Theatre and The Family, Anton Chekhov 'The Cherry Orchard'

Theatre and The Family, Anton Chekhov 'The Cherry Orchard' - Professor Belinda Jack (novideo)

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8 жыл бұрын

Professor Jack explores the themes and questions raised in Anton Chekhov's last play 'The Cherry Orchard' www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and...
Trees were of great importance to Chekhov. Some have described him as the first ecological writer of the twentieth century. The Cherry Orchard is Chekhov's last play. It opened at the Moscow Art Theatre on 17 January 1904. The first production rendered it as a tragedy but Chekhov had intended it to be a comedy.
The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website: www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and...
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Пікірлер: 17

@elazarzf 2 жыл бұрын

what an insightful and fascinating lecture.. thank you!!

@veereshbadiger8166 3 жыл бұрын

I am greatly impressed by Prof Belinda Jack's critical insights, body language and biblical simplicity of oratory.

@aliciahall1065 3 жыл бұрын

A very good lecture indeed. Chekhov does employ comedic characters in this play, particularly given how main characters were drawn in dramatic classical tragedies. None of the main characters in The Cherry Orchard are "extraordinary" (the classically drawn tragic main characters, pre mid 1800's) as she aptly describes. The detached behaviors of Chekhov's main characters in the play; unable to see, to relate to what is their fate, to not see the consequences of their choices, as children do, is spot on for this play and for classical comedic characters. The brilliance of Chekhov is that he is drawing on his knowledge of classical (pre mid 19th c. ) dramatic characters of tragedy and turning them into something which resembles more classically conceived "comedic" ones that are much more fully realized, more complex. The characters in this play ARE tragic, but they are drawn, are structured, via the classical handling of comedic characterization. He is rendering a new form of comedic characterization, one that is much more complex than those of the dramatists that preceded him. He was a genius worthy of being considered one of the world's greatest dramatists and writers. I am always stunned at how people can watch a beautifully crafted lecture, such as this, and zero in on minor details they feel they need to pick at, rather than considering the larger argument or context within which their nit-picking rests. Seeing only the branch of a tree and not the forest. They are trying desperately to feel big by trying to make someone else look small. They in turn look ridiculously small...minded. How childish. Ha! Like the characters in The Cherry Orchard.

@garybacani8877 3 жыл бұрын

Hi ma’am Alicia. I like your sentiments from the play. I read the play and I’m trying to write my essay about it for class requirements. I’m having a difficult time to understand it. I would like to ask for your help if that’s okay with you. Thank you and looking forward for your response

@tomlowres7290 6 жыл бұрын

good lecture

@robbey10 6 жыл бұрын

It was not her Russian Lover, it was her French lover whom she met there.

@nononouh 2 жыл бұрын

Theory as stimulus to creative development

@herbayum76 4 жыл бұрын

Liked her lecture very much. Still not convinced of Chekovs claim the play is a comedy. In the capitalist rollercoaster we find in ourselves nowadays rather gives me empathy for the inability to adapt to changes of the characters. Is it not la condition humain that's at play here and primarily makes one somewhat melancholic...

@eugeneganshin2934 4 жыл бұрын

This is more of a tragedy. The book is about two people who love each other, but due to lack of experience can not recognize this and be together.

@aliciahall1065 3 жыл бұрын

@@eugeneganshin2934 Different play

@eugeneganshin2934 3 жыл бұрын

@@aliciahall1065 No its not:)

@aliciahall1065 3 жыл бұрын

@@eugeneganshin2934 The love dynamics in The Cherry Orchard serve to further illustrate the ineptitude to take action of the fading landed gentry and their blindness to the looming approach of "progress" which is the reality surrounding them. That is what the play is really about. The foci on romantic love in the subplots of The Cherry Orchard serve that theme. They juxtapose the main action which lives within a failure of the family to take hold of their situation. In essence, to behave like children, not seeing the consequences of their actions, not seeing their personal responsibility in/for those actions. They fail to take control of their lives. In the sub plots, they fail to grab the opportunities given, or fail to speak their voice...they fail...thus the Cherry Orchard is a study in coming to an anti-climax. The love stories are there to serve the larger themes of the play and to serve the main driving (in)action of the play. It's brilliant! Look to the themes. Plays are not really about the plot events, unless it's a shallow work. Chekhov's works are certainly not, and are deeply reflective of what was happening in Russia at the time. Plots serve the themes. Do you happen to follow Anne Bogart of Siti Company? When she directs, she asks..."What's the there, there? What is the play r e a l l y about?" The plot is just the plot...the events that unfold...how the characters are living those events, the choices they make because of them, reveals the play and serves the themes. Be well...