Chekhov in Ireland. The greening of Russian drama

Kelly Younger

Issue 379, vol.95, Autumn 2006

“Provincial Ireland resembles the provincial Russia of the nineteenth century, as it appears in Chekhov”, declared Friel. But a corollary, easily overlooked, is that any interloping mediation via English “high culture” had to be strictly by-passed if that peasant-to-peasant rapprochement was to succeed. Way back in 1925 for a production of Chekhov’s one-act play, The Proposal, the Abbey Theatre adapted the text in a way which clearly cut the nexus with what one critic [before going on to quote Kilroy] has called “the neutered register of English gentility, ‘as if the plays were set somewhere in the Home Counties’. For [the Irish], ‘Chekhov belonged to a rougher theatrical tradition, at one hard-edged and farcical, filled with large passion and very socially specific’”. [This 1925 venture was also to help establish the direct access of the Irish theatre – without over-reliance on English mediation – to the international playwrights].

The 1925 Abbey text supplied Irish equivalents for all proper names. Terms for items of dress were hibernicized, and a sentence like “peasants fired bricks” became “tenants dug turf”. (A later Irish-language version was to tour successfully in the Gaeltacht).

Chekhov, of course, also struck a chord in that, where his traditional genre demanded little more than slapstick, he added irony. He also appealed to Irish sensibilities in that he subverted stereotypes, making stock-characters act out of character.

Kelly Younger is Assistant Professor in the Department of English, Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles