Lecture: "Theatre in Tsarist Russia"

The third examination of Modern Theatre within a specific national and historical context will be that of Anton Chekhov, who wrote his major plays in the 1890s, in a Russia ruled by a tyrranical tsar who would soon be deposed by a radical Revolution.

The Historical Context of Chekhov's Theatre

In 1861, Tsar Alexander II freed the serfs, purportedly ending thousands of years of feudal life in Russia. In reality, this gesture (very similar to the almost simultaneous "freeing" of the slaves by Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation in the United States) had little effect on the everyday experiences of serfs in Russia. Russia continued to be dominated by a rigid class system with brutal landowners and abjectly poor farmers (and gradually, factory workers). In 1881, The People’s Will, a radical terrorist group, assassinated Tsar Alexander II. Alexander III, his son, became Tsar and brutally silenced all revolt via the notorious pogroms (which included significant anti-Semitic ethnic cleansing, named "Russification"). Ultimately, the strategy of Russificiation (purifying Russia with things only Russian) failed, and late 19th Century Russia became more and more Europeanized. This resulted in a flurry of Russian art in many fields, nourished by contact with the West, particularly France.

Late 19th Century Russian Art

1. In the novel: Tolstoy (Classical Realist) and Fyodor Dostoefsky (Modernist)

2. In music: Tchaikovsky and Rimsky-Korsakov

3. In the theatre: Anton Chekhov

It is this historical climate in which Chekhov writes his theatrical masterpieces in the 1890s. Chekhov writes about the class tensions which arise out of this Russian historical situation, but does so in a droll, wry way. He is by no means a Revolutionary, like the intellectuals that would foment the revolution 20 years later. Chekhov instead uses a Realist style to describe a society on the verge of revolutionary explosion.

In fact, by 1905 (Chekhov had died of tuberculosis in 1904), a first attempt at Revolution had begun. Tasr Nicholas II waged a war with Japan to demonstrate Russian power. Russia was pathetically and quickly defeated. In January 1905, a peaceful demonstration for domestic reforms ended in the Tsar’s troops brutally massacring the demonstrators (this was called "Bloody Sunday"). The peasants responded with a full scale revolt. The Tsar quelled this temporarily with the October Manifesto, which created a Duma (a parliament). However, this was never meant to do anything other than quell the revolt without giving reforms, so quickly it became clear that no reform had actually occurred. In 1917, a successful overthrow of Nicholas would finally happen, eventually resulting in the Soviet-led Russian Revolution.

This is the historical background important for understanding Chekhov’s plays. Chekhov’s first plays--for example, The Wood Demon (1889), an early version of Uncle Vanya--were bitter failures. However, by 1896, he had developed a mature style of Psychological Realism, which offered characters in dramas which stood in stark contrast to the French melodrama being imported into Russia from France. As one theatre textbook, Stages of Drama, describes it: "Chekhov’s audience was unaccostomed to his low-key realism, to his subtle revelations of character, to his apparently plotless drama of Russian life, for this kind of drama was completely at odds with the melodramatic thrillers then being imported from Paris" (599). Thus, Chekhov’s plays failed because they weren’t melodramas. However, it is worth noting that the material of a play like Uncle Vanya is relatively similar to a melodrama: it is about a middle-class family full of conflict. The way in which that material is presented--Psychological Realism, through the in-depth presentation of why characters behave and repress in the way that they do--is what makes Chekhov plays good examples of Modern Theatre reacting against the melodrama.

Chekhov finally became successful when Konstantin Stanislavsky formed the Moscow Art Theatre in 1898. Stanislavsky’s innovative naturalist acting style was perfectly attuned to Chekhov’s brand of Psychological Realism. The Seagull, which had failed when first performed in 1896, became an astounding success when the Moscow Art Theatre presented it. Stanislavsky’s naturalist acting techniques would become popularized in the 1950s in the United States through Lee Strasberg’s adaptation of it into "Method Acting."

Uncle Vanya’s relationship to Classical Tragedy can be most compellingly studied via the Neoclassical tenet of purity of genres. For Uncle Vanya is both a comedy and a tragedy, thus breaking with the classical tradition. Stanislavsky and Chekhov, in fact, had heated arguments about the play: Stanlislavsky maintained that the play was an intense tragedy based on class system abuses, while Chekhov insisted that the plays be performed so that they emphasized the comedic aspects of these situations. Modern performances have settled upon "the delicate combination of moods" in Chekhov. It is for this reason that I’d like to do an intertextual analysis of Vanya on 42nd Street.

An Intertextual Analysis of Uncle Vanya

I chose Vanya on 42nd Street (Louis Malle, 1994) as my intertext for Uncle Vanya because it mixes quite deftly the tragic and comedic aspects of the play. Wallace Shawn plays up the comedic potential of Vanya’s wit.

CLIP #1: Vanya on 42nd Street: "Nice day for a hanging"

The other question about adapting Uncle Vanya in 1990s America is: What pertinence does Uncle Vanya--a play from 1897 Russia--have for contemporary America? I would suggest that the fin de siecle attitudes in Uncle Vanya are very pertinent for our culture, particularly in the way the play expresses these concerns via a destruction of the natural environment.

Vanya on 42nd Street reworks Chekhov’s study of Russian provincialism into an analysis of New York City urbanism. It does this via deft slippages between the putting on of the show featuring New York City settings and the actual Chekhov theatrical material.

CLIP #2: Vanya on 42nd Street: Opening

The film also does this by using props to remind us of the slippage between Chekhov's Russia and the film's New York City.

CLIP #3: Vanya on 42nd Street: "I Love NY" Cup

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This page was last updated on June 16, 2001

Questions or Comments? Please phone me at (406) 994-6403 or send an e-mail to:  metz@montana.edu

Walter Metz, Department of Media and Theatre Arts, Montana State University--Bozeman