Curt Columbus endows these timeless dramas Seagull, Uncle Vanya, Three Sisters and Cherry Orchard with dialogue that is faithful to the russian original but dazzlingly attuned to contemporary audiences.

Eminent critic Richard Gilman examines each of Chekhov's full-length plays, showing how they relate to each other, to Chekhov's short stories, and to his life. Gilman places the plays in the context of Russian and European drama and the larger culture of the period, and the reasons behind the enduring power of these classic works.

Anton Chekhov's popularity in the west is without parallel for a foreign writer. He has been absorbed into our culture, and accepted as one of our own. His plays lend themselves easily to the stage, calling for actors with intelligence and common sense rather than a dramatic voice or histrionic skills.

The play focuses on the lives of three sisters, Olga, Masha, and Irina, young women of the Russian gentry who try to fill their days in order to construct a life that feels meaningful while surrounded by an array of military men, servants, husbands, suitors, and lovers, all of whom constitute a distractions from the passage of time and from the sisters' desire to return to their beloved Moscow.

Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (1860 -1904) was a Russian physician, dramaturge and author who is considered to be among the greatest writers of short stories in history. Along with Henrik Ibsen and August Strindberg, Chekhov is often referred to as one of the three seminal figures in the birth of early modernism in the theatre. Chekhov had at first written stories only for financial gain, but as his artistic ambition grew, he made formal innovations which have influenced the evolution of the modern short story. He made no apologies for the difficulties this posed to readers, insisting that the role of an artist was to ask questions, not to answer them. This edition includes: Introduction: Biography of Anton Chekhov Plays: On the High Road Swan Song Ivanoff The Anniversary The Proposal The Wedding The Bear The Seagull A Reluctant Hero Uncle Vanya The Three Sisters The Cherry Orchard

New Versions by Libby Appel From Literal Translations by Allison Horsley

This is a collection of four plays from Chekhov - 'The Seagull', 'Uncle Vanya', 'Three Sisters' and 'The Cherry Orchard'.