Good productions of Chekhov remind us of how vital his work still can be. Bad productions feed the narrative that his plays are dated, charmless, and inconsequential.

There remains something compelling about ghost stories. Annie Baker’s JOHN demonstrates why: our past haunts just as well as any poltergeist.

Life doesn’t imitate art as much as combine with it as Baker’s play, and Matthew Decker’s production of it for Theatre Horizon, sneaks up on you and moves you.