What is "summerfolk"

Summerfolk is a play written in 1904 by Maxim Gorky. Based in part on the life of the writer Anton Chekhov, it takes place in 1904—the same year that Chekhov died. The play dramatises the Russian bourgeois social class and the changes occurring around them.

The British premiere of the play was given by the Royal Shakespeare Company at the Aldwych Theatre in London on 27 August 1974. It was directed by David Jones, who introduced several of Gorky's plays to Britain.

Nick Dear adapted the play for a production on London's Olivier stage, part oft the Royal National Theatre, in 1999.