... it seems to me, paradoxically, that while the Cherry Orchard is the play of Chekhov's that is most directly about the end of slavery in Russia—Lopahkin is the child of slaves owned by Renyevskaya's family— it is also the play that would work the least well transposed into Reconstruction. - ThreadSky

isaacbutler.bsky.social • 49 days ago

... it seems to me, paradoxically, that while the Cherry Orchard is the play of Chekhov's that is most directly about the end of slavery in Russia—Lopahkin is the child of slaves owned by Renyevskaya's family— it is also the play that would work the least well transposed into Reconstruction.

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isaacbutler.bsky.social•49 days ago

The issue with Lopahkin in the play isn't race, but rather class. He's a wealthy merchant—a newly emergent class in Russia that expanded around the time slavery ended due in large part to the railroads— the main family are penniless nobility.

isaacbutler.bsky.social•49 days ago

Lopahkin is similar enough to that family (and close enough to them personally) that (a) he is geniunely trying to help them and enrich them and (b) the possibility of marriage to him can hang in the air. This simply would not be how it would play out in, say, Charlotte, Virginia or whatever.

visualizingbroadway.com•49 days ago

Though they'd object to his marrying Anya, right? It's Varya's uncertain familial status that makes her a good match for him: they're both marginal to the landed gentry.

isaacbutler.bsky.social•49 days ago

The two plays of Chekhov that would work best in a Reconstruction-era setting are The Three Sisters and Uncle Vanya. You'd have to find a way to make it clear, however that the patients Astrov hates are former slaves and their children (the word used in the text is "peasants" but their ex-serfs).

isaacbutler.bsky.social•49 days ago

But one way that The Three Sisters— the most obscure play for a non-Russian reader/viewer—could be made more comprehensible to the audience is if they're, like, in Oklahoma and the dead father had moved them there from NYC to administer the homestead act or something.

isaacbutler.bsky.social•49 days ago

Ugh above that should be "they're" obviously. I am a professional writer. Please subscribe to my newsletter.

isaacbutler.bsky.social•49 days ago

Anyway, a Shenandoah-set Vanya would make a lot of sense-- I seem to remember there was... maybe an Appalachian adaptation called Uncle Johnny?... in the 1990s. I'd rather see something like that than these vaguely-near-future-set ones people insist on doing.

eggsbened.bsky.social•49 days ago

Fascinated by this framing of Three Sisters. I saw it at 21 having only seen The Seagull and it stunned me so completely I’ve never forgotten it and it made me a lifelong Chekhov fan. What makes it potentially obscure for non-Russian reader/viewers?

isaacbutler.bsky.social•49 days ago

I think it's the one of his where the most meat is between the lines, especially because it was written for specific actors and a specific director to flesh out. And then there is also its setting in time and place, the distanceto Moscow, all of that stuff. A great production can fix this tho!

jondmaas.bsky.social•49 days ago

In the early 1980s, the now-defunct Punchline Theatre Company did a parody of the (justifiably) legendary Serban production where Ranevskaya slowly circled the stage, and picked up speed until she was doing laps. It was hysterical.

davidbarbour.bsky.social•49 days ago

Right, because slavery as such had a different shape in Russia, and it wasn't ended there by a nation-shattering civil war that spawned decades (centuries) of grievance.

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