The shift in theatrical styles at the end of the 1800s was prompted by a parallel literary transformation. In fiction, figures like Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky opened the door. Playwrights like Ibsen, Strindberg and Shaw demanded a new actor that would render authentic human behavior. Anton Chekhov was the essential playwright in that moment. In this episode we hear his back story and listen to letters between him and his wife, Olga Knipper, star of the Moscow Art Theatre.

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