Dream of Me, Dusya

The play by Yuri Bychkov, “Dream for Me, Dusia,” is a documentary drama about the love of Anton Chekhov and Olga Knipper. From the famous correspondence between the writer and the actress, the author selected the most important and key lines and sentences, composing from them a real dramatic polilogue. The play also includes texts from letters by his sister Maria Chekhov and the family friend—an aspiring writer, Ivan Bunin.
The playwright does not accuse anyone, does not justify anyone, and invents nothing—he simply gives the characters a chance to speak for themselves.

Yuri Bychkov is a well-known scholar of Chekhov. Yuri Bychkov’s works should by no means be called “academic papers,” although, of course, they are based on genuine facts, documents, and memoirs. It’s just that in his books there is no highbrow tediousness, didacticism, or self-satisfied omniscience. Instead, you find the author’s personality, interesting personal conclusions, reflections, hypotheses—you can sense his attitude toward the objects and subjects of his creativity.