Modern Library
5 total works
This stunning new translation presents the only truly complete edition of the playwright who is in the pantheon of the greatest dramatists in history. Anton Chekhov is a unique force in modern drama, his works interpreted and adapted internationally and beloved for their understanding of the human condition and their brilliant wit. This volume contains work that has never previously been translated including the newly discovered farce "The Power of Hypnosis" and the first version of Ivanov, as well as Chekhov's early humorous dialogues. No less important, Laurence Senelick, who has staged many of these plays, has freshly translated them to bring into English Chekhov's jokes, the deliberate repetitions of his dialogue, and his verbal characterizations. Senelick has also annotated the works to bring clarity for the general reader and has included variants of the plays. His translations infuse new life into such classics as "The Cherry Orchard" and "Three Sisters".
Anton Chekhov, the first great dramatist of the twentieth century, forged his theater from the tumultuous society in which he lived and worked, the pre-Revolutionary Russia of decadent aristocrats, restless intellectuals, and ambitious peasants; in the process, he liberated the stage from the arch fustiness of nineteenth-century conventions and presented life onstage as it had never been seen before: life as it is lived. His characters, from the yearning Irina of Three Sisters and the vain, self-centered Arkadina in The Sea-gull to the crude but tenderhearted Lopahin in The Cherry Orchard, are riveting embodiments of the frailty of the human condition, presented with stunning clarity and naturalism, that have fascinated actors, playgoers, and readers for more than a century. As Kenneth Rexroth writes in his Introduction, \"We accept these tragic comedies... the way we would accept life itself if we were gifted with sudden wisdom.\" Three Plays contains those works many consider the apex of Chekhov\'s dramatic achievement: The Sea-gull, Three Sisters, and The Cherry Orchard. Presented here in classic translations by Constance Garnett, these plays testify to Chekhov?s enduring influence on the modern drama.