Complete Works of Anton Chekhov

IVANOFF

This four-act drama was first performed in 1887, when Fiodor Korsh, owner of the Korsh Theatre in Moscow, commissioned Chekhov to write a comedy. However, the young playwright responded with a four-act drama, which he wrote in ten days. Despite the success of its first performance, the production disgusted Chekhov himself. In a letter to his brother, he wrote that he “did not recognise his first remarks as my own” and that the actors “do not know their parts and talk nonsense”. Irritated by this failure, Chekhov made alterations to the play. Consequently the final version is different from that first showing. After this re-write, it was accepted to be performed in St. Petersburg in 1889. Chekhov’s re-write was a success and offered a foretaste for the style and themes of his subsequent masterpieces.