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A Bluffers’ Guide to: Anton Chekhov

He’s the Russian guy off Star Trek, right?

No. Not even close. A Russian doctor, born in 1860, who funded his university career by tutoring privately, catching and selling goldfinches, and (happily for us) writing short plays.

I thought we were talking about playwrights here?

He wrote both plays and short stories, though it’s debatable which he did better. He cranked out his first play Ivanov in just ten days; like the rest of his works, it would be critically acclaimed and form a staple of student and professional theatre.

Only ten days? He must have been a pretty prolific writer.

Actually, he only wrote five plays. Four of them are considered masterpieces, which probably gives him one of the highest success rates of any writer. He found his niche by eschewing the melodrama popular at the time, and letting all the dramatic high points occur offstage, simply showing his characters’ reactions.

Didn’t he also own a gun?

‘One must not put a loaded rifle on the stage if no one is thinking of firing it.’ The literary technique that allows the introduction of apparent irrelevancies to make the writer look really clever later on became a favourite trick of Chekhov’s, usually in relation to depressed young Russian men committing suicide.

So, all-in-all, one to know?

Exactly. He never expected to be appreciated after his death in 1904, but he became a favourite of Hemingway, Joyce, and Woolf. The only person who really hated him was fellow 19th Russian literati Tolstoy, who thought he was ‘worse than Shakespeare’ – which, as far as theatrical insults go, is pretty tame.

Catch your interest?

Check-off these plays

Ivanov

The Marriage Proposal

The Seagull

Uncle Vanya

The Cherry Orchard

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