A 20-year-old student lives with his family in a seedy Moscow boarding house. Hard working, he is a sophomore at a gloomy, dilapidated university medical school.

It is winter time and the bitter coldness is intensifying the misery around him. Students frequently hold meetings to express their indignation at those in power. The police are watching them.

The young man is not an active revolutionary but he does go to meetings to hear the voices of discontent. He enjoys writing and, this winter, is feverishly working on his first play. It is proving to be a grueling, lengthy task: untitled, turbulent and controversial.

The year is 1880 and the young man is Anton Chekhov (1860-1904).

Chekhov hoped to have his play staged and he took it to the well-known actress Mariya N Ermolova who was also his favorite actress. But he was turned down.

Surprising find

After his death, the four-act play was found among Chekhov's papers in a heavily corrected manuscript of which the title page was missing. It was first published in the former Soviet Union as A Play Without a Title and was translated into English in 1964 by David Magarshack. Later, it was also published as Platonov or The Worthless Fellow Platonov.

It is a very long and awkward play, "almost as long as his last three plays put together," Magarshack remarks.

Nevertheless, a great author's early attempts, however unsuccessful, are always interesting and as in this case, by no means without intrinsic merit.

"It is a surprising key work of Chekhov's youth -- equal to Ivanov," says Tong Daoming, a leading Chinese critic of Russian drama.

"Since the 1950s, many famous theaters in Europe have staged the play. Although he had not yet reached the same level of craftsmanship that he did later in The Seagull or Uncle Vanya, the young Chekhov was already able to write exciting scenes and was subtly successful in unveiling his microcosm of Russian society," says Tong.

Now, the National Theater Company of China is putting Platonov in the limelight as its opening play of the Chekhov Forever Festival to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the playwright's death. The play will run at the Tianqiao Theater from September 1 to 11 and at the Haidian Theater from September 14 to 19.

The Platonov story

The play tells the story of a day and night in the life of the wealthy inhabitants of a Russian estate in the late 19th century.

It centres on Mikhail Platonov, a 27-year-old schoolmaster whose compulsive criticism and ridicule of others is too obviously a projection of self-hatred. Described as "a superb example of contemporary uncertainty," he marries a woman called Sacha but remains attracted to other women, including a widowed landowner Anna, Anna's young daughter-in-law Sofia, and an earnest chemistry student Grekova.

After toying with one woman, considering but rejecting a grand passion with another, and carrying on a tawdry affair with a third -- all the time seeing himself as victim of their demands -- Platonov meets a melodramatic end.

Anna Petrovna is a woman who has been left widowed and in charge of a run-down estate. As a result, she is forced to entertain some fairly unpleasant people, nearly all of whom are her creditors.

As the play commences, Glagolyev, a particularly unpleasant businessman, is wooing her. Even this not very true love cannot run smoothly as his son, Kiril is committed to protecting his own inheritance from an anyway unwilling Anna, at any cost.

At the same time, Anna has inevitably fallen in love with Platonov. Life becomes particularly difficult as it is apparent that the only way that the estate can be saved is by a kind of sale and leaseback arrangement.

It is not difficult in a Chekhov play to know that this is a first step on the road to ruin. Sofia falls head over heels for Platonov and is completely unable to deal with his subsequent betrayal. She shoots him to end his confused life.

Short and sweet

The difficulty in producing a play in shorter than half the running time of the original script is maintaining Chekhov's complex interplay of naturalism and metaphor. But this production of Platonov rises to the occasion.

Director Wang Xiaoying has shortened scenes and reduced the play's original 21 characters to 14, cutting the play down from the original six to seven hours to a cool two and a half.

For Wang, this is an opportunity to introduce Chinese theater-goers to another side of Chekhov.

"Chinese audiences are most familiar with his famous plays: The Seagull, Uncle Vanya, Three Sisters and The Cherry Orchard. And the tradition is often to stage them in a sad, boring, melancholic manner," says Wang. "With these vaudevilles we want to show there is another Chekhov: young, brilliant, funny, and wildly romantic with a great and even grotesque sense of humour. This is Chekhov too."

Wang points out despite the prevailing comic tone, Chekhov "finds the basis for these comedies in pain. He associates courtship with strife. If they were just superficial, buffoonish comedies, we would not pay the slightest bit of attention to them. But like all of his work, it is rooted in some reality, and that reality is pain."

"Platonov is very talented, but he is in a quicksand of his own weaknesses -- specifically his weakness for women," said Wang. "He damages what is around him because he cannot escape himself. He is overtaken by the turbulent urges of his demanding thinking. He is unable to find peace, unable to find out how to live and why, and unable to control himself and his love life."

"It is hard to believe this play was written so long ago and by a 20-year-old. Of course Russian society, then, is not like our society now. The countryside of this waning aristocracy at the end of the 19th century is far removed from 21st century cities. But the text could have been written today," says Wang.

"It is pushed and pulled about by the energy you find in an urban environment because running through it is a feeling of there being no way out, of conflicting desires, anger and disillusionment," he says. "So staging 'Platonov' is not only in memory of Chekhov, but to share Chekhov's view of human beings and society with today's young generation in mind."

Cast of the play

The overall impression of this production is that Chekhov is a supremely good playwright. And he is well supported by Wang and his cast of the National Theater Company of China who portray the characters with rich depth and dimension.

They all display passion and sophistication coupled with a good dose of humour, and a great sense of absurdity. Those in the small roles put in good efforts that pay off with a few short and shining moments.

Guo Jinglin gives an impressively sincere performance as Platonov, which has been called the Russian Hamlet or Don Juan, working his way through every line of subtle humour, gut-wrenching speeches and cries of absurdity with mesmerizing fluidity.

"It is my honour to premiere the title role Platonov in China and I hope to live up to the audience's expectations. I do not tell Platonov's story but show his inner mind," says Guo.

Zhou Ling, as Anna, delivers the necessary amount of sophisticated lust, albeit dryly. Wang Bo epitomizes the happy accident of a great actor in a minor role as Sacha's ridiculous, bawdy brother Triletski.

The lighting, designed by Wang Ruiguo, creates exactly the right atmosphere whether a bright summer's afternoon or a beautiful twilight.

The setting is designed by Liu Kedong. The simple space features sharp contrast between black and white. A few birch trees bring some Russian flavor.

"The setting looks a little bit bizarre and is not consistent with traditional performances of Chekhov. The simple black and white displays the bored and monotonous life as well as bring out Platonov's confused mind," Liu explains.

High expectations

Local Chekhov experts and dramatists are eagerly awaiting the premiere.

Professor Li Chenmin first got to know Platonov in 1996 when he watched the Moscow Art Theater's production of the play. He read the script as soon as he returned to China.

"I was amazed by Chekhov's talent when he was that young. He intertwined relations among so many roles and created very complicated content. Each character is an essential piece of the ensemble of humanity: the traveler, the thief, the drunk, the wife, the lover, the sell-out, the naive intellectual," says Li.

Critic Tong Daoming says: "The rehearsal has impressed me. I believe the production could immensely satisfy those who know Chekhov, and be surprisingly accessible to those who don't."

(China Daily August 27, 2004)