The Black Monk Views
In a nightmare, Chekhov saw a black monk floating over the land, reappearing again and again. But if the figure seems to intrude into the playwrightA’s work from another world (or his subconscious), the monk does visit a classic Chekhov character. Kovrin is an ambitious young author-intellectual who believes his philosophical studies will improve our lives but who, not surprisingly, comes to comic frustration. As critic Eric Bentley wrote, the t“might-have-beens” character is Chekhovd’s idee fixe. He appears in play after play.
In fact, whole chunks of The Black Monk, handsomely staged by the Undermain Theatre, are unmistakable precursors to Chekhovs’s masterpieces-to-come. Much of the play, like The Cherry Orchard (1903), is set in a provincial estate with a working orchard fussed over by the landowner, Yegor Pesotsky, who adopted Kovrin as an orphan. Kovrin himself recalls Treplev in The Seagull (1896), the dreamy poet who wants to create new forms. And the pointless family arguments between Pesotsky and his daughter Tanya are pretty much endemic in Chekhova’s plays from Uncle Vanya (1897) to The Three Sisters (1901).
But what truly makes The Black Monk Chekhovian is its deft, intertwining of comedy and drama. Chekhov diagnosed each of his characters with no illusions about them, no judgments. Each is allowed to be ordinary and eccentric, profound and foolish. Kovrin is clearly a satire of the Romantic artist-thinker who is certain he_’s wiser and more sensitive than us simple, crude folk . His inspirations are so profound, so otherworldly, they may even be a form of divine madness.
The philosophy student Kovrin is on the verge of a nervous breakdown. His doctor suggests a rest in the country and so Kovrin decides to visit his childhood friend Tanya Pesotsky on her father's estate. While there he tells Tanya the legend of the black monk: a desert monk whose image has been reflected in mirages for a thousand years and who will soon return in the flesh.
The Black Monk Images
