I went to see a Chekhov play Three Sisters this week and was very suprised by what I saw. It was a very dark comedy with very modern sense of humour. For example one character makes a dramatic exit after a speech only to return to the room and say quietly 'wrong door', before shuffling out of another exit. Did the writers of Frasier learn from Chekhov?

I like Kulygin who, despite his unenviable situation as a husband of an unfaithful wife who does not love him, walks around muttering to himself, 'I'm happy, I'm satisfied', like a pitiful personal mantra. I like the relationship between Andrey, the intellectual brother forced to a meaningless life as a mediocre civil servant, and the senile homeless post man. They share a friendship despite not understanding each other and Andrey's irritation with the old man. However it has the feeling of the relationship between a son who has all the culture of the city and a loving father who has never lived in the city and doesn't understand his son but agrees and supports him.

I am interested by this blog: http://www.miller-mccune.com/article/cracking-the-case-of-chekhov%E2%80%99s-ambiguity

It talks about the challenges of translating Chekhov and suggests modernizing the text or putting it in contemporary setting to help interpretation. When I saw Three Sisters I was struck by its timelessness. The play is about the murkiness and hopelessness of existence, powerless against the passing of time and greater forces of history. It questions our ability to resist our fate and protect our values against external influences. The family are intellectuals living at beginning of the twentieth century and the approaching Utalitarianism is encroaching on their freedom and space, forcing them in to a tiny corner of the house where they are physcially and metaphysically suffocated.

The problem in translation is because it is so essentially Russian in its delivery. Having seen the play in Russian I was lent an English version and started reading but found I could not bare it. The problem is not in translating the words but translating the Russian speech. Russians speak in strong tones, throwing their sentences around with melodramatic sentiment. The characters are pleading, whining, longing, overjoyous, hysterical, making declarations, being ironic and all this is evident in everyday speech patterns in Russian.

Chekhov's plays use everyday conversation to show how the greater forces of time, society and history nudge us towards our fate whilst we are going about our everyday lives. However because of the unfamiliarity with this way of conversing, our attention in the translation is pricked rather than put to rest as the Russians are lulled in to a false sense of security with this seemingly light hearted play with tragic undertones.

One way to produce the play for a foreign audience would be to set the scene first, imparting a little information about Chekhov and Russia at that time asking the audience to have a little sympathy with the Russian characters and their melodrama. Although I believe that texts are always interpreted by the audience and therefore it can be dangerous to dictate interpretation, I think in this case it needs a little push in the right direction as Chekhov was very concerned about untruths and misunderstanding of his plays. I could argue that this play is not stuck in time, but stuck in its culture and therefore language.

What I like about Chekhov is how through his gloomy pessimism shines a celebration of human life. Although he offers no answers to the questions that the characters search through to find the meaning of our existence and the future of humanity, the play is filled with the light and darkness of real life which carries on humbly. I got the feeling that Chekhov truly cared about his characters. They are pitiful in their inability to change their lot but children of the time and they stare out from the stage in their cage, trapped in the empty space between their old lives and a new era.

Next I am going to see Cherry Orchard which is mean to be his funniest play.