MODERN DRAMATISTS
TON CHEKHOV
MACMILLAJST MODERN DRAMATISTS
Macmillan Modern Dramatists
Series Editors: Bruce King and Adele King
Published titles
Reed Anderson, Federico Garcia Lorca
Eugene Benson,/. M. Synge
Renate Benson, German Expressionist Drama
Normand Berlin, Eugene O'Neill
Michael Billington, Alan Ayckbourn
John Bull, New British Political Dramatists
Denis Calandra, New German Dramatists
Neil Carson, Arthur Miller
Maurice Charney,/oe Orton
Ruby Cohn, New American Dramatists, 1960-1980
Bernard F. Dukore, American Dramatists, 1918-1945
Bernard F. Dukore, Harold Pinter
Arthur Ganz, George Bernard Shaw
Frances Gray, John Arden
Julian Hilton, George BiXchner
David Hirst, Edward Bond
Helene Keyssar, Feminist Theatre
Bettina L. Knapp, French Theatre 1918-1939
Charles Lyons, Samuel Beckett
Susan Bassnett-McGuire, Luigi Pirandello
Margery Morgan, August Strindberg
Leonard C. Pronko, Eugene Labiche and Georges Feydeau Jeanette L. Savona Jean Genet
Claude Schumacher, Alfred Jarry and Guillaume Apollinaire
Laurence Senelick, Anton Chekhov
Theodore Shank, American Alternative Theatre
James Simmons, Sean O'Casey
David Thomas, Henrik Ibsen
Dennis Walder, Athol Fugard
Thomas Whitaker, Tom Stoppard
Nick Worrall, Nikolai Gogol and Ivan Turgenev
Katharine Worth, Oscar Wilde
Further titles are in preparation
MACMILLAN MODERN DRAMATISTS
ANTON CHEKHOV
Laurence Senelick
Professor of Drama, Tufts University
M
MACM1LLAN
© Laurence Senelick 1985
All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission.
No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright Act 1956 (as amended).
Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
First published 1985
Published by
Higher and Further Education Division MACMILLAN PUBLISHERS LTD Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 2XS and London
Companies and representatives throughout the world
Typeset by
Wessex Typesetters Ltd Frome, Somerset
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Senelick, Laurence
Anton Chekhov.—(Macmillan modern dramatists) 1. Chekhov, A.P.—Dramatic works I. Title
891.72'3 PG3458.Z9D7
ISBN 978-0-333-30882-0 ISBN 978-1-349-17981-7 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-17981-7
To the memory of James Arnott
Contents
List of Plates viii
Editors' Preface x
A Life 1
At the Play 16
Journeyman Efforts 28
Without Patrimony 28
Ivanov 34
The Wood Demon 41
The One-Act Plays 50
On th e High way 5 3
On the Harmfulness of Tobacco 54
Swan Song 55
The Bear 56
The Proposal 58
Tatyana Repina 59
A Tragedian In Spite Of Himself 62
The Wedding 63
The Jubilee 65
The Night before the Trial 67The Seagull 70
Uncle Vanya 88
Three Sisters 102
The Cherry Orchard 117
The Theatrical Filter 135 References 151 Bibliography 158 Editions and Translations of Chekhov 163 Index 165
List of Plates
Georges Wilson as Borkin and Jean Vilar as Platonov in Ce Fou de Platonov at the Theatre National Populaire, Paris, 1956. (From The World. Photo: Agnes Varda)
Meyerhold's production of The Proposal in 33 Swoons, Moscow, 1935. Igor Ilyinsky as Lomov and Logina as Natasha.
Michael Chekhov, the dramatist's nephew, in A Tragedian in Spite of Himself, Majestic Theatre, New York, 1935.
Simov's setting for Acts One and Two of The Seagult at the Moscow Art Theatre, 1898.
The Seagull at the Moscow Art Theatre, 1898. End of Act Three: Stanislavsky as Trigorin (second from left), Olga Knipper as Arkadina (seated), Vishnevsky as Dorn (far right), Artyom as Shamrayev (kneeling).
Stephen Haggard as Treplyov and Peggy Ashcroft as Nina in Komisarjevsky's production of The Seagull, New Theatre, London, 1936.
Josef Svoboda's design for The Seagull, directed by Otomar Krejca at the Narodni Divadlo, Prague, 1960.
Retsuke Sugamote as Nina in the first act of The Seagull, directed by Andrei Serban for the Shiki Theatre Company, Tokyo, 1980.
The final curtain of Uncle Vanya at the Moscow Art Theatre, 1900. Mariya Lilina as Sonya (left) and Vishnevsky as Vanya.
Sybil Thorndike as Marina and Laurence Olivier as Astrov in Uncle Vanya at the National Theatre, London, 1962. (Photo: Angus McBean. Courtesy: Harvard Theatre Collection)
Michel St-Denis' Three Sisters at the Queen's Theatre, London. From left to right: Frederick Lloyd (Chebutykin), Michael Redgrave (Tusenbach), Peggy Ashcroft (Irina), John Gielgud (Vershinin), Leon Quartermaine (Kulygin). (Photo: Houston Rogers)
Design for the Three Sisters at the Gorki Art Theatre, Moscow, 1940. (Photo: Motley Books Ltd.)
Ivan Moskvin as Yepikhodov in the original production of The Cherry Orchard Moscow Art Theatre, 1904.
Stanislavsky as Gayev and Lilina as Any a in The Cherry Orchard, Moscow Art Theatre, 1904.
A Note on Translations
All translations from Russian are my own, except where otherwise noted.
LS
Editors' Preface
The Macmillan Modern Dramatists is an international series of introductions to major and significant nineteenth and twentieth century dramatists, movements and new forms of drama in Europe, Great Britain, America and new nations such as Nigeria and Trinidad. Besides new studies of great and influential dramatists of the past, the series includes volumes on contemporary authors, recent trends in the theatre and on many dramatists, such as writers of farce, who have created theatre 'classics' while being neglected by literary criticism. The volumes in the series devoted to individual dramatists include a biography, a survey of the plays, and detailed analysis of the most significant plays, along with discussion, where relevant, of the political, social, historical and theatrical context. The authors of the volumes, who are involved with theatre as playwrights, directors, actors, teachers and critics, are concerned with the plays as theatre and discuss such matters as performance, character interpretation and staging, along with themes and contexts.