Finished: The Seagull; Uncle Vania; Three Sisters; The Cherry Orchard; and The Proposal (Chekhov). Four plays and a small one-act, all nice reads. :-) I was going to say that The Cherry Orchard was probably my favorite, until I read the one act, The Proposal. It was quite delightful! I could quote the entire thing, but that would be too long. If you get a chance to read it, it's only 17 pages long. One of my favorite quotes from it, "What a job it is, O Lord, to be a grown-up daughter's father!"  :-)

I really enjoy reading Chekhov's work! The four plays were all about families living in the provincial Russian countryside, with various degrees of drama and somewhat bittersweet outcomes. Although each of the plays had their token humorous characters, I didn't find any of the plays to be comedies, as The Seagull and The Cherry Orchard were both billed by Chekhov. Each play had characters who struggled with "meaning of life" questions, while holding together their own "estates" in the face of Russia changing and while living among peasants who bordered on poverty.

I didn't at all see The Seagull as a comedy. Most of the characters ended up unhappy. Sadly, Konstantin loves Nina, but Nina loves Boris. She used to love Konstantin until Boris, the "brilliant" writer came to town, swept her off her feet, took her away to be an actress, had a child with her who died, went back to the affairs with all his other women, and two years later forgot what Nina meant to him in the first place. When Nina comes back to town after two years and has a heart to heart with Konstantin, he declares his love for her yet again, but all she can think about is how she still loves Boris. Konstantin then shoots himself. Hmm....still looking for the comedy!

Three Sisters was very fast paced, and I could see it being a great stage presentation. Three Russian sisters, Olga, Maria and Irena, live with their brother, Andrey, on their country estate. Olga, never married, is the oldest and probably the wise voice of the play. Maria is married to Fiodor, an unexciting man she doesn't love. Irena is the youngest, and even though she is adored for years by Nikolai, is waiting for the perfect man to come along. Andrey has a promising career as a professor ahead of him, but marries Natasha, a young woman none of his sisters like. After two children and "boring" married life,  he gives up his dreams of becoming a professor, works for the district instead, and amasses huge gambling debts that eventually give his wife control of their family home instead of his beloved sisters.  Maria falls in love with the worldly and philosophical Lt. Colonel Vershinin, but does not leave her husband for him. Vershinin leaves town when he and his men are reassigned to another area. Irena FINALLY agrees to marry Nikolai, but the day before they are to be married, he is killed in a senseless duel. Olga become the school headmistress, still longing for a true love. The three sisters embrace at the end of the play knowing they'll always be strong and have each other. Brother-dear is a hen-pecked weakling.

"A Comedy in Four Acts", The Cherry Orchard is about a woman, Liubov, who comes back to her country estate after being gone for six years. She left, unable to live with the sorrow, after her husband died and her seven year old son drowned in the river. Her daughter, Ania, who is now 17, has gone to fetch her from her travelings and affairs in Paris to come home and be with her and her older adopted sister, Varia. Liubov's brother Gayev has a home nearby, and together they own the immense cherry orchard which has been in the family for generations. Yermolai is a peasant whose parents and grandparents worked the land and cherry orchard for all those generations. Yermolai has worked hard, saved his money, and become a successful businessman. When the widow Liubov arrives back in town, Yermolai lets her and her brother know that the entire cherry orchard and estate are in financial ruin and about to be auctioned off to the highest bidder. If they would only listen to his plan for them to parcel off tracts of the cherry orchard to be rented by peasants, they could turn a profit and pay off their mortgage debts. Liubov and Gayev poo poo the idea and live in denial, spending money they don't have. When the auction comes, the cherry orchard and the estate are sold.....to Yermolai!! He buys it all rather than have a random stranger do so. Everyone else packs up, says a sad goodbye to each other and the house, and moves away. Yermolai begins demolishing the orchard to parcel up the land. Nope.....not really seeing a comedy here either. But...I did like this play. :-)

Uncle Vania is just about family. A retired professor comes back home with his second, much younger, wife to live with his daughter (Sonia) by his deceased first wife, his first wife's brother (Uncle Vania) and his first wife's mother. The workings of the family estate, as well as the well-established relationships, are thrown into a tizzy when they arrive. The younger wife falls for the family doctor, who is always being called to the estate by the ailing retired professor. Unbeknownst to the doctor, he has also been loved by the daughter, Sonia, for years. Both the doctor and Uncle Vania fall for the younger wife. The professor declares that the estate should be sold, with him receiving most of the proceeds. This, plus the realization that the younger wife loves the doctor and rejects him, sends Uncle Vania into a tailspin. He tries and fails to shoot the professor (in what I envision to finally be one of the few semi-humorous scenes in all four plays I read). In the end, the estate is not sold, the professor and his young wife decide to leave before they cause more upheaval, and Uncle Vania and Sonia stay on at the estate to get it back into decent running order. Here's a snippet of one of Uncle Vania's rantings:

"Just consider this. The man has been lecturing and writing about art for exactly twenty-five years, and yet he understands nothing whatever about art. For twenty-five years he has been chewing over other people's ideas about realism, naturalism and all that sort of nonsense; for twenty-five years he's been just wasting time and energy. And yet, what an opinion of himself! What pretensions! Now he's returned, and not a living soul is aware of him: today he is completely unknown, and that simply means that for twenty-five years he's been occupying a place to which he wasn't in the least entitled. But just look at him - he struts around like a little tin god!"

I'm so glad I found this book of Chekhov's plays among my son's vast collection of Russian books. And, I was tickled to find the corner of The Proposal turned down as if it had already been read! Can't wait to talk to Josh about the nice little story. :-)