Major Plays: Ivanov; The Sea Gull; Uncle Vanya; The Three Sisters; The Cherry Orchard, by Anton Chekhov,translated by Ann Dunnigan

 

I've just read five Chekhov plays in rapid succession. That may not be the best way to do it. Surely it would be wise to allow time between each to fully appreciate what one has just read. I couldn't help myself, though. Having entered Chekhov's world in one play, one wants to continue there in the next and the next and the next. And Chekhov's world, even across plays, is consistent. We are most often on the country estate of fading Russian aristocracy who are at once lampooned for how ineffectual they are in protecting the laudable culture that their privileged position has allowed them to develop, but at the same time portrayed affectionately as bearers of that laudable culture.

One thing that makes these plays remarkable is that, like filmmaker Yasujiro Ozu, who must have read them, the plots are buried. Narrative, much less melodrama, doesn't muddy things up. There are suicides, shootings, duels, love triangles, and so on, but they take place off stage. We see not the acts themselves, but the effects of those acts, the emotions, feelings, moods to which they give rise.

I've said many times that the only dramatists that I enjoyed on the page are Shakespeare and Beckett. Add Chekhov to that list, though I'd love to see the works performed.

Heading off to YouTube now—not the same as seeing the plays in a theater, but better than nothing,.