Stage history of the play at the bottom. The stage fate of the play at the bottom

“At the Bottom” by M. Gorky

The fate of the play in life, on stage and in criticism

Ivan Kuzmichev

© Ivan Kuzmichev, 2017

ISBN 978-5-4485-2786-9

Created in the intellectual publishing system Ridero

The first edition of this book was published in the summer of 1981 in the city of Gorky, in the Volga-Vyatka book publishing house with a circulation of 10,000 copies and by the autumn of the same year it was sold out through the book chain and the regional trading network.1

The first to respond to its appearance was A. N. Alekseeva, a famous Nizhny Novgorod critic and teacher, publishing an article “New thoughts about an old play” in Gorky Pravda dated February 28, 1982. “In the book,” writes Ariadna Nikolaevna, “the author’s broad erudition and firmness of convictions are visible. His courage is life-giving - there is some kind of fresh, healthy air in the book, and you can breathe easily and freely. There is no academicism, “theoretical” flirtation, or speculativeness in it: facts and their very simple, natural and intelligent interpretation.” “The author of the book,” the reviewer notes, “does not see, contrary to many critics, any hopelessness in Act IV of the play. The play is bright, and Satin’s monologue is only a confirmation of Gorky’s morality: “Support the rebel!” and in conclusion he will add: “This is not humility at all, but perseverance!”2

The Nizhny Novgorod youth newspaper “Leninskaya Smena” also responded to the book (A. Pavlov, 03/27/1983): “This book came out more than a year ago, but it was written with such polemical fervor, the topic of research is so freshly and convincingly revealed, exciting, in in general, wide circle readers, which is obviously destined for her to attract the closest attention more than once.” The article ends with the following words:

“The book we are talking about disappeared from store bookshelves instantly, and its circulation was small - 10,000 copies. The Volgo-Vyatka book publishing house has already had a case when V. Grekhnev’s scientific research on Pushkin’s lyrics was republished. It seems that I.K. Kuzmichev’s book deserves re-publication.”3

Maybe everything would have been like this someday, but on December 16, 2010, the unitary enterprise “Volgo-Vyatka Book Publishing House” ceased to exist. The publishing house, capable of producing several million copies of books a year, was liquidated. The Nizhny Novgorod city and provincial authorities had neither the desire nor the ability to correct the situation. However, let's return to the bibliography.

After the articles by A. Alekseeva and A. Pavlov, one should name “RZh” (Abstract Journal) - Series 7. Literary Studies, in which an article by V. N. Sechenovich about the book was published and the magazine “Volga”, in which there is a substantial review “The result of the struggle or struggle of results? a promising and talented philologist from Cheboksary University V.A. Zlobin, who unfortunately died early. Special mention should be made of Mr. Selitsky, a Russian scholar from Poland. He wrote more than once about the author of these lines in the Polish press and responded to the appearance of a book about the play “At the Lower Depths” with an article in which he showed its strengths and weaknesses4.

Interest in the book does not disappear even later. Many will pay attention to it, including A. I. Ovcharenko5, S. I. Sukhikh, G. S. Zaitseva, O. S. Sukhikh, T. V. Savinkova, M. P. Shustov, N. I. Khomenko , D. A. Blagov, A. B. Udodov, V. I. Samokhvalova, V. A. Khanov, T. D. Belova, I. F. Eremina, N. N. Primochkina, M. I. Gromova. The list of reviews and responses includes more than 25 items6.

Ledenev F.V. will include a fragment from our book in his project for schoolchildren to study the play “At the Lower Depths” without any comments7.

L. A. Spiridonova (Evstigneeva), who after the tragic death of A. I. Ovcharenko (July 20, 1988) will take on many of the responsibilities of the deceased, including the unspoken role of the chief Gorky scholar of the IMLI and the curator of the “Gorky Readings” in the writer’s homeland, will find it necessary to include our book about the play “At the Lower Depths” in the elite list of 5-6 titles for his book “M. Gorky in life and work: training manual for schools, gymnasiums and colleges”8.

Mastering the play “At the Lower Depths” by M. Gorky is not an easy, but interesting and rewarding activity not only in secondary school, but also in higher school. We hope that familiarization with the book, dedicated to the analysis of the play “At the Lower Depths,” will help to develop interest in the work of Maxim Gorky among students and everyone who is not indifferent to Russian literature.

The online edition offered to the reader is identical to the one released in 1981. The book includes illustrations provided by Literary Museum A. M. Gorky. The photographic materials do not fully correspond to those contained in the first edition of the book, since not all photographs used in the 1981 edition could be found in acceptable quality.

I. K. Kuzmichev

Nizhny Novgorod, March 2017

Introduction. Is Gorky modern?

Thirty or forty years ago, the question itself was: is Gorky modern? – could seem, at the very least, strange and blasphemous. The attitude towards Gorky was superstitious and pagan. They looked at him as a literary god, unquestioningly followed his advice, imitated him, and learned from him. And today this is already a problem that we are openly and frankly discussing9.

Literary scholars and critics have different approaches to the problem posed. Some people are seriously worried about it, while others, on the contrary, do not see any particular reason for concern. In their opinion, Gorky is a historical phenomenon, and attention even to the greatest writer– the quantity is not constant, but variable. Still others tend to tone down the severity of the issue and even remove it. "IN recent years“, we read in one of the works, “some critics abroad and here have created a legend that interest in Gorky’s work has now sharply decreased, that little is read about him - due to the fact that he is supposedly “outdated.” However, the facts tell a different story, the author states and cites the number of subscribers to the academic publication as confirmation. works of art writer, who has exceeded three hundred thousand...

Of course, Gorky was and continues to be one of the popular and beloved artists. An entire era in our and world literature is associated with his name. It began on the eve of the first Russian revolution and reached its peak before the Second World War. There were difficult and alarming pre-war, war and first post-war years. Gorky is no longer alive, but his influence not only does not weaken, but even intensifies, which is facilitated by the works of such Gorky scholars as V. A. Desnitsky, I. A. Gruzdev, N. K. Piksanov, S. D. Balukhaty. Somewhat later, major studies were created by S. V. Kastorsky, B. V. Mikhailovsky, A. S. Myasnikov, A. A. Volkov, K. D. Muratova, B. A. Byalik, A. I. Ovcharenko and others. In them, the work of the great artist is explored in various aspects and his close and varied connection with the people and with the revolution is revealed. The Institute of World Literature of the USSR Academy of Sciences is creating a multi-volume “Chronicle” of the writer’s life and work, and together with the State Publishing House fiction in 1949-1956 he published a thirty-volume collection of his works.

It would be extremely unfair to underestimate the results of the development of Gorky thought of the 40s and 50s, which had a beneficial effect not only on propaganda creative heritage Gorky, but also on the general rise of aesthetic culture. Gorky scholars do not lose their heights even now, although, perhaps, they do not play the role they played in the old days. One can get an idea of ​​the level of their current research from the academic edition of the Complete Works of M. Gorky in 25 volumes, undertaken by the A. M. Gorky Institute of World Literature and the Nauka publishing house.

However, giving due credit to today's Gorky scholars, one cannot help but emphasize something else, namely: the presence of some undesirable discrepancy between the word about Gorky and the living perception of the word of Gorky himself by today's viewer, listener or reader, especially the young. It happens, and not infrequently, that a word about Gorky, spoken from a university pulpit, in a school class, or published in the press, without even suspecting it, comes between the writer and the reader (or listener) and not only brings them closer together, but also sometimes alienates them. from a friend.

Be that as it may, something has shifted in the relationship between us and Gorky over the past decades. In our daily literary* concerns, we began to mention his name and refer to him less and less often. The plays of this greatest playwright are performed on the stages of our theaters, but with limited success and without their former scope. If at the end of the thirties the premieres of Gorky's plays used to reach almost two hundred performances a year, then in the fifties in theaters Russian Federation were counted in units. In 1968, which is usually called “the year of Gorky,” 139 performances based on his works were staged, but 1974 was again a non-repertoire year for the playwright. The situation with the study of Gorky in school is especially alarming.

16. Maxim Gorky. "At the bottom." Innovation of Gorky the playwright. Stage fate of the play. Theory of Literature. Social and philosophical drama as a genre of dramaturgy (initial performances). "New realism". Heroic concept of personality.

TKR No. 2. Literature of the early 20th century. Realist writers of the early 20th century.

Plan

A) Innovation of Gorky the playwright

Gorky's dramatic innovation is associated with the concept of personality in his work. Creation of a new type of socio-philosophical drama, where the conflict is expressed not in external and complex intrigue, but in the internal movement of the play, in the clash of ideas. The author pays main attention to the self-awareness of the characters, identifying their social and philosophical views. As a rule, a person is shown through the prism of other people's perceptions. The writer’s hero is an active creative personality who realizes himself in the public field (Danko is one of the first heroes of this type). The hero - the bearer of the author's ideals - must overcome and defeat the power of the society to which he belongs.

The concept of a socially and spiritually active person stemmed from Gorky’s system of views, from his worldview. The writer was convinced of the omnipotence of the human mind, the power of knowledge and life experience.

Reflecting on his experience in drama, Gorky wrote: “The play-drama, the comedy, is the most difficult form of literature, difficult because it requires that each unit acting in it be characterized in word and deed independently, without prompting from the author.”

In the play “Summer Residents,” the writer denounces the philistine intelligentsia - calm and contented, alien to concerns about the welfare of the people.

The play was an indictment of those people who came from the common people, those “thousands who betrayed their oaths,” who forgot about their sacred duty to serve the people, slipped into philistinism, and became hypocritical, indifferent people prone to posing.

With the utmost cynical frankness, engineer Suslov expresses the beliefs of the “dacha residents” at the end of the play: “We were worried and hungry in our youth; It’s natural that in adulthood we want to eat a lot and tasty, drink, we want to relax... in general, to reward ourselves in abundance for the restless, hungry life of our young days... We want to eat and relax in adulthood - that’s our psychology... I’m a philistine - and nothing more, sir!.. I like being a philistine...”

At the same time, “Summer Residents” shows the split in the intelligentsia, the identification of those who do not want to be “dacha residents,” those who understand: living the way they live now is “not good.” “The intelligentsia is not us! We are something else... We are summer residents in our country... some kind of newcomers. “We fuss, look for comfortable places in life... we do nothing and talk disgustingly much...” says the thoughtful, serious, strict Varvara Mikhailovna, who is “choking on vulgarity.” Marya Lvovna, Vlas, Sonya, Varvara Mikhailovna understand how difficult it is to live among people who “all just moan, everyone scream about themselves, saturate life with complaints and bring nothing, nothing more into it...”

At the premiere of “Dachners” on November 10, 1904, the aesthetic bourgeois audience, supported by disguised spies, tried to cause a scandal, raised noise and whistles, but the main - democratic - part of the audience greeted Gorky who appeared on stage with a stormy ovation and forced the scandalists to leave the hall. The writer called the day of the premiere of “Dachniki” the best day of his life: “a huge, hot joy burned in me... They shushed me when I was not there, and no one dared to shush me when I arrived - they are cowards and slaves!”

B) Innovation of Gorky the playwright in the play “At the Depths”

The drama opens with an exposition in which the main characters are already introduced, the main themes are formulated, and many problems are posed. Luke's appearance in the rooming house is the beginning of the play. From this point on, different life philosophies and aspirations begin to be tested. Luke's stories about the “righteous land” are the culmination, and the beginning of the denouement is the murder of Kostylev. The composition of the play is strictly subordinated to its ideological and thematic content. The basis of the plot movement is verification life practice philosophy of consolation, exposing its illusory and harmful nature.” This forms the basis of the composition of the play “At the Bottom”. Dramatic skill Gorky is very original. The author's attention is focused on showing social types and phenomena, and the depiction of reality itself is deeply generalized. The play has several ideological and thematic plans, which are more or less related to the main idea. An important feature of Gorky’s drama is the absence in it central character and the separation of positive and negative characters. The author pays main attention to the self-awareness of the characters, identifying their social and philosophical views. The very principles of depicting a person in a play are also peculiar. As a rule, a person is shown through the prism of other people’s perceptions. This is how, for example, Luka is presented in the play: in the eyes of the Kostylevs he is a harmful troublemaker, for Anna and Nastya he is a kind comforter, for Baron and Bubnov he is a liar and a charlatan. Completeness and completeness are given to this image by the changing attitudes of the Actor, Ash, and Tick. In the play “At the Bottom”, monologues occupy an insignificant place. The leading principle of revealing the self-awareness of heroes and their characters is dialogue. An important means of achieving typicality and individualization of images is speech characteristic characters. Prove this using the example of the images of Luke, Actor, Baron. Expand the ideological function of the quotation from Bérenger, the parable of the righteous land and the song sung by the night shelters. The play “At the Bottom” had enormous socio-political significance. By exposing the false philosophy of consolation, Gorky thereby fought against the reactionary ideology on which representatives of the ruling classes willingly relied. During the period of political upsurge, the consolation that called for humility and passivity was deeply hostile to the revolutionary working class, which was rising to a decisive struggle. In this environment, the play played a great revolutionary role. It showed that Gorky was solving the problem of tramping from a leading position. If in his early works the writer did not touch upon the reasons that gave rise to this phenomenon, then in the play “At the Bottom” a harsh verdict was sounded on the social system, which was to blame for the suffering of people. With its entire content, the play called for a fight for a revolutionary transformation of reality.

B) “The stage fate of Gorky’s play “At the Lower Depths.”

The Moscow Art Theater archive contains an album containing over forty photographs taken by the artist M. Dmitriev in Nizhny Novgorod dosshouses. They served as visual material for actors, make-up artists and costume designers when staging the play at the Moscow Art Theater by Stanislavsky.

In some photographs, comments were made by Gorky, from which it follows that many of the characters in “At the Lower Depths” had real prototypes in the environment of Nizhny Novgorod tramping. All this suggests that both the author and the director, in order to achieve maximum stage effect, strived, first of all, for life authenticity.

The premiere of “At the Lower Depths,” which took place on December 18, 1902, was a phenomenal success. The roles in the play were performed by: Satin - Stanislavsky, Luka - Moskvin, Baron - Kachalov, Natasha - Andreeva, Nastya - Knipper.

This influx of famous actors plus the originality of the author's and director's decisions gave a result that no one expected. The fame of “At the Lower Depths” itself is a unique cultural and social phenomenon of the early 20th century and has no equal in the entire history of world theater.

“The first performance of this play was a complete triumph,” wrote M. F. Andreeva. - The public went wild. The author was called countless times. He resisted, didn’t want to come out, he was literally pushed onto the stage.”

On December 21, Gorky wrote to Pyatnitsky: “The success of the play is exceptional, I did not expect anything like this...” Pyatnitsky himself wrote to L. Andreev: “Maksimych’s drama is a delight! Like a shaft, he would hit the foreheads of all those who talked about the decline of his talent.” “At the Depths” was highly appreciated by A. Chekhov, who wrote to the author: “It is new and undoubtedly good. The second act is very good, it is the best, the most powerful, and when I read it, especially the end, I almost jumped with pleasure.”

“At the Lower Depths” is M. Gorky’s first work, which brought the author world fame. In January 1903, the play premiered in Berlin at the Max Reinhardt Theater, directed by Richard Walletin, who played the role of Satin. In Berlin, the play ran for 300 performances in a row, and in the spring of 1905 its 500th performance was celebrated.

Many of his contemporaries noted in the play characteristic feature early Gorky - rudeness.

Some called it a flaw. For example, A. Volynsky, after the play “At the Lower Depths,” wrote to Stanislavsky: “Gorky does not have that tender, noble heart, singing and crying, like Chekhov’s. It’s a bit rough, as if it’s not mystical enough, not immersed in some kind of grace.”

Others saw in this a manifestation of a remarkable, integral personality who came from the lower strata of the people and, as it were, “exploded” traditional ideas about the Russian writer.

“At the Lower Depths” is a programmatic play for Gorky: created at the dawn of the 20th century, it expressed many of his doubts and hopes in connection with the prospects of man and humanity to change themselves, transform life and open the sources of creative forces necessary for this.

This is stated in the symbolic time of the play, in the stage directions of the first act: “The beginning of spring. Morning". His correspondence eloquently testifies to the same direction of Gorky’s thoughts.

On the eve of Easter 1898, Gorky greeted Chekhov with promise: “Christ is risen!”, and soon wrote to I. E. Repin: “I don’t know anything better, more complex, more interesting than a person. He is everything. He even created God... I am sure that man is capable of endless improvement, and all his activities will also develop with him... from century to century. I believe in the infinity of life, and I understand life as a movement towards the perfection of the spirit.”

A year later, in a letter to L.N. Tolstoy, he repeated almost verbatim this fundamental thesis for himself in connection with literature: “Even a great book is only dead, a black shadow of the word and a hint of the truth, and man is the receptacle of the living God. I understand God as an indomitable desire for improvement, for truth and justice. And therefore, a bad person is better than a good book.”

D) The concept of man in the early works of M. Gorky

The gap between the heroic past and the pitiful, colorless life in the present, between the “should” and the “existent”, between the great “dream” and the “gray era” was the soil on which the romanticism of early Gorky was born.

Early stories Gorky are of a revolutionary-romantic nature. These stories contrast the drab, everyday life with the bright, exotic, and heroic. The contrast is associated with the opposition of an individual to a crowd - life as a feat and life as arbitrariness.

For Gorky, man is a proud and free ruler of the earth. “There is always a place for heroic deeds in life,” says Gorky through the mouth of the heroine of the romantic story “Old Woman Izergil.”

With your early romantic works with bright, passionate, freedom-loving heroes, Gorky sought to awaken the “souls of the living dead.” He contrasts real world selfless romantic heroes: Danko, a gypsy freewoman, the proud nature of freedom-loving people who prefer death to submission even to a loved one. The daring Loiko and the beautiful Radda die, refusing love, happiness, if for the sake of this it is necessary to sacrifice freedom, and with their death they affirm another - the highest - happiness: the priceless good of freedom. Gorky expressed this thought through the mouth of Makar Chudra, who prefaces his story about Loiko and Radda with the following words: “Well, falcon, do you want me to tell you a true story? And you remember it, and as you remember it, you will be a free bird throughout your life.”

Among these proud and freedom-loving Gorky heroes, the wise old Izergil confidently expresses Gorky’s thought about responsibility for oneself, one’s actions and deeds. Throughout her life Izergil carried a sense of human dignity; Neither the vicissitudes of fate, nor the danger of death, nor the fear of losing a loved one, of being deprived of love could break him. The story of her life is the apotheosis of freedom, beauty, and high moral values ​​of man. That’s why her story about Danko’s selfless, heroic deed is so convincing, as if it were not a poetic legend, but true story, which she herself witnessed.

Affirming the beauty and greatness of the feat in the name of people, Izergil confronts people who have lost their ideals. And who are those for whom the altruist Danko sacrificed his life, whom he brought out of the darkness of the forest and the stench, swamps into light and freedom, illuminating the way for them with his burning heart? “These were cheerful, strong and brave people,” but then a “hard time” came and they lost faith in the struggle, because they believed that their previous experience of struggle led only to death and destruction, and “they could not die,” because together with them the “covenants” would disappear from life.”

Saving people, Danko gives away the most precious and only thing he has - his heart - the “torch” great love to the people." A feat in the name of human life and freedom will form the basis of the story. Gorky called for self-sacrifice in the name of people. The main idea that can be seen in the story: a person who is strong, beautiful, capable of feats is a real person.

Old woman Izergil, in addition to conveying the author’s opinion, is also a connecting link. Her life story is placed in the middle of the story. She lived among people, but for herself. The first from Izergil we hear the legend about the proud, freedom-loving Larra, the son of a woman and an eagle, who lived for himself, and the last - about Danko, who lived among people and for people.

“Song of the Falcon,” which is similar in form - a story within a story - to the two previous works, also faces the problem of the meaning of life. Gorky builds the story on the contrast - falcon people and snake people. The author draws two specific types of people: some, similar to proud, free birds, others - like snakes, doomed to “crawl” all their lives. Gorky, speaking about the latter: “One born to crawl cannot fly,” praises people like the falcon: “We sing a song to the madness of the brave!” The main natural symbol, both in “The Song of the Falcon” and in other works of Gorky, is the sea. The sea, conveying the state of a dying bird - “the waves beat against the stone with a sad roar...”; “In their lion’s roar a song about a proud bird thundered, the rocks trembled from their blows, the sky trembled from a menacing song”; “The madness of the brave is the wisdom of life!” The main theme of the autobiographical story “The Birth of Man” can be determined by the title itself - the birth of a new person. According to Gorky, the birth of a child is a continuation of life. And under whatever circumstances a person comes into this still unknown world, everything possible must be done to continue his life.

When a child is born, he announces himself with a violent cry. At his birth, his mother smiles, “they bloom amazingly, her bottomless eyes burn with blue fire.” And, reading these lines, you forget the terrible, inhuman face, with wild, bloodshot eyes, that the woman had during childbirth. The long-awaited child was born in inhuman pain, which means that the great feat of which a woman is capable has been accomplished.

And even nature, feeling the mood of those around her, conveys the state of a happy woman: “Somewhere far away a stream is babbling - like a girl telling her friend about her lover.” “The sea splashed and rustled, everything was covered in white lace shavings; The bushes were whispering, the sun was shining.”

“The state of Gorky’s repertoire in our theaters is seriously alarming. It would seem that such performances as “Yegor Bulychov” at the Vakhtangov Theater, “Enemies” at the Moscow Art Theater and many other productions have long refuted the legend about the unstageability of Gorky’s plays. Meanwhile in lately Voices began to be heard that the viewer was not watching Gorky, that interest in his drama had disappeared. The number of new productions has decreased, plays are quickly disappearing from the repertoire.”

This is how the letter from S. Birman, B. Babochkin, P. Vasiliev and others began theatrical figures to the editors of "Soviet Culture", published by the newspaper on January 3, 1957.

Gorky, the letter noted, “is often included in the repertoire “according to allocation”, because “it’s necessary,” without trust in him as an artist, without passion. And so a whole series of performances appeared, devoid of creative exploration, repeating, with one variation or another, classical theatrical models created a quarter of a century, or even half a century ago. Absence psychological depth images, flat, one-dimensional solutions to characters, weakening of the tension of conflicts make many performances gray and everyday.”

Over the many years of Gorky’s collaboration with the theater, anything happened. But never before, perhaps, has the question of the stage fate of Gorky’s plays been raised so sharply and sharply. There were more than good reasons for this. Suffice it to say that during the war and some seven or eight first post-war years, the number of premieres staged based on Gorky’s works Russian theaters, decreased by five to six times.

Theater criticism of the sixties also complains about the presence of a large number of stage cliches when staging Gorky's plays. Mandatory accessories of a “merchant” or “philistine” performance, she notes, were a massive iconostasis, a samovar, heavy furniture in carefully fenced-off interiors, a fake Volga dialect in the speech of the characters, characterization, a general slow rhythm, etc. The interpretation of plays itself often turns out to be just as cliche-heavy, lifeless. “In different cities and different theaters,” we read in one of the articles, “performances began to appear that did not pretend to have any independence of thought, so to speak, reproducing “classical models,” while remaining pale, simplified copies of the originals” 26 . As examples, the productions of “Yegor Bulychov” in Omsk, Kazan, Orel were cited... The play “At the Lower Depths” at the Tula Theater turned out to be “a sluggish copy of the Moscow Art Theater production.”

At the Moscow Art Theater itself, the play “At the Lower Depths,” performed on October 8, 1966 for the 1530th time, turned out to be, although not sluggish, still a copy of the famous production of 1902. Kostylev, Vasilisa, Natasha, Ash, Mite, Actor, Tatar, Alyoshka - played for the first time by V. Shilovsky, L. Skudatina, L. Zemlyanikina, V. Peshkin, S. Desnitsky, N. Penkov, V. Petrov. Luka was still played by Gribov. G. Borisova responded about their performance as follows:

“The youth created a wonderful performance - very passionate, sincere, rich, talented. The colors of the performance were refreshed, and it began to sound and sparkle again..."27.

Another reviewer, Yu. Smelkov, was more restrained in his praise and closer to the actual state of affairs. He did not deny the professional skills of the young actors, noting that they mastered the character found by their predecessors, added some of their own details, and were organic and temperamental. “But it’s a strange thing,” he wondered, “the emotions that were generously spent on stage did not fly over the stage. The performance did not take on a new life, there was no new meaning in it...” According to him, the young actors fought not for their own youth performance, not for a modern interpretation of a classic play, but “for the right to copy what was found sixty years ago”28. The youth performance of the Moscow Art Theater was lacking. perhaps the most important thing - a creative, independent reading of the play.

In the critical literature of those years, another fairly common drawback in the production of Gorky's plays was noted - this was an exclusive focus on the past. Thus, V. Sechin criticized the Sverdlovsk Drama Theater for the fact that in the play “The Bourgeois” the bourgeoisie was interpreted “first of all, and almost exclusively, as a social phenomenon of the historical past.” The author of the article is convinced that today the tradesman is interesting “not only as a representative of a certain layer in class society, but also as a moral category, a bearer of a certain human morality and life philosophy. Not all the threads of philistinism were cut off by the revolution; some – very significant ones – stretched from the Bessemyonovs’ house into our small and large apartments.”29 He blames the Gorky (Nizhny Novgorod) Drama Theater for the same sin for staging “The False Coin.” E. Balatova, touching on this issue, emphasized in her article “In the World of Gorky”: “In many productions, the accusatory power of Gorky’s dramaturgy was stubbornly directed towards the last century. In the “philistines”, “summer residents”, “barbarians” he hated, he saw only an image of the abominations of the past - nothing more. Gorky’s performance increasingly turned into an illustration for a history textbook.”30

Focus on the past when staging Gorky's plays has been discussed before. D. Zolotnitsky, for example, in the article “Modern for Contemporaries” noted that directors and critics “with rare unanimity regarded Gorky’s plays as works of the past, about a very distant and irretrievably gone “damned past.” A book was even published about Gorky the playwright, containing two hundred photographs with captions: “Conservative of the early 20th century,” “Liberal of the early 20th century...”31. (We are obviously talking about M. Grigoriev’s book “Gorky – Playwright and Critic.” M., 1946.)

An orientation toward the past, as we have seen, was also characteristic of school teaching.

Thus, by the beginning of the sixties, the theater community clearly realized the need for a new reading of Gorky. The stage history of Gorky's works in our theater over the last quarter of a century is a history of searches, mistakes, misconceptions, joys and sorrows on the way to modernity.

The stage history of the play “At the Lower Depths” is especially instructive. There are special reasons for this.

According to the chronicle compiled by S. S. Danilov, we can conclude that before the revolution, almost every theater season brought two or three premieres of the play “At the Lower Depths” in provincial theaters of Russia32.

Steady interest in the play continued throughout the years civil war and in the first decade after October. So, in 1917 there were productions at the Riga Theater “Comedy” and at the Petrograd Theater of the Union of Drama Theaters. On November 8, 1918, the play was performed on the stage of the Alexandria Theater. In 1920, productions were carried out in Kazan, on the Belarusian national stage, at the Kiev Academic Ukrainian Theater. Later, performances were celebrated in Baku, at the Leningrad Comedy Theater with the participation of Moskvin (1927).

As for the Moscow theaters, in them, according to the data presented by Mogilevsky, Filippov and Rodionov33, the play “At the Lower Depths” had 222 performances over the 7 post-October theater seasons and took fourth place in terms of the number of spectators - 188,425 people. This is a fairly high figure. For comparison, we point out that Princess Turandot, which broke the record for the number of productions - 407, was viewed by 172,483 spectators. “The Blue Bird” was staged 288 times, “The Inspector General” – 218, “Twelfth Night” – 151, “Woe from Wit” – 106.

In addition to the Art Theater, the play “At the Lower Depths” was staged by the Rogozhsko-Simonovsky (“district”) theater, where it was performed more often than other plays during the Civil War.

In short, in the twenties the play “At the Lower Depths” was very popular both in Moscow and in the periphery. However, over the next decade, attention to it waned significantly. From 1928 to 1939, S.S. Danilov did not note a single one. premieres. The number of productions at the Moscow Art Theater itself has also decreased. The famous performance will come to life again only in 1937, after the 35th anniversary of its presence on stage. It cannot be said that this play has completely left the stage. It was staged, for example, at the Sverdlovsk Drama Theater, at the Nizhny Novgorod - Gorky Drama Theater and some others. But it should still be recognized that for “At the Bottom” this was the darkest time.

At the end of the thirties, interest in the play would rise again, but not for long. She could be seen on the stages of Ryazan, Ulyanovsk, Stalingrad, Odessa, Tomsk, Chelyabinsk, Barnaul and some other cities34. The production of F. N. Kaverin at the Moscow Drama Theater on Bolshaya Ordynka dates back to the same time. It is interesting to note that in most productions of this time, Luke was “understated”. He was most often interpreted flatly and one-dimensionally: a liar-comforter, a swindler. To discredit Luka, F.N. Kaverin, for example, introduces into his performance a number of scenes not written by Gorky: collecting money for Anna’s funeral, stealing this money by Luka35. Reviewers and critics of those years pushed theaters precisely in this direction, demanding that the actors performing the role of Luke expose the hero, be more cunning, cunning, roguish, etc.

They discredited and “reduced” Luka using purely comedic techniques. Thus, in the Crimean State Theater Luka was shown as a fussing, awkward old man, and in the Chelyabinsk Drama Theater - comical and funny. The Tomsk Drama Theater presented Luka in the same vaudeville way. The revealing tendency towards Luka, sanctified by the authority of Gorky himself and picked up by the criticism of those years, began to be considered almost the only correct one and had a certain influence on some performers of this role in the Art Theater, for example on M. M. Tarkhanov.

Performances with the exposed Luka did not last long on theater stages. After two or three years in stage history Gorky's play again experienced a pause that lasted almost fifteen years (this, of course, does not apply to the Art Theater).

In the first half of the fifties, interest in the play revived again. It is staged in Kirovograd, Minsk, Kazan, Yaroslavl, Riga, Tashkent and some other cities. In the next five or six theater seasons, there were almost more premieres of this performance than in the previous two decades. L. Vivien and V. Ehrenberg in 1956 create a new production of the play “At the Lower Depths” at the Leningrad State academic theater dramas named after A. S. Pushkin, which was an event in the artistic life of those years. In 1957, the play was staged by the Voronezh, Georgian, Kalinin theaters and the theater of the Komi ASSR. Later, new productions were carried out in Pskov, Ufa, Maykop and other cities.

In the 60s, on the eve of the writer's centenary, the number of productions of Gorky's plays in the country's theaters increased significantly. Interest in the play “At the Bottom” has also increased. In this regard, the question of how to play this famous play, especially the role of Luke, arose with new urgency. It should be taken into account that by this time the production of Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko at the Moscow Art Theater for some theater workers had ceased to seem like an indisputable model. They began to think about finding a new, more modern approach to the play.

At the anniversary theater conference held in the writer’s homeland, in Gorky, the famous theater critic N. A. Abalkin said that if we meet Gorky halfway, then “we must strengthen in the image of Luke what was intended by the author - exposing the harmfulness of consolation.” 36.

N.A. Abalkin clearly formulated the revealing concept that has become traditional. However, not all artists, directors and theater critics followed this path. They did not want to copy the classic Moscow Art Theater performance.

The judgments of L.P. Varpakhovsky are not indisputable, but his desire for a new stage embodiment of the play is indisputable and completely justified. It was partially realized by him in his production of the play “At the Lower Depths” at the Kiev Theater named after Lesya Ukrainka. In his performance, he tried to get away from the traditional historical and everyday solution to the theme and, by the design itself, gave the play a somewhat generalized character. Instead of the textbook Kostylev flophouse with all its attributes, familiar to the whole world from the stage of the Art Theater, the viewer was presented with tiers of bunks, a huge cage made of rough boards with many cells. There are people in the cells, like in dead honeycombs. They are crushed by life, thrown out of it, but are still alive and hope for something. Luka is very unusual - V. Khalatov, powerful, broad-shouldered, ponderous, decisive... Not a trace remained of Luka's usual gentleness. He came to the shelter not to console, but to excite people. It is in no way similar to “crumb for the toothless.” The restless and active Luka-Khalatov seems to be trying to move this bulky wooden cage from its place, to expand the dark narrow passages of the shelter.

Critics, in general, reacted favorably to the attempt to read Gorky’s play in a new way, but remained dissatisfied with the image of Satin. E. Balatova wrote:

“This performance could become an example of a truly new interpretation of the play if it were not for the absence of one essential link. The whole course of events leads us to Satin’s “hymn to man,” but, clearly afraid of the frank pathos of this monologue, the director “restrained” it so much that it turns out to be an equally noticeable moment of the performance. And in general, the figure of Satin fades into the background. The failure is quite significant and turns us to the question that the heroics of Gorky’s theater, erased by many years of textbook cliches, also need to look for today’s, new, fresh solution.”38 The critic's remark is quite fair and timely.

The performance of the Kievites can be called experimental. But in this regard, the people of Kiev were not alone. Long before them, the Leningrad Drama Theater named after A.S. Pushkin carried out interesting research work when preparing the above-mentioned production “At the Depths”.

Unusually modestly, silently, without broadcast posters, without advertising newspaper interviews, it entered the repertoire of the Leningrad Academic Drama Theater named after. A. S. Pushkin in the theater season of 1956-57, the play “At the Lower Depths” directed by L. Vivien and V. Ehrenberg. He didn't walk often, but he was noticed. Spectators and critics of that time were struck, first of all, by the play’s pronounced humanistic subtext, the desire to convey to people Gorky’s favorite idea that “everything is in man, everything is for man.” The performance, unfortunately, was not smooth, but thanks to the excellent performances of Simonov (Satin), Tolubeev (Bubnov), Skorobogatov (Luka), the idea came to the fore that, no matter how humiliated a person is, the truly human will still break through in him and will take over, as it burst through in the play in Satin’s monologues, in Bubnov’s dance, in Alyosha’s cheerful mischief...

The romantically upbeat, optimistic sound of the performance was also contributed to by its design. Before the start of each action, in the light of the dimmed, flickering lights of the auditorium, broad, free Russian songs were heard, as if pushing apart the theatrical scenes, evoking thoughts of the Volga expanses, of some kind of life other than the life of the “useless”. And the stage itself did not create the impression of a stone bag, closed on all sides of the space. From the heavy brick vaults of the Kostylev doss house, well known to everyone from the famous decorations of the Art Theater, only the riser and a small part of the basement vault remained. The ceiling itself disappeared, as if dissolved in gray darkness. A rough wooden staircase that goes around the riser leads up into the air.

The directors and actors sought to show not only the horrors of the “bottom”, but also how in these almost inhumane conditions slowly but steadily matures, a feeling of protest accumulates. N. Simonov, according to reviewers, played the thinking and keenly feeling Satin. He largely managed to convey the very birth of the hero’s thoughts about the dignity, strength, and pride of man.

Bubnov, performed by Tolubeev, as they wrote then, had nothing in common with that gloomy, embittered, cynical commentator on what was happening, as this character was often portrayed in other performances. It seemed to some that “a sort of ageless Alyoshka is awakening in him.” K. Skorobogatov’s interpretation of Luka also turned out to be unusual.

K. Skorobogatov is a long-time and staunch admirer of the talent of Gorky the playwright. Even before the war, he played Bulychov and Dostigaev at the Bolshoi Drama Theater, and Antipa (“The Zykovs”) at the Pushkin Academic Drama Theater. He also played Luka, but in the 1956 production he considered this role to be the final one. It is not without reason that in one of his articles Skorobogatov admitted: “Perhaps no other image could provide such noble material for philosophical generalizations as this one.”39

Luka K. Skorobogatova is unpretentious, businesslike, courageous, unfussy and humane. There is no guile in his attitude towards people. He is convinced that life is organized abnormally, and sincerely, with all his heart, wants to help people. The performer of the hero’s words: “Well, at least I’ll clean the litter here,” interpreted allegorically: “Well, at least I’ll clean your souls.” Skorobogatov was previously very far from outwardly exposing the “wicked old man,” but now his Luke, we read in. one of the reviews, deceives and comforts with inspiration, like a poet who himself believes in his fiction and has an infectious effect on simple, simple-minded, sincere listeners.

The initiative of the Leningraders turned out to be contagious. In the sixties, in addition to the people of Kiev, new ways to play were sought in Arkhangelsk, Gorky, Smolensk, Kirov, Vladivostok and other cities. It dates back to the same time. production of “At the Lower Depths” at the Moscow Sovremennik. Without exaggeration, we can say that never before in our theaters has this play been subjected to such extensive experimentation as at this time. The extent to which this experimentation was conscious and theoretically justified is another question, but the desire to move away from the textbook model of the Moscow Art Theater was clearly visible in many productions.

Thus, in the Vladivostok Drama Theater the play “At the Depths” was performed as a duel between truth and lies. The director of the play, V. Golikov, subordinated the entire course of action and the design itself to the famous statement of A. M. Gorky about the ideological content of the play: “...The main question that I wanted to pose is what is better: truth or compassion? What is more necessary? These words sounded from behind the curtain before the start of the performance, as a kind of epigraph to the entire production. They were accompanied by a short but meaningful pause and ended with a heart-rending human scream. On the stage, instead of bunks, there are cubes of various sizes covered in harsh canvas. From the middle of the stage, a staircase ran up almost to the grate. It served as a sign, a symbol of the depth of the “bottom” where the heroes found themselves. Household accessories are kept to a minimum. Signs of overnight poverty are given conditionally: the Baron has holes in his gloves, a dirty muffler on the Actor’s neck, otherwise the costumes are clean. In the play, everything - be it events, characters, decoration - is considered as an argument in a dispute.

Luke, performed by N. Krylov, is not a hypocrite or an egoist. There is nothing in it that would “ground” this image. According to F. Chernova, who reviewed this performance, Luka N. Krylova is a kind old man with snow-white gray hair and a clean shirt. He sincerely would like to help people, but, wise in life, he knows that this is impossible, and distracts them with a soporific dream from everything painful, sorrowful, dirty. “The lie of such a Luke, not burdened by any personal vices of its bearer, appears as if in its pure form, in the most “blessed” version. That is why the conclusion about the disastrousness of lies that follows from the performance,” the reviewer concludes, “acquires the meaning of an invincible truth.”40

However, the interestingly conceived performance was fraught with great danger. The fact is that the directors and actors were not so much looking for the truth as demonstrating the thesis about the harmfulness of consolation and lies. The heroes of the “bottom” in this performance were doomed in advance. They are cut off, isolated from the world. Although the giant staircase rose high, it did not lead any of the inhabitants of the “bottom” anywhere. She only emphasized the depth of the Kostylevo slums and the futility of Satin, Ash and others’ attempts to get out of the basement. A clear and essentially insoluble contradiction arose between freedom of thought and the given doom and helplessness of a person who finds himself at the bottom of life. By the way, we also saw the staircase on the stage of the Leningrad theater, but there it enhanced the optimistic sound of the play. In general, this attribute was used by Richard Valentin when designing the famous Reinhardt play “At the Depths”.

This idea was also the basis for L. Shcheglov’s production at the Smolensk Drama Theater. To L. Shcheglov, the world of Gorky’s ragamuffins presented itself as a world of alienation. Here everyone lives on their own, alone. People are divided. Luke is the apostle of alienation, for he is sincerely convinced that everyone should fight only for himself. Luka (S. Cherednikov) - according to the author of the review O. Korneva - is of enormous stature, a hefty old man, with a red, weathered and sun-scorched face. He enters the shelter not sideways, not quietly and imperceptibly, but noisily, loudly, with long strides. He is not a comforter, but...a pacifier, a tamer of human rebellion, every impulse, anxiety. He insistently, even persistently, tells Anna about the peace that supposedly awaits her after death, and when Anna interprets the old man’s words in her own way and expresses a desire to suffer here on earth, Luke, the reviewer writes, “simply orders her to die”41.

Satin, on the contrary, seeks to unite these pitiful people. “Gradually, before our eyes,” we read in the review, “in human beings separated, thrown here by the will of circumstances, a sense of camaraderie, a desire to understand each other, and an awareness of the need to live together begin to awaken.”

The idea of ​​overcoming alienation, interesting in itself, did not find sufficiently substantiated expression in the performance. Throughout the entire performance, she was never able to drown out the impression of the cold, dispassionate beat of the metronome, which sounded in the darkness of the auditorium and counted down the seconds, minutes and hours of a human life existing alone. Some conventional techniques for designing the performance, designed more for the effect of perception than for the development of the main idea of ​​the performance, did not contribute to the manifestation of the plan. The performers are unusually young. Their modern costumes are completely different from the picturesque rags of Gorky’s tramps, and Satin’s jeans and Baron’s stylish trousers puzzled even the most free from prejudices of reviewers and spectators, especially since some of the characters (Bubnov, Kleshch) appeared in the guise of artisans of that time, and Vasilisa appeared in the outfits of a Kustodiev merchant's wife.

The Arkhangelsk Theater named after M.V. Lomonosov (director V. Terentyev) took Gorky’s favorite idea about attentive attitude towards each individual human as the basis for its production. People of the “bottom” as interpreted by Arkhangelsk artists care little about their external position as vagabonds and “useless people.” Their main feature is an ineradicable desire for freedom. According to E. Balatova, who reviewed this performance, “it is not the crowding, not the crowding that makes life in this shelter unbearable. Something is bursting inside everyone, breaking out in clumsy, tattered, inept words”42. Kleshch (N. Tenditny) is rushing about, Nastya (O. Ukolova) is swaying heavily, Ash (E. Pavlovsky) is tossing about, just about ready to flee to Siberia... Luka and Satin are not antipodes, they are united by a keen and genuine curiosity about people. However, they were not enemies in the performances of other theaters. Luka (B. Gorshenin) takes a closer look at the night shelters, notes E. Balatova in her review, condescendingly, willingly, and sometimes slyly “feeding” them with his everyday experience. Satin (S. Plotnikov) easily moves from annoying irritation to attempts to awaken something humane in the hardened souls of his comrades. Attentive attitude to living human destinies, and not to abstract ideas, the reviewer concludes, gave the performance “a special freshness,” and from this “hot stream of humanity is born the whirlwind, rapid, deeply emotional rhythm of the entire performance.”

In some respects, the performance of the Kirov Drama Theater was also interesting. A very commendable article about it appeared in the magazine “Theater”43. The play was shown at the All-Union Gorky Theater Festival in the spring of 1968 in Nizhny Novgorod (then the city of Gorky) and received a more restrained and objective assessment44. In the presence of undoubted findings, the director's plan was overly far-fetched, turning the content of the play inside out. If the main idea of ​​the play can be expressed by the words “you can’t live like this,” then the director wanted to say something exactly the opposite: you can live like this, because there is no limit to a person’s adaptability to misfortune. Each of characters on his own example confirmed this initial thesis. The Baron (A. Starochkin) demonstrated his pimping qualities, showed his power over Nastya; Natasha (T. Klinova) – suspicion, distrust; Bubnov (R. Ayupov) - hateful and cynical dislike for oneself and other people, and all together - disunity, indifference to both one’s own and others’ troubles.

Luka I. Tomkevich bursts into this stuffy, gloomy world, obsessed, angry, active. If you believe I. Romanovich, he “brings with him the mighty breath of Russia, its awakening people.” But Satin completely faded and turned into the most ineffective figure in the performance. Such an unexpected interpretation, which makes Luka almost a Petrel, and Satin just an ordinary swindler, is in no way justified by the very content of the play. The director’s attempt to complement Gorky and “expand” the texts of the author’s remarks (the beating of a high school girl by an old woman, fights, chasing swindlers, etc.) did not receive support in criticism either.

The most notable in these years were two productions - in the artist’s homeland, Nizhny Novgorod, and in Moscow, at the Sovremennik Theater.

The play “At the Lower Depths” at the Gorky Academic Drama Theater named after A. M. Gorky, awarded the USSR State Prize and recognized as one of the best at the theater festival in 1968, was indeed interesting and instructive in many ways. At one time, it caused controversy in theater circles and on the pages of the press. Some theater critics and reviewers saw an advantage in the theater’s desire to read the play in a new way, while others, on the contrary, saw a disadvantage. I. Vishnevskaya welcomed the daring of the Nizhny Novgorod residents, and N. Barsukov opposed modernizing the play.

When assessing this production (director B. Voronov, artist V. Gerasimenko), I. Vishnevskaya proceeded from the general humanistic idea. Today, when good human relationships become the criterion of true progress, she wrote, could Gorky’s Luke be with us, isn’t it worth listening to him again, separating fairy tales from truth, lies from kindness? In her opinion, Luke came to people with kindness, with a request not to offend people. She saw exactly this Luka performed by N. Levkoev. She connected his playing with the traditions of the great Moskvin; She attributed to Luke's kindness a beneficial influence on the souls of the night shelters. “And the most interesting thing in this performance,” she concluded, “is the closeness of Satin and Luke, or rather, even the birth of the Satin whom we love and know, precisely after the meeting with Luke”46.

N. Barsukov advocated a historical approach to the play and valued in the performance, first of all, what makes the audience feel “the past century.” He admits that Levkoevsky’s Luka is “a simple, warm-hearted and smiling old man”, that he “causes a desire to be alone with him, to listen to his stories about life, about the power of humanity and truth.” But he is against taking as a standard the humanistic interpretation of the image of Luke, coming on stage from Moskvin. According to his deep conviction, no matter how cordial Luke is presented, the good that he preaches is inactive and harmful. He is also against seeing “some kind of harmony” between Satin and Luke, since there is a conflict between them. He also does not agree with Vishnevskaya’s statement that the Actor’s alleged suicide is not weakness, but “an act, moral purification.” Luke himself, “relying on abstract humanity, finds himself defenseless and forced to leave those he cares about”47.

In the dispute between critics, the editors of the magazine took the side of N. Barsukov, believing that his view of the problem of “classics and modernity” is more correct. However, the dispute did not end there. The performance became the center of attention at the aforementioned festival in Gorky. New articles about him appeared in the Literary Gazette, in the Theater magazine and other publications. Artists joined the controversy.

N. A. Levkoev, People's Artist of the RSFSR, performer of the role of Luke, said:

“I consider Luka, first of all, a lover of humanity.

He has an organic need to do good, he loves a person, suffers, seeing him oppressed by social injustice, and strives to help him in any way he can.

...In each of us there are individual traits of Luke’s character, without which we simply do not have the right to live. Luke states that whoever believes will find. Let us remember the words of our song, which thundered throughout the world: “He who seeks will always find.” Luke says whoever wants something strongly will always achieve it. This is where it is, modernity."48

Characterizing the production of “At the Lower Depths” at the Gorky Drama Theater, Vl. Pimenov emphasized: “This performance is good because we perceive the content of the play, the psychology of the bottom people in a new way. Of course, you can interpret Luka’s life program differently, but I like Luka Levkoeva, whom he played faithfully, soulfully, without completely rejecting, however, the concept that now exists as recognized, as a textbook. Yes, Gorky wrote that Luka has nothing good, he is only a deceiver. However, it seems that the writer would never prohibit the search for new solutions in the characters of the heroes of his plays."49

By the way, in his article about the performance, published in Literaturnaya Gazeta, Vl. Pimenov touched on the performance of another performer of the role of Luka among the Gorkyites - V. Dvorzhetsky. According to him, Dvorzhetsky “portrays Luke as a professional preacher. He is drier, stricter, he simply accepts and puts into his soul other people’s sins and troubles...”

The critic highly appreciated the image of Satin created by V. Samoilov. He is “not an orator solemnly broadcasting loud truths, this Satin in Samoilov is a man with a specific destiny, living passions, close and understandable to the people of the shelter... Looking at Satin - Samoilov, you understand that it is in this Gorky play that many of the beginnings of the intellectual drama are laid modernity"50. Actor (N. Voloshin), Bubnov (N. Khlibko), Kleshch (E. Novikov) are close to Satin. These are people “with human dignity not yet completely wasted.”

In the May issue of the magazine “Theater” for the same 1968, a detailed and in many ways interesting article by V. Sechin “Gorky “in the old way” appeared. Having reproached the Sverdlovsk Drama Theater for the fact that in its “Petty Bourgeois” it treats philistinism “primarily and almost exclusively as a social phenomenon of the historical past,” he focuses on the Nizhny Novgorod production “At the Lower Depths” and in the dispute between Barsukov and Vishnevskaya mainly takes the side of the latter .

In his opinion, Levkoevsky Luka, whom he highly values, is not a “harmful preacher” and is not religious. Luke’s favorite word is not “god,” which he almost never names, but “man,” and “what was considered the prerogative of Satin is in fact the essence of Luke’s image”51. According to the critic, throughout the play “Luka does not lie to anyone and does not deceive anyone.” “It is generally accepted,” notes the author,. - that because of Luke’s advice, everything ends tragically and the lives of the night shelters not only do not change for the better, but become even worse. But none of them act according to Luke’s advice!”52.

Satin in the play, and in essence, is a kind of opposite of Luke. Luke warns Ash, and Satine incites. Samoilov's satin is defiantly picturesque.

He has “a Mephistophelian vulnerability; he seems unable to forgive the world that he is doomed to be a destroyer and not a creator”53.

A significant event in the stage history of “At the Lower Depths” was its production at the Moscow Sovremennik. Director - G. Volchek, artist - P. Kirillov.

General character The performance was quite accurately defined by I. Solovyova and V. Shitova: people are like ordinary people, and every person is worth his price; and life here is like life, one of the options for Russian life; and the shelters - “not human spontaneously combustible garbage, not dust, not husks, but people beaten, crumpled, but not erased - with their own stamp, still visible on each one”54.

They are unusually young, decent in their own way, not neat in the manner of a bedsit, do not shake their rags, do not stir up horrors. And their basement does not look like a cave, or a sewer, or a bottomless well. This is just a temporary shelter where they ended up due to circumstances, but do not intend to stay. They care little about looking like the night shelters of the Khitrov market or the inhabitants of the Nizhny Novgorod Millionka. They are concerned about some more important thought, the idea that everyone is people, that the main thing is not in the situation, but in the real relationships between people, in that inner freedom of spirit, which can be found even at the “bottom”. The Sovremennik artists strive to create on stage not types, but images of people who are sensitive, thoughtful, easily vulnerable and without “passions-muzzles.” The Baron played by A. Myagkov is the least like a traditional pimp. In his attitude towards Nastya, hidden human warmth emerges. Bubnov (P. Shcherbakov) also hides something essentially very good under cynicism, and Vaska Pepel (O. Dal) is truly ashamed to offend the Baron, although, perhaps, he deserved it. Igor Kvasha’s Luka does not play at being kind, he is truly kind, if not by nature, then by deepest conviction. His faith in the inexhaustible spiritual powers of man is ineradicable, and he himself, as the reviewers correctly noted, “will bend, experience all the pain, retain a humiliating memory of it - and straighten up.” He will give in, but not retreat. Satin (E. Evstigneev) will go far in skepticism, but at the right moment he will interrupt himself with a familiar phrase and rediscover for himself and others that it is necessary not to feel sorry, but to respect a person. The deeply humanistic concept of the performance brings both performers and spectators closely to the main thing - to overcome the idea of ​​\u200b\u200bthe “bottom”, to comprehend that real freedom of spirit, without which real life impossible.

The performance, unfortunately, stops there and does not fully reveal the potential possibilities inherent in the play. The tendentiousness of the play, as A. Obraztsova, one of the first reviewers of the play, noted, is broader, deeper, and more philosophically significant than the tendentiousness of its stage interpretation. “The atmosphere of a responsible and complex philosophical debate is not sufficiently felt in the performance... An excess of sensitivity sometimes prevents one from thinking through some important thoughts. The forces in the discussion are not always clearly placed..."55.

A. Obraztsova, while highly appreciating the performance as a whole, was not entirely satisfied with the disclosure of the philosophical, intellectual content of the play. While remaining physically at the bottom of life, Gorky's heroes in their consciousness are already rising from the bottom of life. They comprehend freedom of responsibility (“man pays for everything himself”), freedom of purpose (“man is born for something better”), and are close to liberation from the anarchic perception and interpretation of freedom, but all this, according to the critic, “did not fit” into the performance. The ending was especially bad in this sense.

The finale, in V. Sechin’s opinion, did not work out in the performance of the Gorky Drama Theater either.

“But Luka is not there. The night shelters are drinking. And the theater creates a heavy, dramatic atmosphere of drunken revelry. There is still no genuine feeling of a pre-storm explosion, but, I think, the task of the future directors of “At the Lower Depths” will be precisely to bring the night shelters in the fourth act to the brink of readiness for the most active actions: it is still unclear what each of them can do , but one thing is clear - we can’t live like this any longer, something needs to be done. And then the song “The Sun Rises and Sets” will not be epically calm and peaceful, as in this performance, but, on the contrary, a sign of readiness for action.”56

The production of “At the Lower Depths” at the Moscow Sovremennik did not cause any particular disagreements and disputes in theatrical criticism, similar to the disputes surrounding Gorky’s production. This is apparently explained by the fact that the Muscovites' performance was more defined and complete, both in detail and in the overall design, than that of their provincial colleagues. The latter were, as it were, halfway to a new reading of the play, and they were not moving towards this so decisively. A lot of things came together spontaneously, thanks to the bright personalities of the performers. This applies primarily to the main figures of the play Samoilov - Satin and Levkoev - Luka. The ending was clearly disharmonious with those impulses towards humanity that constituted the very essence of the performance. In the interpretation of the Gorkyites, the ending turned out to be even more traditional than perhaps the most traditional solutions, since it almost tightly closed all exits for the inhabitants of the shelter.

At the same time, the Gorky people's performance in those years turned out to be, perhaps, the only one in which there was no, or rather, no sense of directorial intentionality. Starting from the traditional experience in depicting people of the “bottom”, inspired by the famous production of Stanislavsky and accumulated by his theater, from the stage of which the famous play did not leave for many years before, B. Voronov and his troupe acquired something new simply, naturally, without a premeditated goal. Arguing critics easily found what they wanted in the performance.

Often they assessed the same phenomenon in exactly the opposite way. So, according to some, Kleshch, played by E. Novikov, “finds freedom at the common table in the shelter,” while others, looking at the same game, objected that he, Kleshch, still “does not merge with the shelter, does not plunge into its muddy stream."

Thus, the sixties are an important stage in the stage history of the play “At the Lower Depths”. They confirmed the vitality of the work, its modernity and the inexhaustible stage possibilities of Gorky's dramaturgy. Productions by the Leningrad Drama Theater named after A. S. Pushkin, the Gorky Drama Theater named after A. M. Gorky, and the Moscow Sovremennik Theater revealed the humanistic content of the play “At the Depths” in a new way. There were also interesting attempts to read the famous play in their own way in Kyiv, Vladivostok, Smolensk, Arkhangelsk and some other cities. After many years of inattention from our theaters to this play by Gorky, the sixties turned out to be triumphant for it. Unfortunately, the successes achieved on stage at that time were not developed in the next decade. As soon as the anniversary Gorky days had passed, the performances began to “even out”, “erased”, grew old, or even left the stage altogether - instead of moving forward, towards the present day.

What is the reason?

In anything, but not in the loss of interest in the play on the part of the viewer.

For example, the play “At the Lower Depths” at the Gorky Drama Theater was performed for eleven years and all these years enjoyed steady public attention. This can be seen from the following statistical table.

This is where we should stop.

One of the reasons was the lack of thought and haste with which the anniversary performances were prepared. For all its external simplicity and unpretentiousness, the play “At the Bottom” is multidimensional, multifaceted and filled with the deepest philosophical meaning. During these years, our directors experimented a lot and boldly, but did not always properly justify their experiments. Critics either immeasurably praised theatrical endeavors, as was the case, for example, with the production at the Kirov Drama Theater, or subjected them to unfounded condemnation and in the theaters’ attempts to read Gorky in a new way, they saw nothing but a “fad”, which supposedly “is in direct contradictions with the development of our literature and all our art."

The play “At the Bottom” did not have much luck with criticism.

Its first and, perhaps, most biased and harsh critic was Maxim Gorky himself.

Describing the brilliant success of the play at the Art Theater, he wrote to K. Pyatnitsky: “Nevertheless, neither the public nor the reviewers understood the play. They praise, they praise, but they don’t want to understand. Now I understand - who is to blame? Moskvin-Luka's talent or the author's inability? And I’m not having much fun.”57

In a conversation with an employee of St. Petersburg Vedomosti, Gorky will repeat and strengthen what he said.

“Gorky quite openly recognized his dramatic brainchild as a failed work, alien in concept to both Gorky’s worldview and his previous literary sentiments. The texture of the play does not correspond at all to its final construction. According to the author's main plan, Luke, for example, was supposed to be a negative type. In contrast, it was supposed to give a positive type - Satina, true hero plays, Gorky's alter ego. In fact, everything turned out the other way around: Luka, with his philosophizing, turned into a positive type, and Satin, unexpectedly for himself, found himself in the role of Luka’s aching podgut”58.

A little more time will pass, and another author’s confession will appear in the Petersburg Newspaper:

“Is it true that you yourself are dissatisfied with your work? – Yes, the play is written rather poorly. It does not contradict what Luke says; The main question I. I wanted to put it - what is better, truth or compassion? What is more needed? Is it necessary to take compassion to the point of using lies, like Luke? This is not a subjective question, but a general philosophical one, Luke is a representative of compassion and even lies as a means of salvation, and yet there is no opposition to Luke’s sermon, there are no representatives of truth in the play. The Tick, the Baron, the Ashes are facts of life, and we must distinguish facts from truth. This is far from the same thing. Bubnov is protesting against lies.” And, further, that “the sympathies of the author of “At the Depth” are not on the side of preachers of lies and compassion, but, on the contrary, on the side of those who strive for the truth”59.

Over the years, the negative attitude towards the play on the part of its author will not only not weaken, but will even intensify.

In “The Life of Klim Samgin,” even Dronov, who generally likes the play, calls it “the most naive thing.” As for the other heroes, they directly and unequivocally condemn this work of Gorky.

Dmitry Samgin tells Klim: “I didn’t like the play, there’s nothing in it, just words. Feuilleton on the topic of humanism. And - surprisingly, this humanism, heated to anarchism, is out of time! In general, it’s bad chemistry.” A certain Depsames will say about her this way: “You look at the theater of tramps and think to find gold in the mud, but there is no gold, there is pyrites, sulfuric acid is made from it, so that jealous women splash it into the eyes of their contestants...”

Of course, the statements of the heroes of “The Life of Klim Samgin” about the play “At the Depths” and about “useless people,” tramps and tramps reflected that critical confusion, that “turmoil of the era” that was characteristic of pre-revolutionary disputes about the play. But Gorky writes an article “On Plays” (1933), in which he leaves no doubt about his attitude towards “At the Depths”: “From everything I have said about this play, I hope it is clear to what extent it is unsuccessful, how poorly reflected it contains the observations stated above and how weak it is “plot-wise”. “At the Bottom” is an outdated play and, perhaps, even harmful in our days” (26, 425).

Gorky's merciless attitude towards his own creations is well known. S.I. Sukhikh, who specially studied this issue, calculated that Gorky’s published texts “contain over two hundred statements by the writer about himself, and almost all of them - with rare exceptions - are sharply critical in nature”60. To support his conclusion, he cites a number of the artist’s reviews of his works: “Chelkash” is a clumsy story” (29, 436); the programmatic story for the 90s, “The Reader,” is “a very chaotic thing” (25.352); “What a disgusting thing this “Reader” of mine is!” (28, 247); “Foma Gordeev” - “I lost it with “Foma”. Thomas himself is dull... And there is a lot of unnecessary things in this story" (28, 92) ... "Mother" - "the book is really bad, written in a state of passion and irritation * with propaganda intentions" ... "Philistines" - "the play is amazingly boring... It is long, boring and absurd" (28, 272).

From the materials cited by the researcher, it is clear that even against the backdrop of Gorky’s unflattering judgments about his own creations, his attitude towards “At the Lower Depths” was somehow especially unkind. It had consequences. Producers and directors of the 30s cooled towards the play. It is not without reason that in the preface to one of the collections dedicated to this work it is said: “At the Lower Depths” has not appeared on our stage in recent years, with the exception of the Moscow Art Theater.”61 At the Art Theater itself, the play was performed less frequently in those years than usual. This derogatory characterization made a particularly strong impression on critics.

The criticism of the twenties in relation to “At the Depths,” frankly speaking, was meager and of little interest. Various, sometimes very scathing, but shallow judgments were expressed about the play. It was said, for example, that Gorky’s play is “the philosophy of slaves, the poetry of the powerless and despairing”62.

After the aforementioned speech by A. M. Gorky, they began to look at the play not so much as a work of art, but as an indictment of the past. The main and perhaps the only goal of the author, it was believed then, was to expose Luke, to mercilessly expose his consolation and lies.

It is noteworthy that some critics, characterizing the harmful essence of the “wicked old man,” turned the conversation to exposing the author himself, who, it turns out, once sympathized with Luke. They reminded him of God-seeking, God-building and other sins and came to the conclusion that the play “At the Lower Depths” was indeed a flawed work in ideological terms.

The author directly points out that the diversity of opinions about the play “At the Lower Depths” is generated by the defects of the play itself. A very contradictory, mutually exclusive reaction to the image of Luke, and even Satin, from both readers of the play and theater critics occurs, in his opinion, primarily because this crafty comforter, “the reconciler of the irreconcilable,” the deceitful preacher of class peace between slaves and masters is exposed , is debunked not so much from class, but from universal human positions. In the play “At the Bottom,” he writes, “general democratic positions are clearly felt, and not the positions of proletarian democracy.” Prozhogin himself does not recognize either the general democratic or universal content in humanism, since from these positions nothing can be achieved other than “insignificant changes in the constitutional order”; in reality, only proletarian humanism and bourgeois humanism exist. “And since the class essence of proletarian, socialist humanism in this particular play was not expressed by Gorky with sufficient clarity, the dirty hands of representatives of different classes, different political and ideological orientations reached out to Satin, as well as to Luke.”

“Humanism,” we read from V. Prozhogin, “is a purely class, historical concept. Universal humanism is being developed by the working class, but it will become a tangible reality only when the working class itself, having abolished all the exploiting classes hostile to it, abolishes itself as a class, creating a classless society.” And while there are two worlds, any talk about universal humanity seems to him not only pointless, but also harmful, benefiting our ideological opponents.

From the point of view of V. Prozhogin, there is no need to talk about the artistic merits of the play “At the Lower Depths”: the legend about this play as “the pinnacle of Gorky’s work” was created for ideological purposes by liberal-bourgeois criticism itself. With the play “At the Lower Depths,” in his opinion, “they wanted to weaken the influence on the broad masses of the people, on the working class, of such Gorky masterpieces as the story “Mother”, the play “Enemies” and his first play “The Bourgeois.” He advises to listen more carefully to Gorky’s own self-assessment of the play and criticizes, on the one hand, Luke, this fierce preacher of non-resistance to evil through violence, a comforter and a liar, and on the other, Satin, whom he calls a philosophizing cheater. In the end, the culprit for everything turns out to be Gorky, who at one time failed to navigate the complex ideological situation.

The inconsistency of V. Prozhogin’s statements is obvious; The nutrient medium that nurtured them is also obvious – the vulgar sociological aesthetics of the 20s and 30s. These statements were criticized by B. A. Bialik in his article “Man of the Century”64.

Relapses of vulgar sociologism in the form we encounter in V. Prozhogin’s book are a rare phenomenon in modern times (at least in print). It's easy to expose his weaknesses. It is much more difficult to realize something else, namely: what V. Prozhogin expressed, we repeat in one way or another in school classes, from university departments and on the pages of reputable and not very reputable publications, only, perhaps, in more refined forms.

In fact, hasn’t the idea of ​​exposing Luke passed through our entire history, literary criticism? Even V.V. Borovsky considered Luka as a “charlatan of humanity”, A. Myasnikov found these words completely fair and added a few strong words of his own to the “false pacifier of the suffering, thirsting for oblivion in lies”65.

Yu. Yuzovsky back in the late 30s put forward the sensible idea of ​​not identifying Luka from Gorky’s article with the image of Luka from Gorky’s play. When asked how to play Luke, he answered: “You need to play Luke, who is given in the play”66.

“Our theaters and our criticism,” he wrote then, “were for a long time under the impression of Gorky’s instructions on the harmfulness of the play. This view is being revised, theaters are returning to the play after a long break. But at the same time, they are afraid to bring the matter to its logical conclusion and take a half-hearted position, which can only bring harm. Performances have already appeared on the peripheral stage, about which local reviewers wrote that Luka is a “scoundrel,” “scoundrel,” “provocateur,” “scoundrel,” and that he causes “disgust in the audience,” a lie that even Luka would not have dared to commit. . The same reviewers wrote about the failure of these performances and wondered why this happened."67

But the “revision” turned out to be different simple matter neither for theaters nor for critics. Yuzovsky himself, who called in the interests of truth to “return to Luka what belongs to him,” these words largely remained only a declaration. “Interpreting the play in the most detailed way,” says one article, “he (Yu. Yuzovsky), of course, did not replace Luke from the play with Luke from the article, as other authors sometimes did, but he, willingly or unwillingly, had these two different images unexpectedly combined, and Luke from the play ultimately turned out to be “harmful” and “exposed”68. The main feature of Luka’s psychology and ideology, concludes Yu. Yuzovsky, “is the feature of slavery, the psychology of slavery, the ideology of slavery”69. The critic firmly “ties” Luka to Kostylev and Bubnov and, in addition, finds a lot of personal shortcomings in him. He, Luke, “instinctively becomes a coward in all those cases when a collision occurs, in those cases when he might get hurt”70. As a result, Yu. Yuzovsky will come to what P. S. Kogan asserted a decade earlier: Luke is “the comforter of slaves and masters”71.

The following years did not bring anything comforting to Luka. On the contrary, his characterization in our critical works has become even harsher, even more categorical. He was deprived of even those few positive moral qualities that Yu. Yuzovsky tried to “return” to him: kindness, compassion for people. Luke's very sincerity was blamed on him, since a sincere lie, they said, was more harmful than a Pharisaic lie. Poor Luka was burdened with all the hardships of the “worthless”: Luka, this enemy of the revolutionary transformation of life, inflicts the final, treacherous blow on his fellow sufferers with his comforting lies. He was declared a direct accomplice of Kostylev and the culprit not only of the death of the Actor, but also of the spiritual “drama of the Tick and, in general, of all the misfortunes of the night shelters.

B. A. Bialik, who in his works about the play “At the Lower Depths” proceeds mainly from the ideas of Yu. Yuzovsky, when characterizing Luke, however, decisively rejects the idea of ​​his predecessor about two Lukes. To the question of whether Luke in the play turned out to be one of those “cold” preachers, devoid of “living and active faith,” which Gorky recalled in his essay about Leo Tolstoy and about whom he later wrote in the article “On the Plays,” B. A. Bialik answers in the affirmative: it worked.

Luke's humanism - in the critic's view - is not only imaginary, but also self-interested, and his kindness is false. He does not believe a single word of Luke and “turns” all his famous aphorisms inside out.

“What does the idea mean in the mouth of Luke that a person, “no matter what he is, is always worth his price...” asks the critic and answers: “It means that all people are equal not in strength, but in weakness...”72.

“Luke utters words that sound so that they can be passed off as the thought of Gorky himself: “A person can do anything... if only he wants to...” “But what idea do these words convey in Luke? – the critic asks again and answers himself:

“In Luke’s view, to want something means to believe in something, and to believe means to gain the strength to endure.”

“They may ask,” B. Bialik poses another question, “what to do with Luke’s thought that one must see first of all the good in a person, and not the bad? Isn’t this one of the most favorite thoughts of Gorky himself, who declared himself: “I am obviously created by nature to hunt for the good and the positive, and not the negative” (24, 389)?”

But our critic is not one of those who can be drawn to such parallels. You never know what words a crafty old man can say! We must be vigilant. To do this, “you only have to think about what Luke means by “good” in a person, and it will immediately become clear” that for Luke “the good, the best in a person is the ability to endure”73.

Let’s assume that you don’t need to trust words, although in the play the word is the deed. But, besides words, Luke has actions, very definite relationships with other people... But B. A. Bialik almost does not touch upon the specific content of the image, as well as the entire play as a whole. He talks about Luke and the other inhabitants of the shelter as if on top of the text and analyzes not so much the living fabric of the work as various judgments about it, concepts, points of view, etc. Luke himself interests the researcher not as a living person, but as a typical bearer of the idea of ​​consolation. The critic “pulls up” everything he can under this idea, comparing Luka not only with Oblomov, Zosima and Karataev (the old man got used to this a long time ago), but also with Leo Tolstoy himself. He tests the strength of the hero’s position with a quote from Lenin and asserts the harmfulness of the lies of the crafty wanderer with such confidence and categoricalness that even the ten Lukes cannot resist.

By the way, V. Prozhogin, accusing Luka, also relies least of all on the text of the play. In his hands are provisions and quotes from Gorky’s articles, which he uses very skillfully. The critic in his book does not look as primitive and helpless as it might seem from the review by B. A. Bialik, mentioned above. Between V. Prozhogin and his reviewer, as the author of a book on Gorky’s dramaturgy, some commonality is seen in their approach to the image of Luke. It lies in the fact that both researchers interpret this image based on a ready-made idea of ​​the type of “cold” comforter, compiled not so much from the play as from the mentioned article by M. Gorky. Willingly or unwittingly, consciously or unnoticed by himself, B. A. Bialik “adjusts” the image of Luka from “At the Lower Depths” to the type of comforter depicted by Gorky in the article “On Plays.” As for V. Prozhogin, he proceeds from the identification of these two images as an axiom.

V. Prozhogin, as already mentioned, criticized not only Luke, but also Satin. B. A. Bialik, on the contrary, treats Satin as an unconditionally positive hero, Luke’s main opponent. In Satin’s words about a man whose name “sounds proud,” he sees “a direct refutation of the very foundations of Luke’s attitude towards man as a weak being, in need of pity, in illusions, in deception and self-deception,” and in Satin’s speeches concluding the second and fourth act, he imagines “pain for a person and anger against his weakness, that weakness because of which a person ceases to be a Man”74.

But everything that seems to the critic in Satin’s speeches has to be taken on faith, since in his book there is almost no evidence on this matter. In general, Satin as the hero of B. A. Bialik is of little interest. Of the extensive chapter in his book dedicated to the play “At the Bottom” and occupying about sixty pages, Satin’s share in total is allocated no more than two.

Let’s not guess why the critic doesn’t believe a penny in Luke and believes Satin without a word. Let us only note that the exaltation of this hero was outlined by Yuzovsky, who connected the past with Luka, and the future with Satin. “The only image,” he wrote, “about which it can be said that at the beginning he is the same as at the end is Satin, but this is because his position is the only correct one in relation to others and does not need correction in this case.” 75.

However, in V. Prozhogin’s criticism of Satin there is no initiative, since approximately from the mid-fifties our literary scholars began to manifest a negative attitude not only towards Luke, but also towards Satin. Thus, B. Mikhailovsky in the book “Gorky’s Drama of the Epoch of the First Russian Revolution” (1955) reduced the meaning of the philosophical concept of the play “At the Lower Depths” not only to exposing Luke’s “comforting lies”, but also to criticizing “anarchism” in the person of Satin. S. V. Kastorsky characterizes Satin as an individualist, who “is characterized by the tramp philosophy of anarchism, which in some ways echoes Nietzscheanism.” According to the researcher, healthy humanistic impulses have not yet died out in Satin, but they will “gradually die in him”76.

B. Kostelyanets, citing Yuzovsky’s words about the static, unchangeable nature of Satin, directly raised the question of the reasoning of Gorky’s hero. He found this image no less contradictory than the image of Luke, and came to the conclusion that in this sense the play “does not debunk” either the Tick or Luke and “does not crown” Satin77.

Finally, let us dwell on the so-called “fault” of M. Gorky as the author of the play “At the Depths”.

End of introductory fragment.

This idea was also the basis for L. Shcheglov’s production at the Smolensk Drama Theater. To L. Shcheglov, the world of Gorky’s ragamuffins presented itself as a world of alienation. Here everyone lives on their own, alone. People are divided. Luke is the apostle of alienation, for he is sincerely convinced that everyone should fight only for himself. Luka (S. Cherednikov) - according to the author of the review O. Korneva - is of enormous stature, a hefty old man, with a red, weathered and sun-scorched face. He enters the shelter not sideways, not quietly and imperceptibly, but noisily, loudly, with long strides. He is not a comforter, but...a pacifier, a tamer of human rebellion, every impulse, anxiety. He insistently, even persistently, tells Anna about the peace that supposedly awaits her after death, and when Anna interprets the old man’s words in her own way and expresses a desire to suffer here on earth, Luke, the reviewer writes, “simply orders her to die.” 41
Theater life, 1967, No. 10, p. 24.

Satin, on the contrary, seeks to unite these pitiful people. “Gradually, before our eyes,” we read in the review, “in human beings separated, thrown here by the will of circumstances, a sense of camaraderie, a desire to understand each other, and an awareness of the need to live together begin to awaken.”

The idea of ​​overcoming alienation, interesting in itself, did not find sufficiently substantiated expression in the performance. Throughout the entire performance, she was never able to drown out the impression of the cold, dispassionate beat of the metronome, which sounded in the darkness of the auditorium and counted down the seconds, minutes and hours of a human life existing alone. Some conventional techniques for designing the performance, designed more for the effect of perception than for the development of the main idea of ​​the performance, did not contribute to the manifestation of the plan. The performers are unusually young. Their modern costumes are completely different from the picturesque rags of Gorky’s tramps, and Satin’s jeans and Baron’s stylish trousers puzzled even the most free from prejudices of reviewers and spectators, especially since some of the characters (Bubnov, Kleshch) appeared in the guise of artisans of that time, and Vasilisa appeared in the outfits of a Kustodiev merchant's wife.

The Arkhangelsk Theater named after M.V. Lomonosov (director V. Terentyev) took Gorky’s favorite idea about attentive attitude towards each individual human as the basis for its production. People of the “bottom” as interpreted by Arkhangelsk artists care little about their external position as vagabonds and “useless people.” Their main feature is an ineradicable desire for freedom. According to E. Balatova, who reviewed this performance, “it is not the crowding, not the crowding that makes life in this shelter unbearable. Something is bursting inside everyone, breaking out in clumsy, tattered, inept words.” 42
Theater life, 1966, No. 14, p. 11.

Kleshch (N. Tenditny) is rushing about, Nastya (O. Ukolova) is swaying heavily, Ash (E. Pavlovsky) is tossing about, just about ready to flee to Siberia... Luka and Satin are not antipodes, they are united by a keen and genuine curiosity about people. However, they were not enemies in the performances of other theaters. Luka (B. Gorshenin) takes a closer look at the night shelters, notes E. Balatova in her review, condescendingly, willingly, and sometimes slyly “feeding” them with his everyday experience. Satin (S. Plotnikov) easily moves from annoying irritation to attempts to awaken something humane in the hardened souls of his comrades. Attentive attention to living human destinies, and not to abstract ideas, the reviewer concludes, gave the performance “a special freshness,” and from this “hot stream of humanity comes the whirlwind, rapid, deeply emotional rhythm of the entire performance.”

In some respects, the performance of the Kirov Drama Theater was also interesting. A very commendable article about it appeared in the magazine “Theater” 43
See: Romanovich I. Ordinary misfortune. "At the bottom." M. Gorky. Staged by V. Lansky. Drama Theater named after S. M. Kirov. Kirov, 1968. – Theater, 1968, No. 9, p. 33-38.

The play was shown at the All-Union Gorky Theater Festival in the spring of 1968 in Nizhny Novgorod (then the city of Gorky) and received a more restrained and objective assessment 44
See: 1968 – the year of Gorky. – Theatre, 1968, No. 9, p. 14.

In the presence of undoubted findings, the director's plan was overly far-fetched, turning the content of the play inside out. If the main idea of ​​the play can be expressed by the words “you can’t live like this,” then the director wanted to say something exactly the opposite: you can live like this, because there is no limit to a person’s adaptability to misfortune. Each of the characters confirmed this initial thesis in their own way. The Baron (A. Starochkin) demonstrated his pimping qualities, showed his power over Nastya; Natasha (T. Klinova) – suspicion, distrust; Bubnov (R. Ayupov) - hateful and cynical dislike for oneself and other people, and all together - disunity, indifference to both one’s own and others’ troubles.

Luka I. Tomkevich bursts into this stuffy, gloomy world, obsessed, angry, active. If you believe I. Romanovich, he “brings with him the mighty breath of Russia, its awakening people.” But Satin completely faded and turned into the most ineffective figure in the performance. Such an unexpected interpretation, which makes Luka almost a Petrel, and Satin just an ordinary swindler, is in no way justified by the very content of the play. The director’s attempt to complement Gorky and “expand” the texts of the author’s remarks (the beating of a schoolgirl by an old woman, fights, chasing swindlers, etc.) did not receive support in criticism either. 45
Alekseeva A. N. Modern problems of stage interpretation of the dramaturgy of A. M. Gorky. – In the book: Gorky Readings. 1976. Proceedings of the conference “A. M. Gorky and the theater.” Gorky, 1977, p. 24.

The most notable in these years were two productions - in the artist’s homeland, Nizhny Novgorod, and in Moscow, at the Sovremennik Theater.

The play “At the Lower Depths” at the Gorky Academic Drama Theater named after A. M. Gorky, awarded the USSR State Prize and recognized as one of the best at the theater festival in 1968, was indeed interesting and instructive in many ways. At one time, it caused controversy in theater circles and on the pages of the press. Some theater critics and reviewers saw an advantage in the theater’s desire to read the play in a new way, while others, on the contrary, saw a disadvantage. I. Vishnevskaya welcomed the daring of the Nizhny Novgorod residents, and N. Barsukov opposed modernizing the play.

When assessing this production (director B. Voronov, artist V. Gerasimenko), I. Vishnevskaya proceeded from a general humanistic idea. Today, when good human relationships become the criterion of true progress, she wrote, could Gorky’s Luke be with us, isn’t it worth listening to him again, separating fairy tales from truth, lies from kindness? In her opinion, Luke came to people with kindness, with a request not to offend people. She saw exactly this Luka performed by N. Levkoev. She connected his playing with the traditions of the great Moskvin; She attributed to Luke's kindness a beneficial influence on the souls of the night shelters. “And the most interesting thing in this performance,” she concluded, “is the closeness of Satin and Luke, or rather, even the birth of the Satin whom we love and know, precisely after meeting Luke.” 46
Vishnevskaya I. It started as usual. – Theater life, 1967, No. 24, p. 11.

N. Barsukov advocated a historical approach to the play and valued in the performance, first of all, what makes the audience feel “the past century.” He admits that Levkoevsky’s Luka is “a simple, warm-hearted and smiling old man”, that he “causes a desire to be alone with him, to listen to his stories about life, about the power of humanity and truth.” But he is against taking as a standard the humanistic interpretation of the image of Luke, coming on stage from Moskvin. According to his deep conviction, no matter how cordial Luke is presented, the good that he preaches is inactive and harmful. He is also against seeing “some kind of harmony” between Satin and Luke, since there is a conflict between them. He also does not agree with Vishnevskaya’s statement that the Actor’s alleged suicide is not weakness, but “an act, moral purification.” Luke himself, “relying on abstract humanity, finds himself defenseless and forced to leave those he cares about.” 47
Barsukov N. The truth is behind Gorky. – Theater life, 1967, No. 24, p. 12.

In the dispute between critics, the editors of the magazine took the side of N. Barsukov, believing that his view of the problem of “classics and modernity” is more correct. However, the dispute did not end there. The performance became the center of attention at the aforementioned festival in Gorky. New articles about him appeared in the Literary Gazette, in the Theater magazine and other publications. Artists joined the controversy.

N. A. Levkoev, People's Artist of the RSFSR, performer of the role of Luke, said:

“I consider Luka, first of all, a lover of humanity.

He has an organic need to do good, he loves a person, suffers, seeing him oppressed by social injustice, and strives to help him in any way he can.

...In each of us there are individual traits of Luke’s character, without which we simply do not have the right to live. Luke states that whoever believes will find. Let us remember the words of our song, which thundered throughout the world: “He who seeks will always find.” Luke says whoever wants something strongly will always achieve it. This is where it is, modernity" 48
Theater, 1968, No. 3, p. 14-15.

Characterizing the production of “At the Lower Depths” at the Gorky Drama Theater, Vl. Pimenov emphasized: “This performance is good because we perceive the content of the play, the psychology of the bottom people in a new way. Of course, you can interpret Luka’s life program differently, but I like Luka Levkoeva, whom he played faithfully, soulfully, without completely rejecting, however, the concept that now exists as recognized, as a textbook. Yes, Gorky wrote that Luka has nothing good, he is only a deceiver. However, it seems that the writer would never prohibit the search for new solutions in the characters of the heroes of his plays." 49
There, p. 16.

By the way, in his article about the performance, published in Literaturnaya Gazeta, Vl. Pimenov touched on the performance of another performer of the role of Luka among the Gorkyites - V. Dvorzhetsky. According to him, Dvorzhetsky “portrays Luke as a professional preacher. He is drier, stricter, he simply accepts and puts into his soul other people’s sins and troubles...”

The critic highly appreciated the image of Satin created by V. Samoilov. He is “not an orator solemnly broadcasting loud truths, this Satin in Samoilov is a man with a specific destiny, living passions, close and understandable to the people of the shelter... Looking at Satin - Samoilov, you understand that it is in this Gorky play that many of the beginnings of the intellectual drama are laid modernity" 50
Pimenov V l. Traditional and new. “At the Lower Depths” at the Gorky Drama Theater. – Literary newspaper, 1968, March 20.

Actor (N. Voloshin), Bubnov (N. Khlibko), Kleshch (E. Novikov) are close to Satin. These are people “with human dignity not yet completely wasted.”

In the May issue of the magazine “Theater” for the same 1968, a detailed and in many ways interesting article by V. Sechin “Gorky “in the old way” appeared. Having reproached the Sverdlovsk Drama Theater for the fact that in its “Petty Bourgeois” it treats philistinism “primarily and almost exclusively as a social phenomenon of the historical past,” he focuses on the Nizhny Novgorod production “At the Lower Depths” and in the dispute between Barsukov and Vishnevskaya mainly takes the side of the latter .

In his opinion, Levkoevsky Luka, whom he highly values, is not a “harmful preacher” and is not religious. Luke’s favorite word is not “god,” which he almost never names, but “man,” and “what was considered the prerogative of Satin is in fact the essence of Luke’s image.” 51
Theater, 1968, No. 5, p. 22.

According to the critic, throughout the play “Luka does not lie to anyone and does not deceive anyone.” “It is generally accepted,” notes the author,. - that because of Luke’s advice, everything ends tragically and the lives of the night shelters not only do not change for the better, but become even worse. But none of them act according to Luke’s advice!” 52
There, p. 24.

Satin in the play, and in essence, is a kind of opposite of Luke. Luke warns Ash, and Satine incites. Samoilov's satin is defiantly picturesque.

He has a “Mephistophelian vulnerability; it’s as if he cannot forgive the world that he is doomed to be a destroyer and not a creator.” 53
Theater, 1968, No. 5, p. 25.

A significant event in the stage history of “At the Lower Depths” was its production at the Moscow Sovremennik. Director - G. Volchek, artist - P. Kirillov.

The general character of the performance was quite accurately defined by I. Solovyova and V. Shitova: people are like ordinary people, and every person is worth his price; and life here is like life, one of the options for Russian life; and the shelters - “not human spontaneously combustible garbage, not dust, not husks, but people who are beaten, crumpled, but not erased - with their own stamp, still visible on each one” 54
Soloviev I., Shitova V. People of the new performance, - Theater, 1969, No. 3, p. 7.

They are unusually young, decent in their own way, not neat in the manner of a bedsit, do not shake their rags, do not stir up horrors. And their basement does not look like a cave, or a sewer, or a bottomless well. This is just a temporary shelter where they ended up due to circumstances, but do not intend to stay. They care little about looking like the night shelters of the Khitrov market or the inhabitants of the Nizhny Novgorod Millionka. They are concerned about some more important thought, the idea that everyone is people, that the main thing is not in the situation, but in the real relationships between people, in that inner freedom of spirit, which can be found even at the “bottom”. The Sovremennik artists strive to create on stage not types, but images of people who are sensitive, thoughtful, easily vulnerable and without “passions-muzzles.” The Baron played by A. Myagkov is the least like a traditional pimp. In his attitude towards Nastya, hidden human warmth emerges. Bubnov (P. Shcherbakov) also hides something essentially very good under cynicism, and Vaska Pepel (O. Dal) is truly ashamed to offend the Baron, although, perhaps, he deserved it. Igor Kvasha’s Luka does not play at being kind, he is truly kind, if not by nature, then by deepest conviction. His faith in the inexhaustible spiritual powers of man is ineradicable, and he himself, as the reviewers correctly noted, “will bend, experience all the pain, retain a humiliating memory of it - and straighten up.” He will give in, but not retreat. Satin (E. Evstigneev) will go far in skepticism, but at the right moment he will interrupt himself with a familiar phrase and rediscover for himself and others that it is necessary not to feel sorry, but to respect a person. The deeply humanistic concept of the performance brings both performers and spectators closely to the main thing - to overcome the idea of ​​\u200b\u200bthe “bottom”, to comprehend that real freedom of spirit, without which real life is impossible.

The performance, unfortunately, stops there and does not fully reveal the potential possibilities inherent in the play. The tendentiousness of the play, as A. Obraztsova, one of the first reviewers of the play, noted, is broader, deeper, and more philosophically significant than the tendentiousness of its stage interpretation. “The atmosphere of a responsible and complex philosophical debate is not sufficiently felt in the performance... An excess of sensitivity sometimes prevents one from thinking through some important thoughts. The forces in the discussion are not always clearly defined..." 55
Soviet culture, 1968, December 28.

A. Obraztsova, while highly appreciating the performance as a whole, was not entirely satisfied with the disclosure of the philosophical, intellectual content of the play. While remaining physically at the bottom of life, Gorky's heroes in their consciousness are already rising from the bottom of life. They comprehend freedom of responsibility (“man pays for everything himself”), freedom of purpose (“man is born for something better”), and are close to liberation from the anarchic perception and interpretation of freedom, but all this, according to the critic, “did not fit” into the performance. The ending was especially bad in this sense.

The finale, in V. Sechin’s opinion, did not work out in the performance of the Gorky Drama Theater either.

“But Luka is not there. The night shelters are drinking. And the theater creates a heavy, dramatic atmosphere of drunken revelry. There is still no genuine feeling of a pre-storm explosion, but, I think, the task of the future directors of “At the Lower Depths” will be precisely to bring the night shelters in the fourth act to the brink of readiness for the most active actions: it is still unclear what each of them can do , but one thing is clear - we can’t live like this any longer, something needs to be done. And then the song “The Sun Rises and Sets” will not be epically calm and peaceful, as in this performance, but, on the contrary, a sign of readiness for action.” 56
Sechin V. Gorky “in the old way.” – Theatre, 1968, No. 5, p. 26.

The production of “At the Lower Depths” at the Moscow Sovremennik did not cause any particular disagreements and disputes in theatrical criticism, similar to the disputes surrounding Gorky’s production. This is apparently explained by the fact that the Muscovites' performance was more defined and complete, both in detail and in the overall design, than that of their provincial colleagues. The latter were, as it were, halfway to a new reading of the play, and they were not moving towards this so decisively. A lot of things came together spontaneously, thanks to the bright personalities of the performers. This applies primarily to the main figures of the play Samoilov - Satin and Levkoev - Luka. The ending was clearly disharmonious with those impulses towards humanity that constituted the very essence of the performance. In the interpretation of the Gorky residents, the ending turned out to be even more traditional than perhaps the most traditional solutions, since it almost tightly closed all exits for the inhabitants of the shelter.

At the same time, the Gorky people's performance in those years turned out to be, perhaps, the only one in which there was no, or rather, no sense of directorial intentionality. Starting from the traditional experience in depicting people of the “bottom”, inspired by the famous production of Stanislavsky and accumulated by his theater, from the stage of which the famous play did not leave for many years before, B. Voronov and his troupe acquired something new simply, naturally, without a premeditated goal. Arguing critics easily found what they wanted in the performance.

Often they assessed the same phenomenon in exactly the opposite way. So, according to some, Kleshch, played by E. Novikov, “finds freedom at the common table in the shelter,” while others, looking at the same game, objected that he, Kleshch, still “does not merge with the shelter, does not plunge into its muddy stream."

Thus, the sixties are an important stage in the stage history of the play “At the Lower Depths”. They confirmed the vitality of the work, its modernity and the inexhaustible stage possibilities of Gorky's dramaturgy. Productions by the Leningrad Drama Theater named after A. S. Pushkin, the Gorky Drama Theater named after A. M. Gorky, and the Moscow Sovremennik Theater revealed the humanistic content of the play “At the Depths” in a new way. There were also interesting attempts to read the famous play in their own way in Kyiv, Vladivostok, Smolensk, Arkhangelsk and some other cities. After many years of inattention from our theaters to this play by Gorky, the sixties turned out to be triumphant for it. Unfortunately, the successes achieved on stage at that time were not developed in the next decade. As soon as the anniversary Gorky days had passed, the performances began to “even out”, “erased”, grew old, or even left the stage altogether - instead of moving forward, towards the present day.

What is the reason?

In anything, but not in the loss of interest in the play on the part of the viewer.

For example, the play “At the Lower Depths” at the Gorky Drama Theater was performed for eleven years and all these years enjoyed steady public attention. This can be seen from the following statistical table.

This is where we should stop.

One of the reasons was the lack of thought and haste with which the anniversary performances were prepared. For all its external simplicity and unpretentiousness, the play “At the Bottom” is multidimensional, multifaceted and filled with the deepest philosophical meaning. During these years, our directors experimented a lot and boldly, but did not always properly justify their experiments. Critics either immeasurably praised theatrical endeavors, as was the case, for example, with the production at the Kirov Drama Theater, or subjected them to unfounded condemnation and in the theaters’ attempts to read Gorky in a new way, they saw nothing but a “fad”, which supposedly “is in direct contradictions with the development of our literature and all our art."

The play “At the Bottom” did not have much luck with criticism.

Its first and, perhaps, most biased and harsh critic was Maxim Gorky himself.

Describing the brilliant success of the play at the Art Theater, he wrote to K. Pyatnitsky: “Nevertheless, neither the public nor the reviewers understood the play. They praise, they praise, but they don’t want to understand. Now I understand - who is to blame? Moskvin-Luka's talent or the author's inability? And I'm not having much fun." 57
Gorky M. Collection. Op. in 30 volumes. M., 1949-1956, vol. 28, p. 279. In the future, references to this publication will be given in the text indicating the volume and page.

In a conversation with an employee of St. Petersburg Vedomosti, Gorky will repeat and strengthen what he said.

“Gorky quite openly recognized his dramatic brainchild as a failed work, alien in concept to both Gorky’s worldview and his previous literary sentiments. The texture of the play does not correspond at all to its final construction. According to the author's main plan, Luke, for example, was supposed to be a negative type. In contrast to him, it was supposed to give a positive type - Satin, the true hero of the play, Gorky's alter ego. In fact, everything turned out the other way around: Luka, with his philosophizing, turned into a positive type, and Satin, unexpectedly for himself, found himself in the role of Luka’s aching podgut.” 58
Internal news (Moscow). – St. Petersburg Gazette, 1903, April 14.

A little more time will pass, and another author’s confession will appear in the Petersburg Newspaper:

“Is it true that you yourself are dissatisfied with your work? – Yes, the play is written rather poorly. It does not contradict what Luke says; The main question I. I wanted to put it - what is better, truth or compassion? What is more needed? Is it necessary to take compassion to the point of using lies, like Luke? This is not a subjective question, but a general philosophical one, Luke is a representative of compassion and even lies as a means of salvation, and yet there is no opposition to Luke’s sermon, there are no representatives of truth in the play. The Tick, the Baron, the Ashes are facts of life, and we must distinguish facts from truth. This is far from the same thing. Bubnov is protesting against lies.” And, further, that “the sympathies of the author of “At the Depth” are not on the side of preachers of lies and compassion, but, on the contrary, on the side of those who strive for the truth” 59
Nemanov L. Conversation on the ship with M. Gorky, - Petersburg newspaper, 1903, June 15.

Ministry of Education of the Russian Federation

Ulyanovsk State University

Faculty of Culture and Art

Department of Philology

Course summary:"Theory and history of Russian literature"

Subject: « Theater history“Dowry Women” by A. N. Ostrovsky

Completed:

K-11 student

Vikhereva M. A.

Checked:

Associate Professor of the Department of Philology

Matlin M.G.

Ulyanovsk 2009

In 1878, N. Ostrovsky wrote the drama “Dowry,” about which he told his friends: “This will be my fortieth original work.” He wrote it for about four years.

"The Dowry" has a strange fate. Initially received by critics

as an ordinary play, it eventually became a universally recognized masterpiece.

The premiere took place in Moscow and St. Petersburg in November 1878.

Ostrovsky’s contemporary, critic P. D. Boborykin, gave the play the following conclusion: “In his last drama, all the motives and provisions are old, taken from his repertoire and cannot be of any interest to a modern, developed viewer.” The stage fate of the play refuted such a judgment.

Larisa Ogudalova is young, beautiful and talented, but she does not have the most important thing in this world - money. She is homeless. Her mother, Kharita Ignatievna, has already married off her two daughters, now it’s Larisa’s turn. Kharita Ignatievna is lively and enterprising - rich and noble people visit their house, for example, Knurov is a millionaire; Paratov is a brilliant gentleman; Vozhevatov is a rich merchant. Larisa has amazing charm and causes delight among the male population. Her beauty leaves no one indifferent. Larisa is not only a beautiful and talented girl, but also has one important advantage - a rich soul striving for higher spirituality. She loves Paratov, the owner of the Lastochka steamship. He is attracted to her, but does not think of proposing.

One day he leaves on business and returns as the groom of the bride “with gold mines.” Larisa, tired of waiting for Paratov, decides to marry Karandyshev, a petty official, an insignificant and vain man. On the occasion of the engagement, Karandyshev invites Knurov, Paratov and Vozhevatov. Having given Karandyshev some wine, Paratov persuades Larisa to “go with him for the night” to “Swallow”. Larisa, believing in Paratov’s love, agrees.

On the ship she gives herself to him, but in the morning he informs her of his engagement. Knurov and Vozhevatov cast lots to see who will get her as his mistress. Karandyshev shoots Larisa, she dies with words of gratitude. She herself did not have enough strength to rush into the Volga.

Contemporaries saw in “The Dowry” an exposure of the existing social system of life, formed under the influence of the power of money, but Ostrovsky in this play also explored inner world person. The play is called “The Dowryless One,” but the drama of the heroine, the young, beautiful, talented girl Larisa Ogudalova, is not that she is a dowryless person. She wants to change her life and deliberately goes into poverty, deciding to marry Karandyshev. Her drama is that she does not find any equal in her spiritual makeup among herself. “I was looking for love and didn’t find it.” Around Larisa there is a circle dance of men who love her in their own way. But what can they offer her?

Knurov and Vozhevatov are money, Paratov is pleasure. Karandyshev believes that he is sacrificing his honor to Larisa. But no one wants or can look into her soul. Larisa is beautiful precisely because of the beauty of her soul, everyone is drawn to her, everyone wants to testify to their presence, but they all exist in the world of their attachments, they are not allowed to rise above the level of their existence.

They all live in the material sphere, in their environment. And in this environment, Larisa, whose life obeys the laws of the soul, suffocates.

Larisa's fans feel her difference, and this is what attracts them. “After all, in Larisa Dmitrievna there is no earthly, this worldly thing,” says Knurov. But to the best of their ideas about a woman, they believe that Larisa needs luxury. Larisa is called a dowryless woman in the play, but she does not suffer because she is poor, she is even indifferent to wealth: she agrees to marry Karandyshev and go to the village to get away from the mercantile bustle of the city. Money would not bring Larisa happiness, but it would protect her from the humiliation that a dowry suffers. She dies because she was infinitely lonely among people who each wanted their own from her.

Story theatrical productions drama "Dowry".

The first performers of the role of Larisa Ogudalova were

three at once are not just the best, but outstanding actresses of the era, but, strangely enough, not one of them managed to create an interesting stage interpretation.

G. N. Fedotova performed at the premiere of the Maly Theater. She was a bright actress who was equally successful in both dramatic and comedic roles. The role of Larisa performed by Fedotova was considered unsuccessful. Here are some remarks from critics: “It has completely deprived me of truth and originality”; “the gap between the melodramatic tone taken by the actress and “the rest of the everyday environment” made the actress’s face “false and banal,” etc.

Soon the role was transferred to M. N. Ermolova. Against the backdrop of Fedotova’s unsuccessful play, Larisa Ermolova clearly won. Critics found Ermolova very convincing. She loved to act in Ostrovsky's plays, and due to her tragic temperament, she endowed the heroines of his plays with moral strength that elevated them above those around them.

But it was precisely because of the peculiarities of her talent that she made Larisa an integral and uncompromising nature, decisive and angrily protesting, which, in general, changed the character of the heroine of “The Dowry,” which was characterized by weakness, and strain, and breakdown.

In St. Petersburg, Larisa was played by M. G. Savina. Savina herself was unhappy with her performance. On tour in the provinces, where she took her favorite roles, she played “The Dowry” three times and quit forever. In “Dowryless” she played Larisa “too ideal”, “too incomprehensible” from the point of view of common sense.

In St. Petersburg, “Dowry” left the stage in 1882 and did not appear on it for 15 years. In Moscow, the play lasted longer - until 1891. The Dowry was resumed on both capital stages in 1896 and 1897. And by this time the view of the play had changed.

Vera Fedorovna Komissarzhevskaya, performing in the role of Larisa Ogudalova, made this play Ostrovsky's most famous play.

Moreover, the name of Komissarzhevskaya became part of the history of the “Dowry”. According to critic A.V. Amfitheatrov, she did much more for this role than Ostrovsky himself. “Neither Fedotova, nor Ermolova, nor Savina guessed what Larisa was, just as Ostrovsky did not understand the depth that he created.” This is the peculiarity of the fate of those works of art in which the author “guesses” eternal problems with his artistic intuition.

What was Larisa like in the performance of Komissarzhevskaya, for whom this role also became special in her life? She, as critics wrote much later, is “a historical role, because she creates history.”

Ostrovsky himself and the first performers saw Larisa’s fate

social drama.

Larisa, with her subtle soul, suffering from a lack of love, perishes among people preoccupied with their mercantile and vain interests. Komissarzhevskaya was an actress of new times, the beginning of the 20th century, busy with the search for new forms in art.

The actress herself said that she, perhaps, gave her understanding of Larisa, and not Ostrovsky. She is interested “first of all in the generalized female soul with everything eternal that is in it.” In other words, Komissarzhevskaya avoided social conflict. The tragedy of her Larisa is not that she is homeless, but that she is mentally lonely among people: she is afraid for her soul, doomed to suffering. Komissarzhevskaya played Larisa “tragically lonely and tragically doomed.”

Most likely, the entire history of productions of “Dowry”

can be divided into two sharply opposite periods: before Komissarzhevskaya and after it.

From work experience. Social and philosophical drama by M. Gorky “At the Depths”

• give an initial idea of ​​socio-philosophical drama as a genre of drama;
• introduce the ideological content of Gorky’s play “At the Lower Depths”;
• develop the ability to analyze dramatic work.

• determine the philosophical meaning of the title of Gorky’s play “At the Lower Depths”;
• find out the author's techniques for conveying the atmosphere of spiritual separation of people, revealing the problem of imaginary and real overcoming a humiliating situation, sleep and awakening of the soul.

Progress of lessons

I. Opening remarks.

1. Teacher. Gorky became an innovator not only in Russian romanticism, but also in drama. He spoke originally about the innovation of Chekhov, who “killed realism” (of traditional drama), raising images to a “spiritualized symbol.” But Gorky himself followed Chekhov.

Gorky's drama turns 105 years old in 2007 (the premiere took place on December 18, old style, 1902 at the Moscow Art Theater); Since then, the play has been staged and filmed in Russia and abroad many times, dozens of critical, scientific works, but hardly anyone would dare to say that even today everything is known about this work.

2. Individual message from a student “The stage fate of Gorky’s play “At the Lower Depths.”

The Moscow Art Theater archive contains an album containing over forty photographs taken by the artist M. Dmitriev in Nizhny Novgorod dosshouses. They served as visual material for actors, make-up artists and costume designers when staging the play at the Moscow Art Theater by Stanislavsky.

In some photographs, Gorky’s handwriting made comments from which it follows that many of the characters in “At the Lower Depths” had real prototypes in the environment of Nizhny Novgorod tramping. All this suggests that both the author and the director, in order to achieve maximum stage effect, strived, first of all, for life authenticity.

The premiere of “At the Lower Depths,” which took place on December 18, 1902, was a phenomenal success. The roles in the play were performed by: Satin - Stanislavsky, Luka - Moskvin, Baron - Kachalov, Natasha - Andreeva, Nastya - Knipper.

This influx of famous actors plus the originality of the author's and director's decisions gave a result that no one expected. The fame of “At the Lower Depths” itself is a unique cultural and social phenomenon of the early 20th century and has no equal in the entire history of world theater.

“The first performance of this play was a complete triumph,” wrote M. F. Andreeva. - The public went wild. The author was called countless times. He resisted, didn’t want to come out, he was literally pushed onto the stage.”

On December 21, Gorky wrote to Pyatnitsky: “The success of the play is exceptional, I did not expect anything like this...” Pyatnitsky himself wrote to L. Andreev: “Maksimych’s drama is a delight! Like a shaft, he would hit the foreheads of all those who talked about the decline of his talent.” “At the Depths” was highly appreciated by A. Chekhov, who wrote to the author: “It is new and undoubtedly good. The second act is very good, it is the best, the most powerful, and when I read it, especially the end, I almost jumped with pleasure.”

“At the Lower Depths” is M. Gorky’s first work, which brought the author world fame. In January 1903, the play premiered in Berlin at the Max Reinhardt Theater, directed by Richard Walletin, who played the role of Satin. In Berlin, the play ran for 300 performances in a row, and in the spring of 1905 its 500th performance was celebrated.

Many of his contemporaries noted in the play a characteristic feature of early Gorky - rudeness.

Some called it a flaw. For example, A. Volynsky, after the play “At the Lower Depths,” wrote to Stanislavsky: “Gorky does not have that tender, noble heart, singing and crying, like Chekhov’s. It’s a bit rough, as if it’s not mystical enough, not immersed in some kind of grace.”

Others saw in this a manifestation of a remarkable, integral personality who came from the lower strata of the people and, as it were, “exploded” traditional ideas about the Russian writer.

3. Teacher. “At the Lower Depths” is a programmatic play for Gorky: created at the dawn of the 20th century, it expressed many of his doubts and hopes in connection with the prospects of man and humanity to change themselves, transform life and open the sources of creative forces necessary for this.

This is stated in the symbolic time of the play, in the stage directions of the first act: “The beginning of spring. Morning". His correspondence eloquently testifies to the same direction of Gorky’s thoughts.

On the eve of Easter 1898, Gorky greeted Chekhov with promise: “Christ is risen!”, and soon wrote to I. E. Repin: “I don’t know anything better, more complex, more interesting than a person. He is everything. He even created God... I am sure that man is capable of endless improvement, and all his activities will also develop with him... from century to century. I believe in the infinity of life, and I understand life as a movement towards the perfection of the spirit.”

A year later, in a letter to L.N. Tolstoy, he repeated almost verbatim this fundamental thesis for himself in connection with literature: “Even a great book is only dead, a black shadow of the word and a hint of the truth, and man is the receptacle of the living God. I understand God as an indomitable desire for improvement, for truth and justice. And therefore, a bad person is better than a good book.”

4. What are your impressions of reading Gorky’s play?

II. Work on the topic of the lesson. Working with the text of Gorky's play.

1. How do you understand the title of the play: “At the Bottom”?

Teacher. How did Gorky combine faith in man - “the receptacle of the living God”, capable of “infinite improvement”, faith in life - “movement towards the improvement of the spirit” - and vegetation “At the bottom of life” (this is one of the options for the name of the drama)?

Do his words, in comparison with the characters of the play, seem like a mockery of a person, and its characters against the background of these words - a caricature of humanity?

No, because before us are two sides of Gorky’s single worldview: in his letters there are ideal impulses, in his work there is an artistic exploration of human possibilities.

The God-man and the “bottom” are contrasts, and the contrast forced us to look for invisible but existing secret laws of existence, spirit, capable of “harmonizing the nerves,” changing a person “physically,” tearing him out of the bottom and returning him “to the center of the process of life.”

This philosophy is implemented in the system of images, composition, leitmotifs, symbolism, and in the words of the play.

Bottom in the play it is multi-valued and, like much in Gorky, symbolic. The title correlates the circumstances of life and the human soul.

Bottom - this is the bottom of life, the soul, the extreme degree of decline, a situation of hopelessness, a dead end, comparable to the one about which Dostoevsky’s Marmeladov spoke with bitterness - “when there is nowhere else to go.”

“The bottom of the soul” is the innermost, far hidden in people. “It turns out: on the outside, no matter how you paint yourself, everything will be erased,” Bubnov stated, remembering his bright past, painted in the literal and figurative sense, and soon, turning to the Baron, he clarified: “What was was, but what remains is nothing but trifles.” ..."

2. What can you say about the location? What are your impressions of the setting in which the main events take place?

The Kostylevs’ shelter resembles a prison; it’s not for nothing that its inhabitants sing the prison song “The Sun Rises and Sets.” Those who end up in the basement belong to different strata of society, but everyone has the same fate, they are renegades of society, and no one manages to get out of here.

Important detail: The inside of the lodging house is not as gloomy, cold and alarming as the outside. Here is a description of the outside world at the beginning of the third act: “A wasteland is a courtyard littered with various rubbish and overgrown with weeds. In its depths is a tall brick firewall. It covers the sky... Evening, the sun sets, illuminating the firewall with a reddish light.”

It's early spring, the snow has recently melted. “It’s a dog’s cold place...”, says Tick, shuddering, as he enters from the entryway. In the finale, the Actor hanged himself in this vacant lot.

It’s still warm inside and people live here.

-Who are they?

3. Quiz on the content of the work.

A) Which of the characters in the play “At the Lower Depths”...

1) ...states that he “seems to have no character”? (Baron.)

2) ...does not want to come to terms with life at the “bottom” and declares:
“I’m a working man... and I’ve been working since I was little... I’ll get out... I’ll rip off my skin, but I’ll get out”? (Mite.)

3) ...dreamed of a life “so that you could respect yourself”? (Ash.)

4) ...lives with dreams of great, true human love? (Nastya.)

5) ...believes that she will be better off in the next world, but still wants to live at least a little longer in this world? (Anna.)

6) ... “lay down in the middle of the street, plays the accordion and yells: “I don’t want anything, I don’t want anything”? (Shoemaker Alyoshka.)

7) ...tells the man who asked her to marry him: “... getting married for a woman is like jumping into an ice hole in winter”? (Kvashnya.)

8) ...under the guise of serving God, he robs people! “...and I’ll throw half a kopeck on you - I’ll buy some oil for the lamp... and my sacrifice will burn in front of the holy icon...”? (Kostylev.)

9) ...is indignant: “And why do they separate people when they are fighting? If we let them beat each other freely... they would fight less, so they would remember the beatings longer..."? (Policeman Medvedev.)

10) ... ended up in a shelter because he left his wife, afraid to kill her, jealous of another? (Bubnov.)

11) ...he consoled everyone with beautiful lies, and in difficult times “disappeared from the police... like smoke from a fire...”? (Wanderer Luke.)

12) ...beaten, scalded with boiling water, asking to be taken to prison? (Natasha.)

13) ...claimed: “Lies are the religion of slaves and masters... Truth is the god of a free man!”? (Satin.)

B) What circumstances brought each of them to Kostylev’s shelter?

1) A former official in the treasury chamber? (The baron went to prison for embezzlement of government money, and then ended up in a shelter.)

2) A watchman at the dacha? (The overnight stay for Luke is just one of the points of his wanderings.)

3) A former telegraph operator? (Because of his sister, Satin “killed a scoundrel in passion and irritation,” went to prison, and after prison ended up in a shelter.)

4) Furrier? (Bubnov was once the owner of his own workshop; after leaving his wife, he lost “his establishment” and ended up in a shelter.)

Teacher. These people are forced to live in the same room, which only burdens them: they are not ready to help each other in any way.

– Re-read the beginning of the play (before Luka appears in the shelter).

1. Gorky conveyed the stability of people’s alienation in the form of a polylogue, composed of replicas that do not fit together with each other. All remarks are heard from different angles - Anna’s dying words alternate with the cries of the night shelters playing cards (Satin and Baron) and checkers (Bubnov and Medvedev):

Anna. I don’t remember when I was full... All my life I walked around in rags... all my miserable life... For what?

Luke. Oh, baby! Tired? Nothing!

Actor (Crooked Zob). Move with jack... jack, damn it!

Baron. And we have a king.

Mite. They will always beat you.

Satin. This is our habit...

Medvedev. King!

Bubnov. And I... w-well...

Anna. I'm dying, that's it...

2. In individual remarks, words that have a symbolic sound are highlighted. Bubnov’s words “but the threads are rotten” hint at the lack of connections between the shelters. Bubnov remarks about Nastya’s situation: “You’re superfluous everywhere.” This once again indicates that the residents of Kostylev have difficulty “tolerating” each other.

3. Outcasts from society reject many generally accepted truths. As soon as Kleshch is told, for example, that the night shelters live without honor and conscience, Bubnov will answer him: “What is conscience for? I’m not rich,” and Vaska Ash will quote Satin’s words: “Every person wants his neighbor to have a conscience, but, you see, it’s not beneficial for anyone to have one.”

5. How does the atmosphere of Acts 2 and 3 differ from Acts 1?

Students reflect, giving examples from the text.

The atmosphere of Acts 2 and 3 is different compared to Act 1. A cross-cutting motive arises for the inhabitants of the flophouse leaving for some illusory world. The situation changes with the appearance of the wanderer Luke, who with his “fairy tales” revives dreams and hopes in the souls of the night shelters.

The undocumented tramp Luka, who has been tormented a lot in his life, has come to the conclusion that a person is worthy of pity, and generously bestows it on the night shelters. He acts as a comforter, wanting to encourage a person or reconcile him with a joyless existence.

The old man advises the dying Anna not to be afraid of death: it brings peace, which the eternally hungry Anna has never known. To the drunken actor, Luka inspires hope for recovery in a free hospital for alcoholics, although he knows that there is no such hospital. He talks to Vaska Pepl about the opportunity to start new life together with Natasha in Siberia.

But all this is just a comforting lie, which can only calm a person for a while, muffling the difficult reality.

The night shelters also understand this, but they listen to the old man with pleasure: they want to believe his “fairy tales”, dreams of happiness awaken in them.

Bubnov. And why is it... people love to lie so much? Always - as an investigator faces... the right!

Natasha. Apparently, a lie... is more pleasant than the truth... Me too...

Natasha. I invent... I invent and - wait...

Baron. What?

Natasha (smiling embarrassedly).So... I think, tomorrow... someone... someone... special will come... Or something will happen... also - unprecedented... I've been waiting for a long time... always - I’m waiting... And so... in reality - what can you wish for?

In the remarks of the night shelters there is a sense of deceptive liberation from circumstances. The circle of existence seems to have closed: from indifference to an unattainable dream, from it to real shocks or death (Anna dies, Kostylev is killed). Meanwhile, it is in this state of the characters that the playwright finds the source of their spiritual turning point.

III. Summary of lessons.

– Make a generalization: what are the features of Gorky’s drama - in the development of action, in content?

This is an example socio-philosophical drama.How do you understand this definition?

In the play “At the Lower Depths” the author did not limit himself to only depicting the characteristic social and everyday aspects of Russian reality. This is not an everyday play, but a social and philosophical play, which is based on a dispute about a person, his position in society and his attitude towards him. And almost all the inhabitants of the shelter participate in this dispute (to one degree or another).

Homework.

Individually: the problem of Man in Gorky's play "At the Depths".

3) Learn by heart Satin’s famous monologues about truth and man (Act 4).

Student, prepared for the lesson independently,reads N. Zabolotsky’s poem “Don’t let your soul be lazy.”

The play “At the Bottom” was written by M. Gorky in 1902. Gorky was always concerned with questions about man, about love, about compassion. All these questions constitute the problem of humanism, which permeates many of his works. One of the few writers, he showed all the poverty of life, its “bottom”. In the play “At the Bottom” he writes about those people who have no meaning in life. They do not live, but exist. The theme of tramps is very close to Gorky, since there was a time when he, too, had to travel with a knapsack on his back. Gorky writes a play, not a novel, not a poem, because he wants everyone to understand the meaning of this work, including ordinary illiterate people. With his play he wanted to draw people's attention to the lower strata of society. The play “At the Lower Depths” was written for the Moscow Art Theater. The censors first banned the production of this play, but then, after reworking, they finally allowed it. She was sure of the complete failure of the play. But the play made a huge impression on the audience and caused a storm of applause. The viewer was so powerfully affected by the fact that tramps were shown on stage for the first time, shown with their dirt and moral uncleanliness. This play is deeply realistic. The uniqueness of the drama is that the most complex philosophical problems are discussed in it not by masters of philosophical debates, but by “people of the street”, uneducated or degraded, tongue-tied or unable to find the “right” words. The conversation is conducted in the language of everyday communication, and sometimes in the language of petty squabbles, “kitchen” abuse, and drunken skirmishes.

According to the literary genre, the play “At the Bottom” is a drama. Drama is characterized by plot-driven and conflict-ridden action. In my opinion, the work clearly indicates two dramatic principles: social and philosophical.

About the presence of social conflict in the play Even its name speaks volumes – “At the Bottom”. The stage directions placed at the beginning of the first act create a depressing picture of the shelter. “Cave-like basement. The ceiling is heavy, stone vaults, smoked, with crumbling plaster... There are bunks everywhere along the walls.” The picture is not pleasant - dark, dirty, cold. Next come descriptions of the residents of the shelter, or rather, descriptions of their occupations. What are they doing? Nastya is reading, Bubnov and Kleshch are busy with their work. It seems that they work reluctantly, out of boredom, without enthusiasm. They are all poor, pitiful, wretched creatures living in a dirty hole. There is also another type of people in the play: Kostylev, the owner of the shelter, and his wife Vasilisa. In my opinion, the social conflict in the play lies in the fact that the inhabitants of the shelter feel that they live “at the bottom,” that they are cut off from the world, that they only exist. They all have a cherished goal (for example, the Actor wants to return to the stage), they have their own dream. They are looking for strength within themselves to confront this ugly reality. And for Gorky, the very desire for the best, for the beautiful, is wonderful.

All these people are put in terrible conditions. They are sick, poorly dressed, and often hungry. When they have money, celebrations are immediately held in the shelter. So they try to drown out the pain within themselves, to forget themselves, not to remember their miserable position as “former people”.

It is interesting how the author describes the activities of his characters at the beginning of the play. Kvashnya continues her argument with Kleshch, the Baron habitually mocks Nastya, Anna moans “every single day...”. Everything continues, all this has been going on for several days now. And people gradually stop noticing each other. By the way, the lack of a narrative beginning is distinctive feature dramas. If you listen to the statements of these people, what is striking is that they all practically do not react to the comments of others, they all speak at the same time. They are separated under one roof. The inhabitants of the shelter, in my opinion, are tired, tired of the reality that surrounds them. It’s not for nothing that Bubnov says: “But the threads are rotten...”.

In such social conditions in which these people are placed, the essence of man is revealed. Bubnov notes: “No matter how you paint yourself on the outside, everything will be erased.” The residents of the shelter become, as the author believes, “philosophers against their will.” Life forces them to think about universal human concepts of conscience, work, truth.

The play most clearly contrasts two philosophies: Luke and Satina. Satin says: “What is truth?.. Man is the truth!.. Truth is the god of a free man!” For the wanderer Luke, such “truth” is unacceptable. He believes that a person should hear what will make him feel better and calmer, and that for the good of a person one can lie. The points of view of other inhabitants are also interesting. For example, Kleshch believes: “...You can’t live... This is the truth!.. Damn it!”

Luka's and Satin's assessments of reality differ sharply. Luka brings a new spirit into the life of the shelter - the spirit of hope. With his appearance, something comes to life - and people begin to talk more often about their dreams and plans. The actor gets excited about the idea of ​​finding a hospital and recovering from alcoholism, Vaska Pepel is going to go to Siberia with Natasha. Luke is always ready to console and give hope. The Wanderer believed that one must come to terms with reality and look at what is happening around him calmly. Luke preaches the opportunity to “adapt” to life, not to notice its true difficulties and one’s own mistakes: “It’s true, it’s not always due to a person’s illness... you can’t always cure a soul with the truth...”

Satin has a completely different philosophy. He is ready to expose the vices of the surrounding reality. In his monologue, Satin says: “Man! This is great! It sounds... proud! Human! We must respect the person! Don’t feel sorry... Don’t humiliate him with pity... you must respect him!” But, in my opinion, you need to respect a person who works. And the inhabitants of the shelter seem to feel that they have no chance of getting out of this poverty. That’s why they are so drawn to affectionate Luka. The Wanderer surprisingly accurately looks for something hidden in the minds of these people and paints these thoughts and hopes in bright, rainbow colors.

Unfortunately, in the conditions in which Satin, Kleshch and other inhabitants of the “bottom” live, such a contrast between illusions and reality has a sad result. The question awakens in people: how and what to live on? And at that moment Luka disappears... He is not ready, and does not want to answer this question.

Understanding the truth fascinates the inhabitants of the shelter. Satin is distinguished by the greatest maturity of judgment. Without forgiving “lies out of pity,” Satin for the first time rises to the awareness of the need to improve the world.

The incompatibility of illusions and reality turns out to be very painful for these people. The actor ends his life, the Tatar refuses to pray to God... The death of the Actor is the step of a person who failed to realize the real truth.

In the fourth act, the movement of the drama is determined: life awakens in the sleepy soul of the “flopshouse”. People are able to feel, hear each other, and empathize.

Most likely, the clash of views between Satin and Luke cannot be called a conflict. They run parallel. In my opinion, if you combine Satin’s accusatory character and Luke’s pity for the people, you would get the very ideal Man capable of reviving life in the shelter.

But there is no such person - and life in the shelter remains the same. Same in appearance. Some kind of turning point occurs inside - people begin to think more about the meaning and purpose of life.

The play “At the Bottom” as a dramatic work is characterized by conflicts that reflect universal human contradictions: contradictions in views on life, in the way of life.

Drama like literary genre depicts a person in acute conflict, but not hopeless situations. The conflicts of the play are indeed not hopeless - after all (according to the author’s plan) the active principle, the attitude towards the world, still wins.

M. Gorky, a writer with amazing talent, in the play “At the Bottom” embodied the clash of different views on being and consciousness. Therefore, this play can be called a socio-philosophical drama.

In his works, M. Gorky often revealed not only the everyday life of people, but also the psychological processes occurring in their minds. In the play “At the Bottom,” the writer showed that the proximity of people brought to a life of poverty with a preacher of patiently waiting for a “better man” necessarily leads to a turning point in people’s consciousness. In the night shelters M. Gorky captured the first, timid awakening human soul- the most beautiful thing for a writer.

The play “At the Lower Depths” showed the dramatic innovation of Maxim Gorky. Using the traditions of the classical dramatic heritage, primarily Chekhov's, the writer creates the genre of socio-philosophical drama, developing his own dramatic style with its pronounced characteristic features.

The specificity of Gorky's dramatic style is associated with the writer's primary attention to the ideological side of human life. Every action of a person, every word of his reflects the peculiarities of his consciousness, which determines the aphorism of the dialogue, which is always filled with philosophical meaning, and the originality of the general structure of his plays.

Gorky created a new type of dramatic work. The peculiarity of the play is that the driving force of dramatic action is the struggle of ideas. The external events of the play are determined by the attitude of the characters to the main issue about a person, the issue around which a dispute and a clash of positions takes place. Therefore, the center of action in the play does not remain constant, it shifts all the time. The so-called “heroless” composition of the drama arose. The play is a cycle of small dramas that are interconnected by a single guiding line of struggle - the attitude towards the idea of ​​consolation. In their interweaving, these private dramas unfolding before the viewer create exceptional tension in the action. The structural feature of Gorky's drama is the shift of emphasis from external events to comprehension of the internal content of the ideological struggle. Therefore, the denouement of the plot occurs not in the last, fourth act, but in the third. The writer takes away many people from the last act, including Luka, although the main line in the development of the plot is connected with him. The last act turned out to be devoid of external events. But it was he who became the most significant in content, not inferior to the first three in tension, because here the results of the main philosophical dispute were summed up.

Dramatic conflict of the play “At the Lower Depths”

Most critics viewed “At the Bottom” as a static play, as a series of sketches of everyday life, internally unrelated scenes, as a naturalistic play, devoid of action and the development of dramatic conflicts. In fact, in the play “At the Bottom” there is a deep internal dynamics, development... The linkage of lines, actions, scenes of the play is determined not by everyday or plot motivations, but by the development of socio-philosophical issues, the movement of themes, their struggle. That subtext, that undercurrent that V. Nemirovich-Danchenko and K. Stanislavsky discovered in Chekhov’s plays, acquires decisive importance in Gorky’s “At the Bottom.” “Gorky depicts the consciousness of people at the bottom.” The plot unfolds not so much in external action as in the dialogues of the characters. It is the conversations of the night shelters that determine the development of the dramatic conflict.

It’s an amazing thing: the more the night shelters want to hide the real state of affairs from themselves, the more they take pleasure in catching others in lies. They take special pleasure in tormenting their fellow sufferers, trying to take away from them the last thing they have - illusion

What do we see? It turns out there is no one truth. And there are at least two truths - the truth of the “bottom” and the truth of the best in a person. Which truth wins in Gorky's play? At first glance, this is true “bottom”. None of the shelters have a way out of this “dead end of existence.” None of the characters in the play get better - only worse. Anna dies, Kleshch finally “sinks” and gives up hope of escaping from the shelter, Tatar loses his arm, which means he also becomes unemployed, Natasha dies morally and perhaps physically, Vaska Pepel goes to prison, even the bailiff Medvedev becomes one of the shelters . The shelter accepts everyone and does not let anyone out, except for one person - the wanderer Luke, who amused the unfortunate people with fairy tales and then disappeared. The culmination of general disappointment is the death of the Actor, to whom it was Luke who inspired the vain hope of recovery and normal life

“The comforters of this series are the most intelligent, knowledgeable and eloquent. That's why they are the most harmful. This is exactly the kind of comforter that Luke should be in the play “At the Bottom,” but I, apparently, was not able to make him like that. “At the Lower Depths” is an outdated play and, perhaps, even harmful in our days” (Gorky, 1930s).

Images of Satin, Baron, Bubnov in the play “At the Lower Depths”

Gorky's play "At the Lower Depths" was written in 1902 for the troupe of the Moscow Art Public Theater. For a long time, Gorky could not find the exact title for the play. Initially it was called "Nochlezhka", then "Without the Sun" and, finally, "At the bottom". The name itself already has a huge meaning. People who have fallen to the bottom will never rise to the light, to a new life. The theme of the humiliated and insulted is not new in Russian literature. Let us remember Dostoevsky’s heroes, who also “have nowhere else to go.” Many similarities can be found in the heroes of Dostoevsky and Gorky: this is the same world of drunkards, thieves, prostitutes and pimps. Only he is shown even more terrifyingly and realistically by Gorky. In Gorky's play, the audience saw for the first time the unfamiliar world of the rejected. World drama has never known such a harsh, merciless truth about the life of the lower social classes, about their hopeless fate. Under the arches of the Kostylevo shelter there were people of very different characters and social status. Each of them is endowed with its own individual characteristics. Here is the worker Kleshch, dreaming of honest work, and Ash, longing for a good life, and the Actor, completely absorbed in memories of his past glory, and Nastya, passionately striving for something big, true love . They all deserve a better fate. All the more tragic is their situation now. The people living in this cave-like basement are tragic victims of an ugly and cruel order, in which a person ceases to be human and is doomed to drag out a miserable existence. Gorky does not give a detailed account of the biographies of the characters in the play, but the few features that he reproduces perfectly reveal the author’s intention. In a few words the tragedy of Anna’s life’s fate is depicted. “I don’t remember when I was full,” she says. “I was shaking over every piece of bread... I was trembling all my life... I was tormented... so as not to eat anything else... All my life I walked around in rags... all my miserable life..." Worker Tick speaks about his hopeless lot: "There is no work... there is no strength... That's the truth, there's no refuge... I have to die... That's the truth!" The inhabitants of the “bottom” are thrown out of life due to the conditions prevailing in society. A person is left to his own devices. If he stumbles, gets out of the rut, he is threatened with “the bottom”, inevitable moral, and often physical death. Anna dies, the Actor commits suicide, and the rest are exhausted, disfigured by life to the last degree. And even here, in this terrible world of the outcasts, the wolf laws of the “bottom” continue to operate. The figure of the hostel owner Kostylev, one of the “masters of life”, who is ready to squeeze the last penny even from his unfortunate and destitute guests, is disgusting. His wife Vasilisa is equally disgusting with her immorality. The terrible fate of the inhabitants of the shelter becomes especially obvious if we compare it with what a person is called to. Under the dark and gloomy arches of the lodging house, among the pitiful and crippled, unfortunate and homeless vagabonds, words about man, about his calling, about his strength and his beauty sound like a solemn hymn: “Man - that’s the truth! Everything is in man, everything is for man! There is only man, everything else is the work of his hands and his brain! Man! This sounds great! Proud words about what a person should be and what a person can be highlight even more sharply the picture of the actual situation of a person that the writer paints. And this contrast takes on a special meaning... Satin’s fiery monologue about man sounds somewhat unnatural in an atmosphere of impenetrable darkness, especially after Luka left, the Actor hanged himself, and Vaska Ashes was imprisoned. The writer himself felt this and explained it by the fact that in the play there should be a reasoner (an exponent of the author’s thoughts), but the heroes portrayed by Gorky can hardly be called exponents of anyone’s ideas at all. That is why Gorky puts his thoughts into the mouth of Satin, the most freedom-loving and fair character.

The author began writing the play in Nizhny Novgorod, where, according to the observation of Gorky's contemporary, Rozov, there was the best and most convenient place for all sorts of rabble of people to gather... This explains the realism of the characters, their complete similarity with the originals. Alexey Maksimovich Gorky explores the soul and characters of tramps from different positions, in different life situations, trying to understand who they are, what brought so many different people to the bottom of life. The author is trying to prove that the night shelters are ordinary people; they dream of happiness, know how to love, have compassion, and most importantly, they think.

In terms of genre, the play At the Bottom can be classified as philosophical, because from the lips of the characters we hear interesting conclusions, sometimes entire social theories. For example, the Baron is consoled by the fact that there is nothing to wait for... I don't expect anything! Everything has already... happened! It's over!.. Or Bubnov So I drank and I'm glad!

But the true talent for philosophizing is manifested in Satin, a former telegraph employee. He talks about good and evil, about conscience, about the purpose of man. Sometimes we feel that he is the author’s mouthpiece; there is no one else in the play who can speak so smoothly and intelligently. His phrase Man, it sounds proud! became winged.

But Satin justifies his position with these arguments. He is a kind of ideologist of the bottom, justifying its existence. Satin preaches contempt for moral values And where are they honor, conscience? On your feet, instead of boots you can’t put on either honor or conscience... The audience is amazed by the gambler and sharpie who talks about the truth, about justice, the imperfection of the world in which he himself is an outcast.

But all these philosophical quests of the hero are just a verbal duel with his antipode in worldview, with Luke. Satin's sober, sometimes cruel realism collides with the soft and flexible speeches of the wanderer. Luke fills the shelters with dreams and calls on them to be patient. In this respect, he is a truly Russian person, ready for compassion and humility. This type is deeply loved by Gorky himself. Luke does not receive any benefit from giving people hope; there is no self-interest in this. This is the need of his soul. A researcher of the work of Maxim Gorky, I. Novich, spoke about Luke this way... he consoles not from love for this life and the belief that it is good, but from capitulation to evil, reconciliation with it. For example, Luke assures Anna that a woman must endure her husband’s beatings. Be patient more! Everyone, my dear, endures.

Having appeared unexpectedly, just as suddenly Luka disappears, revealing his potential in each inhabitant of the shelter. The heroes thought about life, injustice, their hopeless fate.

Only Bubnov and Satin have come to terms with their position as night shelters. Bubnov differs from Satin in that he considers man a worthless creature, and therefore worthy of a dirty life. People all live... like chips floating down a river... building a house... chips away...

Gorky shows that in an embittered and cruel world Only people who stand firmly on their feet, are aware of their position, and do not disdain anything can survive. The defenseless night shelters Baron, who lives in the past, Nastya, who replaces life with fantasies, perish in this world. Anna dies, the Actor commits suicide. He suddenly realizes the impossibility of his dream, the unreality of its implementation. Vaska Pepel, dreaming of a bright life, ends up in prison.

Luka, regardless of his will, becomes the culprit in the death of these not at all bad people; the inhabitants of the shelter do not need promises, but... specific actions that Luke is not capable of. He disappears, rather runs, thereby proving the inconsistency of his theory, the victory of reason over the dream. Thus, sinners disappear from the face of the righteous!

But Satin, like Luke, is no less responsible for the death of the Actor. After all, breaking the dream of a hospital for alcoholics, Satin breaks the last threads of the Actor’s hope that connect him with life.

Gorky wants to show that, relying only on his own strength, a person can get out of the bottom. A person can do anything... if only he wants to. But there are no such strong characters striving for freedom in the play.

In the work we see the tragedy of individuals, their physical and spiritual death. At the bottom, people lose their human dignity along with their surnames and names. Many night shelters have the nicknames Krivoy Zob, Tatar, and Actor.

How does Gorky the humanist approach the main problem of the work? Does he really recognize the insignificance of man, the baseness of his interests? No, the author believes in people who are not only strong, but also honest, hardworking, diligent. Such a person in the play is the locksmith Kleshch. He is the only bottom dweller who has a real chance of revival. Proud of his working title, Kleshch despises the rest of the night shelters. But gradually, under the influence of Satin’s speeches about the worthlessness of work, he loses self-confidence, giving up his hands in front of fate. In this case, it was no longer the crafty Luke, but Satin the tempter who suppressed hope in man. It turns out that, having different views on life positions, Satin and Luka equally push people to death.

Creating realistic characters, Gorky emphasizes everyday details, speaking a brilliant artist. The gloomy, rough and primitive existence fills the play with something ominous and oppressive, enhancing the feeling of the unreality of what is happening. The shelter, located below ground level, deprived of sunlight, somehow reminds the viewer of hell in which people die.

The scene is terrifying when dying Anna talking to Luka. This last conversation of hers is like a confession. But the conversation is interrupted by the screams of drunken gamblers and a gloomy prison song. It becomes strange to realize the frailty of human life, to neglect it, because even in the hour of death Anna is not given peace.

The author's remarks help us more fully imagine the characters in the play. Brief and clear, they contain descriptions of the heroes and help us reveal some aspects of their characters. In addition, in the prison song introduced into the narrative, a new, hidden meaning. The lines I want to be free, yes, eh!.. I can’t break the chain..., show that the bottom tenaciously holds its inhabitants, and the night shelters cannot escape from its embrace, no matter how hard they try.

The play is finished, but to the main questions of what is the truth of life and what a person should strive for, Gorky does not give an unambiguous answer, leaving it to us to decide. Satin's final phrase Eh... ruined the song... fool is ambiguous and makes you think. Who is the fool? The Hanged Actor or the Baron who brought the news about this. Time passes, people change, but, unfortunately, the theme of the bottom remains relevant today. Due to economic and political turmoil, more and more people are going to the bottom of life. Every day their ranks are replenished. Don't think that these are losers. No, many smart, decent, honest people go to the bottom. They strive to quickly leave this kingdom of darkness, to act in order to live a full life again. But poverty dictates its conditions to them. And gradually a person loses all his best moral qualities, preferring to surrender to chance.

With his play At the Depth, Gorky wanted to prove that only in struggle is the essence of life. When a person loses hope, stops dreaming, he loses faith in the future.

Related information.

The drama “Apiary” (“Muksh otar”) by Sergei Grigorievich Chavain is especially dear to the heart of every Mari. The bright identity and national uniqueness of this literary work largely determined his longevity and interesting fate on the stage of the Mari Drama Theater. The Apiary saw the light of the ramp for the first time during the author’s lifetime, on October 20, 1928. Sergei Grigorievich Chavain wrote for the theater a romantic story about the triumph of goodness and justice, about the transformation of a forest savage into a cultured, literate person - a teacher. It would seem that the very way to achieve the well-being of the people has been found - enlightenment of minds, collective work for the benefit of the people and love. The writer saw this as a guarantee of the inevitable triumph of revolutionary transformations in the first decade of our state’s life. The immediate impetus for writing the drama, according to the author himself, was historical novel Al. Altaeva “Stenka’s Freemen” (1925) In this novel, one of the heroines is the young girl Kyavya, who fell in love with Ataman Danilka from Stepan Razin’s army. She dies in the forest without waiting for her beloved. S. Chavain's drama became an innovative work in Mari literature. It successfully combines realistic and romantic colors; the dramatic plot organically includes vocal and ballet scenes. The songs and dances used in the play help to understand the internal state of the characters, the emotional meaning of individual episodes and paintings, and expand the stage images. The song and poetry element comes to the fore in “Apiary”. Drama is musical not only due to the abundance of songs, dances and dances, it is musical in its very inner structure, soul, poetics. For the theater of those years, the production of “Apiary” was of great importance. In fact, this event became a watershed in the history of the Mari theater, separating the amateur period of its existence from the professional one. The performance, staged by director Naum Isaevich Kalender, became the first professional performance of the Mari Drama Theater based on an original play. This performance gave the opportunity to shine in a new way, to reveal more fully the dramatic talent of many actors. The role of Clavius ​​was played by 16-year-old Anastasia Filippova. Her interpretation of the heroine’s image became in many ways a standard for subsequent performers. The teacher Michi was played by Vasily Nikitich Yakshov, the tracker - Alexey Ivanovich Mayuk-Egorov. The role of Peter Samson was played by M. Sorokin, grandfather Cory - Pavel Toydemar, Onton - Peter Paydush, etc. etc. “Apiary” staged by N. Kalender was a huge success. Having traveled to all the cantons of the MAO, Chuvashia and Tatarstan, in the summer of 1930 the Mari theater took its work to Moscow for the First All-Russian Olympiad theaters and arts of the peoples of the USSR, and was awarded a First Degree Diploma. In the conclusion of the jury of the Olympiad about the Mari Theater it is said that it is a phenomenon of exceptionally great significance. And also that state theater MAO is the youngest of all theaters participating in the First All-Union Olympics. “The theater knows its national environment well, knows whom to fight with the weapons of the theater, and what to call its audience to, plays with great sincerity and persuasiveness.” The repressions of the 30s turned out to be a complete tragedy for Mari culture, tearing out of life the names and creations of the best representatives of the Mari creative intelligentsia. Among them was the writer S. Chavain, who was rehabilitated in 1956. At this time, a graduate of the directing department of GITIS, Sergei Ivanov, came to the Margosteater. “Apiary” became his second independent production in the theater. The return to the theater stage of the work of the classic of Mari literature was prepared as a holiday for the entire public of the republic. The artistic design of the new production of “Apiaries” was entrusted to the famous Mari sculptor, expert on national life and culture F. Shaberdin, who carried out the honorable work with love and taste. Composer K. Smirnov presented the appropriate musical design. The dances were choreographed by actors I. Yakaev and G. Pushkin.” If in the first production the main emphasis was placed on the idea of ​​class struggle in the Mari village of the second half of the 20s, then in new job theater, the idea of ​​the victory of the new over the old was brought to the fore. In the play, along with famous experienced actors, such as T. Grigoriev (Samson Peter), G. Pushkin (Koriy), T. Sokolov, I. Rossygin (Orӧzӧy), I. Yakaev (Epsey), A. Strausova (Peter Vate ) and others were occupied by recent graduates of the Mari studio at Leningradsky theater institute them. A. N. Ostrovsky. R. Russina performed the role of Clavius.I. Matveev played the kulak Pyotr Samsonov. K. Korshunov embodied the image of teacher Dmitry Ivanovich. Director O. Irkabaev took a new approach to staging Chavain’s drama in 1988. In his reading of “Apiary” from the story of the orphan Clavius, as was commonly believed from school, it grew into a reflection on the fate of the Mari people, and the image main character- into a symbol of his soul. In an interview with the Mari Commune newspaper, the director said that this “play is very in tune with today’s times. With your creativity, kindness of thoughts, inner intensity. Staging it makes it possible to have a conversation about today, about our life today. The creators of the play treated the text of Chavain’s play very carefully, preserving it literally down to the decimal point. And on the foundation of the classical play they erected a new, rather slender building of their performance. In the process of work, the inherent romance and poetic elation of S. Chavain's play was largely muted. The forest apiary of Pyotr Samsonov is presented as a place where people are humiliated, where selfish interests are broken human destinies. Following the director's plan, artist N. Efaritskaya created scenery that differed from the traditions of previous productions. Not a beautiful apiary among the endless Mari forests, but a piece of land surrounded by it on all sides, isolated from the outside world. Horizontal sections of the crown of a huge tree, as if heavy, low-hanging ceilings were pressing, limiting the space. One feels the vulnerability of a person before their evil power. Accordingly, the musical arrangement. Sergei Makov's music is an organic component of the performance, in tune with the director's concept. When creating the play, the director sought to build the characters’ characters with the help and on the basis psychological analysis. Dramatic material, which contains powerful potential for unconventional reading, made it possible to do this. For example, the image of Clavius. A 17-year-old orphan girl lives in the forest, in an apiary, she is wild, impetuous, and avoids people. It is very natural for her to communicate with bees, trees, as if with living beings. Actresses V. Moiseeva, S. Gladysheva, A. Ignatieva, and performers of the role of Clavius ​​created an accurate drawing of the heroine’s behavior on stage that corresponds to the character. The characters of other characters were similarly revised. In an article dedicated to the results of the theater season, M. A. Georgina emphasizes that the main thing in the new production of Chavain’s “Apiary” is “the desire to move away from outdated stage and acting cliches that drag on the Mari performing arts ago, they obscure the creative originality of the actors.” In 1973, a zonal review of folk theaters and drama groups was announced. In the republic, the drama group of the Mustaevsky rural cultural center of the Sernur district was awarded a first degree diploma. This team, among 20 teams, participated in the zonal review, which took place in Ulyanovsk. They showed Chavain's "Muksh Otar" and received a first degree diploma. The artistic director of the group V.K. Stepanov, Z.A. Vorontsova (Clavius), I.M. Vorontsov (Epsey) were given first degree diplomas. Amateur artists played: M.I. Mustaev (Potr kugyzai); V.S. Bogdanov (Onton); A.A.Strizhov (Orozoi); Z.V. Ermakova (Tatyana Grigorievna); The bee dance was performed by 10th grade students from a local school. In total, 20 people took part in the production. People's artists of the MASSR I.T. Yakaev and S.I. helped stage the play. Kuzminykh. The team performed a scene from the play in the house of officers of the local garrison, for which they were awarded a Certificate of Honor. The premiere of the play “Apiary” directed by O. Irkabaev took place on April 26 - 27, 1988. In the next theater season, the performance appeared before the audience in a modified form. The scenery has been changed. The creators of the play did some work to make the director's version more convincing. For the 120th anniversary of the birth of S. Chavain, director A. Yamaev prepared a new production of “Apiary”. The play premiered in November 2007. The music was written by composer Sergei Makov. Artist Ivan Yamberdov created magnificent monumental decorations. Choreographer - Honored Worker of the Russian Musical Theater Tamara Viktorovna Dmitrieva. The performance was warmly received by theater lovers. And I believe that the play “Apiary” will have a long and happy life on the stage of the Mari National Drama Theater named after. M. Shketana. The play “Muksh otar” can be found and read in the department of national local history literature and bibliography in the following publications: 1. Chavain S.G. Muksh otar / S.G. Chavain. – Yoshkar-Ola: Margosizdat, 1933. – 87 p. 2. Muksh otar //Chavain S. Oypogo /S.Chavain. – Yoshkar-Ola: Mar. book publishing house, 1956. – P.186 – 238. 3. Muksh otar //Chavain S.G. Sylnymutan works-vlak: 5 tom dene lektesh: 4-she t.: Piece-vlak / S.G. Chavain. – Yoshkar-Ola: Book. Luksho Mar. publishing house, 1968. – P.200 – 259. 4. Muksh otar //Chavain S.G. Vozymyzho kum tom dene luktaltesh: Volume 3: Play-vlak, “Elnet” novel. – Yoshkar-Ola: Book. Luksho Mari Publishing House, 1981. – P.5 -52.

"Little Tragedies" were staged separately. “Mozart and Salieri” and “The Stone Guest” were the most “lucky”, less so were “ To the stingy knight” and very little - “A feast during the plague.”

“The Stone Guest” was first staged in 1847 in St. Petersburg. V. Karatygin acted as Don Guan, V. Samoilova as Dona Anna.

“The Miserly Knight” was also first staged in St. Petersburg in 1852 with V. Karatygin in the title role. And in Moscow at the Maly Theater in 1853, the Baron is played by M. Shchepkin.

In 1899, on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of Pushkin’s birth, the “Feast in Time of Plague” was held for the first time.

The slow penetration of Pushkin's dramaturgy onto the stage was explained not only by censorship prohibitions. The theater was not yet ready to accept innovation in dramaturgy, which consisted in a different system of images, in the psychological depiction of characters, in freedom from the classicist “unities” of place and time, in the conditioning of the hero’s behavior by circumstances.

All “little tragedies” first appeared in films: in the 1970s and 80s. a film directed by Schweitzer appeared, in which the entire tetralogy found its interpretation. Critics praised the film as a worthy attempt to penetrate into the essence of Pushkin's plan.

Before the appearance of this film (in the early 60s), a television version of “Mozart and Salieri” was created, in which Salieri was played by the wonderful tragic actor of our time Nikolai Simonov, and Mozart was played by the young Innokenty Smoktunovsky. It was a most interesting work by great actors. In Schweitzer's film, Smoktunovsky already played Salieri, no less talentedly as he once played Mozart. Mozart was played by Valery Zolotukhin in the film. He turned out to be weaker than Salieri-Smoktunovsky. And the idea that “genius and villainy are incompatible” somehow did not come up.

The significance of Pushkin’s dramaturgy in the development of Russian theater.

Pushkin's dramas reformed Russian theater. The theoretical manifesto of the reform is expressed in articles, notes, and letters.

According to Pushkin, a playwright must have fearlessness, resourcefulness, vividness of imagination, but most importantly, he must be a philosopher, he must have the state thoughts of a historian and freedom.

“The truth of passions, the plausibility of feelings in the expected circumstances...”, that is, the conditioning of the hero’s behavior by circumstances - this formula of Pushkin, in fact, is a law in dramaturgy. Pushkin is convinced that it is always interesting to observe the human soul.

The goal of the tragedy, according to Pushkin, is man and the people, human destiny, people's destiny. The classicist tragedy could not convey the fate of the people. To establish a truly national tragedy, it will be necessary to “overthrow the customs, mores and concepts of entire centuries” (A.S. Pushkin).

Pushkin's dramaturgy was ahead of its time and provided grounds for reforming the theater. However, there could not be a sudden transition to a new dramatic technique. The theater gradually adapted to the new dramaturgy: new generations of actors had to grow up, brought up on the new dramaturgy.

N.V. Gogol and theater

Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol (1809-1852) - one of the most complex Russian writers, contradictory, confused in many ways (next to him only Dostoevsky and Tolstoy can be placed).

In Gogol, as in Pushkin, he lives artist And thinker. But as an artist, Gogol is incomparably stronger than Gogol the thinker. There is a contradiction between his worldview and creativity, which was sometimes explained by his illness. But this is only partly true. According to his convictions, Gogol was a monarchist; he considered the existing political system to be fair; was convinced that with his creativity he served to strengthen the state. But the laws are used poorly, because there are careless bureaucrats who distort the laws and the state system itself. And with his creativity, Gogol criticized these officials, hoping that in this way he would strengthen the state.

What explains such contradictions between worldview and creativity?

True creativity is always truthful. The artist's heart always understands more than his head. When an artist completely devotes himself to creativity, he cannot simultaneously analyze it, because creativity is a subconscious process. The creative process completely captivates the artist, and he, against his will, reflects the truth of life (if, of course, he is a great artist).

Gogol attached great importance to theater and drama. His thoughts about theater and drama are scattered in his letters (to the Maly Theater actor M.S. Shchepkin, to his contemporaries-writers, as well as in the article “Theater Travel”, some others and in the “Warning to the Inspector General”). These thoughts can be summarized this way:

“Drama and theater are soul and body, they cannot be separated.”

And there was an opinion that theater could do without drama, just as drama could do without theater.

Gogol saw the high purpose of the theater in enlightening and educating the people, he gave it the significance of a temple.

“The theater is not at all a trifle and not at all an empty thing, if you take into account the fact that a crowd of five or six thousand people can suddenly fit in it, and that all this crowd, in no way similar to each other, if we take it apart individually, may suddenly be shaken by one shock. Cry with only tears and laugh with one universal laughter. This is the kind of pulpit from which you can say a lot of good to the world ... "

“The theater is a great school, its purpose is profound: it reads a living and useful lesson to a whole crowd, a whole thousand people at a time...”

Therefore, Gogol attached great importance to the repertoire of theaters. The theatrical repertoire of that time consisted largely of translated Western European drama, often in a distorted form, with large abbreviations, sometimes not translated, but “retold.” Russian plays were also shown in theaters, but they were of insignificant content.

Gogol believed that the repertoire of theaters should include old classical plays, but they “You have to see it with your own eyes.” This meant that the classics had to be understood in the context of modern problems and their relevance identified.

“...It is necessary to bring to the stage in all its splendor all the most perfect dramatic works of all centuries and peoples. You need to give them more often, as often as possible... You can make all the plays fresh again, new, interesting for everyone, young and old, if only you can put them on stage properly. The public has no whim of its own; she will go where they lead her.”

Gogol wrote very vividly about the public and its court in his work “Theatrical tour after the presentation of a new comedy” , where, in the form of dialogues between different spectators, he characterized their tastes and morals in relation to the theater.

Interested in Gogol and acting issues. The classicist manner of playing the role did not satisfy him; it was far from the realistic existence of an actor on stage. Gogol said that an actor should not represent on stage, but convey to the viewer the thoughts contained in the play, and for this he must completely live with the thoughts of the hero. “The artist must convey the soul, and not show the dress.”

Play, according to Gogol, must represent an artistic whole. This meant that the actors had to play in the ensemble. And for this, actors cannot memorize the text alone; everyone needs to rehearse together improvisationally. Gogol speaks about this, in particular, in “A warning for those who would like to play “The Inspector General” properly. In these remarks of his one can see the beginnings of directing and that method of rehearsal work, which will later be called the method of effective analysis of the play and the role.

Gogol's friendship with the great Russian actor Shchepkin affected his views on the art of theater and the art of acting. Giving The Inspector General to Shchepkin, he believed that Shchepkin would direct the production. It was in the rules that the first actor of the troupe directed the production. In his “Forewarnings,” Gogol noted the most essential in each character, what Stanislavsky would later call "grain" of the role. It is no coincidence that Stanislavsky conducted the first rehearsal for the system of actor education he created on the basis of “The Inspector General”.

Gogol's work contains elements of fantasy, sometimes even mysticism. (It is known that Gogol was religious, and in the last years of his life he became mystic; he has articles from this period.)

Fiction, imagination, fantasy are necessary elements of creativity. And the truthfulness of the artist does not lie in the fact that he describes what it really happens often, and also in that what could it be.

Gogol's art hyperbolic. This is his artistic technique. Art begins with selection process phenomena of life in their sequence. This is the beginning of the creative process. Fantastic elements in Gogol's works, his grotesque do not detract from it, but emphasize it realism.(Realism is not naturalism).

Gogol realized the need to write a social comedy. He wrote the comedy “Vladimir III Degree,” but it was cumbersome, and Gogol realized that it was not suitable for the theater. In addition, the author himself notes: “The pen is pushed into places... that cannot be allowed onto the stage... But what is comedy without truth and anger?”

Gogol's thoughts are curious about comic : “The funny is revealed by itself precisely in the seriousness with which each of the characters is busy, fussy, even passionately busy with their work, as if the most important task of their life. The viewer can only see from the outside the trifle of their worries.”

In 1833, Gogol wrote the comedy “Grooms”, where the situation is as follows: the bride does not want to miss any of the grooms and, apparently, loses them all. Podkolesin and Kochkarev were not in it. And in 1835 the comedy was completed, in which Podkolesin and Kochkarev already appeared. At the same time, a new name was established - “Marriage”. In the autumn of the same year, Gogol prepared the text of the comedy to give it to the theater, but, having started working on “The Inspector General” in October-December 1835, he postponed his intention.

“Marriage” appeared in print in 1842 in the Collected Works of Gogol (vol. 4). It was staged in St. Petersburg in December 1842 for a benefit performance by Sosnitsky and in Moscow in February 1843 for a benefit performance by Shchepkin.

In St. Petersburg, the play had no success; the actors played, as Belinsky noted, “vilely and vilely. Sosnitsky (he played Kochkarev) didn’t even know the role...” Belinsky was not satisfied with the Moscow production either, although “even here the performers of the central roles Shchepkin (Podkolesin) and Zhivokini (Kochkarev) were weak.

The reason for the stage failure of “Marriage” was the unusual form of the play (lack of external intrigue, slow development of the action, inserted episodes, merchant household material, etc.).

But all this happened after The Inspector General was written.

“The theater should be a mirror,” Gogol thought. Let us remember the epigraph to “The Inspector General”: “There’s no point in blaming the mirror if your face is crooked.” But his comedy also became a “magnifying glass” (as Mayakovsky will say about the theater).

“The Inspector General was written by Gogol in two months (in October 1835, Pushkin suggested the plot to him, and by early December the play was ready). It doesn’t matter whether the plot was suggested or borrowed, important,What the writer will say with this plot.

For eight years, Gogol polishes the word, form, images, deliberately emphasizing some aspects of comedy (meaningful names of characters, for example). The entire system of images carries a deep thought. Artistic technique - grotesque- a gross exaggeration. Unlike a caricature, it is filled with deep content. Gogol widely uses the grotesque technique.

But the methods of external comedy are not the path of the grotesque. They lead to a fragmentation of the work, to a vaudeville beginning.

The days of the love affair for comedy are over.

Gogol bases the plot on natural human aspirations - a career, the desire to obtain an inheritance through a successful marriage, etc.

Gogol's contemporaries did not understand and did not listen to the author's comments. Gogol considered Khlestakov the main hero of his comedy. But what's happened Khlestakov? Khlestakov – nothing. This "nothing" very difficult to play. He is not an adventurer, not a swindler, not a hardened scoundrel. This is a person who for a moment, for a moment, for a minute wants to become something. And this is the essence of the image, so it is modern in any era. Gogol fought against the vulgarity of a vulgar person and exposed human emptiness. Therefore, the concept of “Khlestakovism” has become a generalizing concept. The final edition of “The Inspector General” – 1842

But the first premieres took place even before the final edition.

On April 19, 1836, “The Inspector General” was performed for the first time on the stage of the Alexandrinsky Theater. Gogol was dissatisfied with this production, in particular with the actor Durom in the role of Khlestakov, who, being a vaudeville actor, played Khlestakov in a vaudeville way. The images of Dobchinsky and Bobchinsky were perfect caricatures. Sosnitsky alone in the role of mayor satisfied the author. He played the Mayor as a large bureaucrat with good manners.

The last - silent scene - also did not work out: the actors did not listen to the voice of the author, and he warned against caricature.

Later Gorodnichy was played by V.N. Davydov, Osipa - Vasiliev, then K. A. Varlamov.

Satire may not cause laughter in the audience, but anger and indignation.

When transferring the play to the Maly Theater, Gogol hoped that Shchepkin would direct the production and take into account everything that worried the author.

The Moscow premiere took place in the same 1836 (it was planned on the stage of the Bolshoi Theater, but was played in the Maly Theater: there was a smaller auditorium there). The public reaction was not as noisy as in St. Petersburg. Gogol was also not entirely satisfied with this production, although some mistakes were avoided here. But the reaction of the audience, rather restrained, was discouraging. True, after the performance, friends explained what was going on: half of the audience are those who give bribes, and the other half are those who take them. That's the reason why the audience didn't laugh.

At the Maly Theater Khlestakov was played by Lensky (and also in vaudeville), later by Shumsky (his acting already satisfied the author’s requirements), and even later this role was played by M.P. Sadovsky. The mayor was played by Shchepkin (later by Samarin, Maksheev, Rybakov). M.S. Shchepkin, who played the Governor, created the image of a roguish rogue who is friendly with his subordinates; He does all the mischief with them. Osip was played by Prov Sadovsky. Anna Andreevna was played by N.A. Nikulina, later - A.A. Yablochkina, E.D. Turchaninova, V.N. Tilled.

The stage history of The Inspector General is rich. But the productions did not always reveal satirical content addressed to modern times. Sometimes the comedy was staged as a play about the past.

In 1908, at the Moscow Art Theater, “The Inspector General” was staged as a gallery of bright characters; the play contained many details of everyday life, that is, it was an everyday comedy (directed by Stanislavsky and Moskvin). But it is true, it should be noted that this performance was experimental in the sense that Stanislavsky tested his “system” in this production; That is why attention was paid to characters and everyday details.

And in the 1921/22 season at the Moscow Art Theater - a new stage solution for “The Inspector General”. This performance lacked naturalistic details of everyday life. The director followed the line of searching for the grotesque. Khlestakov was played by Mikhail Chekhov - a bright, sharp, grotesque actor. His performance of this role went down in theater history as a striking example of the grotesque in the art of acting.

In 1938, I. Ilyinsky played Khlestakov at the Maly Theater.

In the mid-50s, a film adaptation of “The Inspector General” appeared, in which the actors of the Moscow Art Theater played mainly, and Khlestakova was a student of the history department of Leningrad University I. Gorbachev, who later became an actor and artistic director of the Alexandrinsky Theater.

The most interesting production of the middle of our century, perhaps, can be considered the BDT performance staged in 1972 by G.A. Tovstonogov. The mayor was played by K. Lavrov, Khlestakov by O. Basilashvili, Osip by S. Yursky.

In this performance, an important character was Fear - the fear of retribution for what was done. This was embodied in the image of a black carriage, which usually carries an auditor. This carriage hung like the sword of Damocles above the stage board throughout the entire performance. Read: all officials are under the sword of Damocles. Fear, even horror, sometimes filled the mayor so that he could not control himself. In the first scene, he very businesslike orders the officials to restore order so that “it will blow through.” But when Fear approaches him, he cannot control himself.

Around the same time, The Inspector General appeared at the Moscow Satire Theater. It was staged by V. Pluchek, the main director of this theater. The most famous actors played in it: Gorodnichy - Papanov, Khlestakov - A. Mironov, other roles were played by equally popular artists who appeared weekly in the serial TV show “Zucchini 13 Chairs”. The performance not only did not carry any satire, but only laughter caused by the fact that the participants in the performance were perceived through the characters of the “zucchini”, and not from Gogol’s play. This is probably how the first productions of this comedy were played in the capitals, with which Gogol was dissatisfied.

N.V. Gogol not only brought official crimes to public ridicule, but also showed the process of turning a person into a conscious bribe-taker . All this makes the comedy “The Inspector General” a work of great accusatory power.

Gogol laid a solid foundation for the creation of Russian national drama. Before The Inspector General, one can only name Fonvizin’s “The Minor” and Griboedov’s “Woe from Wit” - plays in which our compatriots were artistically fully depicted.

“The Inspector General” acquired the force of a document denouncing the existing system. He influenced the development of social consciousness of Gogol's contemporaries, as well as subsequent generations.

The comedy “The Inspector General” contributed to the fact that our Russian acting was able to move away from the acting techniques borrowed from foreign actors that had dominated the stage since the 18th century, and to master the realistic method.

In 1842, a one-act comedy appeared "Players". In terms of the sharpness of realistic colors, the strength of satirical orientation and the perfection of artistic skill, it can be placed next to the famous comedies of Gogol.

The tragicomic story of the experienced swindler Ikharev, wittily and inventively deceived and robbed by even more clever swindlers, takes on a broad, generalized meaning. Ikharev, having beaten the provincial with marked cards, expects to “fulfill the duty of an enlightened person”: “to dress according to the capital’s model,” to walk “along the Aglitskaya embankment” in St. Petersburg, and to have lunch in Moscow at “Yar.” The whole “wisdom” of his life is to “deceive everyone and not be deceived himself.” But he himself was deceived by even more dexterous predators. Ikharev is indignant. He appeals to the law to punish fraudsters. To which Glov notes that he has no right to appeal to the law, because he himself acted lawlessly. But it seems to Ikharev that he is absolutely right, because he trusted the scammers, and they robbed him.

“The Players” is Gogol’s small masterpiece. Here the ideal purposefulness of the action is achieved, the completeness of the plot development, which at the end of the play reveals all the vileness of society.

The intense interest of the action is combined with the revelation of characters. With all the laconicism of the events, the characters of the comedy reveal themselves with exhaustive completeness. The very intrigue of the comedy seems to be an ordinary everyday incident snatched from life, but thanks to Gogol’s talent, this “case” acquires a broadly revealing character.

The meaning of Gogol for the development of Russian theater can hardly be overestimated.

Gogol acts as a remarkable innovator, discarding conventional forms and techniques that have already become obsolete, creating new principles of dramaturgy. Gogol's dramatic principles and his theatrical aesthetics marked the victory of realism. The greatest innovative achievement of the writer was the creation of the theater life truth, that effective realism, that socially oriented dramaturgy that paved the way for the further development of Russian dramatic art.

Turgenev wrote about Gogol in 1846 that “he showed the road along which our dramatic literature will eventually go.” These insightful words of Turgenev were completely justified. The entire development of Russian drama of the 19th century, right up to Chekhov and Gorky, owes a lot to Gogol. Gogol's dramaturgy reflected the social significance of comedy with particular fullness.