Word: masha
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...lighting and the music immeasurably enhance the performance's emotional atmosphere, but the production escapes detachment and coldness chiefly because of uniformly excellent acting. Every actor crafts and sustains a character; even the bit parts are people with distinct--if annoying--personalities. Heitzi Epstein (Olga), Jenny Cornuelle (Masha) and Anne Clark (Irina) turn in carefully sustained and sensitive performances as the three sisters whose emotional foibles and frustrations are the play's heart. Clark as the youngest sister deftly moves from lighthearted young girl to pensive despairing woman. In one scene she darts across the stage, childishly reveling...
...Galina (Bettye Fitzpatrick), and she has more of the instincts of a den mother than a party official. Her chief worry is Katya (Cristine Rose), who spends most of the play catatonically desolated by the absence of her husband. Galina's chief ally in rallying group morale is Masha (Bella Jarrett), a gutsy fighter who can issue a pep talk that would blister a slacking football team...
They try to exorcise loneliness by seeking some point or purpose in their lives. Olga (Rosemary Harris) idealistically teaches school but dreams of a home and family. Miserable in her marriage to a pedantic schoolmaster (Rex Robbins), Masha (Ellen Burstyn) stumbles into a hopeless, heart-wrenching affair with the garrison's Lieut. Colonel Vershinin (Denholm Elliott). The youngest sister, Irina (Tovah Feldshuh), seeks to be ennobled by the "dignity of work" in the local telegraph office...
...Olga and Masha urge Irina to accept a proposal of marriage from an oddly self-mocking anti-hero named Baron Tusenbach (Austin Pendleton). Though Irina does not love him, she does deeply respect him and reluctantly agrees. But Irina is besieged by another suitor, a man as menacing as a bayonet thrust, Staff Captain Solyony (Rene Au-berjonois), who is romantically desperate for her love. Solyony challenges the baron to a duel, and all dreams end with a pistol shot...
...gether as a permanent repertory troupe. It consists of players whose passion is the theater and who possess talents of the highest distinction. Rosemary Harris could mesmerize an audience by reciting the multiplication table. Tovah Feldshuh is a steel butterfly, a young actress of electrifying presence and promise. As Masha, Ellen Burstyn lacks some consuming sensual hunger, but her parting embrace with Vershinin is a silent, agonized howl of lost love...