NYC's The Alchemical Theatre Presents THREE SISTERS COME AND GO, 9/29-10/10

The Alchemical Theatre, the resident theater company at Theaterlab, will present THREE SISTERS COME AND GO, a piece conceived and directed by Orietta Crispino, September 29 through October 10, 2010 at Theaterlab (137 West 14th Street).

THREE SISTERS COME AND GO follows the lives of the three archetypal women of Chekhov's plays read through the lens of Beckett's comic take on the existential dilemma, and Julia Kristeva's insight regarding the transformation of despair and loss into joy and acceptance. Bound to living together, each of the sisters is comically obsessed with being the most unhappy of the group.

"The sisters play the game of theater finding a future in the present of the stage," explains director Orietta Crispino. "After all, there is life beyond despair."

THREE SISTERS COME AND GO opens with Samuel Beckett's dramaticule Come and Go, which serves as the model for a geometry of the unspoken, the unsettling reality of consisting beyond the veil of representation. Three women sitting in perfect stillness together repeat a cycle of the action, the revelation of a secret never heard by the audience. The remainder of the piece features recombined text from Chekhov's major plays.

The piece was devised through a collective process among director Orietta Crispino (who conceived the piece), Italian dramaturg Marco Casazza, and the three actresses: Liza Cassidy (Patricia Wilson's Zia Dance Company), Claire Helene, and Jackie Lowe (Broadway: The Tap Dance Kid, Ain't Misbehavin, Eubie, The First, and Wind in the Willows). The group scoured Chekhov's work act by act, collecting lines mostly from the female characters. Through a cut and paste technique, each actress reordered the material creating one monologue and one dialogue scene (using only Chekhov's words). Then, Crispino and Casazza shaped and developed the piece.

The workshop production of THREE SISTERS COME AND GO earlier this year was hailed as "a mesmerizing feast for the eyes and mind by award-winning playwright Montserrat Mendez and "surprisingly emotionally resonant" by The Happiest Medium.

Performances of THREE SISTERS COME AND GO are booked from September 29 until October 10, and run Wednesdays through Saturdays at 8:00 pm and Sundays at 3:00 pm at Theaterlab (137 West 14th St., between 6th and 7th Ave. Tickets are $15 in advance at http://www.theatermania.com or (212) 352-3101 or $20 at the door. The opening night performance, Wednesday, September 29th is Pay-What-You-Can at the door.

For additional information about THREE SISTERS COME AND GO, visit www.theaterlabnyc.com or call (212) 929-2545.