POSNER: I don’t find his world distant at all. That’s why I find it so funny when people say my plays are totally “Chekhovian” when that is not what I am trying to do. They really just mean “human,” I think.

Aaron, you’ve seen Halley’s play, what does she get unrepentantly wrong? And Halley, in which ways is Aaron tragically mistaken?

FEIFFER: I didn’t feel Aaron got anything “wrong.” I will say that what he sees in “Vanya” is different. Your play ends on a much more hopeful note than the original (mine does, too), so it makes sense to extract some of the devastation from the story.

POSNER: So yeah, there are things in “Three Sisters” that I see quite differently, but that’s the point. Our projects are actually really different. Halley is translating the play to her own language and world. I’m using it more as a jumping off place. We are both filtering the plays through our own sensibilities. The plays are both finally really idiosyncratic and connected to who we are more than to Chekhov.

FEIFFER: For me, this play is not more personal than it is Chekhovian: I wanted to make Chekhov proud (#daddyissues). I know that might sound insane. For me, it’s about a manic insistence on escaping pain by relying on humor. And also the human tendency to careen between elation and despair in the span of a nanosecond. The dichotomy between love and cruelty. The obsession with finding meaningful connection and the terror of intimacy. Chekhov captures it so perfectly.

So that’s Halley’s sensibility. Aaron what’s yours?

POSNER: Trying to get through each day while living in deep relation to your own flaws, I guess. Oh, God, that sounds so bleak. Chekhov has a quote about how “Any fool can stand a crisis; it’s this day-to-day living that wears you out.” I’ve always loved that.

FEIFFER: I’m so good in a crisis. Buying a weekly MetroCard still baffles me.

In adapting, what did you think you could and couldn’t change? Did anything feel sacred?