Chekhov / Tolstoy: Love Stories

Two short plays adapted from stories by two of the world’s greatest authors, Anton Chekhov and Leo Tolstoy.

Chekhov’s An Artist’s Story tells the story of Nicov, a painter who encounters two very different women on a fall evening. The flirtatious Genya flatters the artist with questions about miracles and the eternal, while her pragmatic sister Lidia ridicules the artist by questioning the necessity of landscapes in a world where people are poor and hungry. Together, they bring him to a new understanding of himself.

Tolstoy’s What Men Live By tells the story of a Russian peasant couple whose lives intersect with a mysterious stranger whose odd ways and brilliant smile bring them to a new understanding as well.