What exactly happens when a theatre ensemble encounters a great dramatic text? During the working process, avalanches of associations are set in motion, stories and memories are summoned, very intimate spaces are created – what is usually hidden in the background of character creation becomes revealed. This inner process of fermentation, this “ferment” that precedes the final form – the performance – becomes the central focus here. Instead of a finished product, this production looks directly into that dynamic state and process of fermentation, into its strength, unpredictability, uncertainty, and resistance to being shaped. That process is powerful, dangerous, and threatening. Liješević’s view of Chekhov’s drama is not a classical interpretation of it.
This production offers a view from behind. In usual directing practices, the resources of the (un)conscious are used to build a character. Still, here the opposite occurs: the dramatic text is used as a tool to construct the unconscious material it evokes. This performance becomes an intimate testimony to the actor’s creative process because the director starts from the idea that the path toward a character is often much more alive than the character itself. Who are we today in relation to Olga, Masha, and Irina? What does that mythical “Moscow” mean to us – a symbol of longing, change, the unattainable? With whom do we identify, and why? The performance Three Sisters, Me does not seek answers, but offers a space to examine our own responses to the dramatic text. It is an intimate testimony of the actor’s creation – a process often more alive, deeper, and truer than fiction.