Little Comedies: One-Act Plays by Anton Chekhov

by Anton Chekhov, Richard Nelson (Translator), Richard Pevear (Translator), Larissa Volokhonsky (Translator)

Overview

The ninth title in TCG Books’ Classic Russian Drama series collects seven one-act plays by master playwright Anton Chekhov.

This collection reunites playwright Richard Nelson with translators Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky for a fresh and theatrical translation of some of Chekhov’s best-loved shorter works. The title play, Swan Song, begins as a despairing monologue by an elder actor looking over a career of disappointment, but soon becomes a joyous celebration of theatrical creation once the actor recruits the theater’s prompter to play supporting roles ranging from Lear’s Fool to Hamlet’s Guildenstern. Other plays include the much-performed The Wedding and the dramatic monologue On the Harmfulness of Tobacco. These one-acts are ideal for scene study classes and recitals, as well as for readers of classic Russian literature.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781636701936
Publisher:	Theatre Communications Group
Publication date:	11/19/2024
Series:	TCG Classic Russian Drama Series
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook

About the Author

Richard Nelson’s many plays include Illyria; The Gabriels: Election Year in the Life of One Family (Hungry, What Did You Expect?, Women of a Certain Age); The Apple Family: Scenes from Life in the Country (That Hopey Changey Thing, Sweet and Sad, Sorry, Regular Singing); Nikolai and the Others; Goodnight Children Everywhere (Olivier Award for Best Play); Franny’s Way; Some Americans Abroad; Frank’s Home; Two Shakespearean Actors; and James Joyce’s The Dead (with Shaun Davey; Tony Award for Best Book of a Musical).

Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky have translated the works of Leo Tolstoy, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Nikolai Gogol, Anton Chekhov, Boris Pasternak, and Mikhail Bulgakov. Their translations of The Brothers Karamazov and Anna Karenina won the PEN Translation Prize in 1991 and 2002, respectively. Pevear, a native of Boston, and Volokhonsky, of St. Petersburg, are married and live in France.

Editorial Reviews

Praise for Pevear and Volokhonksy:

"Pevear and Volokhonsky are at once scrupulous translators and vivid stylists of English." —New Yorker

Praise for Nelson, Pevear, and Volokhonksy’s translation of Chekhov's Uncle Vanya:

“As naked and fully human an Uncle Vanya as we’re likely to see.” —The New York Times

“This new Vanya has a conversational smoothness that removes the cobwebs sticking to those other translations that never let you forget that the play was written in 1897…This is one of the most exquisite renderings of “Uncle Vanya” I’ve encountered, a heartbreaking reading of the play that retains just enough of the original’s sly humor to be truly Chekhovian. It has taken a playwright to show us how Chekhov can be staged today.” —Los Angeles Times

“The Nelson-Pevear-Volokhonsky translation is unadorned but never dull, poetic but not pretentious.” —New York Stage Review

From the Publisher