The Seagull

What books should everyone read before they die?Add Book

The Seagull

Anton Chekhov

Drama

Jul 31, 2018

“Why do you always wear black?” a schoolteacher asks a young woman at the start of The Seagull. “I’m in mourning for my life,” she replies. It’s true that Chekhov’s plays are filled with unhappy people, and if you suffer through a bad production, you might think there is not much more to them than miserable Russians moping on country estates, moaning about failed affairs and thwarted ambitions. Then again, an inept production of Oedipus the King might make Greek tragedy seem like some sick combination of soap opera and horror movie. But just as Aeschylus and Sophocles treat the fundamental and enduring themes of human existence—fate, inheritance, savagery, pride, justice—so Chekhov treats the worries of our daily lives: loneliness, love, financial uncertainty, the persistent pangs of time’s passing. Chekhov wrote more than a dozen plays, but the last four are his most accomplished and most performed, and the quartet—because of their original realization by Konstantin Stanislavski under the auspices of the Moscow Art Theater—are seminal works in theatrical history.

Add Reply