|
"Love," wrote Anton Chekhov. "Either it is a remnant of something degenerating, something which once had been immense, or it is a particle of what will in the future develop into something immense, but at the present it is unsatisfying. It gives much less than one expects" (Gilman, 169). What does it mean to love, in the Chekhovian sense. To want love, to pursue love, to desire the unobtainable, the amorphous, to long for something that which surely exists somewhere just beyond our grasp, or in a dream, or in some sad, wistful state of longing. Much has been written over the past century on the Chekhovian manifestation of love, on its general unrequited nature, its failure, its inequity, its vague and evasive promise of a better, more purposeful existence. Love chronically eludes those inhabiting the Chekhovian universe; or worse, spreads amongst them like some particularly virulent strain of virus, infecting its victims with doubt, uncertainty and a persistent, nagging desire. "What will happen to us?" asks Masha in Three Sisters. "In a novel, it all works out. But when you're in love yourself, you realize no one knows anything" (Chekhov, 137). ******* Does the enduring appeal of Chekhovian love lie only in its darkness, in its melancholy surrender to failure and despair, to women and men doomed to sink slowly under the dead weight of their cumbersome betrothed while desiring that which they cannot have, cannot get, or both -- another, truer love, a love that would certainly light the path to life's own happiness. Or is it that Chekhovian love, its manifestation and appeal lies in a counterpointing construct not unlike American blues music? The blues is a genre of suffering in its vignettes depicted of desire unrequited, of lives derailed, destroyed by "bad love." The blues is a genre of loss, and betrayal, with laments of deception and treachery. Truly sobering litanies of pain and suffering, to be sure, and yet, underneath the surface lament of the blues, within it, sliding in and around and in-between the confessions of the ache and anguish, there is humor, as well, there is understanding, there is that voice saying, "I can't go on. I will go on." And there is that recognition. There is that, "Yes, yes I recognize that. Yes, I have felt that. Yes! I understand your suffering for it is my suffering and yes, we must laugh, even through tears, we must laugh. We must go on." The recognition of shared experience, shared betrayal, shared suffering and loss. Is Chekhovian love then like the blues, a touchstone shared by humanity, a communal wailing wall of the human condition upon which is etched our collective pain and hope, where we find solace in the suffering of others rather than mockery or scorn, affinity in their failures rather than derision. Across countries, cultures. Across centuries, now. Chekhov captured not only the quandaries and travails of his characters' Russia, but the "universally recognizable" flutter of the human heart as well. As Peta Tait has observed, Chekhov "reveal(s) the truth of human behavior" by depicting "a general human condition...that...transcends(s) cultural systems" (Tait, 23). Or, to quote Richard Gilman quoting Samuel Beckett on James Joyce, "his writing is not about something. It is that something itself" (Gilman, 76). ******* What
about the "is" of us? At no time in the history of humanity have the vast array of exponentially expanding communications options both shrunk the world so small while expanding our relationship options overwhelmingly great. We can now talk to anyone anywhere, say anything, yet in spite of this -- or perhaps because of it -- the desire for connection, the longing for our voices to be heard, expands at an ever-greater, ever-frenzied pace. Online communities such as Friendster and Match.com enjoy enormous popularity. For the time-challenged there is speeddating.com, hurrydate.com, and, for the illicitly inclined, meet2cheat.com. eHarmony.com, which subjects applicants to a 480-item questionnaire that includes probing queries on "basic subconscious wants" claims more than 10,000 new registrants per day (Mulrine & Hsu, 55). For those too busy to sit for a three-minute speed-date, Match.com offers Match Mobile, where potential dates send text-messages and photo files to the cell phones of attractive strangers. A Match Mobile promotional video features an affably lonely young man staring into his cell phone, pondering the potential of this brave new world while a woman singer croons fervently, "...waiting, waiting/you will find your love/and you will be loved" (Match Mobile). One cannot help but wonder what Olga, Masha and Irina might have done with a Match Mobile connection out in their provincial wasteland. ******* Underneath the 8-minute date, in-between the text-messaged flirtations, lurking within our "basic subconscious wants" is the primal human need not just to "hook up" but to connect, to merge, to meld in some meaningful way, some tangible, lasting way with another human being. We search for a love that provides us a warm cloak of purpose that we may pull around us against this cold maelstrom we are thrust into without choice. We search for a love that offers solace in the face of loss and failure. We seek the music that sings our song. To live a Chekhovian love is to embrace the longing for a future defined not by time but by a desire obtained. Like many a blues song, Chekhovian lovers speak of a future time when life will be better, desire quenched, longing obsolete. To live a Chekhovian love is to hold not the meaning of this life as we have been consigned to live it, but the desire that not only will our time here be remembered, but that we will know our heart beat for a reason, that our souls met in union, that our voice was more than just another echo in the void. "Time will pass and we will be gone forever," says Olga. "We'll be forgotten, our faces and voices, forgotten. No one will remember..." (Chekhov, 153). If we only knew. If we only knew this next 3-minute speed date would be the Speed Date of Destiny. If we only knew this next Hurry Up Date would be our lasting desire, this next new face our e-Harmonious one and only. If we only knew. If we only knew these bytes of longing, these megapixels of desire were real, would give us purpose, assurances that if we are not to be remembered, then perhaps we may be forgotten together. If we only knew. If we only knew our future was not Treplev's dark vision, a future devoid of living creatures, devoid of all life, all living bodies having dissolved into dust, into desolation and all that awaits us is the void of this moment, forever. Our voices alone, forever. Love, eluding us. Forever. Love. If we only knew. Works Cited Chekhov, Anton. The Major Plays. New York: Applause Books, 1995. Gilman, Richard. Chekhov's Plays. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995. Match Mobile. Promotional video. Retrieved from Match Mobile website. Mulrine, Anna and Hsu, Caroline. Love.com. U.S. News & World Report; 9/29/2003, Vol. 135, Issue 10, p.52-59. Tait, Peta. Performing Emotions. Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing Co., 2002.
Copyright © 2004 theater2k.com. All rights reserved. |
