Ivanov
Описание книги
Anton Chekhov was a master whose daring work revolutionized theater, and this was as true of Ivanov, his first full-length play, as of The Cherry Orchard, his last. Building on the success of his acclaimed adaptation of The Seagull, Tom Stoppard returns to Chekhov and the themes of bitter social satire, personal introspection, and the electrifying atmosphere of Russia on the brink of change. In these two new versions, Stoppard brings his crisp and nimble style to two masterpieces of the modern theater. Ivanov is a portrait of a man plagued with self-doubt and despair. Considered one of Chekhov’s most elusive characters, he seeks more in life than the selfabsorption and ennui he sees in his contemporaries. Tormented by falling out of love with his dying Jewish wife, Ivanov, on her death, proposes to the young daughter of his neighbor, but, as the wedding party assembles, a final burst of his habitual indecisivness has fatal results.
Отрывок из книги
Anton Chekhov, Russian dramatist and short-story writer, was born in 1860, the son of a grocer and the grandson of a serf. After graduating in medicine from Moscow University in 1884, he began to make his name in the theatre with the one-act comedies The Bear, The Proposal and The Wedding. His earliest full-length plays, Ivanov (1887) and The Wood Demon (1889), were not successful, and The Seagull, produced in 1896, was a failure until a triumphant revival by the Moscow Art Theatre in 1898. This was followed by Uncle Vanya (1899), Three Sisters (1901) and The Cherry Orchard (1904), shortly after the production of which Chekhov died. The first English translations of his plays were performed within five years of his death.
Tom Stoppard has made English versions of The Seagull (1997) and The Cherry Orchard (2009). His other translations and adaptations include The House of Bernarda Alba (Lorca), Undiscovered Country and Dalliance (Schnitzler), On the Razzle (Nestroy), Rough Crossing (Molnár), Largo Desolato (Havel), Heroes (Sibleyras) and Henry IV (Pirandello).
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Anna was – is – a rare, remarkable woman. She changed her faith for me, her name – abandoned home and family, gave up her fortune . . . and if I’d asked her for a hundred other sacrifices she’d have made them without a second’s thought. Not like me. I haven’t sacrificed a thing, and there’s nothing remarkable about me. Well, anyway . . . (Ponders.) Well, briefly, I married her because I was madly in love, I swore I would love her for ever, but . . . five years went by, she still loves me but I . . . (Spreads hands in a gesture of helplessness.) And here you are telling me she’ll soon be dead, and I feel no love or pity but only a kind of hollowness. To you it must look awful – I don’t understand what’s happening to me myself . . .
They walk away into the garden.
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