This is a fine collection of Chekhov’s four most famous plays.

The Seagull is my least favourite – it’s concerned with the theatre a little too much for my liking. The ending is great, though.

• Written by Anton Chekhov
• Date premiered: 17 October 1896
• Place premiered: Alexandrinsky Theatre, St. Petersburg, Russia
• Original language: Russian
• Genre: Comedy
• Setting Sorin’s country estate
• Cast of Characters:
  • Irina Nikolayevna Arkadina – an actress
  • Konstantin Gavrilovich Treplyov – Irina’s son, a playwright
  • Boris Alexeyevich Trigorin – a well-known writer
  • Nina Mikhailovna Zarechnaya – the daughter of a rich landownerPjotr Nikolayevich Sorin – Irina’s brother
  • Ilya Afanasyevich Shamrayev – a retired lieutenant and the manager of Sorin’s estate
  • Polina Andryevna – Ilya’s wife
  • Masha – Ilya and Polina’s daughter
  • Yevgeny Sergeyevich Dorn – a doctor
  • Semyon Semyonovich Medvedenko – a teacher
  • Yakov – a hired workman
  • Cook – a worker on Sorin’s estate
  • Maid – a worker on Sorin’s estate
  • Watchman – a worker on Sorin’s estate; he carries a warning stick at night

Uncle Vanya is the kind of thing I would have devoured in my early twenties. It’s borderline existential the conflict between the old and the new – or the pretty and the ugly – is something that has always fascinated me.

• Written by Anton Chekhov
• Original language: Russian
• Setting: Garden of the Serebryakov family estate
• Cast of Characters:
  • Aleksandr Vladimirovich Serebryakov (Александр Владимирович Серебряков): a retired university professor, who has lived for years in the city on the earnings of his late first wife’s rural estate, managed for him by Vanya and Sonya
  • Helena Andreyevna Serebryakova (Yelena) (Елена Андреевна Серебрякова): Professor Serebryakov’s young and beautiful second wife; she is 27 years old
  • Sofia Alexandrovna Serebryakova (Sonya) (Софья Александровна Серебрякова): Professor Serebryakov’s daughter from his first marriage; she is of a marriageable age, but is considered plain
  • Maria Vasilyevna Voynitskya (Мария Васильевна Войницкая): the widow of a privy councilor and mother of Vanya (and of Vanya’s late sister, the Professor’s first wife)
  • Ivan Petrovich Voynitsky (“Uncle Vanya”) (Иван Петрович Войницкий): Maria’s son and Sonya’s uncle, the title character of the play; he is 47 years old
  • Mikhail Lvovich Astrov (Михаил Львович Астров): a middle aged country doctor.
  • Ilya Ilych Telegin (Илья Ильич Телегин; nicknamed “Waffles” for his pockmarked skin): an impoverished landowner, who now lives on the estate as a dependent of the family
  • Marina Timofeevna (Марина Тимофеевна): an old nurse
  • A Workman

Three Sisters feels to me like the most iconic of these plays – not being familiar with it I still felt like I have seen echoes of it in other works. It reminds me a little bit of The Iceman Cometh in terms of the “grass is always greener” / “I am going to do something about it tomorrow” attitude of many of the characters.

• Written by Anton Chekhov
• Characters:
  • Prozorov family:
    • Olga Sergeyevna Prozorova
    • Maria Sergeyevna Kulygina
    • Irina Sergeyevna Prozorova
    • Andrei Sergeyevich Prozorov
• Date premiered: 1901, Moscow
• Original language: Russian
• Genre: Drama
• Setting: A provincial Russian garrison town

To me, The Cherry Orchard is his masterpiece, both hysterically funny and profoundly moving. I know people like this and have, myself, behaved like this at times. I see too much life reflected in it.

• Written by Anton Chekhov
• Date premiered: 1903
• Place premiered: Moscow Art Theatre
• Original language: Russian
• Genre: Drama
  

9/10