Young Chekhov: Platonov; Ivanov; The Seagull (Faber Drama) - Softcover

A masterly triple bill... unforgettably charts Chekhov's progress from farce to melodrama to a new symphonic realism. (Guardian)

Consistently illuminating... [Platonov] emerges as no mere apprentice piece but a major work in its own right. (Daily Telegraph)

There's rather brilliant; brilliant; and landmark-brilliant. I have no hesitation whatsoever in assigning to the last category David Hare's inexhaustibly rich and game-changing adaptations of three of Chekhov's early plays. (Independent)

Extraordinary. (What's on Stage)

David Hare's adaptation of three early Chekhov plays delights. (The Times)

Anton Chekhov is one of the undisputed masters of world drama. He is usually thought to hide himself behind his characters and stories, keeping his own personality well off-stage. But when he was young he wrote three plays - Platonov, Ivanov and The Seagull - which, with their thrilling sunbursts of youthful anger and romanticism, reveal a very different playwright from the one known by his mature, more familiar work. Young Chekhov brings these three blazing dramas together in versions by internationally acclaimed dramatist David Hare, offering the chance to explore the birth of a revolutionary dramatic voice. The plays show a writer freeing himself from the constraints of nineteenth-century melodrama and herald the shift into the twentieth century, and the birth of the modern stage. The Young Chekhov season premiered at the Chichester Festival Theatre in the autumn of 2015.