The exhibition houses the dress worn by the actress of the Sakhalin Regional Drama Theater named after Chekhov, who starred in the production of Mikhail Finnov’s play “For a Lifetime”. The dress was donated to the museum by the theater administration.
Mikhail Finnov was a Soviet playwright, poet, and writer, member of the Union of Soviet Writers, and the first recipient of the Sakhalin Culture Fund Award. He dedicated many of his works to Anton Chekhov’s writings and 1890 journey to Sakhalin Island. These themes formed the basis for his short novels “Three Months and Three Days” (or “Anton Chekhov’s Long Road”) and “The Last Circle”, the literary study “The Gloomy Onor Case”, the dialogue essay “Anton Chekhov’s Seas”, and the farce “Kimono”.
In his poem “July 22, 1890”, Mikhail Finnov described Anton Chekhov’s arrival on the island, his conversations with prisoners, and his first impressions. Mikhail Finnov was convinced that Sakhalin nurtured the writer’s soul, sensitive and compassionate as it already was, “and having reached that watershed moment, Antosha Chekhonte would never be the same; now day by day, he turned into the writer Chekhov”.
Finnov’s play “For a Lifetime” was staged at the Sakhalin Regional Drama Theater named after Chekhov in 1977. The play spins around the period of Anton Chekhov’s journey when he visited Alexandrovsk-Sakhalinsky. The female character’s dress was made specifically for the play and stylized as everyday clothes of the wives of public officials in the late 19th century. The costume designer managed not only to imitate the fashion of that time period but also to make the dress convenient for the actress to wear on stage.
The style of the dress is elegant and noble. The color palette is restrained, and the dress has few decorative elements. Due to the horizontal folds and decorative buttons on the bodice, the emphasis is made on the upper part of the body. The neck and wrists are emphasized by the stand-up collar and cuffs made of dark green velvet, while the white ruffles bring a certain tenderness to the overall strict image. The flowy skirt seems almost weightless and emphasizes the actress’s silhouette.
