Dear Closet (notes on Chekhov’s plays)

Abstract

The main concern of the article is to find new meanings of Chekhov’s drama which were identified by B. Zingerman as “Time in Chekhov’s plays” and “violation of Ritual”. The notes taken by the director complement the works by the theater expert by exploring “rhyming”-overflow of Chekhov’s characters from play to play in their evolution, and their pairing and duality (Treplev-Trigorin, Voinitsky-Serebryakov, Vershinin-Tuzenbach). The article proposes a theory of “two steps”, according to which the fate of a character is determined by his deeds committed twice. The conclusions shed light on the ethical issues related with the present perception and understanding of Chekhov’s plays in modern theater and influence of Chekhov’s ideas on the evolution of the world literature and drama.

Keywords:

Сhekhov, Time, Ritual, Rhyming and Duality of characters, Events — Chance, “Two Step”, “The Tree” by Chekhov