Word: chekhovisms
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...over a book of stones that were partly funny, partly serious, in the main tantalizingly good. These tales of Kentucky farmers were written in racy Kentucky dialect, with a wild-eyed, straightforward outrageousness that reminded readers more than once of Erskine Caldwell, at times of the ingenuous slyness of Chekhov. Readers who liked to laugh with a clear conscience, however, were still puzzled by Author Stuart's refusal to make the most of his Munchausenish humor. But in spite of a preoccupation with death and burial that will seem to many a reader adolescently morbid, some of his yarns...
Though the great Stanislavski now nurses ill health behind the calcimined walls of a bourgeois mansion, his Moscow Art Theatre, with the famed sea gull from Chekhov's play on its curtain, remains "a spot sacred and awesome to the man of the theatre. . . . The audience seems to talk in lower tones here; their hair is combed more carefully. Their shirts are cleaner than in other theatres." The Days of the Tnrbins provided Observer Houghton's first impression. The play was an extremely sympathetic treatment of a White family during the horrors of the 1917-22 civil...
...have never attempted to bracket myself with Chekhov. He was mentioned only as historical background...
...characters are bewildered," continued Mr. Odets. "The best laid plans go wrong. The sweetest human impulses are frustrated. No one leads a normal life here, and every decent tendency finds its complement in sterility and futility. Our confused middle-class today, which dares little, is dangerously similar to Chekhov's people. Which is why the people in Awake and Sing! and Paradise Lost (particularly the latter) have what is called a 'Chekhovian quality.' Which is why it is so sinful to violate their lives and aspirations with plot lines. Plots are primer stuff, easily learned...
Impressed by Mr. Odets' previous work, and his audacity in bracketing himself with the late great Anton Pavlovich Chekhov, reviewers settled in their seats at Paradise Lost ready for almost anything. When they rose after the final curtain, none could deny that plenty had happened. Ben Gordon, an Olympic runner, marries a wench who betrays him, gets shot in a holdup. His brother Julie takes three acts to die of sleeping sickness. His sister...