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Three Sisters Two by Reza de Wet

theactorsworks

Updated: Feb 7

"To think that those kind of people should be living in papa's study. Should use his books for fuel. It's enough to drive you mad!"

Olga

Three Sisters Two



THE PLAY

"I suppose on the simplest level these plays, speaking so poignantly of a vanishing order, reflected my situation as a 'privileged' Afrikaaner standing on the threshold of far-reaching socio-political change. I could identify with these characters who sense that their existence is precarious and morally flawed." Reze de Wet in conversation with Juanita Perez, 2001.

 

Three Sisters Two was the first play in Reza de Wet's Russian Trilogy - each written as responses to Chekhov's major plays. First performed in 1997, Three Sisters Two places the characters from Chekhov's Three Sisters in Russia 1920. Rather than simply aiming to imitate Chekhov's style, de Wet is using the style and form for a deeply personal exploration of her experience as an Afrikaner in the years of transition from Apartheid to Democracy in the 1990s.

 

Three Sisters Two was awarded Best Production of the Year in 1997.




THE WRITER

"Right from the beginning of what has become a sustained and prolific career, she proved to be able to unnerve and amuse in equal measure while tapping into a dark and richly subversive vein, mining both gold and puss from a festering Afrikaner psyche." Marthinus Basson, Introduction to Plays Two, 2004.

 

Reza de Wet was a South African playwright and actor, who wrote in both English and Afrikaans. Her first play, Diepe Grond (African Gothic) was first performed in 1985 and immediately established her as an exciting new voice in South African and Afrikaans theatre. De Wet never wrote any overtly political plays. Instead she used subversive storytelling - often utilizing elements of fairy tales, magical realism and symbolism - to create beautifully unsettling, radical work.

 

Reza de Wet wrote twelve plays during her career and she was awarded more theatre and literary awards than any other South African playwright.

 

She died in 2012.

 

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