Lost and yet to come

Barthes’s comparison of a rejected lover with a prisoner at Dachau hangs frozen on the page. It is indecent, but it is also characteristic of much of the philosophy of the last two decades of the twentieth century in its rejection of history, abuse of scale and hence values, and in the removal of context which, if present, would render the point grossly inappropriate. From the perspective of a materialist history, the two situations have nothing in common.

The comparison is intended to demonstrate the dehumanising loss of ‘self’, yet, while self-confessedly self-centred, Barthes chooses to ignore the differences between a one-to-one relationship and the state-initiated and state-controlled Holocaust, indeed ‘one of the most unimaginable insults of History’. But like so much else in our post-modern culture, and in the arts of the fin du millennium, there is a dangerous absence of historical readings, of differences of context.

There is a paradox about Chekhov's one-act plays: although performed as frequently as Pinter's short plays, or Beckett's - and given the much longer period of time since their creation - much less has actually been written about them.

This may be due to Chekhov's own dismissive estimation of them as 'amusing trifles', and because critics have tended to concentrate on his major works. There is, however, a marked correlation between the one-act plays and the major plays (and equally some of the short stories). This relates to the use of comic techniques, to the inversion of 'stock' conventions, to his characterisation, and the extent to which action arises from character, rather than plot. It is in some of the short plays that one may see the absence of plot, and the developing use of action which, characteristically Chekhovian, is motivated by internal - and often subtextual - characterisation and dialogue. The short plays require redefinition within the context of the theatrical conventions of the time and as a major and serious part of Chekhov's achievement.

Chekhov's words sum up the motivation for his comedy: laughter as medicine, and a vital prerequisite for any treatment of his fellow human beings. Implicit is the sense that laughter - and comedy - are restorative, and that the objectivity and detachment which laughter may produce could inoculate us against such human diseases as pomposity, hypocrisy, selfcentredness, laziness, or - the worst of all - wasting life.

It is Doctor Chekhov who wrote those words, and beneath them lies a serious but non-judgemental sense that laughter is curative and healthy. Chekhov's comedy is therefore not only a stylistic feature in his works, but is also a vital part of his philosophy. It is the point where content and form meet, the one usually inseparable from the other. And this, in turn, relates to the subject matter of his works - not the artificial and complex, though enjoyable, plot lines of farces by Labiche or Feydeau, or their third-rate imitators, but the daily lives of ordinary people.