Believe or not this was my first Chekhov's full length play to direct. I directed his one-act comedies before, but I wasn't sure that I like his "dramatic" plays that made his famous. 2005 Farces * Links See Theatre Dictionaries! webmaster Gogol: Inspector General Gorky on Chekhov * 3 Sisters, Mikado, 12th Night, Hamlet, The Importance of Being Earnest, Dangerous Liaisons, Don Juan prof. Anatoly Antohin Theatre UAF AK 99775 USA (907)474-7751 * Themes Page Theatre Theory * my eGroups Virtual 3 Sisters Monologue Study: 1 101 * 2 comedy * 3 drama * 2006 pomo project Deemer: hyperdrama ... 2008

theatre theory

Glossary

"Chekhov: Take 2" -- "Four Jokes + One Funeral", 1904 Anton's death (new one-act): last day, last hour. Six years since I directed "The Three Sisters" (why now and why the farces?)
Annensky about Chekhov (in Russian, the summer read), I envy the style -- very personal, almost if he himself wrote the play, as if he knows them, Masha, Olga, Irina... The secondary characters became the heroes, the jerks, the types from the comedies -- and we got the tragedy, Beckett only finished this journey... Now -- The American mini-Chekhov!

See Chekhov pages @ SCRIPT directory!

I went a little bit beyond translation: I cut a few characters in order to close the show before midnight.

I changed a few things, like listing women's characters under their fist names and dropping all Russian patronimics, because my Russian ear could not stand the struggle of the English speaking actors with it.

Well, I changed the settings; this is the Russia of the turn of the century, but the "created world" of some kind of Russia of our times (or maybe even of the future).

And something else. The camera crew moved around of the four platforms in black, and the big creen in the back, and the audience sitting within the set, and ...

This is why I do not know how arrange the Glossary, but I know I have to have it, because the actors went into a quite extensive research for their characters. For instance, Sonyony (Shenon got the poetry of Lermontove, in English, to understand why his character thinks that he even "looks" like Lermontov, line by Baron). Actor needs help -- and we had an assitant of director and a dramaturgue to save them time for research.

There are still too many references in the script in need of explaination. (I cut the servance, because it made almost impossible to indicate the "class structure" things. Who is an aristocrat and who is not? How to translate it into our times?

Remember, if you, actor, have a problem, trust me, the audience will have even more problems of relating to the text.

+ 2004: Father-Russia

Cyber Chekhov: Virtual Theatre

- Primary Bibliography: Writings by Chekhov

- Secondary Bibliography: Reviews

- Secondary Bibliography: Books, Articles, Sections

- Author Index: Secondary Bibliographies

- General Index [ 3 Sisters + Farces (sample) ] ©2004 filmplus.org *

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