Talking Chekhov with Ekaterina Golovina
Thomas Burns Scully
A lot gets said about Anton Chekhov and how to perform his work. The classic Russian playwright is synonymous with subtext and inner life, part of what made his work a tentpole for the Stanislavski System and the Moscow Art Theatre. However, to broadly state that backstory and intention are all that are needed to understand and bring his text to life is a vast oversimplification.
His work relies upon a wealth of knowledge and understanding of cultural attitudes; attitudes specific to a national ethos, a man’s life, and a moment in time. Simply knowing you need to prepare emotional subtext is not a high enough bar of entry for an actor attempting to penetrate the work and world of Anton Chekhov. So says Ekaterina Golovina.
Ekaterina is an actor born into the world of Anton Chekhov, quite literally. She was born and raised on Sakhalin Island in Russia, an island that Chekhov traveled to and wrote on extensively. She grew up with his short stories, studying them extensively, and as a working actress has played leading roles in three of his greatest pieces: ‘The Cherry Orchard’, ‘Three Sisters’, and ‘The Seagull’. Her ties to his body of work are not just professional, they are ancestral, and she was kind enough to sit down and talk to us about acting in Chekhov’s plays.
It seems like your relationship with Chekhov's work is intensely personal.
Yes. I think every Russian person has it some extent. In many ways, he’s our national playwright. Like Shakespeare is for the UK. But for me especially, because of being born on Sakhalin, it feels like he is this constant that has always been in my life. We were taught his short stories in school, I watched his plays as I got older... I read him, I read about him, I heard the local folklore about him, and I walked the same land that he did. When I started acting, his plays called out to me, and it felt like coming home. That’s not to say they weren’t challenging, but there was a rightness to it.
What are some early discoveries you made when working on Chekhov's works?
Translation is such an issue. There are good ones out there, but no matter what, translation puts an additional barrier between an English speaker and Chekhov’s intention. The Russian phrases and idioms… some of them just don’t work in English. So no matter how good the translation is, your losing something. For me, working on Chekhov in English I find myself having to go back to the Russian to reaffirm meaning for me.
What do you consider to be the core tenets of working on Chekhov?
You need to know him. Chekhov had a life. He was a doctor. He worked during plagues. He saw life and death. Know where he was coming from. Know where Russia was when he was writing. Speak to a Russian person! He is so very very Russian. Get to know that sense of gallows humor, that attitude, it’s not the same as the attitude over here in the States. The British probably get closest to that same feeling and tone... maybe that’s why they’re good at putting on Chekhov. I’d also say to read his short stories. They came first, and you can see the evolution of his thoughts in them. They’re very harsh... a lot of them joke about suicide, and he also said a lot of problematic things about women. Many of them, if written today, might not have gotten published. But all of these elements are in the DNA of his writing. You don’t have to agree with it, but you have to know it’s there. Research, research, research. It is essential.
Ekaterina Golovina in ‘The Cherry Orchard’ (Aaron Weiss)
What are some of your more memorable experiences performing in Chekhov’s works?
Working on Ranevskaya in ‘Cherry Orchard’, being directed by Velanni Dibba. That process, in general, was a joy. She was so grateful and open to my perspective. It felt like we were able to rejoice in the language. I would bring the original Russian version of the play into rehearsals and we would compare it with the translation... I would then be able to explain the meaning in greater detail. She respected Chekhov’s work so much. In the final production, she asked me to do some of Ranevskaya's monologues in Russian. We filled the space with Chekhov’s original language. It was very special, it felt like the Russian and American halves of my life were in harmony through his words.
What's the greatest lesson Chekhov has to teach?
Chekhov is the doctor. He is compassionate, but he analyses the worlds he presents objectively. Chekhov doesn’t take sides, and he doesn’t judge his characters. He learned the human condition through the physical, which allowed him to touch a form of unreal life. As a doctor, he was invited into all kinds of homes. He saw different levels of society, unbound by class, so he saw the unfiltered cultural DNA of all Russia. His lesson is that of the understanding outsider. Watch, learn, reserve judgment, and care.
If you were to give advice to an actor on how to begin working on a Chekhov part, what would you say?
As I said: reserve judgment. When you first read the plays its tempting to put the characters into boxes, to judge them. Don’t get stuck in that. Remember all these characters are complex and are approaching their struggles from a place of love. It’s that which makes his plays very, very sad and very, very funny.
Apart from that... listen to your director, do your research, and don’t try to play Russians. Be Americans dealing with all of this. When American actors play it truthfully to their American context, personally, I think that digs deeper.