Uncle Vanya and The Three Sisters, Wyndham's Theatre

“You must trust or believe in people or life becomes impossible” - Anton Chekhov

It seems that London can’t get enough of Anton Chekhov: in recent theatre history there hasn’t been a single season that hasn’t featured one of the great Russian playwright’s works. In the last two years, Uncle Vanya has been staged at the Vaudeville Theatre, the Print Room and at the Noel Coward Theatre; The Seagull was on at the Southwark Playhouse, and Three Sisters at the Young Vic. One of our top picks for next autumn is Katie Mitchell's take on The Cherry Orchard, opening at the Young Vic in October.

It's regularly argued that translation equals loss, and Russian speakers often underline how difficult it is to capture the spirit of the most celebrated 20th century Russian playwright. Here is the chance to see Three Sisters and Uncle Vanya in their original language with Russian actors and English subtitles. British audiences aren’t so put off by subtitles anymore: this is good news.

Iconic Russian director Andrei Konchalovsky (Maria’s Lovers, The Lion in Winter, House of Fools), eldest brother of Nikita Mikhalkov and earlier collaborator of Andrei Tarkovsky, brings these two classic plays to the West End directly from Moscow’s Moccobeta State Academic Theatre, one of the oldest theatres in Moscow. 

Konchalovsky has opted to use the same cast and setting for both plays and will no doubt be nodding to the similarities between them. As he commented recently:  'Chekhov was able to see and distinguish life in closer detail than almost any other writer. He was the founder of the modern drama that replaced the romantic tragedy of the 19th century'.

As tragi-comic meditations on the futility of existence, Chekhov’s works are timeless and universal. It is said due to temperament and tuberculosis, Chekhov only wrote four great plays: The Seagull, The Cherry Orchard, Uncle Vanya and Three Sisters – here is a chance to see two of them in one day and experience for once in your life Chekhov in its original version.