A Sourcebook on Naturalist Theatre

by Christopher Innes (ed)

  Indeed Stanislavsky showed a consistent confusion about the degree of humor in Chekhov’s plays, asserting for instance that the Moscow Art Theatre cast of The Three Sisters “considered the play a tragedy and even wept over it”, angering Chekhov who insisted he “had written a happy comedy” (My Life in Art). In fact, as recent scholarship has shown, the only source for a comic interpretation of this play – which is contradicted by Chekhov’s letters, where The Three Sisters is always referred to as a drama (i.e. a serious play) – is Stanislavky’s memoirs, and these contain numerous misconceptions and inaccuracies about both Chekhov’s personality and his plays (see Michael Heim, notes to The Letters of Anton Chekhov).

  Given the potential for misunderstanding in these two central elements of his dramaturgy, Chekhov tried to keep close control over the staging of his plays. For instance, he asserted with reference to Ivanov, “(1) the play is the author’s property, not the actors’; (2) where the author is present, casting the play is his responsibility; (3)all my comments to date have improved the production, and they have all been put into practice … (4) the actors themselves ask for my comments” (Letter to Nicholai Leykin, 15 November 1887). Even so, circumstances prevented him from having much influence on the way his plays were performed. Up until the founding of the Moscow Art Theatre his aims were frustrated by theatrical conditions of the time. In the case of Ivanov, for instance, Chekhov complained that the producer “promised me ten rehearsals and gave me only four” – making the close attention to detail required for any degree of Naturalism all but impossible – while only two of the cast “knew their parts; the rest of them relied on the prompter and inner conviction” (Letter to Alexander Chekhov, 20 November 1887). With Stanislavsky’s productions Chekhov attended rehearsals when his health allowed, and in other cases commented on every aspect of the staging through correspondence with Stanislavsky, Stanislavsky’s wife (the actress Maria Lilina), Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko (the dramaturge and co-director of the Moscow Art Theatre) and Olga Knipper (the leading actress in Stanislavsky’s ensemble, who became Chekhov’s wife). Despite this extensive consultation, however, the letters show that his detailed instructions for casting were often ignored, while even his stage-directions for the setting were not always followed – as he reluctantly conceded to Stanislavsky, “please do just as you like about the scenery” for The Cherry Orchard (Letter, 10 November 1903).

  Largely because of confusion about the nature of his plays, Chekhov’s work was delayed in appearing on the stage outside of Russia. Another contributing factor for this neglect was the apparent absence of the challenge to conventional morality or relevance to the movement for social reform, with which the naturalist movement in Europe had identified itself. In England, for example, although The Seagull was performed in Glasgow in 1909, the first London production of a Chekhov play was in 1911, when the Stage Society presented The Cherry Orchard at Bernard Shaw’s insistence. Even then, the play was widely dismissed as actionless and presenting dull or grotesque characters (Academy & Literature, 3 June 1911, Daily Telegraph and The Times 30 May 1911, Nation, 22 June 1911), while even critical supporters singled out qualities with little public appeal, such as praise for the way “every piece of irrelevance is relevant to the dramatic impression of irrelevance” (Saturday Review, 3 June 1911). In all there were only five British productions of Chekhov’s plays – one of which was his short farce, The Bear – before the First World War. As a result, Chekhov had little influence on other naturalistic playwrights – with the single exception of one play by Bernard Shaw (Heartbreak House).

  Following the death toll of the First World War, which devastated the society of Western Europe as well as allowing the Communists to seize power in the Russian Revolution, and hollowed out the establishment even in England, Chekhov’s plays were perceived as having a new relevance. There were numerous productions in London during the 1920s, and reviewers showed a deeper understanding of Chekhov’s poetic art. At the same time, the themes of the plays were distorted to fit an English context. Thus in response to a 1920 performance of The Cherry Orchard, one reviewer saw “an identity between the circumstances of Madame Ranevskaia and any lady of the governing class in Ireland” (The Observer, 18 July 1920). Similarly one of the most serious and long lasting misconceptions of Chekhov was initiated by a review of The Seagull in 1919: “these Russians of Chekhov’s … are like grown-up children, entirely without self-control, flaring into sudden ‘tempers’, and as abruptly cooling down again, all talking at once and no one listening … The play is really a picture, somber, ironical, masterly of the solitariness of human lives in a crowd” (The Times, 2 June 1919). The assumption that Chekhov portrays the failure of communication, corresponding to the feeling that in the aftermath of the Great War social discourse had broken down, was reflected in English productions at least up until the 1950s and became a critical cliché.

  In particular, Chekhov’s use of humor has caused difficulties, and is still problematic in productions of his plays outside Russia. However, his combination of comedy and realism had been recognized as early as 1904 in a review of the first English translation of his plays, which is still relevant for its insights:

  Chekhov … recorded life with a mocking tenderness, a mixture of satire and sadness, which has no parallel in the literature of his own, or any other country. Those who indulge in definitions call him a pessimist. In point of fact, he never took sides, he never passed judgement. The rest might preach, he wished only to paint. If his palette was grey, if the monotony of the steppe, the disillusion and disenchantment of the Russian soul coloured his canvas, it is because they were factors in contemporary life. Chekhov always remained resolutely true to conditions around him …

  The sum total of all this misery and stupidity Chekhov lays by subtle inference at the door of the Russian system. The individual he never condemns. It is society in the broadest sense of the term that he indicts … So flawless is Chekhov’s exposition that though a moralist he never betrays his purpose. He believed that if only the facts of life are placed in proper relation and sequence the conclusion will be inevitable.

  (Christian Brinton, The Critic, October 1904)

  3 THE SEAGULL

  The play

  Little material survives relating to the composition of The Seagull. While writing the play, Chekhov gave a brief description: “I’m flagrantly disregarding the basic tenets of the stage. It is a comedy with three female parts, six male, four acts, a landscape (view of a lake), lots of talk on literature, little action and tons of love” (Letter to Alexei Suvorin, 21 October 1895). Nemirovich-Danchenko, who claims to have advised Chekhov on “the architectonics of the piece, its stage form”, also offers one detail about its development:

  In the version which I criticized the first act ended in a great surprise: in the scene between Masha and Dr Dorn it was suddenly revealed that she was his daughter. Not a word was again said in the play concerning this circumstance. I said that one of two things must be done: either this idea must be developed, or it must be wholly rejected, all the more so if the first act was to end with this scene. According to the very nature of the theatre, the end of the first act should turn sharply in the direction in which the drama is to develop.

  Chekhov said: ‘But the public likes seeing a loaded gun placed before it at the end of an act!’

  ‘Quite true,’ I said, ‘but it is necessary for it to go off afterwards, and not be merely removed in the intermission!’ It seems to me that Chekhov more than once repeated this rejoinder. He agreed with me. The end was changed.

  (My Life in the Russian Theatre, 1934)

  The Seagull marks the breakthrough to Chekhov’s mature naturalistic style, and was initially greeted with incomprehension even by Stanislavsky, who records: “Only a few people at that time understood Chekhov’s play, although now it seems so simple to most of us. It seemed that it was not scenic, that it was monotonous and boresome … I, like the others, had found The Seagull
strange and monotonous after its first reading” (My Life in Art, 1926). The standard view of the conventionally trained theatrical establishment is well represented by the report of the Theatrical Literary Committee of the Alexandrinsky Theatre where the play was first performed. (All plays performed at imperial theatres had to be vetted, and this government-appointed committee comprised a playwright – A.A. Potemkin – a drama critic, and a literary historian.)

  5.3.1 First Responses to The Seagull

  Theatrical Literary Committee Report minutes, 14 September 1896

  This comedy, written, needless to say, in a good literary style, as is to be expected from such a writer as Chekhov, and including a few characters delineated with fine humour (for example, the teacher Medvyédenko, the landowner Sorin, and the estate manager Shamráyev), and a few scenes of real dramatic quality, suffers none the less from a number of serious defects. To begin with, the “symbolism”, or rather “Ibsenism” (in this case Ibsen’s influence seems to be particularly in evidence, if we keep in mind the Norwegian dramatist’s Wild Duck), which runs like a red thread through the whole of the play, creates a painful impression, all the more so since there is no real need for it (except, perhaps, to show that Konstantin, being a literary decadent, was partial to symbolism); and, indeed, if the “seagull” theme were altogether eliminated, the comedy would not have suffered in the least, nor would its plot have been affected in any way, while keeping the “seagull” theme, the play certainly loses a great deal of its appeal. Furthermore, it is impossible not to animadvert upon the lack of clarity in the characterisation of certain of the dramatis personae (for instance, Konstantin Treplyov, who is sometimes represented as a comic character and sometimes as a character who partly arouses, or at any rate is meant by the author to arouse, a serious and sympathetic attitude), the insufficient characterisation of some (for instance, Arkádina and Trigórin), and the staleness of others (for instance, Dr. Dorn), and so on; the same applies to the detailed characterisations of certain persons in the play which are entirely unnecessary, and, indeed, are likely to produce quite a different effect from what the author had intended, as, for instance, Masha’s taking snuff and her drinking habits. A serious defect of the play is its faulty dramatic technique as a whole, and the crudities of certain details, unimportant though they be. In this connexion, a certain negligence and haste in workmanship is to be observed: some of the scenes seem to have been thrown off by accident, without being really germane to the plot or having any dramatic significance for its subsequent development.

  At the same time – corresponding to the Theatrical Literary Committee’s appreciation of “a few scenes of real dramatic quality” – The Seagull retains some standard dramatic elements. It is clearly a transitional work. Like his first full-length play Ivanov, it concludes with a conventionally climactic suicide – in contrast to Chekhov’s later plays where dramatic events are successively minimized. Uncle Vanya fires a pistol, but misses; Tusenbach’s death occurs off stage in The Three Sisters – and these events neither change the characters’ situation, nor are given dramatic emphasis by concluding the action. A further conventional element in The Seagull is the inclusion of a raissoneur from the French tradition: Dr Dorn, who (like Dr Remonin in UEtranger) is in some ways a surrogate for the author, acts as an objective commentator. But The Seagull marks a distinct advance on his earlier full-length plays in the obliqueness of the dialogue – where underlying meanings are communicated through the relationship between various speeches, or the gap between what is said and the speaker’s situation or the reaction of other characters – as well as in the absence of the political or ecological polemics, that form the spine of Ivanov and The Wood Demon.

  The Seagull also signals its status as a new stylistic beginning, in being a statement about the nature of art, and the artistic personality, as well as the role of theatre in society. It contrasts two generations of artists, one creative (the playwright Treplev versus the older novelist Trigorin) the other interpretive (two actresses – the young ingenue Nina versus the star Arkadina), with the older pair representing success through fulfilling conventional expectations, and the younger holding to originality and innovation but failing to gain recognition. The play also explicitly presents two antithetical contemporary artistic positions, both of which are rejected in favor of a third (unstated) alternative that it embodies. The book Arkadina reads from and dismisses as “uninteresting and wrong” at the beginning of Act II is Sur l’eau, in which Guy de Maupassant comments on the writer’s art in passages almost paraphrased by Trigorin in his following speeches about artistic vision. The play that Treplev stages in Act I, which is attacked by Arkadina as “decadent” and ridiculed by all the on-stage observers, is an exaggeratedly symbolist drama, corresponding all too closely with what W.B. Yeats was to define as the symbolist ideal: an “art of the flood” where

  one distinguishes devices to exclude or lessen character, to diminish the power of that daily mood … If the real world is not altogether rejected, it is but touched here and there, and into the places we have left empty we summon rhythm, balance, pattern, images that remind us of vast passions, the vagueness of past times, all the chimeras that haunt the edge of trance … And when we love, if it be in the excitement of youth, do we not also, that the flood may find no stone to convulse, no wall to narrow it, exclude character or the signs of it by choosing that beauty which seems unearthly because the individual woman is lost amid the labyrinth of its lines as though life were trembling into stillness and silence, or at last folding itself away?

  (The Cutting of an Agate, 1910)

  The Seagull: chronology of major early performances October 1896 St. Petersburg Aleksandrinsky Theater (benefit performance for YI. Levkeyeva) Konstantin Treployov: Roman Apollonsky Nina Zaretchny: Vera Komissarzhevskaya

  December 1898 Moscow Moscow Art Theatre (the company’s first season) Director: Konstantin Stanislavsky Konstantin Treployov: Vsevolod Meyerhold Irina Arkadina: Olga Knipper Boris Trigorin: Konstantin Stanislavsky Nina Zaretchny: M.L. Roksanova

  March 1912 London Adelphi Society Litde Theatre Nina Zaretchny: Gertrude Kingston Boris Trigorin: Maurice Elvey Irina Arkadina: Lydia Yavorska (Princess Bariatinsky)

  May 1916 New York Washington Square Players Bandbox Theater Translator: Marian Fell Masha: Florence Enright Konstantin Treployov: Roland Young Nina Zaretchny: Mary Morris Irina Arkadina: Helen Westley Boris Trigorin: Ralph Roeder

  April 1929 New York A Co-operative Company Comedy Theater Director: Leo Bulgakov Masha: Dorothy Yockel Konstantin Treployov: Lewis Leverett Nina Zaretchny: Barbara Bulgakova Irina Arkadina: Dorothy Sands Boris Trigorin: Walter Abel

  September 1929 New York Civic Repertory Theater Translator: Constance Garnett Settings and Costumes: Aline Berstein Masha: Eva Le Gallienne Konstantin Treployov: Robert Ross Nina Zaretchny: Josephine Hutchinson Boris Trigorin: Jacob Ben-Ami Irina Arkadina: Merle Maddern

  March 1938 New York The Theater Guild Shubert Theatre Director: Robert Milton Translator: Stark Young Settings and Costumes: Robert Edmond Jones Masha: Margaret Webster Konstantin Treployov: Richard Whorf Nina Zaretchny: Uta Hagen Boris Trigorin: Alfred Lunt

  Performance and reception

  It was this play that came to define the essence of Stanislavsky’s Moscow Art Theatre (initially named the Popular Art Theatre) which placed the emblem of a seagull on its stage-curtain. Although in fact Stanislavsky’s newly founded theatre had already mounted several earlier productions in 1898, the production of The Seagull was taken to mark its real beginning as the standard bearer for a new style of drama. Consequently a proprietorial myth became established, which has distorted the stage-history of the play.

  The generally accepted history of the first performance of The Seagull in St. Petersburg in 1896 is only partly correct. The standard version – promoted by Nemirovich-Danchenko in My Life in the Russian Theatre, and by Stanislavsky in My Life in Art – classes the opening night of The Seagull with the other famous fias
cos that greeted masterpieces such as Bizet’s Carmen or Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring Chekhov, distraught, became ill and determined to quit the theatre, declaring “The actors played abominably, stupidly. The moral: one should not write plays” (Letter to Michael Chekhov, 18 October 1896) – and two years later the Moscow Art Theatre rescued the play from obscurity over Chekhov’s unwilling protests. The first production had been a blow to his already precarious health, and a second failure would have killed him.

  The audience at the first Alexandrinsky Theater performance – packed with admirers of the popular comic actress Yelizaveta Leveyeva, since the opening night had been billed as a benefit performance for her – would have been expecting something along the lines of Chekhov’s popular one-act farces, and certainly expressed their disapproval. The reviews were indeed savage, deeply dismaying Chekhov, and the management took the play off after only five performances. However, the second night (21 October, four days later and after some minor changes in the mise en scène) was a triumph as Vera Komissarzhevskaya, who played Nina, wrote immediately after leaving the theatre: “The play is a complete, unanimous success, just as it ought to be, just as it had to be” (Letter to Chekhov, 21 October 1896). This was confirmed by the third performance, described by the writer Bibilin as “a huge success: the house was sold out and there were long curtain calls for the actors” (Letter to Chekhov, 25 October 1896); and another highly successful production followed at Kiev in November 1896. In addition, the play was staged by a number of provincial companies in 1897, and as Nemirovich-Danchenko himself noted, “The enthusiastic reviews in Kharhov and Odessa newspapers are quite unprecedented” (Letter to Chekhov, 12 May 1898). It had also been translated into Czech, and had its first foreign performance in Prague in 1898: all before the Moscow Art Theatre production.