Word: chekhovisms
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...Chekhov's signature is the pistol shot, the report of suicide just before the final curtain. But most modern productions of Chekhov ignore the pistol shot, treating it as a melodramatic fillip tagged on to two and a half hours of detached psychological observation. Sir John Gielgud's production of Ivanov, however, takes the gun shot seriously. His choice of play, his acting in the title role, and his direction, all present a more involved and perhaps truer Chekhov than is currently fashionable...
...conventional approach to Chekhov emphasizes detachment and the fine etching of character. The proscenium arch is mandatory, the sets are deep, the action well separated from the audience. The long, pregnant pause is preferred to the passionate cry. This approach plays up the interaction of secondary "characters" for poignancy and comic effect, and plays down the potential melodrama of violent love, suicide and duels. Jonathan Black's staging of The Seagull at the Loeb last season was a fine production within this convention...
This approach has two basic flaws-it makes Chekhov a more callous observer than he actually is, and it weakens the motivation for the play's climactic violence. It is a particularly misguided way to stage Ivanov, Chekhov's first full-length play. There are strong traces of Chekhov himself in the main character, a disillusioned intellectual whose model estate is hopelessly in the red, whose zealotry has dwindled to cynicism. Ivanov cannot merely be observed, he must be felt...
...settings help immensely in Gielgud's staging of group scenes. The first-act outdoor set uses the depth of the Shubert stage with four planes of trees, but keeps the acting area forward and close to the audience, opening the stage more than is the custom in the conventional Chekhov...
...four revivals in London in the course of the year, one of them with Sir Ralph Richardson. Coward? Four of his plays would run, with Noel in two of them. Arthur Miller? Sir Alec Guinness just opened in Incident at Vichy. Musicals? Hello, Dolly! has Mary Martin, no less. Chekhov? Sir John Gielgud and Claire Bloom were great in Ivanov. There was also a new Hamlet, starring a 24-year-old flash named David Warner. Also plays by two of Britain's most important newcomers, Harold Pinter and John Arden. And Sir Michael Redgrave and Ingrid Bergman in Turgenev...