Mareike Heuer DR10120

“Realism”, said BRECHT “consists not in reproducing real things but in showing how things really
are”. Discuss this quote with reference to any one of the following dramatic texts studied in the
course: The Cherry Orchard, The Threepenny Opera or The Blacks. What is the text’s relationship to
‘reality’

“Everything on stage should be as complex and simple as in real life.” This famous quote by
Chekhov, the father of stage-realism explains his theory of Realism/Naturalism-theatre. The purpose
of the theatre of Realism is to represent life as it is and change theatre into a new genre. Chekhov
said: “They act too much. It would be better if they acted a little more as in life”. Quotation fehlt In
this essay Brecht’s quote will be discussed with reference to The Cherry Orchard.

The Cherry Orchard by Chekhov is a great example to explain Realism. The first difference in
Realism theatre can be seen in the stage directions. They direct only the physical tasks of the
characters, such as “appears from behind the curtain” or “looking over the stage1”, etc. There are no
judgements of the characters present in the play. The feelings and thoughts of the characters should
never be judged, as all characters are displayed as humans in a society, in which the social statuses
can change through economy, which then allows the characters to change as well. The reproduction of
real things in the Realism theatre is not shown through artificial constructions of characters, for
example exaggeration of movements to show the feelings of a character. In Realism, this would be
displayed by “tone and expression” and not “via arms and legs”.2 The Cherry Orchard portrays a new
approach of displaying the characters, which is a scientific approach, in which the “actors should base
their creation of stage roles on scientific observation of actual behaviour3 to let the spectators
experience a ‘scientific truth’ instead of an illusion of reality, which is for example created in romantic
melodramas. Chekhov avoided over-sentimental feelings of characters and unrealistic staging in order
to depict the ordinary life, therefore “anything which does not occur in life must be removed.”4

The plot in ‘The Cherry Orchard’ is an element, which shows “how things really are”, as it is no plot-
driven story. There is not a lot of action happening and the play consists mostly of conversations
between the different characters. Chekhov explained the purpose of doing this by saying that real like
consists of situations which are mostly used for plot-driven stories or melodramatic plays, such as
love declarations, suicide or other situations in which people find themselves at times. However, “they
spend much more of it eating, drinking, flirting, and saying foolish things – and that is what should
happen on the stage.5 In real life people have all kinds of feelings such as sadness, happiness, anger,
disappointment, love, desperation, etc. However, they have these feelings inside them all the time and
1
Chekhov, Anton. Chekhov Plays. London: Penguin Classics, 1954, P. 358. ohne P im Englischen, das gilt für alle
Fußnoten

2
Borny, Geoffrey. Interpreting Chekhov . ANUE Press, 2006, P. 59.

3
Borny, Geoffrey. Interpreting Chekhov . ANUE Press, 2006, P. 59.

4
Borny, Geoffrey. Interpreting Chekhov . ANUE Press, 2006, P. 67.

5
Borny, Geoffrey. Interpreting Chekhov . ANUE Press, 2006, P. 66.
they do not burst out all the time real life. So ‘The Cherry Orchard’ also displays a lot of the things
people do in real life, the ordinary things that do not seem important to us. In this way the spectators
can see themselves as they do the same things in their lives. As Richard Sennett states: “The text is its
own reality; we relate ourselves to it, not it to us.”6

The characters in ‘The Cherry Orchard’ also are an essential element in explaining the theatre of
Realism. The play contains no heroic character, as Chekhov wanted to display simply the ordinary
life. “No single role is obviously a starring one, and every character must contribute meaningfully to
the exquisitely delicate shifts and pace and timing that make the play work on stage.”7 There is no
character that is the most important or a hero in this play. Every character contributes to the play and
serves a different function. The comic-characters for examples, which are Yepikhodov, Dunyasha,
Pishchik and and Gaevring bring an enormous sense of humour into the story. By placing comic
characters and comedy moments into a tragic play, the tragic side of the story is balanced with a
comedic side. This is why Chekhov himself called this play a tragic comedy, where he brings humour
into sadness and sadness into humour to avoid a one-sided interpretation of the play. However, many
others such as Stanislavski ignored the comedy of the play and saw it as a tragedy. That is also
because in real life, both comedy and tragedy exist, there could be more tragedy or more comedy, but
it is never one-sided. Each of the characters in this play is “in possession of his or her bit or truth,
which could be described as an individual perspective of the main theme of the play: social change.”8
And none of the characters seem to be “absolutely condemned, or absolutely supported, by
Chekhov.”9 This goes back to the point that the play lacks of judgement in the characters and
Chekhov’s purpose of not displaying the characters in a judgemental way, because that would give a
subjective point of view. For example Gaev’s passion for sweets says about him that he is not from the
lower class and therefore not having experienced poorness, is careless, wasteful and self-serving.
However, that does not mean that we should judge Gaev as an individual. The whole point of
displaying the characters in a non-judgemental way was to simply show how human of different
social classes behave and for the spectators to observe the characters as those who represent the social
classes and how the characters can change if the social status of his/her life changes. This shows what
an important role the social class we are in plays and how it affects our personality and behaviour.

Internal and external communication is also an attribute of the characters in ‘The Cherry Orchard’.
Chekhov displayed all the characters through an external reality. “Chekhov’s stage directions are
always telling us about the outside, even when we are inside.”10 Chekhov stated that in real life we can
never know what one accurately thinks and therefore the mental states of the characters should also
not be described in his plays as it would destroy the purpose of displaying ‘life as it is’. The internal
truth about the characters is portrayed through external realities. An example is when Andryeevna
gives a beggar a piece of gold in Act three. She says: “Take this... here you are. I have no silver...
Never mind, here’s a gold one.”11 Giving the beggar money says a lot about this character.
Andryeevna has no money or food herself but still is willing to share and give the things she has
away. This clearly signifies that she is not used to doing it differently because of the social status she
grew up with has never let her experienced any kind of poorness or material loss, so she doesn’t know
6
Sennett, Richard. Respect in a World of Inequality: the formation of character in an age of inequality. W.W. Norton, 2003,
P.85.

7
Hill, Philip George . Our Dramatic Heritage. Fairleigh Dickinson Univ Press, 1983, P.475.
8
Brown, Richard Danson. Aestheticism & Modernism: Debating Twentieth-century Literature 1900-1960. Routledge, 2005,
P.35.

9
Brown, Richard Danson. Aestheticism & Modernism: Debating Twentieth-century Literature 1900-1960. Routledge, 2005,
P.35.
10
Aronson, Arnold. Looking Into the Abyss: Essays on Scenography. University of Michigan Press, 2005, P. 62.
11
Chekhov, Anton. Chekhov Plays. London: Penguin Classics, 1954, P. 366.
 the bitter reality of the changes a social status can bring among its people. She cannot face the sudden
change in her social status and unless she will have experienced the brutal truth of sudden change by
complete material loss and the impact it will have on her life. The fact that she has given away the last
money she has when there is no food in the house and she has her daughters to support does not make
her a careless mother. “The human character must be understood “as the totality of all social
conditions”12, as Brecht said. The point of displaying only the characters’ external truth and not the
mental states has therefore a huge impact on the audience. The spectators do not respond to the play
emotionally, which is the goal of the theatre of Realism: Not creating error and pity in the spectator,
but make them reflect about themselves and how we perceive ourselves in our social condition. The
spectator should rationally reflect about this. The actors job is ‘to show an overall social attitude’ and
turn the spectator to an observer.

Chekhov also put and extension to the theatre of Realism through indirect action. David Magarshack
has called ‘The Cherry Orchard’ the most perfect example of an indirect-action play.13 A good
example is the misdirected anger of Varia. When she expects a proposal from Lophakin and he still
does not propose to her she throws her show out of anger which by chance hits Trofimov. The result
of this misdirected action is called indirect action. The concept of indirect action is that this happens
off-stage, but still serves importance to the plot. Another example is when Lopakhin talks about the
Cherry Orchard. “Everything must be just as I wish it now. Here comes the new landowner, here
comes the owner of the cherry orchard.”14 This part of the play is of huge importance to the play, as
the Cherry Orchard is what changes the social status. And even though the spectators do not get to see
the Cherry Orchard, it is what the play revolves around.

In conclusion it can be said that Chekhov came close to displaying ‘life as it is’. He combined
external reality with internal truth. He observed and showed the behaviours of humans in different
social statuses and how the behaviour changes when the social statuses change. Through the story
which is not written around a plot, the play does not lead up to one major event, which is the most
important and leads to an emotional response such as catharsis among the spectators. It is not of
importance what happens but how it happens, an event should not happen to cause emotional feelings
among the spectators, because that will change the audience from rational observers and reflectors to
subjective judges. Through indirect actions, the randomness of life is shown and through the simple
things as small conversations with or without importance, simple human behaviour is put on stage and
gave the theatre a new genre and a new purpose. Chekhov’s work does not evolve a lot around the
plot. “His work is nearly all character interaction, which is very Chekhovian.”15 Altogether, the
combination of comedy and tragedy with indirect action, character interaction and change of social
statuses contribute very well to the purpose of the theatre of Realism and the effect it has on the
spectators. This dramatic text forms a close relationship to reality and breaks the illusion of reality in
theatre by combining scientific observation and taking this experience to use it as a foundation in the
creation of his characters. There is no need to reproduce real things in order to display ‘life as it is’.
Because it is supposed to be realistic, no real things have to be reproduced. All the elements are
already existent and Chekhov succeeded in creating a new mixed genre which contains elements from
‘the real life’.

12
Weiss, Samuel Abba. Drama in the Modern World: plays and Essays. the University of Michigan, 1974, P. 413.

13
Magarshack, David . Chekhov the Dramatist. University of Virginia. Methuen, 1980, P. 264.
14
Chekhov, Anton. Chekhov Plays. London: Penguin Classics, 1954, P. 384.

15
Dean, Anne. Discovery and Incention: The Urban Plays of Lanford Wilson. Fairleigh Dickinson Univ Press, 1994,
P. 60.
Bibliography

Aronson, Arnold. Looking Into the Abyss: Essays on Scenography. University of Michigan
Press, 2005.

Brown, Richard Danson. Aestheticism & Modernism: Debating Twentieth-century Literature

1900-1960. Routledge, 2005.

Borny, Geoffrey. Interpreting Chekhov . ANUE Press, 2006.

Chekhov, Anton. Chekhov Plays. London: Penguin Classics, 1954.

Dean, Anne. Discovery and Incention: The Urban Plays of Lanford Wilson. Fairleigh
Dickinson Univ Press, 1994.

Hill, Philip George . Our Dramatic Heritage. Fairleigh Dickinson Univ Press, 1983.

Magarshack, David . Chekhov the Dramatist. University of Virginia. Methuen, 1980.

Sennett, Richard. Respect in a World of Inequality: the formation of character in an age of

inequality. W.W. Norton, 2003.

Weiss, Samuel Abba. Drama in the Modern World: plays and Essays. the University of
Michigan, 1974.

Word Count: 1953