tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16876687.post113828596074779940..comments2024-02-27T16:59:54.089-05:00Comments on (The New) Theatre Ideas: More on ChekhovUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16876687.post-1138375263969806222006-01-27T10:21:00.000-05:002006-01-27T10:21:00.000-05:00Moreso than tragedy, it is. Tragedy asks us to shu...Moreso than tragedy, it is. <BR/><BR/>Tragedy asks us to shudder at Macbeth's spectacle. To take responsibility for his sins, as they are our sins. And to feel for this man, who deserves his fate.<BR/><BR/>The gut-puncher in MacBeth (i don't know why i'm bringing him up specifically) is when he is told his wife is dead, and that all is lost. And he realizes he is doomed, that perhaps he made a number of very poor and selfish decisions.<BR/><BR/>MacBeth becomes comic if he never realizes this and sallys forth unrepentant. An unwise fool.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16876687.post-1138371271327347952006-01-27T09:14:00.000-05:002006-01-27T09:14:00.000-05:00I agree, Allison, there is no sentimentality in Ch...I agree, Allison, there is no sentimentality in Chekhov. His attitude is not, as you say, that "everyone has a heart of gold," but rather that "everyone has a heart." I'm not certain that, say, Ibsen shares this outlook.<BR/><BR/>I also agree that his characters can be wounded deeply and permanently -- Nina, of course, being a prime example. And the wounds are caused by other characters. No heroes and villains.<BR/><BR/>ohwhybother is <I>also</I> right: there is an almost slapstick element to the plays. Madame Ranevskaya blasts Trofimov to such an extent that he rushes away in tears...and promptly falls down the stairs. Comedy and tragedy butted against each other.<BR/><BR/>That is the genius, it seems to me: to see the pain and the comedy in every situation, like the picture picture that changes from a beautiful young woman to an old one depending on how you look at it.<BR/><BR/>But to see comedy is not to sit in judgment.Scott Waltershttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04177922467901223790noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16876687.post-1138337918699792762006-01-26T23:58:00.000-05:002006-01-26T23:58:00.000-05:00Chekhov is, I think, widely misunderstood because ...Chekhov is, I think, widely misunderstood because people (like Stanislavsky) seem to think that a man with a profoundly tragic view of existence can't also be funny. Tragic is not a synonym for maudlin. Nor is it incompatible with comedy; in many ways, tragedy and comedy things are not opposites at all. And I really disagree that he judges his characters. He simply presents them, and leaves the rest to the audience.<BR/><BR/>Btw, I meant to say, Scott, that I also agree with your point that Chekhov saw the importance of the seemingly trivial: that the immense questions of existence are expressed through the unimportant or mundane details. (Again, if I may say so, like Beckett).Alison Croggonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08398213223487458758noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16876687.post-1138332469425889212006-01-26T22:27:00.000-05:002006-01-26T22:27:00.000-05:00didn' chekhov bemoan the fact that the MAT turned ...didn' chekhov bemoan the fact that the MAT turned his comedies into maudlin tragedies? <BR/><BR/>chekhov wrote comedies. and i think he did judge his characters, harshly. they were laughable in their inability to articulate feelings, actions, to be fully self-aware. he was mocking those who wallow in comfort.<BR/><BR/>comedy allows one to judge man's folly without having to take responsibility for it. i could be a good theater blogger and annotate the various hilariousness of the seagull or cherry orchard, but in each play are characters who refuse to change. it's cruel emotional slapstick; they fall down, and get up and still hit the banana peel.<BR/><BR/>but then again, i suppose this is the true genius of the man. he can be either.<BR/><BR/>i hold that he's the funniest playwright i've ever had the pleasure to have read.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16876687.post-1138325559805642402006-01-26T20:32:00.000-05:002006-01-26T20:32:00.000-05:00Hmm. I don't know that you can make an awful lot o...Hmm. I don't know that you can make an awful lot of the fact that Chekhov was certainly a courteous man (sometimes, not always - there are different views to Troyant'ssentimental hagiography, a view that is close to Gorky's description here). <BR/><BR/>Bu I do agree totally, Scott, that Chekhov never judges his characters. It's what I see as part of his moral toughness - for he is deeply moral, in a way that I find fascinating and moving. He never gives you a villain to hiss and a hero to cheer for, a "clear moral framework" as I've heard it described elsewhere. But this refusal to be seduced by easy moral standards can't be reduced, as it so often is, to a sentimenal gloss that, say, everyone has a heart of gold... Behind the plays is a fierce and angry condemnation of the hypocrisies of Russian society, a soul-destroying pettinesses that literally kills people. And behind <I>that</I> is a perception of existence that encompasses the knowledge that there are wounds that do <I>not</I> heal. Even, say, in the most ideal of societies... Actions are taken, words are said, that can never be taken back, and people suffer their consequences for the rest of their lives. That's because Chekhov never abstracts the human out of his plays - the hard won knowledge that some of his characters gain (Vanya, Nina) can't be weighed in the measure against its cost, which in some cases is everything.<BR/><BR/>I think Chekhov had a profoundly tragic insight into the fragility of human beings. I do think Beckett is unthinkable without Chekhov's example.Alison Croggonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08398213223487458758noreply@blogger.com