Czar

Here is a video of Nicholas II the Tzar of Russia during the first
production of Three Sisters. I really respond to visual things that get me
into the world of the play.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JD1zpzS5HtQ

Realism born... no, really

Chekhov, through the Moscow Art Theatre, made realism the new style.
During one of the rehearsals for "The Seagull", Chekhov had the note that
the actors were acting too much and they needed to start acting like real
people: "They act too much. It would be better if they acted a little more
as in life." Sounds so simple, but that is exactly what I have been
striving for through out my studies. How do I know the words, the
character(s), and the world of the play enough so that the words seem to
be coming from my own thoughts and feelings? To act vs. to be.
Stanislavsky was fasinated by this idea of embodying a play versus doing
an interpretaion. Chekhov wrote his plays about real people and the inner
struggle that all people HIDE from each other. Society tells us that our
personal struggles are too messy to share with others and so we keep them
inside. I think Chekhov explores what keeping our troubles inside can do
to a person, a relationship, a family.
Stanislavsky: "What is so wonderful about Chekhov's plays is not what is
transmitted by the words, but what is hidden under them, in the pauses, in
the glance of the actors, in the emanation of their innermost feelings."
Boom shakala! The words are not the hard part; they are there to help us.
The text of Chekhov is never the subtext.


"The Stanislavsky Heritage. Its Contribution to the Russian and American
Theatre" by Christine Edwards

Chekhov as existentialist?

A Princeton dissertation examining the melodramatist (someone immersed in
a situation, unable to see outside their own perspective) and the
metadramatist (stands apart, looking in at the conflict, the doctor) and
its relationship to Sartre's existentialism, Russian spirituality in
Chekhov's plays.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/19155271/Chekhovs-existentialism-The-ethics-of-outsidedness

~olivia

in quotation marks..

Some interesting quotes from Chekhov on his writing.

http://mockingbird.creighton.edu/NCW/chekwrit.htm

Including this great quote, "I still lack a political, religious and
philosophical world view — I change it every month — and so I'll have to
limit myself to descriptions of how my heroes love, marry, give birth,
die, and how they speak. — To Dmitry Grigorovich, October 9, 1888 "

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2455/is_n1_v32/ai_17156455/

Today's Famous People 'encounter' Chekhov

This is too crazy:

http://www.popeater.com/2010/10/21/celebrity-chekhov/

http://www.amazon.com/Celebrity-Chekhov-Stories-Anton-P-S/dp/0061990493

-Dylan

Russian vs American

Check out this website on Russian culture in contrast to American culture. Some very interesting, and useful stuff written.

http://www.goehner.com/russinfo.htm

Some favorite excerpts:
The Russian soul has been described as: sensitive, revere, imaginative, an inclination to tears [but not publicly]"

For Kulygin and Olga-

"'Higher Level Thinking Skills' is an unknown term in Russian education. Students are told what the answer is, not why the answer is what it is."

A life in letters

Anton Chehkov: a life
By Donald Rayfield

British Scholar, Donald Rayfield went through every letter, diary entry
Chehkov wrote in his adult life in order to piece together a week to week
breakdown of everything Chehkov was up to ever.

Lucky for us, the entire book is posted online.

http://books.google.com/books?id=9Z_vTUUYxkgC&printsec=frontcover&dq=anton+chekhov:+a+life&source=bl&ots=Ol_wov8S04&sig=6tFKykkqZgeo0qRrT5Yw3H8tI4o&hl=en&ei=PKjDTOP1IIL7lweShvQD&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=3&ved=0CB4Q6AEwAg#v=onepage&q&f=false

~olivia