Anton Chekhov

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.

A refreshingly intimate and modern spin on a Chekhovian classic." Devastatingly beautiful. . . . People are going to be talking about this one for years."?" The Village Voice"One of the most-produced playwrights in the United States, Annie Baker lends her truthful observation and elegant command of the colloquial to Chekhov's despairing masterpiece. A critical hit in its sold-out Off-Broadway premiere, this contemporary telling is "the most intimate and engaging exploration of Chekhov's bleak comedy since Andre Gregory's "Vanya on 42nd Street"" (Bloomberg News). Annie Baker's works include "The Aliens "(Obie Award), "Body Awareness," "Circle Mirror Transformation "(Obie Award), "Nocturama," and "The Flick." Recent honors include a New York Drama Critics Circle Special Citation, Susan Smith Blackburn Prize nomination, Time Warner Storytelling Fellowship, MacDowell Fellowship and commissions from Center Theater Group and Playwrights Horizons.

Predlagaem vashemu vnimaniju knigu iz serii «Biblioteka Zlatousta». Serija vkljuchaet adaptirovannye teksty dlja 5 urovnej vladenija russkim jazykom: proizvedenija klassikov russkoj literatury, sovremennykh pisatelej, publitsistov, zhurnalistov, a takzhe kinostsenarii. Urovni orientirujutsja na leksicheskie minimumy, razrabotannye dlja Rossijskoj gosudarstvennoj sistemy testirovanija po russkomu jazyku. Kazhdyj vypusk snabzhjon voprosami, zadanijami i slovarjom, v kotoryj voshli slova, vykhodjaschie za predely minimuma.

" Ruhl's "Orlando"] captures both the intellectual spirit and the literary brilliance of Woolf's work. . . . Ruhl writes with the imaginative sweep that allows Woolf's poetry to soar."--"Variety""Sarah Ruhl's smart new translation of "Three Sisters"] feels just right to contemporary American ears--lean, colloquial, and conversational for us and true to Chekhov's original work."--"The Cincinnati Enquirer"In her stage adaptation of Virginia Woolf's gender-bending, period-hopping novel, award-winning playwright Sarah Ruhl "is her usual unfailingly elegant, unbeatably witty self, cleverly braiding her own brand-name wit with Woolf's" ("New York ")magazine. Preserving Woolf's vital ideas and lyrical tone, Ruhl brings to the stage the life of an Elizabethan nobleman who's magically transformed into an immortal woman. In her fresh translation of "Three Sisters," the Anton Chekhov classic of ennui and frustration, Ruhl employs her signature lyricism and elegant understanding of intimacy to reveal the discontent felt by fretful Olga, unhappy Masha, and idealistic Irina as they long to leave rural Russia for the ever-alluring Moscow. Sarah Ruhl's other plays include the Pulitzer Prize finalists "In the Next Room (or the vibrator play)" and "The Clean House," as well as "Passion Play," "Dean Man's Cell Phone," "Demeter in the City," "Eurydice," "Melancholy Play," and "Late: a cowboy song." She is the recipient of a Whiting Writers' Award, a PEN/Laura Pels Award, and a MacArthur Fellowship. Her plays have premiered on Broadway, Off-Broadway, and in many theaters around the world.

- Idea for a story. A beautiful young girl lives by a lake all her life. She loves this lake. She's happy and free, like that bird was once. Then a man comes along and for no reason at all... what do you think he does?- He destroys her. A story about how we make stories, a story about unrequited love, The Seagull is one of the great plays of the modern era. Chekhov explores emotion and creativity with the clarity of a doctor and the heart of a poet. John Donnelly's version of Anton Chekhov's The Seagull premiered in a Headlong and The Nuffield, Southampton co-production, in association with Derby Playhouse. The play opened in April 2013, followed by a UK tour.

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Anton Chekhov's play Uncle Vanya in a new version by Christopher Hampton. This version will be first staged at the Vaudeville Theatre, London, on 25 October 2012 and run until 16 February 2013.'It's often said that the best of the Chekhov plays is the one you've seen most recently. Uncle Vanya doesn't have a suicide, like The Seagull, or an adulterous couple and a duel more or less indistinguishable from murder, like Three Sisters; nor does it seem to announce the end of an era, like The Cherry Orchard: all it has is a series of ludicrously bungled attempts at murder and suicide and adultery. Perhaps these failures are what makes it feel the saddest and most truthful of these great tragi-comedies, in which, possibly unique to all drama, not a single word seems redundant or out of place.' - From the author's introduction.

Absolutely wonderful."--Francine Prose Written in France toward the end of his career, these stories are Anton Chekhov's only attempt at the linked collection. "A Man in a Shell" is a grotesque Gogolian comedy; "Gooseberries," a narrator's impassioned response; and "About Love," a poignant story of failed relationships. Translated by the impeccable David Helwig and fabulously illustrated by Seth, About Love is essential for any Chekhov enthusiast. David Helwig is the author of twenty volumes of fiction and fourteen volumes of poetry, an Officer of the Order of Canada, and former poet laureate of Prince Edward Island.

Praised by Vladimir Nabokov as one of the greatest stories ever written, The Lady with the Dog follows an adulterous affair between a Russian banker and a young lady he meets while vacationing in Yalta. This volume of Chekhov stories also includes: A Doctor's Visit, An Upheaval, Ionitch, The Head of the Family, Volodya, An Anonymous Story, The Husband.

“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.

This powerful version of Chekhov’s famous drama reflects the South African phenomenon of the 1990s. With the hindsight of the new millennium we can look back and see that the miracle did happen. The new order did take over from the old. The fruitless cherry orchard was chopped down. The old men who couldn't move with the times have been left behind and forgotten. Chekhov's great pre-revolutionary drama, dreaming of youthful energy replacing the worn-out inertia of a dying world, lends itself vividly to this new setting in post-revolutionary South Africa.