Ruining Chekhov: Reading and Staging the Modernist Play

"Stanislavski has ruined my play!" Anton Chekhov's notoriously negative response to Konstantin Stanislavski's production of The Cherry Orchard at the Moscow Art Theater provides the point of departure for this course and its examination of both Chekhov's plays and their production history in Russia, the Soviet Union, and abroad. As we investigate the texts, performances, and non-theatrical adaptations of The Seagull, Uncle Vanya, Three Sisters, and The Cherry Orchard, we will explore the particular problems of reading and staging Chekhov, whose often sparse stage directions and ambiguous dialogue create the potential for strikingly different interpretations. Through questioning this openness and other defining features of Chekhov's plays, we will study the ways these productions changed and adapted to new countries, new political contexts, and new tendencies in theater and performance throughout the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Over the course of the quarter, we will bring together our discussion of the stage and screen history of these works together with our own ideas about potential approaches to staging or adapting Chekhov's works.