SOURCE: "Chekhov and the Craft of Theater," in Anton Chekhov, translated by Edith Tarcov, Frederick Ungar Publishing Co., 1972, pp. 62-84.

In the essay below, Melchinger investigates the ways Chekhov overthrew the theatrical conventions of his day.

In 1902, Chekhov wrote to Alexander Tikhonov:

You say you wept over my plays. You are not the only one. But I did not write them for this. It was Stanislavsky who made them so tearful. I intended something quite different.

Chekhov's judgment of Stanislavsky's productions of the Chekhov plays—as numerous passages from letters and witnesses' observations testify—can be summarized in a sentence he wrote about the production of The Cherry Orchard a few weeks before his death: "Stanislavsky has ruined my play."

It is said that dramatists cannot judge the productions of their plays. That may be true of those who do not understand the theater, but not of Chekhov...