About the harmfulness of tobacco
About the harmfulness of tobacco ( Russian О вреде табака , O wrede tabaka ) is a one-act play by the Russian writer Anton Chekhov , which appeared on February 17, 1886 in the Peterburgskaja Gazeta . In September 1901, Alexander Kuprin gave the monologue in Kolomna . In 1960 - on Chekhov's 100th birthday - the one-act play came on the German stage.
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Dressed in his thirty-year-old tailcoat, the elderly Ivan Ivanovich Nyuchin gives a lecture on the harmful effects of tobacco from the stage of the municipal club on behalf of his wife, the head of a music school and a daughter's boarding school . Nyuchin himself is a smoker, but because his wife wants the topic of the lecture, it should be. Njuchin can by no means call himself a scientist, but that much seems clear: If you put a fly in a tobacco box, it will wither from nerve breakdown. According to his memory, Nyuchin has been nervous since September 13, 1889, the birthday of his fourth daughter Varwara. The twinkle in the eye could come from his work as an economic manager in his wife's businesses. No wonder - the troubled man also teaches mathematics, physics, chemistry, geography, history, literature, solfeggio , dance, singing and drawing. For some subjects, his wife collects extra money from the parents of the major daughters. While she has put about 45,000 rubles on the high edge, Nyuchin doesn't own a kopeck. Some days this man is not served lunch. For his work day in and day out, his ill-tempered wife scolded him as the scarecrow, snake or Satan. All injustice probably stems from the number 13. The large family lives at Pjatisobatschigasse 13. The house has 13 windows. All of his seven children - all girls - were born on the 13th. Anna, the oldest, is 27, the youngest 17. This man has been tormented by his wife for thirty-three years. Ivan Nyuchin is terrified of his wicked, contentious, narrow-minded, narrow-minded, curtly wife. Even her penetrating look is tough. As soon as his wife doesn't monitor him, Nyuchin likes to put one behind the bandage. Usually he gets drunk with just one glass. All daughters are still single. The reason is the mother's greed. If this woman continues not to give evening parties, the marriage will not do. Thirty years ago Njuchin was married in the above-mentioned tailcoat. Well, at the end of his lecture On the Harmfulness of Tobacco , the old man tears the worn piece off his body and tramples on it.
Performances
- on YouTube
- Massimo Marante as Iwan Njuchin: 44 min
- 22 min
- December 2009, Michael Vogtmann monologues: Stadttheater Fürth , director: Werner Müller
- 15 min (Russian)
- Obras Theater School : 13 min (Russian)
Used edition
- About the harmfulness of tobacco. Monologue in one act. Translated from the Russian by Gudrun Düwel. P. 145–152 in: Wolf Düwel (Ed.): Anton Chekhov: Der Kirschgarten. Dramas. 719 pages. Rütten & Loening, Berlin 1964 (1st edition)
Web links
- The text
- Wikisource: О вреде табака (Чехов) (Russian)
- online in FEB (Russian)
- online in the Komarow library (Russian)
- Chekhov Bibliography, Entry Pieces No. 3 (Russian)
- Reference to first appearance in the Laboratory of Fantastics (Russian)