SOURCE: "Introduction," in The Real Chekhov: An Introduction to Chekhov's Last Plays, George Allen & Unwin, 1972, pp. 9-18.

In the following, Magarshack examines misinterpretations of Chekhov's plays by theater directors, translators, and others.

The stage is a scaffold on which the playwright is executed.

Chekhov (Letters)

Chekhov's chief executioners both in Russia and England (not to mention the United States) have been the directors, who quite consistently disregard Chekhov's intention in writing his plays, inevitably producing a crude distortion of their characters and a travesty of their themes. 'It is highly necessary', Mr Basil Ashton declared in a letter to the New Statesman (II September 1970)

for anyone who really cares about the classics to insist on the theatre providing a few directors who respect their author, rather than seeking, solely, to air their egos.… It is only by the writings of dramatists that the theatre survives, and directors should...