In 1891, Chekhov had amassed enough royalties to buy a farmhouse in Melikhovo, a town about 50 miles south of Moscow, where he settled his parents and siblings. There he set about “to squeeze the last drop of slave out of his system” (as he wrote to his friend, Suvorin); “a modern Cincinnatus,” he planted a cherry orchard, installed a flush toilet, and became a lavish host. This rustication had a beneficial effect on both his literary work and his humanitarianism. He threw himself into schemes for building roads and schools and opened a clinic to provide free medical treatment, improving peasants’ minds and bodies. During the cholera outbreak that followed, Chekhov served as an overworked member of the sanitary commision and head of the famine relief board.

 

For several years, Chekhov swore off the theatre, writing to his friend, V. V. Bilbin: “I am not writing a play and, altogether, I have no inclination to write any. I am grown old, and I have lost my burning ardor. I should like to write a novel 100 miles long.” Nine months later, he informed Suvorin of the oppposite, “Can you imagine, I am writing a play which I shall probably not finish before the end of November. I am writing it not without pleasure, though I swear horribly at the conventions of the stage. A comedy, three women’s parts, six men’s, four acts, a landscape (view of a lake); a great deal of conversation about literature, little action, five tons of love” (October 21, 1895).

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The comedy he described was The Seagull, which had a rocky opening night at St. Petersburg’s Alexandra Theatre in 1896. Chekhov fled to Melikhovo, where he renounced playwriting. Although The Seagull grew in public favor in subsequent performances, Chekhov hated submitting his plays for judgment of any sort. Yet, barely one year later, he had written a new drama: Uncle Vanya, a reworking of The Wood Demon. It was widely performed in provincial capitals, where the residents found it reflected their dreary lives.

 

It was during this year, 1897, that Chekhov was definitively diagnosed with tuberculosis, and he was compelled to leave Melikhovo for a milder climate. For the rest of his life, he shuttled between Yalta on the Black Sea and various French and German spas, with the occasional business trip to Moscow.

 

The remainder of his dramatic career was bound up in the Moscow Art Theatre, founded in 1897 by Nemirovich-Danchenko and Konstanin Stanislavsky. Chekhov was one of the original shareholders, respecting his friends’ announced program of ensemble playing, their serious attitude towards art, and a repertory of high literary quality. He was also interested in Olga Knipper, a young actress there. They performed The Seagull and staged the Moscow premiere of Uncle Vanya. Three Sisters was written with the Art Theatre and its actors in mind.

 

Chekhov’s chronic reaction to the production of his plays was revulsion, so two months after the opening of Three Sisters, he was declaring, to Olga Knipper, “I will never write for the theater again… not in Russia, where dramatists get no respect, are kicked by hooves and forgiven neither success nor failure” (March 1, 1901). As usual, though, he returned to playwriting not too long after. This time, he presented The Cherry Orchard, tailoring the roles to specific Moscow Art actors. Each of these plays won Chekhov greater fame as a playwright, even when he disagreed with the Art Theatre’s chosen interpretation.