Director’s Note

I love Chekhov. Not everyone does. While critics and scholars widely herald the theatrical genius of this complicated Russian playwright, others find his plays boring. “Nothing happens,” they complain. “Too sad,” they carp. “His characters live mundane and pointless lives,” they critique. While I try to remain respectful, these opinions honestly baffle me. I wonder if we are reading or seeing the same scripts.

Where detractors see inactivity, I feel passionate resistance. Where disparagers observe wallowing sadness, I witness brave perseverance fueled by audacious humor. When complaints rise up that Chekhov’s characters live tedious lives, I routinely catch fleeting glimpses of the Kingdom.

In “Oh Chekhov,” Peter Brook, one of the great directors and theatre theorists of our time, speaks for me:

What is essential is to see that these are not plays about lethargic people. They are hypervital people in a lethargic world, forced to dramatize the minutest happening out of a passionate desire to live. They have not given up.

Far from leading boring or pointless lives, Chekhov’s creations bubble with resilience. They endure intractable circumstances and suffer impossible sadness; nonetheless, through laughter and tears, they somehow heroically carry on.

And occasionally, the “minutest happenings’ hint at a hidden, vibrant world beyond the surface of perceived reality. Chekhov is too good an artist to spoon-feed his audience comforting platitudes, but his plays portend something outside the limitations of our perceptions. A magical symbolist who subversively dons the cloak of realism, Chekhov sparingly laces his comic dramas with whispers of eternity: unexplainable sounds, mysterious visitors, hidden figures lingering in the forest…

Tonight, we aspire to portray Chekhov’s kind, hilarious, flawed, and passionate characters with love, whimsy, and dignity. Guided by Chekhov’s subtle clues, we also offer ethereal glimpses into something other. Another quote from Peter Brook, this time from his seminal text, The Empty Space, clarifies our aspirations: “Holy Theatre is the Invisible-Made-Visible.”

Scenic Designer: Ethan Koerner

Lighting Designer: Jett Skrien

Sound Designer: Drew Schmidt