Читаю Gravel Heart и постоянно встречаю упоминание Чехова. А вот как Абдулразак Гурна устами своего лирического героя описывает визит в театр:
"Within the first few minutes I was lost in the play, mesmerised by the pathos of the dialogue and the beautiful staging and lighting. Vanessa Redgrave played Lyubov Andreyevna Ranevskaya and Corin Redgrave was her chatterbox brother Gayev. Brother and sister playing brother and sister, a publicist’s cliché, but they were brilliant. When out of nowhere Lyubov Andreyevna declared her anguish: If only this burden could be taken from me, if only I could forget my past, I felt my eyes stinging with distress for the middle-aged mother mourning her child. It seemed that human sorrow was always based on regret and pain in the past, and that neither time nor location nor history made much difference. And when later she told the story of her betrayal of her husband and the failure of her love, I wept for her. At the end of the play, as Lopakhin’s crew were cutting down the orchard, I knew that the thud of the axes into the cherry trees would always stay with me, as if the blows were a violence on my own body. Three hours went past quickly, and by the end I was on my feet, joining everyone else in enthusiastic applause".
