Chekhov: The Vaudevilles

deserve.

Introduction

Chekhov’s prose writings occupy the dominant place in his literary oeuvre. Indeed, the thirty volumes of his complete collected works contain almost five hundred short stories, as well as over four thousand personal letters of inestimable literary and autobiographical value. It is a remarkable outpouring of prose for a man who only lived to be forty-four years of age, and who suffered from consumption most of his adult life.

In contrast to this enormous outpouring of prose, the body of his dramatic writing seems infinitessimally smaller — only seven full-length plays (an eighth, his first, is lost to us), ten one-act plays (approximately five more youthful efforts have also been lost), and a handful of parodic skits that were meant as practical jokes rather than as performance pieces. And yet the influence of his remarkable plays on twentieth-century world theatre has been incalculable.

Chekhov’s one-act plays — the vaudevilles, as he liked to refer to them in his correspondence — lie like jewels in the lap of this vast literary oeuvre… or, rather, like baubles, if we are to practice his preferred custom of trivializing the popular genre that he subsequently elevated to an art form. While they constitute a minuscule part of this literary outpouring, they are treasures, and their value, considered as a body of work (however small), is enormous, in terms of pure theatrical entertainment, as well as an appreciation of the spirit of this extraordinary writer.

For Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (1860–1904) — doctor, humanist, humorist, Russian, aesthete, literary philosopher, practical joker, and astute observer of human behavior — the vaudeville was the perfect form with which to make his debut as a young playwright in the glamorous Moscow theatre world that he held both in awe and contempt. The vaudeville, a Russified version of the French comedic genre, was a highly popular theatrical form comme il faut of the Moscow stage in the 1880s (and the only one that could get past the censors of the day), and the comedic muse was already with the young Dr. Chekhov in this decade, when he was turning out literally dozens of humorous short stories a year, garnering for him fame, a monthly assignment with the best thick journals of the day, an income, and the status of darling of the Moscow literati. The vaudevilles came naturally to him — they were easy and pleasurable, and brought him the same success he received for his short stories — praise, fame, economic remuneration, and critical accolades. Yet through these stage confections, an astute and determined young dramatist was at work, investigating characters and themes that would later mature and gain complexity in the later plays. And behind the hilarity and antics, a darker weltanschauung was developing, of the truths and absurdities of the human condition.

Chekhov wrote ten one-act plays in a variety of forms and styles. They are included in this collection. They were written during the second half of the Moscow period (1880–90) — a decade which brought Chekhov fame as a short story writer, primarily, but also a decade in which the passion to become a serious dramatist was burning within him. (Several other texts from that period also survive today: comedic skits that Chekhov wrote as parodies and jokes for special occasions, and were not meant to be performed. There are also at least a half-dozen other skits or vaudevilles Chekhov wrote in the Taganrog period and the very early Moscow period, according to his brother, Mikhail; regretably, these texts have been lost to us.)

Thus, while the vaudevilles repreesent a miniscule part of his larger literary oeuvre, as a whole they are a treasure. We read and perform them for pure enjoyment, for their incomparable humor, for a flavor of the Moscow theatre scene of the 1880s, for an appreciation of Chekhov’s consummate craft, and above all — for a recognition of the comedic and tragic duality in his work, which would later mature in his four major plays, wherein he found the special dramatic balance of these elements that is known the world over as Chekhovian.

CHEKHOV, THE YOUNG DRAMATIST

While his critical success, his national fame, and his livelihood came from the remarkable outpouring of the short stories, the most passionate love of Chekhov’s life — complex and conflicted though it may have been, and unrequited, as he saw it — was for the theatre. It was in writing for the theatre that Chekhov experienced his greatest joy and deepest frustration. For while the comedic muse was always with him, it was as a serious playwright that he wanted to be considered.

Chekhov’s dramatic oeuvre readily divides itself into four periods, corresponding to his places of residence: l) 1860–1879: the Taganrog period — named so for Chekhov’s place of birth and residence with his family during his youthful years. During this period, he wrote one full-length play and several comedic skits, which survive in title only; 2) 1880–1890: the Moscow period, during which he wrote three full-length plays: Platonov (1880–81), Ivanov (1887), and The Wood Demon (1889), and the short plays included in this collection; 3) 1890–1900 and 4) 1900–1904: the Melikhovo and Yalta periods respectively, during which Chekhov, the mature dramatist, wrote his four major plays: The Seagull, Uncle Vanya, The Three Sisters, and The Cherry Orchard.

Chekhov wrote all of the short plays included in this collection from 1885–1891 (from the ages twenty-five to thirty-one), those highly charged years when his involvement with the Moscow and St. Petersburg theatre was at its height, and when his fame as a successful prose writer was soaring. It was owing to the widening gap between his passion to be taken seriously as a dramatist and what he perceived to be the public and the literary world’s inability to understand his dramatic intent — as well as a frustration with what he felt were his immature abilities as a dramatist — that prompted almost a six-year hiatus in serious playwrighting, from 1889–1895. It was during this period, with his humanitarian journey to the island of Sakhalin, his slowly declining health, his move to his estate at Melikhovo, and his distancing from Moscow and the theatre world, that he gained the perspective and maturity to write the four major plays — the final ones of his tragically short life.

Choosing the appropriate literary terminology to identify Chekhov’s oneact plays has presented a challenge for literary history and criticism. Chekhov subtitled all his plays, both one-act and full-length — an issue about which he was extremely sensitive in the case of the major plays, where he insisted that they be perceived and interpreted in accordance with these subtitles. Of the ten one-act plays in this collection, four, he subtitled as shutki, which can be translated as farces (it also means jokes); two, he subtitled as dramatic studies; one, a drama; one, a one-act play; and one, a monologue. They are written in a wide variety of styles and content. The unifying factor is that all — with the clear exception of one, On the High Road — contain comedic elements, and to varying degrees are delightfully funny.

What is interesting to note is that Chekhov himself simply referred to them all as vaudevilles in his correspondence, even the more serious ones. This seems to suggest that he wished the public (including the critics and the literati) to consider his plays to be light, diverting entertainment of inconsequential literary value, again, according to the conventions of the contemporary Russian vaudeville. However, his short plays do not conform to the conventions of the vaudeville as it appeared on the Russian stage in the 1880s. This suggests that Chekhov may have had another agenda in calling his plays vaudevilles. By setting up an expectation in his public of certain conventions, Chekhov gave himself the freedom to poke fun at existing theatrical genres, and also to experiment within the perimeters of comedy to create his own new forms for the stage.

Just as he insisted that his mature, full-length plays were comedies, Chekhov persisted in referring to his one-acts as vaudevilles. Furthermore, he went to great lengths in his letters to make us believe that he did not take his vaudeville-writing seriously. And yet, looking back on his dramatic oeuvre as a whole, the vaudevilles are far more than delightful entertainment. They were a critical stage of experimentation in Chekhov’s development as a serious dramatist, where he explored the compatability of comedic and tragic elements within a given dramatic form. Later on in the introduction, we shall explore how Chekhov used the subterfuge of this popular generic classification quite deftly for his own special, Chekhovian purposes.

THE TAGANROG PERIOD: 1860–79

I haven’t received a letter either from Moscow, or from my parents, or from you. And it’s so boring here! How are you! Please write! There’s nothing new in Taganrog, absolutely nothing! […] I’m bored to death! I went to the Taganrog theatre the other day, and compared it with your theatre in Moscow. What a difference! And what a difference between Moscow and Taganrog! As soon as I finish school, I’ll fly to Moscow on wings. I do love Moscow so much!

to cousin Mikhail, 11/4/77

We know from early reminiscences of his brother, Aleksandr, as well as from Chekhov’s biographers, that parlor theatrics were a part of family life in Taganrog — a welcome respite from the otherwise harsh upbringing that the six Chekhov children endured at the hands of a domineering and rigid father. In addition to compulsory service in their father’s shop after school (where he often struck the children), they also had the burden of church choir practice imposed upon them by their father in the early morning hours, leaving hardly any time for school work. There were five brothers and one sister — Anton was the third child — and they eagerly welcomed the theatrical diversions instigated by Anton. According to the reminiscences of Mikhail, Chekhov’s youngest brother, Anton would direct his siblings in these domestic productions, which always featured Anton in one of the leading roles.

After the family had moved north to Moscow to avoid bankruptcy due to his father’s failed enterprise, Anton was left behind to finish school in Taganrog (in the south of Russia, on the Azov Sea). During those years, Mikhail reports, he frequented the theatre, and was particularly interested in French plays. We also know from Mikhail’s memoirs that during this time he began experimenting with the vaudeville form. Mikhail refers to a serious full-length drama he wrote entitled Fatherless, as well as several vaudevilles, with titles such as Laugh It Off If You Can, Why the Hen Clucks, and Scythe Strikes Stone, which he sent to his eagerly awaiting brothers in Moscow. Anton harbored hopes that his eldest brother, Aleksandr, might submit them for publication in the city that was the theatrical mecca of his youthful imagination. Actually, Aleksandr had readings of these plays at the family’s tiny flat in Moscow, and sent his younger brother a critique offered by his newly acquired literary friends. Mikhail kept those works in safekeeping, but when Anton arrived in Moscow, he tore the drama to pieces. The fate of the unproduced vaudevilles is unknown — Mikhail speculates that the manuscripts may have been lost during Anton’s constant moving from place to place during the early Moscow years.

It is significant to note, then, in terms of his development as a dramatist, that between the ages of sixteen and nineteen (1876–79) Chekhov had already written a full-length play and a handful of short comedic works, and that his heart and energies already belonged to the theatre.

THE MOSCOW PERIOD: 1880–1890

Do you know how I write my little stories? Here! He glanced at the table, took the first object that caught his eye — an ashtray — put it in front of me, and said: Tomorrow, if you like, I’ll have a story entitled The Ashtray. And his eyes lit up with gaiety. Already, images, situations, adventures were floating in his mind, images which had not yet assumed their form, but the humorous muse was already upon him.

from Korolenko, Anton Pavlovich Chekhov

"I cannot recall one single story on which I worked more than a day; The Huntsman, which you liked, was even written in a bath-house! As reporters dash off their notes about fires, so I write my stories, mechanically, unconsciously…"

to Grigorovich, 3/28/86

In 1879, Chekhov moved to Moscow to join his family and to enter medical school. The Moscow period (1880-1890) is distinguished as the period, corresponding to Chekhov’s twenties, when he wrote the vast majority of his five hundred short stories. What began as a pleasurable pastime — a skill which came naturally and easily — developed into an extraordinary career as a short story writer, from which Chekhov gained critical fame, literary and social recognition, and enough remuneration to support his entire family.

During the period of the early 1880s, the Chekhov family lived in a basement apartment in the Drachovka quarter of Moscow. Chekhov describes his dire circumstances during a period when he was attending medical school, trying to support his family by writing humorous sketches, scurrying from journal to journal to find those who would accept his work, and receiving three kopeks a line for his writings. Sometimes the editors would offer him free theatre tickets or a pair of trousers instead of the promised royalties.

"…in the next room howls the child of a distant relative who is living with us now, in another room father reads to mother aloud from Angel of My Memory…Someone has wound up a music box, and I hear La Belle Helène…I feel like running away to the country, but it’s already one in the morning…There couldn’t be more vile conditions than these for a writer. My bed is occupied by a relative who’s just arrived, who keeps on trying to start a conversation with me about medicine. […] The conditions are incomparable."

to Leykin, 8/21–24/83

Somehow, in this chaotic period, Chekhov managed to graduate from medical school and launch a literary career. His rise to fame as a short story writer was meteoric. During the Moscow years he contributed over four hundred sketches, feuilletons, pastiches, and stories to almost a dozen periodicals, under a variety of pseudonyms, including Antosha Chekhonte, My Brother’s Brother, A Doctor without Patients, A Man without a Spleen, and Don Antonio Chekhonte, among others. Four major collections of his short stories: Tales of Melpomena (1884), Motley Stories (1885), At Twilight (1887), and Stories (1888) were published — the latter two collections by the prestigious publisher Suvorin, Chekhov’s mentor and friend. His fame and popularity as a short story writer during the Moscow period culminated with his being awarded the Pushkin prize (1888), and his election to the prestigious Society of Lovers of Russian Literature (1889).

It is difficult to imagine, in this maelstrom of activity, how Chekhov — a young man in his twenties, living with his parents and five siblings, surrounded by family chaos — could have sustained this stunning successful literary career and maintained a career as a doctor as well.

I am a physician, and I have become absorbed in my medical work, so that no one has been more troubled than I by the proverb about chasing two hares…I am only twenty-six years old. Perhaps I shall still manage to accomplish something, although time flies by so rapidly.

to Grigorovich, 3/28/86

Medicine is my lawful wife, and literature is my mistress. When I tire of one, I spend the night with the other. While this may be chaotic, at least it’s not as boring, and anyway, neither one loses anything by my duplicity. If I didn’t have medicine, I’d never devote my spare time and thoughts to literature. I lack discipline.

to Suvorin, 9/11/88

In 1886, due to his increasing financial success with his short story writing, Chekhov was able to afford to rent a house for his family on Sadovo-Kudrinskaya Street — his rose-colored chest of drawers, as he referred to it. This bright-colored, charming little house still stands today, with the sign A. P. Chekhov: Doctor on the door, and one can visit the small front room on the first floor, where he admitted patients and also managed, somehow, to write all his stories and the one-act plays.

And now, when I recall […] the small sitting room with Chekhov’s old mother presiding over the samovar, the affectionate smiles of his sister and brothers, and the atmosphere of a warm, close-knit family surrounding a charming and talented young man with such a joyous outlook on life — I have the feeling it was the happiest, indeed the last happy period in the life of the family as a whole, an idyllic time on the threshold of the drama about to unfold…In Chekhov’s expression and demeanor at that time, I seem to remember a sort of duality: There was the carefree Antosha Chekhonte, happy, successful, ready to laugh at the intellectual caretaker who advises the kitchen-help to read books, at the barber who, while cutting a client’s hair, learns that his sweetheart is going to marry another man, and leaves the client’s head unfinished…Images hovered over him, they crowded around him, amusing him…And yet, at the same time, a perceptible change was taking place…Chekhov himself, as well as his family, could not help realizing that in Antosha’s hands lay not only an amusing plaything, useful to the family, but a great gift which might bring with it serious responsibility.

from Korolenko, Anton Pavlovich Chekhov

It is important to note that in 1884, during this period of intense activity, the young Dr. Chekhov, at the age of twenty-four, suffered his first lung hemmorhage, and in 1886, a second one. It was later, with his brother Nikolai’s death from consumption in 1889, that the truth began to dawn on him about his own possible diagnosis.

It is therefore difficult to imagine how, during all the turmoil of the Moscow period, the young Dr. Chekhov somehow managed to launch his career as a dramatist! It is, no doubt, testimony to his love for the theatre, which prevailed over all his other activities, and even — for this short time, at least — over the threatening shadow of a serious illness.

The Moscow period is distinguished as an exciting and vigorous period of experimentation for Chekhov, the young dramatist, when he explored with intense determination both the short and long forms, the comedic and the dramatic. During this period, Chekhov wrote three full-length plays and the ten comedic one-act plays included in this collection — an experimental period crucial to his development, which helped him find his mature voice as a dramatist in the unique, and final, four major plays.

The Early Moscow Years: 1880–1885

The Dramatist

A man walks into a doctor’s office — a dull-looking type with lustreless eyes and a congested appearance. Judging by the size of his size of his nose and the moody expression on his face, this individual is clearly no stranger to alcoholic beverages, chronic head-colds, and the habit of philosophizing. He sits in the chair and complains of shortness of breath, reflux, heartburn, and an unpleasant taste in his mouth.

What is your occupation, asks the doctor.

I am a dramatist! the individual declares, not without pride.

The doctor, filled with respect for his patient, smiles deferentially.

What an unusual occupation… he mutters. Since that kind of work is purely cerebral, it must be very stressful work.

Oh, I sup-po-o-ose so…

…I’d like to ask you to describe your lifestyle… …your general activities…

Fine… says the playwright. Well, sir, I get up at about noon …And the very first thing I do is smoke a cigarette and drink two glasses of vodka, sometimes three…I might even take a fourth, depending on how much I drank the day before…

Sounds like you drink a lot.

"What do you mean, a lot? What is a lot?…Anyway…after breakfast I