American Association of Teachers of Slavic and East European Languages

Chekhov in Performance: A Commentary to His Major Plays by J. L. StyanReview by: Thomas EekmanThe Slavic and East European Journal, Vol. 15, No. 4 (Winter, 1971), pp. 504-505Published by: American Association of Teachers of Slavic and East European LanguagesStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/306042 .

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504 The Slavic and East European Journal

J. L. Styan. Chekhov in Performance: A Commentary to His Major Plays. New York, Cambridge Univ. Press, 1971. vii, 341, $14.50.

After Magarshack's Chekhov the Dramatist and Valency's The Breaking String, this is the third book in English entirely devoted to Cexov's dramatic art: a fact attesting to the deep interest in Cexov's theater in the English speaking world, especially after World War II. For the Cexovist a rather unusual book, because unlike all other studies that have been written on Cexov's stage works, practically no reference is made to his prose. It gives us Cexov as the author of four plays and nothing else. Not only that: unlike the numerous studies on Cexov as a playwright written by literary his- torians, this book refers to no other dramatic or prose works in Russian literature (with rare exceptions; but the reference to Gogol"s Diary of a Madman on p. 209 is inexact), it does not adduce foreign examples or influences, nor does it embark in any discussion of literary values, in spite of the fact that Mr. Styan is a professor of English literature at the University of Michigan. However, he is the author of several books on the theater, and Chekhov in Performance leaves no doubt that the theater is his specialty. In this work he presents Cexov to us as seen exclusively from the spectator's point of view.

It must immediately be added that Professor Styan is an extraordinarily perspi- cacious spectator. Writing in a sophisticated manner, he makes lucid remarks regard- ing every small detail of the dialog, of Cexov's stage directions and comments, those of Stanislavskij and others. In order to write this way one must be truly deeply involved in the plays, immersed in their spirit. There is a general introduction to each of the four plays (The Seagull, Uncle Vanja, The Three Sisters, The Cherry Orchard), followed by a systematic, lengthy discussion of each of the four acts of each play. Gropingly sometimes, but in a subtle and at times revealing way Styan manages to penetrate to the very essence of the plays. The introduction to The Cherry Orchard, for instance, contains in my opinion some of the best passages that have been written on this work (but why does the author insist on calling Cexov's plays naturalistic?). It is a book which the lover of Cexov will reread to savor the innumerable true and profound observations on Cexov's four most important dramas.

Maybe this very reader will enjoy reading, for a change, a book on Cexov con- centrating on what happens on the stage, with hardly any reference to Cexov's biog- raphy, to "his Russia" (politically or socially), to other personalities, facts, or works from Russian literature, or to Cexov's own prose. However, I must admit that I do feel the miss of some of these aspects. References to Cexov's stories would have been elucidating in many instances; for example, compare the professor-hero of "A Dreary Story" and the almost simultaneously created Professor Serebrjakov of The Wood Demon and Uncle Vanja. The author, apparently not familiar with Russian, did not consult any Russian commentators on Cexov except those arbitrarily translated into English, like Stanislavskij and Nemirovi&-Dan'enko. Cexov's letters are utilized, but only those published in English selections. The whole extensive Soviet literature on Cexov's theater, from M. Grigor'ev in 1924 and S. D. Baluxatyj in 1927 via V. Ermilov (1948) and G. P. Berdnikov (1950 and 1957) to A. Roskin (1959) and A. I. Revjakin (cf. his monograph on The Cherry Orchard, 1960), remained unused except for a few short references in the footnotes. Consequently, some things are inevitably pointed out in Styan's book that have been said before. I am thinking in particular of Roskin's study on The Three Sisters in his book Cexov (1959), the most extensive commentary on this play, and one which contains much valuable material.

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Reviews 505

Styan's book is anything but a critical appraisal of Cexov's dramatic oeuvre. The question of the place and value of this oeuvre is hardly ever discussed; no argument is put forward against the remark of P. M. Bicilli in one of the most recently pub- lished Cexov studies, his book Anton P. Cechov: Das Werk und sein Stil (Munich, 1966) that one "must arrive at the conviction that Cexov's creative power failed whenever he wrote for the theater" (p. 125). There is not a single word of criticism in the book: it contains exclusively words of praise and approbation. It seems that whatever Cexov wrote was a priori infallible, and Styan sounds like a Talmudist expounding and commenting on the word of the Master. To mention one example: it would really not have been damaging to Cexov's reputation to point to the naive way in which he lets his heroes provide the public with the necessary information at the beginning of a play (especially in The Three Sisters but also in The Cherry Orchard and elsewhere); but this is passed over in silence.

Lack of knowledge of Russian was also the obvious reason that no more attention was paid to Cexov's first, embryonic play Platonov nor (in the part dealing with Uncle Vania) to The Wood Demon. This influences the chronology, too: Styan places Uncle Vanja after The Seagull, although the latter dates from 1895-96, whereas The Wood Demon, in which the main heroes of Uncle Van~a already appear in more or less the same constellation and with the same characters, was conceived in 1888 and finished in 1889 (it was probably revised as Uncle Vanja around the same time when Chekhov worked on The Seagull).

Within its limitations, this is a solid, original, valuable, and enjoyable book. Thomas Eekmanc, University of California, Los Angeles

BR. C. CoiOBmeB. <,CTIXOTBOpeIn ai

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Miinchen: Wilhelm Fink, 1968. 368, 88 pp., DM 48.

This volume contains reproductions of Solov'ev's humorous plays and of the seventh edition of his poems. Also included are the introductions and notes of the philoso- pher's nephew, Sergej Solov'ev, who was a minor symbolist poet and friend of Belyj and Blok. Although the plays appeared in 1922, nowhere is it mentioned that this edition of the poems was published in 1921 in Moscow. Reprints should always reproduce the original title page. Solov'ev's revealing photograph should have been inserted.

Vladimir Solov'ev (1853-1900) has no use for civic poetry because it is con- cerned with the transitory vanity of "evil life," but at the same time he demands that poetry be tendentious, that is, it should be theurgical and transcendental. His essentially romantic aesthetics is based on inspiration and the triad of the Good, Truthful, and Beautiful. It displays a disdain for the everyday and is basically con- cerned with transforming nature into eternal beauty. Solov'ev's frequent utilization of the ring construction (kol'co) alone shows how dependent his poetry is on 19th-

century Russian romantic verse, as do his usage of nature imagery to reflect the mood of the lyric "I" and avoidance of urban settings. His numerous literary articles (not included in this volume) are devoted mainly to the lyrics of Tjutiev, Polonskij, A. K. Tolstoj, and Fet, all of whom he examines from a predetermined viewpoint. Critically he confuses the poet with his work. Dramatic and narrative poetry as well as prose have minor significance for him. As is typical for his age, he has little regard

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