The seagull

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Data
Title: The seagull
Original title: Чайка
Genus: drama
Original language: Russian
Author: Anton Chekhov
Publishing year: 1895
Premiere: October 17, 1896
Place of premiere: Alexandrinsky Theater in Saint Petersburg
Place and time of the action: Sorin's country estate at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries
people
  • Irina Nikolayevna Arkadina ; an actress
  • Konstantin Gavrilovič Treplev ; her son
  • Pyotr Nikolayev Sorin ; her brother
  • Nina Michailovna Zarečnaya ; a young girl, daughter of a wealthy landowner
  • Ilya Afanasyevič Šamrayev ; the manager of Sorin's manor
  • Paulina Šamrayeva ; his wife
  • Marja Ilyinišna Šamrayeva, called Maša ; her daughter
  • Boris Alekseevič Trigorin ; an author
  • Yevgeny Sergeyevič thorn ; a doctor
  • Semyon Semyonovič Medvedenko ; a teacher
  • Jacob ; a craftsman
  • A cook on Sorin's estate
  • A maid at Sorin's manor
  • A security guard at Sorin's manor

The Seagull ( Russian Чайка / Tschaika ) is a drama by Anton Chekhov from 1895.

content

Chekhov's play takes place in the country in tsarist Russia in the present day (around 1895). In terrible boredom, the guests at a country estate are boring at each other: They get on each other's nerves with little taunts and thus make life a hell of themselves.

The son of an actress, Konstantin Gavrilovič Treplev, wants to become a writer and has written a small play that will be played for the guests on a stage in the garden that evening. The main role is played by his lover Nina. Treplev, however, suffers from his mother's constant nagging, which calls into question his literary talent and his whole life. She also has a friend, Boris Alekseevič Trigorin, who is also a very successful writer. She repeatedly cites this trigor when she tries to weaken Treplev's trust in himself and his work. When Treplev's play is performed, there is a scandal, mother and son get into an argument ... It is becoming more and more evident that Nina is drawn to Trigorin, to his charm and his success, which Treplev had previously denied. When Treplev's mother and Trigorin leave to go back to Moscow, Nina leaves Treplev and joins Trigorin in order to be by his side as an actress.

Years go by, and Treplev is now a successful but lonely writer. Unexpectedly, Nina appears again, abandoned by Trigorin. She had only a small success as an actress, and she imagined life in Moscow to be different. She failed trying to realize her dreams. Nevertheless, she does not want to return to Treplev and leaves him again. Treplev finally shoots himself.

Origin and first performances

Anton Chekhov reads “Die Möwe” at the art theater. (1899)

Chekhov began work on the seagull in October 1895 and finished the piece in December. He writes to his publisher Alexei Suvorin : “Second, imagine if I am writing on a piece that I will probably not finish before the end of November. I do not write about it without pleasure, although I am terribly wrong with the conditions of the stage. A comedy, three female roles, six male roles, four nudes, a landscape (view of a lake); many conversations about literature, little plot, a pud of love. ”In October 1896 he gave the publisher the manuscript for a book edition.

In the world premiere on October 17, 1896 in the Alexandrinsky Theater in Saint Petersburg, Vera Komissarschewskaja played the role of Nina. The premiere was a spectacular failure. Chekhov returned to his estate in Melichowo frustrated. On November 20, 1896, he wrote: “Yes, my seagull had a huge failure at the first performance in Petersburg. The theater breathed malice, the air was explosive with hatred, and - obeying the laws of physics - I flew away from Petersburg like a bomb. "

In the same year, however, he met the director and theater reformer Konstantin Stanislawski . Together with the director and dramaturge Nemirowitsch-Danchenko , Stanislavski founded the Moscow Art Theater in 1898 , in which he premiered all of Chekhov's later plays. The art theater had set itself the task of reforming the art of acting . Instead of declamation and star theater, Stanislawski relied on the actor's empathy for the role in order to achieve the greatest possible truthfulness. The pieces by Chekhov, who was still little known at the time, fit into the artistic concept. In May 1898, Nemirowitsch-Danchenko asked Chekhov's revised version of the seagull for a performance in the art theater, which was an overwhelming success for the theater and for Chekhov. Olga Knipper played Arkadina, Stanislawski played Trigorin and Wsewolod Meyerhold played Treplev. From then on the theater gave itself a seagull as a signet .

Stanislawski became an important sponsor of Chekhov's plays and established the poet's world fame, not least through the numerous guest tours of the artist theater. Chekhov himself found Stanislavski's interpretations of his pieces ambiguous. Stanislawski staged them as melancholy "mood dramas", which did not correspond to Chekhov's intentions. A letter to Alexander Tikhonov proves this: “You say you cried over my plays. You are not the only one. But I didn't write them for that. It was Stanislavski who made her so sentimental. I wanted something completely different. I wanted to say simply and honestly: look at you, see how bad and boring you lead your life! "

Chekhov explicitly called The Seagull a comedy in order to prevent a sentimental view through this genre designation. The theater critic Gerhard Stadelmaier wrote about the play: “'Die Möwe' is a comedy journey into the heart of darkness. The colportage floats: everything is very light, only hinted at, sketched, but in frosty colors, icy precise. ”In fact, the piece is not a“ pure ”comedy, but lives on from constant breaks between comic and tragic moments, between banal processes and a demanding discourse Art, between the tragic failure of life plans and ridiculous self-stylization.

The German premiere was on November 1, 1902 in the Lobe Theater in Breslau based on a translation by Vladimir Czumikow, who also translated other works by Chekhov.

Today's performance practice

The seagull is still one of the plays that appear frequently on the repertoire of German-speaking theaters. The production by Luc Bondy in 2000 for the Wiener Festwochen with Gert Voss , Jutta Lampe , Johanna Wokalek and August Diehl at the Burgtheater Vienna received three Nestroy theater prizes .

Further productions (selection)

Film adaptations

expenditure

Others

In the GDR , the famous Berlin artists' club "Die Möwe", which was located in Berlin's Luisenstrasse. 18 had his domicile, named after Chekhov's drama. The artists' club was supported by the GDR Ministry of Culture, later by the trade union federation FDGB and the GDR Culture Fund. The public use of the house "Die Möwe" was increasingly restricted by the state, and it became a meeting place for local union leaders around FDGB chairman Harry Tisch . Today the federal state of Saxony-Anhalt is represented in this property .

Web links

Commons : The seagull, stagings  - collection of images, videos and audio files
Wikisource: Чайка  - Sources and full texts (Russian)

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Anton Chekhov: Letters in 5 Volumes. Edited by Peter Urban. Diogenes Verlag Zurich 1979
  2. ^ Anton Chekhov: Letters in 5 Volumes. Edited by Peter Urban. Diogenes Verlag Zurich 1979
  3. ↑ quoted from: Siegfried Melchinger: Chekhov . Velber near Hanover 1968
  4. ^ Gerhard Stadelmaier in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , December 18, 1995
  5. ↑ Wladimir Czumikow on de.wikisource.org
  6. ↑ 2016 Theater Plan B with a link to the trailer
  7. ↑ Matthias Thalheim in the Berliner Zeitung about 60 years of an artist club