Background on Drama, Generally, and Applications to Chekhov's Play

        Drama or theater is often superficially covered in introduction to literature classes, introduction to literature textbooks, and sometimes in Humanities classes and textbooks. A principal reason for this superficiality is this genre's complexity, which is indicated by its usually being placed last in introductory textbooks: prose fiction, poetry, drama is the usual order for such textbooks, arranged from lesser to greater in complexity and difficulty. A play is not only a written piece of literature, and consequently possessed of all potential literary components of fiction and poetry, but also a script, which should require something physical of a particular theater or stage (setting, props, etc.) as well as of its actors (gestures, actions, blocking or grouping or composition on the stage). The word drama comes from Greek dran 'to do [something], perform a physical action,' which is indicative of its action orientation. If a literary author composes a work which does not mandate physical uses of setting, props, action, or other uniquely dramaturgical components, then the author might have more properly written a short story, novel, poem, or essay, none of which obliges us to go to a theater (or movie theater) to watch it: we could simply and only have read it.

        The particular elements of drama, its unique dramaturgical components, are as follows (the first three are designated with the terminology of Alan S. Downer, a perceptive literary scholar and student of drama, in his essay "The Life of Our Design: The Function of Imagery in the Poetic Drama" [Hudson Review 2 (1949): 242-260; and reprinted in many anthologies of critical essays on the drama and Shakespeare], as well as Downer's text-anthology of drama):

--nonverbal "language" of action (physical motion, gesture, composition or blocking: placement of the actors on the stage)

--nonverbal "language" of setting (actual, physical scenic elements of the stage, theater, or, in later drama, set design [e.g., tables, chairs, sofas])

--nonverbal "language" of props (actual, physical objects, which the props master or props mistress must furnish for the dramatic performance and are seen on stage)

--sound effects (e.g., screams, thunder, music)

[--lighting effects (available only later in drama, when indoor theaters developed; also in film)]

[--for film, a particular kind of drama, and covered by the screenplay of Jean Renoir's Grand Illusion, reprinted in volume 2 of the Norton Anthology of World Masterpieces, 5th ed. or the screenplay of Marguerite Duras' Hiroshima Mon Amour in volume 2 of the Norton Anthology of World Masterpieces, 6th ed., and available for rental at some video rental stores, the following elements: (a) camera distance (long shot, medium shot, close-up); (b) camera angle (horizontal, up angle, down angle -- or aerial or crane shot, from a height); (c) camera motion (camera stationary and objects or people move into its view; camera moving and objects or people static -- a "pan" or dolly shot; zoom shot: camera zooms into a closeup of something or zooms out to a wide angle shot away from something; camera moving and objects or people moving, as in every "B" Western from the 1940's, with a camera on the back of a pickup, in front of the galloping hero or villain out in the wilds of Burbank or Northridge, California); (d) camera or film speed (normal motion, fast motion, slow motion); (e) special effects, the abbreviation "F/X" now immortalized in two (more to come?) films of this name]

        Many times stage directions for plays, indicating the above special dramaturgical elements, are indicated in printed texts of plays by square brackets, indicating that they have been supplied not by the author but rather by the translator or editor. Dramatists often do not bother indicating where and when a certain physical action should take place on stage, prop be supplied, or detail of setting be constructed, first, because the dramatist feels that the script or text "speaks" for itself, second, the dramatist is writing for professionals who will know how to proceed, and, third, supplying all such references would probably expand the script or text to twice its length or even more. Therefore, alert readers, who do not have the opportunity to see a drama on stage, must read the text like a director for a middle school play, realizing that the director is going to have to specify for the youngsters almost all motions, actions, gestures, props, and details of the set that are evoked by, indeed demanded by the language, the words, of the text. Here is where the playwright lives up to the meaning of the suffix of the name, wright, as a genuine maker. When stage directions have been supplied by the playwright or dramatist to indicate the languages of action, props, setting, or of sound effects, readers should, as with implied languages of action, props, setting, or sound effects, ponder what ideas or themes may be implied, particularly to a theatre audience viewing the play, often at a subliminal level.

G1. The Nonverbal "Language" of Action  The nonverbal "language" of action isn't a character's exclusively verbal reference to some action, gesture, or motion. If a character on stage simply says "Yesterday I jumped in a hole," this reference does not constitute the language of action. However, a genuine or authentic dramatist or playwright (remember the spelling of the latter word, based on the suffix wright, meaning "a maker") instinctively writes words that require actions or gestures from the actor or actors. (An authentic or genuine dramatist, instinctively writing for the correct literary genre, will write words that demand physical embodiment on stage.) (G1a) For example, in Mrs. Popov's very first words (the second speech of the play) -- "And I shall never go out . . . What for? My life is already ended. He lies in his grave; I have buried myself in these four walls . . . we are both dead" (S-2) -- at least two physical actions or physical gestures are required of the actress portraying Mrs. Popov; what are these two physical actions or physical gestures that an experienced or professional actress would know (perhaps intuitively) to perform? First, the pronoun he, and the italics for the pronoun he, which most students when questioned about have not really heeded nor can satisfactorily explain, indicate that Mrs. Popov (really the actress portraying her) makes a head gesture or a hand gesture toward the photograph of her deceased husband, a prop specified in the play's initial stage directions. Second, Mrs. Popov's words (actually, Chekhov's words for her) "I have buried myself in these four walls" demand, particularly in the use of the word these, which is technically what your English composition textbook would call a "demonstrative pronoun," that the actress make a hand and arm motion toward the three walls of the set (and possibly toward the imaginary, invisible wall through which the audience is looking). (G1b) Since literature is the maximum meaning in the words and literary components used, any example of the nonverbal "language" of action will also be revealing about character, personality, human nature, or theme. What themes or aspects of personality and human nature are conveyed by the two actions demanded by Mrs. Popov's first speech ("He lies in his grave . . . walls" [S-2])? In his brilliance in dramaturgy, Chekhov has the character Mrs. Popov make physical gestures or motions that involve her also in the nonverbal "language" of props (the photo) and nonverbal "language" of setting (the walls of the set, denoting the walls of the Popovs' house). Mrs. Popov's gesture involving her with the prop of the photo of her deceased husband conveys visual symbolism to the audience (this symbolism registering more on the audience's subconscious but more consciously to the reader of the play) of Mrs. Popov's problem indicated both by Luka and the play: her obsessive involvement with her deceased husband. (Not only does her deceased husband not deserve this attention, as Mrs. Popov reveals later, but also her behavior goes against the forces of life and nature that demand human beings carry on and find a genuine love.) Mrs. Popov's gesture pointing to the walls of the set, which represent the walls of the Popovs' house, conveys further visual symbolism to the audience (or the reader) that Mrs. Popov is trying to buck the forces of ordinary justice, life, nature, and human nature. Chekhov in his dramaturgical artistry has invested (particularly for the audience, less so for the reader, particularly inexperienced reader of drama) the very walls of the set with the symbolism of Mrs. Popov's attempt, comedically unsuccessful as the play evolves, to separate or alienate herself from all the rest of the world, life, and nature.

G1-1. Grammar and the Language of Action; Grammar and the Interconnection of the "Languages" of Action and Props or Setting

Instinctively or intuitively, true dramatists or playwrights are drawn to use certain grammatical constructions like "the demonstrative pronoun"--this, that, these, those--or "relative adverb"--here, there-- which evoke action on stage; in other words, grammar in the text that requires an actor's motion or gesture. (G1-1a) The demonstrative pronoun, whose grammatical function is the pointing to something in a sentence, virtually makes or forces an experienced actor or actress to point or gesture to something physical on stage. As already noted, Mrs. Popov's first speech in the play utilizes the demonstrative pronoun to connect the character with the nonverbal "language" of setting, conveying various ideas about life and human nature. (G1-1b) Another example, occurs in a comedically bitter exchange between Mrs. Popov ("I have shut myself up in these four walls forever and I won't remove these widow's weeds until my dying day" [S-72]) and Smirnov (""As If I didn't know why you wear that black outfit and bury yourself in these four walls!" [S-73]). What themes or ideas, as well as aspects of personality, psychology, and human nature are conveyed in the dialogue and its languages of action, props, and setting in this interchange? (G1-1b) Chekhov's artfully dramaturgical use of the relative adverb parallels his artfully use of the demonstrative pronoun, as in Smirnov's angry exclamation "We're not going away quite yet! I'm staying here!" (S-45). What gesture, explicit or implicit, is conveyed by the adverb italicized for emphasis, and what thematic or characterizational notions are conveyed?

G2. The "Language" of Setting The "language" of setting is not simply a character's reference to a place or detail of a place, unless that place or detail of place must be embodied onstage and seen by the audience. Besides a great deal of trouble and potentially expense (details of set and also props must be borrowed, rented, purchased, or constructed for the drama, whereas they can merely be verbally referred to in fiction, poetry, or nonfiction), the "language" of setting can be extremely important, since the setting remains in view of the audience for an entire scene, act, or perhaps the whole play. Though the audience may not be paying attention to details or aspects of the set, nevertheless they are seeing them all the time, and these details and their potential meaning or symbolism are registering on the audience's subconscious (perhaps conscious, for the more literarily experienced) for the whole scene, act, or play. As with its use in television advertising (e.g., the fancy restaurant and glamorous nighttime setting, including people in evening dress, all surrounding the automobile being promoted), the "language" of setting in drama, may have a powerful subliminal thematic symbolism. G2-a. As already mentioned, Chekhov in Mrs. Popov's very first speech (S-2) connects the nonverbal "language" of action with the nonverbal "language" of setting; likewise, Chekhov in Mrs. Popov's and Smirnov's comedically angry exchange referring to the widow's "weeds" (S- 72 to S-73) connects the nonverbal "language" of action with the nonverbal "language" of setting. What ideas does Chekhov reinforce in speeches 72-73 already first conveyed in speech 2, through the nonverbal "language" of setting? G-2b. How does the nonverbal "language" of props carried in by the estate workmen at the end of the play (SD [= stage direction] 152 [immediately preceding speech 152]), particularly the rake and the pitchfork, change the symbolism of the nonverbal "language" of setting by drawing attention to the season of the year and this season's symbolism (already referred to in speech 1 of the play)?

G3. The "Language" of Props A character's mere verbal reference to some physical object is not the "language" of props, unless that object must, as a consequence of the text, the script, be placed on stage. As with details of the set, props are extra trouble and expense in the drama; while the other, exclusively verbal literary genres (except for unusual writers like William Blake -- whose poetry, found in R&J -- is usually not fully represented because of how it was embodied in his own engraved pictures), can simply refer to objects (glasses of water, chairs, dueling pistols, rake, pitchfork, ax, cudgels) without physically providing them, the text or script of a play may require their placement and use onstage, involving rental, borrowing, purchase, or construction of the specific items. (G-3a) How do several of the props listed in G-3 -- for example, the glass of water, the chairs, the dueling pistols, and the cudgels -- convey visually, non-verbally, symbolism and various facets of the personalities and psychologies of the characters in the play, both individually and in relation to each other? For example, how does the glass of water convey Luka's hostility toward Smirnov? How is this hostility ironically inappropriate on Luka's part, given what Luka desires for Mrs. Popov, as expressed by Luka in the opening speeches of the play? (G-3b) Staging of certain aspects of a play involve more difficulty than a reader or viewer might think; for example, what are the numerous technical difficulties in staging a play, which will have multiple performances, that involves a character breaking a chair accidentally at exactly the right point in the action and dialogue? The difficulties involved in such staging are one indication of how important, both for the comedy and the meaning, the nonverbal "language" of props is with regard to the chairs in this Chekhov play.

G4. Music and Sound Effects Music and sound effects are acoustic trouble in the drama, insofar as the text of a play, a script, requires their actual implementation (versus mere verbal references to them in the exclusively verbal literary genres). Not only do these components have to be physically produced, but, as with props and set, they increase the possibility of errors or mishaps in actual stage productions (e.g., a missed cue for the music or sound effect). Aristotle in his treatise The Poetics refers to them in the ancient Greek drama, and they have been used subsequently in drama and in film. For example, John Williams, following the lead of classical composer Richard Wagner, composed specific melodic motifs for each of the characters in the Star Wars trilogy, and each time the character appears or is mentioned (as in Wagner's Ring of the Nibelungs) the melody is heard in the soundtrack. An example of thematic music -- an aural or auditory symbolism -- represented in the drama and found in R&J occurs in Tennessee William's The Glass Menagerie. (G-4a) How in Chekhov's The Bear does the sound of a loud bell ringing (SD 9) convey an aural or auditory symbolism that relates to Mrs. Popov's words in her very first speech (S-2)? That is, what is implied about the ability of a person to isolate herself or himself from the outside world and what it contains (other people, forces of nature, forces of nature embodied in human nature)? (G-4b) Staging of certain aspects of a play involve more difficulty than a reader or viewer might think; for example, what are the numerous technical difficulties in staging a play, which will have multiple performances, that involves a bell ringing at exactly the right point in the action and dialogue? (Presumably, a stagehand offstage somewhere must be ready to press a "knife switch" to activate the electrical current making the bell ring.) The difficulties involved in such staging are one indication of how important, both for the comedy and the meaning, the nonverbal "language" of props is with regard to the chairs in this Chekhov play.

Additional Questions

1. Besides those instances already mentioned, what additional ones can you find of the nonverbal "language" of action?

2. Besides those instances already mentioned, what additional ones can you find of the nonverbal "language" of setting?

3. Besides those instances already mentioned, what additional ones can you find of the nonverbal "language" of props?

Vocabulary (referenced by speech number in the play; an asterisk indicates use of a word in a sense that may be unfamiliar to some readers)

regiment (S3); conjecture (S4); steward (S24); disposed* (S24); collected* (S37); finicky (S41); sniveling (S41); magpie (S69); emancipation (S69); dimpled (S69); bated (S69); affected* (S69); consummate [adjective] (S69); ruthless (S69); muslin (S69); ethereal (S69); raptures (S69); monopoly (S69); Slobber (S69); malicious (S72); heatedly (S72); heathen [noun] (S72); squandered (S72); weeds* (S72); contemptuously (S73); impudent (S88); impunity (S105); bellow (S108); sentimental (S119); nincompoop (S119); primers (S124); extractors (S124); indignantly (S141)
 
 

        [1] In the one-act farce The Bear, Anton Chekhov shows a man and woman who have never met before falling suddenly in love. With such an unlikely main action, ideas may seem unimportant, or even nonexistent. Though the play is admittedly farcical and unrealistic, it nevertheless embodies a number of significant ideas. Some of these are that responsibility to life is stronger than to death, that people may justify even the most stupid and contradictory actions, that love makes people do foolish things, and that lifelong commitments may be made with hardly any thought at all. One of the play's major ideas is that love and desire are powerful enough to overcome even the strongest obstacles. This idea is shown as the force of love conquers commitment to the dead, renunciation of womankind, unfamiliarity, and anger.

        [2] Commitment to her dead husband is the obstacle to love shown in Mrs. Popov. She states that she has made a vow never to see daylight because of her mourning (speech 4), and she spends her time staring at her husband's picture and sacrificing her life to her faithfulness. Her devotion to the dead is so intense that she claims to be dead herself out of sympathy: "My life is already ended. He lies in his grave; I have buried myself in these four walls . . . we are both dead" (speech 2). In her, Chekhov has created a strong obstacle so that he might illustrate the power of all-conquering love. By the play's end, Mrs. Popov's embracing Smirnov is a visual example of the idea (speech 151, s.d.).

        [3] Renunciation of women is the obstacle for Smirnov. He tells Mrs. Popov that women have made him bitter and that he no longer gives "a good god-damn" about them (speech 69). His disillusioned words apparently make him an impossible candidate for love. But, in keeping with Chekhov's idea, Smirnov soon confesses his sudden and uncontrollable love at the peak of his anger against Mrs. Popov. Within him, the force of love operates so strongly that he would even claim happiness at being shot by the "little velvet hands" of Mrs. Popov (speech 140).

        [4] As if these personal causes were not enough to stop love, a genuinely real obstacle is that the two people are strangers. Not only have they never met, but they have never even heard of each other. According to the main idea, however, this unfamiliarity is no major problem. Chekhov is dramatizing the power of love, and shows that it is strong enough to overcome even a lack of familiarity or friendship. Indeed, that Smirnov and Mrs. Popov are total strangers may add to the idea about love's strength.

        [5] Anger and the threat of violence, however, make the greatest obstacle. The two characters become so irritated with each other over Smirnov's demand for payment that, as an improbable climax of their heated words, Smirnov challenges Mrs. Popov, a woman to a duel! He shouts, "And do you think just because you're one of those romantic creations, that you have the right to insult me with impunity? Yes? I challenge you!" (speech 105). Along with their own personal barriers against loving, it would seem that the threat of shooting each other, even if poor Luka could stop them, would cause lifelong hatred. And yet love knocks down all these obstacles, in line with Chekhov's idea that love's power is, like a flood, irresistible.

        [6] The idea is not new or surprising. It is the subject of popular songs, stories, other plays, movies, and TV shows. What is surprising about Chekhov's use of the idea is that love in The Bear overcomes such unlikely conditions and wins so suddenly. These conditions bring up an interesting and closely related idea: Chekhov is showing that intensely negative feeling may lead not to hatred but rather to love. In the speeches of Smirnov and Mrs. Popov, one can see hurt, disappointment, regret, frustration, annoyance, anger, range, and self-destructiveness. Yet at the high point of these negative feelings, love takes over. It is as though hostility finally collapses because it is the nature of people to prefer loving to hating. The Bear is an uproariously farcical dramatization of the power of love, and it is made better because it is founded on a truthful judgment of the way people really are.