sisters’ mother, dotes on
Irina; the insecure Baron Tuzenbach
(Steven Boyer) longs for her, as does the
odd, sadistic Army captain, Solyony
(Matthew Jeffers). But what Irina wants
is dignity on her own terms—if only
she can figure out what those might be.
Her older brother, Andrey (Greg Hil
dreth), is no help; his intellectual aspi
rations, already deflated by the dullness
of provincial life, are snuffed out alto
gether when he falls in love with Na
tasha (Sas Goldberg), a déclassé local
who thinks that Juicy Couture sweat
suits are still a thing. The sisters mock
her mercilessly. Bad move: unlike them,
Natasha is a woman of action, and in
no time she’ll have that tacky fanny
pack they love to laugh at strapped
snugly around their throats.
Watching these Russians snipe and
complain in our own ditzy onlinespeak
gives the lie to the nostalgic fantasy that
people were better, kinder, and more
“connected” before our atomized era of
screens. What is there to connect to, when
everyone’s so bored and lonely (“blonely,”
in Feiffer’s coinage)? Irreverence can be
a form of homage, and the thirtyfour
