person
Ivan Kiselevsky
Kiselevsky
also: Киселевский, И. П. Киселевский, Ivan Platonovich Kiselevsky
Ivan Platonovich Kiselevsky (1839-1898), a well-regarded Russian actor who worked on the Moscow and provincial stages, noted for restrained, naturalistic character work; Chekhov himself admired his acting. Named by the journalist as a credible Moscow counterexample to the noble father's claim that Russian acting talent has died out.
Reading notes
- To A. S. Lazarev, 15 November 1887. Moscow. §6 Kiselevsky
Ivan Platonovich Kiselevsky, a well-regarded actor on the Moscow and provincial stages whom Chekhov himself admired.
- To Al. P. Chekhov, 20 November 1887. Moscow. §4 Kiselevsky, on whom I'd pinned great hopes
Ivan Platonovich Kiselevsky, the veteran actor Chekhov had counted on for a key role; he did not deliver a single line correctly in Act 1, having failed to learn the part, though the act still succeeded with the audience.
- To Al. P. Chekhov, 20 November 1887. Moscow. §7 my Kiselevsky doesn't know his part, is drunk as a cobbler
Chekhov reports, without euphemism, that Kiselevsky was genuinely drunk on stage for what should have been the play's most poetic scene, turning it into something "dragging and vile" and leaving the audience bewildered. This is an eyewitness account by the playwright himself, not staged comedy.
- To Al. P. Chekhov, 24 November 1887. Moscow. §11 Davydov, Kiselevsky, Gradov-Sokolov, and Kosheva
The self-promotional press notice Chekhov dictates for Alexander to place is standard theatrical puffery of the period -- an author feeding a friendly journalist the names and framing for a notice about his own production, hoping it will prompt another paid performance; Chekhov is candid about the mercenary motive ("I'll get another fifty or a hundred silver roubles out of it") two sentences later.
- To A. S. Suvorin, 30 December 1888. Moscow. §22 I would never for anything let Kiselevsky play the count!
The actor Ippolit (Ivan Platonovich) Kiselevsky, named as the actor Chekhov refuses to subject again to the role of "the count" in "Ivanov," on the grounds that the role distressed him in the Moscow production.