Director and author Simon Stone rewrote, updated and questioned Chekhov’s famous drama for the present day: with brilliant dialogue, subtle characterization and the ambivalent figures which these so reliably generate. Avoiding pathos, spectacle and heroism, Chekhov maintains a masterful balance between melancholy and joie de vivre. Premiered 1901 at the Moscow Arts Theatre it is a play about the everyday, about desire and failure.