Play by A.P. Chekhov " The Cherry Orchard"(1903), for all its consonance with the time of writing, has not lost its relevance many decades later. Let us explain this fact simply: the problems raised in the work are timeless. Genre definition, given by the playwright himself, only confirms this position: in the play everything is, as in life, where the sad often coexists with the funny.

The play's image system and its central conflict Central image plays - the cherry orchard, around which all events unfold, connects the heroes of the comedy. They can be divided into three groups: the older generation (Ranevskaya, Gaev), the middle generation (represented by Lopakhin), the younger generation (Anya, Petya Trofimov). There is a feeling that three time layers are intertwined in the play. The contrast between the past, present and future of Russia constitutes the conflict of the play.

The cherry orchard becomes for Ranevskaya and Gaev a symbol of the past, a symbol of beauty, hope and connection with the roots. Isolation from real life, in which it is necessary to engage in everyday affairs, generosity of soul and kindness to everyone around him characterize the image of Lyubov Andreevna Ranevskaya. She does not blame anyone for her problems, but at the same time she does not try to solve them. The entire heroine is turned to the past, living in a fictional world with memories of the long past. The hope for a miraculous resolution of the complex issue of saving the estate reveals the inability of Ranevskaya and Gaev to focus on the present and the future. The present time appears in the image of the enterprising Ermolai Lopakhin, a representative of the bourgeois class, an active and hardworking person. The image of Lopakhin is dual and contradictory: he cannot live only in the world of profit, but he does not know how to live otherwise. He remembers the kindness of Lyubov Andreevna and therefore undertakes to help Ranevskaya with her decision difficult question. But the businessman’s streak is already strong in Lopakhino, and the solution to the problem through cutting down the garden and building dachas does not seem to him, like Ranevskaya, something tragic. Beauty and spirituality are easily sacrificed to expediency and pragmatism. But it’s not just for the sake of profit that the cherry orchard is dying under the ax. Ermolai Lopakhin is trying to erase the memory of his origin: “If my father and grandfather stood up from their graves and looked at the whole incident, like their Ermolai, the beaten, illiterate Ermolai, who ran barefoot in the winter, how this same Ermolai bought an estate, more beautiful than which there is nothing in the world. I bought an estate where my grandfather and father were slaves, where they were not even allowed into the kitchen.” Material from the site

Petya Trofimov and Anya represent a new generation that is replacing the past and present of Russia. Anya is not as strongly attached to the cherry orchard as her mother. Petya greets the future: “Hello, new life! Although all his judgments are somewhat superficial and not without posturing. Behind the slogans there is no real idea of ​​​​the structure of the future. He, like Lopakhin, does not care about the fate of the cherry orchard; it is too small for Trofimov’s “mighty” nature: “All of Russia is our garden. The earth is great and beautiful, there are many wonderful places on it.”

The author's position is not contained in the image of some hero of the play, it is realized in the development of the conflict itself. Three time layers converge at one point, but the representatives different generations They don’t hear each other, but seem to be just waiting for the X hour, the fateful moment. The feeling of doom and discontent experienced by all the characters in The Cherry Orchard intensifies at the end of the play. The ending remains open, receiving a dramatic sound in the sound of a broken string. The sound of axes cutting down the cherry orchard and the sick Firs, forgotten by everyone, receive a symbolic sound.

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The dramatic conflict of the play by A.P. Chekhov's "The Cherry Orchard"

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, to find a way out of the numerous contradictions that engulfed Russia at the beginning of the 20th century. Anton Pavlovich Chekhov also tried to solve pressing problems in his own way. His “The Cherry Orchard” became a kind of result of the writer’s long creative quest.

“The Cherry Orchard” is a multifaceted work. Chekhov touched upon many problems in it that have not lost their relevance today. But the main issue is, of course, the question of contradictions between the old and new generations. These contradictions underlie the dramatic conflict of the play. The outgoing world of nobles is contrasted with representatives of the new society.

Chekhov does not endow representatives of the nobility with those despotic features that we see in the works of other authors. Ranevskaya and Gaev appear before readers as decent, honest people. So, speaking about Ranevskaya, Chekhov characterized her as a “gentle, very kind” woman. Lopakhin speaks gratefully about Ranevskaya. Pyotr Trofimov expresses his gratitude to Lyubov Andreevna for sheltering the “eternal student.” Ranevskaya and Gaev treat the servants warmly. But everyone positive traits The owners of the cherry orchard are contrasted with their dependent lifestyle. “To own living souls - after all, this has reborn all of you,” Petya Trofimov says about them. In earlier versions, instead of the word “reborn” it was written more categorically - “corrupted”.

Ranevskaya and Gaev cannot do anything on their own; they always need someone’s help. The absurdity of such a state is conveyed by Chekhov in the very behavior of these heroes. Ranevskaya's natural kindness cannot bring joy. Being on the verge of complete ruin, she squanders money: she gives money to a beggar passerby; Lyubov Andreevna spends almost all her funds, allocated by her rich grandmother to buy out the garden, on her Parisian lover. Performing such “acts of beneficence”, she forgets about her daughter Anya, does not think about future fate Vari.

The doom of Ranevskaya and Gaev is obvious to Chekhov. The writer shows this doom in the very speech of the characters. Gaev constantly utters some strange phrases with billiard terms, a monologue is heard addressed to an old closet. Ranevskaya and Gaev naively believe that they can still buy the garden possible, but they are not adapted to independent life and cannot take a single effective measure to save their possessions.

Not only Ranevskaya and Gaev are doomed, everything is doomed noble society. The absurdity of the existence of this class is confirmed by the image of Simeonov-Pishchik, who claims, after reading, that “you can make counterfeit money.” The Yaroslavl aunt, who is mentioned in conversations, gives ten thousand to buy a garden, but gives it on the condition that it be bought in her name.

This noble circle is opposed to “ new person" Lopakhin. However, according to Chekhov, he is not a worthy replacement for the past generation. Lopakhin is a businessman. And all of it good qualities: understanding of beauty, deep spiritual impulses _ All this is drowned out in him by the desire for enrichment. Talking about his plans, Lopakhin mentions that he wants to sow poppy fields. He describes the picture of blooming poppies, their beauty, but all these thoughts are interrupted by Lopakhin’s mention of the expected revenue. No, this is not the kind of hero Chekhov wants to see!

The old generation is being replaced by people of a new type. This is Anya Ranevskaya and Petya Trofimov.

Anya dreams of a new happy and have a wonderful life: pass exams for a gymnasium course and live by your own labor. She imagines a new, flourishing Russia.

Chekhov was not a revolutionary. Therefore, he was unable to find a real way out of the crisis in which Russia was. The writer deeply sympathizes with the new phenomena occurring in the country; he hates the old way of life. Many writers have continued Chekhov's traditions. And at this time, in 1903, Gorky was already creating the novel “Mother,” in which he found a solution to the questions that Chekhov was pondering.

"The Cherry Orchard" by A.P. Chekhov: In Search of Lost Time*

The nature of action, genre values, compositional techniques, ideological guidelines, methods of symbolization and generalization, parameters of space and time, principles of characterization, communicative features of Chekhov's dramaturgy in The Cherry Orchard are revealed, perhaps, more clearly than in any other play by this author. "The Cherry Orchard" closes the circle of the formation of Anton Chekhov's Theater, coming very close in its poetics to the miniatures of his own vaudevilles. Meanwhile, the noted crystallization of the figurative properties of Chekhov's dramaturgy paradoxically coincided with the deepening of discrepancies and contradictions in its interpretation.

The dispute about the genre priorities of The Cherry Orchard is well known, going back to differences in A.P.’s understanding of them. Chekhov and K.S. Stanislavsky. Is the play a comedy or a drama, a tragedy or a farce? V.E. expressed his authoritative opinion on this matter already in 1904. Meyerhold. Meanwhile, Chekhov’s own intention to write a “fun play” for the Moscow Art Theater, which first arose back in 1901, subsequently remained unchanged. In 1903, in a series of letters, Chekhov clarified the details of the comedy plan. The central role in the play will belong to the “old woman,” wrote playwright V.F. Komissarzhevskaya. “You will play stupid,” he assured O.L. Knipper. “If my play doesn’t turn out the way I planned it, then hit me on the forehead with your fist. Stanislavsky has a comic role, and so do you.” In the 1904 Moscow Art Theater performance, Knipper played the role of Ranevskaya, and Stanislavsky played Gaev. It was with these images that the “tragic-dramatic” representations of directing were primarily associated. “I will call the play a comedy,” wrote V.I. Chekhov. Nemirovich-Danchenko. “What I came out with was not a drama, but a comedy, sometimes even a farce,” he insisted, addressing the performer of the role of Anya M.P. Lilina. And even after the play was shown to the public, and the obvious discrepancies in the understanding of “The Cherry Orchard” became a stage reality, Chekhov continued to appeal to Knipper. “Why is it that on posters and in newspaper advertisements my play is so persistently called a drama? Nemirovich and Alekseev see in my play positively something other than what I wrote, and I am ready to give any word that they never read my play carefully".

Since then, “The Cherry Orchard” has been read and re-read countless times, each time with its own proofreading. I will try once again to carefully read some pages of the play in connection with certain circumstances surrounding its appearance and existence. No more. And even less. I intend to analyze only the first two pages of the text in real detail. However, first you should look at the Cherry Orchard poster.

On the list characters What attracts attention is a record number of significant lower-class characters for Chekhov - servants. Looking ahead, I will note that in terms of their dramatic functions, they are all clowns. Clowns and heroes with clown functions are present in almost every Chekhov play. Meanwhile, in The Cherry Orchard almost all of its characters are clowns. Absolute clowns - Simeonov-Pishchik, Charlotte Ivanovna, Epikhodov, Firs, Yasha, Dunyasha. Persons with clowning - Ranevskaya and Gaev (the latter reveals a clear tendency towards absolute clowning). Anya and Trofimov are nothing more and nothing less than a couple of comic simpletons in love. Trofimov's pathetic monologues often sound like a paraphrase of the monologues of the clown Gaev, and Anya, as we know from Chekhov himself, is “a child, cheerful to the end.” In its own way, the “child” (in social terms) and her Petya, who, as Ranevskaya notes, does not know real, practical life. “The Eternal Student” is a “role” in itself that is, of course, comedic. Finally, the relationship between Varya and Lopakhin also shows a comedic interpretation and is associated with the central situation of Gogol’s “Marriage”. In Chekhov, such transparent associations are never accidental.

The scene of the first act is "a room that is still called children's", while in the play no one has children of the appropriate tender age." Blooming cherry trees but in the garden cold, matinee". So, two “shifts” in time, indicating an obvious temporal discrepancy, are hidden already in the first remark.

What happens in the first scene? What is its effect? Expectation. Waiting as action. In terms of events, nothing happens; at the same time, the actual content of the scene is so intense and tense that at the end of the episode, after its resolution, Dunyasha is close to fainting. We still do not know anything about the nature of Dunyasha’s extreme delicacy and sensitivity, and therefore the word “fainting” is perceived as identical to itself. The “intense” action unfolds at two o’clock in the morning (another significant shift in time) against the backdrop of not only visible, but even deliberate absence of action - Lopakhin “yawns and stretches,” he “overslept.”

Who sleeps in The Cherry Orchard and when is of significant importance. As already mentioned, the episode takes place at night. Lopakhin overslept, but what was so important that he overslept? Never mind. His apparent awkwardness and failure to find himself in a temporary situation are imaginary. We know that in the finale Lopakhin will be the only one who will not oversleep real time. It is no coincidence that Chekhov warned the Moscow Art Theater that Lopakhin had “a central role....” If he diverges in time, it is not with time itself, but with the rest of the characters. Everyone else will “sleep” through real time and won’t even notice it. Lopakhin is the only person who is in real time, he sleeps at night, he sleeps at night. Ranevskaya drinks coffee at night.

“Everything is like a dream,” Varya further notes. "What if I'm dreaming?" - Ranevskaya will ask herself. The clown Pishchik constantly falls asleep and snores during the action. Anya sleeps in her childish ignorance of life. The theme of sleep that unfolds further, extremely significant in the play, begins in the first episode precisely by Lopakhin, who allegedly “slept through.”

There are two characters on stage, Lopakhin and Dunyasha. From them we learn that the train on which the expected heroes arrived is also at odds with time - it was “late” by at least two hours. Thanks to the slowness of the train, we can learn something about those present.

Lopakhin's auto-representation that occurs next is full of meaning. “...My father...he traded in a shop here in the village,” and Lopakhin himself was a “little man” for Ranevskaya in her childhood. "A little man... My father, it's true, was a man, but here I am in a white vest, yellow shoes. With a pig's snout in a row... Just now he's rich, he has a lot of money, but if you think about it and figure it out, then he's a man... I read the book and didn't understand anything. I read and fell asleep." The fact that Lopakhin fell asleep while reading a book is not so important. If reading this made Yermolai Alekseevich tired, it means either the book was boring or there was no practical meaning in it, which is the same thing for him. Lopakhin's lack of understanding, how and his lack of timing, imaginary, for the time being masking his extreme sharpness. It is much more important that in the person of Lopakhin we meet the first “in disguise” of “The Cherry Orchard”. He is in a white vest and yellow shoes, and he himself is a peasant. So it begins main topic plays, the theme of a man who is out of place and out of time.

Having introduced himself, Lopakhin, as if inadvertently, “introduces” his interlocutor to us.

“LOPAKHIN. Why are you, Dunyasha, so... DUNYASHA. My hands are shaking. I’m going to faint.

(Later, the theme of Dunyasha’s fainting will be intensified and developed by Chekhov in a purely farcical sense - A.K.)

LOPAKHIN. You are very gentle, Dunyasha. And you dress like a young lady, and your hair too. You can not do it this way. We must remember ourselves."

So Dunyasha is also “disguised”, also, in her own way, out of place. The third character, Epikhodov, enters. Chekhov's remark: "Epikhodov enters with a bouquet, he is wearing a jacket and brightly polished boots that squeak a lot"It turns out that Epikhodov has also been “disguised.” Meanwhile, Chekhov immediately makes it clear that he has entered clown. Remark: "on entering, he drops the bouquet." Epikhodov voices another piece of news about “dislocated time,” already stated in the first remark: “It’s a matinee, the frost is three degrees, and the cherry trees are all in bloom.”

On the one hand, Chekhov offers us a subtle poetic dramatic image“flowers in the frost,” but this image was put into Epikhodov’s mouth. Epikhodov’s comedic, clown-revealing comment immediately follows, warning against taking his words seriously. “I can’t approve of our climate. (Sighs.) I can’t. Our climate can’t help just right. Now, Ermolai Alekseich, let me add to you, I bought myself boots the day before, and they, I dare to assure you, squeak so much that There's no way..."

The comic effect is achieved here by the obvious discrepancy between the words, language, and the meaningful meaning of the spoken text. It turns out that not only Epikhodov himself is disguised, but also his language, his I. His “twenty-two misfortunes,” which are not misfortunes, also turn out to be “disguised”: he dropped a bouquet, his boots creaked, he tripped over a chair, and the like.

Epikhodov leaves, but Dunyasha picks up his comedic theme. At the peak of her “lyrical” narrative about Epikhodov’s “crazy” love for her and the proposal he made to her, the waiting episode is resolved - “they’re going!”

In principle, the entire two-page episode looks like a clown diversion before the start of the show. This divertissement already contains all the future themes of the big play and, above all, the main theme of “dislocated time,” people who are not in their place and not in their time, who have fallen out of time, who have confused time, and therefore are in a relationship of opposition with time. Comedy confrontations.

This divertissement is reminiscent of the initial divertissement of another Chekhov comedy, “The Seagull,” played by Medvedenko and Masha (“Why do you always wear black?”) True, in “The Seagull” the clown couple Medvedenko and Masha forms a contrast with the pair of lovers in the foreground, Treplev and Zarechnaya. In the “farcical” “The Cherry Orchard,” despite its parody, parody is not perceived as opposition, but only as doubling and exaggeration of a situation or behavioral motive. The distance between the parodied and the parodied is not so great, because the clownery of “The Cherry Orchard” is total, widespread and embraces almost all the characters in its circle, from the outspoken clown Charlotte Ivanovna to Ranevskaya and Gaev inclusive.

In The Cherry Orchard itself, the initial still implicit clown divertissement of the first act is developed in the now overt clowning of the first scene of the second act, performed by Charlotte, Yasha, Dunyasha and Epikhodov. This scene is a parade of caricatured clowns with revolvers, shotguns, pocket watches, cigars, a love romance, explanations, betrayal, insulted dignity, motives of loneliness and desperate suicide. Fatal themes and the corresponding setting and vocabulary “in the common room” look parodic, while the main theme of “a person is out of place and out of time” remains. Charlotte says that she doesn’t have a passport, that she doesn’t even know how old she is. “...Where I come from and who I am, I don’t know... (Takes a cucumber out of his pocket and eats it.) I don’t know anything.” Charlotte with a cucumber in this scene is no more and no less than a parody double of Ranevskaya.

Returning to the first act, it is appropriate to note that the theme of clown divertissement was first picked up by Ranevskaya, who joyfully, through tears, was moved by the room, “the children’s!” This “children’s room” is akin to Gaev’s “closet”. "Children's room, my dear, beautiful room... I slept here when I was little... ( Crying.) And now I’m like a little girl..." If we remember Chekhov’s definition of Ranevskaya as an “old woman,” the inappropriateness of her sentiments will become more than obvious. In turn, regarding the remarks “through tears” that often appear in the text, Chekhov warned the Moscow Art Theater actors: stage directions expresses nothing more than the mood of the character, and not at all the scene, and does not contradict the comedic nature of the action.

The life of the cherry estate is already history. The garden is remarkable only because it is mentioned in Encyclopedic Dictionary. The house and everything in it are associated with memories, but are not at all suitable for real life. In fact, in reality they no longer exist. In fact, they no longer belong to the previous owners. Lopakhin pronounces his sentence on the cherry orchard at the beginning of the first act.

In 1914, Stanislavsky recalled. "The play took a long time to complete. Especially the second act. It has, in a theatrical sense, no action and seemed very monotonous during rehearsals. It was necessary to portray boredom of doing nothing so that it would be interesting..." They turned to Chekhov with a request for a reduction. "Apparently, this request caused him pain, his face darkened. But then he replied: “Well, cut it short...” Stanislavsky, looking for action, actually finds himself captive of words, not noticing the action hidden behind them. Together with Chekhov’s heroes, he does not feel the real passage of time, finding himself not on stage, but in life in a comic situation. The theme of the second act is not “boredom” at all - a similar understanding of the play was criticized by the same Meyerhold in 1904. Its theme, again, expectation, rapidly growing in scale - the expectation of a mystical catastrophe of a collapsing house. The action of the second act consists in the fact that there is action, or rather, there are no actions, despite Lopakhin’s persuasion to make a practical decision. At the same time, real time moves, bringing the inevitable collapse of the cherry estate closer. Meanwhile, this is by no means “the boredom of doing nothing,” but tension stretched string, which ends at the end of the act (the “sound of a broken string” is heard).

The third act opens with a farce: a dance scene, a “ball” taking place against the backdrop of ongoing trading. It is no coincidence that the dancers seemed to Meyerhold to be carefree dancing puppets. The meaning of this farce is expressed not so much in the words and behavior of individual characters, but in the situation as a whole. (However, as befits a farce, the first to speak is the clown Pischik, who tells the story of the equine origins of his family.) Before the impending catastrophe, even Ranevskaya herself seems to see the light. Reality is dawning. Her insight, however, like Lopakhin’s apparent “misses,” is imaginary. “The misfortune seems so incredible to me that I somehow don’t even know what to think, I’m at a loss...” Meanwhile, the “misfortune” has already happened. Lopakhin bought the cherry orchard, and this fact speaks for itself and for him, Lopakhin, more than anything else. In the person of Lopakhin, the triumph of real time over illusory time takes place.

The fourth act opens again with a clown, this time Yasha. A series of goodbyes follow. Lopakhin and Trofimov compare their values, while the educated, talkative and absolutely inactive Petya has long ago “lost” to the uneducated but active Ermolai Alekseevich on all counts. Yasha and Dunyasha explain themselves as they say goodbye, not allowing the action to fall outside the comedy framework prescribed for it by Chekhov. Gaev and Ranevskaya fall back into childhood. She goes to Paris with someone else’s money, her aunt’s and Anya’s, knowing that the funds will not last long, but not wanting to look too far into the future. The point, it turns out, is not at all about the cherry orchard, which in reality no longer exists. The Cherry Orchard finally reveals its own symbolic nature. Locked in the house, they forget Firs. The sound of a breaking string is heard again, followed by the sound of an ax...

Responding to Chekhov's letter to Lilina, Stanislavsky objected. “This is not a comedy, not a farce, as you wrote, this is a tragedy, no matter what the outcome better life You didn't open in the last act. I cried like a woman." Meanwhile, there is no special "exodus to a better life" in Chekhov's play. The outcome is exhausted by the exposure of illusion, the illusory nature of imaginary time. Anya is happy with the collapse of the Cherry Orchard only because it means freedom from illusion. The revolutionary past and Trofimov's future is also absent from the play. They will be invented later. This is partly facilitated by the events not of the play, but of the life of the following 1905.

It is curious that for Stanislavski and the tradition he represents, the “outcome” is the main determinant of the genre of the play. The lack of outcome for Ranevskaya and Gaev makes, in his opinion, the play a tragedy. Meanwhile, it is obvious that Stanislavsky and Chekhov demonstrate different understandings of the scale and nature of the conflict due to different understanding nature not only of action, but also of humanism. Various both historically and aesthetically. Stanislavsky professes a personalistic understanding of humanism: at the level of people he likes, the conflict turns out to be insoluble - Stanislavsky sees this as a tragedy. That is why he interprets the conventions of the play in a logic of life behavior that does not correspond to them.

Chekhov has a different, generalized understanding of humanism. His heroes conflict not with each other, but with the inexorable passage of time. Stanislavsky, like many after him, cannot allow, for example, that the comedy ends with a scene with the sick Firs forgotten and locked in the house, who will now inevitably die. For Chekhov, however, in real time Firs had already died long ago, long before the play began. The fact that he was forgotten is another proof of the “dislocated century,” a time that, with the sale of the cherry orchard, finally lost its illusory quality. The Cherry Orchard was the last illusion that made it possible to consider the unreal time dimension in which its heroes lived as reality. This generalized meaning of “The Cherry Orchard” is the key to its relevance.

Chekhov's play is not at all strictly tied to any specific time or to any specific social stratum. To talk in connection with it about the crisis of the nobility or serfdom, about the growing activity of the merchants, about Trofimov’s revolutionary spirit and the like means to bury the play in history. However, she successfully resists this. Just as the theater resists this, over time offering more and more relevant interpretations of “The Cherry Orchard.”

________________________________________

* All quotes are taken from the book: Chekhov A.P. Collection cit.: In 12 volumes. M., 1963. T. 9. Italics are mine everywhere - A.K.

taken from the site: http://www.utoronto.ca/tsq/16/index16.shtml

His last play Chekhov gave the subtitle "comedy". But in the first production of the Moscow Art Theater, during the author’s lifetime, the play appeared as a heavy drama, even a tragedy. Who is right? It must be kept in mind that drama is literary work, designed for stage life. Only on stage will drama acquire a full-fledged existence, will reveal all the meanings inherent in it, including gaining genre definition, so the last word in answering the question posed will belong to the theater, directors and actors. At the same time, it is known that the innovative principles of Chekhov, the playwright, were perceived and assimilated by theaters with difficulty and not immediately. Although the Moscow Art Theater, sanctified by the authority of Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko, the traditional interpretation of “The Cherry Orchard” as a dramatic elegy was entrenched in the practice of domestic theaters, Chekhov managed to express dissatisfaction with “his” theater, dissatisfaction with their interpretation of his swan song.

“The Cherry Orchard” depicts the farewell of the now former owners to their ancestral noble nest. This topic has been repeatedly covered in Russian literature. half of the 19th century century and before Chekhov and tragically-dramatically and comically. What are the features of Chekhov's solution to this problem?

In many ways, it is determined by Chekhov’s attitude towards the nobility, which is disappearing into social oblivion and the capital that is replacing it, which he expressed in the images of Ranevskaya and Lopakhin, respectively. In both classes and their interaction, Chekhov saw the continuity of bearers of Russian culture. Noble Nest for Chekhov, first of all, it is a center of culture. Of course, it is also a museum of serfdom, and this is mentioned in the play, but Chekhov still sees the noble estate primarily as a cultural nest. Ranevskaya is his mistress and the soul of the house. That is why, despite all her frivolity and vices (many theaters imagine that she became a drug addict in Paris), people are drawn to her. The mistress returned, and the house came to life; the former inhabitants, who had apparently left it forever, began to flock into it.

Lopakhin matches her. He is sensitive to poetry in the broad sense of the word, he has, as Petya Trofimov says, “thin, gentle fingers, like an artist... a subtle, gentle soul.” And in Ranevskaya he feels the same kindred spirit. The vulgarity of life comes at him from all sides, he acquires the features of a rakish merchant, begins to boast of his democratic origins and flaunt his lack of culture (and this was considered prestigious in the “advanced circles” of that time), but he is also waiting for Ranevskaya in order to cleanse himself around her, to reveal again contains an artistic and poetic beginning. This portrayal of capitalism was based on real facts. After all, many Russian merchants and capitalists, who became rich by the end of the century, showed interest and concern for culture. Mamontov, Morozov, Zimin maintained theaters, the Tretyakov brothers founded an art gallery in Moscow, the merchant son Alekseev, who took the stage name Stanislavsky, brought to the Art Theater not only creative ideas, but also his father’s wealth, and quite a lot. Lopakhin is a capitalist of a different kind. That is why his marriage to Vara did not work out; they are not a match for each other: the subtle, poetic nature of a rich merchant and the down-to-earth, everyday, completely immersed in the prose of life stepdaughter Ranevskaya. And now comes another socio-historical turning point in Russian life. The nobles are thrown out of life, their place is taken by the bourgeoisie. How do the owners of the cherry orchard behave? In theory, you need to save yourself and the garden. How? To be socially reborn, to also become a bourgeois, which is what Lopakhin proposes. But for Gaev and Ranevskaya this means changing themselves, their habits, tastes, ideals, life values. And therefore they silently reject Lopakhin’s proposal and fearlessly move towards their social and life collapse. In this regard deep meaning carries the figure minor character _ Charlotte Ivanovna. At the beginning of Act 2, she says about herself: “I don’t have a real passport, I don’t know how old I am... where I come from and who I am _ I don’t know... Who are my parents, maybe they didn’t get married... not I know. I really want to talk, but with whom... I don’t have anyone... I’m all alone, alone, I don’t have anyone and... and who I am, why I am, is unknown.” Charlotte personifies the future of Ranevskaya - all this will soon await the owner of the estate. But both Ranevskaya and Charlotte, in different ways, of course, show amazing courage and even maintain good spirits in others, because for all the characters in the play, with the death of the cherry orchard, one life will end, and whether there will be another is very guessable.

The former owners and their entourage (i.e. Ranevskaya, Varya, Gaev, Pischik, Charlotte, Dunyasha, Firs) behave funny, and in the light of the social oblivion approaching them, stupid and unreasonable. They pretend that everything is going on as before, nothing has changed and will not change. This is deception, self-deception and mutual deception. But this is the only way they can resist the inevitability of inevitable fate. Lopakhin rather sincerely grieves, he does not see class enemies in Ranevskaya and even in Gaev, who bullies him, for him these are dear, dear people. The universal, humanistic approach to man dominates in the play over the class-class approach. The struggle between these two approaches is especially strong in Lopakhin’s soul, as can be seen from his final monologue of Act 3.

How are young people behaving at this time? Badly! Due to her young age, Anya has the most uncertain and at the same time rosy idea about the future awaiting her. She is delighted with Petya Trofimov’s chatter. The latter, although 26 or 27 years old, is considered young and seems to have turned his youth into a profession. There is no other way to explain his immaturity and, most surprisingly, the general recognition he enjoys. Ranevskaya cruelly but rightly scolded him, and in response he fell down the stairs. Only Anya believes his beautiful calls, but, we repeat, her youth excuses her. Much more than what he says, Petya is characterized by his galoshes, “dirty, old.”

But for us, who know about the bloody social cataclysms that shook Russia in the 20th century and began literally immediately after the applause died down at the play’s premiere and its creator died, Petya’s words, his dreams of a new life, Anya’s desire to plant another garden - we are all this should lead to more serious conclusions about the essence of Petit’s image. Chekhov was always indifferent to politics; both the revolutionary movement and the fight against it passed him by. But in A. Trushkin’s play, Petya appears in the night scene of Act 2 in a student’s cap and jacket and... with a revolver, almost hung with grenades and machine-gun belts. Waving this entire arsenal, he shouts words about a new life in the same way as the commissars spoke at rallies fifteen years later. And at the same time, he is very reminiscent of another Petya, more precisely, Petrusha, as Pyotr Stepanovich Verkhovensky is called in Dostoevsky’s novel “Demons” (apparently, it’s not for nothing that Chekhov’s surname Petya was formed from his father’s patronymic

Petrusha - liberal of the 40s Stepan Trofimovich Verkhovensky). Petrusha Verkhovensky is the first image of a revolutionary terrorist in Russian and world literature. The rapprochement of both Sings is not without reason. A historian would find both Socialist Revolutionary motives and Social Democratic notes in the speeches of Chekhov's Petit.

Stupid girl Anya believes these words. Other characters chuckle and sneer: this Petya is too much of a klutz to be afraid of. And it was not he who cut down the garden, but a merchant who wanted to build summer cottages on this site. Chekhov did not live to see other dachas built in the vast expanses of his and our long-suffering homeland by the successors of the work of Petya Trofimov (or Verkhovensky?) on the numerous islands of the Gulag archipelago. Fortunately, most of the characters in “The Cherry Orchard” did not have to “live in this wonderful time.”

As already mentioned, Chekhov is characterized by an objective manner of narration; his voice is not heard in prose. In a drama, it is generally impossible to hear the actual author’s voice. And yet, is “The Cherry Orchard” a comedy, drama or tragedy? Knowing how Chekhov did not like certainty and, therefore, incompleteness of coverage life phenomenon with all its complexities, the answer should be cautious: a little bit of everything. The last word and the theater will still have a say in this matter.

Introduction

Historical and cultural aspects of staging the play by A.P. Chekhov's "The Cherry Orchard".

2 Production of the play “The Cherry Orchard” at the Moscow Art Theater

Modern productions of the play by A.P. Chekhov's "The Cherry Orchard" in Russia and abroad.

2. Foreign productions of the play by A.P. Chekhov's "The Cherry Orchard"

Conclusion

Bibliography

INTRODUCTION

The relevance of the chosen topic lies in the fact that to show all Chekhov’s performances of Soviet and foreign theaters, it is impossible to display all the acting achievements, all the diversity of the director’s interpretation of the works of the great Russian playwright in any, even the most voluminous album. In addition, there are more and more Chekhov performances every day.

On January 2010, the world theater community celebrated the 150th anniversary of his birth. Chekhov's plays occupy an important place in the repertoires of Russian and foreign theaters.

Many theaters both in Russia and abroad have again turned to the works of the remarkable playwright. In our country, where Chekhov rightfully took the place of his beloved people's writer, new productions of his plays appeared not only on renowned academic stages, but also in regional and even small district theaters.

Chekhov's play "The Cherry Orchard" became the most famous work world dramaturgy not only of the 20th century, but also of the 21st, theater figures from all over the world have turned and are turning to its comprehension, but most of all stage interpretations of Chekhov’s comedy have been created in the writer’s homeland - in Russia.

As you know, the premiere of " Cherry Orchard"took place on the stage of the Moscow Art Theater in 1904, the directors were K.? Stanislavsky and V.? Nemirovich-Danchenko.

The history of the production of the play, as well as its modern interpretation both on Russian stages and foreign ones, will be consistently covered in this work.

The object of the study is a stage production of the play by A.P. Chekhov's "The Cherry Orchard".

The subject of the study is the features of the stage production of the play by A.P. Chekhov's "The Cherry Orchard" on Russian and foreign stages.

The purpose of the study is to analyze the features of the stage production of the play by A.P. Chekhov's "The Cherry Orchard" on Russian and foreign stages.

Research objectives:

Study the historical features of the production of the play “The Cherry Orchard”,

Analyze modern cultural aspects of staging the play in Russian stage,

To identify the interpretation of foreign directors of A.P.’s play. Chekhov's "The Cherry Orchard".

Research methods: historical-cultural, analytical, descriptive and comparative research methods.

The practical significance of this study lies in the fact that the results of the work can contribute to the main aspects of the production of the play “The Cherry Orchard”, as well as to better understand the features of A.P.’s stage creativity. Chekhov.

The study consists of an introduction, two chapters, a conclusion and a list of references.

1. Historical and cultural aspects of staging the play by A.P. Chekhov's "The Cherry Orchard"

1 First attempts at staging the play “The Cherry Orchard”

The play “The Cherry Orchard” reflected many of A.P. Chekhov’s life experiences. These include memories of the sale of their home in Taganrog, and acquaintance with the Kiselevs - the owners of the Babkino estate, near Moscow, where the Chekhovs lived in the summer months of 1885-1887. A. S. Kiselev, who, after selling his estate for debts, entered service as a member of the board of a bank in Kaluga, was in many ways the prototype of Gaev. In 1888 and 1889, Chekhov rested on the Lintvarev estate, near Sumy, Kharkov province, where he saw many neglected and dying noble estates. The writer could observe the same picture in detail both in 1892-1898, living in his Melikhovo, and in the summer of 1902, when he was visiting the estate of K. S. Stanislavsky - Lyubimovka near Moscow. The ruined nobility, thoughtlessly living their fortunes, was gradually forced out of the estates by the increasingly stronger “third estate.” The play was written in 1903.

According to the story of K. S. Stanislavsky, the concept of “The Cherry Orchard,” while still vague, was in Chekhov’s imagination already during the rehearsal of “Three Sisters” (1901). Soon after the production of “Three Sisters,” Chekhov, in letters to O. L. Knipper, spoke several times about his intention to write a funny play for the Moscow Art Theater. In one of his letters in the spring of 1901, he writes that he conceived the play as a comedy, “like a funny play where the devil would walk with a yoke.” Chekhov’s first statement about the play, which he planned to write for the Art Theater and had already begun to think about, is in a letter to O. L. Knipper on January 20, 1902: “I did not write to you about future play not because I don’t have faith in you, as you write, but because I still don’t have faith in the play. She just dawned in my brain, like the earliest dawn, and I still don’t understand what she is like, what will come of her, and she changes every day.” Apparently, Chekhov mentioned the same play in a letter to K. S. Stanislavsky on October 1, 1902: “On October 15, I will be in Moscow and will explain to you why my play is still not ready. There is a plot, but there is still not enough gunpowder.” In December of the same year, in a letter to O. L. Knipper, Chekhov already calls the play by its title: “My “Cherry Orchard” will be in 3 acts. So it seems to me, but I haven’t finally decided yet” (December 24, 1902). The general structure of the play continued to remain unclear the following month: “The Cherry Orchard” I wanted to do in 3 long acts, but I can do it in 4, I don’t care, because 3 or 4 acts - the play will still be the same.” (letter to O. L. Knipper, January 3, 1903). Chekhov had not yet begun to write a play at this time. “I will begin writing the play in February,” he informed K. S. Stanislavsky on January 1, 1903. At the end of January, Chekhov wrote about the same thing in a letter to V. F. Kommissarzhevskaya: “The play is conceived, however, and I already have a title for it.” there is (“The Cherry Orchard” - but that’s a secret for now), and I’ll probably start writing it no later than the end of February, if, of course, I’m healthy.” In the same letter, Chekhov mentions that central role in the play will belong to the “old woman”.

In March, the play was already being written, the roles were even outlined in the letters, “If my play doesn’t turn out the way I planned it, then hit me on the forehead with your fist. Stanislavsky has a comic role, and so do you” (letter to O. L. Knipper, March 5, 1903) “And by the way, I’m not entirely successful in the play. One main character has not yet been thought through enough and is getting in the way, but by Easter, I think, this character will already be clear, and I will be free from difficulties” (same, March 18, 1903). There will be “The Cherry Orchard,” I’m trying to make it as small as possible; more intimate this way” (March 21, 1903).

In April, work was interrupted by a trip to Moscow and St. Petersburg and was resumed, apparently, only after returning from Moscow and Naro-Fominsk to Yalta, in June. To K. S. Stanislavsky’s question about the play, Chekhov responded in a letter to him on July 28, 1903: “My play is not ready, it’s moving a little slowly, which I explain by laziness, wonderful weather, and the difficulty of the plot.” August 22, in a letter to Vl. AND. Nemirovich-Danchenko, Chekhov envisages what will be needed for the scenery: “the staging part... was reduced to a minimum”, “I replaced the river with an old chapel and a well”, in the second act “a green field”, “a road” and a distance unusual for the stage.” All this indicates that at this time the work was mainly on the second act.

In a letter to Vl. To I. Nemirovich-Danchenko on September 2, 1903, Chekhov reported: “My play (if I continue to work as I worked before today) will be finished soon, rest assured. It was difficult, very difficult to write the second act, but it seems that nothing came of it. I’ll call the play a comedy.”

The correspondence proceeded slowly. During the correspondence, much was altered. “I really don’t like some passages, I write them again and rewrite them again” (letter to O.L. Knipper, October 3).

October Chekhov wrote to O. L. Knipper: “I can’t believe that I’m no longer writing plays. Believe it or not, I rewrote it completely twice.” When sending the play, Chekhov did not consider the work on it to be completely finished: “If the play doesn’t work,” he wrote to O. L. Knipper on October 17, “then don’t lose heart... don’t be discouraged, in a month I’ll remake it so much that you won’t recognize it.” . After all, I wrote it for a painfully long time, with long intermissions, with an upset stomach, with a cough.”

In November 1903, the text of the play was submitted to the dramatic censor for consideration. The censor excluded two passages. In the 2nd act, in the words of Trofimov: “Everyone is serious, everyone has stern faces, everyone talks only about the important, philosophizes, and meanwhile, in front of everyone, the workers eat disgustingly, sleep without pillows, thirty, forty in one room “There are bugs everywhere, stench, dampness, moral uncleanness.” In the 2nd act, in another speech of Trofimov, beginning with the words: “All of Russia is our garden...” - “To own living souls - after all, this reborn all of you, who lived before and are now living, so your mother, you, uncle , you no longer notice that you are living in debt, at someone else’s expense, at the expense of those people whom you do not allow further than the front hall...”

Chekhov regularly attended rehearsals of the play at the Moscow Art Theater. Obviously, during the period of rehearsals and the first performances, the text of the play was also subject to editing. K. S. Stanislavsky talks about one of the corrections, probably the most noticeable:

“The play took a long time to complete. Especially the second act. It has no action, in a theatrical sense, and seemed very monotonous during rehearsals. It was necessary to portray the boredom of doing nothing in a way that was interesting. And this did not work... The act seemed to us to be drawn out, and when Chekhov arrived in Moscow, we turned to him with a request for permission to shorten... Apparently, this request caused him pain, his face darkened. But then he replied: “Well, cut it short...”; already after the first few performances, Chekhov changed the end of this act, crossing out the former final scene, which followed the scene of Petya Trofimov and Anya, which now ends the act.”

While working on the play, Chekhov sometimes spoke in letters about individual roles and about the nature of the play as a whole. “What I came out with was not a drama, but a comedy, sometimes even a farce...” (M. Alekseeva, September 15, 1903). He makes sure that Anya does not have a “crying” tone, so that in general there are not “a lot of people crying” in the play. “Often,” he explained, “I encounter “through tears,” but this only shows the mood of the faces, not the tears” (to Vl. I. Nemirovich-Danchechko, October 23, 1903). Chekhov wrote about Trofimov in a letter to O. L. Knipper: “After all, Trofimov is constantly in exile, he is constantly expelled from the university, but how can you portray these things?” (letter October 19, 1903). In projects for the distribution of roles between actors, instructions were given along the way for the actor’s interpretation of different characters in the play. Many instructions were given about decorative side plays.

According to the memoirs of K. S. Stanislavsky, Chekhov was very attentive to all the details of the performance. Moreover, the director’s interpretation of “The Cherry Orchard” did not satisfy Chekhov in everything. “This is a tragedy, no matter what outcome to a better life you discover in the last act,” Stanislavsky wrote to Chekhov, affirming his logic of the play’s movement towards tragic ending, which essentially meant the end of his former life, the loss of his home and the disappearance of his garden. In his vision, the performance was devoid of comedic intonations, which endlessly outraged Chekhov. In his opinion, Stanislavsky (performer of the role of Gaev) delayed the action in the fourth act. “How terrible this is! - Chekhov wrote to his wife. - An act that should last 12 minutes maximum, you have 40 minutes. Stanislavsky ruined the play for me.”

In turn, Stanislavsky complained in December 1903: “The Cherry Orchard” “... is not blooming yet. Flowers had just appeared, the author arrived and confused us all. The flowers have fallen, and now only new buds are appearing.”

The fact that Chekhov was little pleased with the progress of the preparation of the play is indicated by lines from his letter to V.K. Kharkevich dated January 13, 1904: “My play will go on stage, it seems, on January 17; I don’t expect much success, things are going sluggishly.” The first performances did not satisfy him either. The next day after the performance, he wrote to I. L. Shcheglov: “Yesterday my play was performed, that’s why I’m in a bad mood.” The acting seemed to him “confused and not bright.” In letters to O. L. Knnner, Chekhov expressed dissatisfaction with the general interpretation of the play: “Why is my play so persistently called a drama on posters and in newspaper advertisements? Nemirovich and Alekseev [Stanislavsky] see in my play positively not what I wrote, but I am ready to give any word that both of them have never read my play carefully!”

When Chekhov came up with the idea for “The Cherry Orchard” in the spring of 1901, he imagined that this play would be “cheerful, frivolous,” “certainly funny, very funny,” “where the devil would go with his yoke.” On March 1, 1903, he “lay out the paper on the table and wrote the title” and, taking into account the performers of the Art Theater, in September he completed in draft form “not a drama, but a comedy, in some places even a farce.” On October 14, the white manuscript of the play was sent to Moscow, where a week later, on October 20, Nemirovich-Danchenko read it to the theater troupe. Stanislavsky, having explained in a letter to the author that “this is not a comedy, not a farce, as you wrote, this is a tragedy,” immediately began rehearsals, distributing the roles in accordance with his own idea of ​​the work as a “heavy, heavy drama” of Russian life. In approximately the same vein, ignoring the author's remarks and creating the tone desired by the director, Simov also wrote the scenery. In December 1903, Chekhov arrived in Moscow and began going to rehearsals, which, as Stanislavsky later recalled, “confused us all”: he was not satisfied with the actors (he asked to replace them with others), just as he was not satisfied with the fact that “a cheerful comedy “they play too hard (later he will write: “Nemirovich and Alekseev see in my play positively not what I wrote, and I am ready to give any word that both of them have never read my play carefully”).

January the first performance of A.P. Chekhov’s play “The Cherry Orchard” took place on the stage of the Moscow Art Theater. Participants in the performance: O. L. Knipper (Ranevskaya), M. P. Lilina (Anya), M. F. Andreeva (Varya), K. S. Stanislavsky (Gaev), L. M. Leonidov (Lopakhin), V. I. Kachalov (Trofimov), I. M. Moskvin (Epikhodov), A. R. Artem (Firs), etc.

The premiere was, according to Stanislavsky, “only an average success, and we condemned ourselves for not being able, the first time, to show the most important, beautiful and valuable thing in the play.” Soon reviews appeared in intelligent publications: conservatives criticized the performance for depicting the weak-willedness of the nobility in front of the energy of Lopakhin’s “fist”; liberals, labeling Chekhov “the singer of the cherry orchards,” praised him for his elegiac interpretation of the fate of the nobility; Symbolists saw in the play a mystical tragedy about “fate” that “silently creeps up on the exhausted”; revolutionary democrats assessed the play and performance mostly negatively (Korolenko was dissatisfied with Chekhov’s insufficiently critical attitude towards the “epigones of serfdom”, Gorky did not like the “melancholy”, and Vorovsky in the article “ Extra people"wrote about the "idleness, impotence and parasitism" of the "rotten environment"). In general, critics agreed that, as Valery Bryusov said, “ good play, but this is in no way a creation of art,” “the dramatic situations are not very new,” and the idea is “petty.”

They brought Chekhov to the premiere almost by force, and even then only towards the end of the third act. And during the last intermission they organized, with pomp, with long speeches and offerings, a celebration on the occasion of his 25th anniversary literary activity. “At the anniversary itself,” Stanislavsky later recalled, “he was not cheerful, as if sensing his imminent death. When, after the third act, he, deathly pale and thin, standing on the proscenium, could not stop coughing while he was greeted with addresses and gifts, our hearts sank painfully. From auditorium They shouted at him to sit down. But Chekhov frowned and stood through the long and drawn-out celebration of the anniversary, which he good-naturedly laughed at in his works. But even here he couldn’t help but smile. One of the writers began his speech with almost the same words with which Gaev greets old wardrobe in the first act: “Dear and respected... (instead of the word “cabinet” the writer inserted the name of Anton Pavlovich)... greeting you,” etc. Anton Pavlovich glanced sideways at me, the performer Gaev, and an insidious smile ran across his lips . The anniversary was solemn, but it left a difficult impression. It reeked of a funeral. It was sad at heart...

Anton Pavlovich died without seeing the real success of his last fragrant work.”

1.2 Staging the play “The Cherry Orchard” at the Moscow Art Theater

The true birth of the Moscow Art Theater, which turned out to be the best interpreter of his works, is associated with the dramaturgy of Anton Pavlovich Chekhov. The first performances of the theater were Chekhov's dramas “The Seagull”, “Three Sisters”, “The Cherry Orchard”. Before this, Chekhov's plays had been staged three times, and all three productions were unsuccessful. Staged at the Moscow Art Theater that did not fit into the canons of the old Russian theater Chekhov dramas“sounded” in a completely new way.

In January 1904, the premiere of the play “The Cherry Orchard” took place at the Moscow Art Theater; the directors of the play were Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko. Olga Knipper-Chekhova played the role of Ranevskaya, Konstantin Stanislavsky played the role of Gaev, Vasily Kachalov played Trofimov, Ivan Moskvin played Epikhodova. On April 17, 1958, the director Viktor Stanitsyn was carried out at the Moscow Art Theater new production plays.

IN Soviet time theatrical interpretations of Chekhov's works were varied.

The modern Moscow Art Theater production of the play, directed by Adolf Shapiro and with the participation of Renata Litvinova, differs from all other productions.

“The Cherry Orchard” by Adolf Shapiro is the last of three Chekhov performances staged this spring at the request of the Cherry Forest festival. Each of these interpretations of productions, not sparkling with novelty, attracted the audience with some kind of surprise: “The Seagull” at the Mossovet Theater - the debut of Andrei Konchalovsky as a theater director, “Uncle Vanya” in “Snuffbox” - Oleg Tabakov and Marina Zudina in the role of legal spouses, and the Moscow Art Theater “The Cherry Orchard” - with the participation in the play of screenwriter, film actress and socialite Renata Litvinova.

Among classical actors trained in the Stanislavsky school, she looks the same as some exotic palm tree would look among a real village cherry orchard. But her presence on stage is, perhaps, the only thing that prevents the performance from sliding into a classic routine. Wonderful actors - Andrei Smolyakov (Lopakhin), Sergei Dreyden (Gaev), Evdokia Germanova (Charlotte), Vladimir Kashpur (Firs) - conscientiously, but uninterestingly and predictably, for the nth time they play out the roles of a familiar text. The rest of the characters even exist on stage only because Dr. Chekhov ordered it so. In such a situation, the audience's interest comes down to how textbook phrases will sound in the mouth of the inexperienced, but Renata Litvinova.

They sound differently - some are better, others are worse, in a manner familiar to Mrs. Litvinova, but downright revolutionary for Ranevskaya. All the pathetic monologues, which according to popular theatrical tradition are supposed to be pronounced with great feeling while looking into the distance, the actress hopelessly fails. famous speech She speaks about the cherry orchard almost with annoyance, as if someone else’s words were forced on her for some reason. But, confessing her sinful love to Petya, she sets the “shabby master” in hot water. The actress and her heroine, like women, unite their weak forces for protection: one is frightened and confused by the need to stand for the first time on the proscenium in front of a huge hall, without being blocked from the viewer by the shield of a television screen, the other is also driven into a corner by the misfortune hanging over the estate and her own helplessness, multiplied by to reproaches of conscience. And like a hunted animal, emboldened by fear, Litvinova-Ranevskaya rushes at poor Petya (Dmitry Kulichkov), pinches his beard, breaks into a scream so that he has to urgently retreat from the battlefield.

It turned out that Litvin's brokenness and nervousness, strange manner of speaking and gesticulating, oddly enough, suit Ranevskaya - a woman with a warped fate and a shattered psyche, accustomed to Parisian bohemian life and always hovering somewhere above the ground. Thanks to them, Gaev’s words about his sister become clear: “Depravity is felt in her every movement.” And the reluctance to rent out land from this very Ranevskaya is explained simply, purely by aesthetic reasons: “Dachas, summer residents...” - Renata tastes these words, as if at a wine tasting, and pronounces her verdict, “Sorry, but it’s so vulgar.” with the peremptory attitude of the host of the TV show “Style”.

The play will reveal another character not included in the play - the Moscow Art Theater curtain. The artist David Borovsky, who once designed the legendary curtain for Tagansky's Hamlet, used a similar technique in this production. He left almost nothing on the stage: neither the cherry orchard, nor the estate. All the scenery is replaced by one curtain, which does not move apart, as usual, but swings open into the stage with huge doors and replaces the walls of the house. It is to him that Gaev addresses his monologue dedicated to the hundred-year-old closet. Ranevskaya frantically clings to him before leaving the stage. And when behind the scenes they begin to cut down the garden, it seems that Ermolai Lopakhin took an ax to the floors of the old Moscow Art Theater. However, it is difficult to accuse anyone, but Adolf Shapiro, of sabotage actions to undermine age-old foundations. And if he made some kind of revolution, it was only in one single role.

The scene with the Passerby becomes ideologically central in this production. A young man in a black naval peacoat quietly sits down with the company, listens carefully to Petya Trofimov’s reasoning about a proud man and the remarks exchanged between the inhabitants of the estate, then asks how to get to the station, but it is clear that he is the one who will soon show way to everyone. The only one who will remain to live on the site of the cut down cherry orchard is, well, perhaps Epikhodov (the young artist Sergei Ugryumov managed to turn him into one of central characters performance), revealing amazing adaptability to circumstances.

“The Cherry Orchard” is an example of the current variety of styles. David Borovsky, current main artist Moscow Art Theater, revived the asceticism of the old Taganka. Among the quarters and eighths of the cut deceptive curtain, which move around the stage, dividing it into rooms and nooks, among the noble cloths walk: naturalistic, even with a physiological bias, Firs (Vladimir Kashpur), characteristic, in the best traditions of the strong provincial theater Simeonov-Pishchik (Vladimir Krasnov), a whole company of mysterious people, focusing on inner strength“Tabakerkovites” - Andrey Smolyakov, Evdokia Germanova, Sergey Ugryumov; amazing Sergei Dreyden - Gaev, a creature who, like balloon, you have to hold the thread; and, finally, Ranevskaya in a new format, Ranevskaya from the “Style” program - Renata Litvinova. The main lure of this “Cherry Orchard” and the main guarantee of success, especially among the youth audience.

“The Cherry Orchard” is an easy performance. Without any special Moscow Art Theater pauses or other psychological burdens, it flies by quickly. If in some places certain bewilderments arise - for example, why Firs, the only one of the servants, “okats”, or all the male characters wear hats at home, like rabbis, or by what logic a sailor in a pea coat was brought out as a random passer-by, and where he left his “Aurora”... - you don’t think about it for a long time. All sorts of trifles and trifles are completely eclipsed by the unprecedented, truly revolutionary interpretation of the image main character.

All the characters mentioned, although played differently, are related to each other by blood. They are all Chekhovian. That is, ambiguous, deep, with a double or triple bottom, with a rich, not immediately revealed system of internal connections and experiences. Any applicant upon admission to theater university must know firmly, so that it bounces off your teeth, that Chekhov’s heroes never say what they think, and always think about something other than what they are talking about. this moment They say. Text is nothing, subtext is everything. Therefore, these plays may bore the public, but they have a hypnotic power over the directors, for interpreting is one of the greatest pleasures in life. And Chekhov provides endless field for directorial maneuver.

2. Modern productions of the play by A.P. Chekhov's "The Cherry Orchard" in Russia and abroad

1 The play “The Cherry Orchard” on the Russian stage

Chekhov play production theater

The Cherry Orchard began its triumphal march through theater scenes Russia and the world, which continues to this day. Only in 1904, this play by Chekhov was staged at the Kharkov Theater by Dyukova (simultaneously with the production at the Moscow Art Theater, premiered on January 17, 1904), the Partnership new drama in Kherson (director and performer of the role of Trofimov - Vsevolod Meyerhold), in Kiev Theater Solovtsov and at the Vilna Theater. And in 1905, “The Cherry Orchard” was also seen by spectators in St. Petersburg - Chekhov’s play was staged on the Alexandrinka stage by Yuri Ozerovsky, and Konstantin Korovin acted as a theater designer.

In that famous performance the images of Gaev and Ranevskaya came to the fore, brilliantly performed by Konstantin Stanislavsky and Olga Knipper-Chekhova, and thus the line of noble impoverishment and powerlessness in the face of the impending collapse of life was at the center of the production. This interpretation was not consistent author's intention. Chekhov wrote that what was played in the theater was “positively different from what I wrote,” and that the theater “ruined” the play. Let us remember that the playwright insisted that the central figure in the play is the role of Lopakhin. For a long time, the Moscow Art Theater rehearsed the play as a “heavy drama,” despite detailed instructions and the personal presence of the author. However, over time, the performance went better and better, and many drama theaters They were in a hurry to introduce the play into their repertoire. Thus, Vsevolod Meyerhold, who managed to feel the tonality of Chekhov’s play, staged “The Cherry Orchard” in Kharkov, which he reported to the author in a letter: “... The Cherry Orchard we play well... Your piece is abstract, like a Tchaikovsky symphony. And the director must catch it with his ear first of all.”

“The Cherry Orchard” can be found in the repertoire of most Russian theaters, many of the performances have become classics theatrical arts. Thus, the legend of the Taganka Theater (Moscow) became the production in 1975 by Anatoly Efros, filled with tragedy and a powerful feeling of the end of the world.

A completely new interpretation of Chekhov's play was proposed in 1984 by director Moskovsky academic theater Satires Valentin Pluchek, who tried to penetrate Chekhov's masterpiece without introducing his own interpretation. “Chekhov doesn’t need to be completed,” the director believed. At the center of the Satire Theater performance is the role of Lopakhin, brilliantly performed by Andrei Mironov.

The main character in Chekhov's latest masterpiece directed by Galina Volchek (Moscow Sovremennik Theater) was the Cherry Orchard itself. Her production in 1997? - this tragic story about ridiculous and funny people who have no future.

In 2009, the premiere of “The Cherry Orchard” took place on the stage of the Moscow Lenkom Theater.

On stage in December 2010 Bolshoi Theater took place in Moscow world premiere. “The Cherry Orchard” by Chekhov, which has gone through hundreds of stage productions in theaters throughout its history different countries, presented for the first time in the opera genre. Translated Chekhov's last play into sheet music French composer Philip Fenelon. “When I wrote music, I remembered Chekhov’s phrase that Rus'? - this is our Cherry Orchard . That’s why my opera has echoes of Mussorgsky, Tchaikovsky, Shostakovich and, of course, Russian folklore,” explains the composer.

2.2 Foreign productions of the play by A.P. Chekhov's "The Cherry Orchard"

Chekhov's works are widely represented on the stages of theaters around the world.

In the 1980-1990s, original interpretations of Anton Chekhov's plays by Eimuntas Nyakrosius, Joseph Raikhelgauz, Mark Rozovsky, Kama Ginkas and others appeared.

In Great Britain, widespread interest in Chekhov's work arose after the First World War. Throughout the twentieth century, many turned to him famous directors, such as Laurence Olivier and Peter Brook. In France, the peak of interest in Chekhov's dramaturgy occurred in the 60-70s of the twentieth century: among the directors were Jean Louis Barrault, Sasha Pitoev, Giorgio Streller, Monnet, Villars.

In Great Britain, the writer's anniversary was marked by the appearance of new productions of his plays. On April 16, 2010, the premiere of the play “The Cherry Orchard” directed by the famous Scottish director John Byrne took place at the Royal Lyceum Theater (Edinburgh). It should be noted that the director turned to Chekhov's plays before. In 2006, the viewer was offered an adaptation of Chekhov's "Uncle Vanya" called "Uncle Varik", in which Bern transformed "scenes from village life" in "Scenes from life in north-east Scotland in the 1960s."

The director also turns to similar historical parallelism when staging The Cherry Orchard. The action of the play is transferred to countryside Perthshire (Scotland). The period of action is the end of 1978 - the beginning of 1979, characterized by inflation and unemployment, strikes of miners and railway workers, uncontrolled immigration and conflicts on national and racial grounds. These crisis months went down in British history as the “Winter of Discontent.” The country stood on the threshold of impending social changes and tough socio-political reforms carried out by the government of Margaret Thatcher, who won the extraordinary parliamentary elections in May 1979. “The turbulent era of Thatcher’s rule is certainly not comparable in scale to the Russian Revolution, although the social dramatic changes were still significant,” the director notes. - Large families lived in big houses, made wasteful trips to Paris, went bankrupt, and then the absolute idealists McCrackens appeared with long speeches in the Chekhovian spirit.” Bern's hero Malcolm McCracken (Lopakhin), like M. Thatcher, is the son of a grocer. Having risen from the bottom and quickly become rich in real estate, he remains spiritually poor. His desire to demolish the estate and build a hotel complex with golf courses is understandable from the standpoint of a mercantile society governed by the laws of quick profit and unfair competition, but insensitive from the point of view of the priceless beauty of a dying cherry orchard. However, the older generation is no better. They are all anachronistic even for 1979, the director argues, with their “tweedy” superiority and desire to turn away from everything they don’t want to see or hear. They take helicopter rides around Eiffel Tower, waste money, thereby emphasizing their uselessness and worthlessness. And only Mrs. Ramsay-Mackie (Mrs. Ranevskaya) hides under a layer of futility a feeling of bitterness from the loss of what was a symbol of youth, joyful hopes, great expectations and what will never happen again - the cherry orchard.

The juxtaposition of pre-revolutionary Russia and pre-revolutionary Scotland in Bern's production is quite bold and unexpected. However, the director emphasizes that this is Chekhov’s play, that “nothing has been added to it and nothing has been left out.” He calls his production working together, in which the great Russian playwright built the foundation, and he “decorated what was already good.” Bern's work once again confirms the uniqueness of A.P.'s dramatic method. Chekhov, which opens up wide opportunities for stage experimentation.

The play is very interesting in the interpretation of the Dublin Abbey Theatre.

Abbey Theater is one of the most prominent representatives of the Irish theater school, Chekhov in the 20th century. became one of the most popular and beloved Russian authors in the repertoire European theaters, and M. O. Knebel is one of the main representatives of the school of Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko in the second half of the 20th century. Thus, in the play “The Cherry Orchard” very powerful currents of two theaters, Russian and Irish, came together.

Speaking about the Abbey Theater, you need to know that it was created at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. three Irish playwrights - W. B. Yeats, D. M. Synge and I. A. Gregory. Created on the basis of the principles and with the same goals as most of the independent, free theaters that appeared in Europe at this time (their number included the Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko Moscow Art Theater). The main one of these goals is opposition to the routine of commercial theater, a radical renewal of theatrical art. What was different about the Abbey Theater was that in the first decades of its existence it was not a director's theatre; In his stage activities, much was determined by playwrights. Both at this time and later, when the theater became national, directors were invited to the theater, but their activities did not acquire such a fundamental role as in France, Germany, England and Russia.

According to some researchers, modern Irish theater is primarily an acting theater. The level of acting in performances is much higher than directing. Most often, it is the actors who deepen and improve the dramatic material.

The meeting of the Abbey Theater with the director and theater teacher Knebel was one of the events that marked new stage in its development performing arts. The work of Maria Osipovna, even in such a short period of time allotted in Ireland for the release of a play, revealed to the Irish theater the essence of the director's profession in a new way. And not only as a professional director capable of bringing a dramatic text to life on stage, but also as a versatile artist who is also an organizer rehearsal process, a deep interpreter of the author’s thoughts and a teacher in the approach to working with actors on a performance.

In addition to the high artistic result, it is necessary to note the influence of Knebel’s work on the organization of the rehearsal process.

Knebel's production was revolutionary in many ways, causing serious changes in the activities of the Abbey Theater and increasing attention in Ireland to Russian theatrical culture.

One of the Dublin buildings was named after Stanislavsky. theater schools, his method is widely known in Ireland. In 1984, the Abbey Theater was on tour in the Soviet Union. On the stages of Irish theaters, Chekhov became one of the most popular playwrights. A few years after Knebel, another of our domestic directors, V. Monakhov, successfully staged Uncle Vanya at the Abbey Theater. Interest in Chekhov covers wide circles Irish actors, directors and playwrights. So, in the early eighties, Northern Irish playwright Brian Friel decided to make new translation“Three Sisters” for the Field Day Theater he organized. Not knowing the Russian language, he collected all the translations of this play known to him into English language, spent a huge research work and made another, perhaps the longest translation, made with great love, a good understanding of Chekhov's characters, excellent literary language. The production was carried out with careful attention to the text by the young director Stefan Ria.

Chekhov also influenced the work of many contemporary Irish playwrights, including Tom Murphy, Thomas Kilroy, Hugh Leonard and Brian Friel, who later translated many of Chekhov's plays. If earlier in most of the plays of Irish playwrights political issues were raised more sharply, social problems time, then after becoming acquainted with the work of the Russian classic, there was often a way out to moral, philosophical generalizations that have modern universal significance.

Thus, “The Cherry Orchard” by A.P. Chekhov, staged by M. O. Knebel, played an outstanding role not only in introducing the Irish theater to the work of the great Russian writer and playwright, but also in updating the performing arts of Ireland, its direction and drama.

In Germany and countries Northern Europe Chekhov's plays do not leave the stage: Peter Stein, Ralph Longbakka (Finland), etc. Since the 1950s, Chekhov's plays have been widely staged in theaters in China, Korea, and Japan. Chekhov is one of the most famous and influential European playwrights in the United States.

For the first time, Chekhov the playwright was presented to the German public by the city theater in Altona, which staged “The Proposal” on December 8, 1900 and the vaudeville “The Bear” 3 days later. These two humorous one-act plays are still most often staged in German theaters.

Only thanks to the tour of the famous Moscow troupe, which took place in the spring of 1906, Chekhov as a playwright won full recognition in Germany (Chekhov's short stories made their way back in the 1900s). Under the direction of Stanislavsky, the production of "Uncle Vanya" and "Three Sisters" was carried out, and both plays had exceptional success, which should be considered all the more significant since Berlin at that time became the leading theater city thanks to the activities of Brahm and Reinhardt, Kainz and Matkowski.

German criticism was full of praise for these performances, and although the plays were staged in Russian, the audience understood Chekhov better than they understood him during the performance of Uncle Vanya at German. They especially praised the amazing subtlety of conveying the mood, the sound technique and the excellent teamwork of the troupe. Even such a reserved critic as Alfred Carr exclaimed enthusiastically: “The Russians are a wonderful ensemble. It has never happened before that acting in the theater brought me almost to tears. It happened here." Gerhart Hauptmann, who also attended the performance, expressed his gratitude to the artists. His biographer Belle reports that even in 1932, therefore, a quarter of a century later, the great playwright remembered the events with all clarity theatrical life that period.

The impression made by the Moscow troupe influenced the development of German theater for a long time, but acquaintance with Stanislavsky’s masterful stagings also had the consequence that at first not a single German theater dared to stage Chekhov; only in 1909 was an attempt made to stage “The Seagull” ", a work that was not staged by the Art Theater. But the performances both in Breslav and at the Hebbel Theater in Berlin were insufficiently prepared, and therefore were not successful. After such an unsuccessful attempt, Chekhov’s dramas did not appear on the Berlin stage for eight whole years. Meanwhile, Munich, where Chekhov's plays began to be staged later than Berlin and Vienna, convinced that they could be successful when performed by German artists. This success befell The Seagull, which was staged for the first time in Munich on October 4, 1911 at the operetta theater. The Seagull then ran for 25 performances in a row - this was Chekhov's first lasting success on one of the German stages. Obviously, the play was very carefully studied, and it was perceived by the audience as a sincere reflection of Russian reality, imbued with a sad mood. A critic of the Munich newspaper Allgemeine Zeitung, on the basis of this idea, came to the conviction that Anton Pavlovich Chekhov is not only one of the most talented Russian short story writers, but “also a playwright of great power, a subtle depicter of moods, an artist of amazingly great skill.”

In the meantime, the last of the big drams Chekhov - “The Cherry Orchard”. A translation of the play, in which Lion Feuchtwanger also took part, was published in Munich in 1912 by Georg Müller. The premiere of this play in German took place, however, only in 1916 on the stage of the New Vienna Theater. In October 1918, i.e. immediately before the revolution (in Germany - A.G.), this play was staged by Friedrich Kaisler at the Berlin People's Theater.

The play was an exceptional success and was performed 27 times. This was facilitated not only by the favorable political situation - after all, the play, written in 1903, is full of forebodings of impending change - but also by the undeniably outstanding performance, which was unanimously praised by the press. Kaisler himself played Gaev, his wife, Elena Fedmer - Ranevskaya, Jurgen Fehling - Trofimova.

After this wonderful production, for twenty years not a single German theater dared to stage The Cherry Orchard. Only in the fall of 1938 did the Berlin Deutsches Theater resume the production of this play (this will be discussed below).

The end of the First World War caused a huge upsurge foreign literature in general and drama in particular, from which Chekhov also benefited.

It seems strange that a director of such magnitude as Max Reinhardt, an admirer of Stanislavsky, who was literally called upon to show Chekhov in all his depth, never himself staged the works of this playwright. Although during his Berlin activity the Deutsches Theater staged two Chekhov plays, however, the director of both productions was not Reinhardt.

In 1922, the Moscow Art Theater again toured in Germany, twice in Berlin (February - March and September); again they played “Uncle Vanya” and “Three Sisters”, this time also “The Cherry Orchard”. But the echo of the tour in the Berlin public was much weaker than the first time: after all, we're talking about about the period of economic and political crisis, which, naturally, greatly reduced interest in art. In addition, the spring tour took place just when the strike of railway workers and Berlin supply enterprises severely paralyzed the life of the city. However, experts, as before, were able to evaluate the performances staged... For example, Alfred Kerr wrote about the production of “The Cherry Orchard”: “the acting... simply amazing... everything is great, great, great...”.

In Berlin, after this successful production, there was a lull for a long time regarding Chekhov's plays, while in the provinces his large dramatic works were still on until 1928. In the next ten years, only one-act humorous plays could be found in the repertoire of German theaters.

Only in 1938, i.e. shortly before the Second World War, did the Deutsches Theater in Berlin again stage Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard.

Great success The Three Sisters were also used at that time in Berlin. The premiere took place on January 2, 1941, and the play did not leave the stage for 25 days. In connection with the war against Soviet Union the last opportunities were interrupted cultural connection with the Russian world. After the collapse of Hitler's Germany, foreign and, first of all, Russian authors, and with them Chekhov, experienced a revival, the first phase of which lasted until 1951.

The record number of performances of Chekhov's plays in Germany dates back to 1948, when The Seagull and The Cherry Orchard were staged in theaters in the cities of Greiz, Düsseldorf, Munich, Halle and Rostock. "The Bear" and "The Proposal" were performed on seven other stages in both parts of Germany. The Seagull, directed by Grundgeis, who himself played Trigorin, ran for a particularly long time (36 performances) at the Düsseldorf Theater. But this success was later offset by the success that befell the same play in 1954 on the stage of the West Berlin Theater on the Kurfüserdamm (48 performances) and was the biggest success Chekhov's plays in Germany. This was facilitated by the fact that the role of Nina was performed, for the first time in Berlin after the war, by the audience's favorite Kathe Gold.

year, the year of the fiftieth anniversary of the death of the great Chekhov, was marked by a new upsurge after two years of relative calm. At the same time, each of Chekhov’s major plays was prepared anew by separate theaters: “Three Sisters” in Leipzig, “Uncle Vanya” in Stralsund, “The Cherry Orchard” at the Hilpert Theater in Göttingen and “The Seagull” in West Berlin. The Leipzig production was a huge success, which was later shown in the city of Kassel.

Only by the mid-1960s. In the German theater, certain prerequisites have developed for revising the reception of Chekhov's drama. For the first time in the history of perception of Chekhov’s work in Germany, there has been a shift in emphasis towards his dramatic heritage, which is reflected in the increased number of editions of his plays and in the unusually high interest in them theater directors. By this time, Chekhov had already entered German history and drama theory as a writer whose plays anticipated the theatrical art of the 20th century.

An even more active renewal of the view of Chekhov's drama was facilitated by the change of generations in the German theater. Young directors P. Stein, P. Zadeck, who headed famous theaters Germany, turned to world staging experience, especially since in France, Italy and England, Chekhov's plays have long taken their rightful place on the stage.

New productions of “The Cherry Orchard” (P. Zadek, 1968; R. Nelte, 1970; G. Litzau, 1970; O. Krejci, 1976), performed in in the riverbed modern direction- "director's theater".

With an individual selection of artistic and aesthetic means of expression, these directors sought to separate Chekhov's play from its “image” created by Stanislavsky. The second defining trend was expressed in the search for some universal content in The Cherry Orchard, in the “globalization of the conflict.” The interpreter's vision of the play was also accompanied by a rather drastic intervention in the original, a re-emphasis of the author's text, which largely reflected a subjective view of Chekhov. Nevertheless, these productions freed Chekhov’s “The Cherry Orchard” from the narrow framework of its usual correlation with positivist naturalistic trends late XIX century, opening up space for modern reading.

Early 1980s for the German theater was marked by a global event - Paris premiere“The Cherry Orchard” directed by P. Brook (1981). This valuable production experience was actively analyzed by German directors and theater critics. They paid special attention to the ambivalent essence of the characters, as well as the bizarre psychological drawing Chekhov's images, so masterfully reproduced by P. Brook on stage. The director's work made significant adjustments to the reputation of the frivolous woman that Ranevskaya had on the German stage. In Brook's production, the heroine's frivolity was balanced by outbursts of sincere deep feeling, her careless joy alternated with despair, laughter with tears, selfishness with kindness. All this revealed Ranevskaya’s character from a new side, giving significant impetus for its rethinking in the German theater.

Evidence of the ongoing search for the “key” to Chekhov’s poetics is the wide ideological and stylistic range of modern productions of “The Cherry Orchard” in Germany. And today the play provides directors with enormous space for a wide variety of interpretations and assessments, but at the same time requires them to read especially carefully and sensitively.

IN last decade The complex genre nature of Chekhov's final work became the subject of close attention. A clear example of how the placement of new accents can change the overall sound of a play are two productions of “The Cherry Orchard” by one of the largest German directors, P. Stein, which are based on different genre dominants. The first “The Cherry Orchard” (Berlin, 1989) was imbued with sincere sympathy for Ranevka and Gaev, the owners of the estate, whose era, personified by the cherry orchard, had passed. The unconditional sympathy of the director could only be doubted by the slight irony in the interpretation of the images of these heroes, who, even experiencing a catastrophe, did not forget about the grace of manners.

The result of the director's thoughts on genre specifics The play was expressed in the second production of “The Cherry Orchard” (1995), in which the abundance of comedic and farcical scenes sometimes called into question the dramatic beginning of the work.

So, all of the above allows us to conclude that of the most significant plays by Chekhov, German theaters most often staged The Seagull (18 times before 1958), 15 times - The Cherry Orchard, and 12 of them after 1945. This indicates that The Cherry Orchard is currently Chekhov's most beloved play.

CONCLUSION

“The Cherry Orchard” is not only the result and pinnacle of Chekhov’s drama. In this comedy the author summarizes all his artistic achievements, here the influence of his prose is palpable, a characteristic combination of lyricism, comedy, satire and tragedy. Behind the comedy there is a palpable tragedy. Chekhov says goodbye to all of the old, departing Russia, realizing the impossibility of its further existence.

But it’s not for nothing that critics defined the fundamentally new sound of the play “The Cherry Orchard” as “social optimism.” The approach, the expectation of a new life was a sign of the era. And Chekhov felt this acutely.

“The Cherry Orchard” was a deep, talented and wise response of A.P. Chekhov the artist to the growing revolutionary events, which should, in his opinion, bring a long-awaited renewal of life and enable a liberated person to devote himself entirely to rational life. creative activity, subordinated to the wonderful idea of ​​​​transforming all of Russia into a “new blooming garden.”

Chekhov's play was staged on the stages of Moscow, St. Petersburg and the provinces, including a huge number of its interpretations abroad. The most talented Russian actors took on the roles in them.

The production of Chekhov's plays on the stage of the Moscow Art Theater was always a great event. public importance. Protesting against bourgeois reality, Chekhov at the same time anticipated the approaching storm, awakened the desire for a better future, for a wonderful life, when people will be free and happy. This longing for a better life and the belief that it will certainly come were soulfully conveyed in the performances of the Art Theater.

The unity of the ideological foundations of the work of Chekhov and the Moscow Art Theater was reflected in the bold innovation of the theater in the field of performing arts. K. S. Stanislavsky and Vl. I. Nemirovich-Danchenko was united with Chekhov by the awareness of the need for deep stage reforms aimed against vulgarity, routine and bureaucratic behavior that flourished in the bourgeois theater of those years. Fighting against handicrafts, cliches, overacting and exaggeration in acting, trying to bring the truth of art as close as possible to the truth of life, the Moscow Art Theater saw in Chekhov a faithful ally.

On the stage of the Moscow Art Theater “The Cherry Orchard”, and then all the other plays of Chekhov, appeared before the audience for the first time, as new page in the history of Russian and world theatrical art.

Appeal young theater to Chekhov's work was not accidental. The Moscow Art Theater, created during the years of revolutionary upsurge, before the first Russian revolution, acted as an exponent of the thoughts and sentiments of the advanced democratic intelligentsia, the same intelligentsia whose rulers were Chekhov and Gorky. Chekhov's work, imbued with protest against the autocratic-bureaucratic system, hatred of the vulgarity of gray Russian everyday life, of enslavement and humiliation human personality, was deeply related to the team of the Moscow Art Theater. It is not for nothing that all of Chekhov’s plays are performed on his stage one after another, and he writes “Three Sisters” and “The Cherry Orchard” specifically for the Art Theater.

Chekhov's dramaturgy helped shape and define the art of the Art Theater. Each new production of Chekhov's plays was a step towards achieving artistic truth, which the theater placed at the basis of its art.

In these searches, the most important thing that distinguished the Art Theater was its exceptionally subtle psychological performance, based on revealing the internal “subtext” of each, even the smallest role.

The emotional intensity of the actor's performance, insight into the essence of the character of the image, the actor's speech, devoid of any shade of unnaturalness and pompousness, declamation, costume, makeup, manner of acting on stage - all this was re-developed by the Art Theater as a result of mastering the wonderful traditions of Russian realistic theater. The artists of the Art Theater lived on stage in the full, exhaustive sense of the word, showing filigree skill in conveying the most subtle emotional movements. The deepest strong feelings of a person, which usually remain hidden in life, were revealed in the Moscow Art Theater with a subtle but clear drawing, made understandable and close to the viewer, and evoked a warm, sincere response in him. The artists of the Art Theater in their acting embodied the requirements of Chekhov, who, seeking the utmost truthfulness of the actor’s performance, wrote: “Suffering must be expressed the way they are expressed in life, that is, not with your feet or hands, but with your tone, your gaze; not with gestures, but with grace.” Only Art Theater managed to achieve that on stage everything would be “as complex and at the same time as simple as in life. People have lunch, they only have lunch, and at this time their happiness is formed and their lives are shattered.”

Taking care to express the idea of ​​Chekhov's plays as deeply as possible, the direction of the Art Theater created such a stage atmosphere of the performance that immediately conveyed to the viewer an unusually true sense of the truth of everything that was happening on stage. This was not obsessive illusionism, naturalistic copying of unimportant details of everyday life: the stage atmosphere that was achieved in Chekhov's plays Art Theater was a realistic reproduction of the life described in the play.

The merit of the new, most complete and interesting reading of Chekhov in Soviet period also belongs to the Art Theater. Based on knowledge of life Soviet country, enriched by the experience of working on the dramaturgy of Gorky and Soviet writers, the theater returned to the work of its beloved playwright.

So in various parts of our Motherland, as well as in Germany, Great Britain, Ireland, in a new way and with new strength sounds the poetry and romance of Chekhov, his passionate condemnation of everything inert, petty, philistine and his great faith into life, into the person who creates it.

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