SOURCE: A review of Three Sisters, in The Hudson Review, Vol. XXX, No. 4, Winter, 1977-78, pp. 525-43.

In the following essay, Moss examines the subtle elements of Chekhov's character and thematic development.

In Three Sisters, the inability to act becomes the action of the play. How to make stasis dramatic is its problem and Chekhov solves it by a gradual deepening of insight rather than by the play of event. The grandeur of great gestures and magnificent speeches remains a Shakespearian possibility—a diminishing one. Most often, we get to know people through the accretion of small details—minute responses, tiny actions, little gauze screens being lifted in the day-to-day pressure of relationships. In most plays, action builds toward a major crisis. In Three Sisters, it might be compared to the drip of a faucet in a water basin; a continuous process wears away the enamel of facade...