Leaving aside his 50-plus stories, Anton Chekhov wrote a surprising amount just for the theatre: about 13 dialogues and parodies during the 1880s; ten one-act monologues or farces in the later 1880s; and then the five major four-act plays on which his reputation rests:
- Ivanov (1887)
- The Seagull (1896)
- Uncle Vanya (1897)
- Three Sisters (1901)
- The Cherry Orchard (1904)
Ivanov was commissioned in 1887 by Fiodor Korsh, owner of the Korsh Theatre in Moscow which specialised in farces. Chekhov wrote it the four-act drama in just ten days but the first performance was a fiasco and Chekhov rewrote it. The revised version was premiered in St Petersburg in 1889 and was a success. Since it’s the first in the run of greatest hits, critics and scholars always say it gives a foretaste of the style and themes of his subsequent masterpieces.
What came over to me was the comic characters were funnier than I expected while the ‘serious’ characters (Ivanov, his wife Anna, the doctor Lvov, and the young woman, Sasha, who worships Ivanov) were given speeches of way over-the-top melodrama and hysteria. I was enjoying it as a comedy with a completely over-the-top part for the self-pitying lead character, right up to the moment when he ended the play by suddenly shooting himself. That wasn’t so funny.
Characters
- Nikolai Ivanov – a government official concerned with peasant affairs. Chekhov depicts him as the quintessentially melancholy Russian from the upper social strata, severely afflicted by internal conflicts, loss of appetite for life, and problems managing his estate and his debts
- Anna (born as Sarah Abramson) – Ivanov’s wife of five years who unknowingly suffers from tuberculosis; she has renounced Judaism and converted to Russian Orthodoxy in order to marry Ivanov
- Paul Lebedev – chairman of the rural district council, confidante and good friend to Ivanov
- Zinaida – Lebedev’s wife, a wealthy lender who Ivanov owes a large sum of money
- Sasha – the Lebedevs’ 20-year-old daughter, infatuated with Ivanov and nearly ends up marrying him
- Eugene Lvov – a pompous young doctor on the council’s panel, and a self-consciously ‘honest man’; throughout the play he moralizes and attacks Ivanov’s character, later resolving to reveal what he believes are Ivanov’s intentions in marrying Sasha
- Count Matthew Shabelsky – Ivanov’s maternal uncle, a geriatric buffoon; he tells antisemitic jokes but his tenderness to Anna is unmistakable
- Martha Babakina – a young widow, estate-owner and the daughter of a rich businessman, she has a turbulent relationship with the Count
- Michael Borkin – a distant relative of Ivanov who is steward of his estate, a jester who keeps coming up with many money-making schemes throughout the play, including his proposal for the Count and Martha Babakina to marry
- Dmitry Kosykh – an excise officer
Act 1
The play tells the story of Nikolai Ivanov, a man struggling to regain his former glory. For the past five years he has been married to Anna Petrovna, a disinherited Jewess, who has become very ill.
Ivanov’s estate is run by a distant relative, Mikhail Borkin, who regularly advises people on how he can help them make money. The doctor, Lvov, an ‘honest’ man as he frequently reminds everyone else, tells Ivanov that his wife is dying of tuberculosis and that, in order to recover she needs to be sent to the Crimea. Unfortunately, Ivanov is unable, and unwilling, to pay for the trip. He is heavily in debt and already owes Zinaida Lebedeva 9,000 roubles.
Ivanov is criticised for heartlessness and for spending time with the Lebedevs instead of his seriously ill wife. At the end of Act 1 Ivanov leaves to attend a party at the Lebedevs’ and, unbeknown to him, is followed by Anna and Lvov.
Act 2
This shows a party at Lebedevs’ and features various people discussing Ivanov. They say his only motive for marrying Anna was for the large dowry but she suffered because when she married him, she was forced to convert from Judaism to Russian Orthodoxy and was disowned.
Lebedev is married to Zinaida, who manages his money-lending, and they have a daughter, Sasha, who is infatuated with Ivanov. During the party Sasha throws herself at Ivanov and he is unable to resist so that the act concludes with the two kissing. Unfortunately, Anna (his wife) arrives just this moment and witnesses the betrayal.
Act 3
A series of conversations between Ivanov and other members of the cast: Lebedev begs Ivanov to repay his debts, and Lvov confronts Ivanov once again about the heartless way he treats Anna.
Sasha then appears, concerned by Ivanov’s refusal to visit since the incident at the end of Act Two.
The act ends with Anna confronting Ivanov about Sasha’s visit, and about how he has lied and cheated on her for the entirety of their marriage. Ivanov’s anger is aroused by the false accusation and in a fit of anger he reveals to her, for the first time, the devastating news that she is dying.
Act 4
Cut to a year after the previous acts. Anna has died, and Sasha’s love for Ivanov has triumphed to the extent that they are preparing to get married.
As the wedding is about to begin, Lvov appears, intending to reveal to everyone his interpretation which is that Ivanov is only marrying Sasha for her dowry. He makes the accusation publicly but, although all the other characters had previously expressed doubts along the same lines, they all leap to Ivanov’s defence and challenge Lvov to duels.
Ivanov finds the whole situation amusing, returning to his old self, and takes out his gun. Sasha realises what he is about to do, but is unable to stop him: Ivanov runs away from the crowd and shoots himself, abruptly ending the play.
Animal imagery
I found the jovial bantering parts of the dialogue the most attractive while finding the hysteria surrounding the central protagonist ridiculous and his suicide wilful and silly. On a aide note, I also noticed and enjoyed the use of animal imagery throughout the play.
BORKIN: A man’s life is like a bright flower blooming in a meadow. A goat comes along and eats it up.
MRS BABAKIN: He made a big mistake marrying that wretched Jewess and now he gives her a terrible time – it’s enough to make a cat laugh.
AVDOTYA (an old lady): Look at all our young men – there they sit preening their feathers like a lot of wet hens.
LEBEDEV to SHABELSKY: This is a wedding, everyone’s enjoying themselves, but you go on like a dying duck in a thunderstorm.
Funny although sadly, this kind of light-heartedness doesn’t occur in the subsequent plays which focus almost entirely on the characters’ pathetic love lives. ‘It’s enough to make a cat laugh,’ I must find an opportunity to say that sometime.
Credit
Quotations are from the 1980 World’s Classic paperback edition of Five Plays by Anton Chekhov, translated by Ronald Hingley.
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