"Medicine is my lawful wife and literature my mistress; when I get tired of one, I spend the night with the other." Chekhov Plays, in Russian UAF 3 Sisters Cut Use in your Acting & Directing Classes for Scene Study! Use the right mouse and print only the text of the monologue. Do the Actor's Script (see Acting Directory: Method). Do not memorize until you understand the text! Write in YOUR stage directions. Try your choices in class. Redo the Actor's Text. Consider Chekhov's monologues for audition portfolio (see THR Theory Directory). Summary Four by Chekhov: The Seagull Three Sisters The Cherry Orchard Uncle Vanya "Small Chekhov": Wedding & More Boor Virtual 3 Sisters Russian & Soviet Theatre (Rudnitzki) * Questions Letters of Anton Chekhov to his family and friends by Anton Chekhov -- With a Biographical Sketch, Translated by Constance Garnett * eBooks@Adelaide 2004 Notes UAF 2005 (Chekhov one acts) Costumes by Tara Maginnis * * Monologue Study Pages: PreActing, Biomechanics, Method, BMplus * THR331 Fundamentals of Directing 2005 * Wedding: class project -- finals * Chekhov on DVD Chekhov Books Chekhov Plays

Doctor Chebutykin, 3 Sisters, Character Study

Act III

[DOCTOR comes in; walking as though sober without staggering, he walks across the room, stops, looks round; then goes up to the washing-stand and begins to wash his hands.]

DOCTOR [morosely]. The devil take them all... damn them all. They think I'm a doctor, that I can treat all sorts of complaints, and I really know nothing about it, I've forgotten all I did know, I remember nothing, absolutely nothing. [OLGA and NATASHA go out unnoticed by him.] The devil take them. Last Wednesday I treated a woman -- she died, and it's my fault that she died. Yes... I did know something twenty-five years ago, but now I remember nothing, nothing. Perhaps I'm not a man at all but only pretend to have arms and legs and head; perhaps I don't exist at all and only imagine that I walk around, eat and sleep [weeps]. Oh, if only I didn't exist! [Stops weeping, morosely] I don't care! I don't care a scrap! [a pause] Who the hell knows.... The day before yesterday there was a conversation at the club: they talked about Shakespeare, Voltaire.... I've read nothing, nothing at all, but I looked as though I'd read them. And the others did the same as I did. The vulgarity! The meanness! And that woman I killed on Wednesday came back to my mind... and it all came back to my mind and everything seemed nasty, disgusting and all twisted in my soul.... I went and got drunk...

Next: Chekhov Pages