ABSTRACT
Chekhov's mingling of comedy with tragedy is a compound, not a mixture; and it is not easy for a producer intent on losing no shade of pathos so to vary the pace of the play that it never falls into monotony. ‘You walk so lazily that you almost stagger,’ says the love-sick, exasperated Vanya to Yelena as she sways past with indolent grace; and after the first act there are passages in the course of which Mr. John Burrell's otherwise admirable production might be said to stagger. So anxious is it to gather in all possible pathos that sometimes it pays the penalty of over-anxiety and becomes altogether too solemn.
