The Bear / A Reluctant Tragic Hero / Swan Song / The Proposal / The Dangers of Tobacco / The Festivities / The Wedding Reception SWAN SONG. An actor wakes up with a hangover, locked in the theater after the evening's performance. He is terrified when he thinks a ghost appears, but it is only the theater's prompter. The actor tells him stories of his life and also of his doubts about his career. Unburdened, he goes off cheered, reciting great speeches from Shakespeare. (2 men). In THE BEAR a landowner comes to claim a debt from a young woman whose husband has just died. Out of grief, she refuses to see him—her attempt to prove to her faithless dead husband that women are more loyal than men. Eventually, the young widow and the landowner quarrel, and decide to fight a duel, leaving the landowner so impressed that he falls madly in love and proposes. The widow accepts. (2 men, 1 woman). THE PROPOSAL portrays a nervous young farmer who comes to propose to his neighbor's daughter. Instead of making the proposal, the two young people get involved in comic arguments. The young man leaves, the girl goes into hysterics until the father goes after the young man, who returns. He finally proposes, she accepts, and the two go on fighting. (2 men, 1 woman). A RELUCTANT TRAGIC HERO. Our hero spends the summer in the country, but is driven to the brink of distraction by various demands to run errands in the city and bring back lots of odd items to the country with him. (2 men). THE WEDDING RECEPTION. A daffy young couple, with equally daffy family and friends, desires an "important" wedding reception. To get it, they pay a friend to bring a general with him. The friend pockets the money and instead shows up with a retired sailor who drives the party crazy with his sea stories. (7 men, 3 women). In THE FESTIVITIES a pompous, self-important bank manager prepares to celebrate the fifth anniversary of the branch office he manages. He arranges for a series of "spontaneous" tributes to his supposed expertise, but chaos ensues when his wife returns from a visit to her mother's and a crazy woman comes looking for a job for her husband. (3 men, 2 women). THE DANGERS OF TOBACCO portrays the shaky state of mind of a henpecked man whose wife runs a boarding school. At the end of this tragicomic piece, the man is saved from a breakdown by the sudden arrival of his wife. (1 man).
Author
Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (Russian: Антон Павлович Чехов ) was born in the small seaport of Taganrog, southern Russia, the son of a grocer. Chekhov's grandfather was a serf, who had bought his own freedom and that of his three sons in 1841. He also taught himself to read and write. Yevgenia Morozova, Chekhov's mother, was the daughter of a cloth merchant. "When I think back on my childhood," Chekhov recalled, "it all seems quite gloomy to me." His early years were shadowed by his father's tyranny, religious fanaticism, and long nights in the store, which was open from five in the morning till midnight. He attended a school for Greek boys in Taganrog (1867-68) and Taganrog grammar school (1868-79). The family was forced to move to Moscow following his father's bankruptcy. At the age of 16, Chekhov became independent and remained for some time alone in his native town, supporting himself through private tutoring. In 1879 Chekhov entered the Moscow University Medical School. While in the school, he began to publish hundreds of comic short stories to support himself and his mother, sisters and brothers. His publisher at this period was Nicholas Leikin, owner of the St. Petersburg journal Oskolki (splinters). His subjects were silly social situations, marital problems, farcical encounters between husbands, wives, mistresses, and lovers, whims of young women, of whom Chekhov had not much knowledge – the author was shy with women even after his marriage. His works appeared in St. Petersburg daily papers, Peterburskaia gazeta from 1885, and Novoe vremia from 1886. Chekhov's first novel, Nenunzhaya pobeda (1882), set in Hungary, parodied the novels of the popular Hungarian writer Mór Jókai. As a politician Jókai was also mocked for his ideological optimism. By 1886 Chekhov had gained a wide fame as a writer. His second full-length novel, The Shooting Party, was translated into English in 1926. Agatha Christie used its characters and atmosphere in her mystery novel The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (1926). Chekhov graduated in 1884, and practiced medicine until 1892. In 1886 Chekhov met H.S. Suvorin, who invited him to become a regular contributor for the St. Petersburg daily Novoe vremya. His friendship with Suvorin ended in 1898 because of his objections to the anti-Dreyfus campaign conducted by paper. But during these years Chechov developed his concept of the dispassionate, non-judgmental author. He outlined his program in a letter to his brother Aleksandr: "1. Absence of lengthy verbiage of political-social-economic nature; 2. total objectivity; 3. truthful descriptions of persons and objects; 4. extreme brevity; 5. audacity and originality; flee the stereotype; 6. compassion." Chekhov's first book of stories (1886) was a success, and gradually he became a full-time writer. The author's refusal to join the ranks of social critics arose the wrath of liberal and radical intelligentsia and he was criticized for dealing with serious social and moral questions, but avoiding giving answers. However, he was defended by such leading writers as Leo Tolstoy and Nikolai Leskov. "I'm not a liberal, or a conservative, or a gradualist, or a monk, or an indifferentist. I should like to be a free artist and that's all..." Chekhov said in 1888. The failure of his play The Wood Demon (1889) and problems with his novel made Chekhov to withdraw from literature for a period. In 1890 he travelled across Siberia to remote prison island, Sakhalin. There he conducted a detailed census of some 10,000 convicts and settlers condemned to live their lives on that harsh island. Chekhov hoped to use the results of his research for his doctoral dissertation. It is probable that hard conditions on the island also weakened his own physical condition. From this journey was born his famous travel book T
