Word: chekhov
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...biography of Anton Chekhov is like a play by Anton Chekhov. The decors of both are mainly Russian provincial. The characters are an engaging assortment of dreamers and bored intellectuals. The atmospheres are tumid with unreleased passion, and there are ample supplies of tea and sympathy. Unlike the lives and works of Pushkin, Gogol, Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky, subjects of other Henri Troyat biographies, Chekhov's belong to the 20th century, an age of fretful spirits and melancholy skepticism. These impulses guide his hundreds of stories, his theatrical masterpieces (The Seagull, Uncle Vanya, Three Sisters, The Cherry Orchard) and especially...
...reluctant to play the Russian sage or the Slavic mystic. Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky had those parts sewed up, and besides, Chekhov was offended by the pronouncements of those who felt above the battle. "All great wise men," he said, with the author of War and Peace in mind, "are as despotic as generals and as impolite and insensitive as generals because they are confident of their impunity...
...with The Duchess of Malfi in a faithfully Grand Guignol rendition of Webster's Jacobean tragedy. Actors clad in funereal black moved menacingly amid the stately but decaying gray palatial sets; virtually the only color was a frequent splash of blood. The ensemble followed with an energetic rendition of Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard...
Since I would never dream of learning the real names of the things which infest my sections, I always give them functional names of my own. Therefore, as I sit in a room listening to The Angry Young Man assail Chekhov's validity as a dramatist, I find myself avoiding the unsettling gaze of Morticia, surveying the impressive dimensions of the Snufalopagus in her sweat suit, and looking wistfully at the pale, frail features of the Pardoner...
What does this self-conscious display have to do with Chekhov's The Seagull? On the whole, not much. The awkward playwright of Chekhov's script and Artistic Director Peter Sellars of the American National Theater in Washington share a bold if at times risible "search for new forms." But within the arcane visual framing, Sellars has mounted an intelligent reading by a cast notably including Colleen Dewhurst. He makes a case that the play is above all about jealousy and offers an electrifying moment near the end, when the words of the play-within-a-play suddenly take...