Chekhov As Performed in the Theatres of Present-Day Madrid

Abstract

This article discusses plays and other works by Chekhov as performed in translation in contemporary theatres in Madrid presenting, in the main, my findings from the interviews I had with three theatre directors dedicated to bringing a more authentic vision of Chekhov to the Madrid stage. Juan Pastor, Ángel Gutiérrez and Irinia Kouberskaya have accomplished much with their theatre groups and theatres in Madrid with regard to the promotion of Chekhov's theatre on the Spanish stage. Two of these theatre directors, Gutiérrez and Kouberskaya, have wide experience of Russia and of Russian theatre traditions. Innovative aspects of certain of the Chekhov productions of these three directors, which include The Three Sistsers/Las tres hermanas and The Seagull/La gaviota, are commented upon and their roles as popularizers of Chekhov's drama are considered.

Key words:

• Chekhov
• Contemporary Spanish theatre
• Theatres in Madrid
• Spanish translations of Chekhov
• Tri sestri/The Three Sisters/Las tres hermanas
• Chaika/The Seagull/La gaviotam
• Tri Goda/Tres años/Three Years
• Vishnevy Sad/The Cherry Orchard/El jardín de los cerezos
• Ángel Gutiérrez
• Juan Pastor
• Irina Kouberskaya
• Russian theatre in Spain

Notes

1 Harai Golomb, A New Poetics of Chekhov's Plays (Brighton: Sussex Academic Press, 2013), 12; Golomb's work makes an influential contribution to Chekhov scholarship.

2 The possible reasons for this are multiple, complex and deserve much fuller examination than can be offered here.

3 Chekhov Then and Now: The Reception of Chekhov in World Culture, ed. J. Douglas Clayton (New York: Peter Lang, 1997). See Clayton's Introduction, 1–3; also the article by Laurence Senelick, ‘Chekhov's Bubble Reputation’, 5–18. It is interesting that there is not a single mention of Chekhov in the Hispanic world in Clayton's edited volume. However, Bruno Gomide, Chair of Slavic Studies, University of São Paulo, Brazil, is currently compiling a study devoted to Chekhov's works in Brazil; while Maria-Helena Serodio, specialist in Drama and Theatre Studies, University of Lisbon, has compiled an overview of perfomances of Chekhov plays in Portugal, of which she kindly provided me with a copy.

4 For more detailed consideration of this aspect, see Margaret Tejerizo, ‘What's in a Name? Who's Afraid of A. P. Chekhov? Adapting or Adopting Chekhov for the Spanish Stage’, CompaRes Yearbook (University of Lisbon), forthcoming. (This article is a revised version of a paper with this title given at the CompaRes Annual Conference, Lisbon, 2013). In ‘What's in a Name?’, I mention, for instance, the existence of recent translations of both Chekhov's plays and his stories into Spanish, which are significantly better than earlier translations. The three-volume edition of the Cuentos translated and edited by Paul Viejo, (Madrid: Páginas de Espuma, 2014), deserves special mention; also, the latest edition of the translation of Chekhov's Teatro completo, done by Galina Tolmacheva (Madrid: Adriana Hidalgo, 2013), is an excellent work.

5 My future research may concern the theatrical world of Barcelona where, of course, many outstanding and innovative theatre practitioners stage their works. One thinks, for example, of directors like Calixto Bieito and his innovative work with opera and the classics.

6 Documents with information about the earliest performances of Chekhov in Spain and their critical reception are housed in the Archives of the Teatro Español. Additionally, the Bibioteca Nacional holds copies of the first Spanish translations of many of Chekhov's plays and stories, and has a good selection of early critical articles. For information on the earliest performances of Chekhov in Spain, see Tejerizo, ‘What's in a Name?’.

7 It may seem curious that Chekhov should have been chosen as a ‘partner’ for Elvis. However, as the Argentinian director, Daniel Veronese has noted, Chekhov's texts ‘siguen hablando al Hombre contemporáneo’ (‘El hombre que se ahoga’, Escena [Madrid], 45 [2012], 12–13 [p. 12]).

8 The Centro Ruso moved in January 2016 to smaller premises in Calle Alcalá 61, but continues to offer a wide range of services and cultural activities.

9 I thank all three of these directors, Juan Pastor, Ángel Gutiérrez and Irina Kouberskaya, for generously granting me these interviews.

10 Sadly, as noted, due to severe financial constraints, the theatre closed its doors on 17 July 2016.

11 This quotation, and others, are taken, unless otherwise stated, from Pastor's ‘Production Notes' for Tres años; this work, as performed by Pastor's company at the Teatro Guindalera, is discussed in some detail in my account of my conversation with Pastor which follows.

12 The Guindalera Company kindly sent me the script for their adaptation of this story for the stage, but a full analysis of Tri goda/Tres años as it was adapted and staged by Pastor's company will need to be provided in a future article.

13 Pastor chose the title Tres hermanas for his version of The Three Sisters as opposed to the usual Spanish title, which is Las tres hermanas. Russian, of course, has no article so Pastor's title is the ‘literal’ translation of the original Tri sestri. It could be, too, that Pastor wished to indicate, through deleting the article, his focus on the universality of the themes of this play and on the fates of any three women trapped within their lives and circumstances.

14 My interview with Juan Pastor is also available in Teatros, 161 (2016), 28; issued online at <http://revistateatros.es/entrevistas/juan-pastor_1336/> (accessed 24 August 2016); for this quotation, and the one which follows, see p. 28.

15 Sadly, it turned out that this new space could not be used for public performances, owing to legal issues.

16 There is a great deal of archival material available about the so-called ‘Niños de Rusia’ who were sent mostly in Vietnamese cargo ships from ports in the north of Spain to Leningrad—supposedly to save them from the impact of the Civil War. Few of them ever returned to Spain, in spite of a request from Franco to Stalin that they should be permitted to ‘volver a la patria’. Educated in special, so-called ‘Spanish Schools’, many of the children later participated in the war against the Germans. Some returned to Spain as young adults, but since their families were quite often afraid to accept them, many returned to Russia or went on to Cuba. In 2004 the Círculo de Bellas Artes in Madrid held what was probably the first major series of interviews with several surviving ‘children’ on their fates, which has encouraged further archival research about them.

17 Federico García Lorca, La casa de Bernarda Alba, in Obras completas, recopilación & notas de Arturo del Hoyo, 4ª ed. (Madrid: Aguilar, 1962), 1349–442 (pp. 1362 & 1442).

18 The reference to the breaking string is given as a final stage instruction at the very end of the play. For this quotation, I have used the version given in the translation done by Galina Tolmacheva, Antón Chéjov: teatro completo, 326. The last words of the play are also taken from this same edition, p. 325.

19 In 2015 the Centro Ruso in Madrid mounted an exhibition which included material about the work and career of Ángel Gutiérrez.

20 The quotation is taken from Vassiliev's introduction in a recent edition of a small theatre magazine called Godot (March, 2016), 6.

21 Golomb, A New Poetics of Chekhov's Plays, 12; my emphasis.

* Disclosure Statement: No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.