A game of hide and seek. Dramatic Mechanisms in Chekhov's «The Seagull»

Gorbachev Igor' Nikolaevich ORCID: 0000-0001-7861-0421 Senior Lecturer, Department of Feature Film Directing, S. A. Gerasimov All-Russian State University of Cinematography 129226, Russia, Moscow, Wilhelm Peak str., 3 igorgorbachoff@gmail.com

One of Anton Chekhov's most profound statements about his creative method is at the same time the most famous, if not to say "worn out", but at the same time the most comical. We are talking about the phrase: "Having written a story, you should cross out its beginning and end. This is where we fiction writers spend the most time" ^{[1, p.482]}.

At first glance, we are talking here exclusively about a small prosaic form. Indeed, it is easy to recall a lot of Chekhov's stories, where the author seems to skip the exposition and immediately immerses the reader in the action.

But what if the ironic Chekhov's "formula" is also applied to the body of dramatic works? To be more precise, suppose that after writing, for example, "The Seagull", Chekhov left some part of the text out of brackets?

It is known that Anton Pavlovich, repeatedly reworking the text of the play, reduced many details of the characters' lives. The canonical version did not include, for example, the fact that Dr. Dorn is the real father of Masha Shamraeva (and this was mentioned in early versions), information about Arkadina's income received from Shamraev, etc.  

Despite the obvious assumption, such a method of vivisection of Anton Pavlovich's dramas has never been used.

The multidimensional nature of this article has determined the application of several methodological approaches: philosophical and aesthetic, comparative, interdisciplinary, as well as art criticism analysis. It is based on a practical guide for production directors - a method of effective analysis.

It is believed that this classic mechanism for analyzing a dramatic work was invented and developed by Konstantin Stanislavsky and Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko. Later, the algorithm was refined by their students and followers.

We will use this algorithm.

Recall for non-specialists the essence of the method. A dramatic work is a complex structure, the skeleton of which is a sequence of events. An event is a fact from the world of the play, which in one way or another, with one force or another, influences the actions of the characters. A major event has a strong impact, a small one – barely noticeable.

Director and teacher A. Polamishev, summarizing the essence of the method, wrote: "the play develops from the initial event to the main one;

the original event is present as a given before the beginning of the action of the play;

the initial event is the event that determines the actions of all the actors involved at the beginning of the play, until the next major event happens in the play.

Only a correct, scrupulous definition of the original event of the play can correctly guide the entire further course of the analysis of the play.

The main event of the play is the event through which the author's idea is revealed to us. 

The main event is always the last major event of the play.

When analyzing any scene of the play, the director must always check what place this scene occupies in the development of events – "from the source to the main".

When opening the events of any piece of the play, it must be remembered that any event (initial, large, small, main) is then opened correctly when only it is the determining fact for the actions of all the actors involved in this stage piece" ^{[2, pp.400-401]}.

That is, the director is asked to determine one of the events of the play (not necessarily the original one), verify it. Then another one (up or down the chain), and so on – until the whole sequence is revealed.

Since "The Seagull" has been analyzed lengthwise and across, let's start right away with the definition of the original event of the play. Moreover, we are primarily interested in its beginning – what Chekhov himself strongly advised to cross out.

Playbill of the play Mewa (The Seagull), Juliusz Slovak Theater, Poland

Playbill of the play Mewa (The Seagull), Juliusz Slovak Theater, Poland

Traditionally, the initial event of the "Seagulls" is determined by the performance of Treplev, in which Zarechnaya plays the main role. This was the opinion of Stanislavsky's disciple and follower Maria Knebel.  

Interestingly, in the book "Poetry of Pedagogy" by Knebel there are lines: "Once Stanislavsky tortured both students and teachers (it was in the opera and drama studio, which he directed), forcing us to call the first event "Grief from the mind". After a long debate, we called "Chatsky's arrival".

–This is a very important event," Stanislavsky said, "perhaps the most important. But how do you order the actors to live before Chatsky's unexpected arrival? Every moment of the stage action is fraught with some kind of event - so open it" ^{[3, p.314]}.  

If, following Knebel's logic, we determine the initial event of The Seagull – Treplev's performance (and its beginning is already the second half of the first act of the play), then the question arises: how do Treplev and other Chekhov characters live up to this point?

Let's try to answer it.

Let's analyze the facts of the play once again. Polamishev wrote: "It is obvious that when searching for an event, facts should not be missed: even the proposed circumstance, which at first glance does not seem very significant, may turn out to be an important event for the life of the "human spirit of the role" ^{[2, p.284]}.

Konstantin Treplev occupies a special place among the characters of The Seagull. His arch connects the entire construction of the play. Chekhov pays the most attention to him.  

What do we know about Treplev?

The poster of the film I am a seagull (I am a seagull)

The poster of the movie I am a seagull (I am a seagull)

In the first act, Treplev, in a conversation with Sorin, drops the phrase: "Who am I? What am I? I left the third year of university due to circumstances, as they say, independent of the editorial office, no talents, no money, and according to my passport I am a Kiev philistine. After all, my father is a Kiev philistine, although he was also a famous actor" ^{[4, pp.8-9]}.

Note that Treplev says all this to his uncle, in whose estate he has been living for several years, i.e. for his uncle, to put it mildly, this is not new information. The circumstances of the conversation and the construction of the phrase (the introductory phrase "as they say") indicate that the reader is not just the protagonist's story about himself. Treplev is hinting at something, and the ironic "as they say" only enhances the effect of his words. 

Indeed, the phrase "due to circumstances beyond the editorial control" is a euphemism, which at the time of writing "Seagull" meant "interference from censorship and law enforcement agencies." (Some of these arguments were outlined in our article: Visualization in the cinema of the setting of Chekhov's late plays. The image of Treplev by Sidney Lumet // Art culture. – No. 2. – 2020. – pp.202-218. Let's repeat them for the reader who is not familiar with the material).    

As an example, we will cite the editorial note of the Bolshevik collection "The Voice of Life" to the article by V.I. Lenin "In Memory of Count Heyden" (1907), where there is the following paragraph: "Written back in June, immediately after the appearance of the panegyric of the "Comrade", this article was not printed due to circumstances "beyond the control" of the author. By giving it a place in this collection, the editors believe that although the reason that caused it has already lost its significance for this moment, nevertheless, its content still retains its value"

This article is published in the 16th volume of the Complete Works and Letters of Vladimir Ulyanov. His commentators explain that "Circumstances beyond the author's control were usually called interference from the police and censorship. In this case, it was also meant that at that time the collections of the Bolsheviks were the only publication where Lenin's article could be published."

It should be understood that commentators of the collected works of Vladimir Ulyanov could not allow inaccuracies, i.e. the expression "due to circumstances beyond the author's control" was really widely used in the Russian Empire in the late XIX – early XX century and did not need additional interpretation for viewers or readers.

Accordingly, Treplev reminds Sorin that he was expelled from the university because of a conflict with the authorities.

Poster of the film Die Seemeeu (The Seagull), 2019, directed by Christiaan Olwagen

Poster of the film Die Seemeeu (The Seagull), 2019, directed by Christiaan Olwagen

What could he mean by that?

Let's link university studies and expulsion together, we will get some kind of offense - academic or administrative. Let's add the conflict with the authorities and the fact that Treplev, a young man, for some unknown reason lives in his uncle's estate, we will get involved in student unrest. As a consequence – expulsion under the supervision of relatives. This is one of the standard forms of punishment for such offenses. They could be sent for different periods, depending on the circumstances, sometimes for several years ^{[6, pp.58-67],[7, pp.253-321]}.

Student riots were one of the signs of the socio-political situation of the Russian Empire in the 1880s. This topic is widely described in fiction, historical and research literature. It was reflected, as you can see, in Chekhov.

So, Treplev was expelled from the university for participating in student riots and sent under the supervision of his uncle. From the words of Konstantin Gavrilovich, it follows that he has been living in Sorin's estate for about five years. In the first act, Treplev, talking with his uncle, mentions that he is twenty-five years old. A little later, he says that he left the third year of university. As a rule, the age of admission to higher education institutions is 17-18 years. Accordingly, at the time of his expulsion, Treplev was about 20 years old.

 For an "ordinary" participant in the conflict, this is a long time, probably Treplev's fault was recognized as quite serious. Now the term of his expulsion is most likely coming to an end.    

Let us explain one more important fact following from Treplev's phrase. His words that according to his passport he is a Kiev philistine mean one simple thing: unlike his uncle and mother, Treplev does not belong to the nobility – the privileged estate of the Russian Empire.

Now about Treplev's relationship with Masha Shamraeva.

Poster of Seagull (Seagull), Theatre beyond the Gate's (Prague), 1972

Poster of Seagull (Seagull), Theatre beyond the Gate's (Prague), 1972

A person who was in conflict with the authorities at the end of the XIX-beginning of the XX century, in the eyes of the progressive part of society, became an innocently injured fighter for the truth. Treplev played out this image upon arrival at Sorin's estate. Such a manner of behavior made an indelible impression on a 17-year-old provincial young lady. Probably at the same time, their close relationship began.

The fact that these relationships were very close is indicated by the very first phrase uttered by Masha in the play. When asked by Medvedenko why she always wears black, the girl, as you know, answers: This is mourning for my life, I am unhappy.

Literary critics have pointed out that this phrase is a reference to Maupassant's novel "Dear Friend". There it is pronounced by Mrs. Walter. She hints that Georges Duroy seduced her and then abandoned her.

Saying this phrase, Masha associates herself with Mrs. Walter, and hints that she found herself in the same situation. But poor Semyon Semyonovich, who has not read The Dear Friend, does not understand this.  

Who can Masha hint at? Medvedenko himself obeys her in everything. The relationship between Masha and Dorn is more like a father-daughter relationship (Dorn in the early versions of The Seagull was really Masha's father). Sorin doesn't count. Only Treplev remains on the list.

Note that Masha's relationship with Treplev most likely began with the full approval of her parents. Konstantin Gavrilovich can become an enviable groom. His uncle Sorin is not feeling well, this is emphasized repeatedly in the play. Accordingly, after his death, either Arkadina or Treplev can become the heir. Sorin has no children of his own.

However, under the terms of the inheritance of the Russian Empire, the transfer of real estate to women was very difficult legally and, moreover, condemned by society. It should also take into account the fact that Arkadina (nee Sorina) is a hereditary noblewoman who ran away to become an actress and connected her life with an actor (by origin a philistine). This makes her candidacy for inheritance even more doubtful.

When the term of Treplev's expulsion began to come to an end, he thought about what to do next.

Let's recall his words that according to his passport he is a Kiev philistine. What would have been the fate of Treplev if he had not dropped out of the university? Upon leaving, he would have received a personal nobility, and good career opportunities would have opened up for him: his uncle is a big official and he has extensive connections, he worked in the judicial department for 28 years and retired with the rank of a full state councilor – this is the fourth rank in the Table of Ranks.

Now Treplev can forget about these possibilities. However, he is only 25 years old. Did he ban himself from the village for the rest of his life?

Konstantin Gavrilovich has only one opportunity to return to normal life – this is art. To use it, he needs to solve two problems: get rid of Masha and get protection from his own mother.

Poster of The Seagull (Seagull), National Theatre Live, as Nina Zarechnaya Emilia Clarke

Poster of The Seagull (Seagull), National Theatre Live, as Nina Zarechnaya Emilia Clarke

Masha is in a situation of choosing a new life path (in which mistakes are unacceptable) becomes a burden. However, it is impossible to leave the girl Trepleva without a reason. Their relationship began in front of her parents and his uncle: you can't hide from prying eyes in the manor.

Therefore, Treplev brings Masha together with his friend Medvedenko. His friendship with Treplev also began against the background of the sufferings of the fighter for the truth. In the village, Konstantin Gavrilovich needed a moderately intelligent friend who was able to listen and appreciate the civic outpourings of an innocently injured young soul. Here a village teacher with dreams of a just life came to hand.

Let's move on to the "search for new forms".

Treplev's calculation is simple. His mother in the very recent past is a very famous theater actress. She has extensive acquaintances and connections in the theatrical and near-theatrical environment. Some of her friends even remember her son, Treplev. Arkadina has a lover, the fiction writer Trigorin. Despite the ironic "cute, talented" he is a popular writer. The mother, of course, understands the plight of her son and will put in a good word to the right people. And in the artistic environment, old sins of this kind are not something that is not a hindrance, on the contrary, they can play into the hands. 

Treplev still achieves his goal. After a failed suicide attempt, it begins to be printed. Trigorin and Arkadina had a hand in this. As proof, we can cite the words of Trigorin that everyone is interested in him, who is Treplev. Treplev is of little interest to Trigorin in the artistic sense (he does not read his story), because he knows how Treplev "entered" literature.

Treplev, by all means, needs to make a very strong positive impression on Arkadina, convince his mother to forgive his sins of youth and believe in at least some artistic abilities of his son. His future depends on it.

Arkadina's arrival at her brother's estate may be motivated not only by concern for his health and the need to introduce relatives to Trigorin. A heart–to-heart family conversation about the son's future - perhaps that's the main reason.   

Arkadina is a tough nut for Treplev. She remembers perfectly well why her son was imprisoned in the village. Getting her to help is very, very difficult. Therefore, Treplev decides to take a risky step – staging a play. This is a play on the sentimentality, pity and professional pride of the mother.

However, it is not enough just to write a play. Arkadina, in order to postpone the decision, can postpone the reading for later. And Treplev needs her positive verdict immediately. He had waited too long already.

Treplev leaves Masha, arranging everything so that the poor girl ceases to understand what is happening: what did she do wrong?! Converges with Zarechnaya (which is seduced by promises of a complex, but interesting and, of course, brilliant joint theatrical future – the scope of the article does not allow discussing the nature of this connection, there may be a lot of options). Writes an avant-garde play.

Everything is ready for Arkadina's arrival.

The initial event of the "Seagull" is Arkadina's arrival at her brother's estate. Following the logic of the method of effective analysis and the above reasoning, it is easy to understand that this visit is very important for each character of the "Seagull". But the purpose and meaning of this visit become clear only after recreating the entire chain of previous events.

 Let's go back to what Chekhov did. In fact, he crossed out the whole beginning of the "Seagull", the whole plot of the situation, all explanations of who is who and who is who, and threw the reader /viewer into the thick of things.

In short, I hid the original event.

"Having written a story, you should cross out its beginning and end. That's where we fiction writers lie the most."

Now about what all this means.

Poster of The Seagull (Seagull) performance,

The California Institute of the Arts School of Theatre, 1983

Poster of The Seagull (Seagull),

The California Institute of the Arts School of Theatre, 1983

When talking about the analysis of Chekhov's dramaturgy, the concepts of German and Soviet theorists come to mind first of all.

The former proceeded from the fact that Anton Pavlovich's plays are another evidence of the so–called "crisis of drama", along with the works of Ibsen, Strindberg and Maeterlinck.

According to this point of view, Chekhov's plays are a kind of deconstruction of classical drama with its unity of place, time and action. In other words, Chekhov builds plays, destroying established canons, in particular, according to researcher Peter Sondi, abandons action and dialogue – the most important formal categories of drama, that is, the most dramatic form.

At the same time, it is clarified that this refusal is not exactly a refusal. "Just as Chekhov's heroes, despite their mental detachment, continue to live a public life, without drawing any conclusions from the analysis of their loneliness and longing, but forever remaining in limbo between the world and their own selves, between now and before, so the form does not completely break with the categories that define it as dramatic. The form preserves these categories to the elusive extent to which they are permissible for the formal formation of the topic itself through negation, in the form of a deviation from the form" ^{[8, pp.23-25]}.  

Despite the fact that Sondi analyzed The Three Sisters, his arguments and conclusions can be extrapolated to all of Chekhov's later plays.

Sondi wrote: "the play "Three Sisters" has rudiments of traditional action. [The following is a summary of the plot, which we will omit – I. G.]. Even this incoherent arrangement of individual elements of the action and the division into four acts devoid of any tension is due to formal necessity: although it is not said directly, it informs the topic of the minimum development necessary for the emergence of any dialogue.

But even this does not give the dialogues weight, they are disembodied, as is the faded background, on which the monologues indicated in the conversation lines stand out with drops of color, in which the meaning of the whole is focused. From these episodes of impotent introspection, in which each character is revealed separately, and the work is formed, it is for them that it is written.

 These are not monologues in the traditional sense. The reason for them is not the situation, but the topic. In a dramatic monologue (as Lukacs noted), nothing can be formulated that should not be reported. <...> Everything is different here. The words are spoken in society, not alone, while isolating the speaker from the environment. The pointless and illusory dialogue almost imperceptibly turns into the most real and meaningful conversations of the characters with themselves. Such conversations do not take the form of isolated monologues embedded in a dialogic narrative, rather the narrative at such moments leaves the channel of the drama and approaches the lyrics. <...>

The constant transition from dialogue to the lyrics of loneliness is the charm of Chekhov's language. Russian Russian is made possible thanks to the incredible openness of Russians and the immanent lyricism of the Russian language. Loneliness here ceases to be a stupor. Russian Russian character, that is, in the Russian person and in the Russian language, is already embedded in what a Western person knows only in a state of intoxication – participation in someone else's loneliness, acceptance of individual loneliness into collective loneliness.

That is why monologues in Chekhov's dramas become part of dialogues, that is why dialogues in them do not pose a problem, and their internal contradiction – between the monological theme and the dialogical utterance – does not entail the destruction of the dramatic form" ^{[8, pp. 25-27]}.  

Expressing Sondi's ornate thoughts in simple language, we can say that there are no conflicts in Chekhov's plays, formally built according to classical canons, because the author abandoned two formal categories of drama – action and dialogue. But this did not destroy their dramatic form. After all, Chekhov wrote such dialogues, which are essentially monologues, which, in turn, represent introspection of special depth and sincerity. This introspection does not just prevent Chekhov's loose plays from crumbling, but makes the author one of the luminaries of drama, as they say, on a global scale.      

In the Soviet Union, the situation was different.

Poster of The Seagull (Seagull), staged by Green Girl Productions

Poster of The Seagull (Seagull), staged by Green Girl Productions

Metaphorically speaking, we can say that both the stage and theoretical understanding of Chekhov's dramaturgy followed the fairway left by the Moscow Art Theater. This happened, as researcher Vladimir Kataev notes, "despite the fact that the author himself rated at least half of these productions (two out of four) sharply critically" ^{[3, p.9]}.

The interpretations of Chekhov's plays made by Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko are well-known, and it makes no sense to talk about them. The essence of the mainstream of Soviet theoretical works on the study of Chekhov, perhaps, was most fully expressed by the already mentioned Vladimir Kataev: in the USSR, the image of "our" Chekhov was created.

Kataev wrote: "Vladimir Ermilov and his school have been directly and consciously servicing the official installation <...> since the mid-40s. Next of all went G.P. Berdnikov, who already in the 80s, in a book crowned with all kinds of awards due to the official position of its author, as the highest praise for Chekhov, offered such a formula for his creative path: the writer rose as a result of his searches to "social realism" (although he could not reach the heights of socialist realism). Chekhov's Seagull, as it was wittily noted, was made up to look like Gorky's Petrel" ^{[9, pp.9-10]}.  

This interpretation determined the tone and mood of a significant part of Chekhov's productions and film adaptations made on the territory of the Soviet Union (and partly the Russian Federation). It makes no sense to say that one or another author wanted to drag something onto the screen, and he failed because of censorship. The directors of the Soviet and post-Soviet worldview (meaning realistic-minded directors, not writers of fantasies based on Chekhov) a priori considered (and in many ways still consider) Chekhov as a "singer of gloomy everyday life", who had a premonition of the impending collapse (or at least complete meaninglessness) of absolutism. To make sure of this, it is enough to watch any of the film adaptations of Chekhov's late plays made during the USSR. 

As can be seen from the above analysis of The Seagull, both European and Soviet comrades were wrong in the interpretation of Chekhov's late dramaturgy. In a sense, the Western understanding of the mechanisms of Chekhov's dramaturgy was not that closer to the truth, but at least conceptually more accurate: Chekhov really experimented with the dramatic form.

To find out and explain how Chekhov came to such experiments is the task of a separate large study. In the meantime, we state the fact that these experiments were of a certain formal nature, which can be metaphorically called a "hide-and-seek game". The essence of it is that Chekhov in all his later plays leaves out the narrative brackets (or simply hides) important elements of the drama. To a lesser extent, this happens in "Uncle Vanya", to a greater extent – in "The Seagull", "Three Sisters" and "Cherry Orchard".

In fact, Chekhov proposed a new way of developing drama. Its meaning is not in the destruction (or, to put it mildly, deconstruction) of the formal categories of the classical play, but in updating the approach to their embodiment, to their visualization.

Chekhov's researchers in the USSR, Europe and the USA identified him by the department of revolutionary converters. His approach was rather evolutionary. He suggested a gentle way of developing the art of drama. Perhaps due to the fact that the very profession of a director and the principles of work in this field at that time were only in the formative stage, Chekhov's findings were perceived with bewilderment. There are memories of Stanislavsky, Nemirovich-Danchenko, actors of the Moscow Art Theater, where dead ends in rehearsals are described, endless questions in letters "how to play it" and Chekhov's astonished reaction: Listen, I wrote everything I knew ^{[10, p.348]}!

It is worth noting one small feature of Chekhov's writing. In the case of The Seagull, the masking operation to level the initial event does not formally affect the relationship of subsequent events of the play, i.e. the rest of the chain of narrative points is not violated, all links are preserved. Withdrawal occurs only at the very beginning of the play.

This leads to the fact that, for example, "The Seagull", at first glance, can be read in at least two different ways. Chekhov's formal focus confuses the unprepared recipient.

In this "game of hide and seek" there is one more circumstance that is worth noting. Chekhov's leapfrog with drama begins to work through one simple technique: the character casually, as if accidentally utters a phrase, the meaning of which turns the essence of what is happening inside out.  

An inconspicuous at first glance discrepancy here is that Chekhov is traditionally ranked among realist artists. And although his realism is defined in different ways - from "postclassical" ^{[11, pp. 146-169]} to "atypical" and "accidental" ^{[12, pp. 480-495]}, doubts about the very nature of Chekhov's creativity, as a rule, do not arise. 

We will not repeat the well-known things about what realism is. Let's focus on one circumstance: since this creative method is aimed at understanding complex life phenomena and their truthful representation, it is not peculiar to what is called a language game – not in the Wittgenstein sense, but as linguistic fun.   

Of course, it cannot be said that realist writers did not play language games at all. Played. But their main task was to try to reflect complex, unpredictable historical and social processes. 

Vladimir Nabokov, describing Chekhov's style, wrote: "His vocabulary is poor, the combinations of words are almost banal; the juicy verb, the greenhouse adjective, the mint-cream epithet, introduced on a silver tray — all this is alien to him. He was not a verbal virtuoso like Gogol; his Muse is always dressed in a casual dress. Therefore, it is good to cite Chekhov as an example of the fact that one can be an impeccable artist without exceptional brilliance of verbal technique, without exceptional care for the graceful curves of sentences. When Turgenev starts talking about the landscape, you can see how concerned he is about the smoothness of the trouser folds of his phrase; crossing his legs, he stealthily glances at the color of his socks. Chekhov does not care about this — not because these details do not matter, for writers of a certain type they are natural and very important — but Chekhov does not care because, by his nature, he was alien to any verbal ingenuity. Even a slight grammatical irregularity or a newspaper stamp did not bother him at all. The magic of his art lies in the fact that, despite his tolerance for mistakes that a brilliant beginner would easily avoid, despite his willingness to be content with the first word he met, Chekhov was able to convey a sense of beauty that was completely inaccessible to many writers who thought they knew for sure what luxurious, lush prose was. He achieves this by illuminating all the words with the same dim light, giving them the same gray shade — the average between the color of a dilapidated hedge and an overhanging cloud. The variety of intonations, the shimmer of charming irony, the truly artistic stinginess of characteristics, the colorfulness of details, the fading of human life — all these purely Chekhov features are flooded and surrounded by a rainbow-vague verbal haze" ^{[13, p.330]}.  

To make sure of the validity of this point of view, it is enough to compare the comments on Chekhov's works and the novels of the same Nabokov. In the first case, we will encounter rather stingy historical and cultural scholias. In the second – with a multi-stage attempt at cultural deciphering.  

However, as you can see, Chekhov masterfully mastered the language game and actively used it. Treplev's phrase is one of the many examples generously scattered throughout his plays.   

The conclusion here is simple: Chekhov, the playwright, is not quite correct to consider a realist. 

This statement gives an answer to the question why there are always many difficulties with the embodiment of Chekhov's dramas on the stage and on the screen. Reading a play by any author gives rise to a rather specific image in the reader's perception: the place of action, the characters, the events happening to them. The image may already be built up in the imagination or exist at the level of sensation, but it is always (in one form or another) there. Moreover, this image, as a rule, has different recipients, if not the same, then in many ways similar. That is why such constructs as "Shakespeare's world", "Chekhov's world", "Proust's world" arise: everyone immediately understands what is at stake.  

When it comes to adaptations, the recipient expects to see on stage or screen the ideal world that he has already built (or is ready to build) in his imagination. When these two images coincide, the film incarnation is considered successful. 

There is no coincidence if the screen image strongly diverges from the image that arose in the recipient's perception. The viewer is constantly annoyed by the feeling that the characters do not look like themselves, the circumstances are strangely embodied, etc., in other words, "everything was wrong in the book." In this case, the adaptation is considered unsuccessful. To use a metaphor, we can say that the fabric of such a film is woven from inaccuracies. 

What is "inaccuracy"? 

When the adverb "exactly" is pronounced in a professional director's environment in relation to any element of the film, as a rule, it means "very correctly guessed", and the word "guessed" here emphasizes the irrationality of the creative process. If we start from such a definition, "inaccuracy" will mean not exactly an error, but an incorrect solution to a problem, the unambiguously correct solution of which cannot be justified, much less cited and formalized. 

Chekhov was considered and is considered by directors exclusively as a realist playwright. But the true manner of his writing is a masterful mimicry for realism. His plays are like the caterpillars of the moth-moth, which crawl along the twig of the usual drama and outwardly do not differ from it in any way. And after a few weeks they spread their wings and fly away to the light. 

The comprehension of Chekhov's later plays cemented his reputation as a revolutionary, both in formal ("rejection of action and dialogue") and in meaningful (almost "petrel of the revolution") senses.

Chekhov was neither one nor the other.

Poster of The seagull (Seagull), staged by the Bedlam Theater

Poster of The seagull (Seagull), staged by the Bedlam Theater

A huge number of attempts to direct Chekhov's plays did not answer the question: how to stage them? The point here is not that Chekhov is inexhaustible, and every director sees something of his own in him... - etc. 

The question is actually much more complicated: how to visualize this kind of drama, what are the principles of such directing?

While working on the Cherry Orchard, Chekhov complained to Olga Knipper about the "some unfinished work" of the student Trofimov. It would seem that everything with this character is clear, but how to write it, how to "portray these things?" ^{[14, p.279]}.

The problem is complicated by the fact that the modern viewer does not know (and will never know) the social and everyday realities of life in the Russian Empire at that time. The production of "The Seagull" will revolve around the usual interpretation of the play, and not around the phrase dropped by Treplev "due to circumstances beyond the editorial control."  

But just imagine such a picture: the backstage opens, the actor appears on stage, utters only a few phrases, and the viewer imagines scenes of the character's past, previously unknown to anyone. 

And the old play becomes a new one. 

The answer to the question is how to put it? – most likely, it would have marked the beginning of a new round of development of directing. 

In this "game of hide and seek" there is one more circumstance that is worth noting. Chekhov's leapfrog with dramaturgy begins to work through one simple technique: the character casually, as if accidentally utters a phrase, the meaning of which turns the essence of what is happening inside out.  

An inconspicuous at first glance discrepancy here is that Chekhov is traditionally ranked among realist artists. And although his realism is defined in different ways - from "postclassical" ^{[11, pp. 146-169]} to "atypical" and "accidental" ^{[12, pp. 480-495]}, doubts about the very nature of Chekhov's creativity, as a rule, do not arise.

Let's not repeat the well-known things about what realism is. Let's focus on one circumstance: since this creative method is aimed at understanding complex life phenomena and their truthful representation, it is not peculiar to what is called a language game – not in the Wittgenstein sense, but as linguistic fun.  

Of course, it cannot be said that realist writers did not play language games at all. Played. But their main task was to try to reflect complex, unpredictable historical and social processes.

Vladimir Nabokov, describing Chekhov's style, wrote: "His vocabulary is poor, the combinations of words are almost banal; the juicy verb, the greenhouse adjective, the mint-cream epithet, introduced on a silver tray — all this is alien to him. He was not a verbal virtuoso like Gogol; his Muse is always dressed in a casual dress. Therefore, it is good to cite Chekhov as an example of the fact that one can be an impeccable artist without exceptional brilliance of verbal technique, without exceptional care for the graceful curves of sentences. When Turgenev starts talking about the landscape, you can see how concerned he is about the smoothness of the trouser folds of his phrase; crossing his legs, he stealthily glances at the color of his socks. Chekhov does not care about this — not because these details do not matter, for writers of a certain type they are natural and very important — but Chekhov does not care because, by his nature, he was alien to any verbal ingenuity. Even a slight grammatical irregularity or a newspaper stamp did not bother him at all. The magic of his art lies in the fact that, despite his tolerance for mistakes that a brilliant beginner would easily avoid, despite his willingness to be content with the first word he met, Chekhov was able to convey a sense of beauty that was completely inaccessible to many writers who thought they knew for sure what luxurious, lush prose was. He achieves this by illuminating all the words with the same dim light, giving them the same gray shade — the average between the color of a dilapidated hedge and an overhanging cloud. The variety of intonations, the shimmer of charming irony, the truly artistic stinginess of characteristics, the colorfulness of details, the fading of human life — all these purely Chekhov features are flooded and surrounded by a rainbow-vague verbal haze" ^{[13, p.330]}.

To make sure of the validity of this point of view, it is enough to compare the comments on Chekhov's works and the novels of the same Nabokov. In the first case, we will encounter rather stingy historical and cultural scholias. In the second – with a multi-stage attempt at cultural deciphering.

However, as you can see, Chekhov masterfully mastered the language game and actively used it. Treplev's phrase is one of the many examples generously scattered throughout his plays.

The conclusion here is simple: Chekhov, the playwright, is not quite correct to consider a realist.

This statement gives an answer to the question why there are always many difficulties with the embodiment of Chekhov's dramas on the stage and on the screen. Reading a play by any author gives rise to a rather specific image in the reader's perception: the place of action, the characters, the events happening to them. The image may already be built up in the imagination or exist at the level of sensation, but it is always (in one form or another) there. Moreover, this image, as a rule, has different recipients, if not the same, then in many ways similar. That is why such constructs as "Shakespeare's world", "Chekhov's world", "Proust's world" arise: everyone immediately understands what is at stake.

When it comes to adaptations, the recipient expects to see on stage or screen the ideal world that he has already built (or is ready to build) in his imagination. When these two images coincide, the film incarnation is considered successful.

There is no coincidence if the screen image strongly diverges from the image that arose in the recipient's perception. The viewer is constantly annoyed by the feeling that the characters do not look like themselves, the circumstances are strangely embodied, etc., in other words, "everything was wrong in the book." In this case, the adaptation is considered unsuccessful. To use a metaphor, we can say that the fabric of such a film is woven from inaccuracies.

What is "inaccuracy"?

When the adverb "exactly" is pronounced in a professional director's environment in relation to any element of the film, as a rule, it means "very correctly guessed", and the word "guessed" here emphasizes the irrationality of the creative process. If we start from such a definition, "inaccuracy" will mean not exactly an error, but an incorrect solution to a problem, the unambiguously correct solution of which cannot be justified, much less cited and formalized.

Chekhov was considered and is considered by directors exclusively as a realist playwright. But the true manner of his writing is a masterful mimicry for realism. His plays are like the caterpillars of the moth-moth, which crawl along the twig of the usual drama and outwardly do not differ from it in any way. And after a few weeks they spread their wings and fly away to the light.

The comprehension of Chekhov's later plays cemented his reputation as a revolutionary, both in formal ("rejection of action and dialogue") and in meaningful (almost "petrel of the revolution") senses.

Chekhov was neither one nor the other.