@MaryWat I don't know about you, but I do find anyone who's living a life slightly contradicting to the image of the living zealot is not doing bad at all. Chekhov revolutionized theater by insisting his complex, deeply human plays be staged as comedies or vaudevilles. He made his work accessible by utilizing laughing through tears.

@GeretJan Thank you for that most perfect summary of Chekhov's unique pleasures. When I said Upton's risible update of Three Sisters to set it into mid Soviet era, and said that it had the audience weeping, it was not weeping in sympathy with a sublime Chekhovian moment. They were metaphorically weeping at having spent so much on tickets to see such vandalism of their hero.

@MaryWat I guess that they need to get out more :)

@LeGrotesque Cate Blanchett is my mom