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MASHA: Help me. Help me, or I’ll do something stupid, I’ll mess up my life, wreck it… I can’t stand it anymore…

DORN: What do you mean? Help you how?

MASHA: I’m in pain. Nobody, nobody knows how much pain I’m in. (Lays her head on his chest, quietly.) I love Konstantin.

DRON: They’re all so high-strung! They’re all so high-strung! And all this love… Oh, spellbinding lake! (Tenderly.) But what can I do, my child? What? What?

Explanation and Analysis:

As the first act comes to an end, Chekhov uses two tertiary characters, Masha and Dorn, to demonstrate just how far-reaching, ubiquitous, and universally destructive unrequited love really is. Treplyov and Nina’s romance has been the primary in...

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Original

Romeo

(aside) She speaks.
O, speak again, bright angel! For thou art
As glorious to this night, being o’er my head,
As is a winged messenger of heaven
Unto the white, upturnèd, wondering eyes
Of mortals that fall back to gaze on him
When he bestrides the lazy-puffing clouds
And sails upon the bosom of the air.

Juliet

O Romeo, Romeo! Wherefore art though Romeo?
Deny they father and refuse they name.
Or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love,
And I’ll no longer be a Capulet.

Modern

Romeo

(to himself) She speaks. Speak again, bright angel! For tonight you are as glorious, there up above me, as a winged messenger of heaven who makes mortals fall onto their backs to gaze up with awestruck eyes as he strides across the lazy clouds and sails through the air.

Juliet

O Romeo, Romeo! Why must you be Romeo? Deny your father and give up your name. Or, if you won’t change your name, just swear your love to me and I’ll give up being a Capulet.

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