This collection features Chekhov’s best-known short plays in brand new translations: three farces, two comic duologues and a monologue, all of them referred to by Chekhov as ‘vaudevilles’ and all written in the late 1880s before any of his great full-length plays. ‘I don’t much care for theatre, ‘ he wrote at the time, ‘but I do enjoy vaudevilles.’
The Bear, The Proposal and The Wedding are all farces on the preposterous business of courtship and marriage. A Tragic Figure and Swansong are comic duologues: one about a civil servant sweltering in Moscow coping with the incessant demands of his family from their summer dacha, the other about a melancholy old actor perked up by memories of past glories. On the Evils of Tobacco is a bittersweet monologue in which a scientific lecture is hijacked by thoughts of domestic misery.
These accurate and actable translations by Chekhov expert Stephen Mulrine reveal a dramatist revelling in the broad comedy of human behaviour, a comedy which was refined in his later masterpieces.
Highly entertaining, these comic shorts offer a fascinating insight into Chekhov’s development as a dramatist, and will provide actors at any level – student, amateur or professional – with an ideal showcase.
This edition also includes an introduction, a chronology of key dates, and a pronunciation guide.
Circa l’autore
Stephen Mulrine (1937–2020) was a Glasgow-born poet and playwright who wrote extensively for radio and television, and published many translations, including English translations of plays in Russian by Chekhov, Gogol and Gorky, as well as translations of plays by Ibsen, Molière, Pirandello, Strindberg and others.
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