person
Tarnovsky
also: Тарновский, the Octopus, Спрут
The hack melodramatist-villain of Chekhov's running theatrical parody (the 'Action' sketches), nicknamed 'the Octopus' after his own play; he dies and revives repeatedly across the series in mockery of stock stage resurrections.
Reading notes
- Unclean Tragedians and Leprous Playwrights §5 Tarnovsky
Stand-in for the real Konstantin Tarnovsky, a prolific adaptor of sensational French-style melodramas for Lentovsky's stage; Chekhov puts the actual playwright's name directly into his own cast list.
- Unclean Tragedians and Leprous Playwrights §37 the Octopus
Burl's nickname for Tarnovsky, blamed for every indignity the plot inflicts on him -- the piece's running joke that a hack playwright's machinations are an inescapable, many-armed force.