The Major Plays (Signet classics) [Paperback]

Anton Chekhov (Author), Robert Brustein (Editor)

Book Description

Series: Signet classics | Publication Date: May 1, 1968

Newly repackaged, here are the five masterpieces by one of the world's greatest playwrights, in translation by Ann Dunnigan. As Robert Brustein declares in the foreword to this edition: "in the modern theater...there are none who bring the drama to a higher realization of its human role."

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback: 384 pages
• Publisher: Signet Classics (May 1, 1968)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0451522702
• ISBN-13: 978-0451522702
• Product Dimensions: 7 x 3.9 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #467,585 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #58 in Books > Education & Reference > Foreign Language Nonfiction > Russian

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The best Chekov translation for actors., January 2, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: The Major Plays (Signet classics) (Paperback)

This is a wonderful translation and it happens to be the translation reccomended to me by Miss Joan Potter. (Voted one of the five utmost speakers on Chekov) She has traveled all over and has all the translations ever. It's an easy read compared to most translations and very actable.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars human nature, January 16, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Chekhov: The Major Plays (Signet Classics) (Paperback)

The five masterpieces in this collection deal with the dizzying pace of an industrializing world. Although the plays were written a hundred years ago, they are still very relevant to our modern existence. Chekov's questions about the place of class in a world in which class boundaries rapidly shift, the value of money in a world in which life has no meaning, and the meaning of existence in which experience is absurd still open our eyes to the many layers of existence which we uncover (or choose not to) every day.

In today's world, which, like Chekov's, is changing every day, it would behoove all of us to sit down for a while every day and ponder the infinite wisdom of "The Cherry Orchard" (which is in this collection) and try to understand ourselves.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Original is good, reissue is bad, December 5, 2005

By 

john b (Concord, NC) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Major Plays (Signet classics) (Paperback)

Before this collection of plays was reissued, it was originally presented to the reader by a translator named Ann Dunnigan. That text was released some 20 years ago. These days you are likely to find a copy of her work in a used bookstore. To that I say: Good; go and find it there.

Her translation of this literature is more than adequate. Why the publisher felt the need to drag up a man who cannot even speak or read Russian and have him 'translate' it from other texts is beyond me. As a person who reads a lot of translations from various languages, I cannot imagine the arrogance it must take to think that you can 'translate' something and 'get a feel for an author' by not even being able to read the authors work. THAT edition is not worth your time.

However, if you are lucky enough to get your hands on an original Ann Dunnigan translation, you are in for a real treat- five of Chekhovs most important works, presented in a highly readable text. The translations are crisp, though she does tend to use ellipses quite frequently. She also tends to forgo annotations which might help a western reader to understand some of what is going on in the text. A quick review of Russian history towards the end of the 19th century can really help in that area.

The plays themselves are fairly dense material, though they are indeed readable. Chekhov portrays Russian life as an endless questioning of existence- Who am I? Where am I going? and tedium- at least once in every play someone begins to complain about how bored they are.

The plays are also depressing in nature. There are only two in this collection in which someone does not die at the end and in one of those two someone ATTEMPTS to kill another. The remaining one is indeed the most touching of them all (The Cherry Orchard), though even this one presents the moral and financial death of several of its characters (who would take delight in buying a treasure from underneath anothers nose, then celebrate it to their face?). In all, the plays are good, the characters are memorable, though some of the situations feel repetitive (Ivanov and The Sea Gull seem to have the same pattern to them).

Should these facts (dense and depressing) prevent you from reading these plays? Never. If depressing material were taboo then Shakespeare would be out of the question too; who would want to read Hamlet or Romeo and Juliet? The same holds true here- you can learn a lot by reading Chekhov, by observing how masterfully he crafts situations out of day-to-day conversations between his characters. It is this fine-tuned approach which can often make Chekhov difficult for a western reader to understand; the plays are told with a bare-boned plot and revolve instead around the characters themselves and their expressions, finding meaning in the most modest of actions. For an audience that is unused to having to dig to find their truths, this can often be disconcerting.

Bottom Line: Forget the new guy and seek out the old text (it has the woodcut cover).

-NL