...of Chekhov's Ivanov

The Lace Market Theatre in Nottingham is to present a world premiere of a new English translation of Russian playwright Anton Chekhov's Ivanov. Director Cynthia Marsh, who also adapted and translated the classic, explains why.

Why did you decide to translate Chekhov's Ivanov yourself rather than use an existing version of the play?

I was lucky enough to have the chance to learn Russian, and subsequently spent a lifetime exploring and teaching Russian history, culture and language at the University of Nottingham. I have both translated and directed the same Russian play before at the Lace Market, and found working on both angles a richly rewarding experience.

When well-known British dramatists adapt a Russian play, they usually have to rely on the services of a literal translator. In this way the experience is often second hand. Chekhov is a comic writer and this was his first full length play. I wanted to find the comedy not always evident in British productions. And beyond that the emotional rawness that the young 27-year old Chekhov drew from himself and the popular melodrama of his day. I am also well placed to explain those historical and cultural points in Chekhov's plays that some people find difficult or alien. When these aspects are suppressed, as they often are in British productions, a repetitively stagnant view of Chekhov is the one we find.

What challenges did you face in doing this?

The experience was hugely enjoyable, if hard work. The challenges and pleasures are as much as anything in finding a style of English which can be performed with ease. I think the translation should reflect the original, but also speak to today's audiences. One of the great positives of producing new translations is that they provide a continual updating of the original language to modern standards. In Russian, the play must always remain, language-wise, somewhere in the late 1880s.

Another challenge has come in the directing. Performers regard me as the translator as an owner of the text. They think it can be changed at will, and sometimes whim. So trying to keep the text as it is a recurrent rehearsal game!

Is Ivanov a comic Russian Hamlet?

In his 20s, Chekhov was already a skilled writer and natural comic. He had quickly acquired a huge reputation for his comic sketches and short stories, published in Moscow's newspapers and journals. His instincts drew him to make his more weighty and topical points through a comic and entertaining treatment. So. yes, the play Ivanov is definitely a comedy.

The character Ivanov is close to Hamlet, though I would not say the plays themselves are very similar. There are a number of reasons for this character closeness. First, since the 18th c. Shakespeare is probably the most frequently performed translated dramatist in Russia. Just like audiences here get an updated Chekhov in English, so Russian audiences are given a translated Shakespeare accessible and contemporary to them.

Second, the play Hamlet and the character penetrated Russian literary writing deeply, especially in the 19th century. Ivanov refers to himself as Hamlet, for his indecision, his doubts and his self-disgust. He also mocks himself for thinking he might be a Hamlet. He jokes at the expense of those around him sometimes comically sometimes bitterly, and in that he is close to Hamlet. In the end, Ivanov decides his own fate.

Apart from its interest as an early Chekhov what has this play got to offer a modern audience?

You will see an unexpectedly strong comic show with some dark twists. It whirls round Ivanov himself. He has lost his way and tries, with a measure of desperation bordering on the absurd, to scramble out of the hole into which he has dug himself. The question is, will he succeed?

In Russia, certainties were collapsing as wealth shifted across the social classes. Politics were introspective, laced with scepticism about Europe. There was censorship that was both external and self-imposed (Chekhov's comedy helped him avoid sounding too directly abrasive). Suspicion of minorities, both elitist and ethnic, was frequent, and hatred of moneyed professionals, such as lawyers, bankers, accountants, doctors and traders, was rife. Recognise some of this?

Yes, Chekhov liked to joke and entertain, but he also pointed to the desperate solutions that victims sometimes, tragically, seek.

Read the original article here.