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Anton Chekhov The Major Plays Ivanov * The Sea Gull * Uncle Vanya * The Three Sisters * The Cherry Orchard �Let the things that happen onstage be just as complex and yet just as simple as they are in life,� Chekhov once declared. �For instance, people are having a meal, just having a meal, but at the same time, their happiness is being created, or their lives are being smashed up.� So it is that his plays express life through subtle construction, everyday dialogue, and an electrically charged atmosphere in which even the most casual words and actions assume great importance in his characters� lives. This principle sets his plays apart from the rest, steering them clear of melodrama, and draws the audience into the lives of Chekhov�s colorful characters. Because of his adherence to realism, the playwright has been called an �incomparable artist of life.�* �What makes his work great is that it can be felt and understood not only by any Russian but by anybody in the world.��*Leo Tolstoy With a Foreword by Robert Brustein and an Afterword by Rosamund Bartlett