|
The character
of Masha (Marcia Gay Harden) is important because she introduces the theme of
the play and is questioned by the Schoolteacher- Medvedenko (Stephen
Spinella), as to why she is wearing black. She answers that she is mourning
for her life. Certainly and a strange comment, which should alert the
audience, that they are about to see an out of the ordinary production. Masha
states that the performance is about to begin, and Medvedenko repeats the
word performance, and a fair amount of sarcasm should have been obvious. Then
Medvedenko turns the topic into a "compare and contrast" theme
regarding, the love between Nina and Konstantin as compared to the love
between himself a school teacher and Masha the one who always
wears black. One could easily view these
very characters as symbols, with the teacher being the one who sheds the
light upon Masha who is always dressed in black.
We view
Masha, as a dark and gloomy character, and our light-hearted school teacher
is attracted to her. By contrast Konstantin, is dark and gloomy, and is
attracted to the light and airy Nina. This idea will be re-visited when the
big scene with Trigorin and Nina, as well as the performances of Kevin Kline
and Natalie Portman (in this scene) finally get reviewed. Chekhov has created
characters in Medvedenko, and Masha, that are not truly totally developed or
fleshed out if you will. These two characters have been assigned parts that
are most akin to atmosphere. They introduce important elements in this play;
serve as symbols, which we have to think hard to somehow
decipher. Then they recede back into the play itself, as a backdrop (a
setting if you will) from which we can continue, to view the dramatic
conflict continue to unfold. The sexual
metaphors are there. We do not have to look too deep. Konstantin's play
mentions fusion of matter and spirit. The interrupted play may contain more
meaning, perhaps a reference to some universal fear of death. The play within
a play must be stopped somehow, for even Chekhov must have realized the
masses would have a very limited attention span for viewing Chekhov's post
apocalyptical view of the universe, and its eventual reconstruction. The
armchair critics (personified in Medvendenko, and later in Dorn) have a go at
a critique of the unfinished play. Then Konstantin conveniently leaves the
stage, Masha in pursuit, and enter Trigorin. The character
of Arkadina now in just eight separate lines of dialogue (Stoppard pg 14-15)
is able to steer our focus away from her petulant son's insignificant
production back to her favorite topic of interest, being sex. It seems that Chekhov had
developed a formula here, to keep his plays in production, Chekhov must have
known what today’s advertising concerns constantly capitalize on, sex sells.
This way he could introduce his prophetic snippets (via Konstantin and
Trigorin), create a character (in Arkadina) who simply can not stand to look
too deeply at anything of spiritual significance, and create a dramatic
conflict, by pitting these characters against one another, struggling to
survive.
The
struggle to survive is a good launch to an entirely new essay. So let me make
my point here and now, and make it quick. Seagulls struggle to survive by
continuously competing with each other for scraps of food. As soon as an
individual within the flock finds a scrap and moves towards it, the rest of
the flock follows. Therefore in the very act of feeding, the seagull must
then prepare for the competition. Getting back to the play, we can now make
sense of the lines spoken by Trigorin in Act III when he is speaking with
Masha (Stoppard, Trigorin pg 38). Her son is
being awfully difficult. Not content with trying to shoot himself,
he now wants to challenge me to a duel,... ...He sulks and stamps his
foot and preaches his doctrine of new forms. but there is plenty
of room for all, there's no need to push and shove. Suffice it to say, that the
work of Charles Darwin was not unknown (The Origin of Species by Charles
Darwin was first published in 1858) in Chekhov's day. Anton Chekhov, who was
also a an MD in addition to being a prolific writer, also knew his life would
be short (like a flower) because he had Tb. Therefore, he must have felt the
evolutionary pressure from the flock of great writers of his day if
his works were to survive into the next millennium. Chekhov was only forty-four
years old when he died.
|
|
