Dramatic Comedy / Characters: 5 male, 4 female

Scenery: Interior/Exterior

This classic imparts an indelible picture of Chekhov's Russia and of his rich, bittersweet and deeply human characters.

"Blessedly free both of Slavisms and of up-to-date colloquialisms." -New York Times

"Simply wonderful." -Boston Globe"Mamet's adaptation is true and faithful to the Russian master in both tone and content." -Cape Cod Times

The Cherry Orchard is the story of a mortgage, with the grounds and beautiful trees of the proud landowners going for sale at a public auction to pay off their debts to the boorish son of a peasant who has risen in the world. Mme Ranyevskayas family departs to take up their lives anew, leaving the old and forgotten Firs to die alone as the woodsmens axes thud ironically against the cherished trees.

In this, his third adaptation of a Chekhov play, Pulitzer Prize-winning author David Mamet offers a contemporary, highly accessible version of Chekhov's The Three Sisters. Working from a literal translation by Vlada Chernomordik, Mamet has rediscovered the characteristically modern chords in this powerful play and breathes new life into a timeless classic. This is Chekhov rendered in direct, colloquial language marked by Mamet's finely tuned ear for dialogue.
The play focuses on the lives of three sisters, Olga, Masha, and Irina, young women of the Russian gentry who try to fill their days in order to construct a life that feels meaningful while surrounded by an array of military men, servants, husbands, suitors, and lovers, all of whom constitute a distraction from the passage of time and from the sisters' desire to return to their beloved Moscow.
"Mamet's ear is famously impeccable, the dialogue is always authentic and convincing.... This adaptation] will help to undermine our silly critical notions of 'definitive' Chekhov. Mamet has made me rethink the play," said Robert Brustein in The New Republic of Mamet's adaptation of The Cherry Orchard. And the Chicago-Sun Times called it "audacious, consistently arresting."

In 1997, the celebrated contemporary playwright David Hare adapted a little-known play called Ivanov, and in doing so revealed the young Chekhov as a markedly different writer from the one English-speaking audiences were familiar with. Now Hare has produced a streamlined new version of Chekhov's freshman drama Platonov, an abandoned seven-hour manuscript in which Chekhov recasts Don Juan as a Russian schoolmaster. Again, we encounter a great writer who is funnier, more exuberant, and more wildly romantic than anyone expected.

Drama / Characters: 9 male, 6 female

Scenery 2 Interiors / 1 Exterior

This poignant story of three provincial sisters who long with all their hearts to go to Moscow is classic theatre which has featured many of the world's great actresses and actors in the roles of Olga, Masha, Irina and Vershinin.

Anton Chekhov's short novels are here brought together in one volume for the first time, in a masterly new translation by the award-winning translators Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky.
Chekhov, widely hailed as the supreme master of the short story, also wrote five works long enough to be called short novels. "The Steppe-the most lyrical of the five-is an account of a nine-year-old boy's frightening journey by wagon train across the steppe of southern Russia to enroll in a distant school. "The Duel sets two decadent figures-a fanatical rationalist and a man of literary sensibility-on a collision course that ends in a series of surprising reversals. In "The Story of an Unknown Man, a political radical plans to spy on an important official by serving as valet to his son, however, as he gradually becomes involved as a silent witness in the intimate life of his young employer, he finds that his own terminal illness has changed his long-held priorities in startling ways. "Three Years recounts a complex series of ironies in the personal life of a rich but passive Moscow merchant, engaging time as a narrative element in a way unusual in Chekhov's fiction. In "My Life, a man renounces wealth and social position for a life of manual labor, and the resulting conflict between the moral simplicity of his ideals and the complex realities of human nauture culminates in an apocalyptic vision that is unique in Chekhov's work.
In these five short novels, Chekhov's masterful storytelling and his profound understanding of human nature are brilliantly evinced.

"From the Hardcover edition.

THIS 22 PAGE ARTICLE WAS EXTRACTED FROM THE BOOK: The Stories of Anton Chekhov, by Anton Chekhov. To purchase the entire book, please order ISBN 141915298X.