Dr. Chekhov's Philanderer

THAT WORTHLESS FELLOW PLATONOV-- Anton Chekhov; translated by John Gournos--Button ($2.50).

Anton Chekhov, prince of Russian short-story writers, prince of Russian playwrights, wrote one play that has waited until now to be translated into English. Without the lucid depths, the sparkling shallows, of his masterpiece The Cherry Orchard, That Worthless Fellow Platonov obviously wells up from the same source. No one but a Russian, no Russian but warmhearted, skeptical Anton Chekhov, could have written it.

The scene is laid in a Russian provincial village. Anna Petrovna, a General's widow, who is frightfully in debt to Jew moneylenders and ought to be saving every kopek, is giving a party, with all the fixings --Chinese lanterns in the garden, music, fireworks, plenty of drink. All the neighbors are there, among them Schoolteacher Platonov, intelligent, charming, young, popular: the perfect lady-killer, but with too much Hamlet in his makeup. His wife adores him; they have a little son. Other women adore him too: his hostess, the General's widow, her daughter-in-law, Sofya, just married. Platonov is fond of his wife, but imagines that he is in love with Anna Petrovna, who is also being pursued by a rich old man and his Frenchified son.

Everyone gets at least slightly drunk. Platonov's wife goes home early. That worthless fellow is in great form: he has drunk a good deal, and it all goes to his heart. He makes love to his hostess, to the newly married Sofya, goes a little too far with Grekova, whom he humiliates by kissing soundly and then throwing on a table. When he gets home in the small hours, his adoring wife is waiting up for him, but he will not go to bed; he sits outside and indulges in remorse for his disgraceful conduct. Anna Petrovna comes looking for him; Sofya sends him a letter. The kind-hearted fellow promises to make Anna his mistress, then promises Sofya he will run away with her. Ensuing complications grow too much for him: his wife leaves him, he takes to drink in earnest, threatens to shoot himself. Sofya's husband intends to kill

Platonov, but finds he likes him. too well to do it. Finally, when Platonov's talented irresolution has landed everybody in a pretty pickle, and he is willing to do anything possible to make amends, Anna Petrovna's good sense seems about to straighten out the tangle; but Sofya, still madly in love with the worthless fellow, rushes in and shoots him. In spite of this violent finale, the play may be considered a comedy.

The text has been left as Chekhov abandoned it: many speeches, printed in brackets, would do well to come out, and no real Chekhovisms would be lost. From time to time his well-known' accents are heard: "When I philosophize I lie terribly." Says Platonov angrily to Vengerovitch: "There's no out-arguing a half-educated Jew." Meekly replies Vengerovitch: "No, there isn't. . . ." Says Anna Petrovna, trying to overcome Platonov's scruples: "Why, it's very simple: a woman has come to you . . . she loves you, and you love her. . . . The weather is lovely . . . what could be more simple? Where does philosophy come in? Or politics? Or do you want to show off?"

The Author. Anton Pavlovich Chekhov was a doctor who took to writing humorous pieces for Moscow journals to help defray the expenses of his unwieldy household. A bachelor, he had a larger family than many a paterfamilias, and they did their best to eat him out of house and home. When critics began to take his funny stories seriously, no one was more amused and surprised than Dr. Chekhov. When he started to write plays (Ivanov, Uncle Vanya, The Sea Gull, The Three Sisters, The Cherry Orchard} he got to know the members of Stanislavsky's famed Moscow Art Theatre, married Ac tress Olga Knipper. In 1904 Author Chekhov, 44, died at Badenweiler in the Black Forest. Author of a dozen plays, hundreds of short stories, he never wrote a novel. Though Chekhov has been called "the Russian Maupassant," all good Chekhovians think this intended praise too faint, think a reversal of the phrase would give Maupassant too much credit.

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