Anton Chekhov
Список книг автора Anton ChekhovThe Witch and Other Stories
IN the village of Reybuzh, just facing the church, stands a two-storeyed house with a stone foundation and an iron roof. In the lower storey the owner himself, Filip Ivanov Kashin, nicknamed Dyudya, lives with his family, and on the upper floor, where it is apt to be very hot in summer and very cold in winter, they put up government officials, merchants, or landowners, who chance to be travelling that way. Dyudya rents some bits of land, keeps a tavern on the highroad, does a trade in tar, honey, cattle, and jackdaws, and has already something like eight thousand roubles put by in the bank in the town.<br><br>His elder son, Fyodor, is head engineer in the factory, and, as the peasants say of him, he has risen so high in the world that he is quite out of reach now. Fyodor's wife, Sofya, a plain, ailing woman, lives at home at her father-in-law's. She is for ever crying, and every Sunday she goes over to the hospital for medicine. Dyudya's second son, the hunchback Alyoshka, is living at …
The Wife and Other Stories
YEVGRAF IVANOVITCH SHIRYAEV, a small farmer, whose father, a parish priest, now deceased, had received a gift of three hundred acres of land from Madame Kuvshinnikov, a general's widow, was standing in a corner before a copper washing-stand, washing his hands. As usual, his face looked anxious and ill-humoured, and his beard was uncombed.<br><br>"What weather!" he said. "It's not weather, but a curse laid upon us. It's raining again!"<br><br>He grumbled on, while his family sat waiting at table for him to have finished washing his hands before beginning dinner. Fedosya Semyonovna, his wife, his son Pyotr, a student, his eldest daughter Varvara, and three small boys, had been sitting waiting a long time. The boys—Kolka, Vanka, and Arhipka—grubby, snub-nosed little fellows with chubby faces and tousled hair that wanted cutting, moved their chairs impatiently, while their elders sat without stirring, and apparently did not care whether they ate their dinner or waited....<br><br>As though trying their patience, …
Uncle Vanya
“Spectacular…This new Vanya has a conversational smoothness that removes the cobwebs sticking to those other translations that never let you forget that the play was written in 1897… One of the most exquisite renderings of Uncle Vanya I’ve encountered.” —Charles McNulty, Los Angeles Times “Quietly arresting… A canny and colloquial world-premiere translation… A beautifully rewarding exploration of stunted lives still bending toward the meager sunlight, like wildflowers sprouting from a cracked sidewalk.” —James Hebert, San Diego Union-Tribune As the sixth play in the TCG Classic Russian Drama Series, Richard Nelson and preeminent translators of Russian literature, Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky, continue their collaboration with Chekhov’s most intimate play. Other titles in this series include: The Cherry Orchard by Anton Chekhov The Inspector by Nikolai Gogol Molière, or The Cabal of Hypocrites and Don Quixote by Mikhail Bulgakov A Month in the Country by Ivan Turgenev The Seagull by Anton Chekhov
The Cherry Orchard
Oh, the trees! Nothing but white and green as far as you can see – remember, Lyuba?Oh my lovely childhood. Waking up to happiness, looking out at blossom and trees and there they are – the same trees, the same blossom – after cruel winter, warmth and light and feeling!In his masterpiece The Cherry Orchard, Chekhov maintains an exquisite balance between elegiac celebration of the romance of the past, as embodied in the cherry orchard in full bloom, and the awesome prescience of what is so soon to overwhelm Russia – revolution. The themes are majestic, and yet at the centre of the play is Ranévskaya, a tragic woman who lacks adroitness for survival in a changing world but who has one asset: a capacity for love. It is her solution – and Chekhov's.This new version of The Cherry Orchard by Pam Gems opened at the Crucible, Sheffield in March 2007.
The Seagull
‘We need the theatre, couldn't, couldn't do without it. Could we?’ A successful actress visits her brother's isolated estate far from the city, throwing the frustrated residents unfulfilled ambitions into sharp relief. As her son attempts to impress with a self-penned play, putting much more than his pride at stake, others dream of fame, love and the ability to change their past. Chekhov's darkly comic masterpiece is reignited for the 21st century by one of the most exciting new voices in British Theatre, Anya Reiss, Winner of the Most Promising Playwright at both the Evening Standard and Critics Circle awards.
The Seagull
‘Only love brings happiness into this earth, the poetical love of youth, sweeping away the sorrows of the world.’ As guests assemble at a country house for the staging of an avant-garde open air play, artistic temperaments ignite a more entertaining drama behind the scenes, with romantic jealousies, self-doubt and the ruthless pursuit of happiness confusing lives, loves and literature. The Seagull was the first of Chekhov’s great works and is celebrated as one of the most important plays of the nineteenth century. This new version, commissioned by Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre, marks the play’s 120th anniversary.
Uncle Vanya
Things your life could be: (1) a farce. (2) a tragedy. (3) pointless. (4) all of the above. Things you could do about it: (1) keep living. (2) stop living. (3) kill someone. (4) nothing.
Three Sisters
‘You won’t be here. Not in thirty years. You’ll have had a stroke, or I’ll have shot you. It’ll be one or the other.’ Three sisters. Three thousand miles from home. Overworked Olga, wild Masha and idealistic Irina dream of returning. Living in a world of deceit, desire and hard drinking it’s difficult but is there something else holding them back? Reinterpreted for the 21st century by Anya Reiss, this is a searing new version of Chekhov’s masterpiece. Press for The Seagull: ‘Fresh, colloquial, sexy and downright perceptive’ The Telegraph ‘in a year of remarkable Chekhov revivals, this Seagull flies with the best’ The Guardian ‘As emotionally honest and heartfelt a production as the author could have hoped’ The Times
Sons Without Fathers (The untitled play, known as Platonov)
Too old to move with the times; too young to let go of their dreams.Village schoolteacher Platonov is a man who is loved by women. Despite his best intentions he is drawn into a series of extramarital affairs that all hold the promise of escape from the provincial reality where he and his circle of friends are trapped. Consumed by bitterness and disappointment, they attempt to fill the void in their lives with sex and vodka, blaming their fathers for the mess they’ve been left in.Sons Without Fathers is a brand-new adaptation of Chekhov’s remarkable first play. Helena Kaut-Howson’s version chooses to focus on just one of the many themes covered in the original text – the predicament of a disaffected generation left adrift in a world without hope. Updated to modern-day Russia, the play intertwines the central story with contemporary political issues.
Ivanov
Ivanov, a driving force in local government and a visionary landowner, feels burnt out at thirty-fi ve. Once the pioneer of scientifi c farming methods and of education for the peasants, he now drowns in bureaucracy and debt, his large estate neglected. While his wife is dying, Sasha, a young, educated woman, falls in love with Ivanov and determines to save him. Set in a country suffering from political, ideological and spiritual stagnation, Chekhov’s fi rst full-length play anticipates the explosive revolutionary atmosphere of Russia at the turn of the century.