SOURCE: "Craftsmanship in Uncle Vanya," in In Search of Theater, Alfred A. Knopf, 1953, pp. 342-64.

In the following essay, which was written in 1946, Bentley examines Chekhov's modifcations of The Wood Demon to create Uncle Vanya and explores the author's manipulation of mundane details in the latter play to achieve "a drama of imagination and thought."

The Anglo-American theater finds it possible to get along without the services of most of the best playwrights. Æschylus, Lope de Vega, Racine, Molière, Schiller, Strindberg—one could prolong indefinitely the list of great dramatists who are practically unknown in England and America except to scholars. Two cases of popularity in spite of greatness are, of course, Shakespeare and Shaw, who have this in common: that they can be enjoyed without being taken seriously. And then there is Chekhov.

It is easy to make over a play by Shaw or by Shakespeare...