Chekhov's miserable landlord has 167 minutes to ruin everything. You can't look away.
Acting
Smoktunovskiy's Ivanov: a masterpiece of crumbling dignity.
Direction
Efremov's theatrical precision makes rooms feel like traps.
Director
Oleg Efremov
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Efremov staged this at Moscow's legendary Taganka Theatre before filming; the cast had performed it live for years.
Chekhov wrote Ivanov at 27, calling it his 'garbage play'—Soviet artists reclaimed it as a masterpiece of pre-revolutionary anxiety.
SU
