In his major plays, Anton Chekhov assiduously demonstrates how much "anguish" there is in "languish." His world-weary characters--insisting almost boastfully that they're bored, tormented, wretched--flaunt their pain even when laughing through their tears. And there is plenty of that, because the breast-beating histrionics can be so excessive they often unintentionally amuse even the breast-beaters themselves. That, of course, is part of the reason Chekhov maintained he was writing comedies.

He was: tragi-comedies. It's almost as if he can be heard chuckling to himself in the wings while proclaiming, "This is no joke." Take Uncle Vanya, wherein every one of the focal characters believes t[...]