Ivanov

The titular Ivanov is a landowner who once loved life, but is now deeply depressed and listless. His wife Anna Petrovna is a Jewish woman who was disinherited by her parents after joining the Russian Church to marry him. She’s dying of tuberculosis, and her doctor, Yevgeny Konstantinovitch Lvov, begs Ivanov to take her to Crimea to help her recover. When Ivanov refuses, Lvov begins to believe that Ivanov is a horrible man—and wants to expose him so that everyone else thinks so, too.

Meanwhile, Ivanov is deeply in debt to the wife of his good friend, the District Chairman Pavel Kirillitch Lebedyev. Despite this, Ivanov continues to thwart this estate manager’s schemes to make more money. Meanwhile Sasha, the Lebedyev’s daughter, becomes infatuated with Ivanov, and works to save him from the black cloud that is slowly enveloping him.

Some want Ivanov to be happy; others want him to be miserable. But in the end, Ivanov will choose his own fate.

Ivanov is a deep exploration of how a human being is perceived by others and themselves. As Ivanov says to Lvov: “Man is such a simple, uncomplicated machine. … No, doctor, there are too many wheels and screws and levers in any one of us for us to be able to judge each other from the first impression or from two or three external signs. I don’t understand you, you don’t understand me, and we don’t understand ourselves.”

Ivanov was first performed in 1887, but was not a success. Chekhov made changes as a result, and when it was performed again in 1889, it was much more well-received.