August with Anton, Week 1: Short Shorts

Welcome back to August with Anton! In our first week, we focus on some of Chekhov’s early “sketches”. Chekhov, as it turns out, did not merely focus on the domestic drama. , Minus Swansong, some of his earliest work was primarily based in the world of comedy. Are they particularly sophisticated? Not in the slightest. Does a lot happen in any of these? Not necessarily. Yet still, looking at these sketches and thinking “I’ve read an Anton Chekhov play,” I can’t help but feel a little better about my own writing.

(Not a dig at Chekhov, not at all. A dig at writers in general.)

August 1, 2022

Swansong

A short play wherein an elderly actor has a crisis over his career. As I was reading this, I was inclined to picture it as the classic melodrama—everyone’s so overcome with emotion they’re shouting, or at least that’s what the actor thinks acting is. In that read, it felt like a really sad tale. But then I read it again picturing more subdued performances. Suddenly it felt more hopeful.

I haven’t acted seriously in years now, but a friend of mine recently told me something about the practice that this reminds me of. The idea that in order to act, you have to have an intention: an intention to achieve the objective of a character. The mistake some actors make is focusing on emotion: a scene has a certain emotional tone to it, and so the actor feels the need to act that emotion. Except, as my friend put it, “You can’t ‘intend’ emotion.” Something like, say, “being sad” is not an objective, nor is “being happy.” If your focus is on being sad instead of anything your character is actually saying, you endanger your performance. I’ve seen even professional actors make this mistake.

Mind you, this isn’t always true. Sometimes, particularly in comedy, you know of certain things you can do that will trigger an emotional response in the audience. But that requires a lot of practice, and in my experience most actors, particularly younger ones, fall back into the great American acting school technique of just shouting at the top of their lungs and calling that emotion.

All this is a roundabout way of saying, if one of you yokels does a production of this and screams the whole time, I’m judging you.

The Bear

Not to be confused with the Hulu series. An absolutely absurd sketch that I found myself actually laughing out loud at. My thought through the first three quarters was that Smirnoff was like a Karen, only to realize where the story was going and just laughing at how it delivers. Poor Luka being the only sane person in the whole thing.

This is a self-indulgent diversion: The Bear was apparently one of Chekhov’s more popular plays, that was produced rather frequently even as he wrote the more serious “dramas” (even if he called most of them comedies). “I’ve managed to write a stupid vaudeville which, owing to the fact that it is stupid, is enjoying surprising success.” The Bear is to Chekhov as the Asian Crime Show Play is to me: I wrote a pretty silly little play as part of a class, and it’s ended up being my most-produced work.

Then again, I haven’t exactly written much else of note that would put me on any level close to Chekhov.

August 2-3, 2022:

I had anxiety, didn’t read.

August 4, 2022:

The Proposal

Another one of Chekhov’s farces. Tsar Alexander III allegedly loved this show, and it was popular in small towns. Chekhov hated it, and I can sort of see why. It can be summed up as one joke: a young couple who are quite in love and want to get married, but they can’t quit arguing about petty things, even when one of them is apparently on the brink of death.

I find the idea of this playwright who had a reputation for serious dramas writing farces as little things that got him produced interesting. I wish I had the patience to do something along those lines. Well, patience isn’t the word. Artistic inspiration? It’s not even that. It’s so hard for me to hunker down and focus on something. Seoul City Sue took me 4 months to write. The Evangelion Play is approaching 8 months and I still haven’t written a complete draft. Chekhov wrote a couple of short sketches to pass the time between his big plays. Good on him for that, I suppose. And he was around my age too. What have I done with my theatrical career?

August 5-7, 2022:

No reading at all, but a surprising amount of writing. On Friday night I managed to finally crack a play I’ve been writing for 8 months. I spent the entire weekend on that play, and I’m happy with it for the first time.

Was it Chekhov’s doing? I don’t know about that. But reading a few plays by someone else gave me a better sense of what I want my plays to look like.

This coming week is gonna be some full-lengths. Wish me luck.