Chekhov's Mistress
A Lesson from the Master: Chekhov
After all, in real life, people don’t spend every moment in shooting one another, hanging themselves, or making declarations of love. They do not spend all their time saying clever things. They are more occupied with eating, drinking, flirting, and saying stupidities. These are the things which ought to be shown on the stage. A play should be written in which people arrive, depart have dinner, talk about the weather, and play cards. Life must be exactly as it is and people as they are…Let everything on the stage be just as complicated, and at the same time just as simple, as in life. People eat their dinner, just eat their dinner, and all the time their happiness is taking form, or their lives are being destroyed.
– Anton Chekhov
I took that from the program notes of a production of Uncle Vanya I saw probably a decade ago and I’ve had either stuffed in a book or tacked to my bulletin board – along with a drawing of Faulkner – ever since.
I’ve seen Vanya performed several times, I’ve read it and even seen the brilliant Konchalovsky film version (with none other than Sergei Bondarchuk, the director and star of the film of War and Peace, as Dr. Astrov). I can’t really put words to my love of this play, which unlike, say Hamlet, doesn’t give you a lot to hang on to, but that quote goes some way toward explaining how Hamlet and Vanya are equally tragic in their own unique ways.
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About this Post
- Posted by: Bud Parr
- Date: January 10, 2006
- Filed Under:
Wise Men Fish Here: Literature
- Comments:0
- Links to this Post: Technorati
