Word: chekhovs
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...truth, Chekhov did not feel any strong inner drive to write for the theatre. He composed his plays only when he felt they had a good chance of imminent performance; and, furthermore, he wrote his parts for specific players--an idea that finds few advocates today, although it is precisely what Shakespeare had done. None of Chekhov's plays was fully understood and appreciated at its first performance, and he was repeatedly plagued with self-doubts. On occasion he vowed never to bother with the stage again. And he got into heated interpretational conflicts with Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko...
Almost everyone concedes that each of the last four Chekhov plays is a masterpiece, and hands the first prize to The Cherry Orchard. I happen to belong to the small group that views The Three Sisters as the summit of all Russian drama. (On Chekhov's own admission, it was the play that caused him the most trouble to perfect.) And this is the work that the American Shakespeare Festival has chosen to round out the current season, thus departing from the fifth time in its history...
...Mature Chekhov is unbelievably difficult to do well in performance. Amateur productions can almost always be counted on to fail; professional productions fail far more often than not. This Three Sisters, as directed by Michael Kahn, must be adjudged a success; only one of the leading roles comes off less than satisfactorily...
...Platonov and Ivanov, for instance, Chekhov dramatized an individual, and one tremendous performance can bring them off. From The sea Gull on, however, Chekhov was portraying a group; a star or two will not suffice. Here Chekhov has done away with the clear spine that drives through the play from one exciting event to another, from one "sock on the jaw" (Chekhov's phrase) to another; he has turned his back on the technique of say, Ibsen and Strindberg. He has, in effect, turned from the solo concerto with orchestra to the more subtle and contrapuntal interplay of chamber music...
...Three Sisters there is a spine, but it is submerged well below the surface--like almost everything else in the play. The work requires a lot from its audience, which may easily choose to be just as board as some of Chekhov's characters claim to be. People say there is no plot. In a way they are right. Instead, there is a congeries of tiny plotlets, ever so delicately and carefully contrived...