In Chekhov the actions that occur are irrelevant to the willed desires of the characters. What is scrupulously denied is a catharsis of any recognizable sort, even a true dramatic climax. When climaxes are provided they are always out of focus, for Chekhov's people cannot see clearly enough to do what might be expected of them by ordinary standards … The climax of The Cherry Orchard—the merchant Lopakhin's revelation that it is he who has bought the estate on which his father was once a serf ("I bought it," he announces with pride and awe)—initiates wrong reactions from everyone, for Lopakhin is the central character and had wanted in some confused way recognition for what he had done; this leads into the strange fourth act, an act of abandonment and leave-taking conducted with the most banal of conversations. Technically, a climax occurs in each play, but thematically, it is somehow not the right climax. The true issues are always avoided.
Kay Unruh DÈS Roches has recently demonstrated how an analysis of the verbal repetitions in the original text of Ibsen's The Lady from the Sea contributes to a specific understanding of the play which a close study of its English translations would not be able to yield "A Problem of Translation: Structural Patterns in the Language of Ibsen's The Lady from the Sea," Modern Drama, 30 (1987). Her essay suggests that all plays in translation "need a criticism based on a detailed description of untranslatable elements in the original text," a criticism which would be as relevant to the theater as to the classroom. Chekhov's major plays certainly merit such an approach, not only because they are so popular in both settings, but because, even in translation, their verbal repetitions (and acoustic repetitions) are such a significant part of our experience of them. Here, a reading of the Russian text of The Cherry Orchard will reveal the original shape and sound of its repetitions and probe the meanings inhering in their arrangement. As in Ibsen's play, the repetitions in Chekhov create local patterns which telescope into the play's larger thematic structure. By understanding the play in terms of musical structures, we can appreciate in greater detail the measured grace and good humor with which the playwright has his characters conduct themselves together, in the face of an uncertain future. Attention to structural rhythms tends toward a reading of the play more in accord with Chekhov's designation of the play as a comedy than do most interpretations, particularly those which focus on its closing moments. Of the final snapped string, [J. L. Styan has written in Chekhov in Performance, 1971], "to interpret that sound is to interpret the play": this essay will explicate the rhythmic framework in which that note sounds.
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