The Cherry Orchard | Irving Deer (essay date 1958)
Irving Deer (essay date 1958)
[Deer is an American critic and educator. In the following essay, he perceives the dialogue in The Cherry Orchard both as a manifestation of the characters' inner turmoil and as a means of avoiding action.]
Both directors and actors are confronted with many perplexing problems when they deal with Chekhov's full length plays. Perhaps the most perplexing are those which they meet in the attempt to discover and express the dramatic significance of Chekhov's dialogue. The difficulty is not that Chekhov's dialogue requires any unusual acting techniques, but rather that it has no obvious form. It seems to be rambling, disconnected, and irrelevant. Take for example a brief scene from the first act of The Three Sisters. Olga has been grading papers and thinking aloud about her father's funeral, the drudgery of her job, and her long held hope of going to Moscow. Irina picks up the Moscow refrain and then Olga...
[The entire page is 3094 words long]
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