About the Play:

Seven Short Farces is a collection of classic one-act farces by Anton Chekhov, the great Russian short-story writer and playwright. Being especially fond of vaudevilles and French farces, Chekhov wrote some hilarious one-act plays. This collection, translated by Paul Schmidt, includes The Bear, A Reluctant Tragic Hero, Swan Song, The Proposal, The Dangers of Tobacco, The Festivities, and The Wedding Reception. Each farce has a different number of characters in a totally new situation. These plays may be performed separately or as an evening of entertainment.

Swan Song: An actor wakes up with a hangover, locked in the theatre after the evening's performance. He is terrified when he thinks a ghost appears, but it is only the theatre's prompter. The actor tells him stories of his life and also of his doubts about his career. Unburdened, he goes off cheered, reciting great speeches from Shakespeare. (Cast: 2 male)

In The Bear a landowner comes to claim a debt from a young woman whose husband has just died. Out of grief, she refuses to see him – her attempt to prove to her faithless dead husband that women are more loyal than men. Eventually, the young widow and the landowner quarrel and decide to fight a duel, leaving the landowner so impressed that he falls madly in love and proposes. The widow accepts. (Cast: 1 female, 2 male)

The Proposal portrays a nervous young farmer who comes to propose to his neighbour's daughter. Instead of making the proposal, the two young people get involved in comic arguments. The young man leaves, the girl goes into hysterics until the father goes after the young man, who returns. He finally proposes, she accepts, and the two go on fighting. (Cast: 1 female, 2 male)

A Reluctant Tragic Hero: Our hero spends the summer in the country but is driven to the brink of distraction by various demands to run errands in the city and bring back lots of odd items to the country with him. (Cast: 2 male)

The Wedding Reception: A daffy young couple, with equally daffy family and friends, desires an "important" wedding reception. To get it, they pay a friend to bring a general with him. The friend pockets the money and instead shows up with a retired sailor who drives the party crazy with his sea stories. (Cast: 3 female, 7 male)

In The Festivities a pompous, self-important bank manager prepares to celebrate the fifth anniversary of the branch office he manages. He arranges for a series of "spontaneous" tributes to his supposed expertise, but chaos ensues when his wife returns from a visit to her mother's, and a crazy woman comes looking for a job for her husband. (Cast: 2 female, 3 male)

The Dangers of Tobacco portrays the shaky state of mind of a henpecked man whose wife runs a boarding school. A smoker, he is asked to present a lecture on the harmful effects of smoking. At the end of this tragic-comic monologue, the man is saved from a breakdown by the sudden arrival of his wife. (Cast: 1 male)

About the Playwright:

Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (1860-1904) was a Russian playwright who collaborated with actor and director Konstantin Stanislavsky and the Moscow Art Theatre. He is regarded by many as both the greatest Russian storyteller and the father of modern drama. From Chekhov, many contemporary playwrights have learnt how to use mood, apparent trivialities and inaction to highlight the internal psychology of characters. His plays, including The Seagull, Uncle Vanya, The Three Sisters, and The Cherry Orchard, are performed in theatres throughout the world and he is second only to Shakespeare in the number of productions his plays receive.

Paul Schmidt (1934-1999) was born in Brooklyn. He attended Colgate University where he received his degree in Russian Studies and Harvard University where he earned his graduate degree. Working with a multitude of theatres such as the Yale Repertory Theatre, the American Repertory Theatre and the Guthrie, Schmidt has translated plays by Euripides, Chekhov, Brecht, Genet, Gogol, Marivaux and Mayakovski. From 1993 until the end of his life, he taught translation and dramaturgy at the Yale School of Drama.