As early as 1884, Chekhov was busy hating on actors, or at least finding their profession miserable. It’s really a wonder to me that he ever wanted to be a playwright.
This story, about a miserable and basically pathetic little actor at the end of his life, was published well before Chekhov was deeply involved in the theater. He had made at least one attempt at a play by then, but it didn’t get produced in his lifetime. It would be several more years before Chekhov experienced the tragicomic failure of “Ivanov,” his first full-length play. So how did the antipathy toward actors develop?
In the early 1880s, Chekhov was quite a busy young man, attending medical college and dashing off story after story, the proceeds of which went to supporting himself and his family. Still, he did a fair amount of gadding about, and I imagine that his growing success as a writer of amusing stories led him into social circles that included famous actors and directors. (He met Stanislavsky in 1888). But why would they come in for especially critical treatment?
Presumably actors as a whole were viewed with suspicion in Russia: They led lives less bound by convention. Everyday people working in conventional jobs and living among conventional families likely disapproved of the freedoms enjoyed by nonconformist actors. But Chekhov seemed to enjoy tweaking conventional thinking, so that wouldn’t seem to be a reason to hold actors in low esteem.
It’s all a mystery–especially when you consider his throbbing ambition to write plays. And don’t forget that, late in his life, he actually married an actress!
For all of Chekhov’s disdain for actors, this is not a bad story. It takes place in a graveyard (because of course Chekhov, as we have seen time and again, rarely bothered to title his stories in any creative way, so why not call it “In the Graveyard?”)
For reasons that are never made clear, a group of men are hanging about in a graveyard, chatting and trading jokes. They are interrupted by a shabby old man who is looking for the grave of one Mushkin, an actor.
As it turns out, the shabby man is an actor, too, and he owes this to Mushkin, who persuaded him to follow in his footsteps and become an actor as well, miserable though an actor’s lot is. And now the shabby actor is about to die of alcoholism, again following in Mushkin’s footsteps.
Chekhov starts off playing this shabby actor for laughs, saying that he looks like a government clerk. But as the tale progresses, the sorrow of the man’s life takes over, and we (or at least I, maybe without Chekhov’s approval) feel a deep sympathy for him. Similar to “An Actor’s End,” the man has lost touch with his roots, and is bound to die alone, unmourned, with no family to bury him. And like Mushkin, he is unlikely even to be properly memorialized by his fellow actors, who took up a collection for a headstone for Mushkin, but then drank the money away.
I really don’t understand Pushkin’s stance regarding the theater, but this story caught me up. The sad little man’s difficult life and his impending, lonely end touched me.
READ THIS? READ THAT!
As I noted in the comments on “An Actor’s End,” that tale is basically a mirror image of “In the Graveyard.” For other portraits of actors and the life of the theater, you might look to “The Requiem,” “A Dreary Story,” “A Tragic Actor,” and “The Jeune Premiere.”
But this story also reminded me of “Easter Eve.” It has nothing to do with actors and acting. But like “In the Graveyard,” it is a touching portrait of a modest man contemplating the death of a friend.
A Chekhov Circus 