Modern Drama: Tragedy Versus Comedy Research Paper

It is extremely difficult to circumscribe modern drama as a tragedy or a comedy. A drama can be in either of the two senses. Its roadmap for life can be tragic and the method that is exploited to bring it before the eyes of the public can also be tragic. The atmosphere in which the drama breathes appears to be tragic but there are certain elements owing to which the tragic sense does not absolutely dominate the ambiance of the play. Resultantly the tragedy comes on out on the stage as comedy. Critics who name it comedy have focused mostly on the humorous touches with which certain characters are endowed. As a matter of illustration, we can quote here Lopakhin’s mooing like a cow, Trofimov’s falling from the stairs, Lopakhin getting a bash mistakenly. Those who entitle it a tragedy are looking at the consequence of time passing and leaving a devastating generation in its train. “Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard has been played both as a comedy poking fun at class, age, and intellectualism and as a tragedy revealing the pain of change and loss that accompanies the passing of time”. (Ariana Mufson, The Cherry Orchard).

This appears to be a simplified method of tacking the play. To me, it is not any of them. Chekhov’s characters seem tragic but the tragedy is regarded as the destiny of humanity. That is to stress that it is not put under the limelight on the stage. In a tragedy, the characters on the stage and the audience also develop rapport with the central character on the stage, or at least they seem to be. It serves to magnify the tragic encounter. This mark is not present as it is carefully avoided in the given drama. The characters are having a queer attitudinal pattern for each other. They do not look at each others’ tragic positions. Seen from this perspective, the emotional experience is detached from the audience. As a result, the unhappiness and gloom imbibed by the characters in the play do not realize the tragic magnitude. They remain absolutely private. Chekhov’s comic touches have the purpose of embodying the play above the tear-jerking emotional content and the audience is not deprived of objectivity.

It appears to be very easy and plain to get the voices of the past, present, and future in the play as identified with a conventional order, fresh order, and the present as well. “That Chekhov saw it as a comedy is understandable- the actions of Ranevskaya and Gayev are proud and stupid – they fiddle whilst Rome burns. The boorish Lopahkin and the meek Varya, with their tortuous romance, are also figures of fun. Anya and her love interest, the eternal student Trofimov, are funny in their earnestness and the love triangle that develops between the uppity servant Yasha, the simple maid Dunyasha and her long-suffering clerk boyfriend, the bumbling Yepihidov is worthy of a chuckle. Finally, the very aged servant Firs has some genuinely funny moments as he dithers around the house” (Trevor Darge, The Cherry Orchard at a Glance). However, it is more than the exposure of the social transformation. Lyubov and Gaev are truant landlords and therefore they are economically dependent people. They do not have a role in earning the capital; to live on. It is a tribute to Chekhov that without getting emotional he generates the characters that have human touch even if they are land grabbers. They have links with the class that is going to be omitted from the social scene. These characters are the remnant of the class like all other characters spring from their own genre. “Chekhov wrote to his wife, Olga Knipper, “The next play I write will definitely be funny, very funny – at least in intention and there are moments when an overwhelming desire comes over me to write a four-act farce [vodevil] or comedy for the Art Theatre.” (Benedetti, Jean. Stanislavski). Chekhov does not advise at any turn in the play that two characters could have overcome their social genesis and become the inhabitants of the new order with which Lopakhin is identified. Although they come to know that the cherry orchard is going to be sold yet they do nothing because they are accustomed to an easy lifestyle and they cannot escape it. They have a sentimental affection for the cherry orchard which is instrumental in making them avoid extreme measures like cutting away the trees. Their tragedy is wrapped in their being what they are and what they cannot be. They belong to the upper strata of life where they can lead an indulgent life. They are unable to look over the socio-economic propellants which drive them. In their own style, they are hesitant to confront reality owing to their status in society. These places bar on them to be pitted against the facts. “ANYA. [Dreamily] It’s six years since father died. Then only a month later little brother Grisha was drowned in the river, such a pretty boy he was, only seven. It was more than mamma could bear, so she went away, went away without looking back […] (Act 1).

Anton Chekov’s The Cherry Orchard provides insights into the lives of upper-middle-class Russians. The play sometimes becomes the blend of sad accounts of previous mistakes but it appears to be very humorous at others. “Chekhov manages to combine the genres of comedy and tragedy. The playwright originally wrote The Cherry Orchard play as a comedy and was aghast the first time he saw it staged because the director had produced it as a tragedy. Scholars have argued about this duality and there is now general agreement that the play cleverly mixes comedy and tragedy” (Baring, Maurice. Landmarks in Russian Literature). The final moment’s lean-to portrays it as a tragedy with no dearth of lighthearted scenes. It engenders many feelings in the readers. Happiness, sadness, and anger are all coming out in the interactions of many characters with rich and complex personalities. The readers look at some sections of the characters as compelling while others are disgusting. The complexity maximizes the truthfulness of the contributions and therefore increases the passionate involvement of the readers. The play revolves around the life and property of Lubov Ranevskya, belonging to a landlord family. As consequence, she is generous and even spendthrift with her money that incurs her incredible debt. “I had also included in the casebook, the essay, the Cherry Orchard as a comedy because, I, like the rest of the readers, saw the Cherry Orchards as a tragedy. Stanislavsky, the founder of the Moscow Art Theatre, misunderstood the nature of his comedies, The Seagull and The Cherry Orchard and after the production of the latter, Chekhov wrote to his wife: How awful it is! An act that ought to take twelve minutes at most lasts forty minutes. There is only one thing I can say: Stanislavsky has ruined my play for me”. (Meister, Charles W. Chekhov Criticism).

In Act III, the concurrence of comedy and tragedy is present. While the overwhelming tragic moments happen indirectly off the stage the sale of the orchard and the ambiance at the empire onstage is ridiculous. While they are looking for the sale of the orchards Barbara concerned about the payment of the musicians admonishes Trophim and Pishtchik for having drunk and the young servant lost in the rhythm of ballads. Characters are all but engaged in their own business and there is a very dramatic atmosphere having farcical overtones. “Comedy and tragedy are like two sides of the same ruble; which one you see depends on your perspective. Only the perspectives are so legion, and so shifting, in Chekhov’s last masterpiece, The Cherry Orchard – now in a richly appointed production at the Huntington Theatre – that even defining the great play’s tone has remained elusive. Its central event (the destruction of that famed orchard) is so poignant that the play’s original director, Stanislavski, directed its premiere as tragedy, straight up. This only appalled the dying Chekhov, however, who insisted his swan song was “a comedy – even in places a farce!”.( Thomas Garvey, from Russia with love).

It is clear that the author perfected and conceived it as a comedy but it was taken and dramatized as a tragedy. The final outcome was at variance with the original intentions of the play writer. Now it depends upon us how we take us. Different critics name it according to their convenience. However, we can notice the fact that it has more comic-like traits than those of tragic ingredients. We are never allowed to empathize with the characters beyond some boiling pit where we feel to be over-emotional there is no such situation in the play though there are such undercurrents present. It is a tribute to the author that he is capable of writing a rare genre of ambivalent types of dramas that could later be construed in either sense. It is this quality of the play that has been endowed with permanent imprints for survival in literature.

References

Ariana Mufson, The Cherry Orchard. A curtain up review. 2008. Web.

Trevor Darge, The Cherry Orchard At A Glance. Arch 13 2008. chard review. Web.

Baring, Maurice. Landmarks in Russian Literature. London, England: University Paperbacks, 1960.

Meister, Charles W. Chekhov Criticism. Jefferson, NC: McFarland and Company, Inc., Publishers, 1988.

Thomas Garvey, From Russia with Love. 2008. Hub review. Web.

Benedetti, Jean. Stanislavski. New York: Routledge, 1990.