Three Farces & A Funeral

Discover Chekhov as you’ve never known him before—the brash young playwright who made his fame and fortune with sparkling vaudevilles that brilliantly lampooned conventional society. Robert Brustein has taken three of his most popular comedies and linked them with excerpts from the playwright’s poignant, romantic love letters and scenes from his life. You’ll laugh in recognition at the age-old rituals of love, courtship, and marriage in this effervescent flight of farces.

SYNOPSIS

The playwright Anton Chekhov is in the Crimean seaside resort of Yalta, attempting to recover from consumption. He exchanges frequent letters with his wife, the actress Olga Knipper, who is performing in his plays at the Moscow Art Theatre.

Anton and Olga keep their spirits up with gossip, reminiscences of happier days, and with the thought of their planned meeting in the summer. Their thoughts frequently turn to love and marriage, and Anton is reminded of the matrimonial farces he wrote as a young man. As his imagination takes flight, three of these farces materialize on stage.

In The Proposal, a nervous young landowner has come to propose marriage to his neighbor’s daughter. No sooner does he summon up the courage to ask her, though, than they begin to argue about property rights, and their squabbling threatens to destroy their chances of a match.

The Bear tells of a wealthy heiress, recently widowed, who receives an unwelcome visit from a landowner to whom her late husband was in debt. Their social pleasantries quickly descend into a fierce quarrel, and before he knows it, the landowner has challenged the widow to a duel.

The Wedding takes place at the marriage feast of Aplombov and his bride Dasha. A group of eccentrics has gathered for the party, and their squabbles quickly reduce the celebration into pandemonium.

Anton’s health, meanwhile, has deteriorated, and his doctors move him to a spa in northern Germany, where Olga hurries to join him.