A.P. CHEKHOV’S DRAMAS “IVANOV” AND “THE CHERRY ORCHARD” IN THE PERSPECTIVE OF HUNGARIAN DIRECTORS

The paper looks at theatrical adaptations of A. Chekhov’s dramas in Hungary with a particular focus on Ivanov and The Cherry Orchard. The author provides a critical overview of the most prominent adaptations of A. Chekhov’s plays. It identifies those theatrical adaptations that serve as the key avenues in Hungarian directors’ vision of A. Chekhov’s works. The analysis is based on the present-day critical reflections, on the photographs of the performances and on the experiences of modern theatre-goers. Our review focuses primarily on genre-related features of stage adaptations, side-scenes and acting. At the same time central to the research is the problem of translations of A. Chekhov’s works into Hungarian which serve as the reference point for the director and the actors when staging the play and the viewer when watching the performance. Unlike A. Chekhov’s prosaic works which were translated into Hungarian and first published in the late 19th century, his dramas were first staged in Hungary in the 1920-s. Ivanov was first adapted for stage by Dániel Jób in Comedy Theatre of Budapest in 1923. A year later he delivered a stage adaptation of The Cherry Orchard. The theatre history was marked by two watershed events. The Moscow Art Theatre brought The Cherry Orchard to Budapest. K. Stanislavsky’s troupe presented their version of The Three Sisters, the psychological realism of which had a strong impact on Sándor Hevesi’s adaptation of The Seagull in the 1930s. Yet, a real breakthrough for A. Chekhov on the theatre stage was seen only in the 1960-s and 1970-s. It was prompted by renewed and reinvented theatre adaptation of Anton Chekhov’s language both globalwise and in Hungary. This period was marked by Ivanov directed by Endre Marton in 1971 and Gábor Zsámbéki in 1977 as well as The Cherry Orchard staged by István Horvai in 1974. In the late 20th and early 21st centuries there appeared new stage adaptations of A. Chekhov’s plays including Gábor Székely’s Ivanov in 1996. The biggest success was the production directed by Tamás Ascher in 2004 which won the Golden Mask in Moscow. The analysis of the last phase in A. Chekhov’s stage adaptation showed that the recent translations by György Spiró (then Géza Morcsányi and Julia Ungár) have given a new impetus to the interpretation of The Cherry Orchard. This can be best seen in the productions by Péter Valló in 2005, Róbert Alföldi in 2007 and Sándor Zsótér in 2013.