Hamlet and the Seagull: the Theatre for the Future
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Distribution Agreement In presenting this thesis as a partial fulfillment of the requirements for a degree from Emory University, I hereby grant to Emory University and its agents the non-exclusive license to archive, make accessible, and display my thesis in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known, including display on the world wide web. I understand that I may select some access restrictions as part of the online submission of this thesis. I retain all ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis. Signature: _____________________________ ______________ Haley Jo Laurila April 15, 2010 Hamlet and The Seagull: The Theatre for the Future by Haley J. Laurila Adviser Elena Glazov-Corrigan Department of Russian _________________________ Elena Glazov-Corrigan Adviser _________________________ Juliette Apkarian Committee Member _________________________ Matthew Payne Committee Member ________________________ April 15, 2010 Hamlet and The Seagull: The Theatre for the Future By Haley Jo Laurila Adviser Elena Glazov-Corrigan An abstract of A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Emory College of Arts and Sciences of Emory University in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of Bachelor of Arts with Honors Department of Russian 2010 Abstract Hamlet and The Seagull: The Theatre for the Future By Haley Jo Laurila This thesis examines the role of Shakespeare’s famous play Hamlet in Anton Chekhov’s play The Seagull. Hamlet has played a pivotal role in Russian culture as a vessel for posing many of the most pertinent social, political, and intellectual questions, proving Jan Kott’s assertion that Hamlet remains a relevant play to this day because of its propensity for absorbing all of the issues of the time of its performance. Echoing his protagonist in The Seagull in wanting artistic innovation, Chekhov was a harsh critic of traditional theatre and recognized in Hamlet the potential for revitalizing the stagnant Russian stage. While scholars acknowledge the relationship between Hamlet and The Seagull, they seem to stop short of fully illuminating the importance of this relationship, not only for the development of Chekhov’s new drama, but also for the development of modern theatre. The plays’ similarities extend to the protagonists, their relationship dynamics, and perhaps most importantly, the open contemplative space so important in both plays. But Chekhov also reversed many aspects of Hamlet for The Seagull, and consequently, expanded the space for interpretation in his play. Chekhov’s new dramatic technique maintains the multiplicity of interpretation so key to his artistic vision. The play’s action is disjointed; there is a lack of explication of the characters’ motivations or pasts; the dialogue is full of miscommunication; there is no climactic moment and no resolution at the play’s end. Chekhov’s major innovation, one that is foreshadowed in Hamlet, is the unfilled spaces built into the dramatic structure, action, and dialogue of the play, all of which prevents the play from being finalized. The unfilled spaces, or what Iser terms blanks, imbue both Hamlet and The Seagull with their artistic vitality. The Seagull’s innovation points toward the emergence of the Theatre of the Absurd, but more than that, Chekhov’s play, developed under the influence of Hamlet, anticipates further developments in modern theatre. Hamlet and The Seagull: The Theatre for the Future By Haley J. Laurila Adviser Elena Glazov-Corrigan A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Emory College of Arts and Sciences of Emory University in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of Bachelor of Arts with Honors Department of Russian 2010 Table of Contents Introduction: The Failures and Successes of The Seagull’s First Performances 1 Chapter 1 - Juxtaposing the Plays’ Protagonists: Revealing the Significance of the Hamlet-Seagull Relationship 14 Chapter 2 - The Rewriting of Hamlet and Constructions of Meaning: Reversals of Art and Gender. 32 Chapter 3 - The Widening Resonance and Potential for Interpretation in the Hamlet-Seagull Relationship 48 Chapter 4 - The Potential for the Theatre of the Future and the Emergence of the Theatre of the Absurd 65 Concluding Remarks 86 Works Cited 90 1 Introduction: The Failures and Successes of The Seagull’s First Performances The first performance of Anton Chekhov’s play The Seagull was held in St. Petersburg on October 17, 1896. By this time, Chekhov was a well-known writer, and although he had written a few plays before The Seagull, he had not yet achieved critical acclaim as a dramatist. Therefore, The Seagull, staged in the Imperial Aleksandrinsky Theatre, was a major event, and for Chekhov, an opportunity to challenge the banality of Russian theatre. With characteristic understatement, both in his letters to his friends and in his diaries, he indicated his uncertainty about the play, anxious that its innovative vision would not be successful: “Can you imagine it – I am writing a play which I shall probably not finish before the end of November. I am writing it not without pleasure, though I swear fearfully at the conventions of the stage…I read of Ozerov’s failure and was sorry, for nothing is more painful than failing” (Letters on the Short Story 145). He was particularly nervous about its inaugural performance, and yet in letters dated just before the night of the first performance, he seemed quite optimistic, remarking that Madame Vera Kommissarzhevskaya, who played the role of Nina, acted “amazingly”1 (Letters on the Short Story 147). She even reduced everyone to tears during rehearsal. However, his hopes for a warm reception on the part of the audience were crushed – the reception was not merely indifferent; it was so completely negative that the beautiful Kommissarzhevskaya was reduced to a state of speechlessness (Letters of Anton Chekhov, 284).2 On that night, The Seagull was a spectacular failure. Several eyewitness accounts suggest that the reason for the play’s failure was a major gap between the audience’s expectations and the play’s actual performance. One of the most telling reports belongs to Lydia Avilova, a great devotee of Chekhov and possibly his mistress for some 1 Letter to Mikhail Chekhov on October 15, 1896. 2 Letter to Anatoly Koni on November 11, 1896. 2 period of time.3 Avilova was in the audience on the night of The Seagull’s debut, and her account is unsparing in describing not only the antagonistic mood of the audience, but also her own incomprehension. According to Avilova’s account, the confusion had already set in during Act One, and neither she nor the audience knew what to think about the performance. More than this, they were deeply uncertain about what to expect from the play: It is very difficult to describe the feeling with which I looked and listened. The play seemed to have no meaning for me. It seemed to get entirely lost. I strained my ears to catch every word of every character who might be speaking. I listened with the greatest possible attention. But I could not make anything out of the play and it left no impression on me. When Nina Zarechnaya began her monologue, “People, lions, eagles…” I heard a curious noise in the stalls and I seemed to come to with a start. What was the matter? It seemed to me that suppressed laughter passed over the rows of people below, or wasn’t it laughter, but an indignant murmur? Whatever it was, it was something unpleasant, something hostile. But it couldn’t be! Chekhov was so popular! He was such a favorite with everybody! (Avilov 98) It is clear, then, that the interpretative conventions of the theatre lovers were so thoroughly undermined that the audience was unable to generate any accessible guidelines that would have assisted in understanding a play like The Seagull. In everyone’s mind, the performance was meant to be a specific theatrical event – a tribute, in fact, to an older comic actress whose career was celebrated on the popular stage. The audience undoubtedly believed that they were about to see a comedy, as indicated by The Seagull’s description as a “comedy in four acts”, but any expectations of lighthearted entertainment were altogether thwarted by their own emerging incomprehension: Spectators at the first performance of The Seagull who were used to more formal dramatic conventions must have been taken aback by the curious sight of Masha hopping off the stage in Act II because her leg had gone to sleep; or by the way in which all the characters near the end of Act III troop off to say goodbye to 3 There is considerable debate over whether she and Chekhov were romantically involved, but she did correspond with him through various letters. Avilova writes more extensively about their relationship in her memoir Chekhov in My Life. 3 Arkadina and Trigorin, and the stage remains for some moments completely empty. (Pitcher 19) The result was a revolt on the part of the spectators, and even their love for Chekhov as a writer could not reign in the force of their disapproval; the play was interrupted constantly with boos and rancorous laughter. If the proper response to comedy is laughter, and the proper response to tragedy might be tears, Chekhov’s play toed that line between comedy and tragedy in a manner that was altogether disconcerting for his audience. The outright disapproval of the play had a clear cause: the audience was deeply uneasy. Sensing their discomfort, Chekhov himself could sit only through the first two acts before he fled St. Petersburg, vowing never to write another play or to permit its performance on the Russian stage.