Stanislavski's Legacy by Constantin Stanislavski

Author:Constantin Stanislavski [Stanislavski, Constantin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781135866259
Publisher: TaylorFrancis
Published: 1968-09-15T00:00:00+00:00

Messages about The Cherry Orchard

DOI: 10.4324/9781315059792-26

Telegram_ October 20, 1903

I have just read the play. Deeply moved, scarcely control myself. Am in unheard-of state of enthusiasm. Consider the play the finest of all the fine things you have written. Cordial congratulations to the genius author. I feel, I treasure every word. Thank you for great pleasure already received and also in store.

Letter: same date

Dear Anton Pavlovich:

According to me your Cherry Orchard is your best play. I have fallen in love with it even more deeply than with our dear Seagull. It is not a comedy, not a farce, as you wrote—it is a tragedy no matter if you do indicate a way out into a better world in the last act. It makes a tremendous impression, and this by means of half tones, tender water-color tints. There is a poetic and lyric quality to it, very theatrical; all the parts, including that of the vagrant, are brilliant. If I were to choose one of the parts to suit my taste, I would be in a quandary, for every one of them is most alluring. I fear this is all too subtle for the public. It will take time for it to understand all the shadings. Alas, how many stupidities we will have to hear about this play! Nevertheless it will have a tremendous success because as a play it holds you. It is so completely a whole one cannot delete a single word from it. It may be that I am prejudiced, yet I cannot find any defect in this play. Oh yes there is one: it requires too great, too subtle actors to bring out all its charms. We shall not be able to do that. When we had our first reading together I was worried by one thing: I was instantly carried away, and my feelings caught up by the play. This was not the case with The Seagull or The Three Sisters. I am accustomed to a rather vague impression from a first reading of your plays. That is why I was afraid that when I read it for the second time it would not capture me again. Nothing of the sort happened. I wept like a woman, I tried to control myself, but could not. I can hear you say: “But please, this is a farce….” No, for the ordinary person this is a tragedy. I sense an attitude of a special kind of tenderness and affection towards this play. I scarcely heard a word of criticism, yet you know how actors love to be critical. Apparently this time they were all instantly won by it. If someone by chance does utter a word of criticism I merely smile and do not bother to argue. I am only sorry for the critic. Someone said: the fourth is the best act, and the second is least successful. I have only to go over the second act scene by scene and that critic is demolished. The fourth act is good just because the second act is magnificent and vice versa.

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