person
Zonenshteyn
also: Зоненштейн
A theatrical acquaintance, likely a fellow actor, visiting Chekhov at Sumy alongside or near Pavel Svobodin in June 1889; portrayed comically as normally a pretentiously "educated" actor (given to talk of Lessing and the Hamburg Dramaturgy) who here drops the pose to clown, sing, and catch crayfish in his tailcoat. Not otherwise identified in this corpus; further biographical identification remains open.
Reading notes
- To A. S. Suvorin, 9 June 1889. Sumy. §4 Zonenshteyn, to my great surprise and delight, threw off the mask of the "educated" actor
Continues the Lessing joke: Zonenshteyn is characterized as normally affecting the pose of an intellectual, "Hamburg Dramaturgy"-quoting actor, here shown dropping that pose entirely to clown, sing, and catch crayfish in his tailcoat.