Western tradition has accustomed us to thinking that great plays deal with larger-than-life people, important events, great experiences. Chekhov deals in the little things, the particulars that go to make up general experience; he leads us to the greater experience step by step by touching us with a thousand insights. It was the practising physician who wrote, ‘Details are also the thing in the sphere of psychology. God preserve us from generalizations.’ And writing about the characters in Ivanov he claimed, ‘I am telling you in all sincerity and in accordance with the dictates of my conscience that these people were born in my head and not out of ocean spray, or preconceived ideas, not out of “intellectuality”, and not by sheer accident. They are the result of observation and the study of life.’ It is, moreover, his immense particularity which makes him so stageworthy and such a joy to act.

Tracing Chekhov through his details and seeing how all the elements of his craft work together is an attempt to plumb the depth of his subtext. This kind of exegesis can never, of course, be complete, but I am not alone in finding that the usual methods of dramatic criticism – describing plot and character and theme – are inadequate to realize the texture and density and the ‘experience’ of a Chekhov play.