A few playgoers in fin de siècle Moscow may have spotted flecks of genius in Ivanov, Anton Chekhov’s early mix of farce, melodrama, and slapdash tragedy. Initially unsuccessful, this play is now revived from time to time, often in adaptations by contemporary playwrights with high name recognition, such as Tom Stoppard. It’s unlikely anyone in 1887, when the play premiered, imagined that the country physician who wrote Ivanov might cap his career, 16 years later, with a work—The Cherry Orchard, of course—so compassionate and original that it would be a benchmark for dramatic storytelling over the next century.