The Complete Plays

APPENDIX

LOST AND UNWRITTEN PLAYS

Taras Bulba [Tapac Бyль·a], 1873–1874

According to Scriba (E. A. Solovyev-Andreevich), “A. P. Chekhov as remembered by his relatives,” Priazovsky kray 180 (1904), Chekhov’s earliest literary effort was a dramatization of Nikolay Gogol’s novel about Cossacks as a tragedy.

He Met His Match [Haшлa koca нa kaмeнь], 1878

From a letter of Aleksandr P. Chekhov to his younger brother Anton, October 14, 1878:

He Met His Match is written in excellent language and very characteristic of each of the persons you introduce, but your plot is quite trifling. This latest manuscript of yours, which, for the sake of convenience, I passed off as my own, I read to my comrades, people of taste, including S. Solovyev, the author of [the comedy] A Suburban Suitor.¹ In every case the verdict was this: “The style is excellent, there’s some know-how, but not much observation and no experience of everyday life. In time, qui sait?,² a professional writer might evolve.”

The Hen Has Good Reason to Cluck [He‰apoм kypицa пeлa], early 1880s

Mikhail P. Chekhov, Around Chekhov (Moscow, 1964):

When he was a student in the 7th class, Anton Pavlovich wrote [. . .] an awfully funny vaudeville The Hen Has Good Reason to Cluck and sent it [. . .] to us in Moscow to read aloud. [. . .] What became of the vaudeville, I don’t know.

The Clean-Shaven Secretary with the Pistol [Бpит‚ый cekpeтaapь cпиcтoлeтoм], early 1880s

Mikhail P. Chekhov, On Chekhov (Moscow, 1910):

He put into this vaudeville the editorial office of a newspaper with a double bed in it. One of the reporters brought an inept poem to be printed. And so Anton Pavlovich had to make up specially a particularly inept poem, in which the word “headlong” was to be repeated four times. Here is the poem:

Forgive me, my angel white as snow,

Friend of my days and my tender ideal,

That I, love forgot, rush there headlong,

Where death befalls . . . O, I am terrified! . . .

( . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . )

I go back to the grave with tear-stained eyes.

“The last line is a bit morbid,” says the editor to the hero of the vaudeville, “but the main thing is knowing how to recite.”

Mikhail P. Chekhov, Theatre, Actors and ‘Tatyana Repina’ (Petrograd, 1924):

. . . Chekhov did not send this vaudeville to the theatrical censor and, unfortunately, I know nothing about its fate.

A Parody of Drugged by Life [Пapo‰ия нa пьecy “Чa‰ жизни], 1884.

Chekhov to Nikolay Leikin,³ January 30, 1884:

Drugged by Life was written in the town of Voskresensk last summer, almost before my eyes. I also know the author, and his friends whom he mercilessly slights with his slander in his Abysses and Crises . . . Ashanin (former theater manager Begichev), Vycheslavtsev (former singer Vladislavtsev) and many other acquaintances of my family circle . . . It might be possible to do a little slandering of one’s own, hiding behind a pseudonym.⁴

Leikin to Chekhov, February 19, 1884:

The parody of B. Markevich’s play was already set up, when I got your letter not to print the parody, and I ordered the type to be dismantled.

Hamlet, Prince of Denmark [Haмлeт, Пpинц ‰aтckий], 1887

Aleksandr P. Lazarev-Gruzinsky,⁵ “Lost Novels and Plays of Chekhov,” Energy (Énergiya) 3 (Petersburg, 1913):

On one of my next visits he presented me with Hamlet, Prince of Denmark.

“Take this playlet away with you to Kirzhach, A. S.! I began it, but I’m too lazy to finish it. I’m too busy and worn out by Ivanov. Write an ending, we’ll work it over together.”

I pled that I had never written a play and was afraid to disappoint the hopes he invested in me as a dramatist.

“Stuff and nonsense! You’ve got to begin some time, dear boy. Plays are our bread and butter. Write twenty plays, they’ll make you a whole fortune!”

Hamlet, Prince of Denmark had been begun by Chekhov on a quire of writing paper stitched into a notebook. This was Chekhov’s favorite meed of paper for more or less major items. On similar quires The Steppe had been written. Shorter stories he most often wrote on long, narrow strips of thin writing or letter paper. For Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, Chekhov had written a list of the intended characters, to whom I might still add a few persons, as I wished, and about 200 to 250 lines of text [. . .] The criticism of theatrical manners was meant, among other things, to refer to the levity of backstage mores (Ophelia was supposed to appear to be cheating on Hamlet) and harshly tweak provincial impresarios for their stinginess, lack of culture, etc. Chekhov’s view of them was the gloomiest.

The action of the playlet took place behind the scenes of a provincial playhouse during the rehearsals of Hamlet. Hence the title Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. Act One began with the actors gathering to rehearse. The first to appear were two actors, one of whom, Tigrov (Chekhov came up with the name), who played Hamlet’s father’s ghost, told stories about his many years of troup-ing in backwoods provincial towns. His generally very funny account had one purely Chekhovian detail:

“You arrive and put up at the ‘Grand Hotel’ — every dump in the sticks has its ‘Hotel Europa’ or ‘Grand Hotel’ . . .”

The first act was to end with a scandal and general bedlam.

The second act was supposed to show a scene from Hamlet.

After thinking about the first act, I sketched out a few combinations and a plan for the first act to the end. My inexperience in writing for the stage was expressed in the fact that, instead of a scandal and general bedlam, the first act was filled with lots of dialogue, although comic and sufficiently lively. Having kept a copy for myself, I sent the original Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, along with my rough drafts, to Chekhov and began to await the results of a letter.

Chekhov replied with a short postcard; admitting that my efforts to work out and finish the first act were not entirely hopeless, he promised after the production of Ivanov to send me a more detailed letter with notes on my supposed mistakes.

On November 27 I received that letter.

Chekhov to Lazarev-Gruzinsky, November 15, 1887:

The fact is that when I gave the actors a brief account of the plot of Hamlet, Prince ofDenmark, they expressed a burning desire to play it no later than January, i.e., as soon as possible. Strike while the iron is hot. Have you written anything? Is it coming out as needed? Can you manage the plot and the stage conventions? Be that as it may, hurry and write me in detail what you have thought up, written down and have planned out. At the same time send me my manuscript (rolled into a scroll), keeping a copy for yourself. I will combine mine with yours, I will think up and immediately inform you of my intentions and projects. Conditions: 1) utter confusion, 2) each mug must be characteristic and speak its own language, 3) no dull spots, 4) uninterrupted action, 5) roles must be written for Gradov, Svetlov, Schmidthof, Kiselevsky, Solovtsov, Vyazovsky, Valentinov, Kosheva, Krasovskaya and Borozdina, 6) criticism of theatrical practices, without criticism our vaudeville would be meaningless.

While awaiting the speediest answer I recommend you, dear sir, to lie in bed, take your brains in hand and start cogitating; after long cogitation you will sit at your desk and sketch out your plan.

Lazarov-Gruzinsky to Chekhov, November 21, 1887:

I admit that your “Conditions” for a vaudeville are very clear, very correct and very necessary; what’s needed are 1. complete mayhem, 2. absence of dull spots, 3. characteristics, 4. criticism, 5. action. As to the casting of roles, I am not familiar with the lines of business of Svetlov, Solovtsov, Vyazovsky, Valentinov and Kosheva.⁶ Didn’t Svetlov play Khlestakov, or am I wrong? Vyazovsky is a comic old man . . . Kes ke say Valentinov? Maybe this can all be worked out?

[. . .] I keep thinking about Act 2. True, it isn’t suitable to present a scene from Hamlet (i.e., the early scenes). It would be better to set the second act of the vaudeville “backstage.” Let Hamlet be going on, but our action unfolds behind the scenes: then the mixup with the wreathes is possible and anything you want, and even the general donnybrook. . . . In a best-case scenario the general fate of the vaudeville will be this: you will get Act 1 and the synopsis of Act 2 by November 29; you’ll take a few days to read and consider it; meanwhile I will be busy with Act 2; on the 21st I’ll come to Moscow (in the evening), on the 22 (Tuesday morning) I’ll pay you a call, and 22–23–24 the vaudeville will receive its final form. [. . .] P.S. On second thought I’m changing the plan: first, you asked that I send you back your manuscript, I’m sending it; second, I’ll hold on to the synopsis I have and planned (the ending), and wait for your answer, instructions, changes etc.

After your lines: Tigrov’s speech; the impresario runs in and wants to carry off Tigrov by force, Tigrov is undaunted, the impresario disappears in horror; second attack on Borshchov; Borshchov lays into Tigrov and says that, as long as he lives, he will not yield; appearance of Tigrov’s wife, incited by the impresario; she persuades Tigrov to leave the stage, entreats him, loses her temper, but when Tigrov reminds her of the impresario’s insult, the old woman sides with her husband; Borshchov is exhausted; Tigrov sends his wife to help him; the reporter appears (on stage; how are we to put him in the orchestra?), approving of the unmasking of Tigrov and praising his exposure; but when Tigrov refers to the press — the reporter gets embarrassed etc. Tigrov shifts to the immorality of actr[esses]. The impresario for the second times wants to take him off by force and for the second time suffers defeat. Tigrov talks. Wishing to worm his way into the impresario’s good graces, the prompter crawls out of his box, grabs the gaping Tigrov by the legs, stagehands run on and carry off Tigrov. The impresario is in transports of delight. But in a minute Tigrov appears again, devoid of fur coat and coattails (“Treachery may triumph for but a moment! . . .”). Unmasking of Ophelia, the engineer’s procession, Hamlet’s rage. Unmasking of Gertrude—Svireleva. Gertrude demands that the impresario shut Tigrov up; dialogue of Gertrude and the impresario; Gertrude faints. The impresario horrified agrees to do anything so long as Tigrov shuts up; Tigrov forces him to take an oath before the audience (“Swear” from Hamlet) and leaves the stage. Hamlet runs on stage, followed by Ophelia, who is trying in vain to convince him. Hamlet addresses himself to the now exultant (over his conclusion of the business with Tigrov) impresario and refuses to act. The impresario is dumb struck. Curtain.

In the second act I think there ought to be (as you already said) a fight between Babelmandebsky and the impresario and Tigrov, adding a different sort of confusion.

Chekhov to Lazarev-Gruzinsky, November 26, 1887:

Now about Hamlet

1) Your Hamlet consists entirely of dialogues, which have no organic connections. The dialogues are impossible. With each scene the number of characters has to increase progressively:

By accumulating episodes and characters and connecting them, you will succeed in keeping the stage filled and noisy over the course of the whole act.

You forget that the Tigrovs and Co. feel the eyes of the audience on them at all times. Consequently, Hamlet’s cross-examination of Ophelia as you’ve set it up is impossible. There’s far too much outburst and noise at that point. Hamlet is upset, but at the same time he masks his unhappiness.

3) The press agent can speak only from the orchestra pit. What the hell’s the point of dragging him on stage? He speaks curtly and firmly, Belyankin type.⁷

4) In Act II a scene from Hamlet has got to be played. In Act I the stage is set up in relation to the audience like this

But in Act II you want to set it up like this:

5) Your ending for Act I is stilted. It mustn’t end like that . . . In the interests of Act II you have to end with the reconciliation of the parties. After all, in Act II Tigrov plays Hamlet’s ghost!

6) By the way: the role of Trigrov is for Gradov.

7) Judging by your synopsis, you will be far from concise. Don’t forget that half the time will be spent on the actors’ business.

8) I’m afraid you’re getting fed up with me and will start cursing me out for being an arrogant swine . . . But I am comforted by the thought that fussing over a vaudeville is good for you: you’ll get the knack of it.

9) After the play [ivanov] I was so worn out that I lost the ability to think straight and speak right. Don’t be hard on me!

The Power of Hypnotism [Cилa „ипнoтизмa], 1887⁸

Ivan Leontiev-Shcheglov,⁹ “Literary Supplement,” Niva (Cornfields) 6–7 (1906):

In those days Chekhov had not yet written plays, and the one-act joke The Power of Hypnotism which he thoroughly reminds me of in one of his letters also remained unrealized . . . This was almost the only one of Chekhov’s improvisations of the time in dramatic form, from which, however, my memory has preserved only the “scenario” part. . . .

A certain dark-eyed little widow has turned the heads of two of her admirers, a fat major with a superb majorial moustache and a youth with no moustache at all, a pharmacist’s assistant. Both rivals, military and civilian, are crazy about her and ready to commit any folly for the sake of her flashing eyes, which possess, they are convinced, a certain special, demonic power. A funny love scene takes place between the seductive little widow and the fat major who, wheezing, gets down on his knees before the widow, offers her his hand and heart and swears that for love of her he will undergo the most awful sacrifices. The cruel little widow explains to the amorous major that she has nothing against his proposal and that the only obstacle to their march up the aisle . . . is the major’s bushy moustache. And wishing to test the demonic power of her eyes, the little widow hypnotizes the major, and hypnotizes so successfully that the major silently heads for the door and hurries straight out of the parlor to the nearest available barber. Then there occurs a certain farcical mix-up, whose details have escaped my memory, but whose upshot is the complete triumph of the moustacheless pharmacist. (It would seem the enterprising suitor, taking advantage of his rival’s absence, pours into the widow’s cup of coffee a love potion of his own devising.) And at the very moment when the little widow falls into the pharmacist’s embrace, the hypnotized major appears in the doorway in the most comic and silly plight: he has just got rid of his splendid moustache. . . . Of course, at the sight of the little widow’s perfidy, “the power of hypnotism” ends in a moment and the vaudeville ends with it.

I recall that the last scene, that is the major’s appearance without his moustache, made us both laugh a lot. Evidently, The Power of Hypnotism had the potential to become one of the most hilarious and popular of Russian farces, and I immediately made Chekhov promise that he would keep at it and not hide it away in a drawer.

“How’s it going, Antoine, with The Power of Hypnotism?” I asked him in one of my next letters.

“I shall write The Power of Hypnotism next summer—I don’t feel like it now!” Antoine negligently replied from his Moscow torpor.¹⁰

But summer went, winter came, then a number of years rolled by, and other, more melancholic themes eclipsed the brazenly funny joke of youth.

Leontiev-Shcheglov to Chekhov, September 30, 1888:

How is your Power of Hypnotism? Who knows — maybe, in defiance of all opinions, you are fated to become the more popular writer of vaudevilles.

Chekhov to Leontyev-Shcheglov, November 2, 1888:

Am I turning into a popular writer of vaudevilles? Goodness gracious, the way they clamor for them! If in my lifetime I just manage to scribble a dozen airy trifles for the stage, I’ll be thankful for it. I have no love for the stage. I’ll write The Power of Hypnotism during the summer—I don’t feel like it right now. This season I’ll write one little vaudeville and then rest until summer. Can you call this labor? Can you call this passion?

Thunder and Lightning [Гpoм и мoлиня],1888

Chekhov to A. S. Suvorin,¹¹ Moscow, December 23, 1888:

I’ve dreamed up for Savina, Davydov¹² and the ministers a vaudeville entitled Thunder and Lightning. During a thunderstorm at night I will have the country doctor Davydov drop in on the old maid Savina. Davydov’s teeth will ache, and Savina will have an insufferable personality. Interesting dialogue, interrupted by thunder. At the end—I marry them. When I’m all written out, I’ll start to write vaudevilles and live off them. I think I could write a hundred a year. Vaudeville plots gush up in me like oil in the wells of Baku. Why can’t I give my oil fields to Shcheglov?

Untitled Comedies and Vaudevilles

Chekhov to his younger brother Ivan, late October 1883:

I don’t walk anywhere, I don’t work. I keep busy with medicine and concocting a bad vaudeville.

Chekhov to Vladimir Tikhonov,¹³ May 31, 1889:

. . . I was starting a comedy, but wrote two acts and gave it up. It came out boring. There’s nothing more boring than a boring play, but now, it would seem, I am capable of writing only boring stuff, so it’s better to give it up.

Tatyana Shchepkina-Kupernik,¹⁴ Days of My Life:

I remember how once we were coming back to the estate [at Melikhovo] after a long walk. We were caught in the rain, and waited it out in an empty barn. Chekhov, holding a wet umbrella, said:

“You know, somebody ought to write a vaudeville: two people are waiting out a rainstorm in an empty barn, they joke, they laugh, they dry out their umbrellas and make declarations of love — then the rain ends, the sun comes out—and suddenly the man dies of a heart attack!”

“God save you!” I said in amazement. “How can you call that a vaudeville?”

“Still, it’s like life. You think things like that don’t happen? Here we are joking, laughing—and suddenly—bang! The end!”

Of course, he never wrote that “vaudeville.”

Pavel Orlenev,¹⁵ Memories of Chekhov in Rabis 29 (1929):

I had just performed one of my vaudevilles — From a Job to a Career—at Korsh’s Theatre. . . . After the intermission A. P. Chekhov came backstage. He walked into the dressing room and introduced himself.

“You know,” he said, smiling blandly at me, “as I watched you act, I wanted to write a vaudeville which would end in a suicide.”

Pyotr Gnedich,¹⁶ in Istorichesky Vestnik (Historical Messenger), 1911:

“Why do I write comedies!” Anton Pavlovich grieved. “Nobody needs them. The thing I should be writing is trivial vaudevilles! Ah, what can be better than a funny little, trivial little vaudeville, so funny that the spectators will burst their buttons roaring with laughter. And how healthy that would be for our hemorrhoidal organism!”

Aleksandr Vishnevsky,¹⁷ Scraps of Memory (Leningrad, 1928):

During a walk in [. . .] Tarasovka, Chekhov shared with me the plan for a play without a hero. The play was to be in four acts. During the first three acts people are waiting for the hero, they talk about him. He’s on his way, he isn’t on his way. And in Act Four, when everyone is fully prepared to meet him, a telegram arrives that he has died. This plan was very characteristic of Chekhov.

Chekhov to Olga Knipper-Chekhova,¹⁸ October 1903:

For the longest time now, I’ve been wanting to write the silliest possible vaudeville.

Untitled Dramas, 1903–1904

Mikhail P. Chekhov, “On A. P. Chekhov,” Everybody’s Journal (Zhurnal dlya vsekh) 7 (1906):

My brother always had plenty of themes for plays. I remember, he told me the subject of a play he had thought up, in which there was supposed to be an enormous printing office on stage. My brother loved printing offices, even advised me to get a job at some big printing office, even loved the book trade, but believed most, I think, in selling books at railroad stations. While staying in Venice with Suvorin and the author Dmitry Merezhkovsky in March 1891, Chekhov considered writing a play about the tragic fate of the Doge Marino Faliero, who stood up for the honor of his young wife, insulted by a patrician slanderer, but was not supported by the senate, and, after an unsuccessful attempt at an uprising against the oligarchy, was executed in 1355.

Olga Knipper-Chekhova, memoirs in Izvestiya, July 14, 1934:

In the last years of his life Anton Pavlovich had the idea of writing a play. It was still rather vague, but he told me that the hero of the play, a scholar, is in love with a woman who either doesn’t love him or betrays him, and so this scholar goes to the Far North. This is how he imagined the third act: there is a steamship, lost in the ice, Northern lights, the scholar is standing alone on the deck, silence, serenity and long nights, and then against the background of the Northern lights he sees the shadow of the beloved woman skim by.

Konstantin Stanislavsky,¹⁹ “A. P. Chekhov and the Art Theatre (Recollections),” Yearbook of the Moscow Art Theatre 1943 (Moscow, 1945):

The Spring of 1904 passed. Anton Pavlovich’s health kept getting worse. . . . However, despite his illness, he did not abandon his love of life. He was very interested in the Maeterlinck production which we were enthusiastically rehearsing at the time. He had to be kept abreast of the course of the work, shown the models for the sets, have the staging explained.

He himself dreamed of a play entirely new to his tendencies. Actually, the plot he concocted for the play was far from Chekhovian. Judge for yourself: two friends, both young, are in love with the same woman. This mutual love and jealousy creates complicated interrelationships. It ends up with them going on an expedition to the North Pole. The set for the last act depicts an enormous ship, lost in the ice. At the end of the play the two friends see a white ghost, gliding across the snow. Obviously, this is the phantom or soul of the beloved woman who has died far away in their homeland.

That was all that one could learn from Anton Pavlovich about his newly conceived play.

Aleksandr Kuprin,²⁰ memoirs in Znanie (Knowledge) 3 (St. Petersburg, 1905):

At the same time, he required of writers the most ordinary, true-to-life plots, simplicity of exposition and absence of tricky effects. “Why write,” he wondered, “that somone got into a submarine and traveled to the North Pole to effect some reconciliation with people, while his beloved with a dramatic yelp throws herself off a bell-tower? All this is untrue, and doesn’t happen in reality. One must write simply: about how Pyotr Semyonovich married Mariya Ivanovna. And that’s all . . .”

NOTES

1 The actual author was A. M. Krasovsky. Solovyev had translated a comedy called Too Few Suitors and Too Many Brides.

2 French: who knows?

3 Nikolay Aleksandrovich Leikin (1841–1906), humorist and editor of the comic journal Splinters (Oskolki), to which Chekhov contributed from 1882 to 1887.

4 Instead of a parody, Chekhov wrote a damning review of the novel’s dramatization (Splinters of Moscow Life, 7, February 18, 1884), and later refers to it in The Seagull.

5 Aleksandr Semyonovich Lazarev (1861–1927), a journalist and writer under the pseudonym A. Gruzinsky, was befriended by Chekhov, who tried to improve his style.

6 Members of Korsh’s acting company in Moscow, many of whom appeared in the first production of Ivanov: Leonid Ivanovich Gradov-Sokolov (1840–1890) as Kosykh, Nikolay Vladimirovich Svetlov (d. 1909) as Borkin, and Bronislava Eduardovna Kosheva as Babakina. Chekhov’s boyhood friend Nikolay Nikolaevich Solovtsov (1856–1902) created Smirnov in The Bear.

7 “Chekhov could do a very funny takeoff of L. L. Belyankin, far from the most vicious of the vicious Moscow journalists. By the words ‘Belyankin type’ he sketched for me a completely clear and finished type” (Lazarev-Gruzinsky’s note)

8 For the final version of this play, see Collaboration, pp. 253–262.

9 See Collaboration, note 1.

10 Letter to Leontyev-Shcheglov, November 2, 1888.

11 Aleksey Sergeevich Suvorin (1834–1912), journalist and publisher, had risen from peasant origins to become a millionaire and influence monger in the conservative camp; he and Chekhov were good friends until they took opposite sides in the Dreyfus Affair.

12 Mariya Gavrilovna Savina (1850–1915), leading lady at the Alexandra Theatre in St. Petersburg, who created the role of Sarra there. Vladimir Nikolaevich Davydov (pseudonym of Ivan Nikolaevich Gorelov, 1849–1925), leading actor at the Maly Theatre, for whom Chekhov had written Swan Song and who created the role of Ivanov in both Moscow and Petersburg.

13 Vladimir Alekseevich Tikhonov (1857–1914), a fellow playwright, who wrote a review of Ivanov.

14 Tatyana Lvovich Shchepkina-Kupernik (1874–1934), writer and good friend of Chekhov’s who introduced him to the actress Lidiya Yavorskaya, one of the models for Arkadina.

15 Pavel Nikolaeich Orlenev (Orlov, 1869–1932), an impassioned actor of neurotic roles such as Raskolnikov, who had begun his career at Suvorin’s theater and corresponded with Chekhov in 1902–1904.

16 Pyotr Petrovich Gnedich (1855–1927), playwright; when he became manager of the Russian troupe of the Petersburg imperial theaters he tried to get Chekhov’s plays onto the Alexandra stage.

17 Aleksandr Leonidovich Vishnevsky (Vishnevetsky, 1861–1943), former schoolmate of Chekhov and founding member of the Moscow Art Theatre, where he created the roles of Dorn, Voinitsky, and Kulygin.

18 Olga Leonardovna Knipper (1870–1959), actress at the Moscow Art Theatre, who played Arkadina, Yelena, Masha, Ranevskaya, and Sarra there; she met Chekhov in 1898 and married him in 1901.

19 Konstantin Sergeevich Alekseev, known as Stanislavsky (1863–1938), a wealthy industrialist and amateur actor-director, who, with Nemirovich-Danchenko, founded in 1898 the Moscow Art Theatre, where he directed the first Moscow revivals of The Seagull and Uncle Vanya, and the premieres of Three Sisters and The Cherry Orchard.

20 Aleksandr Ivanovich Kuprin (1870–1938), novelist and short story writer, became friendly with Chekhov in the 1890s, when Kuprin dabbled in playwriting.