In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

• Watching Chekhov in Tehran:From Superfluous Men to Female Revolutionaries
• Rebecca Ruth Gould (bio)

Introduction

At thirty-five, Ivanov feels aged beyond his years. He is torn apart by his own paralysis. His wife is dying. He is deeply in debt. Society is changing, and new social and cultural movements are vying for public attention. Revolution is in the air and on the lips of everyone. Ivanov meanwhile cannot decide what to do, either with himself or with the world in which he lives. He used to love his wife, yet he cannot make up his mind to travel with her to the Crimea in order to stall her tuberculosis. He has no money, he tells himself and others, in order to justify what in reality is a profound personal apathy. Mainly, Ivanov's problem is that he doesn't know what he wants. He is paralyzed by boredom. Ivanov is the so-called superfluous man of nineteenth-century Russian literature, the stereotypical intellectual in an age with no use for intellectuals.¹

Such is the plot of Ivanov (1887), Anton Chekhov's first commercially successful play. As I show in this essay, the story has more global appeal than this casual summary might suggest. Although set in nineteenthcentury Russia, Ivanov has resonated profoundly in twenty-first century Tehran, thanks to the recent Persian adaptation by Amir Koohestani (b. 1978), one of Iran's foremost playwrights and director of the Mehr Theater Group, founded by Koohestani in 1996. When it was staged in Tehran in 2011 and 2016, Koohestani's Ivanov generated much interest among the theatregoing public.² Performances were sold out, and reviews were exuberant.³ Like other major Russian writers, Chekhov is held in high [End Page 31] regard by educated Iranians, but the meaning of Ivanov in Iran today cannot be explained with reference to Russian-Iranian literary connections alone.⁴

The reaction of one Iranian with whom I attended a 2016 performance of the production illustrates the extent to which Iranians are interested in Chekhov's play, less for the light it sheds on provincial Russia, and more for its depiction of the challenges they face in their marriages, careers, and cultural aspirations. During the intermission between the second and third acts, my friend expressed his identification with the play's depiction of a troubled marriage specifically. "Every Iranian can relate to this story!" he exclaimed. "It's only the taboos in our culture that prevent us from talking about these things, which affect us all." My companion's projection of his experience, and that of his fellow Iranians, onto the main characters was striking, particularly because he was not an active theatregoer. In the play, Ivanov is torn by his conflicting feelings for, on the one hand, his dying wife Anna, and on the other hand, for Sasha, a young woman whom Ivanov hopes to marry following Anna's death. As the play progresses, Ivanov's contempt for his wife becomes increasingly evident. He treats her brutally. Yet my companion identified with Ivanov, just as the play demands.⁵

In Iran in 2016, I came to learn about the many ways in which Ivanov's story resonates with young Iranians today. Like Ivanov and his contemporaries, they want change but don't know how to translate their political and social ideals into reality. Like Ivanov, young Iranians are torn between revolutionary idealism and political and cultural apathy. A telling comment on this state of affairs is offered by Leila Daryoush, who reviewed the play during its 2011 premiere. Daryoush quoted a Facebook post by an Iranian actress who declared: "we [Iranians] are all Ivanov."⁶ If all Iranians are Ivanov, then Ivanov is in a deep sense Iranian. And the implications of this refraction—the process whereby Ivanov has become a reflection and possession of the Iranian people and their culture—call for further investigation. This essay will thus explore the intersection between the Iranian stage and the Iranian public sphere through Chekhov's play and its Iranian adaptation, tracing how the play has been received and interpreted by Iranian artists and audiences. I argue that Koohestani's Ivanov reveals the tragic paralysis faced...

中文翻译：

---

在德黑兰看契诃夫：从多余的男人到女性革命者

代替摘要，这里是内容的简短摘录：

• 在德黑兰看契诃夫：从多余的男人到女性革命者
• 丽贝卡·露丝·古尔德（生物）

介绍

35 岁的伊万诺夫觉得自己老了。他被自己的麻痹撕裂了。他的妻子快死了。他负债累累。社会在变化，新的社会和文化运动正在争夺公众的注意力。革命在空气中，在每个人的嘴边。与此同时，伊万诺夫无法决定该做什么，无论是对自己还是对他所生活的世界。他曾经爱他的妻子，但他无法下定决心和她一起前往克里米亚，以阻止她的肺结核。他没有钱，他告诉自己和其他人，这是为了证明现实中深刻的个人冷漠是合理的。主要是，伊万诺夫的问题在于他不知道自己想要什么。他因无聊而瘫痪。伊万诺夫是 19 世纪俄罗斯文学中所谓的多余的人，¹

这就是伊万诺夫(1887)的情节，这是安东·契诃夫 (Anton Chekhov) 的第一部商业成功戏剧。正如我在这篇文章中所展示的，这个故事比这个随意的总结所暗示的更具全球吸引力。伊万诺夫虽然背景设定在 19 世纪的俄罗斯，但在 21 世纪的德黑兰引起了深刻的共鸣，这要归功于阿米尔·库赫斯坦尼（生于 1978 年）最近的波斯语改编，他是伊朗最重要的剧作家之一，也是库赫斯坦尼于 1996 年创立的梅尔剧团的导演. 2011年和2016年在德黑兰上演时，库赫斯坦尼的伊万诺夫引起了观众的极大兴趣。^2场演出已售罄，好评如潮。³像其他主要的俄罗斯作家一样，契诃夫受到高度重视[End Page 31]受到受过教育的伊朗人的尊重，但今天伊万诺夫在伊朗的意义无法仅参考俄罗斯与伊朗的文学联系来解释。⁴

与我一起参加 2016 年演出的一位伊朗人的反应说明了伊朗人对契诃夫的戏剧感兴趣的程度，而不是它对俄罗斯省的光芒，更多是因为它描绘了他们在婚姻中面临的挑战、职业和文化抱负。在第二幕和第三幕之间的中场休息时，我的朋友特别表达了他对剧中婚姻困境的描绘的认同。“每个伊朗人都可以与这个故事联系起来！” 他惊呼道。“只有我们文化中的禁忌阻止我们谈论这些影响我们所有人的事情。” 我的同伴将他的经历以及他的伊朗同胞的经历投射到主要人物身上是惊人的，特别是因为他不是一个活跃的戏剧爱好者。在剧中，伊万诺夫一方面对他垂死的妻子安娜，另一方面对萨沙，一个伊万诺夫希望在安娜死后娶她的年轻女子的矛盾感情使他心碎。随着剧情的推进，伊万诺夫对妻子的蔑视越来越明显。他残忍地对待她。然而，正如剧本所要求的那样，我的同伴认同伊万诺夫。⁵

2016 年在伊朗，我开始了解伊万诺夫的故事以多种方式与当今的伊朗年轻人产生共鸣。像伊万诺夫和他的同时代人一样，他们想要改变，但不知道如何将他们的政治和社会理想转化为现实。像伊万诺夫一样，年轻的伊朗人在革命理想主义与政治和文化冷漠之间左右为难。莱拉·达尤什 (Leila Daryoush) 对这种情况发表了有说服力的评论，她在 2011 年首映时评论了该剧。Daryoush 引用了一位伊朗女演员的 Facebook 帖子，该帖子宣称：“我们（伊朗人）都是伊万诺夫。” ⁶如果说所有伊朗人都是伊万诺夫，那么伊万诺夫在深层意义上就是伊朗人。这种折射的影响——伊万诺夫成为伊朗人民及其文化的反映和占有的过程——需要进一步调查。因此，本文将通过契诃夫的戏剧及其伊朗改编来探索伊朗舞台和伊朗公共领域之间的交叉点，追溯伊朗艺术家和观众如何接受和解释该戏剧。我认为 Koohestani 的Ivanov揭示了所面临的悲剧性瘫痪......