Making the “Unstageable” Stageable: English Rewritings of Chekhov's First Play

Abstract

This essay examines three adaptations for the English stage of Chekhov's “unstageable” first play. As well as reflecting something of the broader context of the translation and reception of foreign plays in the English theatre, these adaptations are very illuminating on fundamental aspects of English Chekhov tradition, in particular its largely veiled politics. Michael Frayn's Wild Honey, which highlights connexions with Chekhov's later plays and reinscribes cardinal elements of English Chekhov, exemplifies the strategy of domesticating the foreign. In sharp contrast, taking issue with a tradition that sentimentalizes and de-politicizes Chekhov, Trevor Griffiths's Piano reconceives Untitled Play as a political play that comments on contemporary Britain. Meanwhile, David Hare's Platonov, which purports to stick as closely as possible to the original text, ends up, like Wild Honey, reiterating the familiar hallmarks of English Chekhov. The choices made in all three adaptations attest to the fundamentally political nature of the translator's intervention as well as to the translator's contribution not merely to the transmission of culture but to its production.