The Goal: Read. Reflect. Respond. Over two hundred Chekhov stories. Constance Garnett translations.
Monday, August 8, 2011
A TRAGIC ACTOR
A brief glimpse into the theater world.
A young woman goes to the theater for the first time and becomes mesmerized.
The father, a police captain, invites only the male actors to the house for dinner.
Bad move.
The daughter falls for the lead actor.
He only cares about getting some money to start his own theater.
The father disowns the daughter for marrying the actor who he considers a lowlife.
The lead actor beats the daughter when he learns he's not getting any dough.
But the daughter is in love with the theater and begs to stay with the troupe.
Eventually she becomes an actress.
She forgets her lines.
The lead actor beats her and she pleads to her father to send money.
Moral of the story: Beware that what you see up on the stage doesn't become what you live in real life.
Actors shine on stage because of their craft but that doesn't necessarily mean they'll shine off stage. In fact, they may be quite ordinary and dull no matter how interesting and exciting they seem on stage. (And I would add that if an actor is a dynamo on stage he'll have a hard time living up to that when he comes off the stage where he's not given poetic words and charged emotions to work with. An actor has it tough because people want to think that in real life he's the same exciting person as he portrays on stage and sometimes it gets into the actor's head that he has to be this exciting person so he drinks and does drugs and lead a raucous life to keep up with the actor. Re: Charlie Sheen).
On the stage actors are highly admired but off the stage they are not held in high esteem. Hence, the police captain disowns the daughter. And the actresses have a bad reputation simply for being actresses. A proper lady doesn't go on stage.
Be careful what you expose your young impressionable daughter to.
I would like to read more stories of the theater world which I'm sure Chekhov knew real well. So I hope as I continue this journey there are more and longer theater stories.
Love the double entente of the title.
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Sure, the police captain invited the actors into his home and hastened her choices in life. What could he have done, lock Masha up in her room 24-7? Never let her go to the theatre for the rest of her life? How can any parent stop his child from "bad" influences and bad choices?
ReplyDeleteAlso, it's not apparent, but the actors don't actually good actors. Yes, the audience goes crazy and, yes, the lead actor gets an award. But, Chekhov actually thinks they're ham actors. He despises their exaggerated gestures. They're bad on stage and bad off it. Masha is drawn to ham acting because ham actors are what people think is good acting.
The twist at the end, I think, is that Masha is called a bad actor. Actually, her sincere and understated performance is very good acting. The audience grows to like her. Chekhov, I think, is saying her acting is closer to the truth than the silly scene-chewing histrionics of the lauded actors.
Excellent point! Chekhov the playwright would be very wary of ham acting. Since his naturalistic plays required a realism most actors at the time would not have been trained for.
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