Boris Akunin - All the World's a Stage

‘I have to be at a meeting of the municipal council at five o’clock. An important matter – whether grammar school pupils should be allowed into the evening session at electric theatres. They are almost a third of the potential audience. I bid you farewell.’

After his departure the actors carried on exclaiming rapturously for some time, until Stern told them to take their seats. Everyone immediately fell silent.

Something important was about to take place: the announcement of the new play and – most importantly of all – the allocation of the roles. Faces assumed identical, tense expressions, in which suspicion and hope mingled together. The artistes all looked at their manager. Emeraldov and Altairsky-Lointaine watched him more calmly than the others – they had no need to fear disadvantageous roles. But they seemed to be agitated nonetheless.

Having returned to his observation post, Fandorin also made ready, remembering what Noah Noaevich had said about this being the very moment when players, who were in the habit of dissimulating their feelings, laid bare their genuine egos. The picture might possibly be clarified.

The news that the new production in store for the company was The Cherry Orchard failed to arouse any enthusiasm or lighten the atmosphere.

‘Couldn’t you find anything newer?’ Emeraldov asked, and several of the others nodded. ‘What’s the good of a repertoire manager…’ – the leading man indicated Fandorin – ‘…if we’re choosing Chekhov again? We need something a bit livelier. With more spectacle to it.’

‘Where can I find you a new play with good characters for every one of you?’ Noah Noaevich asked angrily. ‘The Orchard resolves itself neatly into twelve parts. The public already knows the plot, that’s true. But we’ll capture them with the revolutionary impulse of our interpretation. What do you think the play is about?’

Everyone started pondering.

‘About the victory of crude materialism over the futility of love?’ Altairsky suggested.

Erast Petrovich thought: She is intelligent, that is wonderful .

But Stern disagreed.

‘No, Eliza. It’s a play about the comicality and impotence of cultural refinement and also about the inevitability of death. It’s a very frightening play with a hopeless ending, and at the same time very spiteful. But it’s called a comedy because fate mocks human beings pitilessly and makes fun of them. As usual with Chekhov, everything is in hints and half-tones. But we shall make everything that has been left unspoken completely clear. It will be an anti-Chekhovian production of Chekhov!’ The director grew more and more animated. ‘In this drama of Chekhov’s there is no conflict, because when he wrote it, the author was seriously ill. He had no strength left to fight against Evil, or against Death. You and I shall recreate the Evil, fully armed. It will be the main motor of the action. With Chekhov’s multilevel characters, such an interpretation is perfectly permissible. We shall render the fuzzy psychology of Chekhov’s characters clear and distinct, bringing them into focus, as it were, sharpening their edges, dividing them into the traditional character types. That will be the innovative principle of our production!’

‘Brilliant!’ Mephistov exclaimed. ‘Bravo, teacher! And who is the main agent of Evil? Lopakhin, the cherry orchard’s destroyer?’

‘Well, aren’t you setting your sights high!’ Emeraldov chuckled. ‘Lopakhin he wants!’

‘The agent of Evil is the clerk Yepikhodov,’ the director replied to his ‘villain’, and Mephistov’s face fell. ‘This pitiful little man is the embodiment of the banal, petty evil that every member of our audience encounters in real life far more often than Evil on a demonic scale. But that’s not all. Yepikhodov is also a walking Token of Disaster – and with a revolver in his pocket. His nickname is “22 misfortunes”. It’s a terrifying thing when there are so many misfortunes. Yepikhodov is a harbinger of destruction and death, senseless and pitiless death. It’s no accident that the characters keep repeating that ominous refrain: “Yepikhodov’s coming! Yepikhodov’s coming!” And there he is wandering about somewhere offstage, plucking at the strings of his “mandolin”. I shall make it play a funeral march.’

‘And which of the women is an agent of Evil?’ Vulpinova asked.

‘You would never guess. Varya, Ranevskaya’s adopted daughter.’

‘How is that possible? She’s such a sweetheart!’ Gullibin exclaimed in amazement.

‘You haven’t read the play properly, Vasya. Varya is a hypocrite. She is planning to go away on a pilgrimage or enter a convent, but she feeds God’s wandering pilgrims on nothing but peas. She is usually played as modest, self-effacing and hard working. But what damned hard work has she ever done? A household manager who has reduced an estate with a luxurious cherry orchard to ruin and destruction. The only bright note in the play is the timid attempt by Petya and Anya to become more intimately involved, but Varya doesn’t give this fresh, young shoot a chance to blossom, she is always on guard. Because in the kingdom of Evil and Death there is no place for real, live Love.’

‘That’s very profound. Very,’ Vulpinova said pensively. A rapid sequence of grimaces ran across her face: false piety, saccharine sweetness, envy, spite.

‘And who will be the embodiment of Good? Petya Trofimov?’ asked Gullibin, apparently trying to prompt the director.

‘I thought about that. Garrulous, starry-eyed Good facing up to all-conquering Evil? Too hopeless. Trofimov will be yours, of course, Vasya. Play him in the classic manner, a “lovable simpleton”. And the mission of battling against Evil will be taken on by the victorious Lopakhin.’ Noah Noaevich gestured in the direction of the company’s leading man, who astounded Erast Petrovich by sticking out his tongue at the devastated Mephistov. ‘In order to lead Russia out of the beggarly, wretched state that she is in, we have to cut down the cherry orchards that no longer produce a harvest. We have to work on the earth and populate it with energetic, modern people. I advise you, Hippolyte, to play our benefactor, Andrei Gordeevich Shustrov, photographically. But – and this is a very important nuance – Good, by virtue of its magnanimity, is blind. And therefore at the end Lopakhin hires Yepikhodov to work for him. When the audience hears this news, it must shudder in sinister foreboding. Sinister foreboding is the key to the production’s interpretation in general. Everything will come to an end soon, and the ending will be wretched and ugly – that is the mood of the play, and also of our epoch.’

‘Of course, I’m Ranevskaya?’ the grande dame Reginina asked in a sweet voice.

‘Who else? An ageing but still beautiful woman, who lives for love.’

‘What about me?’ asked Eliza, unable to restrain herself. ‘Surely not Anya? She’s still a girl.’

Stern leaned down over her and cooed:

‘Come now, you mean you can’t play a girl? Anya is Light and Joy. And so are you.’

‘Have pity, the reviewers will laugh! They’ll say Altairsky has started putting on youthful airs!’

‘You will enchant them. I order you to have a dress made, covered in glitter, so that it scatters dots of sunlight everywhere. Every entrance you make will be a celebration!’

Eliza stopped arguing, but she sighed.

‘Who do we have left?’ asked the director, glancing into a little notebook. ‘Mr Sensiblin will play Gaev. An old-style thinker, fine and decent values, but obsolete, everything’s clear here.’

‘What’s clear? Why is it clear?’ asked the ‘philosopher’, flying off the handle. ‘Give me a sketch! The development of the character.’