"In firmly describing his plays, above all The Cherry Orchard, as comedies, Chekhov was perhaps confusing matters by dragging in a traditional theatrical term inapplicable to his new form of drama."
"What he was really appealing for was a lightness of touch, a throwaway casual style, an abandonment of the traditional over-theatricality of the Russian (and not only the Russian) theatre."
Anton Chekhov: Five Plays | Translated by Ronald Hingley
Oxford University Press, 1998 | page xxi of the introduction...
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1 comment:
Ooh, I'm not sure I agree with the quote. I think the translator might just be applying a very English sensibility to the idea of "comedy". Moreover, what Russians find funny is reputedly a hell of a lot more bleak than what we Brits like to laugh at.
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