Anton Chekhov wrote The Seagull in 1895, at the demarcation point between his first and second periods of development as a dramatist. In the first stage, starting in 1881, the writer was chiefly recognized for his adaptations of his own short fiction into "vaudevilles," one-act farces that were very popular curtain raisers in Russian theater. To a great extent, these are formulaic pieces, focusing on the absurdities of such eccentric character types as the hypochondriacal suitor and his man-desperate, brideto-be counterpart in The Marriage Proposal (1888-1889) or the blustering male intruder and the reclusive, long-suffering widow in The Bear (1888). Also belonging to the first period are four full-length plays, two of which are no longer extant. In only one of these, The Wood Demon (1889), did the playwright begin experimenting with an "indirect action" technique in an attempt to more faithfully represent actual life, free of the many stage...