A Sourcebook on Naturalist Theatre

by Christopher Innes (ed)

  As various commentators have noted, in addition several of the characters in The Cherry Orchard are based on stock figures in turn of the century Russian drama: the trivial and spendthrift female aristocrat, the greedy social-climbing capitalist, and the naively idealistic revolutionary student. In Ranevskaya, Lopakhin and Trofimov, Chekhov reverses these stereotypes, refusing the standard response to such characters, which confused some of the Moscow reviewers at the time of the first performance. One, for instance, expressed moral indignation at the play’s “lack of a clear-cut artistic design”, particularly citing Mme Ranevskaya and Trofimov as examples of a missing ethical purpose: “Ranevskaya is an aristocratic slut, of no use to anyone, who departs with impunity to join her Paris gigolo. And yet Chekhov has whitewashed her and surrounded her with a sort of sentimental halo. Similarly, that moldy ‘better future’ is something incomprehensible and unnatural” (Letter by Vladimir Korolenko, 2 September 1904). At the other extreme, those who took Trofimov as the stereotype of the revolutionary idealist, missing the ironic aspects of Chekhov’s characterization, turned the play into a political statement. Thus the censor demanded the deletion of two passages from Trofimov’s speeches in Act II – specifically the references to the Russian population living like savages, and to the cherry trees as embodiments of the peasants’ suffering in the past. Similarly Karpov, in the first published overview of Chekhov’s literary career (1904), and Korelenko, in a memorial article, both interpret The Cherry Orchard as the expression of striving for a better world and faith in the future.

  There is more secondary information about Chekhov’s dramatic intentions in writing The Cherry Orchard than for his other plays, through his daily correspondence with his wife during the period of its composition. Having retreated to Yalta for his failing health, Chekhov felt out of touch with what was happening in Moscow. And concern about Stanislavsky’s response to the novel qualities in the script, plus garbled newspaper accounts of the nature of the play (spread by an overly enthusiastic critical supporter of Chekhov, N. Efros), also led to an extensive exchange of letters with Stanislavsky, Nemirovich-Danchenko and others associated with the Moscow Art Theatre. Even when writing about production details, Chekhov’s letters offer insights into the concept of the play. Thus his comments on casting also summarize his views of the various characters, while the exchanges between Chekhov and Nemirovich-Danchenko help to define the emotional mood, or those with Stanislavky serve to fill in the physical context that Chekhov had envisaged while writing the dialogue. To give a sense of the developing concepts, the selection of extracts from this correspondence is given chronologically.

  5.4.1 Correspondence on The Cherry Orchard

  Translated by Constance Garnett, Elizabeth Hapgood, Michael Heim, Ronald Hingley, S. S. Koteliansky, S. Lederer and Elena Polyakova

  Anton Chekhov to M. P. Alexeyeva, 15 September 1903

  What has turned out isn’t a drama, but a comedy, in places even a farce …

  Anton Chekhov to Olga Knipper, 21 September 1903

  The last act will be joyful, just as the entire play is happy and frivolous.

  Anton Chekhov to Olga Knipper, 14 October 1903

  Keep well, pony, read the play, read it attentively. There is a horse in my play too […]

  I.

  Lyubov Andreyevna will be played by you since there is no one else. She is dressed with great taste, but not gorgeously. Clever, very good-natured, absent-minded; friendly and gracious to everyone, always a smile on her face.

  II.

  Anya. Absolutely must be played by a young actress […]

  IV.

  Gaev is for Vishnevsky. Ask Vishnevsky to listen to people playing billiards and to note down as many of the terms used as he can. I don’t play billiards, or rather did play once but have forgotten it all now and it is all put down at random in my play. We’ll talk it over with Vishnevsky later, and I’ll put in all that is necessary.

  V.

  Lopakhin. Stanislavsky […]

  VIII.

  Charlotta – is a question mark. I will put in some more of her sayings in the fourth act […] Charlotta plays a conjuring trick with Trofimov’s galoshes in the fourth act. Rayevskaya could not play it. It must be an actress with a sense of humour […]

  If the play will do, say that I will make any alterations required by stage conditions. I have the time, though I confess I am awfully sick of the play. If anything is not clear in it, write and tell me.

  The house is an old mansion; at one time people have lived in a very wealthy style in it, and this ought to be felt in the staging. Wealthy and comfortable.

  Varya is rather crude and rather stupid, but very good-natured.

  Anton Chekhov to Olga Knipper, 19 October 1903

  I am most worried about the static quality of the second act and a certain unfinished quality about the student Trofimov. You see Trofimov is in exile from time to time, and now and again thrown out of university, but how can these things be represented?

  Konstantin Stanislavsky to Anton Chekhov, 20 October 1903

  In my opinion your Cherry Orchard is your best play. I have fallen in love with it even more deeply than with our dear Seagull. It is not a comedy, not a farce, as you wrote – it is a tragedy, no matter if you do indicate a way out to a better world in the last act. It makes a tremendous impression, and this by means of half-tones, tender water-colour tints. There is a poetic and lyric quality to it, very theatrical: all the parts, including that of the vagrant, are brilliant […] I feel this is all too subtle for the public. It will take time for it to understand all the shadings […] It is so completely a whole that one cannot delete a single word from it. It may be that I am prejudiced, yet I cannot find any defect in this play – except one: it requires too great, too subtle actors to bring out all its charms. We shall never be able to do that. When we had our first reading together I was worried by one thing, I was instantly carried away, and my feelings were caught up in the play. This was not the case with The Seagull or The Three Sisters. I am accustomed to a rather vague impression from a first reading of your plays. So I was afraid that when I read it for the second time it would not capture me again. Nothing of the sort happened. I wept like a woman, I tried to control myself, but could not. I can hear you say: ‘But please, this is a farce’ […] No, for the ordinary person this is a tragedy.

  Anton Chekhov to Olga Knipper, 21 October 1903

  Nemirovich […] has sent me a telegram which describes Anya as being like Irina [in The Three Sisters] […] but Anya is as much like Irina as I am like Burdzhalov [a noted comic actor]. Anya is first and foremost a child, happy to the end, who has no awareness of life and isn’t at all tearful, apart from Act 2, where she only has tears in her eyes.

  Anton Chekhov to Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko, 23 October 1903

  You were as indignant as I was when I let your theatre have The Three Sisters and an announcement about it appeared in News of the Day. I spoke with Efros, and he gave me his word it would never happen again. Now I suddenly read that Ranevskaya is living abroad with Anya, that she is living with a Frenchman, that Act 3 takes place somewhere in a hotel, that Lopakhin is a kulak, a son of a bitch, and so on. What could I think […]

  Anya doesn’t cry once and never speaks in a tearful voice. She has tears in her eyes in Act 2 but her tone is happy and lively. Why do you talk in your telegram of all the crybabies in the play? Where are they? There’s only one – Varya – and she is tearful by nature but her tears mustn’t arouse a depressing feeling in the spectator. You’ll often come across the indication ‘through tears’ in my stage directions, but this is only an indication of the character’s mood, not one of actual tears. There’s no graveyard in the second act.

  Anton Chekhov to Olga Knipper, 25 October 1903

  I never wanted to make Ranevskaya into someone who had calmed down. Death alone can calm such a woman.

  Anton Chekhov to Olga Knipper, 28 October 1903

  No one but S
tanislavsky ought to play the merchant. You see, it is not a merchant, in the vulgar sense of the word, that must be understood […]

  Stanislavsky will make a very good and original Gaev, but then who will act Lopakhin? You see, Lopakhin is the central character. If it is not successful the whole play is done for. Lopakhin must not be played as a loud, noisy man; there is no need for him to be typically a merchant. He is a soft man.

  Anton Chekhov to Konstantin Stanislavsky, 30 October 1903

  Lopakhin may be a merchant, but he is a decent person in every sense; his behaviour must be entirely proper, cultivated and free of pettiness or clowning. I had the feeling you could do a brilliant job of this role, the central role in the play. If you take Gayev, give Lopakhin to Vishnevsky. He won’t be an artistic Lopakhin, but he won’t be a petty one either […] When you’re selecting an actor for the role, don’t forget that Varya, a serious and religious young lady, is in love with Lopakhin; she could never have loved a cute little kulak.

  Anton Chekhov to Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko, 2 November 1903

  1.

  Anya can be played by anyone at all, even a complete unknown as long as she is young and looks like a little girl and speaks in a youthful, vibrant voice […]

  2.

  Varya is a much more important role. What about having Maria Petrovna play her? Without Petrovna the role will seem flat and crude, and I’ll have to rework it, tone it down. Maria Petrovna doesn’t have to worry about being typecast, because in the first place she is a talented person, and in the second, Varya isn’t at all like Sonya or Natasha [in Uncle Vanya and The Three Sisters]; she wears black, she’s a nun, she’s slightly simple-minded, a crybaby, and so forth.

  3.

  Gayev and Lopakhin are for Konstantin Sergeyevich [Stanislavsky] to try out and choose from. If he were to take Lopakhin and do well in the role, the play would be a success. Because if Lopakhin is pallid, portrayed by a pallid actor, then both the role and the play are ruined.

  […]

  5.

  Charlotta is an important role. You can’t give it to Pomyalova, of course. Muratova might be good, but she’s not funny. This is Miss Knipper’s role.

  […]

  11.

  The stationmaster who recites “The Peccatrix” in the third act is for an actor with a bass voice.

  Charlotta speaks correct, not broken Russian, but every once in a while she hardens a final soft consonant and uses a masculin adjective with a feminine noun or vice versa. Pischick is a true Russian, an old man afflicted by gout, old age and too much to eat; he is stout and wears a long coat (a la Simov) and boots without heels. Lopakhin wears a white vest and yellow shoes; he takes big steps and waves his arms as he walks. He thinks while he walks and walks in a straight line. Since his hair is rather long, he often tosses his head back. When lost in thought, he strokes his beard from back to front, that is, from neck to mouth. Trofimov is clear I think. Varya wears a black dress with a wide belt.

  Konstantin Stanislavsky to Anton Chekhov, 26 October 1903

  Should the house be quite, or even very seedy? Lopakhin says he will demolish it. That means it’s really good for nothing at all […]

  A wooden house, or a stone one? Perhaps the middle part is stone and the wings wooden, the lower part is stone and the top wooden? […]

  In summer I recorded a shepherd’s horn on my phonograph. The same horn you enjoyed so much at Lyubimovka […] it will come in very useful.

  Anton Chekhov to Konstantin Stanislavsky, 5 November 1903

  The house is big, solid; wooden – or stone, it makes no difference. It’s very old and very large; people do not rent places like that for the summer. Places like that are usually torn down and the materials used to build vacation homes. Antique furniture, stylish, solid; bankruptcy and debt have left the furnishings untouched.

  People buy a house like that with the consideration that it is cheaper and easier to build anew than to repair the old.

  Your shepherd could certainly play. That exactly fits the bill.

  Konstantin Stanislavsky to Anton Chekhov, 2 November 1903

  I think I have just found the set for the first act. It is a very difficult set. The windows must be close enough to the front of the stage so that the cherry orchard will be seen from the whole auditorium; there are three doors; one would like to show a bit of Anya’s room, bright and virginal. The room is a passageway, but one must be made to feel that here (in the nursery) it is cosy, warm and light. Yet the room has fallen into disuse, there is a sense of emptiness about it. Moreover the set must be comfortable, and contain a number of planned acting areas.

  Anton Chekhov to Konstantin Stanislavsky, 10 November 1903

  Dunya and Yepikhodov stand in Lopakhin’s presence and don’t sit down. Lopakhin is very much at ease, behaves like a lord of the manor and is on familiar ‘thou’ terms with the servants. They use the unfamiliar ‘y°u’ form when addressing him.

  Konstantin Stanislavsky to Anton Chekhov, 19 November 1903

  I have been busy working on the second act and finally have it in shape. I think it will come out charmingly. Let’s hope the scenery will be successful: the little chapel, the ravine, the neglected cemetery in the middle of an oasis of trees in the open steppes. The left side and the centre will not have any wings. You will see only the far horizon. This will be produced by a single semi-circular backdrop, with attachments to deepen the perspective. In the distance you see the flash of a stream and the manor house on a slight rise, telegraph poles and a railway bridge. Do let us have a train go by with a puff of smoke in one of the pauses […] Before sundown there will be a brief glimpse of the town, and towards the end of the act, a fog: it will be particularly thick above the ditch downstage. The frogs and corncrakes will strike up at the very end of the act. To the left in the foreground a mown field and a small mound of hay, on which the scene is played by the group out walking. This is for the actors, it will help them get into the spirit of their parts. The general tone of the set is like that of a Levitan painting. The landscape is that of the province of Orel, not of lower Kursk.

  The work is now being carried on as follows: Nemirovich-Danchenko rehearsed the first act yesterday and I wrote [the plan for] the following acts […] I am still undecided about the sets for acts three and four. The model is made and came out well; it is full of atmosphere and it is also laid out so that all parts of it are visible to all in the auditorium. Down front there is something like a shrubbery. Further upstage are the stairs and billiard-room. The windows are painted on the walls. This set is more convenient for the ball. Still a small voice keeps whispering in my ear that if we have one set, which we change in the fourth act, it would be easier and cosier to play in.

  Anton Chekhov to Olga Knipper, 23 November 1903

  Konstantin Sergeyevich wants to bring in a train in Act 2, but I think it would be better to restrain him. He also wants frogs and corncrakes […]

  *

  As at least one Russian commentator (Ivan Bunin) noted, the whole concept of a cherry orchard was clearly symbolic, since there was nowhere in Russia that cherry trees were grown by themselves, and unlike flowering cherries (which produce no fruit), commercial trees have only small blossoms. Writing to Vera Komissarzhevskaya, Chekhov indicates the significance of the major image in the play, as the starting point for his composition:

  (1) I’ve got an idea for a play and a title for it (The Cherry Orchard, but that’s still a secret), and I’ll most likely settle down to writing no later than the end of February, provided of course I’m well; (2) the central role in the play is that of an old woman.

  (27 January 1903)

  This serves as a corrective to Stanislavsky’s claim that even after the script had been finished and was in rehearsal Chekhov “could not yet decide on the name” of his new play. But the conversation with Chekhov in the autumn of 1903, which Stanislavsky records, bears testimony to the importance of the title image:

  ‘Listen, I
have found a wonderful name for the play. A wonderful name,’ he declared … ’ Vishneviy Sad [The Cherry Orchard],’ and he rolled with happy laughter.

  I confess that I did not thoroughly understand the reason for his gladness, for I found nothing unusual in the name …

  ‘Listen, not Vishneviy but Vishnéviy Sad,’ he stated triumphantly and became all laughter.

  At first I did not even understand of what he was speaking, but Chekhov lovingly repeated the word, stressing the tender sound of the ‘e’ in the word as though he were trying to caress with its help the former beautiful life which was no longer necessary, which he himself lovingly and with tears was destroying in his play. This time I understood the great and yet delicate difference. Vishneviy Sad is a commercial orchard which brings in profit. Such an orchard is necessary to life even at the present. But Vishnéviy Sad brings no profits. It hides in itself and in all of its flowering whiteness the great poetry of the dying life of aristocracy. The Vishnéviy Sad grows for the sake of beauty, for the eyes of spoiled aesthetes. It is a pity to destroy it, but it is necessary to do so, for the economics of life demand it.