Word: chekhov
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...among literary critics has steadily declined over the past 20 years, but his stories are still read by people who like tart, sharp character sketching, mildly risque situations and ingenious twist endings. Even critics who think his work contrived and superficial will mainly agree that no other writer save Chekhov has so enormously influenced the shape of the modern short story. De Maupassant's own life story, as told in Francis Steegmuller's breezy and readable biography, seems itself like one of his more mordant sketches-flashy, melodramatic and highly painful...
...short-story form. He became, gibed a contemporary critic, "an almost irreproachable author in a genre that is not"-the cleverly contrived story, amusing and suspenseful but not quite profound or true. Generous Biographer Steegmuller speaks of De Maupassant's stories in the same breath with Chekhov's, but many readers will feel that De Maupassant never achieved the warm, quiet sympathy and seriousness of Chekhov. Without those qualities De Maupassant takes his own special niche, close...
...Brattle Theater Company presented the second play of this (its first) winter season, last Wednesday night. It was Chekhov's "The Sea Gull," and appearing with the resident company was the celebrated Viennese actress, Luise Rainer. Chekhov, Miss Rainer, and the Brattle players have never been seen to better advantage by this reviewer. The Brattle Hall group, which in the past few years has done so much to raise the level of drama locally, deserves most special praise for introducing and re-introducing both Chekhov and Miss Rainer to this generation of theatergoers...
...Anton Chekhov chose to call this play a comedy, and we must accept his word for that, even though the tragic fate of the two young lovers does not comply with the conventional comedy ending. Perhaps the comic element in "The Sea Gull" lies in the irony of the young writer's rejection by his mother, his sweetheart, and his public; all three of whom take to their hearts an older writer the young regards as a hack. "The world is a comedy to those who think, a tragedy to these who feel," is Herace Walpole's useful reminder...
...Chekhov is ideal material for a repertory group because so many of the smaller parts can prove to be gems when given the attention of first-class actors. In the present production, Peter Temple as the schoolmaster, Semyon, Donald Stevens as Sorin, and Jeanne Tufts as Polina are cases in point. Bryant Haliday as Konstantin, shows much improvement over his past tendency toward staginess and oratory and gives his best performance to date. Jan Farrand is ill-cast as the faded actress, Madame Arkadina. Despite all the trickery of the theater, Miss Farrand cannot look faded. And as the physical...