Adapting Chekhov : The Text and Its Mutations

This book considers the hundred years of re-writes of Anton Chekhov’s work, presenting a wide geographical landscape of Chekhovian influences in drama. The volume examines the elusive quality of Chekhov’s dramatic universe as an intricate mechanism, an engine in which his enigmatic characters exist as the dramatic and psychological ciphers we have been de-coding for a century, and continue to do so. Examining the practice and the theory of dramatic adaptation both as intermedial transformation (from page to stage) and as intramedial mutation, from page to page, the book presents adaptation as the emerging genre of drama, theatre, and film. This trend marks the performative and social practices of the new millennium, highlighting our epoch’s need to engage with the history of dramatic forms and their evolution. The collection demonstrates that adaptation as the practice of transformation and as a re-thinking of habitual dramatic norms and genre definitions leads to the rejuvenation of existing dramatic and performative standards, pioneering the creation of new traditions and expectations. As the major mode of the storytelling imagination, adaptation can build upon and drive the audience’s horizons of expectations in theatre aesthetics. Hence, this volume investigates the original and transformative knowledge that the story of Chekhov’s drama in mutations offers to scholars of drama and performance, to students of modern literatures and cultures, and to theatre practitioners worldwide.

J. Douglas Clayton is Professor Emeritus of Russian at the University of Ottawa, Canada.

Yana Meerzon is an Associate Professor, Department of Theatre, University of Ottawa, Canada.