Customer Reviews
First rate drama - By: molondas, 29 Oct 2007 
For anyone who doesn't know Chekhov, I recommend you get acquainted with his work immediately. His short stories are superb, & his five plays are masterpieces of theatre. It is such a shame that he died when he was only 44 - like Mozart, you reallly wonder what on earth he would have produced by the time he was 60.
As always with Chekhov, I am amazed at the fact he is able to create tension & high drama from absolutely nothing - boredom, loss of zest for life, inability to move on, hopeless incompetence, arrogance, etc etc. Characters are absolutely pared down to the minimum necessary to dissect a psychological state, atmosphere, general state of affairs etc., & the language is an exercise in economy - it functions only as a vehicle for creating dramatic effect. If the penguin translation is faithful, then there is little, if any, superfluous imagery, & nothing that digresses from the function of each moment of dramatic intensity.
The tone & themes of each play - as with his short stories - are always ambiguous: bittersweet, tragicomic, sad & joyful, generosity & miserliness, adultery vs sterile faithfulness etc. In this lack of commitment to a stable reality Chekhov was well ahead of his time & it is easy to see how his plays have exerted such an influence on the development of the modern play.
five by Chekhov - By: lowell duluth, 31 Mar 2005 I re-read Chekhov - the stories as well as these plays - regularly. These recent translations are as good as, if not better, than any I`ve read, even the superb, natural-sounding ones by Frayn. This book benefits too from a masterly, uncompromising & authoritative introduction by Carson.
I find new things in The Seagull, Three Sisters, etc every time
I renew my acquaintance with them. The Seagull is a limpid, sad comedy with - as one could say of alll Chekhov - a deceptively tough core. Uncle Vanya (his `easiest` play to approach at first?) is one to falll in love with; Three Sisters is a world masterpiece...oh, I could go on about this amazing man. He was a great influence on the precise, humane Raymond Carver, which I think is a testament to both writers.
I believe Chekhov to be perhaps the most important writer since Shakespeare. Like the latter, he invariably keeps himself, & his writer`s ego, out of his writing - unlike, say, Shaw.
Nothing can beat seeing a good, un-reverent performance of these aching-to-be-acted plays, but this is a fine collection to add to one`s library.
Incidentallly, I am tired now of finding reviews on Amazon which are talking about books other than the one under review. My predecessor here is reviewing the Frayn versions. Why does this keep happening, usuallly with translated literature? Get with it!
Perhaps the best English translation of Chekov to date. - By: , 14 Feb 2001 Michael Frayn's translastion of Checkov is lively, well presented, & holds on to the comic element of his characters - often lost in the stuffy attitude of the cannon of literature. Uncle Vanya, in this edition is especiallly good. As you read through the lines of the housekeeper also think Father Ted's Mrs. Doyle. Chekov created this character long before TV was even a concept. Good stuff. By this edition.
