Get The Three Sisters straight once, then move.

The play begins on Irina's name day, about a year after the death of the sisters' father, a military commander. The family, Olga, Masha, Irina, and their brother Andrei, lives in a provincial town far from Moscow, where they spent their childhood. Officers from a nearby regiment visit the house regularly, and the atmosphere on this particular day feels almost festive. But underneath the surface, everyone is restless. The sisters talk about Moscow as though it were a cure for everything wrong with their lives.

Andrei, the brother, was supposed to be the intellectual of the family, destined for a professorship in Moscow. Instead, he falls for Natasha, a local woman who is socially clumsy and eager to climb. He marries her. Over the course of the play, Natasha transforms from an awkward guest into the effective ruler of the household. She moves the sisters around, takes over rooms, prioritizes her children, and dismisses the old family servant Anfisa. Andrei, meanwhile, joins the local council, borrows money against the house without telling his sisters, and spends his evenings playing the violin alone.

Masha is already trapped in a marriage to Kulygin, a cheerful but oblivious schoolteacher. She finds something real with Vershinin, the regiment's lieutenant colonel, who is also stuck in an unhappy marriage. The two of them talk about the future, about how suffering now might mean something better for generations to come. Their relationship gives Masha a sense of life she doesn't have at home. When the regiment is ordered to leave the town, she has to say goodbye to Vershinin in front of her husband. She breaks down. Kulygin tries to comfort her by pretending nothing happened.

Irina works at a telegraph office and later at the town council, hoping that physical work will give her life meaning. It doesn't. She grows tired and joyless. The Baron Tuzenbach, an officer who has loved her for years, resigns his commission so they can build a life together. Irina agrees to marry him, not because she loves him, but because she wants a direction. Before the wedding can happen, the unstable officer Solyony, who is also obsessed with Irina, challenges Tuzenbach to a duel and kills him. Irina learns of his death just as the regiment is leaving town.

Olga is the eldest and the most responsible. She teaches at the local school and hates it. By the end of the play she has been made headmistress, a promotion she didn't want and didn't ask for. She never marries. She spends the play holding the household together while Natasha dismantles it from the inside.

The final act takes place outside as the regiment prepares to leave. Masha says goodbye to Vershinin. Irina learns Tuzenbach is dead. Andrei pushes his baby's pram and talks to the deaf old orderly Ferapont, who can't hear a word he says. Natasha is already planning to cut down the trees in the garden. The three sisters stand together and wonder aloud what their lives have amounted to. No one answers. The military band plays in the distance and then fades out.