The Plays of Anton Chekhov

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Daniel S. Burt (2008), The Literature 100: A Ranking of the Most Influential Novelists, Playwrights, and Poets of All Time, Infobase Publishing The Seagull (Russian: Ча́йка, tr. Cháyka) is a play by Russian dramatist Anton Chekhov, written in 1895 and first produced in 1896. The Seagull is generally considered to be the first of his four major plays. It dramatizes the romantic and artistic conflicts between four characters: the famous middlebrow story writer Boris Trigorin, the ingenue Nina, the fading actress Irina Arkadina, and her son the symbolist playwright Konstantin Treplev. Elegantly coiffured, clad in evening dress, mournfully contemplating the middle distance with pencil and notepad, suggests someone more intent on resurrecting the dead seagull in deathless prose than plotting the casual seduction of the ardent female by his side." – Worrall 1996, 107. In the first act something special started, if you can so describe a mood of excitement in the audience that seemed to grow and grow. Most people walked through the auditorium and corridors with strange faces, looking as if it were their birthday and, indeed, (dear God I'm not joking) it was perfectly possible to go up to some completely strange woman and say: "What a play? Eh?" [14]

Pyotr Sorin is a retired senior civil servant in failing health at his country estate. His sister, actress Irina Arkadina, arrives at the estate for a brief vacation with her lover, the writer Boris Trigorin. Pyotr and his guests gather at an outdoor stage to see an unconventional play that Irina's son, Konstantin Treplev, has written and directed. The play-within-a-play features Nina Zarechnaya, a young woman who lives on a neighboring estate, as the "soul of the world" in a time far in the future. The play is Konstantin's latest attempt at creating a new theatrical form. It is a dense symbolist work. Irina laughs at the play, finding it ridiculous and incomprehensible; the performance ends prematurely after audience interruption and Konstantin storms off in humiliation. Irina does not seem concerned about her son, who has not found his way in the world. Although others ridicule Konstantin's drama, the physician Yevgeny Dorn praises him. Characters [ edit ] Chekhov reads The Seagull with the Moscow Art Theatre company. Chekhov reads (centre), on Chekhov's right, Konstantin Stanislavski is seated, and next to him, Olga Knipper. Stanislavski's wife, Maria Lilina, is seated to Chekhov's left. On the far right side of the photograph, Vsevolod Meyerhold is seated. Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko stands in the far left side of the photograph.

ACT FOUR

a b Hingley, Ronald Francis (25 January 2022). "Anton Chekhov – Biography, Plays, Short Stories, & Facts". Encyclopedia Britannica . Retrieved 26 April 2022.

Rudnitsky, Konstantin. 1981. Meyerhold the Director. Trans. George Petrov. Ed. Sydney Schultze. Revised translation of Rezhisser Meierkhol'd. Moscow: Academy of Sciences, 1969. ISBN 0-88233-313-5.Rayfield 1997, p.500"Olga's relations with Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko were more than professional." Tabachnikova, Olga (2010). Anton Chekhov Through the Eyes of Russian Thinkers: Vasilii Rozanov, Dmitrii Merezhkovskii and Lev Shestov. Anthem Press. p.26. ISBN 978-1-84331-841-5. For Rozanov, Chekhov represents a concluding stage of classical Russian literature at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, caused by the fading of the thousand-year-old Christian tradition that had sustained much of this literature. On the one hand, Rozanov regards Chekhov's positivism and atheism as his shortcomings, naming them among the reasons for Chekhov's popularity in society. Gilman, Richard. 1997. Chekhov's Plays: An Opening into Eternity. New York: Yale University Press. ISBN 0-300-07256-2 Anton Chekhov's Life and Thought: Selected Letters and Commentary. Translated by Simon Karlinsky, Michael Henry Heim, Northwestern University Press, 1997, ISBN 0-8101-1460-7.

Alan Twigg, the chief editor and publisher of the Canadian book review magazine B.C. BookWorld wrote: In the United States, Chekhov's reputation began its rise slightly later, partly through the influence of Stanislavski's system of acting, with its notion of subtext: "Chekhov often expressed his thought not in speeches", wrote Stanislavski, "but in pauses or between the lines or in replies consisting of a single word... the characters often feel and think things not expressed in the lines they speak." [130] [131] The Group Theatre, in particular, developed the subtextual approach to drama, influencing generations of American playwrights, screenwriters, and actors, including Clifford Odets, Elia Kazan and, in particular, Lee Strasberg. In turn, Strasberg's Actors Studio and the "Method" acting approach influenced many actors, including Marlon Brando and Robert De Niro, though by then the Chekhov tradition may have been distorted by a preoccupation with realism. [132] In 1981, the playwright Tennessee Williams adapted The Seagull as The Notebook of Trigorin. One of Anton's nephews, Michael Chekhov, would also contribute heavily to modern theatre, particularly through his unique acting methods which developed Stanislavski's ideas further. Presented at the Chichester Festival Theatre in tandem with Hare's translations of Platonov and Ivanov. [66] Deen, Sarah. "Emilia Clarke's play The Seagull suspended as London's West End shuts down over coronavirus pandemic", Metro, 17 March 2020

Anton Chekhov Quotes

Tchehov's breach with the classical tradition is the most significant event in modern literature", John Middleton Murry, in Athenaeum, 8 April 1922, cited in Bartlett's introduction to About Love. Used in the 1992 Broadway production by the National Actors Theatre at the Lyceum Theatre, directed by Marshall W. Mason and featuring Tyne Daly, Ethan Hawke, Laura Linney, and Jon Voight. [59] A few months before he died, Chekhov told the writer Ivan Bunin that he thought people might go on reading his writings for seven years. "Why seven?", asked Bunin. "Well, seven and a half", Chekhov replied. "That's not bad. I've got six years to live." [109] Some early translations of The Seagull have come under criticism from modern Russian scholars. Marian Fell's translation, in particular, has been criticized for its elementary mistakes and total ignorance of Russian life and culture. [42] [44] Peter France, translator and author of the book The Oxford Guide to Literature in English Translation, wrote of Chekhov's multiple adaptations: