The Unapologist
(in his recorded speaking voice - he does not appear in the play)
This is my attempt at a non-realistic play capable of being performed by actors, trained to western realism, together with performance artists and dancers and poets, who are not.

sung by offstage voice or voices
I have taken an apparently realistic play that I like very much and added non-realistic elements hoping to preserve the tone of Chekhov's play, retaining all his words, while opening it to another tradition that I miss, and long for, in the theatre.

sung by other offstage voice or voices
For years I've been unhappy with plays and novels written in the convention of realism though I like a few realist plays and novels, e.g. those written by Anton Chekhov and Henry James. Why is this, I ask myself, what's wrong with realism, and what's good about these?

The Unapologist's speaking voice
Well, when I watch a play or read a novel that's realistic I feel I am not there, and neither are the actors or the author, as persons. We are all pretending to be experiencing the emotions of the characters. I prefer to remain in touch with reality, with me-being-me, you-being-you, etc. I like to remain conscious all the time that the fiction is fiction. I like to feel that it is we who are inventing what we see ...... I could elaborate this theory but instead I composed the play and I hope to see it performed. I can't bear the theatre as it is. How about you?

The music, which accompanies the dancers and is heard faintly during some of the talking could be Muzak (e.g. Rediffusion Reditone Piano 10) and elsewhere POEM for (piano and violin by S Tsintsade, Concert Suite, Moskow 1968, page 15 andante molto resoluto and page 122 morendo, silence dying.)

The Unapologist's speaking voice
The first character, Doctor Astrov, has become Anton Chekhov. They were both doctors. This possibility is what set me recomposing the play, that and the idea that the other characters know that Anton is the author, and that he is aware that the text has been tampered with. I fancy that Anton would smile, not frown, at these possibilities, so characteristic of post-modern time? The future, as he called it then. Was it unpredictable?

Anton
A garden. The verandah is visible. A line of trees - under and old poplar there is a table laid for tea. There are some benches and chairs, and a swing near the table. It is three o'clock in the afternoon. Cloudy. That is what I wrote and here it is, plus you, plus me. The future of Russia was then unknown but now it is not.

Narrator
Yuri Gagarin in spacesuit walks slowly across the stage and exits. (He does.) Did he ever imagine, as a child, that he would be the first person to leave the earth? (Gagarin stops.) He visited Sri Lanka and soon after he died in a flying accident. (Gagarin continues.) Anton Chekhov went to Sri Lanka, when he was dying, on his way back from Siberia. (Gagarin exits.)

Don't cry my dear, we all die. Today is Saturday (or whatever is the day of the week).

(As Anton Chekhov and the Narrator speak these words Anton walks about placing written signs to denote some of the things he mentions, even a sign reading three o'clock. The scenery is mainly unpainted, or badly done.)

Anton
Marina, a slow-moving old woman, is sitting by the samovar knitting a stocking. She resembles Gertrude Stein. How did I know that? Astrov, I mean Chekhov, is walking up and down near her. We were both doctors, he says.

Marina
Pretends to pour some tea into a glass. Here you are dear.

Anton
Takes the glass unwillingly. I don't really want any, there is nothing in it. I don't like to pretend.

Marina
Perhaps you would like some vodka?

Anton
No, I don't drink vodka every day. Besides it's close. I mean the air is close. It's stifling.

Narrator
Pause.

Anton
Nurse, how long have we known each other?

Marina
Thoughtfully. How long? Oh Lord! Let's see if I can remember. You first came here . . . . . . to these parts, let me see, when was it? Vera Petrovna, Sonya's mother was still alive . . . . . . so it was around 11 years ago. Thoughtfully. Perhaps, even more, much more, for now it's 2007 (or whatever year it is).

Anton
Have I changed a lot since then? I mean apart from becoming Anton Chekhov. And how is it we are speaking English?

(Nice if the actors are Russians and speak English as a foreign language. Not nice if they are English speakers imitating Russian accents.)

Marina
You've changed a lot. We all have. You were good-looking, and now you're older, by more than a century, and your looks are no longer what they were. And what's more, you like your little vodka too.

Anton
Yes, those years have turned me into another man. And why? How did I get into my own play and who is impersonating me, what is he thinking of? (Here the actor says something of how he feels this minute, honestly.) The trouble is I work too hard, Nurse. I'm on my feet from morning till night; I never have any peace. At night I lie in bed fearing that I'll be dragged off to someone who's sick. I haven't had one free day in all the time we've known each other. It's no wonder I've aged.

(Anton pauses to dance, very slowly, and deliberately, the dance of passing time. Several minutes. He lies down at one point and then continues. He dances with his legs, and his loosely swinging arms. No miming. As he dances the narrator, who has a script and is visible throughout, speaks some of his words:)

Narrator
It's no wonder I've aged. Life is boring, senseless and squalid . . . . . . it drags you down.

Anton (still dancing)
You're surrounded by idiotic people (he looks benignly at the narrator and at the audience).

Narrator
And after living with them for two or three years you gradually become an idiot yourself,

Anton
you gradually become an idiot yourself (he almost shouts this)

Narrator
without even becoming aware of it.

Anton
you forget who you are. (He stops dancing.) . . . . . . it's inevitable.

Narrator
Twisting his long moustache.

Anton
Just look how enormous my moustache has grown . . . . . . it's not a real moustache, it comes off in my hand.

Narrator
It does, and Anton puts it back.

Anton
I've become an idiot, Nurse. But at least i haven't become insensitive. Thank God my brain still functions, tough I no longer seem to have any feelings. I don't want anything, I don't need anything, I don't love anyone, except perhaps you.

Narrator
He kisses her on the head.

Anton
(He does) The head. I had a nanny just like you when I was a little boy.

Marina
Would you like something to eat? I can see that someone has been altering your play. I'm not even the same person myself.

Anton
Yes i know, but I'm pretending not to be hungry and besides I'm concentrating on playing the part . . . . . . The words are the best I could write. During the third week of Lent I went to Malitskoe, that's a place in Russia. There was an epidemic . . . . . . typhus. People were lying on top of one another in their huts. There was filth, stench, smoke. The calves were lying on the floor together with the sick, the pigs too. I worked without stop all day . . . . . . I didn't have anything to eat, and when I got home, they still wouldn't leave me in peace. They brought me a signalman from the railway,

Narrator
Where else?

Anton
I laid him on the table so that I could operate, and he went and died on me under the chloroform. And then, at the wrong moment, my feelings were stirred up again and my conscience began to trouble me

Narrator
as though I had deliberately set out to kill him.

Anton
I sat down and closed my eyes (he doesn't)

Narrator
like this (the Narrator closes his own eyes)

Anton
and I thought: one, two hundred years from now, will all these people

Narrator
all these people

Anton
speak well of us?

Narrator
Will they go to see my plays?

Anton
No Nurse, they won't. All this is an illusion.

Marina
People don't remember, but God does.

Anton
Thank you - that was well said. Why don't I think like that?

(Vanya One and Vanya Two enter. They have identical clothes and Vanya Two wears a mask of Vanya One's face. The dance slowly as if fatigued, and then bow.)

Vanya One
Enter Uncle Vanya . . . . . . He has been asleep after breakfast

Narrator
and looks dishevelled,

Vanya Two
he sits down on a bench. (The both sit on it.)

Narrator
and adjusts his fancy tie. (They do.)

Vanya Two
Yes . . . . . .

Vanya Two
Pause.
(There is a long Chekhovian pause here and other such pauses elsewhere, unmarked.)

Anton
Had a good sleep?

Vanya One
Yes, very good.

Anton
Yawns (Vanya Two pretends to yawn.)

Vanya Two
Since the Professor and his wife have been here our life has become so unsettled.

Vanya Two
I sleep at the wrong time,

Vanya One
after breakfast and dinner I eat things I shouldn't

Vanya One
and drink wine. And this isn't good for me.

(The Uncles turn to look at each other.)

Vanya One
I never used to have a moment to myself - Sonya worked all the time, and now Sonya is the one who works while I sleep . . . . . .

Vanya Two
eat

Vanya One
and drink. It's not good.

Marina
Shaking her head. (She does.) What order! The Professor gets up at twelve o'clock, and the samovar is on the boil all morning waiting for him. When they weren't here we all used to have dinner at one like everyone else, except the peasants of course, and now we have it at seven. The Professor reads and writes all through the night, and then suddenly at two in the morning he'll ring the bell.

Narrator
What does he want? What does he want? The Narrator goes round in circles. (He does.)

Marina
He wants tea! You have to order everyone up and heat the samovar just for him. What order!

Anton
Will they be here long?

Vanya One
(Whistling.) A hundred years. The professor has decided to settle down here.

Marina
It's just the same now. The samovar's already been on the table for two hours and they've gone for a walk.

Vanya Two
They're coming, they're coming. Don't get excited. (Voices are heard.)

Narrator
Senator Professor Serebryakov, Yelena Andreyevna, Sonya and Telyegin return from their walk in the garden. Some garden. Would you call it a park?

Serebryakov
From the depths of the garden, returning from their walk. Beautiful, beautiful . . . . . . wonderful scenery.

Telyegin
Remarkable, Your Excellency.

Narrator
The four of them stand together and bow to the audience and smile before proceeding. The Professor winks and they all dance a little, to the violin music, or to muzak.

Sonya
Father, would you like to look at the trees tomorrow?

Vanya One
Tea, ladies and gentlemen!

Serebryakov
Would you be good enough to send my tea to the study. I have something I must do today.

Sonya
I'm sure you'll love the trees.

Yelena, Serebryakov and Sonya
Yelena, Serebryakov and Sonya go into the house.

Telyegin comes towards the table and sits down beside Marina.

Vanya One
It's hot and stifling but our great scholar wears an overcoat, galoshes, and carries an umbrella.

Anton
He's taking care of himself.

Vanya Two
Isn't she lovely! . . . . . . Lovely! . . . . . . I have never in all my life seen a more beautiful woman.

Telyegin
You know Marina Timofeyevna, whether I'm driving through the fields, walking in shady garden, or looking at this table, I always feel so inexplicably happy. The weather's enchanting, the birds are singing, and we're all living together in peace and harmony - what more do we need?

Narrator
Telyegin takes his glass.

Telyegin
Thank you very much!

Vanya Two
Vanya speaks dreamily.

Vanya One
Her eyes! . . . . . . What a wonderful woman!

Anton
Tell us something, Ivan Petrovich.

Narrator (reading carefully from the text)
Ivan Petrovich Voynitsky, or Uncle Vanya, is the son of Marya who was married to Senator Voynitsky a privy councillor. His sister Vera Petrovna who was Professor Serebryakov's first wife was the mother of Sonya. Ivan whom they call Vanya is thus Sonya's uncle and is the brother-in-law of the Professor who is now married to Yelena. I hope you can follow this. I can't.

Vanya One
What shall I tell you?

Narrator
He speaks listlessly.

Anton
Isn't there anything new?

Vanya Two
No. Everything's old. I'm just the same - worse perhaps because I've become lazy. I do nothing but grumble. My mother,

Vanya One
the old crow,

Vanya Two
still goes on about female emancipation with one eye on her grave and the other on learned books in which she looks for the dawning of a new life.

Anton
What about the Professor?

Vanya Two
As usual the Professor sits in his study from morning till night writing.

Vanya One

Straining the mind,
wrinkling the brow,
we write and write odes,
for which we receive no praise at all.

Narrator Vanya Two dances as Vanya One sings the verse.

Vanya One
Poor paper!

Vanya Two
He'd be better off writing his autobiography

Narrator
They both dance during their description of the Professor.

Vanya Two
a dried up old man, a learned roach . . . . . . gout, rheumatism, migraine . . . . . . his liver swollen from jealousy and envy . . . . . . .

Vanya One
and this roach lives on the estate of his first wife because he can't afford to live in town. He's always complaining about his misfortunes when in fact he's extraordinarily lucky.

Narrator
Chekhov's text says that you speak the next bit nervously.

Vanya One
Just think: What luck! The son of a common deacon, he went to a seminary, managed to become a Professor and was called 'Your Excellency' because he became the son-in-law of a senator and so on. For twenty-five years this man has been reading and writing about art without knowing anything at all about the subject. For twenty-five years he's regurgitating other people's thoughts on realism, naturalism and all sorts of nonsense.

Narrator
The Unapologist coughs. (Someone coughs offstage.)

Vanya Two
For twenty-five years he's reading and writing about things that clever people are well familiar with and fools aren't interested in.

Vanya Two
In other words, it's all been for nothing. But how conceited he's been all this time!

Vanya Two
And now he's retired and not one living soul has heard of him; he's completely unknown. So, for twenty-five years he's been taking someone else's place. But just look at him - he struts around like a demigod.

Narrator
They sit down. This is Pablo Picasso.
(A dove flies across the stage and Picasso comes in with brush and paint and begins to repaint the scenery. Before this the scenery was blank, or badly done, i.e. carelessly painted, unimaginative, or else is indicated only by written signs.)

The Unapologist's offstage voice
The play could continue, for hours, while Picasso paints.
It could include all of Chekhov's words plus additional ones.
It could become an all-day event, with picnic meals in the intervals.

But I'd like to see this part performed before writing any more.

I'm hoping, I'm hoping,
that the additions don't destroy,
but enhance,
the quiet beauty and passion of Chekhov's words,
his sense of things happening slowly,
with no foreground,
everything being of equal importance...

Marina
Equal importance. When I became Gertrude Stein that was how i composed everything. The idea came from Paul Cezanne.

Narrator
Anton looks at her carefully and the others gather round to listen as she reads quietly and without emphasis from the beginning of The Making of Americans . . . . . . She could continue for a long time.

Gertrude Stein (spoken and enacted by Marina without change of dress or posture)
The Making of Americans . . . . . . 'It has always seemed to me a rare privilege, this, being an American, a real American, one whose tradition has taken scarcely sixty years to create. We need only realise . . . . . (etc. etc.) . . . . '

Narrator (slowly, with pauses)
Everyone listens intently as drinks and sandwiches are passed round, audience and performers sharing the moment together. Some of them whisper. Modern music of the early twentieth century is faintly heard. Perhaps Satie. Gertrude Stein reads until the music ceases and the play continues. This is the play. Anton Chekhov takes notes.

(these pages are designed to be read with the window set to two-thirds of the screen width)

atlas

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