Letters of Anton Chekhov (Tchekhov) - Penn State University

Anton ChekhovNovember 24.… It has all subsided at last, and I sit as before at my writing-tableand compose stories with untroubled spirit. You can’t think what itwas like! … I have already told you that at the first performancethere was such excitement in the audience and on the stage as theprompter, who has served at the theatre for thirty-two years, hadnever seen. They made an uproar, shouted, clapped and hissed; atthe refreshment bar it almost came to fighting, and in the gallerythe students wanted to throw someone out and two persons wereremoved by the police. The excitement was general ….… The actors were in a state of nervous tension. All that I wroteto you and Maslov about their acting and attitude to their workmust not, of course, go any further. There is much one has to excuseand understand …. It turned out that the actress who was doing thechief part in my play had a daughter lying dangerously ill—howcould she feel like acting? Kurepin did well to praise the actors.The next day after the performance there was a review by PyotrKitcheyev in the Moskovsky Listok. He calls my play impudently cynicaland immoral rubbish. The Moskovskiya Vyedomosti praised it.… If you read the play you will not understand the excitement Ihave described to you; you will find nothing special in it. Nikolay,Shehtel, and Levitan—all of them painters—assure me that on thestage it is so original that it is quite strange to look at. In reading onedoes not notice it.67