The Chekhov
PREMIERING IN 2026
In The Chekhov, two performers wait through a series of crises, an endlessly changing series of scenarios, that move constantly between comedy and tragedy.
Waiting for Greta Thunberg to solve the climate crisis.
Waiting for Ukraine to win the war, still.
Waiting for Bergen to open a ramen shop.
An inside–outside choreography that uses words, activism, punk music and pyrotechnics.
The Chekhov re-composes the themes and narrative structure of Anton Chekhov’s 1901 play Three Sisters to connect to the present post-Covid bewilderment, ecological and humanitarian crises, and the ‘contemporary experience’. The ‘contemporary experience’ is widely held to stem from a profound sense of uncertainty or shock in the face of the unimaginable, resulting in a loss of fixed points of reference where neither the world nor the self any longer possesses unity, coherence, or meaning.
Three Sisters by Chekhov is the story of three sisters who have lost both parents, who struggle to find meaning in their present context (a small provincial town) while longing to return to Moscow, and who suffer inaction and disenchantment. In this way, Three Sisters is offered as a source material to speak to a contemporary experience full of female complaints, decrescendos, studies in waiting and the occasional firework.
Claudia Rankine warns us not to confuse time with change. Mark Twain tells us that comedy is tragedy plus time. How else can we measure time through comedy and tragedy? For example, following Mark Twain’s formulation:
time = comedy + tragedy
tragedy = time – comedy
How could change fit into this equation of time, comedy and tragedy?
Concept and Direction by NICOLA GUNN
Created in Collaboration with CAROLINE ECKLY
Performed by CAROLINE ECKLY and NICOLA GUNN
Visual Design and Pyrotechnics EMILY PARSONS-LORD
Punk Band SCAMPI CHIPS DIP & CAMPARI
Co-produced by Carte Blanche, the Norwegian Contemporary Dance Company and BIT Teatergarasjen. Funding supported by Norsk Kulturrådet. Residencies supported by Bergen Kunsthall’s Live Studio, BUDA Kortrijk and Theatre Silvia Monfort.
Photos: Thor Brødreskift 2024