Trembling Between Two Outstretched Palms
Synopsis
Trembling Between Two Outstretched Palms tells the love story of Anton Chekhov and Olga Knipper through encounters, separations, letters and theatrical scenes. Between Moscow and Yalta, the desire for a shared life collides with illness, family pressures and devotion to art. At its centre is Olga—an actress and a woman trying to preserve love without giving up the theatre. In an unreal space in between, where neither time nor death interrupts their conversations, the play intertwines tenderness, jealousy, guilt and longing for an intimacy they never fully lived.
Excerpt — Olga’s opening monologue
OLGA
To be someone’s muse, someone’s everything, to be infinitely loved and infinitely hated. To be alive and dead at the same time.
This is my story… A woman and a man, thousands of kilometres apart, yet so close somewhere in the distance.
I, Olga Knipper, Chekhov’s German Olga, have carried the burden of a boundless love all my life, an entire lifetime in six short years…
22 March 1959, Moscow. It has been so long since I last wrote to you. I feel as though you are calling me. I think we will finally be together soon. My dearest writer. Time stopped passing the moment I lost you. I am coming, my dear Anton. I am coming…