The Three Sisters

Staging of the production in the hall of the Nitra Museum functions as a site specific effect for the viewer who is literally drawn into the story, fortunately not only by the served glass of champagne. The Hungarian stage designer Andrea Bartha made this space friendlier and beautiful just to heighten the contrast with life’s rough edges. Thanks to her costumes, the characters can change from sad grey shadows to ethereal beings or precious showpieces in the life memorabilia.

(...) Although the orthodox Chekhov scholars may not agree, Svetozár Sprušanský has remained faithful to the most important – the atmosphere of “melancholic moments of life“. Striking changes are not for their own sake; they make the text more rhythmical and establish the punchline (editor‘s note: passages from various Chekhov plays, lines from Pushkin, Lermontov, Nekrasov).

(...) While in the first part we are watching a friendly family film, after the interval the projector is brutally revealed. The direction stresses the feeling of loneliness, finiteness, loss, departure and physical and mental death. The door, behind which we anticipate some voices and shadows, together with the nervous jangle of keys, make probably the most striking final metaphor.

Zuzana Uličianska, SME

Sprušanský preferred to structure the theme and create the atmosphere rather than the realistic expression of individual relationships. The stage design part builds the meanings, some strong characters (Vershinin), according to staging tradition, were suppressed on behalf of others (Natalia Ivanovna). Naturalistic desires, suffering, and death were replaced by signs and hints, symbols and gestures. A delicate pastel design of certain life feeling has been created and it resonates in the viewer with the intensity of its viewpoint. For this production has its viewpoint.

Soňa Uličná, Dominofórum