



Produced by James Rusk and Nicole Apostola





PLAYS BY ANTON CHEKHOV, SECOND SERIES

By Anton Chekhov

Translated, with an Introduction, by Julius West

[The First Series Plays have been previously published
by Project Gutenberg in etext numbers: 1753 through 1756]


CONTENTS

     INTRODUCTION
     ON THE HIGH ROAD
     THE PROPOSAL
     THE WEDDING
     THE BEAR
     A TRAGEDIAN IN SPITE OF HIMSELF
     THE ANNIVERSARY
     THE THREE SISTERS
     THE CHERRY ORCHARD




INTRODUCTION

The last few years have seen a large and generally unsystematic mass of
translations from the Russian flung at the heads and hearts of English
readers. The ready acceptance of Chekhov has been one of the few
successful features of this irresponsible output. He has been welcomed
by British critics with something like affection. Bernard Shaw has
several times remarked: "Every time I see a play by Chekhov, I want to
chuck all my own stuff into the fire." Others, having no such valuable
property to sacrifice on the altar of Chekhov, have not hesitated
to place him side by side with Ibsen, and the other established
institutions of the new theatre. For these reasons it is pleasant to
be able to chronicle the fact that, by way of contrast with the casual
treatment normally handed out to Russian authors, the publishers are
issuing the complete dramatic works of this author. In 1912 they brought
out a volume containing four Chekhov plays, translated by Marian Fell.
All the dramatic works not included in her volume are to be found in the
present one. With the exception of Chekhov's masterpiece, "The Cherry
Orchard" (translated by the late Mr. George Calderon in 1912), none of
these plays have been previously published in book form in England or
America.

It is not the business of a translator to attempt to outdo all others in
singing the praises of his raw material. This is a dangerous process and
may well lead, as it led Mr. Calderon, to drawing the reader's
attention to points of beauty not to be found in the original. A few
bibliographical details are equally necessary, and permissible, and the
elementary principles of Chekhov criticism will also be found useful.

The very existence of "The High Road" (1884); probably the earliest
of its author's plays, will be unsuspected by English readers. During
Chekhov's lifetime it a sort of family legend, after his death it became
a family mystery. A copy was finally discovered only last year in the
Censor's office, yielded up, and published. It had been sent in 1885
under the nom-de-plume "A. Chekhonte," and it had failed to pass. The
Censor, of the time being had scrawled his opinion on the manuscript,
"a depressing and dirty piece,--cannot be licensed." The name of the
gentleman who held this view--Kaiser von Kugelgen--gives another reason
for the educated Russian's low opinion of German-sounding institutions.
Baron von Tuzenbach, the satisfactory person in "The Three Sisters,"
it will be noted, finds it as well, while he is trying to secure the
favours of Irina, to declare that his German ancestry is fairly remote.
This is by way of parenthesis. "The High Road," found after thirty
years, is a most interesting document to the lover of Chekhov. Every
play he wrote in later years was either a one-act farce or a four-act
drama. [Note: "The Swan Song" may occur as an exception. This, however,
is more of a Shakespeare recitation than anything else, and so neither
here nor there.]

In "The High Road" we see, in an embryonic form, the whole later method
of the plays--the deliberate contrast between two strong characters
(Bortsov and Merik in this case), the careful individualization of each
person in a fairly large group by way of an introduction to the main
theme, the concealment of the catastrophe, germ-wise, in the actual
character of the characters, and the of a distinctive group-atmosphere.
It need scarcely be stated that "The High Road" is not a "dirty" piece
according to Russian or to German standards; Chekhov was incapable of
writing a dirty play or story. For the rest, this piece differs from the
others in its presentation, not of Chekhov's favourite middle-classes,
but of the moujik, nourishing, in a particularly stuffy atmosphere, an
intense mysticism and an equally intense thirst for vodka.

"The Proposal" (188