The genre of these vaudevilles is important to note. Chekhov classifies The Bear, The Proposal and The Wedding, as well as Swan Song, A Tragedian In Spite of Himself and On the Dangers of Tobacco as belonging to the same genre as The Seagull, Uncle Vanya, Three Sisters and The Cherry Orchard: comedy. Chekhov gives us an important clue in his deliberate association of these light-hearted sketches with his master drawings. The suggestion is clear: In the farces, sex is taken seriously. In the serious plays, sex is revealed as farce." * * In their garrulous correspondence, running to some 1,300 pages, Chekhov and Knipper often address each other as "Dear Writer" and "Dear Actress." Many of Knipper's endearing comments refer to her husband's body parts - his eyes, his hair, his beard. By contrast, his letters read like conventional poetry addressed to an abstract ideal of a mistress: "Believe that I love you, love you profoundly, whatever might happen, even if you turned into an old hag, I'd still love you - for your soul, for your disposition." Speculation runs wild about the nature of Chekhov's marriage with the sensual Knipper, but no one denies he wrote his greatest plays - The Three Sisters and The Cherry Orchard - after having yielded to matrimony.
Summary
I place Russian texts; I need to change some English in the old translations. In Russian Chekhov is light, almost as Oscar Wilde...Questions
Russian & Soviet Theatre (Rudnitzki) *Notes
Russian texts?.. [ windows > view > encoding > cyrillic ] "Russian Sunset" SpinglerI think descriptions of nature should be very short and always be à propos. Commonplaces like "The setting sun, sinking into the waves of the darkening sea, cast its purple gold rays, etc," "Swallows, flitting over the surface of the water, twittered gaily" — eliminate such commonplaces. You have to choose small details in describing nature, grouping them in such a way that if you close your eyes after reading it you can picture the whole thing. For example, you'll get a picture of a moonlit night if you write that on the dam of the mill a piece of broken bottle flashed like a bright star and the black shadow of a dog or a wolf rolled by like a ball, etc. ... In the realm of psychology you also need details. God preserve you from commonplaces. Best of all, shun all descriptions of the characters' spiritual state. You must try to have that state emerge clearly from their actions. Don't try for too many characters. The center of gravity should reside in two: he and she. — To AP Chekhov, May 10, 1886
De Maegd-Soëp, Carolina. Chekhov And Women: Women In The Life And Work Of Chekhov. Columbus, OH: Slavica Publishers, Inc., 1987.
"Those I am afraid of," author Carolina De Maegd-Soëp quotes Anton Chekhov in a letter to a friend in 1888, "are the ones who look for tendencies between the lines and want to put me down definitely as a liberal or a conservative. I am not a liberal nor a conservative, nor an evolutionist, nor a monk, nor indifferent to the world. I would like to be a free artist" (63). *
"anton chekhov: the iconoclast" Williames, Lee J. Anton Chekhov: The Iconoclast. Scranton, PA: University of Scranton Press, 1989.
brook stowe
"chekhov and vaudeville" Gottlieb, Vera. Chekhov And Vaudeville. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982.
"Well-made play" -- script.vtheatre.net 2005 *
"Three Chekhovs": writer, playwright, Antosha (min.)
You are right in demanding that an artist approach his work consciously, but you are confusing two concepts: the solution of a problem and the correct formulation of a problem. Only the second is required of the artist. — To Alexei Suvorin, October 27, 1888
