Dr. Prinsky

Humn. 2002: World Humanities II

Notes and Questions on Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard (Yarmolinsky translation)

To apply the following notes and questions, every fifth speech (indicated by a new speech prefix for a character) in each act, starting over in each act with number 5, will have to be numbered. Act I has 224 speeches; Act II has 161; Act III has 136; and Act IV has 130. In the notes and questions below, a capital S is used as an abbreviation for speech, and SD for stage directions; thus II.S122 would mean Act II, speech 122. Due to changing editions, some of the speech numbers may be off by one to three in the questions below (my numbering is based on The Portable Chekhov edition, which just happens to be in my personal library -- along with all the other editions listed), but the numbers should be quite close.

Editions and Translations (listed alphabetically by translator or editor)

Bristow, Eugene, trans. and ed. Anton Chekhov’s Plays. New York: W.W. Norton / Norton Critical Editions, 1977. [159-211.-

Corrigan, Robert, trans. and ed. Six Plays of Chekhov. Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1962. [289-340.]

Dunnigan, Ann, trans. and ed. Chekhov: The Major Plays. Signet Classics - New American Library, 1964. [313-380.]

Fen, Elisaveta, trans. and ed. Plays: Anton Chekhov. Penguin Classics, 1959. [331-398.]

Heim, Michael, trans. and ed. [Anton Chekhov:] The Essential Plays. Modern Library, 2003. [191-251; 261-263]

Hingley, Ronald, trans. and ed. Anton Chekhov: Five Plays. 1964; rpt. Oxford World’s Classics - Oxford UP, 1980. [239-94.]

Hulick, Betsy, trans. and ed. Uncle Vanya and Other Plays by Anton Chekhov. Bantam Books, 1994. [259-341.]

Magarshack, David, trans. and ed. Anton Chekhov: Four Plays. 1969; rpt. Hill and Wang - Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1994. [187-244.]

Schmidt, Paul, trans. and ed. The Plays of Anton Chekhov. Harper Flamingo - Harper Collins, 1998. [331-87.]

Senelick, Laurence, trans. and ed. [Anton Chekhov]: The Complete Plays. W.W. Norton, 2006. [971-1048.]

Van Itallie, Jean-Claude. [Chekhov:] The Major Plays, English Versions. Applause Books, 1995. [154-204.]

Yarmolinsky, Avrahm, trans. and ed. The Portable Chekhov. 1947; rpt. Viking Press, 1960. [531-94.] [the translation used by NAWME]

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., sounds of coaches, sounds of axes, 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 read a book," 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.) Thus, when Chekhov has the character Lopahin say in the opening of the play, “Here I’ve been reading this book and I didn’t understand a word of it” (I.S5), the dramatist makes the actor playing Lopahin point to the book, engage in an action that also connects with a particular physical prop. As long as the book remains on stage, it comes to represent for the audience – even more than for a reader (who can forget the book, whereas the audience cannot, since it is in view for as long as the prop is on stage) – a symbol of Lopahin’s peasant coarseness and non-affiliation with the intellectual, sensitive upper class.

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, Lopahin’s dialogue – “Here I’ve been reading this book” (I.S5) – makes the actor playing Lopahin interact with the book, very much through the demonstrative pronoun this. (G1-1b) What gesture is required by the words of Uncle Gayev “Here’s my hand on it” (I.S211), and what traits of his are conveyed, what ideas or themes suggested?

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 or set 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. Chekhov is very particular about the details to be evident in the set in Act 2, specifying them in preliminary stage directions: “A meadow; an old, long-abandoned, lopsided little chapel; near it, a well, large slabs, which have apparently once served as tombstones, and an old bench; in the background, the road to the Gayev estate; to one side, poplars loom darkly, where the cherry orchard begins; in the idstance, a row of telegraph poles, and far off, on the horizon, the faint outline of a large city; . . . the sun will soon be setting” (II.SD1). Clearly, Chekhov conveys some symbolism in these details, which may have been included in a “flat” (a huge wall-size drawing of many of these items, put up like a billboard). For example, how are religion and morality conveyed? How is death suggested, and how does this concept apply to the cherry orchard? How is the conflict between the new and the old suggested, through the details specified as being part of the set (or the “flat”)?

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 (books, flower bouquets, keys, bags of candy) 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 book, a flower bouquet, keys, a bag of candy -- 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?

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 Cherry Orchard are the following sound effects significant both thematically and characterizationally: squeaking shoes, a shepherd’s pipe, the sound of a string snapping, the sound of axes chopping? (G-4b) Staging of certain aspects of a play involves 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 shoes squeaking? How would such a problem be solved in a play written and performed in 1904? The difficulty involved in such staging are one indication of how important, both for the comedy and the meaning, the nonverbal "language" of music and sound effects is.

G5. Besides those instances already mentioned, what additional ones can you find of the nonverbal "language" of action?

G6. Besides those instances already mentioned, what additional ones can you find of the nonverbal "language" of setting?

G7. Besides those instances already mentioned, what additional ones can you find of the nonverbal "language" of props?

G8. Besides those instances already mentioned, what additional ones can you find of the nonverbal “language” of music or sound effects?

G9. (a) A Norm's Notes outline of the action of this play is that in Act I the Ranevskaya-Gayev family and entourage arrive in the early morning at the family estate, which is in financial trouble and may have to be sold; in Act II, various sunset conversations take place among members of the household at the deserted chapel on the fringes of the estate; in Act III at night a dance ball (with Jewish musicians! --maybe Mel Tormé?) is held on the estate, while the estate is being auctioned off; in Act IV, in the morning, the family members depart, forever, from their childhood home. How might the progression of time in the setting and plot, signalled by the elapse of a day, help convey something about this family and the social class that it represents? About the era? (b) How should this progression or sequence be indicated by the special dramaturgical component (of seventeenth-century theaters, and later) of lighting? (c) Several times, and by several characters--I.S108-120, I.S162-63; II.S149-50; III.S13, III.S55, III.S126--what the estate represents or symbolizes is conveyed by what the cherry orchard represents or symbolizes. What does it represent or symbolize to the various characters, as suggested in these speeches? (d) Where, specifically, does the metaphor "fruitful" recur repeatedly in the play's speeches and props? How does this pattern connect with G1c?

G10. The play, rather strikingly, has a number of romantic couples: (a) Mme. Ranevskaya and her French lover; (b) Anya and Trofimov; (c) Varya and Lopahin; (d) Simeonov-Pischik and Charlotta; (e) Yepihodov and Dunyasha and Yasha. What similarities are there between the couples, how is romantic love portrayed, what suggestions are there about romantic love?

G11. (a) Many of the characters are represented in this play, analogously to the music-dramas of Wagner, with motifs. In what passages, and with what suggestions about the character, do the following motifs occur in the play: (a) Uncle Gayev's imaginary billiards; his candy-popping; (b) Charlotta's magic or card tricks; (c) Mme. Ranevskaya's always giving away money; her continual telegrams from Paris; (d) Yephihodov's pratfalls and misfortunes as "two and twenty troubles"; (e) Lopahin's looking at his watch; his continual references to time; (f) Yasha's yawning; (g) Anya as the family pet? (b) What general themes or ideas of the play do any of these motifs help convey? How might some of them be interconnected? (c) What idea or ideas about human nature and psychology are implied by these portrayal of characters via verbal or behavioral tics? How might this conception of human nature or psychology relate to Chekhov's training as a medical doctor or his allegiance to the literary movement of Realism and Naturalism? (d) How do several of the characters cluster to represent youth vs. age, new vs. old, upper class or gentry vs. middle or lower class, materialist vs. idealist, male vs. female?

G12. (a) How and where does the theme of time recur in the play; how does it apply to the various characters; what ideas is Chekhov suggesting about the era? (b) Repeatedly, and by several characters, the word and concept of work are referred to in the play. What ideas is Chekhov getting at in this motif? How do they relate to Chekhov's interpretation of what was happening in his time and place?

G13. What do the following speeches or stage directions have in common: I.S25; I.S50; I.S59; I.S72; I.S50; I.S81 S.D.; I.S97 S.D.; I.S130 S.D.; I.S171; I.S172-73; I.S174 S.D.; I.S198; I.S204; I.S211 S.D., and several more instances in acts II-IV? How does this pattern apply to Chekhov's conflict with the Moscow Art Theater company's interpretation of the genre (literary category) of the play (the two principal dramatic genres are tragedy and comedy--from ancient Greek dramas, to the present)?

Specific Questions

Act I

I - 1. (a) The opening stage directions of Act I (S.D. 0) state that the setting of this act is the nursery, which is likewise the setting of the play's closing act, Act IV. What might the symbolism be of this setting, the application of the concept of childhood to some of the characters, and to the society changing around them? (b) The opening stage directions indicate dawn, May, frost, cherry trees in blossom, and yet the setting is the estate's nursery. How would this problem have to be handled, physically, in the set design and lighting of an actual stage production? What subliminal symbolism might be conveyed by the items listed in dawn, May, frost, cherry trees in blossom? How is this symbolism both furthered and tragically or ironically contravened as the play proceeds? (c) In the language of props, what kind of brooch (S62-63) has Anya been given, and how might its subliminal symbolism relate to 1b, and to both Mme. Ranevskaya and Anya, respectively?

I - 2. (a) How does Lopahin's falling asleep and not being awakened by Dunyasha to meet the Ranevskayas/Gayevs (S2-3) foreshadow what will happen to the old servant Firs at the end of the play, at the close of Act IV? (b) How might the concept of being left behind or left out, or of missing something because of sleeping, apply in a general sense in this play, besides to particular incidents?

I - 3. (a) How is Lopahin's peasant, anti-intellectual nature revealed through his comments and the language of props in S5? (b) How does 3a connect with, through comparison and contrast, the language of setting (or props) in S and S.D. 126 and 128-30 (an important object in the nursery, referred to by Gayev)? Cf. how Mme. Ranevskaya interacts with this prop or feature of setting in S103. (c) How does Lopahin reveal especial insensitivity by referring to "this house, too, which is useless"(S111), given what Luba has been doing to an object of setting in S103? (d) What is the dramatic irony when Lopahin says that Dunyasha (in relation to her clothes, hair, hands) should remember her place (S9), given what Lopahin will do later relative to the Ranevskaya-Gayev family and family estate? (e) How is Lopahin in S5 and S102 (his recollection of something from childhood relative to Mme. Ranevskaya) portrayed as having his good as well as bad points? How are these two sides shown elsewhere for this character and others?

I - 4. (a) One of Chekhov's hallmarks as a dramatist is his creation of a distinctive language (what in linguistics would be called an "idiolect") for each of his characters. (b) What is comic about Yepihodov's idiolect in his complaint that "our climate does not activate properly"(S13)? What ideas are suggested about him? How does Yepihodov's language connect to the play's subject or theme of adaptation or maladaptation to the real world, and why adaptation or maladaptation occurs? (c) What are the idiolects of some of the other play's characters (cf. G3 for hints), and what do they say about these characters or any of the play's main themes or concerns?

I - 5. (a) In what speeches or stage directions does the motif of kissing or embracing occur (e.g., SD 27, SD 33), and with what subliminal as well as characterizational symbolism? What is suggested about particular characters, the family, and any of the play's main themes or ideas? (b) How does Yasha's treatment of his mother as well as Gayev (S189-95) compare or contrast with 5a, and what is being implied about the new person of the new social order?

I - 6. What ideas are conveyed through the language of props in (a) Firs's stick (SD 23), (b) Varya's keys on her belt (SD 41), (c) Dunyasha's breaking of the saucer when she does (S and SD 68-73), (d) Uncle Gayev's sweets (SD 106, SD 211), (e) what Mme. Ranevskaya does with her Paris telegram in S127, (f) Charlotta Ivanovna's lorgnette (S143 SD), (g) Lopahin's (pocket) watch?

I - 7. (a) How has what has happened to Grischa (S76, S171-78) affected the rest of the family? (b) How does what has happened to Grischa affect the family's treatment of Anya? (c) How does what has happened to Grischa symbolically apply to the family or its social class? (d) What is the ironic relation between what has happened to Grischa and a feature of the estate that Lopahin says makes it more valuable?

I - 8. (a) How do Luba's references suggesting her habituation to coffee (S95, S98) imply that she has been changed by her residence in France? What beverage would Russians be expected to consume, prepared in the samovar? (b) How do Gayev's comments about social class relations in S214 relate to what Varya says about them in S220?

I - 9. On the topic of medicine, how does this play compare and contrast with Tolstoy's "Death of Ivan Ilyich," particularly with references to the words and actions of S and SD 135-39? What additional humor is there, given Chekhov's other profession besides literary author?

I - 10. (a) How does Yasha's relationship with his mother (S189-95), which is echoed in Act IV, compare and contrast with other parent-child relationships in the play? (b) What is suggested about the rising new class, as represented by Yasha and especially Yasha's relationship with his mother?

Act II

II - 1. (a) In terms of the "language" of setting, how do details of the set, as specified by Chekhov in his stage directions at the opening of this act, help express or relate to any of the play's ideas or themes? (b) What might the abandoned chapel signify, as related to the change in society that Chekhov depicts in the play? (c) What might several things might the telegraph poles symbolize, including their bearing on the opening speeches 1-11 of Act II, and their comparison-contrast with the cherry orchard? (d) What technical theater problem is raised by Chekhov's specification of sunset in the setting? What ideas or themes does it relate to in Act II? (e) How is music used thematically, as specified in the opening of this Act? How does the particular musical instrument specified connect with the sound effect with which the play ends, in Act IV? (f) How does Yepihodov's musical instrument contrast with: (a) other striking props carried by Charlotte and Yepihodov, as specified in Act II, and (b) insect life that Yepihodov refers to in S12? (g) How does Lopahin's inability to hear the faint music from "our famous Jewish band" (speeches 59-62) contrast realism with romanticism in this Act, as well as foreshadow the Ball held in Act III?

II - 2. Speeches 1-11 strongly imply or evoke the theme or topic or subject of communication. What ideas about communication (including psychological and sociological) are implied?

II - 3. (a) With reference to questions 1-2 on Act II, how and why is the pairing off of several romantic couples appropriate? What ideas are suggested in this Act about romantic love? (b) How do Lopahin's semi-literate allusions to Hamlet (S136-140), suggest suspicion, on his part, similar to the suspicion Hamlet himself experiences about Ophelia and those tied to Ophelia?

Act III

III - 1. (a) How does the reference in SD 0 (the stage directions preceding the first speech) to how the main characters enter relate to the subjects or themes of (a) romantic love and (b) communication vs. isolation or alienation in the play? (b) Where and why is French repeatedly spoken during this Act? With what comparison or contrast to the topic of the French language in Tolstoy's "Death of Ivan Ilyich"?

III - 2. How and why is the very image on stage of a Ball ironically inappropriate to what is happening elsewhere relative to the Ranevskaya estate?