Genre originality Chekhov plays
Chekhov was not destined to write a novel, but the genre that synthesized all the motifs of his novels and short stories was “ new drama". It was in it that Chekhov's concept of life, its special feeling and understanding, were most fully realized.
At first glance, Chekhov's dramaturgy is a kind of historical paradox.
Indeed, at the turn of the century, in the period of a new social upsurge, when a premonition of a “healthy and strong storm” was brewing in society, Chekhov created plays in which there were no bright heroic characters, strong human passions, and people lose interest in mutual clashes, in a consistent and uncompromising struggle.
Why so? I think because, if Gorky writes at that time about people of active action, who, in their opinion, know how and what to do, then Chekhov writes about people who are confused, who feel that the old way of life has been destroyed, and the new that is coming to replace it more terrible, like everything unknown.
Longing, fermentation, restlessness become a fact of people's daily existence. It is on this historical soil that the “new Chekhov drama” with its own peculiarities of poetics that violate the canons of classical Russian and Western European drama.
First of all, Chekhov destroys the “through action”, key event, organizing plot unity classical drama. However, the drama does not fall apart, but is assembled on the basis of a different, internal unity. The fates of the characters, with all their differences, with all their plot independence, “rhyme”, echo each other and merge into a common “orchestral sound”.
With the disappearance through action in Chekhov's plays, the classical one-hero character, the concentration of the dramatic plot around the main, leading character, is also eliminated. The usual division of heroes into positive and negative, main and secondary is destroyed, each leads his own part, and the whole, as in a choir without a soloist, is born in the consonance of many equal voices and echoes.
Themes Chekhov's plays resonate with the multifaceted themes of the novel by F.M. Dostoevsky "Crime and Punishment". He wrote about the dominance in life of stupidity, frank egoism, about the “humiliated and offended”, about human relationships, about love, about the formation of a person in society, about moral experiences. Starting with Gogol, in the literature of the 19th century, “laughter through tears”, sympathetic laughter, quickly replaced by sadness, was established. Chekhov's laughter in plays is exactly like that.
Striving for the truth of life, for naturalness, he created plays not of purely dramatic or comedic, but of a very complex formation. In them, the dramatic is realized in an organic mixture with the comic, and the comic is manifested in an organic interweaving with the dramatic. a convincing example of this is the play "The Cherry Orchard". “I didn’t get a drama, but a comedy, in some places even a farce,” wrote Chekhov himself.
Indeed, we must admit that the basis of the play is by no means a dramatic, but a comedic beginning. Firstly, positive images, which Trofimov and Anya are, are shown not at all dramatic, in their inner essence they are optimistic. Second, the owner cherry orchard Gaev is also portrayed mainly comically. The comic basis of the play is clearly visible, thirdly, in the comic-sotyric depiction of almost all secondary actors: Epikhodova, Charlotte, Yasha, Dunyasha. "The Cherry Orchard" includes explicit Vaudeville motifs, expressed in jokes, tricks, jumps, dressing up Charlotte.
But contemporaries perceived new thing Chekhov as a drama. Stanislavsky wrote that for him "The Cherry Orchard" is not a comedy, not a farce, but first of all a tragedy. And he put The Cherry Orchard” in such a dramatic way.
Chekhov opened up new possibilities for portraying character in drama. It is revealed not in the struggle to achieve the goal, but in the experience of the contradictions of being. The pathos of action is replaced by the pathos of reflection. Chekhov's "subtext", or "undercurrent", unknown to the classical drama, appears. The heroes of Ostrovsky are wholly and completely realized in the word, and this word is devoid of ambiguity, firmly and firmly, like granite. In Chekhov's heroes, on the contrary, the meanings of the word are blurred, people can't fit into a word and can't exhaust themselves with a word. Something else is important here: the hidden emotional subtext that the characters put into words. Therefore, the call of the three sisters “To Moscow! To Moscow!" by no means meant Moscow with its specific address. These are vain, but persistent attempts of the heroines to break into a different life with different relationships between people. The same in the Cherry Orchard.
In the second act of the play, in the back of the stage, Epikhodov passes - the living embodiment of awkwardness and misfortune. The following dialogue appears:
LYUBOV ANDREYEVNA (thoughtfully). Epikhodov is coming...
Anya (thoughtfully). Epikhodov is coming...
Gaev. The sun has set, gentlemen.
Trofimov. Yes.
They talk formally about Epikhodov and the sunset, but in essence about something else. The souls of the heroes, through fragments of words, sing about the disorder and absurdity of their entire unfinished, doomed life. With outward inconsistency and incoherence of the dialogue, there is a spiritual inner rapprochement, to which some kind of cosmic sound responds in the drama: “Everyone is sitting, thinking. Silence. All you can hear is Firs mumbling softly. Suddenly there is a distant sound, as if from the sky, the sound of a broken string, fading sad.
Ostrovsky, to depict the drama of his heroes, takes an uneven course ordinary life, but as if breaks an event out of it. For example, the story of Katerina's death is an event that shocked the inhabitants of Kalinov, revealing the tragic doom of her position.
In Chekhov, the drama lies not only in events, but also in the usual everyday monotony everyday life. The play “Uncle Vanya” depicts the life of Serebryakov’s village estate in all its everyday life: people drink tea, walk, talk about current affairs, worries, dreams and disappointments, play the guitar… in the lives of Uncle Vanya and Sonya and, therefore, are not decisive for the content of the drama, although a shot was fired on the stage. The drama of the situation of the heroes is not in these random episodes, but in the monotony and hopeless way of life for them, in the useless waste of their strengths and abilities.
An important event that changes the lives of the characters rarely occurs, and those that do occur are often taken away by Chekhov from the action. For example, Treplev's suicide in The Seagull, or the duel in The Three Sisters. In an unchanging life, people rarely find happiness - it is difficult for them to do this, because. To do this, you need to overcome immutability and routine. Not everyone can do it. But happiness always coexists with separation, death, with "something" that interferes with it in all Chekhov's plays.
Chekhov's dramas are permeated by an atmosphere of general unhappiness. They don't have happy people. Their heroes, as a rule, are not lucky either in big or small: they all turn out to be failures in one way or another. In The Seagull, for example, there are five stories failed love, in The Cherry Orchard, Epikhodov with his misfortunes is the personification of the general inconsistency of life, from which all heroes suffer.
With rare exceptions, these are people of the most common professions: teachers, officials, doctors, etc. The fact that these people are not distinguished by anything other than the fact that their life is described by Chekhov allows us to assume that the life that Chekhov's heroes lead is lived by the majority of his contemporaries.
Chekhov's innovation as a playwright lies in the fact that he deviates from the principles of classical drama and reflects not only problems by dramatic means, but also shows the psychological experiences of the characters. Chekhov's dramaturgy conquered theater stage almost all countries of the world. And in our country there is no major artist theater, cinema, who did not name Chekhov among his teachers. And in confirmation of this, Chekhov's "Seagull" is depicted on the curtains of the Moscow Art Theater.
Similar abstracts:
The play is perceived by us as a sharp denunciation of the social ulcers of society, exposing those people whose thoughts and actions are far from moral standards behavior.
Continuing and deepening the best traditions of dramaturgy critical realism, Chekhov strove to ensure that his plays were dominated by the truth of life, unadorned, in all its usual, everyday life.
The plays by A.N. Ostrovsky "Thunderstorm" and A.P. Chekhov "The Cherry Orchard" are different both in terms of problems, and in mood, and in content, but artistic functions landscapes in both plays are similar.
The play The Cherry Orchard was written by Chekhov in 1903. This time went down in history as pre-revolutionary. During this period, many progressive writers tried to comprehend the existing state of the country.
Nobility in A.P. Chekhov's play "The Cherry Orchard" Anton Pavlovich Chekhov is a great Russian writer and playwright, whose plays invariably arouse admiration from audiences all over the world. The originality of Chekhov's plays is in the new relationship between external and internal action. The external action of Chekhov's plays is everyday, about...
The end of Chekhov's life came at the beginning of a new century, new era, new moods, aspirations and ideas. Such is the inexorable law of life: what was once young and full of strength becomes old and decrepit, giving way to a new, young and strong life.
Peculiarities of Chekhov's dramaturgy, aesthetics of plays, their genre variety. Chekhov's dramaturgy contemporary theater, the possibility of new interpretations.
Consider Chekhov's stories. Lyrical mood, piercing sadness and laughter... Such are his plays - unusual plays, and even more so seemed strange to Chekhov's contemporaries.
All representatives of the nobility are shown by Chekhov in the play as incapable of independent existence.
Genre originality of the play by A.P. Chekhov
Introduction
"The Cherry Orchard" (1903) - last play A.P. Chekhov. By the time it was written, Chekhov was already a well-known playwright, the author of such plays as "The Seagull", "Uncle Vanya", "Three Sisters". Even during the life of the writer M. Gorky called his plays "a new kind dramatic art».
The play, conceived by Chekhov in 1901, was written, printed and staged at the Moscow Art Theater three years after the idea was born. In a letter to V. I. Nemirovich-Danchenko, the playwright wrote: “... I didn’t get a drama, but a comedy, in some places even a farce.” But, as with Chekhov's previous plays, the directors and the audience first of all heard the dramatic sound, and great director K.S. Stanislavsky even convinced the author that he was mistaken, did not understand his own plan: “This is not a comedy, not a farce, as you wrote, this is a tragedy, whatever the outcome a better life you didn't open in the last act." Chekhov was irritated and in one of his letters he was indignant because his play was called a drama. And he summed up the sad result: "Stanislavsky ruined my play."
Thus, from "the very moment of writing to this day, disputes about the genre of this Chekhov's work continue" [Gromov, 1989:53]. In big school encyclopedia» In 2001, the genre is defined, for example, as a psychological drama. To solve the genre question is quite difficult. And the problem that was relevant for fans of Chekhov's work at the beginning of the 20th century is still relevant today. What genre should the play "The Cherry Orchard" be attributed to? What is its genre identity.
To answer these questions, we need to turn to the theory of literature, as well as to the analysis of the work under study.
Item our work - genre originality.
An object of our work - a play by A.P. Chekhov "The Cherry Orchard"
Target our job is to explore genre features plays by A.P. Chekhov "The Cherry Orchard".
The goal led to the formulation of the following tasks:
Define the genre
Describe the main genres of dramaturgy.
To uncover ideological originality plays by A.P. Chekhov.
Explore the play "The Cherry Orchard" and try to determine its genre.
In this study, we will use descriptive method.
Work structure. This work consists of an introduction, the main part (two chapters), a conclusion and a list of references.
On the innovation of Chekhov the playwright
As you know, classical dramaturgy was dominated by the "action theater" (remember the plays by Griboyedov, Gogol, Ostrovsky). The conflict was based on the struggle of characters, the clash of the hero with circumstances, with an environment hostile to him. In Chekhov's plays, there is no traditional dramatic conflict; there are no obvious confrontations and clashes in them. The author's attention is focused on the internal state of the characters. The action is driven not by the logic of the actions of the characters, but by the development of their thoughts and experiences, deeply hidden from the outside world. Creating works for the theater, Chekhov followed the installation: “Let everything on the stage be as complicated and at the same time just as simple as in life. People dine, only dine, and at this time their happiness is built up and their lives are broken.
Plays
Thus,
o-novatorstve-chehova-dramaturga
The works of A.P. Chekhov "The Seagull", "Uncle Vanya", "Three Sisters", "The Cherry Orchard" opened new stage in the development of Russian and world dramaturgy. In his plays, Chekhov acted as a reformer of the classical theater. The “mood theatre” he created violated traditions and was built according to new principles.
As you know, classical dramaturgy was dominated by the "action theater" (remember the plays by Griboyedov, Gogol, Ostrovsky). The conflict was based on the struggle of characters, the clash of the hero with circumstances, with an environment hostile to him. In Chekhov's plays, there is no traditional dramatic conflict; there are no obvious confrontations and clashes in them. The author's attention is focused on the internal state of the characters. The action is driven not by the logic of the actions of the characters, but by the development of their thoughts and experiences, deeply hidden from the outside world. Creating works for the theater, Chekhov followed the installation: “Let everything on the stage be as complicated and at the same time just as simple as in life. People dine, only dine, and at this time their happiness is built up and their lives are broken.
The innovation of Chekhov the playwright was also manifested in his approach to creating a system of images. The writer warned that one should not look for “neither saints nor scoundrels” in his plays, that his rule is not to bring out either villains or angels, not to accuse anyone, not to justify anyone. Therefore, Chekhov's characters are depicted not in collision with each other, but in
Thinking about the meaning of life. Important role at the same time, Chekhov assigns off-stage characters who become invisible participants in the action.
Plays
"mood theater" demanded new artistic means capable of expressing the author's worldview. So, Chekhov's dramaturgy is distinguished by
A new type of dialogue in which each of the participants leads his own party, says "random remarks" that are not related to the statements of the interlocutors. Chekhov's dialogue is polyphonic. Using this technique, the author develops the theme of loneliness, disunity, alienation, at the same time creating the internal plot of the play, forming its subtext. The presence of an "undercurrent" -
Subtext - also is characteristic feature Chekhovian dramaturgy.
Of particular importance in Chekhov's plays are
Remarks. They perform not only an informational and descriptive function, as in the drama of the "theater of action", but also "voice" the play, transmit internal state characters. Chekhov's use of pauses was also innovative. If in a play of classical dramaturgy the hero expressed bewilderment or surprise with the help of a pause, then in the new drama the pause becomes an important temporal factor behind which the course of life is hidden.
Thus,
Chekhov's innovation as a playwright consists in depicting everyday events, transferring the dramatic conflict into a lyrical and psychological subtext, creating ambiguous character images, using polyphonic dialogues, "sounding" remarks and pauses, and symbolic images.
At the core lyrical comedies Chekhov, as we have seen, lies the conflict of man
with its environment, or more broadly - a completely modern system as a whole,
contrary to the most natural, undeniable freedom-loving aspirations
person. Such is the source of the dramatic beginning in the plays of Chekhov, the speaker
in the shape of lyrical reflections characters, and after them the author himself.
Thus, the lyrical beginning in Chekhov's plays is a dramatic beginning,
talking about drama human existence in the conditions of the social order,
alien to humanity, based on the suppression of the human personality,
desecration of the most elementary representations about truth, freedom and
justice. Thus, the lyrical beginning of Chekhov's dramaturgy was
a peculiar form of expression of the thought that has matured in the broad masses of the people about
What is the origin of the comedy of the Chekhov theater?
We have already seen that Chekhov in his works not only relies on
thoughts and feelings of heroes close to him, but also shows their weakness,
overwhelmed by circumstances, their failure in life, their
inconsistency with the ideal that the author claims. The same thought
repeatedly expressed by Chekhov himself, challenging the interpretation of some of his
plays by the Moscow Art Theater. “Here you are talking,” quotes the words
playwright A. Serebrov (Tikhonov), - that they cried at my plays ... Yes, and not you
one ... But I didn’t write them for this, it was Alekseev who made them like that
whiny. I wanted something else ... I just wanted to honestly tell people:
"Look at yourself, look how bad and boring you all live! .."
the main thing is that people understand this, and when they understand this, they will certainly
create for themselves another, better life…”.
In the works of V. Ermilov, the idea was expressed that “offensive nonsense,
the ugliness of the social system, which created the unbearable burden of life,
opened for Chekhov at the same time in their gloomy, tragic and, together with
the comically absurd essence. The comic of absurdity is really extremely
widely represented in the work of Chekhov, especially in early works 80-
x years. However, speaking about the nature of the comic Chekhovian dramaturgy,
have to choose more broad definition comic. After all, "... funny
comedy, - says Belinsky, - follows from the incessant contradiction
phenomena by the laws of higher reasonable reality. Applied to comedy
Chekhov, this position of V. G. Belinsky should be understood as not
the correspondence of certain traits of a person’s character, the worldview of people, their
life practice, social reality in general to the approved
playwright to the ideal, or, in the words of Belinsky, affirmed by the author
the law of "higher rational reality".
In 1892 Chekhov, talking about contemporary literature, said in a letter to
A. S. Suvorin: “Remember that the writers whom we call eternal or
simply good and which intoxicate us, have one thing in common and very important
a sign: they are going somewhere and they call you there, and you feel not with your mind, but
their being, that they have some purpose, like the shadow of Hamlet's father,
which not without reason came and disturbed the imagination. The best of them are real and
write life as it is, but the fact that each line
impregnated, like juice, with the creation of a goal, you, apart from life as it is,
you still feel the life that should be, and this captivates you. Chekhov himself with
with his inherent speed and self-criticism did not consider himself among such
writers. However, it is difficult to find more precise words to characterize
the most important feature is Chekhov's creativity, in which indeed
each line, like juice, is saturated with creation high purpose human
The inconsistency of heroes with this ideal is the most general, comprehensive
source of Chekhov's comic dramaturgy, in one form or another concerning
all actors. This general discrepancy appears in various
manifestations, giving rise to the most diverse shades of the comic from that of his
edge where it is still inseparably merged with the tragic and not at all funny, and
ending with outright farce. As we have seen, the logic of Chekhov's development is
playwright led him to an increasingly vivid exposure of the comic inconsistency
the real life appearance of the characters, not only approved by the author
ideal, but also to the ideas expressed by the characters themselves.
Forms of manifestation and nature of the discrepancy between views, worldviews of that
different. First of all, these are those cases when both the worldview of a person and his
behavior are in direct conflict with the author's idea of
norm of human relations, with its basic ethical principles. IN
In this case, Chekhov is merciless to his characters. In other cases, this
the contradiction is not so clear. Suitable for this category
most of the characters in the measure of their deviation from the author's
ethical norm. And it is already quite obvious that all the actors
Chekhov's theater are more or less in conflict with the
happy life of a free, harmoniously developed person.
The innovation of Chekhov, the playwright, as well as Chekhov, the prose writer, was
fertilized not only by its strong ties with the previous
realistic literature, but also a living connection with modernity, which
opened before him real opportunity make a significant new contribution to
development of dramatic art. Innovative drama system
Chekhov was prompted not only by the needs further development Russian
performing arts. She was called to life general position in Russian
society, social life country on the eve of revolution.
The emergence of Chekhov's theater turned out to be possible precisely at the turn of the twentieth century.
century, when the broad masses of the people matured and strengthened confidence in
life. This thought, which fertilized Chekhov's work as a whole, formed part of
basis of his dramaturgy.
Usually when we are talking O comparative analysis Chekhov's dramaturgy and
Gorky, the researchers point, on the one hand, to the thematic
the similarity of the works of both writers, on the other hand, the similarity
stylistic. All this is undoubtedly true and very significant. Not
by chance, Gorky himself emphasized this feature of his dramaturgy,
calling their plays scenes. And yet we have to admit that no matter how important
all these external signs bringing together the dramaturgy of Gorky and Chekhov, they
are only a consequence of their more essential generality.
As we have seen, Chekhov managed to subordinate all compositional stylistic
features of their theater disclosure
1 - Berdnikov G. Chekhov-playwright. M., 1982, p.55.
worldview of the actors in that very common basis, which
allowed to show the deep conflict of a person with the whole system of modern
life in its ordinary, everyday manifestation. Thus, he not only discovered
transfer to the scene of life in its natural course, but also showed how
rise from it to a big, philosophical, ideological question,
affecting the foundations of the human social event. This feature of the theater
Chekhov formed the basis of Gorky's dramaturgy.
Thus, in the Gorky Theater, a dramatic struggle of characters arises,
rejected by Chekhov. But this fight is resurrected on new basis, including
and Chekhov's formulation of the question of the worthlessness of the bourgeois system. resurrection
Gorky - the playwright antagonistic struggle was, therefore,
return to the principles of dramaturgy and Griboyedov, and Turgenev, and
Ostrovsky, but on a new basis, largely prepared
Chekhov. This means that the dramaturgy of M. Gorky marked
a new step in the development of dramatic art, qualitatively different from
pre-Chekhov and Chekhov dramaturgy.
Both Gorky and Chekhov in the pre-revolutionary environment created works
imbued with romantic aspirations for the coming renewal of life. Gorky
was close to Chekhov's desire to awaken in people the conviction that further
it is impossible to live, Chekhov's aspiration for the future, a joyful foreboding
coming cleansing storm. Chekhov had a powerful influence on the young
Gorky with his works, full of denial of the existing system and
dreams of another worthy of a man life. As for the topic of the future
storms, then, apparently, their roles changed. Already the figure of Gorky -
recognized petrel of the revolution - was for Chekhov a kind of sign
time, living evidence that Russia is on the eve of
revolutionary storm.
Genre originality of Chekhov's plays
Chekhov was not destined to write a novel, but the “new drama” became a genre that synthesized all the motifs of his novels and short stories. It was in it that Chekhov's concept of life, its special feeling and understanding, were most fully realized.
At first glance, Chekhov's dramaturgy is a kind of historical paradox.
And in fact, at the turn of the century, at the time of the onset of a new social upsurge, when a premonition of a “healthy and strong storm” was brewing in society, Chekhov creates plays in which there are no bright heroic characters, strong human passions, and people lose interest in mutual clashes. to a consistent and uncompromising struggle.
Why so? I think because, if Gorky writes at that time about people of active action, who, in their opinion, know how and what to do, then Chekhov writes about people who are confused, who feel that the old way of life has been destroyed, and the new that is coming to replace it more terrible, like everything unknown.
Longing, fermentation, restlessness become a fact of people's daily existence. It is on this historical soil that the “new Chekhovian drama” is growing up with its own peculiarities of poetics that violate the canons of classical Russian and Western European drama.
First of all, Chekhov destroys the "through action", the key event that organizes the plot unity of the classical drama. However, the drama does not fall apart, but is assembled on the basis of a different, internal unity. The fates of the characters, with all their differences, with all their plot independence, “rhyme”, echo each other and merge into a common “orchestral sound”.
With the disappearance of cross-cutting action in Chekhov's plays, the classical one-hero character, the concentration of the dramatic plot around the main, leading character, is also eliminated. The usual division of heroes into positive and negative, main and secondary is destroyed, each leads his own part, and the whole, as in a choir without a soloist, is born in the consonance of many equal voices and echoes.
The themes of Chekhov's plays echo the multifaceted themes of F.M. Dostoevsky "Crime and Punishment". He wrote about the dominance in life of stupidity, frank egoism, about the “humiliated and offended”, about human relationships, about love, about the formation of a person in society, about moral experiences. Starting with Gogol, in the literature of the 19th century, “laughter through tears”, sympathetic laughter, quickly replaced by sadness, was established. Chekhov's laughter in plays is exactly like that.
Striving for the truth of life, for naturalness, he created plays not of purely dramatic or comedic, but of a very complex formation. In them, the dramatic is realized in an organic mixture with the comic, and the comic is manifested in an organic interweaving with the dramatic. a convincing example of this is the play "The Cherry Orchard". “I didn’t get a drama, but a comedy, in some places even a farce,” wrote Chekhov himself.
Indeed, we must admit that the basis of the play is by no means a dramatic, but a comedic beginning. Firstly, positive images, such as Trofimov and Anya, are shown not at all dramatic, in their inner essence they are optimistic. Secondly, the owner of the cherry orchard, Gaev, is also portrayed mainly comically. The comic basis of the play is clearly visible, thirdly, in the comic-sotyric depiction of almost all the minor characters: Epikhodov, Charlotte, Yasha, Dunyasha. "The Cherry Orchard" includes explicit Vaudeville motifs, expressed in jokes, tricks, jumps, dressing up Charlotte.
But contemporaries perceived Chekhov's new work as a drama. Stanislavsky wrote that for him "The Cherry Orchard" is not a comedy, not a farce, but first of all a tragedy. And he staged The Cherry Orchard in that dramatic vein.
Chekhov opened up new possibilities for portraying character in drama. It is revealed not in the struggle to achieve the goal, but in the experience of the contradictions of being. The pathos of action is replaced by the pathos of reflection. Chekhov's "subtext", or "undercurrent", unknown to the classical drama, appears. The heroes of Ostrovsky are wholly and completely realized in the word, and this word is devoid of ambiguity, firmly and firmly, like granite. In Chekhov's heroes, on the contrary, the meanings of the word are blurred, people can't fit into a word and can't be exhausted by a word. Something else is important here: the hidden emotional subtext that the characters put into words. Therefore, the call of the three sisters “To Moscow! To Moscow!" by no means meant Moscow with its specific address. These are vain, but persistent attempts of the heroines to break into a different life with different relationships between people. The same in the Cherry Orchard.
In the second act of the play, in the back of the stage, Epikhodov passes - the living embodiment of awkwardness and misfortune. The following dialogue appears:
LYUBOV ANDREYEVNA (thoughtfully). Epikhodov is coming...
Anya (thoughtfully). Epikhodov is coming...
Gaev. The sun has set, gentlemen.
Trofimov. Yes.
They talk formally about Epikhodov and the sunset, but in essence about something else. The souls of the heroes, through fragments of words, sing about the disorder and absurdity of their entire unfinished, doomed life. With the outward inconsistency and awkwardness of the dialogue, there is a spiritual inner rapprochement, to which some kind of cosmic sound responds in the drama: “Everyone is sitting, thinking. Silence. All you can hear is Firs mumbling softly. Suddenly there is a distant sound, as if from the sky, the sound of a broken string, fading sad.
To depict the drama of his heroes, Ostrovsky does not take the smooth course of ordinary life, but, as it were, breaks an event out of it. For example, the story of Katerina's death is an event that shocked the inhabitants of Kalinov, revealing the tragic doom of her position.
In Chekhov, the drama lies not only in events, but also in the usual everyday monotony of everyday life. The play “Uncle Vanya” depicts the life of Serebryakov’s village estate in all its everyday life: people drink tea, walk, talk about current affairs, worries, dreams and disappointments, play the guitar… in the lives of Uncle Vanya and Sonya and, therefore, are not decisive for the content of the drama, although a shot was fired on the stage. The drama of the situation of the heroes is not in these random episodes, but in the monotony and hopeless way of life for them, in the useless waste of their strengths and abilities.
An important event that changes the lives of the characters rarely occurs, and those that do occur are often taken away by Chekhov from the action. For example, Treplev's suicide in The Seagull, or the duel in The Three Sisters. In an unchanging life, people rarely find happiness - it is difficult for them to do this, because. To do this, you need to overcome immutability and routine. Not everyone can do it. But happiness always coexists with separation, death, with "something" that interferes with it in all Chekhov's plays.
Chekhov's dramas are permeated by an atmosphere of general unhappiness. They don't have happy people. Their heroes, as a rule, are not lucky either in big or small: they all turn out to be failures in one way or another. In "The Seagull", for example, there are five stories of unsuccessful love, in "The Cherry Orchard" by Epikhodov with his misfortunes - the personification of the general awkwardness of life, from which all heroes suffer.
With rare exceptions, these are people of the most common professions: teachers, officials, doctors, etc. The fact that these people are not distinguished by anything other than the fact that their life is described by Chekhov allows us to assume that the life that Chekhov's heroes lead is lived by the majority of his contemporaries.
Chekhov's innovation as a playwright lies in the fact that he deviates from the principles of classical drama and reflects not only problems by dramatic means, but also shows the psychological experiences of the characters. Chekhov's dramaturgy conquered the theater scene in almost all countries of the world. And in our country there is no major artist of theater, cinema, who did not name Chekhov among his teachers. And in confirmation of this, Chekhov's "Seagull" is depicted on the curtains of the Moscow Art Theater.
