Masha, middle sister and artist of the family (trained as a concert pianist), is married to Feodor Kulygin, a schoolteacher.

It is also Irina's name-day, and everyone, including the soldiers (led by Vershinin) bringing with them a sense of noble idealism, come together to celebrate it.

Olga, Masha and Irina are angry with Andrei for mortgaging their home without their knowledge or consent, keeping the money to pay off his gambling debts and ceding all power over the household to Natasha.

Solyony had told Irina that he would kill any successful suitor for her hand, but she still agreed to marry Tuzenbach, notwithstanding which she confesses that she cannot love him.

As the play closes, the three sisters stand in a desperate embrace, gazing off as the soldiers depart to the sound of marching music.

As Chebutykin sings Ta-ra-ra-boom-di-ay to himself,[nb 1] Olga's final lines seek an end to the confusion the sisters feel at life's sufferings and joy: "If we only knew...

The play was written for the Moscow Art Theatre and it opened on 31 January 1901, under the direction of Konstantin Stanislavski and Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko.

Maria Lilina (Stanislavski's wife) was Natasha, Vsevolod Meyerhold appeared as Tusenbach, Mikhail Gromov as Solyony,[nb 2] Alexander Artyom as Artem Chebutykin, Ioasaf Tikhomirov as Fedotik, Ivan Moskvin as Rode, Vladimir Gribunin as Ferapont, and Maria Samarova as Anfisa.

Chekhov felt that Stanislavski's "exuberant" direction had masked the subtleties of the work and that only Knipper had shown her character developing in the manner the playwright had intended.

In the directors' view, the point was to show the hopes, aspirations and dreams of the characters, but audiences were affected by the pathos of the sisters' loneliness and desperation and by their eventual, uncomplaining acceptance of their situation.