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    Uncle Vanya
    Uncle Vanya
    Uncle Vanya
    Ebook66 pages58 minutes

    Uncle Vanya

    By Anton Chekhov

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    About this ebook

    Uncle Vanya is different from Chekhov's other major plays as it is essentially an extensive reworking of his own other play published a decade earlier, The Wood Demon. By elucidating the specific changes Chekhov made during the revision process—these include reducing the cast-list from almost two dozen down to nine, changing the climactic suicide of The Wood Demon into the famous failed homicide of Uncle Vanya, and altering the original happy ending into a more problematic.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherAdelphi Press
    Release dateMay 27, 2018
    ISBN9781787245655
    Author

    Anton Chekhov

    Anton Chekhov was born in 1860 in Southern Russia and moved to Moscow to study medicine. Whilst at university he sold short stories and sketches to magazines to raise money to support his family. His success and acclaim grew as both a writer of fiction and of plays whilst he continued to practice medicine. Ill health forced him to move from his country estate near Moscow to Yalta where he wrote some of his most famous work, and it was there that he married actress Olga Knipper. He died from tuberculosis in 1904.

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      Book preview

      Uncle Vanya - Anton Chekhov

      ANTON CHEKHOV

      Uncle Vanya

      CHEKHOV PLAYS

      LONDON

      ISBN: 9781787245655

      Copyright © 2018 Adelphi Press

      All Rights Reserved.

      Contents

      CAST

      ACT I

      ACT II

      ACT III

      ACT IV

      NOTES

      CAST

      ALEXANDER SEREBRAKOFF, a retired professor

      HELENA, his wife, twenty-seven years old

      SONIA, his daughter by a former marriage

      MME. VOITSKAYA, widow of a privy councilor, and mother of Serebrakoff’s first wife

      IVAN (VANYA) VOITSKI, her son

      MICHAEL ASTROFF, a doctor

      ILIA (WAFFLES) TELEGIN, an impoverished landowner

      MARINA, an old nurse

      A WORKMAN

      The scene is laid on SEREBRAKOFF’S country place

      ACT I

      A country house on a terrace. In front of it a garden. In an avenue of trees, under an old poplar, stands a table set for tea, with a samovar, etc. Some benches and chairs stand near the table. On one of them is lying a guitar. A hammock is swung near the table. It is three o’clock in the afternoon of a cloudy day.

      MARINA, a quiet, grey-haired, little old woman, is sitting at the table knitting a stocking.

      ASTROFF is walking up and down near her.

      MARINA. [Pouring some tea into a glass] Take a little tea, my son.

      ASTROFF. [Takes the glass from her unwillingly] Somehow, I don’t seem to want any.

      MARINA. Then will you have a little vodka instead?

      ASTROFF. No, I don’t drink vodka every day, and besides, it is too hot now. [A pause] Tell me, nurse, how long have we known each other?

      MARINA. [Thoughtfully] Let me see, how long is it? Lord—help me to remember. You first came here, into our parts—let me think—when was it? Sonia’s mother was still alive—it was two winters before she died; that was eleven years ago—[thoughtfully] perhaps more.

      ASTROFF. Have I changed much since then?

      MARINA. Oh, yes. You were handsome and young then, and now you are an old man and not handsome any more. You drink, too.

      ASTROFF. Yes, ten years have made me another man. And why? Because I am overworked. Nurse, I am on my feet from dawn till dusk. I know no rest; at night I tremble under my blankets for fear of being dragged out to visit some one who is sick; I have toiled without repose or a day’s freedom since I have known you; could I help growing old? And then, existence is tedious, anyway; it is a senseless, dirty business, this life, and goes heavily. Every one about here is silly, and after living with them for two or three years one grows silly oneself. It is inevitable. [Twisting his moustache] See what a long moustache I have grown. A foolish, long moustache. Yes, I am as silly as the rest, nurse, but not as stupid; no, I have not grown stupid. Thank God, my brain is not addled yet, though my feelings have grown numb. I ask nothing, I need nothing, I love no one, unless it is yourself alone. [He kisses her head] I had a nurse just like you when I was a child.

      MARINA. Don’t you want a bite of something to eat?

      ASTROFF. No. During the third week of Lent I went to the epidemic at Malitskoi. It was eruptive typhoid. The peasants were all lying side by side in their huts, and the calves and pigs were running about the floor among the sick. Such dirt there was, and smoke! Unspeakable! I slaved among those people all day, not a crumb passed my lips, but when I got home there was still no rest for me; a switchman was carried in from the railroad; I laid him on the operating table and he went and died in my arms under chloroform, and then my feelings that should have been deadened awoke again, my conscience tortured me as if I had killed the man. I sat down and closed my eyes—like this—and thought: will our descendants two hundred years from now, for whom we are breaking the road, remember to give us a kind word? No, nurse, they will forget.

      MARINA. Man is forgetful, but God remembers.

      ASTROFF. Thank you for that. You have spoken the truth.

      Enter VOITSKI from the house. He has been asleep after dinner and looks rather dishevelled. He sits down on the bench and straightens his collar.

      VOITSKI. H’m. Yes. [A pause] Yes.

      ASTROFF. Have you been asleep?

      VOITSKI. Yes, very much so. [He yawns] Ever since the Professor and his wife have come, our daily life seems to have jumped the track. I sleep at the wrong time, drink wine, and eat all sorts of messes for luncheon and dinner. It isn’t wholesome. Sonia and I used to work together and never had an idle moment, but now Sonia works alone and I only eat and drink and sleep. Something is wrong.

      MARINA. [Shaking her head] Such a confusion in the house! The Professor

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