From work experience. Social and philosophical drama by M. Gorky “At the Depths” lesson plan in literature (grade 11) on the topic. Maksim Gorky. "At the bottom". Innovation of Gorky the playwright. Stage fate of the play. Theory of Literature. Social and philosophical drama as

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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.

In terms of 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 absence of a narrative beginning is a distinctive feature of drama. 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, “involuntarily philosophers.” 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: “...It’s impossible to 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! It's 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 realization 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 as a 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 of the 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, characteristic of Gorky’s plays, 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 “The Lower Depths.” “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 night 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 a 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 unable 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 Tick, dreaming of honest work, and Ash, longing for a right life, and the Actor, completely absorbed in the memories of his past glory, and Nastya, passionately striving for great, 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 Mite speaks about his hopeless lot: "There is no work... no strength... This is the truth! Shelter, no refuge! We must die... This is the truth!" The inhabitants of the “bottom” are thrown out of life due to the conditions prevailing in society. Man is left to his own devices. If he stumbles, gets out of line, 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 is magnificent! It sounds proud! " 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 led such 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 honor and conscience? On your feet, instead of boots you can’t put on either honor or conscience... The audience is amazed by the gambler and sharper 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 Luka. 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, is patient.

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 stay alive. 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, acting as 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 when the dying Anna talks to Luka causes horror. 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, a new, hidden meaning is discerned in the prison song introduced into the narrative. 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 Gorky does not give an unambiguous answer to the main questions of what is the truth of life and what a person should strive for, 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.

Gorky wanted to prove with his play At the Depth 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 history of the creation and fate of the play “At the Lower Depths”

The heyday of Russian drama of the 19th century. associated with the name of A. N. Ostrovsky. After his death, criticism began to talk about the decline of modern drama, but in the late 90s - early 1900s. dramatic art and its stage interpretation are receiving a new generally recognized rise. The banner of the new theater becomes Chekhov's dramaturgy, creatively read by innovating directors, founders of the Moscow Art Theater. In essence, only from this time on did the director acquire great importance in the Russian theater.

The novelty of the director's interpretation of the plays and the actors' performances, unusual for the old stage, brought enormous success to the Art Theater and attracted the attention of young writers to it. M. Gorky wrote that it is “impossible not to love this theater; not to work for it is a crime.” Gorky's first plays were written for the Art Theater. The passion for working on drama was so strong that Gorky almost stopped writing prose for several years. For him, the theater is a platform from which a loud call can be heard to fight against everything that leads to the enslavement of man; the writer valued the opportunity to use this platform.

In his poetics, Gorky the playwright is close to the poetics of Chekhov, but his plays are characterized by different problems, different characters, a different perception of life - and his dramaturgy sounded in a new way. It is characteristic that picky contemporaries paid almost no attention to the typological similarity of the dramaturgy of both writers. Gorky's individual principle came first.

In Gorky's plays there is an accusation, a challenge, a protest. Unlike Chekhov, who tended to reveal life’s conflicts with the help of halftones and subtext, Gorky usually resorted to naked sharpness, to an emphasized opposition of the worldviews and social positions of the heroes. These are plays of debate, plays of ideological confrontation.

One of these plays is “At the Bottom”. For the first time it was published as a separate book, under the title “At the Depth of Life”, by the Markhlevsky publishing house in Munich, without indicating the year, and under the title “At the Depth”, by the publishing house of the “Knowledge” partnership, St. Petersburg. 1903. The Munich edition went on sale at the end of December 1902, the St. Petersburg edition on January 31, 1903. The demand for the book was unusually high: the entire circulation of the first St. Petersburg edition, in the amount of 40,000 copies, was sold out within two weeks; by the end of 1903, more than 75,000 copies had been sold - no literary work had enjoyed such success until that time.

The creative concept of the play “At the Lower Depths” dates back to the very beginning of 1900. In the spring of this year, in the Crimea, M. Gorky told K. S. Stanislavsky the content of the planned play. “In the first edition, the main role was that of a footman from a good house, who most of all took care of the collar of his tailcoat shirt - the only thing that connected him with his former life. The shelter was crowded, its inhabitants were arguing, the atmosphere was poisoned with hatred. The second act ended with a sudden police raid of the shelter. At the news of this, the entire anthill began to swarm, hurrying to hide the loot; and in the third act, spring came, the sun, nature came to life, the shelters came out of the stinking atmosphere into the clean air, to do earthworks, they sang songs and under the sun, in the fresh air, they forgot about hating each other,” Stanislavsky recalled.

In mid-October 1901, Gorky informed K.P. Pyatnitsky, the founder and head of the Knowledge partnership, that he had conceived a “cycle of dramas” of four plays, each of which would be dedicated to depicting a certain layer of Russian society. About the last of them the letter says: “Another one: tramps. Tatar, Jew, actor, hostess of a rooming house, thieves, detective, prostitutes. It will be scary. I already have ready-made plans, I see faces, figures, I hear voices, speeches, motives for actions - they are clear, everything is clear!..”

M. Gorky began writing “At the Lower Depths” at the end of 1901, in Crimea. In his memoirs about Leo Tolstoy, M. Gorky says that he read the written parts of the play to Leo Tolstoy in Crimea.

In Arzamas, where M. Gorky arrived on May 5, 1902, he intensively continued to work on the play. On June 15, the play was completed and its white manuscript was sent to St. Petersburg, K.P. Pyatnitsky. Having received typewritten copies from St. Petersburg along with the manuscript, M. Gorky corrected the text of the play and made a number of significant additions to it. On July 25, one copy of the play was again sent to St. Petersburg, to the Znanie publishing house. M. Gorky sent another copy to A.P. Chekhov. After this, the drama was never subject to copyright edits.

The title changed several times during the work on the play. In the manuscript it was called “Without the Sun”, “Nochlezhka”, “The Bottom”, “At the Bottom of Life”. The last title was preserved even in the white typescript, edited by the author, and in the printed Munich edition. The final title - “At the Depths” - first appeared only on the posters of the Moscow Art Theater.

The production of the play on the stage of Russian theaters encountered great obstacles from theatrical censorship. At first the play was strictly prohibited. In order to destroy or at least weaken the revolutionary orientation of the play, theatrical censorship made large cuts and some changes to the play.

The play was first staged on December 18/31, 1902 by the Art Theater in Moscow. The Art Theater created a performance of enormous impressive power, a performance that formed the basis for numerous copies in productions of other theaters, both Russian and foreign. The play “At the Lower Depths” was translated into many foreign languages and, starting in 1903, went around the stages of all major cities in the world with great success. In Sofia, in 1903, the performance caused a violent street demonstration.

The play was also staged by the Vyatka City Theater, the Nizhny Novgorod Theater, and St. Petersburg theaters: the Vasileostrovsky Theater, the Rostov-on-Don Theater, the New Drama Association in Kherson (director and performer of the role of the Actor - Meyerhold).

In subsequent years, the play was staged by many provincial theaters and metropolitan theaters, among them: Ekaterinodar and Kharkov theaters (1910), Public Theater, Petrograd (1912), Moscow Military Theater (1918), People's Drama Theater in Petrozavodsk (1918), Kharkov Theater Rus . drama (1936), Leningrad Drama Theater named after. Pushkin (1956).

In 1936, the play was filmed by the French director J. Renoir (Baron - Jouvet, Ashes - Gabin).

Nowadays, the production of the play “At the Lower Depths” can be seen in many theaters: the Moscow Art Theater named after M. Gorky, Oleg Tabakov's theater-studio, Moscow Theater in the South-West, Small Drama Theater under the direction of Lev Ehrenburg.

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.

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.

Dramatic conflict of the play “At the Lower Depths”

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

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.

Gorky wanted to prove with his play At the Depth 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 comedy "Our People - Let's Be Numbered" has its own clearly defined composition. At the beginning of the comedy, we do not see any exposition: the author does not tell us a brief background of what will be discussed in the work.

Comedy composition

The immediate beginning of the comedy is the plot: the reader sees a young girl Lipochka, who madly wants to become a married woman, and not without protest agrees to the candidacy proposed by her father - clerk Podkhalyuzin. In every comedy there is a so-called driving force, often this is the main character, who often takes a counterposition to the majority of the characters, or, through his active participation, contributes to the sharp development of the storyline.

In the play “We Are Our Own People,” this status is given to the merchant Bolshov, who, with the support of his relatives, came up with a financial adventure and put it into action. The most important part of the composition is the climax in the comedy - that part of the work where the characters experience the maximum intensity of emotions.

In this play, the climax is the episode in which Lipochka openly takes the side of her husband and tells her father that they will not pay a penny for his loans. The climax is followed by a denouement - a logical outcome of events. In the denouement, the authors sum up the entire comedy and expose its entire essence.

The denouement of “We’ll be our own people” is Podkhalyuzin’s attempt to bargain with the creditors of his wife’s father. Some writers, in order to achieve the maximum dramatic moment, willfully introduce a silent final scene into the comedy, which finally closes the action.

But Alexander Ostrovsky uses a different technique - Podkhalyuzin remains true to his principles about the latter, promising, instead of a creditor’s discount, not to shortchange him in his own future store.

Stage fate of the play

Everyone knows that plays, unlike other genres of literature, are transformed into another, no less important form of art - theater. However, not all plays have a stage destiny. There are many factors that promote or hinder the production of plays on the stage of theaters. The main criterion that determines the viability of a play in the future is its relevance to the themes covered by the author.

The play "Our People - Let's Be Numbered" was created in 1849. However, for eleven long years, tsarist censorship did not give permission to stage it in the theater. “We Will Be Numbered Our Own People” was first staged by actors of the Voronezh Theater in 1860. In 1961, state censorship made its changes to the play and allowed its production in the theaters of the empire in an edited version.

This edition remained until the end of 1881. It should be noted that when the famous director A.F. Fedotov in 1872 allowed himself the audacity and staged the play in its original form in his People's Theater, this theater was closed forever after a few days by decree of the emperor.

Baranova Lyudmila Nikolaevna, Teacher of Russian language and literature MOAU "Secondary school No. 6 Novotroitsk, Orenburg region"
Item name:	literature


	Russian literature of the 20th century, grade 11, edited by V.P. Zhuravleva, 2005
	"At the Bottom" as a socio-philosophical drama. The meaning of the play's title. Innovation of Gorky - playwright. Stage fate of the play.
	To give an initial idea of socio-philosophical drama as a genre of drama; introduce the meaning of the title of the play “At the Lower Depths”, and the stage fate of the play; identify the innovation of Gorky the playwright; develop the skill of analyzing a dramatic work, improving students’ monologue speech; ability to work independently and in groups; cultivate respect for people.
	Determine the philosophical meaning of the title of Gorky's play "At the Lower Depths"; to 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.
Lesson technical support:	PC, multimedia projector

Suffer! Die! But be the one

who you should be: a man!

Romain Rolland

Organizing time

Working with an epigraph for the lesson. Identifying lesson objectives (students formulate lesson objectives themselves).

Opening speech by the teacher The craving for the works of Maxim Gorky, and, above all, for his play “At the Depths” has now surprisingly increased. The life depicted in the play is in many ways reminiscent of today, when the country, like a careless student, is busy “repeating” the past, correcting the mistakes made over many years of the totalitarian regime. That is why the debate about a person and his place in life in the play “At the Bottom” is still relevant today. The play has been staged and filmed in Russia and abroad many times, dozens of critical and scientific works have been devoted to it, but hardly anyone would dare to say that even today everything is known about this work.

Student's message “The stage fate of the play “At the Lower Depths.” This is interesting.

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 the photographs it is written in Gorky’s hand that many of the characters in “At the Lower Depths” had real prototypes in the environment of Nizhny Novgorod tramps. 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.

The glory 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 audience went wild. They called the author countless times. He resisted, did not want to go 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...” “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 strongest , 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 premiere of the play took place in Berlin at the Max Reinhardt Theater, directed by Richard Walletin, who played the role of Satine. In Berlin, the play ran for 300 performances in a row, and in the spring of 1905. marked her 500th performance.

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

Some called it a flaw, others saw it as a manifestation of a remarkable, integral personality who came from the lower strata of the people and seemed to “explode” traditional ideas about the Russian writer. The play was a huge success. Proof of this is numerous newspaper publications. Here is one of them: “The ovation took on unprecedented proportions. Gorky was summoned more than 15 times. Something beyond description.” The writer himself was extremely surprised: “The success of the play is exceptional, I did not expect anything like this.”

The play was staged abroad many times: Berlin (1903, under the name "Nochlezhka"), Finnish National Theater, Helsingfors, Krakow Theater, Paris 1905, 1922 - performer of the role of Baron Zh. Pitoev), Tokyo (1924,1925) New York (1956 ), London (1961), Tunisian troupe (1962) and many others. etc.

VII. Who are these people who ended up in Kostylev’s shelter?

Dialogue communication: "Get to know the hero..."

Claims that he "seems to have no character"? (Baron)

He doesn’t want to come to terms with life on the “bottom” and declares: “I’m a working man and have been working since I was little... I’ll get out... I’ll rip off my skin, but I’ll get out”? (Mite.)

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

Lives with dreams of great, true human love? (Nastya)

She 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)

..."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)

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

Under the guise of serving God, he robs people “... and I’ll throw fifty dollars at you, I’ll buy oil for a lamp... and my sacrifice will burn in front of the holy icon...” (Kostylev)

He is indignant: “Why do they bother people when they fight? If only they were allowed to beat each other freely... they would fight less, so they would remember the pobon longer...”? (Policeman Medvedev)

Did you end up in jail because you left your wife, afraid to kill her, jealous of someone else? (Bubnov)

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

Beaten, scalded with boiling water, asking to be taken to prison? (Natasha)

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

VIII.What circumstances brought each of them to the shelter?

(student messages)

Mikhail Ivanovich Kostylev - 54 years old, hostel owner

Vasilisa Karpovna - his wife, 26 years old

Natasha - her sister, 20 years old

Medvedev - their uncle, policeman, 50 years old

Vaska Pepel - thief, 28 years old. Born in prison. He dreams of marrying Natasha, leaving the power of Vasilisa (the wife of the owner of the shelter), who incites him to kill her husband.

Klesch, Andrey Mitrich - mechanic, 40 years old. I ended up in a shelter after losing my job. The only one of the inhabitants of the shelter who did not accept his fate. He separates himself from the others: “What kind of people are they? A trash, a golden company... people! I am a working man... I’m ashamed to look at them... I’m ashamed to look at them... I’ve been working since I was little... . Do you think I won’t break out of here? I’ll get out... I’ll rip off my skin, but I’ll get out... Just wait... my wife will die..."

Anna - his wife, 30 years old

Nastya is a girl, 24 years old. Dreams of big, pure love.

Kvashnya - dumpling seller, under 40 years old

Bubnov - cap-maker, 45 years old. He left home for a shelter “out of harm’s way” after his wife found someone else. He admits that he is a lazy drunkard.

Baron - 33 years old, bankrupt nobleman

Satin, Actor - characters of approximately the same age: about 40 years old. Satin is a sharper, in his youth he was a telegraph operator. He hit rock bottom after serving four years and seven months in prison for murder (he stood up for his sister’s honor). The actor once played on stage under the pseudonym Sverchkov-Zavolzhsky, but now he drank himself to death. Lives with memories of beauty. What distinguishes him from all the inhabitants of the shelter is his subtle spiritual organization. He admits that he has lost his name.

Luke - wanderer, 60 years old. Luke says practically nothing about himself. He only says: “They crumpled a lot, that’s why it’s soft...”

Alyoshka - shoemaker, 20 years old

Crooked Zob, Tatar - hookers

several tramps without names or speeches

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.

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.

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

IX. Teacher:

The conclusion to everything that has been said about the inhabitants of the shelter can be the words of the German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer: “Circumstances do not create a person, they simply reveal him to himself.”

We write it down in notebooks and use it when writing essays on the play.

The title of the play “At the Lower Depths” is not only the “cave” in which Gorky’s heroes found themselves, it is also the very atmosphere of indifference and moral ugliness that reigns in the shelter. The title of the play is deeply symbolic; it reveals the meaning of the entire work.

What is the subject of the play? (The subject of the portrayal in the drama “At the Bottom” is the consciousness of people thrown as a result of deep social processes to the “bottom” of life).

XI. - What is the conflict of the drama?

(The social conflict has several levels in the play. The social poles are clearly indicated: on one - the owner of the shelter Kostylev and the policeman Medvedev supporting his power, on the other - the essentially powerless shelters. Thus, the conflict between the authorities and people deprived of rights is obvious. This conflict is almost does not develop, because people are deprived of rights. This conflict almost does not develop, because the Kostylevs and Medvedev are not so far from the inhabitants of the shelter. Each of the shelters experienced their own social conflict in the past, as a result of which they found themselves in a humiliating position.)

The conflict in which all the heroes participate is of a different kind. Gorky depicts the consciousness of people at the bottom. The plot unfolds not so much in external action - in everyday life, but in the dialogues of the characters. It is the conversations of the night shelters that determine the development of the dramatic conflict. The action is transferred to an out-of-event sequence. This is typical for the genre of philosophical drama. So, the genre of the play can be defined as a socio-philosophical drama.

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).

XII. Work in groups, work with text.

The play "At the Bottom" makes you argue, think about truth and lies, about the meaning of human existence, about compassion, about responsibility for your personal destiny.

Working on the fourth act of the play. We must find out its significance for the play as a whole.

The night shelters ask themselves the latest philosophical questions about man - truth - freedom.

1 group. Truth is Luke's philosophy of truth in relation to man.

2nd group. Bubnov and his truth about human life.

3rd group. What is Satin's position in the play?

4th group. What is the meaning of the ending of the play "At the Bottom".

XIII. Student performances, reflection.

XIV. Homework:

A thesis plan on the topic “Innovation of Gorky as a playwright” using the text of the play and quotes to the theses.

Individual assignment: a reasoned message based on Spinoza’s statement: “The truth of a person is what makes him a person.

Current page: 3 (book has 5 pages in total)

II

“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, recently voices have begun to be heard that the audience, they say, does not watch Gorky, that interest in his drama has 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 other theater figures to the editors of Soviet Culture, published by the newspaper on January 3, 1957, began.

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 searches, repeating, with one variation or another, classical theatrical models created a quarter of a century, or even half a century ago. The lack of psychological depth of the characters, the flat, one-dimensional solution of the characters, the weakening of the tension of the 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 based on Gorky’s works by 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
Balatova E. In the world of Gorky. – Theatre, 1964, No. 8, p. 25

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
Theater life, 1966, No. 2, p. 1

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
Smelkov Yu. What do you do for a living? – Theatre, 1967, No. 3, p. 17

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 philosophy of life. 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
Sechin V. Gorky “in the old way.” – Theatre, 1968, No. 5, p. 17.

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
Theater, 1964, No. 8, p. 25.

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, in which two hundred photographs were typed in with captions: “Conservative of the early 20th century,” “Liberal of the early 20th century...” 31
Theater, 1957, No. 4, p. 73.

. (We are obviously talking about M. Grigoriev’s book “Gorky – Playwright and Critic”. M., 1946.)

Focus on 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 Russia 32
Danilov S.S. Materials for the chronicle of productions of Gorky’s works on stage. – In the book: Danilov S.S. Gorky on stage. L.; M., 1958, p. 189-252. The work of S. S. Danilov was continued by E. G. Balatova. Her “materials” were brought up to 1962. See: Balatova E. G. Materials for the chronicle of Gorky’s performances (1957-1962). – Gorky Readings, 1961-1963. M., 1964.

Steady interest in the play continued during the Civil War and 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 Moscow theaters, then, according to the data presented by Mogilevsky, Filippov and Rodionov 33
Mogilevsky A.I., Filippov Vl., Rodionov A.M. Moscow theaters. 1917-G927. M., 1928.

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” it 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 cities 34
See about this: Levin M. B. Stage path “At the bottom”. – In the book: “At the bottom.” Materials and research. M., 1947.

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 a number of scenes into his performance that were not written by Gorky: collecting money for Anna’s funeral, stealing this money by Luka 35
A detailed description of the production of “At the Lower Depths” by F. N. Kaverin is given by L. D. Snezhnitsky in the article “F. N. Kaverin’s directorial quest.” – In the book: Kaverin F.N. Memoirs and theatrical stories. M., 1964.

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, a pause arose again in the stage history of Gorky’s play, which 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 play than in the previous two decades. In 1956, L. Vivien and V. Ehrenberg created a new production of the play “At the Lower Depths” at the Leningrad State Academic Drama Theater 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
Theater, 1969, No. 9, p. 10.

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 knocked together from 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 brings 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
Theater, 1964, No. 8, p. 34.

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 search 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 acting of Simonov (Satin), Tolubeev (Bubnov), Skorobogatov (Luka), the idea 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 artists sought to show not only the horrors of the “bottom”, but also how, in these almost inhuman conditions, a feeling of protest slowly but steadily matures and 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
Skorobogatov K. My Gorky. – Neva, 1968, No. 11, p. 197.

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
Chernova F. The duel of truth and lies. – Theater life, 1966, No. 5, p. 16.

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 the attempts of Satin, Ash and others 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
Theater life, 1967, No. 10, p. 24.

Satin, on the contrary, strives 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 action, 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. eleven.

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. eleven.

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.

Chekhov, who came to literature in the 80s of the 19th century, keenly felt the doom of previous forms of life and the inevitability of the emergence of new ones. This caused both hope and anxiety. Such sentiments are reflected in the playwright’s last play, “The Cherry Orchard.” One French director said that this work gives "a physical sense of the fluidity of time." Three stage hours cover five months of the characters' lives. The characters in the play are always afraid of missing time, missing the train, or not getting money from the Yaroslavl grandmother.

The work intersects the past, present and future. People of different generations appear before the reader. Anya is 17 years old, Gaev is 51 years old, and Firs is 87 years old. The memory of the past is kept by “mute witnesses”: “a long-abandoned chapel”, a hundred-year-old wardrobe, “the ancient livery of Firs”. Unlike other works of Russian classics, there is no generational conflict in the play. The plot of the comedy is determined by the fate of the cherry orchard. However, we do not see a struggle for it between the actors. Lopakhin is trying to help Ranevskaya and Gaev save the estate, but the owners themselves cannot make a decision. Ranevskaya does not see Lopakhin as an enemy even after he bought the cherry orchard at auction. There are no open clashes between the young and old generations. Anya sincerely loves her mother, Petya is also attached to Ranevskaya. Without arguing among themselves, the heroes unwittingly come into conflict with the cherry orchard itself.

This symbol has multiple meanings in the play. The Cherry Orchard is a beautiful creation of nature and human hands. It personifies beauty, spirituality, traditions. The garden lives in several time dimensions. For Ranevskaya and Gaev, he preserves the memory of childhood, of irretrievably lost youth and purity, of the time when everyone was happy. The garden inspires them, gives them hope, and cleanses them of everyday filth. Looking out the window, Ranevskaya begins to speak almost in verse, even Gaev forgets about billiard terms when he sees “the whole white garden.” But neither brother nor sister does anything to save the estate. Gaev shields himself from life and hides in his absurd word “whom,” which is pronounced appropriately and inappropriately. Ranevskaya continues to lead a lavish lifestyle. Despite her tears, she is indifferent to the fate of the garden and to the fate of her daughters, whom she leaves without a means of subsistence.

The new owner Lopakhin, although he understands that he has bought an estate, “there is nothing more beautiful in the world,” is going to cut down the garden and rent out the land to summer residents. Peter

Trofimov proudly declares that “All of Russia is our garden,” but does not have any interest in a specific estate. The cherry orchard is in danger and no one can avert it. The garden is dying. In the fourth act, the sound of axes is heard destroying trees. The cherry orchard, like a person, experiences prosperity, decline and death. However, there is something sinister in the fact that a beautiful corner of nature has been erased from the face of the earth. This is probably why the fate of all the heroes seems sad. It’s not just the former owners of the garden who feel unhappy. Lopakhin, at the moment of his triumph, suddenly realized that he was surrounded by an “uncomfortable, unhappy life.” Petya Trofimov, who dreamed of a great future, looks pitiful and helpless. And even Anya is happy only because she still has little idea of what trials await her.

With the light hand of Firs, many heroes are given the nickname “klutz.” This applies not only to Epikhodov. The shadow of his failure lies on all the heroes. This manifests itself in both small things (scattered stilettos, knocked-on candelabra, falling down the stairs) and big ones. The heroes suffer from the consciousness of the mercilessly passing time. They lose more than they gain. Each of them is lonely in their own way. The garden, which used to unite the heroes around itself, no longer exists. Along with beauty, the characters in the play lose mutual understanding and sensitivity. Old Firs is forgotten and abandoned in a locked house. This happened not only due to the haste when leaving, but also from some kind of spiritual deafness.

The first dramatic performance of The Snow Maiden took place on May 11, 1873 at the Maly Theater in Moscow. The music for the play was commissioned by P.I. To Tchaikovsky, Ostrovsky, in the process of working on the play, sent its text to Tchaikovsky in parts. “Tchaikovsky’s music for The Snow Maiden is charming,” wrote the playwright. ""Snow Maiden"<...>was written by order of the theater directorate and at the request of Ostrovsky in 1873, in the spring, and was given at the same time, Tchaikovsky recalled later, in 1879. - This is one of my favorite creations. It was a wonderful spring, my soul felt good, as always when summer and three months of freedom approached.

I liked Ostrovsky's play, and in three weeks I wrote the music without any effort. It seems to me that in this music the joyful spring mood with which I was then imbued should be noticeable.”

All three troupes of the then Imperial Theater were involved in the performance: drama, opera and ballet.

“I stage the play myself, as a complete owner,” Ostrovsky happily reported, “here they understand very well that only under this condition will it go well and be a success. Tomorrow I read “The Snow Maiden” to the artists for the third time, then I will go through the roles with each one separately.” The scene of the melting of the Snow Maiden was discussed for a long time. Assistant stage driver K.F. Waltz recalled: “It was decided to surround the Snow Maiden with several rows of very small holes in the floor of the stage, from which streams of water should rise, which, condensing, should hide the figure of the performer, descending unnoticed into the hatch under the spotlight.”

Due to renovations at the Maly Theater, it was decided to play “The Snow Maiden” at the Bolshoi. For dramatic actors, the stage of the Bolshoi Theater turned out to be uncomfortable. It was too large and acoustically not suitable for a natural, everyday-sounding voice. This greatly hindered the success of the performance. Actor P.M. Sadovsky wrote to Ostrovsky, who was not present at the premiere: “The audience listened to the play with great attention, but did not hear much at all, so the scene of Kupava with the Tsar, despite all Nikulina’s efforts to speak loudly and clearly, was only half audible.” The day after the performance, playwright V.I. Rodislavsky sent Ostrovsky a detailed “report” in which he reported on the same shortcomings of the play: “... many wonderful, first-class poetic beauties that you so generously scattered in the play have died and can only be resurrected in print... But I will tell you in order . Leshy’s charming monologue was completely lost. Spring's flight was quite successful, but her poetic monologue seemed long. A witty folk song about birds was lost because the music made it impossible to hear words so poignant that the censors pondered over them. The dance of the birds was applauded. Moroz's wonderful story about his amusements was lost because it was launched not by a story, but by singing with music that drowned out the words. The Shrovetide monologue was unsuccessful because Milensky spoke it from behind the scenes, and not hidden in a straw effigy... In the first act, Lelya’s charming song was repeated... The appearances of the Snow Maiden’s shadow were unsuccessful... My favorite story is about the power of flowers. .. was not noticed, the procession disappeared, the disappearance of the Snow Maiden was not very skillful... The theater was completely full, there was not a single empty seat... The cry of the privet was very successful.”

The reviewer wrote about the public’s attitude towards The Snow Maiden: “... some immediately turned away from it, because it was beyond their understanding, and declared that the play was bad, that it was a failure, etc. Others, to their surprise, noticed that, when they watched it for the second time, they began to like it... The music... is both original and very good, the main thing is that it completely matches the character of the whole play.”

During Ostrovsky's lifetime, The Snow Maiden was performed at the Moscow Maly Theater 9 times. The last performance took place on August 25, 1874.

In 1880 N.A. Rimsky-Korsakov asked Ostrovsky for permission to use the text of “The Snow Maiden” to create an opera. The composer himself composed the libretto, agreeing with the author. Rimsky-Korsakov subsequently recalled: “I read The Snow Maiden for the first time around 1874, when it had just appeared in print. I didn’t like it much when reading it back then; The kingdom of the Berendeys seemed strange to me. Why? Were the ideas of the 60s still alive in me, or were the demands of stories from so-called life, which were in use in the 70s, keeping me in fetters?<...>In a word, Ostrovsky’s wonderful, poetic tale did not make an impression on me. In the winter of 1879-1880, I read “The Snow Maiden” again and clearly saw its amazing beauty. I immediately wanted to write an opera based on this plot.”

The first performance of Rimsky-Korsakov's opera took place in St. Petersburg, at the Mariinsky Theater, on January 29, 1882.

In the winter of 1882/83, “The Snow Maiden” was performed in a dramatic production by amateurs in the Mamontovs’ house. Prominent representatives of the artistic intelligentsia were attracted to it. The performance marked an attempt at a new interpretation of the play. The artistic part of the production was taken over by V.M. Vasnetsov. The artist’s talent manifested itself most forcefully in this work: he managed not only to penetrate the poetry of Ostrovsky’s wondrous fairy tale, to reproduce its special atmosphere, its Russian spirit, but also to captivate the other participants in the performance. In addition, he perfectly played the role of Santa Claus.

The performance in the Mamontovs’ house was a prologue to the production of “The Snow Maiden” by N.A. Rimsky-Korsakov on the stage of the Private Russian Opera S.I. Mamontov in Moscow on October 8, 1885. The artistic design was carried out by V.M. Vasnetsov, I.I. Levitan and K.A. Korovin. The artists' work primarily expressed that new perception of Ostrovsky's fairy tale and Rimsky-Korsakov's opera, which contributed to the revival of public interest in these works. After the premiere, a number of newspapers urgently demanded the inclusion of the opera “The Snow Maiden” in the Bolshoi Theater repertoire. However, “The Snow Maiden” was performed on the stage of the Bolshoi Theater only on January 26, 1893.

In 1900, “The Snow Maiden” was shown in two theaters in Moscow - the New Theater and the Moscow Art Theater. Wonderful Russian actor and director V.E. Meyerhold wrote about the performance at the Art Theater: “The play was staged amazingly. So many colors that it seems there would be enough for ten plays.” It should be noted that the colorfulness of the performance was based on the study of the ethnographic content of the play; it reflected an attempt to convey the true picturesqueness of ancient life and to approach this task seriously, to study, if possible, real forms of folk applied art: costume, living conditions of peasants.

"Little Tragedies" were staged separately. “Mozart and Salieri” and “The Stone Guest” were the most “lucky”, less so were “The Miserly Knight” and very little was “A Feast in the Time of 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 bans. 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. 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 Vasilyevich 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 can do without drama, just as drama can 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, curious 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 man 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 the history of the theater 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 “carries away.” 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 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 ingeniously 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, 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 writer’s greatest innovative merit was the creation of the theater of life’s 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 path 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.

Comedy composition

Stage fate of the play

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.

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.

Dramatic conflict of the play “At the Lower Depths”

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

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.

Gorky wanted to prove with his play At the Depth 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 most notable in these years were two productions - in the artist’s homeland, Nizhny Novgorod, and in Moscow, at the Sovremennik Theater.

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.

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 life of the night shelters not only does not change for the better, but becomes 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 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 at 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 the best”), 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 real 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 then on stage were not developed in the next decade. As soon as Gorky’s anniversary days had passed, the performances began to “even out,” “erased,” grew old, or even left the stage altogether—instead of moving forward toward 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 severe 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 preaching, 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.

“At the Bottom” by M. Gorky

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

Ivan Kuzmichev

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, a wide circle of 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: a textbook 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 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 the A. M. Gorky Literary Museum. 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 to even the greatest writer is not a constant value, but a variable one. 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 declares and, in confirmation, cites the number of subscribers to the academic publication of the writer’s works of fiction, which 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 creates a multi-volume “Chronicle” of the writer’s life and work and, together with the State Publishing House of Fiction, publishes a thirty-volume collection of his works in 1949-1956.

It would be extremely unfair to underestimate the results of the development of Gorky thought in the 40s and 50s, which had a beneficial influence not only on the promotion of Gorky’s creative heritage, 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 knowing it, comes between the writer and the reader (or listener) and not only brings them closer together, but also sometimes alienates them. from 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 the theaters of the Russian Federation there were only a few. 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.

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