The Cherry Orchard, Anton Chekhov’s last play, opened at the Moscow Art Theatre on January 17, 1904. The directors of the theater, and of the play, Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko, scheduled the premiere to coincide with Chekhov’s forty-fourth name-day and the twenty-fifth anniversary of his entry into literature.
At the end of the third act, they brought Chekhov on stage, where he had to endure the applause and congratulations of theater members, critics and the audience—“endure” because Chekhov hated such public attention, and also because the tuberculosis he had suffered from for many years was reaching its final stage and he was barely able to stand through the twenty-minute tribute.
Stanislavsky describes the moment in My Life in Art: “He stood deathly pale and thin on the right side of the stage and could not control his coughing, while gifts were showered on him and speeches in his honor were being made.” He died less than six months later in a sanatorium in Badenweiler, Germany.
Richard Peaver
Author/Translator
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