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Chekhov on Theatre E-Book

Anton Chekhov

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Herausgeber: Nick Hern Books
Kategorie: Poesie und Drama
Sprache: Englisch
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018

Beschreibung

A unique collection of everything that Chekhov wrote about the theatre. Chekhov started writing about theatre in newspaper articles and in his own letters even before he began writing plays. Later, he wrote in detail about his own plays to his lifelong friend and mentor Alexei Suvorin, his wife and leading actress, Olga Knipper, and to the two directors of the Moscow Art Theatre, Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko. Collected for this volume, these writings reveal Chekhov's instinctive curiosity about the way theatre works – and his concerns about how best to realise his own intentions as a playwright. Often peppery, passionate, even distraught, as he feels his plays misinterpreted or undermined, Chekhov comes over in these pages as a true man of the theatre. 'Chekhov is an acute observer who could easily have made his way as a director or dramaturg judging by his ability to spot strengths and weaknesses in not only his own writing but that of others. This book builds a strong picture of theatrical life in Moscow and St Petersburg just before and at the turn of the last century, with vast amounts of bitching seemingly a commonplace. It can also serve as a tangential autobiography since, through its pages, it is possible to learn much about its subject's life and work.' - British Theatre Guide

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Leseprobe

Chekhovon Theatre

compiled by

Jutta Hercher and Peter Urban

translated, with an introduction and commentary by

Stephen Mulrine

NICK HERN BOOKS

London

www.nickhernbooks.co.uk

Contents

Introduction

1. Moscow Theatre, 1881–1885

Sarah Bernhardt

Sarah Bernhardt Again

Hamlet at the Pushkin Theatre

The Baron

Geneviève de Brabant

Fragments of Moscow Theatre Life

2. On Writing, 1883–1904

Authors

Writing

Theatre, Society and the Public

Criticism

Writing for the Theatre

Actors

Acting

Chekhov as Critic

3. Chekhov’s Plays, 1887–1904

Ivanov I

Ivanov II

One-Act Plays

The Wood Demon

Uncle Vanya

The Seagull I

The Seagull II

Three Sisters

The Cherry Orchard

Appendices

The Genesis of Chekhov’s Plays

The Moscow Art Theatre 1898–1904

Chekhov on the Russian Stage 1887–1917

Chekhov’s Principal Correspondents

Index

Introduction

Chekhov’s ranking among the world’s most frequently performed playwrights, perhaps second only to Shakespeare, is the more remarkable in the light of his relatively meagre dramatic output – a mere handful of full-length plays, and a few one-acts, written in a language which may be regarded as a major obstacle to their global circulation. Yet it is impossible to overestimate the value of his contribution to a medium which he himself often disparages, and the fact that he wrote no theoretical account of his dramatic method, and indeed claimed to know very little about the theatre, is belied by the evidence of this present volume.

From his early years as a schoolboy in provincial Taganrog, slipping furtively into the local playhouse to enjoy a repertoire ranging from operetta and French farce to Hamlet and King Lear, Chekhov was besotted with theatre, and devoted a great deal of his tragically short working life to it, both as creator and critic, at various levels of engagement. These are represented here in discrete sections, beginning with his freelance contributions as a reviewer and essayist for a number of periodicals in Moscow and St Petersburg. Chekhov was also an inveterate and copious letter-writer – almost half of the thirty volumes of his Complete Works, published by the Russian Academy 1974–83, are taken up by his correspondence, and this furnishes a great variety of material, here ordered in a number of categories, from brief comments on other authors’ works, to extended reflections on literature in general and the writer’s place in society. For one so busy, and in poor health, Chekhov was also extremely generous with his time, and a significant amount of his correspondence takes the form of detailed and insightful advice to fellow dramatists, in itself revealing much about the principles from which Chekhov derived his unique theatrical vision.

Chekhov’s involvement with theatre inevitably brought him a good deal of frustration, with the repressive Tsarist censorship and the bureaucracy seemingly inseparable from the exercise of his craft, but also at times disillusionment with the whole process of submitting his vision on paper, to the uncertain judgement of theatre audiences. With a few notable exceptions, Chekhov takes a dim view of actors, and in that respect it is instructive to compare his 1881 reviews of Sarah Bernhardt with his comments on Stanislavsky, two decades later.

Chekhov’s ill-health ensured that his attendance at read-throughs, rehearsals, and even premieres of his work, was limited the more so as his tuberculosis advanced; and the sheer effort it cost Chekhov to write even a few lines is clear in the occasional, almost casual remark in his correspondence with Olga Knipper, and her Moscow Art Theatre colleagues as they prepared Three Sisters and The Cherry Orchard. Among the most detailed and illuminating letters in this section are those he wrote to his close friend and patron Alexei Suvorin, as he undertook a wholesale revision of his first major play Ivanov. Regrettably, Suvorin’s letters to Chekhov appear to have been lost, and although the two collaborated for a while on what Chekhov later completed as The Wood Demon, the process by which that play emerged triumphantly from its chrysalis as Uncle Vanya remains a mystery.

The concluding section of the book contains a brief account of the genesis of Chekhov’s major plays, from early drafts to first important performances, and information on casts, etc., and publication, up until the Revolution. For comparison purposes, the number of performances of Chekhov’s works given by the Moscow Art Theatre each season during the author’s lifetime, is set alongside those of other dramatists, indicating not only the variety and quality of the company’s repertoire, but also the extent to which the Art Theatre’s success was built on Chekhov’s achievement.

Moscow Theatre, 1881–1885

Soon after his arrival in Moscow to study medicine, Chekhov began writing for a number of humorous weekly papers under the byline ‘Antosha Chekhonte’, and became a regular contributor to Budilnik (‘The Alarm Clock’) and Zritel’ (‘The Spectator’), in which his review articles on Sarah Bernhardt first appeared. Chekhov earned as little as five kopecks a line for some of these early pieces, even less than his artist-brother Nikolai, who also worked for The Spectator as a freelance illustrator. As Chekhov’s reputation grew, he published more substantial pieces and eventually came to the notice of Nikolai Leikin, editor of the St Petersburg journal Oskolki (‘Fragments’). Leikin commissioned Chekhov to write a weekly column ‘Fragments of Moscow Life’, the general tenor of which was to amuse sophisticated St Petersburgers with the eccentricities of ‘provincial’ Muscovites. For these St Petersburg articles, Chekhov wisely jettisoned his Moscow byline and wrote for Leikin as ‘Ruver’ or ‘Ulysses’.

Sarah Bernhardt

From pole to pole, her train sweeping the length and breadth of all five continents, she who has sailed every ocean, flown up, indeed, to the very heavens – Sarah Bernhardt, renowned a thousand times over, has not disdained to visit our white-clad Moscow.

On Wednesday at approximately half-past six in the evening, two locomotives crept majestically in under the canopy of Kursk Station, and we caught our first glimpse of the legendary, world-famous diva. We saw her, but at what cost? We got our ribs bruised, our feet crushed – our eyes ache from trying to keep them open, pressing the sockets with our fingers in a desperate effort to obtain a better view through the murky atmosphere of Kursk Station platform, at this child of Paris arriving so opportunely to shatter our monstrous peace. And all Moscow stood up on its hind legs…

Two days ago Moscow was aware of the existence of only four elements; now it repeatedly bumps into a fifth. Where it once acknowledged seven wonders of the world, now scarcely half a minute goes by without mention of an eighth. People who have had the immeasurable good fortune to procure even the cheapest ticket are practically dying of impatience, waiting for the evening. The stupid weather, the disgusting state of the pavements, the cost of living, mothers-in-law, debts – all is forgotten. The meanest, scruffiest coachman perched up on his box seat, has an opinion about the new arrival. The newspaper hacks have stopped eating and drinking and run around in every direction. In brief, an actress has become our idée fixe, and we feel as if some neurological derangement is going on inside our heads.

There’s been a frightful amount written about Sarah Bernhardt, and it’s still going on. If we were to put it all together, sell it by weight (at a rouble and a half the pound), and donate the takings to the Society for the Protection of Animals, we swear by our feathers: horses and dogs would be dining at Olivier’s or the Tartar, at the very least.

There’s been a great deal written, and of course a great many lies told. More lies, it seems to me, than truth. The French, the Germans, the negroes, the English, the Hottentots, the Greeks, the Patagonians, the Indians – have all written about her. So we’ll write something about her too; we’ll write, and we’ll try not to lie.1

We won’t even attempt to describe her appearance for two entirely fundamental reasons; in the first place, our talented artist Nikolai Chekhov will provide a portrait of her in the next issue; in the second place, the Parisian-Semitic type doesn’t easily lend itself to description.

Mme Sarah B. was born in Le Havre of a Jewish father and a Dutch mother. Happily, her stay in Le Havre was a short one. Fate – in the shape of grinding poverty – drove her mother to take up residence in Paris. Once in Paris, Sarah recited a fable by La Fontaine with such feeling and expression, for the entrance examination at the Conservatoire, that the examiners unhesitatingly awarded her the top mark, and admitted her to the list of acceptances. If she hadn’t read that fable so feelingly, and received only a bare pass, say, chances are she wouldn’t have had the good fortune to turn up here in Moscow. Sarah was educated in a convent school, and as an incurable romantic, very nearly became a nun. However, the artistic impulse – the creative fire coursing through her veins – put a stop to that intention.

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