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About The Plays Of Anton Chekhov
About the Author Anton Chekhov was born in Taganrog, in southern Russia, and in his youth paid for his own education and supported his entire family by writing short, satirical sketches of Russian life. Though he eventually became a physician and once considered medicine his principal career, he continued to gain popularity and praise as a writer for various Russian newspapers, eventually authoring more literary work and ultimately his most well-known plays, including Ivanov, The Seagull, and Uncle Vanya. He died of tuberculosis in 1904, and is regarded as one of the best short story writers in history, influencing such authors as Ernest Hemingway, Vladimir Nabokov, and Raymond Carver. Arthur Rimbaud, born in 1854 in Charleville, France, is hailed as the father of Symbolism. His most famous works of poetry include The Drunken Boat and A Season in Hell. He died in 1891. Paul Schmidt was, in addition to a translator, a playwright, actor, and author of two books of poetry. Product Description These critically hailed translations of The Seagull, Uncle Vanya, The Three Sisters and the other Chekhov plays are the only ones in English by a Russian-language scholar who is also a veteran Chekhovian actor. Without compromising the spirit of the text, Paul Schmidt accurately translates Chekhov's entire theatrical canon, rescuing the humor "lost" in most academic translations while respecting the historical context and original social climate. Schmidt's translations of Chekhov have been successfully staged all over the U.S. by such theatrical directors as Lee Strasberg, Elizabeth Swados, Peter Sellars and Robert Wilson. Critics have hailed these translations as making Chekhov fully accessible to American audiences. They are also accurate -- Schmidt has been described as "the gold standard in Russian-English translation" by Michael Holquist of the Russian department at Yale University. Review "Both an actor and a Russian scholar, Schmidt sets out to give us a Chekhov who makes sense...The result is a surprisingly lively Chekhov, colloguial and clear, which will come as a revelation to those who know the playwright through the widely read but rather stiff British translations....Schmidt's Chekhov should be the first choice for any American reader."-- "Atlantic Monthly" Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. The Plays of Anton Chekhov By Chekhov, Anton Pavlovich PerennialCopyright © 2004 Anton Chekhov All right reserved. ISBN: 0060928751 Swan Song A Dramatic Sketch in One Act 1887 Characters Vasily Vasilich Svetlovidov, an actor, about 68 years old Nikita Ivanich, the prompter, an old man The action takes place on the stage of a theater in the provinces, late at night, after the show. The empty stage of a second-rate provincial theater. Right, several crude unpainted doors leading to the dressing rooms; left and rear, piles of backstage junk. Center stage, an overturned stool. It's night. The stage is dark. Enter from a dressing room Svetlovidov, costumed as Calchas from Offenbach's La Belle Helene, with a candle in his hand. svetlovidov: Well, if that isn't . . . (A loud laugh) What a joke! I fell asleep in the dressing room! The performance is over, everybody's gone home, and I slept through it all like a baby! Silly old fart. I must be getting old. Had a few too many, and I just sat there and went to sleep. Very smart. Brilliant performance. (Shouts) Yegorka! Yegorka! Where are you, goddamn it? Petrushka! They must've gone home. . . . God damn 'em. Yegorka! (Picks up the stool, sits down on it, and sets the candle on the floor) There's nobody here. Just an echo. I gave each of them a big fat tip today, and now when I need them they're gone. Bastards probably locked up the theater, too. (Shakes his head) Ohh, God! I'm still drunk. I drank too much at the benefit today, all that beer and wine. Jesus. I smell like a brewery. My mouth feels like it's got twenty tongues in it. . . . Ohh! I feel awful. (Pause.) . . .
