Word: chekhovisms
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...Chekhov had a matchless co-author -the audience. That is what makes him actor-proof. Any of his plays may be somewhat miscast, or slightly askew in performance, as this Stratford production of Uncle Vanya is, yet the audience customarily leaves the theater in a state of emotional agitation, if only by what it has itself contributed...
Some of this is happenstance and some of it is genius. To begin with, the essential mood of a Chekhov play is autumnal, even when it is populated by the young. The typical theater audience is, in the main, middleaged. There is scarcely a middle-aged man or woman who does not ask himself or herself in the course of a day or a week, "Why am I doing this? Why am I living like this? If only...
...action occurs in Chekhov's plays, only this haunting "if only" of decisions not made, options not taken. Chekhov speaks about people whose lives are past retrieving. He conveys a pressing sense Of loss-lost dreams, lost opportunities, lost hopes, lost loves, lost lives. At one point, a character says to Uncle Vanya: "You've been drinking all day. Why?" And he answers: "It helps me forget that I'm not alive...
...Chekhov's tactic is the intercepted monologue. Occasionally one character overhears another character telling the world how sorry he is for himself. The world turns out to be the audience. Self-pity is one of the most powerful weapons in Chekhov's dramatic arsenal, but it only elicits sympathy for his characters because he engages the audience in personal self-pity. The playgoer is not necessarily devastated when the cherry orchard is sold at the auction block or by news that the three sisters never get to Moscow. But it is a rare playgoer who has no nagging...
...other master stroke by which Chekhov gets the audience to be his collaborator lies in his intuitive understanding that the only undying love is unrequited love. In Uncle Vanya, Vanya (William Hutt) is desperately smitten with Elena (Martha Henry), wife of the crabbed Professor Serebriakov (Max Helpmann), who is many years her senior. Not out of any binding moral scruples, Elena treats Vanya's advances with lacerating indifference. Sonya (Marti Maraden), Vanya's niece, has adored Dr. Astrov (Brian Bedford) for six years, and he has never been aware of it for six seconds. Astrov in turn lusts...