Internationally recognised art and literary critic, writer and cultural producer. Published in ELLE, Glamour, Esquire and Cosmopolitan; member of the Union of Writers.
Before The Seagull and The Cherry Orchard, Anton Chekhov was a medical student in Moscow paying his way with jokes. In the early 1880s he wrote comic sketches for humorous magazines by the hundred, often under the name Antosha Chekhonte: quick scenes of officials, clerks, husbands and wives caught in small absurdities. This November a Cambridge company brings a selection of those early stories to the stage.
The production
Life in Questions and Exclamations is staged by InterLUDI Theatre Studio, directed by Dmitry Turchaninov, with Ludmila Perlova as executive producer. The company describes it as an evening where humour, irony and absurdity collide, offering both newcomers to Chekhov and his admirers a fresh look at the characters and themes that shaped him. Their own summary is the most Chekhovian line in the listing: brevity and humour.
The performance is in Russian with English surtitles and runs for about 90 minutes without an interval.
Two casts, two readings
The production has an unusual structure. On each performance day there are two shows, and each is played by a different cast: Cast A at 3.30pm and Cast B at 7pm. The material stays the same, the actors change, and so does the reading. For anyone curious about how much a performer brings to a short comic text, staying for both is the point, and the box office offers a discounted Two-Show Pass for exactly that.
When and where
Sunday 15 November 2026, Beth Shalom Reform Synagogue, Auckland Road, Cambridge CB5 8DW: 3.30pm (Cast A) and 7pm (Cast B)
Sunday 22 November 2026, Meadows Community Centre, 299 Arbury Road, Cambridge CB4 2JL: 3.30pm (Cast A) and 7pm (Cast B)
Tickets are sold through the company’s page on TicketSource.
Why the early stories still work
Chekhov’s early comedy is often treated as an apprenticeship, the place where he learned to compress a life into two pages. Read now, it is also simply funny. The sketches turn on misunderstandings, social fear and the gap between what people say and what they mean, which is why they survive translation and surtitles better than many longer works. Many of the types who appear in them, the anxious functionary, the self-important host, the bored couple, return later in the stories and plays that made his name.
The director
A rehearsal of Very Simple Story, directed by Dmitry Turchaninov, from our 2024 interview.
We spoke to Dmitry Turchaninov in 2024, before his production of Maria Lado’s play Very Simple Story. He told us then that theatre should bring people joy rather than dwell on sadness, bitterness or pain. A programme of Chekhov’s comic writing is a natural next step for a director who thinks that way. Read the 2024 interview.
