Chekhov on the British Stage

by Patrick Miles (Editor)

Overview

Chekhov's plays have become the most popular ones in Britain next to Shakespeare's. This is the first book to consider this phenomenon from its beginnings in 1909 to the present. It embodies the facts of Chekhov's progress on the British stage, which involves such giants of twentieth-century theater as Komisarjevsky, Bernard Shaw, Peggy Ashcroft and John Gielgud, but it also examines the highly contentious issues of directing, acting and translating Chekhov in Britain today. It is a book intended for those interested in the living British theater.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780521384674
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	05/06/1993
Pages:	272
Product dimensions:	6.30(w) x 9.29(h) x 0.79(d)

Table of Contents

List of illustrations; List of contributors; Note on style and abbreviations; 1. Introduction; 2. Chekhov on the British stage: differences; 3. The 'inevitability' of Chekhov: Anglo-Russian theatrical contacts in the 1910s; 4. Chekhov, naturalism and the drama of dissent: productions of Chekhov's plays in Britain before 1914; 5. Bernard Shaw's dialogue with Chekhov; 6. Coping with the outlandish: the English response to Chekhov's plays 1911–1926; 7. Komisarjevsky's 1926 Three Sisters; 8. Peggy Ashcroft and Chekhov; 9. Far from the West End: Chekhov and the Welsh language stage 1924–1991; 10. Chekhov re-viewed: the Moscow Art Theatre's visits to Britain in 1958, 1964 and 1970; 11. A path to Chekhov; 12. Subsequent performances: Chekhov; 13. The 'dwindling scale': the politics of British Chekhov; 14. The Cherry Orchard: a new English version by Trevor Griffiths; 15. Changes of direction: Mike Alfred's methods with Chekhov; 16. Chekhov and the company problem in the British theatre; 17. Design for Chekhov; 18. My search for standards as a translator of Chekhov's plays; 19. Chekhov into English: the case of The Seagull; 20. English translations of Chekhov's plays: a Russian view; 21. Appendix: A chronology of British professional productions of Chekhov's plays 1909–1991; Index.