Anton Chekhov--Physician and playwright.
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The play opened on the celebrated author’s 44th birthday on January 17,
1904 at Moscow’s most prestigious theater under the direction
of the man who would become famous as the founder
of a new school of acting. The Cherry Orchard was also Anton Chekhov’s last completed work,
finished months earlier after years of work on it. It and Constantin
Stanislavski’s Moscow Art Theater would revolutionize 20th Century drama.
There had been earlier harbingers of
a tectonic shift in theater,
beginning with the work of Heinrik Ibsen
in plays like The Doll’s House around 1880.
Rooted in reality rather than
heroics or melodrama, Ibsen’s plays were also dramas of ideas, commentary on social
mores and expectations. He had drawn
the attention and appreciation of commentators like George Bernard Shaw then a London
theater critic and essayist. Later in America
Emma Goldman would lecture on him on the Lyceum Circuit. In Russia idealistic young writers and
performers took notice.
The most formidable of all was
Chekhov.
The future writer was born in Taganrog, a port on the Sea of Azov in southern Russia in
1860. His father was born a serf but had risen in the world to
become owner of a small grocery. He was devout
to the point of fanaticism, the choir master at a local Greek Orthodox church, and a despot
in the home. His mother, to whom young
Anton was devoted had traveled widely as a child with her cloth merchant father and nurtured a softer side of him.
Anton and his brothers were educated
in a local Greek academy and later
at the municipal gymnasium—an
advanced level school roughly equivalent of an American college prep high school.
He was set back one year at age 14 for failure in Greek, to his father’s
rage. During his schooling he sang in
his father’s church choirs and in the choir of a local monetary.
His life was saturated with religion
but the hypocrisy of his father’s
behavior in contrast to Christian ideals
soured him on the Church and led to his eventual atheism.
While he was attending school, his
father abandoned the family after spending
too much money constructing a house plunging the family overnight into desperate poverty. His father fled to Moscow where two older brothers were attending university to avoid debtor’s
prison leaving behind his mother and Anton to try and save the house. Eventually the debts were paid by a local a
man called Selivanov who took
possession of the house—the genesis of a character and situation in The
Cherry Orchard.
His mother joined the rest of the
family in Moscow leaving Anton to board with Selivanov and finish his education
at his own expense. He scraped together
an income by tutoring and by
catching and selling colorful finches
in the local market. He also began
contributing short sketches and articles to a local newspaper. Thus he began a literary career out of necessity, viewing it at first as just a
means of survival. Every kopek he could afford was sent to his
desperate family in Moscow along with long, loving letters meant to cheer his
mother who was undergoing emotional
and physical collapse.
Chekhov was also reading widely and
deeply—Cervantes, Turgenev, Goncharov, and Schopenhauer being
especially influential. He also
conducted several love affairs with
local girls and older women, including one with the wife of a tutor. He also
began to experiment with drama,
completing a manuscript for a full
lengthy comedy/drama Fatherless. When he eagerly sent a copy to an older
brother hoping for approval he was crushed when Alexander dismissed it as “an inexcusable though innocent
fabrication.”
Chekhov as a medical student.
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In 1879 he completed his gymnasium
studies and gained admission to the medical
school at I.M. Sechenov First Moscow
State Medical University. Living
with his family in the city, Anton found himself not only responsible for the
cost of his education, but virtually the sole
support of his family. In addition
to rigorous studies he turned to a relentless daily output of writing. He wrote humorous
sketches and vignettes of
contemporary Russian life, many under pseudonyms
such as Antosha Chekhonte and Man without a Spleen.
He soon had a budding literary
reputation and drew the attention of one of the city’s leading publishers, Nikolai Leykin who made him a regular
contributor to his Oskolki (Fragments) journal in
1882.
In 1884 Chekhov graduated and was
qualified to practice as a physician. He always considered medicine his primary occupation and practiced
throughout his life. He later remarked
“medicine was my wife, literature was my mistress.” Still, most of his income came from his
writing, especially as in practice he donated
much of his medical services to the poor.
Keeping up a relentless dual
schedule as doctor and writer, Chekhov was able to help his family move
increasingly comfortable loggings. But his health suffered and by the mid-1880’s
he was coughing blood into his handkerchief—which as any reader knows
is always the first sign of a doomed character. He refused to be examined for what he knew
must be tuberculosis and kept up his
work.
In 1886 the publisher of Novoye
Vremya (New Times) in St. Petersburg, a newspaper of wide
circulation and influence, made Chekov a regular contributor at double the pay
of Oskolki. His contributions were a huge popular
success and for the first time attracted attention of the Russian literary
elite. Dmitry Grigorovich wrote to Chekhov after reading his short story The
Huntsman, “You have real talent—a talent which places you in the front
rank among writers in the new generation.”
He advised him to slow down, write less, and concentrate on literary
quality.
Chekhov was thunderstruck with the
appreciation, “I have written my stories the way reporters write up their notes
about fires—mechanically, half-consciously, caring nothing about either the
reader or myself.” But now he would take
the advice—and take himself more seriously as a writer.
In 1887 this renewed dedication paid
off when his first collection of
stories, V Sumerkakh (At Dusk) won Chekhov the Pushkin Prize “for the best literary
production distinguished by high artistic worth.” In the heady world of the Russian intelligentsia the 26 year old had arrived.
The same year, exhausted from over
work and ill, Chekhov finally felt he could take a trip to rest and recuperate
secure in the knowledge that his family was well provided for. He toured the Ukraine and was moved by beauty of the steppe. The trip inspired a
novella about a young boy forced to leave home crossing plains in company of a priest and a merchant. Short on plot, the
story viewed the journey through the eyes of each and the physical setting was a virtual fourth character. It was so unusual he at first had a hard time
placing it, but eventually The Steppe found a home in Severny Vestnik (The Northern Herald), the
writer’s first publication in a literary
magazine instead of a newspaper. It
also marked the beginning of his use of nature in his work—which continued
right up to The Cherry Orchard and
which is why many critics now regard him as one of the first environmental writers.
The next year, 1887, Chekhov was
commissioned by a Moscow theater to write a play. He dashed off Ivanov in ten days in
much the same machine like haste that he used to produce newspaper
sketches. Although the play was a
moderate success, the author hated it and told his brother he could not even
recognize the words as his own. He
subsequently heavily revised the script and it was produced anew in St.
Petersburg to glowing reviews.
Although not today considered part of the core Chekhov canon the
experience whetted his appetite for drama and is a preview of the more mature
work ahead.
In 1889 Chekhov’s brother Nikolay died of tuberculosis, plunging him into a
deep depression. It was the basis
of a morose tale aptly named A Dreary Story. As he recovered from his grief he became
interested in brother Mikhail’s research into prison
conditions.
As a result in 1890 the frail Chekhov undertook a grueling journey to by train, carriage, and river steamer to the Russian far
east penal colony, on Sakhalin Island. Ostensibly gathering census data, he interviewed
officials, guards, inmates, and the inhabitants of the remote town.
He witnessed firsthand casual brutality,
regular beatings, the sale of women
prisoners into prostitution, and the
corruption of officials who pocketed
funds for food, fuel, and clothing leaving inmates in desperate condition. He was especially moved by the plight of children imprisoned with their parents.
The journey resulted in a rather scholarly report, Ostrov Sakhalin (The
Island of Sakhalin), which he hoped would stir the government to
institute reform. Although it got the
attention of intellectuals, the government itself was unmoved. For them the very purpose of exile prisons
was to be hell on earth and the fate of prisoners of no consequence except as
warning to others. He also referenced
Sakhalin in his short story The Murder.
Chekhov (below left) is at his estate
Melikhovo near Moscow in the company of local self-governance delegates and one
of his dachshunds.
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By 1892 Chekhov was wealthy enough
to buy a small country estate, Melikhovo, about forty miles south of Moscow, where he lived with his
family until 1899. He took delight in
overseeing his farm and in planting numerous trees, including a much beloved
cherry orchard, often musing on what they would look like in a century or so,
long after he was dead. He also took
seriously the role of a benevolent
landlord. He cared for the peasants
as a doctor through epidemics of cholera
and a local famine due to crop
failure. During his entire tenure there
they came almost daily to his home where he tended them without charge and
often traveled miles to attend those too ill or infirm to come in. He also built three schools, a fire station,
and eventually a clinic in which to see patients.
Most importantly, for the first time
Chekhov really mixed with all levels of society, getting to know them
all from the lowliest serf to the local aristocracy, visiting them in their
homes and having them at his. The
experience opened up his writing and resulted in stories like Peasants which not only document their wretched, crowded living conditions, but
treated the characters as fully formed
individuals, not as either a stereotype
or an empty symbol on which to
hang a political polemic.
While in
residence at his estate, Chekhov turned once again to drama. The
Seagull opened on October 17, 1896 at the Alexandrinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg.
Considered the first of his classic plays, it had a large ensemble cast, significant sub-text in the dialogue, and violated
theater convention by having the suicide
of one character occur not off stage, but in front of the audience for full shocking effect.
The cast, classically trained
actors, were uncomfortable and the director unable to pull together a
coherent production. The audience began booing and jeering during the first act.
Chekhov took refuge back stage.
The leading lady lost her voice in shock. It was a humiliating
failure.
Chekhov took it to heart and
retreated to his estate vowing to be done with the theater. The play, however, continued its run and the
performers became more comfortable.
Audience warmed to it. If it was
not a hit several important writers and critics saw promise in it, if placed in
the right hands.
Constantin Stanislavski, director of the Moscow Art Theater and influential acting teacher whose work became the Method.
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Those hands belonged to Constantin
Stanislavski and his Moscow Art Theater, the country’s most innovative and avant-garde company. They mounted a
new production of The Seagull in
1898. It was a sensation. It renewed Chekhov’s confidence and
Stanislavski commissioned more plays from the writer. The
following year the company staged Uncle
Vanya to equal praise.
Chekhov in heady company with Maxim Gorky and Leo Tolstoy in Yalta.
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During this period Chekhov’s health
failed. He was finally persuaded to
admit himself to a clinic where he was promptly diagnosed with tuberculosis and
told to relocate to a warmer climate.
Reluctantly, he left his beloved estate and with his mother and sister
took up residence in Yalta in the Crimea.
He was not entirely happy there despite entertaining famous and admiring
visitors like Leo Tolstoy and Maxim Gorky. He referred to it as his “hot Siberia.” Despite
planting new orchards, he was happier when he could get back to Moscow or was
well enough to travel.
On one journey, he visited his old
estate and was devastated to learn that his beloved cherry orchard there had
been cut down for development by the
new owners.
He could only work a few hours a
day, not at his famous driving clip. It
took him a year to finish his next script for Stanislavski, Three
Sisters, which was inspired by
the real life English Brontë sisters had strong roles for the
principle women. In fact, nuanced,
believable women were becoming a hallmark of Chekhov’s work. One of the lead actresses in the 1901
production was Olga Knipper who the
playwright, a notorious bachelor who
had confessed his preference for brief affairs and the comforts of the brothel to marriage, wed very privately on May 25 of that
year.
Chekhov with his leading lady wife Olga Knipper--a happy marriage because the were most often apart.
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The two had met during rehearsals
for the Art Theater’s production of The
Seagull and had maintained a playful correspondence
for years deepening into love and affection.
She also had a leading role in Uncle
Vanya.
Chekhov wrote the juicy part of Masha, the middle and most artistically accomplished of the three
sisters, for Olga. The author had
previously told a friend that he could only marry under the conditions that, “she
must live in Moscow while I live in the country, and I will come and see
her ... give me a wife who, like the moon, won't appear in my sky every
day.” Those were the exact circumstances of the
apparently happy marriage—Chekhov spending most of his time in Yalta and she
pursing here stage career in the city.
Chekhov’s
health was failing as he began work on The
Cherry Orchard and he knew it. Into
the play he gathered strands from his life—his childhood and the loss his home,
the devastation of his beloved orchard.
He also gathered themes. He
worked slowly, painfully and in almost total secrecy as if to utter a
word about his project would doom it. It
was only as he was nearly finished that while in Moscow comforting his wife on
a miscarriage that he whispered the words Cherry Orchard in her ear.
The ensemble cast of The Cherry Orchard in the Moscow Art Theater production.
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The
reception of The Cherry Orchard that
cold birthday in 1904 with his wife on stage was maybe the highpoint of
the writer’s life, a final vindication—and a valediction as well.
That
spring after the run of the play Chekhov and Olga went to the German spa
town of Badenweiler in the Black Forest in hopes that the waters would help his deteriorating
condition. Despite cheerful notes home
to his mother and sister, he knew he was dying.
Olga described the event on July 15,
1904:
Anton sat up unusually straight and said loudly and clearly
(although he knew almost no German): Ich sterbe (“I’m dying”). The
doctor calmed him, took a syringe, gave him an injection of camphor, and
ordered champagne. Anton took a full glass, examined it, smiled at me and said:
“It's a long time since I drank champagne.” He drained it, lay quietly on his
left side, and I just had time to run to him and lean across the bed and call
to him, but he had stopped breathing and was sleeping peacefully as a child.
His body was returned to Moscow packed in ice with a carload of oysters. Hundreds attended the funeral, and thousands accidently followed the funeral cortege of a general
escorted by a military band thinking
it was his. He was laid to rest in a church yard next to the father who had
made his life miserable and who he had supported in his old age.
Olga never remarried. She continued a long and successful career as
a member of the Moscow Art Theater and died in the city on March 22, 1959 at
the age of 90.
The four plays produced by the
Moscow Art Theater, especially The Cherry
Orchard and dozens of superb
short stories have out lived them both.
Within a very few years The Cherry Orchard and the other plays
were translated into English and
mounted on the London stage. Once again
George Bernard Shaw was their champion. James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, and Katherine
Mansfield were among the writers influenced by his work.
In the U.S. Chekhov and Stanislavski
rose in reputation in tandem through productions of the Group Theater and the development of the director’s ideas into what
became known as method acting. American playwrights including Eugene O’Neil, Clifford Odets, Elia Kazan,
and Tennessee Williams were
inspired. Around the world the theater
was profoundly changed.
Of course over time, new generations
of writers began to rebel against a new “classic” form. As early as the 1920’s writers like Luigi Pirandello, Berthold Brecht, and
later Eugène Ionesco and Samuel Becket would rebel at the
conventions of naturalism. But they
never totally supplanted it.
Today Chekhov’s plays are considered
modern classics. The Cherry Orchard is consistently at or near the top of the most produced plays in the world, year
after year.
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