This book considers the hundred years of re-writes of Anton Chekhov’s work, presenting a wide geographical landscape of Chekhovian influences in drama. The volume examines the elusive quality of Chekhov’s dramatic universe as an intricate mechanism, an engine in which his enigmatic characters exist as the dramatic and psychological ciphers we have been de-coding for a century, and continue to do so. Examining the practice and the theory of dramatic adaptation both as intermedial transformation (from page to stage) and as intramedial mutation, from page to page, the book presents adaptation as the emerging genre of drama, theatre, and film. This trend marks the performative and social practices of the new millennium, highlighting our epoch’s need to engage with the history of dramatic forms and their evolution. The collection demonstrates that adaptation as the practice of transformation and as a re-thinking of habitual dramatic norms and genre definitions leads to the rejuvenation of existing dramatic and performative standards, pioneering the creation of new traditions and expectations. As the major mode of the storytelling imagination, adaptation can build upon and drive the audience’s horizons of expectations in theatre aesthetics. Hence, this volume investigates the original and transformative knowledge that the story of Chekhov’s drama in mutations offers to scholars of drama and performance, to students of modern literatures and cultures, and to theatre practitioners worldwide.

Contents

Foreword Caryl Emerson, A. List of Tables Introduction: The Text and its Mutations: On the Objectives of the Volume J. Douglas Clayton & Yana Meerzon Part I: On Categories, Techniques and Methodologies of Mutation 1. Diagnosis and Balagan: The Poetics of Chekhov’s Drama J. Douglas Clayton 2. Rewriting Chekhov In Russia Today: Questioning a Fragmented Society and Finding New Aesthetic Reference Points Marie-Christine Autant-Mathieu 3.The Flight of the Deadhekhov’s The Seagull and Williams’s The Notebook of Trigorin Maria Ignatieva 4. Talking and Walking Past Each Other. Chekhovian "Echoes" in Czech Drama and Theatre Veronika Ambros 5. Howard Barker’s Uncle Vanya: Chekhov Shaken, Not Stirred Charles LambPart II: Chekhov in the Post [ist] context 6. Transtextual Crossbreeds in Post-Communist Context: An Anthropological Analysis of Horia Gârbea’s The Seagull from the Cherry Orchard Diana Manole 7. Chekhov in the Age of Globalization: Janusz Glowacki’s The Fourth Sister Magda Romanska 8. Theatre and Subaltern Histories: Chekhov Adaptation in Post-Colonial India Bishnupriya Dutt 9. What Comes "After Chekhov?": Mustapha Matura and West Indian Reiterations of Three Sisters Victoria Pettersen Lantz 10. From Moscow to Ballybeg: Brian Friel’s Richly Metabiotic Relationship with Anton Chekhov Martine Pelletier Part III: Performing Chekhov in Radical Mutations 11. Daniel Veronese’s "Proyecto Chéjo...