# Misha Chekhov

Людмила Николаевна Ансельм

Chekhov's dialog with his wife Xenia with memoirs and analysis of their life in America.

MISHA CHEKHOV


Ludmila Anselm

Translation by Jim Clinton


Cast: Misha Chekhov - Sixty year old actor. A smallish dapper man with a beard. Wearing white shirt and tie.


Xenia Chekov - His wife is in her sixties.


Scene: It"s 1955 in Chekhov"s home in Los Angeles.


Xenia (in a black dress goes to the middle of the scene, said slowly, barely holding back the excitement, difficulty choosing words): I should inform you... I lost my husband... My husband, Michael Chekhov died of a heart attack. It happened yesterday... Misha did not stop smoking cigarettes, although the doctor warned that it was dangerous for his health... Heart attack happened to him at the very moment when he reached for a cigarette. He was only 64 years old... Sorry, I can't, it's hard to talk...


(Xenia, barely holding back sobs, slowly and sadly leaves the stage)


( It"s Chekhov"s home in Los Angeles. Misha is sitting at a desk, or table, with a top drawer in an office chair on wheels. He is smoking with pleasure. Music is playing very loudly from somewhere in the house)


Xenia (off stage): Misha! Misha, breakfast is ready!


(Misha puts the cigarette into the ashtray and pushes it away. He grabs the phone receiver, dials a number. Xenia enters the room sniffing the air)


Misha: I am busy...


Xenia: You"re smoking again? You"ll die!


Misha: I know! I know! I will die... (Smiling) May be not from smoking...


Xenia (entering): You promised me, and your doctor ... and you still...


Misha: OK! That is the last! Don"t nag me any more... I"m calling...


Xenia: Who are you calling?


Misha: Yul...


Xenia: Yul Brynner? Why? Is he starting lessons again?


Misha: I heard that he will be in "The Brothers Karamazov"...


Xenia:You want to congratulate him?


Misha: I have an idea... I want to help Marilyn Monroe...


(Sighing Misha sets down the receiver) Nobody answers...


Xenia (indignant): Agh! Are you up to your old games!


Misha: What do you mean?


Xenia: Oh! He doesn"t understand! I"ve had enough of your escapades... Sally, Anne, and Margaret that vamp back in Connecticut...


Misha: Listen, we were working on "The Cherry Orchard"... This was one of my first lessons with Marilyn. She played, Anya, the daughter of the heroine. To my surprise, I felt a strong sense of excitement... sexual excitement.


Xenia (entering with a tray of tea): No surprise there! It is not the first time...


Misha: Marylyn projected a powerful feeling.

I stopped her... and asked Marylyn if she was thinking about sex while she was acting the role of Anya.

Xenia: Uh-huh...


Misha: My sudden question shocked her. She said that in no way was she thinking about sex... She was concentrating only on playing the role.


Xenia: You believed her?


Misha: It became clear that she completely unconsciously radiated a sexual aura... When I explained this to her she said she wanted to be a serious actress and not just a sex symbol... and... yes... I believed her.


Xenia: Uh huh, so... where does Yul come in? Why do you want to call him?


Misha: Maybe Yul will talk with the studio bosses about

a role for Marylyn in "The Brothers Karamozov"...


Xenia: What role do you have in mind?


Misha: Grushenka. Grushenka, the heroine...


Xenia: (astounded) Michael!


Misha: I"m not Michael; (with shy smile) I"m Misha!


Xenia: Naïve! ...You aren"t on the moon, you"re in America! ... Marilyn Monroe as a Dostoevsky Russian enchantress!


Misha (dreamy voice): I can see Marilyn as Grushinka...


Xenia: Misha you are batty. Crazy! ... She is another passing fancy of yours.


Misha: Marilyn is not passing fancy, she is my student.


Xenia: Margaret was your student too and she had no acting talent. But in your craziness you gave her leading roles in your productions...


Misha (compassionately concerned): Xenia, calm down...


Xenia: I can"t calm down... Have you completely forgotten your mooning outside Margaret"s dorm window in plain view of all your students?


Misha: But Marilyn is a serious and talented actress...


(Xenia laughs about that idea)


Xenia: You are a great and talented actor! You"d better think about yourself... I can"t forget how well we lived in Connecticut, you had a group of actors there...


Misha (with patience): The war began... The money stopped... We could only move to Los Angeles... Here only movie studios, no theaters... They invite me to play in movies, but it"s my Russian accent ... here it's good only for foreign men with beards... for spies... criminals.


Xenia: (angry): No! All was ruined with your infatuations... Nobody wanted to trust their money to a crazy Russian.


Misha: That night you were crazy too... Do you remember, what did you cry?You get out! Whore! Crazy ... Bait... Bitch... Prostitute! Why did you call my students such dirty words?


Xenia: I called "whore" your lover Margaret.


Misha: And when I had heart attack, you cried me: "Go ahead, die! ... Die! ... Die you bastard!" Did you really want I would die?


Xenia: No... I only wanted the students go away from the room and you finish this scene. I know you didn"t have a heart attack...


Misha: How did you guess?


Xenia: I knew your dirty tricks... You remember? After you finished playing... you put your head up and... what did you ask?


Misha: They are gone? All?

(Pause)


Confess, I played heart attack very well... All my students actually believed that I could die...


KSENIA (sadly): You didn"t die then, but you're dying now...


Misha (surprising): What do you mean?


KSENIA: What did you do here?


MISHA: Something did... I developed a method of teaching the art of acting, wrote and published two textbooks for actors in Russian and English... Taught a whole group of famous actors "Hollywood"...


KSENIA: Misha, you indeed thinking, that without your lessons they would not have become known famous? Really, you passed the hard way theatrical actor, only in order to teach others?...


MISHA (sorry): Yes, about the same question I was asked the other day by our friend George...


Xenia: George Zhdanov?


MIsha: He said to me, why are we here? To movie actors a little bit better in their roles, and the bosses at the studios richer more and more? I said, " No, you and I are here helping people grow spiritually, to become more human."


Xenia (laughs and can"t stop): You are calling Yul because ... because in order to help Merilyn grow spiritually... Did you really think that?


Misha: Yes,..But...


Xenia: Misha, I keep reminding you when you came to America... You had a dream to make a theater like Stanislavsky in Moscow... You are working very hard, creating a group of talented actors, and all in vain... Where is your King Lear, Don Quixote, Pickwick Papers? You are dying as a theatre actor here in Hollywood.


Misha (hands up): Stop! It is hard for me, but I was a great actor! ( seriously, slowly, sadly) I don"t know... I think about how it happened. I analyze...


Xenia: You came to conquer America with our art and in the end America conquered you...


Misha: So it seems... I arrived in America, where I didn"t understand anything or anyone... It was an unbelievable, astonishing country, and I with my Russian mentality dreamed to astonish all country. Later I understood that it could not be any different...


Xenia: I remember you gathered a troupe of actors and played the "Devils" by Dostoevsky. It was a complete failure...


Misha: It was my fault. On Broadway, the audience did not understand this play.


Xenia: Why did you decide to play this spectacle?


(Pause)

Misha: When we come to America, whole world went crazy. In Germany fascism, in Russia communism... I wanted to warn the American people that the same thing could happen here... Maybe I didn't understand anything...


Xenia: You don"t understand a lot of things...


Misha: But I always believed in the great mission of theater... And I believe now...


Xenia: Misha, there is no mission...


Misha (surprised): Do you really think that?


Xenia (confidently): Yes...


Misha (confused): Then why did I become an actor? You think only because for to make the audience relax and laugh, instead of getting any emotional experience?


Xenia: Of course! The people work all day. They are tired. They come to theater to forget about their real life... They want to laugh...


Misha (very intensely, sadly, showing his emotions by, standing, sitting, etc): Xenia, often I have the same dream... I"m sitting in my theater dressing room in Moscow, make up all over my face. I'm playing "Hamlet"... wait nervously... and then the warning bell rings. I walk out on stage. In front of me this dark silent auditorium and I speak into this empty darkness the first words of Hamlet"s monolog, "To be, or not to be"... Then I wake up... and recognize where I am and I am filled with such melancholy... I know I will never get to play Hamlet... not ever... not ever in America. It's not like Russia...


(Misha slumps from exhaustion. His eyes fill with tears. He takes a cigarette... He lights it... takes a hungry drag. Xenia doesn"t stop him)


Xenia: Misha, but you've already played Hamlet in Russia... quite well...


Misha (grinning): More exactly, "not bad.".. Stanislavsky was dissatisfied with my game... He believed that the role of a tragic actor is not for me... I only now understand how to play this role.

(Pause)


Misha (seriously intensely): Now I have come to the conclusion that it was a complete mistake to leave our native land...


Xenia (upset): Oh Misha! Stop! Stalin was crazy. He was arresting actors right and left...


Misha(still intense, distressed, another brief but relaxed drag on the cigarette): I toed the line. Stalin respected ... my uncle...


Xenia (tensely): Don"t be silly... Misha dear, don"t break down. We are alive here, in America!

(Pause)

You have accomplished so much here...


Misha (intensely, enjoying each cigarette drag): What have I accomplished in your opinion? Except I"m alive?


Xenia (hasty): Your books are selling well... You have taught many famous actors, and friends...


Misha(smiling infectiously): And now I know what they will write about me in obituary: "Died: Michael Chekhov, nephew of famous Russian writer Anton Chekhov. A teacher of Marilyn Monroe, Yul Brunner"...


Xenia: Also Gary Cooper... and James Dean, and Gregory Peck...

(Pause)

Misha: M-m.-m... Marilyn Monroe...


Xenia: Stop it! Remembered.... Anthony Quinn, Jack Nicholson...


Misha (laughs): Okay, that's enough... Enough for the obituary... I give up, you beat me... I began to forget my students... Age...


Xenia: Just you, so many of them that it is impossible to keep track...


MISHA: I will ask them to address you before writing my obituary...


(She turns as if to exit)


Xenia (waving his hands): Stop! Enough! I don't want to hear any more about obituaries... Ufff! You smoked here, I can't breathe!


(Xenia is going to leave)


MIsha (stops loving Xenia): Xenia, do not be angry... I'm guilty before you... Forgive me for my Hobbies...


Xenia (smiling): Wait... finally...


MIsha: Actually, ... I only love you... Forgive me...


Xenia (moved): Misha, long ago forgave you all ... in love with you...


(Misha: with pleasure delayed last cigarette)


MIsha: Xenia, we've been together long time, but frankly, probably never spoke... I really appreciate it...


Xenia (delighted): For my confession?


MIsha (with a sly smile): Do not guess... Finally, you let me peacefully finish my cigarette...


(Pause)


Xenia (angry): Are you a clown? Stanislavsky is right: "you are not a tragedian.".. Your place in the circus...


Misha (breathlessly): Why the circus?


Xenia (shouts): You want to play Hamlet, and ... and himself... jester pea!... That's you!


MIsha: Xenia, what are you doing?


Xenia: Why? When are you gonna stop bullying me?......


( Offended Xenia leaves. MIsha puts a cigarette in the ashtray. Sits for a while in indecision, then decisively takes another cigarette and, suddenly. unexpectedly, clutching at his heart dramatically and leans back in his chair. Cigarette falls on the floor).


THE END