ABSTRACT
In the 1970s, as Douglas Clayton acknowledges in his 1997 account of Chekhov’s assimilation into the Canadian canon, it was an oft-repeated joke that there were two Canadian playwrights: Shakespeare and Chekhov. But at the time of his writing, Clayton laments the passing of the “Chekhov mania” of the 1970s and 1980s (“Touching Solitudes” 151). By the 1990s, Chekhov had been supplanted by a sustained Shakespeare mania. 1 But Clayton’s eulogy may have been premature. The twenty-first century has produced numerous Canadian Chekhov mutations, ranging from (ostensibly) faithful productions of Chekhov’s major plays at the Shaw and Stratford Festivals, to the widely acclaimed adaptation of Platonov produced by Toronto-based Soulpepper in 1999–2000, to Theatre Smith- Gilmour’s internationally renowned theatrical embodiments of Chekhov’s prose fiction. 2 What is most striking about Chekhov’s recent renaissance is its aesthetic and political diversity: contemporary Canadian Chekhov spans a gamut of styles and stances, ranging from reverence to hostility to the source. Some adaptors attempt to resurrect the great author, while others seek not to bring him back to life so much as to scavenge him for parts, pace Dr Frankenstein. This variety suggests that, as with their other national playwright, Canadian spectators are receptive to all sorts of creative refashioning of his work—and that what “Chekhov” signifies is increasingly plural.
