The Mechanical Piano~Chekhov Returns

In the Moscow home of the famous Russian actress, Maria Yermalova, I heard a short talk on the play “The Mechanical Piano” by Oleg Tabakov based on Chekhov. It was in the late 1990s. The expert speaker was Sergei Ostrovsky, himself from a famous theatrical family.   He was then an intelligent and unassuming young student of theater history studying at Tufts University near Boston. His mother was curator of the Yermalova home, which is now a Theatrical Museum.

Tabakov, he explained, was one of the rebellious writers who, during Khrushchev’s time, broke loose from state cultural control and brought new life into Russian theater. In times of Stalinist control, Chekhov and other great writers were performed according to official interpretation, and not according to the interpretation of the directors and actors, or even the intent of the author. The Maly Theater, one of Russia’s leading theatrical institutions, was known only for its state approved productions, especially of Chekhov―the presentations being boringly proper. Tabakov, he told us, was one of those out to break the mold.

Tabakov chose to write a play based on a drama by Chekhov, written by that great Russian author at eighteen. It was apparently Chekhov’s first play, overly long, full of everything he ever dreamed to put into a play―crashing trains and dancing gypsies. When he brought it to Maria Yermalova for an opinion, she told him it was terrible. He burned it saying the worse day of his life would be the day the play was put on the stage. He never even gave it a name, but it is commonly called “Platonov” after the main character. But a second copy of that play survived. It resurfaced, modified as a movie by Nikita Mikhalkov in 1977 – “An Unfinished Piece for a Mechanical Piano.” Three hours long and according to some Russians, one of the best films ever made. The story became the basis for a shorter stage play now also called, “The Mechanical Piano.”

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