The Lower Depths in Italy: the 1926 Performance Directed by Tatyana Pavlova

Journal Title: Studia Litterarum - Year 2018, Vol 3, Issue 1

Abstract

Russian actress and stage director Tatyana Pavlova successfully staged two of Maxim Gorky’s plays in Italy from 1926 through 1928. Those were The Lower Depths, the most famous play by Gorky, and Counterfeit Coin, a play he wrote in Sorrento; Tatyana Pavlova’s troupe played it for the first time. These productions are interesting mainly as attempts to follow the tradition of the Moscow Art Theater where The Lower Depths was staged for the first time in 1902. Maxim Gorky who was in Italy at a time participated in the staging of his play: he invited Tatyana Pavlova and her actors to his villa Galotti in Posillipo and read them the text of the play aloud, as had done it at the Moscow Art Theater. However, Pavlova’s performance did not simply reproduce the production of the Moscow Art Theater that contemporaries found too naturalistic. Pavlova’s performance impressed the audience with its mystical atmosphere instead. At the same time, the elements of the “new drama” that Gorky introduced in his play in the fashion of such early 20th century playwrights, as Chekhov, Ibsen, Strindberg, and Maeterlinck, did not meet Italian public’s approval due to the popularity of Anton Giulio Bragaglia’s “theatrical theatre” that reigned on the Italian stage at that time. Absence of dramatic action, abundance of dialogues, no division of characters into main and secondary, and overload with secondary, minor episodes hindered, in the opinion of critics, the perception of the tragic content of The Lower Depths. The premiere of Pavlova’s performance took place in December 1926, and in December 1927, the same Valle theater in Rome hosted the tour of the Moscow Art Theater. This way Italian public was able to see and compare two outstanding performances. This comparison revealed the specificity of the “Russian soul,” its pessimism and fatalism, while the characters in Pavlova’s play were distinguished by a sharp understanding of their existential situation.

Authors and Affiliations

M. A. Arias-Vikhil

Keywords

Related Articles

Postmodernist Techniques and Grown-Up Themes in the Juvenile Novel Learning to Scream (2009) by Beate T. Hanike

The novel Learning to Scream (Rotkäppchen muss weinen, 2009) by Beate Teresa Hanika is addressed to the adolescent reader. This is a novel about growing up, a novelinitiation which main character challenges life circums...

FROM THE CULT OF THE “SELF” TO THE ANCESTOR CULT: TRILOGY THE CULT OF THE SELF BY MAURICE BARRÈS

The debut of Maurice Barrès, his trilogy The Cult of the Self immediately won the reader’s attention. In the 1890s, his works evoked increasing interest. His contemporaries read them as a fascinating narrative about the...

Rabelais’ “culture of folk humor” as a Technique of Archaicized Narration

The French reception of Bakhtin’s book on Rabelais excludes the author of Gargantua and Pantagruel. However, by analyzing Rabelais’s text as a reflection of national culture and ignoring the author’s role in the develo...

Crocodile Street, Nevsky Prospekt and Beyond. Bruno Schults and Gogol Meeting at the Border

The essay employs the concept of the cultural border/bordering to the comparative analysis of two significant literary texts, namely panoramic descriptions of Crocodile Street by B. Schultz and Nevsky Prospect by Gogol...

On the Symbolism of Thomas Mann

The essay discusses Thomas Mann’s symbolism and its parameters as well as Mann’s interpretation of the crisis of European spiritual values. Тhe author examines the role of Nietzsche in Mann’s heritage as well as interc...

Download PDF file
  • EP ID EP26217
  • DOI 10.22455/2500-4247-2018-3-1-266-281
  • Views 296
  • Downloads 11

How To Cite

M. A. Arias-Vikhil (2018). The Lower Depths in Italy: the 1926 Performance Directed by Tatyana Pavlova. Studia Litterarum, 3(1), -. https://www.europub.co.uk/articles/-A-26217