My Mocking Happiness

Time: 1884-1904.

  "I think the main thing in the play, that is, in the strikingly modern, Chekhov's thoughts that sink into the heart of every person. They are so smart, sensitive, shrilling, confessional, truthful, paradoxical, figurative, they are timeless. And if actors manage to bring all that to the viewer sincerely, with soul, mind and heart, then the viewer happily listens to them, thinks about their lives and inwardly and emotionally thanks Chekhov and the theater for a breath of moral oxygen, which people always need.

  There is genuine pain in Chekhov’s letters, almost despair from the tragic lack of understanding of the gift of talent by society, pain that rejects commonplace in the perception of literature and art.

  When producing and playing "My Mocking Happiness", we unwittingly touch the deeply hidden Chekhov's personal drama. Chekhov's bitterness, multiplied by forced loneliness, almost a prison, in Yalta, where he had to spend winters due to illness, gave birth to these amazing thoughts in their sobriety and wise hopelessness, to which many people may sign today.”

  These words belong to the director of the play and its creator, Mikhail Reznikovich.

  That performance was played twice at the Russian Drama Theatre. The first time was almost forty years ago, in 1966. Once performed, that play was an absolute stage hit for 18 years. And now, in 37 years, My Mocking Happiness is at out stage again.