Poster, Les trois sœurs,

2003

Catherine Zask was responsible for the visual communication of the Hippodrome theater in Douai for many years. It is always the material structure of the letters that sparks her interest and spurs her exploratory approach. This is how Zask succeeds in condensing a story and narrating it solely through fonts.
The timeless air of Anton Chekhov’s (1860–1904) drama Three Sisters makes it one of the writer’s most frequently performed works to this day. Its portrayal of the pursuit of happiness can be read both as a social portrait of the Russian intelligentsia of the era and through the prism of the present. The sisters Irina, Masha, and Olga associate their longing for a better life with Moscow as a great metropolis and with the urge to escape the provinces, but take different routes toward this goal. In the words of the title, initially diverging and then merging, Zask uses typography to illustrate the three sisters’ individual trajectories on the one hand and their family ties on the other. The intertwined “S’s” at the ends of the words become symbols of life’s journey. (Bettina Richter)