Anton Chekhov (1860-1904)

The Seagull (1896)

• Michael Mayer’s 2018 film with Annette Bening and Saoirse Ronan is on Amazon (and Alexander Street).
• Jamie Lloyd’s 2022 production of Anya Reiss’s adaptation, with Emilia Clarke, is on National Theatre at Home (see The Grauniad 7.7.2022, Variety 7.8.2022, Time Out 7.7.2022, London Theatre 7.8.2022, Independent 7.8.2022, The Week 7.15.2022, The Standard 7.27.2022).
• The 2016 National Theatre production of David Hare’s adaptation is on Alexander Street. Guy Roberts’s 2003 analysis is on Alexander Street.
• The 1975 TV production with Frank Langella and Blythe Danner is on YouTube.
• Chekhov: The Essential Plays: The Seagull, Uncle Vanya, Three Sisters & The Cherry Orchard, trans. Michael Henry Heim (Modern Library, 2003)
• Thomas G. Winner, “Chekhov’s Seagull and Shakespeare’s Hamlet: a Study of a Dramatic Device” (1956); T. A. Stroud, “Hamlet and The Seagull“ (1958); Dorothy Slater, “The Sea Gull And The Wild Duck: Birds Of A Feather?” (1965); W. Gareth Jones, “Chekhov’s Undercurrent of Time” (1969); Jacob H. Adler, “Two Hamlet Plays: The Wild Duck and The Sea Gull“ (1970); John D. Goodliffe, “Time in Chekhov’s plays” (1971); Laurence Senelick, “The Lake-Shore of Bohemia: The Seagull‘s Theatrical Context” (1977); Virginia Scott, “Life in Art: A Reading of The Seagull“ (1978); Carol Strongin, “Irony and Theatricality in Chekhov’s The Sea Gull“ (1981); Clara Hollosi, “Chekhov’s Reactions to two Interpretations of Nina” (1983); James M. Curtis, “Ephebes and Precursors in Chekhov’s The Seagull“ (1985); Laurence Senelick, “Stuffed Seagulls: Parody and the Reception of Chekhov’s Plays” (1987); Jovan Hristić, “‘Thinking with Chekhov’: the Evidence of Stanislavsky’s Notebooks” (1995); John Reid, “Matter and Spirit in The Seagull“ (1998); Bella Merlin, “Which Came First: The System or The Seagull?” (1999); Carol Faith, “The Seagull: The Stage Mother, the Missing Father, and the Origins of Art” (1999); Harai Golcomb, “Referential Reflections around a Medallion: ReciprocalArt/Life Embeddings in Chekhov’s The Seagull“ (2000); Thomas Kilroy, “The Seagull: An Adaptation” (2000); Laurence Senelick, “Stanislavsky’s Second Thoughts on The Seagull“ (2004); Geoffrey Borny, “The Seagull: From Disaster to Triumph” (2006)
• David Magarshack, The Real Chekhov: An Introduction to Chekhov’s Last Plays (1972); David Allen, Performing Chekhov (1999); Daniel Larlham, “Stanislavsky, Tolstoy, and the ‘Life of the Human Spirit'” (2013); Peta Tait, Performing Emotions: Gender, Bodies, Spaces, in Chekhov’s Drama and Stanislavski’s Theatre (2017)

Uncle Vanya (1897)

• The 1957 Franchot Tone film is on YouTube.
• Andrey Konchalovskiy’s 1970 film (Russian, English subtitles) is on YouTube.
• The 1991 TV production of David Mamet’s translation is on YouTube and Alexander Street.
• Conor McPherson’s 2021 adaptation (dir. Ian Rickson) is on MarqueeTV and PBS and YouTube.
• Laurence Senelick, “Uncle Vanya“ (1985); Gary Saul Morson, “Prosaic Chekhov: Metadrama, the Intelligentsia, and Uncle Vanya“ (1990); Leonid Heifetz, “Notes from a Director: Uncle Vanya“ (2000); Geoffrey Borny, “Uncle Vanya: ʹA Glimmer of Light Shining in the Distanceʹ” (2005); Thomas Newlin, “Decadent Ecosystems in Uncle Vanya: A Chorographic Meditation” (2015)

Three Sisters (1900)

• The 1966 Paul Bogart Actors Studio version with Geraldine Page, Shelley Winters, and Sandy Dennis is on YouTube.
• The 1970 film by Laurence Olivier and John Sichel is streaming on Kino Film Collection and BroadwayHD.
• The 1970 BBC Play of the Month version by Cedric Messina with Eileen Atkins and Anthony Hopkins is on YouTube.
• Inua Ellams’s 2019 adaptation set in 1960s Nigeria is streaming on National Theatre and Alexander Street. See The Theatre Times, Time Out, Stage Door, Alt Africa, The Arts Desk, Londonist, The Stage, The Grauniad, The Standard.
• The Three Sisters: A Play, adapted by David Mamet (1990); Sarah Ruhl, Chekhov’s Three Sisters and Woolf’s Orlando: Two Renderings for the Stage (2013)
• Beverly Hahn, “Chekhov: The Three Sisters“ (1972); Barbara Paul, “Chekhov’s ‘Five Sisters'” (1972); William Babula, “Three Sisters, Time, and the Audience” (1975); David Parker, “Three Men in Chekhov’s Three Sisters“ (1979); Charles J. Rzepka, “Chekhov’s The Three Sisters, Lear’s Daughters, and the Weird Sisters: The Arcana of Archetypal Influence” (1984); Harai Golomb, “Communicating Relationships in Chekhov’s Three Sisters“ (1985); Carol Strongin Tufts, “Prisoners of Their Plots: Literary Allusion and the Satiric Drama of Self-Consciousness in Chekhov’ s Three Sisters“ (1989); Nick Worrall, “Stanislavsky’s Production of Chekhov’s Three Sisters“ (1990); Trevor Nunn, “Notes from a Director: Three Sisters“ (2000); Carol Shafer, “Chekhov’s Three Sisters: Exploring the Woman Question” (2001); Jefferson J. A. Gatrall, “Exile and the Death of Languages in Anton Chekhov’s Three Sisters“ (2003); Lee Trepanier, “The Problem of Stupidity in Chekhov’s Three Sisters“ (2011); Yasushi Nagata, “The Japanization of Chekhov: Contemporary Japanese Adaptations of Three Sisters“ (2012)

The Cherry Orchard (1903)

• The 1981 Richard Eyre version with Judi Dench is on YouTube.
• The 2011 Andrew Upton version with Zoe Wanamaker is on Alexander Street and National Theatre. See The Arts Desk, The Grauniad, Los Angeles Times, The Jewish Chronicle.
• Andrey Bely, “The Cherry Orchard“ (1904); P. Warner, “The Axe in Springtime (The Cherry Orchard)” (1958); Norman Silverstein, “Chekhov’s Comic Spirit and The Cherry Orchard” (1958); Jacqueline E. M. Latham, “The Cherry Orchard as Comedy” (1958); Peter P. Remaley, “Chekov’s The Cherry Orchard“ (1973); Jean-Pierre Barricelli, “Counterpoint of the Snapping String: Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard“ (1977); Beverly Hahn, “Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard“ (1973); Laurence Senelick, “The Cherry Orchard” (1985); Greta Anderson, “The Music of The Cherry Orchard: Repetitions in the Russian Text” (1991); Stephen L. Baehr, “The Machine in Chekhov’s Garden: Progress and Pastoral in The Cherry Orchard“ (1999); Svetlana Evdokimova, “What’s so Funny about Losing One’s Estate, or Infantilism in The Cherry Orchard“ (2000); Edward Braun, “The Cherry Orchard“ (2000); John Mckellor Reid, “Polemic as Parting Advice: The ‘Argument’ of The Cherry Orchard“ (2005); Savely Senderovich, “The Cherry Orchard: Chekhov’s Last Testament” (2009)