Читаем Anton Chekhov полностью

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.

BRUCE KING

ADELE KING

1

A Life

Nature and life conform to the very same outdated stereotypes that even editors turn down. Chekhov to Suvorin (30 May 1888)

Anton Pavlovich Chekhov was born in the town of Tagan­rog on the sea of Azov in southern Russia on 17 January I860¹, the third of six children, five boys and a girl. He might have been born a serf, as his father Pavel Yegorovich had, for the Emancipation came only in 1861; but his grandfather, a capable and energetic estate overseer named Yegor Chekh, had prospered so well that in 1841 he had purchased his freedom along with his family's. The boy's mother Yevgeniya was the orphaned daughter of a cloth merchant and a subservient spouse to her despotic husband. To their children, she imparted a sensibility he lacked: Chekhov would later say, somewhat unfairly, that they inherited their talent from their father and their soul from their mother.²

The talent was displayed in church. Beyond running a small grocery store where his sons served long hours, - 'In my childhood, there was no childhood,' Anton was to report³ - Pavel Chekhov had a taste for the outward trappings of religion. This was satisfied by unfailing obser­vance of the rites of the Eastern Orthodox Church, daily family worship, and, especially, religious music. He enrol­led his sons in a choir which he founded and conducted; and aspired to be a pillar of the Taganrog community.