Chekhov at the Art Theatre

Photographs of the first Moscow Art Theatre productions of Three Sisters and The Cherry Orchard

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The three sisters do not go to Moscow and continue only to dream of it until it becomes too late. The characters of “The Cherry Orchard” simply wait and undertake nothing until the estate is sold and axes begin to sound in the orchard.

Both plays were first staged at the Moscow Art Theatre — Three Sisters in 1901, The Cherry Orchard in 1904 — and both stagings were photographed.

Konstantin Stanislavsky as Vershinin, Three Sisters

Photograph by K. A. Fischer, Moscow Art Theatre, early 1900s

Konstantin Stanislavsky in the role of Vershinin in the Moscow Art Theatre production of Chekhov's Three Sisters, photographed by K. A. Fischer in the early twentieth century
Konstantin Stanislavsky in the role of Vershinin in the Moscow Art Theatre production of Chekhov's Three Sisters, photographed by K. A. Fischer in the early twentieth century

Public domain · K. A. Fischer · Wikimedia Commons

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The Cherry Orchard, Moscow Art Theatre, 1904

Production photograph

Not a box set: rooms opening off rooms, the house continuing past the frame.

Scene from the Moscow Art Theatre production of The Cherry Orchard, 1904, showing an asymmetrical interior with glimpses through into further rooms of the house
Scene from the Moscow Art Theatre production of The Cherry Orchard, 1904, showing an asymmetrical interior with glimpses through into further rooms of the house

Public domain · reproduced in Alexander Bakshy, The Path of the Modern Russian Stage, 1918 · Wikimedia Commons