Chekhov's plays and "new drama"

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

The term "new drama" combines a number of fundamentally different, innovative approaches to performing arts. The works of Maeterlinck, Ibsen, Shaw were created as a counterbalance to the "well-made plays", the dominance of which was observed on the stages of Western European theaters. With a masterfully twisted plot, they carried away the audience who had come to rest, but they were unable to leave any tangible mark on art.

As for Russian literature, there is a different picture in it thanks to such a wonderful phenomenon as the Ostrovsky theater. However, at the turn of the century, his realistic aesthetics somewhat exhausted itself, giving way to the "new drama". Alexander Blok, Leonid Andreev and Maxim Gorky created its unique examples, although the change in the type of conflict, the modification of the plot are already observed in the dramaturgy of their older contemporary, Anton Pavlovich Chekhov.

From vaudeville to everyday tragedy

Researchers who analyzed Chekhov's plays distinguish several periods in his dramatic work. His early works (with the exception of "Ivanov") were created in the genre of vaudeville and are notable for their still unsettled artistic system. At the same time, Chekhov's plays such as "The Bear", "The Wedding" are conceptuallyapproach his later, lyrically sad "The Seagull" and "The Cherry Orchard". Their central motives are the vulgarization of a person and an attempt to prevent this process. With one difference: in vaudeville, the playwright focuses on philistines - people whose existence has merged with everyday life and thus turned into everyday life.

Type of conflict

Published in 1896, Chekhov's play "The Seagull" is fully consistent with the principles of the "new drama", primarily due to the new type of conflict. Since the time of Shakespeare, it has been customary that the conflict unfolds between the characters: Claudius and Hamlet, King Lear and his daughters. They weave intrigues, conspire against each other, in a word, act. Chekhov's plays (especially The Seagull) can be interpreted as a struggle between generations: the older one, represented by Arkadina, Trigorin, and the younger one, Konstantin Treplev and Nina Zarechnaya.

But is it really? Chekhov himself indirectly answers this question, making remarks about Maxim Gorky's Petty Bourgeois: “Just don’t oppose him (the worker Nil) to Peter and Tatyana, let him be on his own, and they on their own…”

This statement is quite applicable to "The Seagull": in fact, do Trigorin or Arkadin somehow interfere with the acting career of the protagonist? Are there any objective reasons, determined by the actions of other characters, why Andrei Prozorov abandoned science and got used to provincial life? The negative answer to these questions proves that the conflict in the "new drama" does not emerge between the character and other actors.persons. The main antagonist in Chekhov's plays is The Wall (the image is taken from the work of the same name by Leonid Andreev), Someone in Gray, Fate itself, unpredictable and capricious.

Lyric plot

Chekhov's plays are distinguished by a special construction of the plot. A fire near the Prozorov estate, a duel between Tuzenbakh and Solyony, Treplev's suicide - all these incidents are reported as if in passing, and, in fact, they have no effect on the course of events.

However, it would be an exaggeration to say that in the playwright's plays there is no plot as such. It goes into subtext, becomes lyrical. All the most important is, as it were, hidden from the viewer and only occasionally makes itself felt with absurd phrases (remember, for example, "Tarara bumbia …" by Chebutykin) or inappropriate actions. They reveal the ongoing thought process of each of the characters. However, this stream of consciousness is objectified and presented in a detached way, thereby allowing researchers to talk about a new type of drama - synthetic, in which epic and lyrical beginnings are combined.

Space and time

"Cherry blossoms, a solid white garden … And ladies in white dresses" - this is how Chekhov described his new idea to Stanislavsky. The play "The Cherry Orchard" (this is what the writer has in mind) testifies to the importance of the landscape as a unit of the objective world of Chekhov's dramatic works. Nature is spiritualized, it is “not a cast”, “not a soulless face”, but is filled with the emotions of the characters, it becomespsychological.

As for time, for the heroes of The Three Sisters and other works it acts as a destructive force, destroying hopes for a better life. The future in Chekhov's plays is always uncertain; often the writer resorts to the open ending so characteristic of the "new drama".

Characters

The heroes of Chekhov's plays are mostly capable, gifted people. Moreover, their talent is not limited to professional activities. Much less common are mediocrity like Professor Serebryakov or teacher Kulygin. This feature is explained by the worldview of Chekhov, who believed that the presence of talent is an integral feature of every person, the crown of the universe. In jurisprudence, there is a presumption of innocence. The writer would use a different term - the presumption of talent, according to which each of us can show the talent hidden inside, if only the time were right for this.

Meaning

Among the works of Strindberg, Ibsen and Shaw, Chekhov's plays have found their rightful place. They fixed a new type of conflict, which has an existential character, relevant for subsequent Russian and world literature.