Ministry of Education of the Russian Federation

Ulyanovsk State University

Faculty of Culture and Arts

Department of Philology

Course summary:"Theory and History of Russian Literature"

Subject:"Theatrical history of" Dowry "by A. N. Ostrovsky

Performed:

Student of group K-11

Vikhereva M. A.

Checked:

Associate Professor of the Department of Philology

Matlin M.G.

Ulyanovsk 2009

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Contemporaries saw in "Dowry" a denunciation of the existing social order of life, formed under the influence of the power of money, but Ostrovsky in this play also explored inner world person. The play is called "Dowry", but the drama of the heroine, a young, beautiful, talented girl Larisa Ogudalova, is not that she is a dowry. She wants to change her life and deliberately goes into poverty, deciding to marry Karandyshev. Her drama lies in the fact that she does not find in her environment equals to herself in terms of mental disposition. “I was looking for love and did not find it.” Around Larisa there is a round dance of men who love her in their own way. But what can they offer her?

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

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

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

The history of theatrical productions of the drama "Dowry".

The first performers of the role of Larisa Ogudalova were

three not just the best, but outstanding actresses of the era, but, oddly enough, none of them managed to create an interesting stage interpretation.

G. N. Fedotova performed at the premiere of the Maly Theatre. It was a bright actress who succeeded equally in dramatic and comedic roles. The role of Larisa performed by Fedotova was considered unsuccessful. Here are some of the critics' remarks: "Definitively deprived of truth and originality"; “the gap between the melodramatic tone taken by the actress and “the rest of the everyday environment” made the face of the actress “false and banal”, etc.

Soon the role was transferred to M. N. Ermolova. Against the backdrop of Fedotova's unsuccessful game, Larisa Yermolova was clearly winning. Criticism recognized Yermolova as very convincing. She loved to play in Ostrovsky's plays, and, due to her tragic temperament, she endowed the heroines of his plays with moral strength, elevating them above those around them.

But it was precisely because of the peculiarities of her talent that she made Larisa a whole and uncompromising kind, resolute and angrily protesting, which, in general, changed the character of the heroine of the "Dowry", which was characterized by weakness, and anguish, and breakdown.

In St. Petersburg, Larisa was played by M. G. Savina. Savina herself was unhappy with her game. On tour in the provinces, where she took her favorite roles, she played "Dowry" three times and left forever. In "Dowry" she played Larisa "too perfect", "too incomprehensible" from the point of view of common sense.

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

Vera Fedorovna Komissarzhevskaya, acting as Larisa Ogudalova, made this play Ostrovsky's most famous play.

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

What was Larisa performed by Komissarzhevskaya, for whom this role also became special in her fate? She, as critics wrote much later, is "a historical role, for it creates history."

Ostrovsky himself and the first performers saw in the fate of Larisa

social drama.

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

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

Most likely, the whole history of the productions of "Dowry"

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

From work experience. Social-philosophical drama by M. Gorky "At the bottom"

• give an initial idea of ​​the socio-philosophical drama as a genre of dramaturgy;
• to acquaint with the ideological content of Gorky's play "At the Bottom";
• develop the ability to analyze a dramatic work.

• define philosophical meaning the title of Gorky's play "At the Bottom";
• find out the author's methods of conveying the atmosphere of spiritual separation of people, revealing the problem of imaginary and real overcoming of a humiliating situation, sleep and awakening of the soul.

Course of lessons

I. Opening remarks.

1. Teacher. Gorky became an innovator not only in Russian romanticism, but also in dramaturgy. Originally, he spoke of Chekhov's innovation, which "killed the realism" (of traditional drama), elevating the images to "a spiritualized symbol". But Gorky himself followed Chekhov.

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

2. Individual student's report "The stage fate of Gorky's play" At the bottom ".

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

In some of the photographs, remarks were made by Gorky's hand, from which it follows that many of the characters in "At the Bottom" had real prototypes among the Nizhny Novgorod bosyatstva. All this suggests that both the author and the director, in order to achieve the maximum stage effect, strove, first of all, for authenticity.

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

Such an inflorescence of famous actors, plus the originality of the author's and director's decisions, gave an unexpected result. The fame of "At the Bottom" itself is a kind of cultural and social phenomenon of the beginning of the 20th century and has no equal in the entire history of the world theater.

“The first performance of this play was a complete triumph,” wrote M. F. Andreeva. - The audience went wild. 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 ...” Pyatnitsky himself wrote to L. Andreev: “Maximych's drama is a delight! He will hit like a deafening blow on the foreheads of all those who talked about the decline of his talent. “At the Bottom” was highly appreciated by A. Chekhov, who wrote to the author: “It is new and undoubtedly good. The second act is very good, it is the best, the strongest, and when I read it, especially the end, I almost jumped with pleasure.

"At the Bottom" is the first work of M. Gorky, which brought world fame to the author. In January 1903, the play was premiered in Berlin at the Max Reinhardt Theater directed by director Richard Valletin, who played the role of Satine. In Berlin, the play ran for 300 performances in a row, and in the spring of 1905 its 500th performance was celebrated.

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

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

Others saw in this a manifestation of a remarkable integral personality, who came from the lower ranks of the people and, as it were, "blew up" the traditional ideas about the Russian writer.

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

This is stated in the symbolic time of the play, in the remarks of the first act: “The beginning of spring. Morning". The same direction of Gorky's thoughts is eloquently evidenced by his correspondence.

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

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

4. And what are your impressions of the read play by Gorky?

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

1. How do you understand the name of the play: "At the bottom"?

Teacher. How did Gorky connect faith in man - "the receptacle of the living God", capable of "infinitely improving", faith in life - "movement towards the perfection of the spirit" - and the vegetative life "At the bottom of life" (this is one of the options for the title of the drama)?

Do not his words seem like a mockery of a person in comparison with the characters of the play, and her characters against the background of these words - a caricature of humanity?

No, because before us are two sides of Gorky's single worldview: in letters - ideal impulses, in creativity - an artistic study of human capabilities.

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

This philosophy is realized in the system of images, composition, leitmotifs, symbols, in the word of the play.

Bottom in the play is ambiguous and, like many things in Gorky, symbolic. The name correlates the circumstances of life and the soul of a person.

Bottom - this is the bottom of life, the soul, the extreme degree of falling, a situation of hopelessness, a dead end, comparable to the one about which Dostoevsky's Marmeladov spoke bitterly - "when there is nowhere else to go."

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

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

The Kostylevs' doss house resembles a prison; it is not for nothing that its inhabitants sing the prison song "The Sun Rises and Sets." Those who got into the basement belong to different strata of society, but everyone has the same fate, they are renegades of society, and no one manages to get out of here.

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

It's early spring, the snow has just melted. "Dog's coolness ...", - says, shivering, Kleshch, entering from the hallway. In the finale, the Actor hanged himself in this wasteland.

It's still warm inside and people live here.

- Who are they?

3. Quiz on the content of the work.

A) Which of the characters in the play "At the Bottom" ...

1) ...claims that he "doesn't seem to have a temper"? (Baron.)

2) ... does not want to come to terms with life at the "bottom" and declares:
“I am a working person ... and I have been working since I was young ... I’ll get out ... I’ll tear off my skin, and I’ll get out”? (Mite.)

3) ... dreamed of such a life, "so that you can respect yourself"? (Ash.)

4) ... lives in dreams of great, real human love? (Nastya.)

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

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

7) ... says to the man who offered her to marry him: “... marrying a woman is the same as jumping into an ice hole in winter”? (Korshnya.)

8) ... hiding behind the service of God, robs people! “...and I’ll throw a half a ruble on you, I’ll buy oil in a lamp... and my sacrifice will burn before the holy icon...”? (Kostylev.)

9) ... is indignant: “And why do people separate when they fight? Let them beat each other freely ... they would fight less, because the beatings would be remembered longer ... ”? (Policeman Medvedev.)

10) ... found himself in a rooming house because he left his wife, afraid to kill her, jealous of another? (Bubnov.)

11) ... he consoled everyone with a beautiful lie, and in a difficult moment "disappeared from the police ... like smoke from a fire ..."? (Wanderer Luke.)

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

13) … asserted: “Falsehood is the religion of slaves and masters... Truth is the god of a free man!”? (Satin.)

B) What circumstances brought each of them to Kostylev's rooming house?

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

2) Watchman at the dacha? (The rooming house for Luka is only one of the points of his wanderings.)

3) Former telegraph operator? (Satin, because of his sister, "killed a scoundrel in temper and irritation", ended up in prison, after prison he ended up in a rooming house.)

4) A furrier? (Bubnov was once the owner of his own workshop; having left his wife, he lost "his establishment" and ended up in a rooming house.)

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

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

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

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

Luke. Oh you baby! Tired? Nothing!

Actor (Crooked Zob). Knave go ... jack, damn it!

Baron. And we have a king.

Mite. They will always beat.

Satin. This is our habit...

Medvedev. King!

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

Anna. I'm dying here...

2. In some replicas, words that have a symbolic sound stand out. Bubnov's words "but the threads are rotten" hint at the lack of ties between the shelters. Bubnov notices about Nastya's position: "You are superfluous everywhere." This once again indicates that the residents of Kostylev hardly "tolerate" each other.

3. Outcasts of society reject many generally accepted truths. It is worth, for example, to tell Kleshch that the overnight stays live without honor and conscience, as Bubnov will answer him: “What is conscience for? I’m not rich,” and Vaska Pepel will quote Sateen’s words: “Every person wants his neighbor to have a conscience, but, you see, it’s not profitable for anyone to have one.”

5. How does the atmosphere of the 2nd and 3rd acts differ from the 1st?

Students reflect on examples from the text.

The atmosphere of the 2nd and 3rd acts is different compared to the 1st. The situation changes with the appearance of the wanderer Luke, who, with his "fairy tales", revives dreams and hopes in the souls of the overnight stays.

The passportless tramp Luka, who was “crumpled” a lot in life, came to the conclusion that a person is worthy of pity, and generously bestows it on rooming houses. He acts as a comforter who wants to encourage a person or reconcile him with a bleak existence.

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

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

The overnight stays understand this, but listen to the old man with pleasure: they want to believe his “fairy tales”, dreams of happiness wake up in them.

Bubnov. And why is it ... a person loves to lie so much? Always - as before the investigator stands ... right!

Natasha. It can be seen that a lie ... is more pleasant than the truth ... I, too ...

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

Baron. What?

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

There is a deceptive liberation from circumstances in the replicas of the hostels. The circle of existence seems to have closed: from indifference to an unattainable dream, from it to real upheavals or death (Anna dies, Kostylev is killed). Meanwhile, it is in this state of the heroes that the playwright finds the source of their spiritual fracture.

III. Summary of lessons.

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

That's an example socio-philosophical drama.How do you understand this definition?

In the play "At the Bottom" the author did not limit himself to depicting the characteristic social aspects of Russian reality. This is not an everyday, but a socio-philosophical play, which is based on a dispute about a person, his position in society and attitude towards him. And in this dispute (in one way or another) almost all the inhabitants of the rooming house participate.

Homework.

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

3) Learn by heart Sateen's famous monologues about truth and man (act 4).

Student, prepared for the lesson on their own,reads a poem by N. Zabolotsky "Do not let your soul be lazy."

The play "At the Bottom" was written by M. Gorky in 1902. Gorky was always worried about questions about a person, about love, about compassion. All these questions constitute the problem of humanism, which pervades 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 do not have the meaning of life. They do not live, but exist. The topic of tramps is very close to Gorky, since there was a time when he had to wander 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 Bottom" was written for the Moscow Art Theater. The censorship at first forbade the staging of this play, but then, after revision, it nevertheless allowed it. She was sure of the complete failure of the play. But the play made a huge impression on the audience, caused a storm of applause. The viewer was so strongly affected by the fact that for the first time tramps are shown on the stage, they are shown with their dirt, moral uncleanliness. This play is deeply realistic. The uniqueness of the drama lies in the fact that the most complex philosophical problems are discussed in it not by masters of philosophical disputes, but by “people of the street”, uneducated or degraded, tongue-tied or unable to find the “necessary” words. The conversation is conducted in the language of everyday communication, and sometimes in the language of petty squabbles, "kitchen" abuse, drunken skirmishes.

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

On the presence of social conflict in the play says even its name - "At the bottom." The remark placed at the beginning of the first act creates a dull picture of a rooming house. “A basement that looks like a cave. The ceiling is heavy, stone vaults, sooty, with crumbling plaster ... Everywhere along the walls there are bunk beds.” The picture is not pleasant - dark, dirty, cold. The following are descriptions of the residents of the rooming house, 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 beggars, miserable, miserable creatures living in a dirty hole. There is also another type of people in the play: Kostylev, the owner of the rooming house, his wife Vasilisa. In my opinion, the social conflict in the play lies in the fact that the inhabitants of the rooming house 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 seek the 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 placed in terrible conditions. They are sick, poorly dressed, often hungry. When they have money, holidays are immediately organized in the rooming house. So they try to drown out the pain in themselves, to forget, not to remember their beggarly position of “former people”.

It is interesting how the author describes the activities of his characters at the beginning of the play. Kvashnya continues to argue with Kleshch, the Baron habitually taunts Nastya, Anna groans “every goddamn day…”. Everything goes on, all this has been going on for more than a day. And people gradually stop noticing each other. By the way, the lack of a narrative beginning is hallmark drama. If you listen to the statements of these people, it is striking that all of them 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 rooming house, 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 a person is exposed. Bubnov remarks: “Outside, no matter how you paint yourself, everything will be erased.” The residents of the doss-house become, as the author believes, "unwittingly philosophers." Life makes them think about the universal concepts of conscience, labor, truth.

Two philosophies are most clearly opposed in the play.: Luke and Satin. Satin says: “What is truth?.. Man is the truth!.. Truth is the god of a free man!” For the wanderer Luke, such a “truth” is unacceptable. He believes that a person should hear something from which it will be easier and calmer for him, that for the good of a person it is possible to lie. Interesting points of view and other inhabitants. For example, Kleshch thinks: “... You can’t live ... Here it is, the truth! .. Damn it!”

Luka's and Satin's assessments of reality differ sharply. Luke brings a new spirit into the life of the rooming house - 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 lights up with 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 Stranger believed that one should come to terms with reality and look at what is happening around calmly. Luke preaches the opportunity to “adapt” to life, not to notice its true difficulties and one’s own mistakes: “It’s true that it’s not always a person’s illness ... you can’t always cure the soul with truth ...”

Satin has a completely different philosophy. He is ready to denounce the vices of the surrounding reality. In his monologue, Satin says: “Man! It's great! It sounds... proud! Human! You have to respect the person! Don't feel sorry... Don't humiliate him with pity... you have to respect him!" But respect, in my opinion, is necessary for a person who works. And the inhabitants of the rooming house seem to feel that they have no chance to get out of this poverty. Therefore, they are so drawn to the affectionate Luke. The Stranger surprisingly accurately seeks out 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.

Comprehension of the truth fascinates the inhabitants of the rooming house. Satin is distinguished by the greatest maturity of judgments. Not forgiving the “lie 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 is very painful for these people. The Actor ends his life, the Tatar refuses to pray to God... The departure from the life of the Actor is the step of a person who has failed to realize the true truth.

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

Most likely, the clash of views between Sateen and Luke cannot be called a conflict. They run in parallel. In my opinion, if we combine the accusatory character of Sateen and pity for the people of Luke, then we would get the very ideal Person who could revive life in a rooming house.

But there is no such person - and life in a rooming house remains the same. Former outwardly. Some kind of turning point is happening inside - people are starting 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 contradictions: contradictions in views on life, in lifestyle.

Drama as a literary genre depicts a person in acutely conflicting, but not hopeless situations. The play's conflicts are indeed not hopeless - after all (according to the author's intention), the active principle, the attitude to the world, still wins.

M. Gorky, a writer of 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 taking place in their minds. In the play “At the Bottom”, the writer showed that the neighborhood of people brought to life in poverty with a preacher of patient expectation of a “better person” necessarily leads to a turning point in people's minds. In the rooming houses, M. Gorky captured the first, timid awakening human soul- the most beautiful thing for a writer.

The play "At the Bottom" manifested the dramatic innovation of Maxim Gorky. Using the traditions of the classical dramaturgical legacy, primarily Chekhov's, the writer creates a 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 predominant attention to the ideological side of human life. Each act of a person, each of his words reflects the peculiarities of his consciousness, which determines the aphoristic dialogue characteristic of Gorky's plays, which is always filled with philosophical meaning, and the originality of the overall structure of his plays.

Gorky created a new type of dramatic work. The peculiarity of the play is that the driving force of the dramatic action is the struggle of ideas. The external events of the play are determined by the attitude of the characters to the main question about the person, the question around which there is a dispute, a clash of positions. 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 emerged. The play is a cycle of small dramas, which 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 an exceptional tension of action. The structural feature of Gorky's drama is the shift of emphasis from the events of external action to the comprehension of the internal content of the ideological struggle. Therefore, the denouement of the plot does not occur in the last, fourth, act, but in the third. From the last act, the writer takes away many people, including Luka, although it is with him that the main line in the development of the plot is connected. 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.

The dramatic conflict of the play "At the Bottom"

Most critics considered "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, the development of dramatic conflicts. In fact, in the play "At the Bottom" there is a deep inner dynamics, development ... The linkage of replicas, actions, scenes of the play is determined not by everyday or plot motivations, but by the deployment of socio-philosophical problems, the movement of topics, their struggle. That subtext, that undercurrent, which V. Nemirovich-Danchenko and K. Stanislavsky discovered in Chekhov's plays, acquires decisive significance in Gorky's "At the Bottom". “Gorky portrays the consciousness of the people of the “bottom”. The plot unfolds not so much in external action as in the dialogues of the characters. It is the conversations of the overnight stays that determine the development of the dramatic conflict.

It's amazing: the more the bed-seekers want to hide the real state of affairs from themselves, the more they take pleasure in convicting others of lies. They take particular pleasure in torturing their comrades in misfortune, trying to take away from them the last thing they have - an illusion

What do we see? It turns out there is no single truth. And there are at least two truths - the truth of the "bottom" and the truth of the best in man. What truth wins in Gorky's play? At first glance - the truth of the "bottom". There is no way out of this “dead end of life” for any of the overnight stays. None of the characters in the play gets better - only worse. Anna dies, Kleshch finally “falls” and gives up hope of escaping from the rooming house, Tatar loses his arm, which means he also becomes unemployed, Natasha dies morally, and maybe physically, Vaska Pepel goes to prison, even the bailiff Medvedev becomes one of the roomers . The nochlezhka accepts everyone and does not let anyone out, except for one person - the wanderer Luke, who entertained the unfortunate tales and disappeared. The culmination of general disappointment is the death of the Actor, to whom it was Luka who inspired the vain hope of recovery and normal life

“The comforters of this series are the most intelligent, knowledgeable and eloquent. That is why they are the most harmful. Luka should be just such a comforter in the play "The Lower Depths," but apparently I failed to make him so. “At the Bottom” is an outdated play and, perhaps, even harmful in our days” (Gorky, 1930s).

Images of Satin, Baron, Bubnov in the play "At the Bottom"

Gorky's play "At the Bottom" was written in 1902 for the troupe of the Moscow Public Art Theater. Gorky for a long time could not find the exact title of the play. Initially, it was called "Nochlezhka", then "Without the Sun" and, finally, "At the Bottom". The name itself has a lot of meaning. People who have fallen to the bottom will never rise to the light, to a new life. The theme of the humiliated and offended is not new in Russian literature. Let us recall the heroes of Dostoevsky, who also "have nowhere else to go." Many similar features 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 terribly and realistically by Gorky. In Gorky's play, the audience saw for the first time the unfamiliar world of the outcasts. Such a harsh, merciless truth about the life of the social lower classes, about their hopeless fate, the world dramaturgy has not yet known. Under the vaults of the Kostylevo rooming house there were people of the most diverse character and social status. Each of them has its own individual features. Here is the working Kleshch, dreaming of honest work, and Ash, longing for the right life, and the Actor, all absorbed in memories of his former glory, and Nastya, passionately rushing to big, true love . All of them deserve a better fate. The more tragic their situation now. The people who live in this cave-like basement are tragic victims of an ugly and cruel order in which a person ceases to be a person and is doomed to drag out a miserable existence. Gorky does not give a detailed account of the biographies of the heroes of the play, but even the few features that he reproduces perfectly reveal the author's intention. In a few words, the tragedy of Anna's life fate is drawn. "I don’t remember when I was full," she says. all my miserable life..." Worker Kleshch speaks of his hopeless lot: "There is no work... there is no strength... That's the truth! The inhabitants of the "bottom" are thrown out of life due to the conditions prevailing in society. Man is left to himself. If he stumbles, gets out of the rut, he is threatened with the "bottom", inevitable moral, and often physical death. Anna dies, the Actor commits suicide, and the rest are exhausted, disfigured by life to the last degree. And even here, in this terrible world of outcasts, the wolf laws of the “bottom” continue to operate. The figure of the owner of the rooming house Kostylev, one of the "masters of life", who is ready even to squeeze the last penny out of his unfortunate and disadvantaged guests, is disgusting. Just as disgusting is his wife Vasilisa with her immorality. The terrible fate of the inhabitants of the rooming house becomes especially obvious if we compare it with what a person is called to. Under the dark and gloomy vaults of the doss house, among the miserable and crippled, unfortunate and homeless vagrants, the words about man, about his vocation, about his strength and beauty, sound like a solemn hymn: “Man is the truth! Everything is in a person, everything is for a person! 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, even more sharply set off the picture of the real situation of a person that the writer paints. And this contrast takes on a special meaning... Sateen's fiery monologue about a man sounds somewhat unnatural in an atmosphere of impenetrable darkness, especially after Luka left, the Actor hanged himself, and Vaska Pepel was imprisoned. The writer himself felt this and explained this by the fact that the play should have a reasoner (expressor of the author's thoughts), but the characters portrayed by Gorky can hardly be called spokesmen for anyone's ideas in general. Therefore, Gorky puts his thoughts into the mouth of Satin, the most freedom-loving and just character.

The author began writing the play in Nizhny Novgorod, where, according to Gorky's contemporary, Rozov, there was the best and most convenient place for all kinds of rabble to gather... This explains the realism of the characters, their complete resemblance to the originals. Alexei Maksimovich Gorky explores the soul and characters of tramps from different positions, in various life situations, trying to understand who they are, what led them to different people to the bottom of life. The author is trying to prove that overnight stays are ordinary people, they dream of happiness, they know how to love, compassion, and most importantly, they think.

By genre, the play At the Bottom can be classified as philosophical, because from the lips of the characters we hear interesting conclusions, sometimes whole social theories. For example, the Baron consoles himself with the fact that there is nothing to expect... I do not expect anything! Everything already ... was! 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 destiny of man. Sometimes we feel that he is the mouthpiece of the author, there is no one else in the play who can say it so smoothly and smartly. His phrase Man it sounds proud! became winged.

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

But all these philosophical searches of the hero are just a verbal duel with his antipode in terms of worldview, with Luke. The sober, sometimes cruel realism of Sateen collides with the soft and accommodating speeches of the wanderer. Luke fills the rooming houses with dreams, calls them to patience. In this regard, 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 what gives people hope, there is no self-interest in this. This is the need of his soul. The researcher of Maxim Gorky's work, I. Novich, spoke about Luke this way ... he consoles not from love for this life and 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 some more! All, dear, endure.

Having suddenly appeared, just as suddenly, Luka disappears, revealing his possibilities in every inhabitant of the rooming house. The heroes thought about life, injustice, their hopeless fate.

Only Bubnov and Satin reconciled themselves to their position as overnight stays. Bubnov differs from Sateen in that he considers a person to be a worthless creature, and therefore worthy of a dirty life. People all live ... like chips floating down the river ... building a house ... chips away ...

Gorky shows that in an embittered and cruel world, only people who stand firmly on their feet, who are aware of their position, and who do not disdain anything, can survive. The defenseless rooming houses Baron, who lives in the past, Nastya, who replaces life with fantasies, perish in this world. Anna dies, the Actor lays hands on himself. He suddenly realizes the unfulfillment of his dream, the unreality of its implementation. Vaska Pepel, dreaming of a bright life, goes to prison.

Luka, regardless of his will, becomes the culprit in the death of these not at all bad people; the inhabitants of the rooming house do not need promises, but. specific actions that Luke is not capable of. He disappears, rather flees, thus proving the inconsistency of his theory, the victory of reason over the dream. Taco, 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 tears the last threads of hope of the Actor, connecting 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 such strong characters There are no 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 first and last names. Many rooming houses have nicknames Krivoy Zob, Tatar, Actor.

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

Creating realistic characters, Gorky emphasizes everyday details, acting as a brilliant artist. A gloomy, rude and primitive existence fills the play with something ominous, oppressive, reinforcing the sense of unreality of what is happening. The noss house, located below ground level, devoid of sunlight, somehow reminds the viewer of a hell in which people die.

Horror is caused by the scene when the dying Anna is talking to Luka. This last conversation of hers is, as it were, a confession. But the conversation is interrupted by the screams of drunken gamblers, a gloomy prison song. It becomes strange awareness of frailty human life, neglect of her, because even at the hour of death, Anna is not given rest.

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

The play is over, but Gorky does not give an unambiguous answer to the main questions: what is the truth of life and what should a person strive for, leaving it to us to decide. Satin's final phrase Eh... spoiled the song... the fool is ambiguous and makes you think. Who is the fool? The Hanged Actor or the Baron who brought the news about it? Time passes, people change, but, unfortunately, the theme of the bottom remains relevant today. Due to economic and political upheavals, more and more people are sinking into the bottom of life. more people. Every day their ranks are replenished. Don't think they are losers. No, a lot of smart, decent people go to the bottom, honest people. 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, with the play At the Bottom, wanted to prove that the essence of life is only in struggle. When a person loses hope, stops dreaming, he loses faith in the future.

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The drama of Sergei Grigoryevich Chavain "Apiary" ("Mӱksh Otar") is especially dear to the heart of every Mari. The bright originality and national identity of this literary work largely determined his longevity and interesting fate on the stage of the Mari Drama Theatre. For the first time, the light of the ramp "Apiary" saw during the life of the author, on October 20, 1928. Sergei Grigorievich Chavain wrote a romantic story for the theater about the triumph of goodness and justice, about the transformation of a forest savage into a cultured, literate person - a teacher. It would seem that the very way to achieve the welfare of the people has been found - the enlightenment of minds, collective work for the benefit of the people and love. The writer saw this as a guarantee of the inevitable triumph of the revolutionary transformations of the first decade of the life of our state. The immediate impetus for writing the drama, according to the author himself, was historical novel Al. Altaeva "Stenka's freemen" (1925) In this novel, one of the heroines is a young girl, Kyavya, who fell in love with Ataman Danilka from Stepan Razin's army. She dies in the forest without waiting for her beloved. The drama of S. Chavain became an innovative work in Mari literature. It successfully combines realistic and romantic colors, the dramatic plot organically includes vocal and ballet scenes. Songs and dances used in the play help to understand internal state heroes, the emotional meaning of individual episodes and paintings, expand the stage images. The song-poetic beginning comes to the fore in "Apiary". Drama is musical not only because of the abundance of songs, dances and dances, it is musical in its very inner structure, soul, poetics. For the theater of those years, the production of "Apiary" was of great importance. In fact, this event became a watershed in the history of the formation of the Mari theater, separating the amateur period of its existence from the professional one. The play, staged by director Naum Isaevich Kalender, became the first professional performance of the Mari Drama Theater based on the original play. This performance made it possible to shine in a new way, to reveal more fully the dramatic talent of many actors. The role of Clavius ​​was played by 16-year-old Anastasia Filippova. The interpretation of the image of the heroine given by her became in many ways a reference for subsequent performers. Vasily Nikitich Yakshov played the teacher Michi, Alexei Ivanovich Mayuk-Egorov played the rider. The role of Pyotr Samson was played by M. Sorokin, grandfather Corey - Pavel Toidemar, Onton - Pyotr Paidush and. etc. The "Apiary" staged by N. Kalender was a huge success. Having traveled all the cantons of the Moscow Region, Chuvashia and Tatarstan, in the summer of 1930 the Mari Theater took its work to Moscow for the First All-Russian Olympiad theaters and arts of the peoples of the USSR, and was awarded the Diploma of the first degree. In the conclusion of the jury of the Olympiad about the Mari Theater, it is said that it is a phenomenon of exceptionally great importance. And also that state theater MAO is the youngest of all the theaters participating in the 1st All-Union Olympiad. “The theater knows its national environment well, knows whom to fight with the weapons of the theater, and what to call its audience for, plays with great sincerity and persuasiveness.” The repressions of the 1930s turned out to be a complete tragedy for the Mari culture. They snatched from life the names and works of the best representatives of the Mari creative intelligentsia. Among them was the writer S. Chavain, who was rehabilitated in 1956. At this time, a graduate of the directing department of GITIS Sergey Ivanov came to Margosteatr. "Apiary" became his second independent production in the theater. The return to the stage of the theater of the work of the classic of Mari literature was prepared as a holiday for the entire public of the republic. The artistic design of the new production of "Apiary" was entrusted to the famous Mari sculptor, an expert on national life and culture, F. Shaberdin, who performed the honorable work with love and taste. Composer K. Smirnov presented the corresponding musical arrangement. Dances were staged by actors I. Yakaev and G. Pushkin. If in the first production the main emphasis was placed on the idea of ​​the class struggle in the Mari village in the second half of the 1920s, then in new job theater, the idea of ​​the victory of the new over the old was brought to the fore. In the performance, along with well-known experienced actors, such as T. Grigoriev (Samson Peter), G. Pushkin (Koriy), T. Sokolov, I. Rossygin (Oruzouy), I. Yakaev (Epsei), A. Strausova (Peter Vate ) and others were occupied by recent graduates of the Mari studio at the Leningrad theater institute them. A. N. Ostrovsky. R. Russina played the role of Clavius.I. Matveev played the fist Peter Samsonov. K. Korshunov embodied the image of the teacher Dmitry Ivanovich. In 1988 director O. Irkabaev approached the staging of Chavain's drama in a new way. In his reading of the "Apiary" from the story of the orphan Clavius, as was commonly believed from the school bench, grew into a reflection on the fate of the Mari people, and the image main character-in the symbol of his soul. In an interview with the Mariy Kommuna newspaper, the director said that this “play is very in tune with today's times. With its creative potential, kindness of thoughts, internal intensity. Its staging makes it possible to talk about today, about our life today. The creators of the performance treated the text of Chavain's play very carefully, preserving it, literally, to the comma. And on the foundation of the classical play, they erected a new, rather slender building for their performance. In the process of work, the romanticism and poetic elation inherent in S. Chavain's play were largely muted. The forest apiary of Peter Samsonov is presented as a place where people are humiliated, where selfish interests break human destinies. Following the director's idea, the artist N. Efaritskaya created scenery that differs from the traditions of past productions. Not a beautiful apiary among the endless Mari forests, but a piece of land surrounded by it on all sides, isolated from the outside world. Horizontal sections of the crown of a huge tree, as if heavy low-hanging ceilings press down, limit the space. One feels the insecurity of a person in front of their evil power. Accordingly, the musical arrangement. The music of Sergei Makov is an integral part of the performance, in tune with the director's intention. When creating a performance, the director sought to build the characters' characters with the help and on the basis of psychological analysis. Dramatic material, containing a powerful potential for non-traditional reading, made it possible. For example, the image of Clavius. A 17-year-old orphan girl lives in the forest, in an apiary, she is wild, impulsive, and avoids people. It is very natural for her to communicate with bees, trees, as if with living beings. Actresses V. Moiseyeva, S. Gladysheva, A. Ignatieva, who played the part of Clavius, created an accurate pattern of the heroine's behavior on stage, corresponding to the character. The characters of other characters were revised in a similar way. In an article devoted to the results of the theatrical season, M. A. Georgina emphasizes that the main thing in the new production of Chavain's "Apiary" is "the desire to move away from outdated stage and acting clichés that pull the Mari stage art back, obscure the creative originality of the actors" 1973 was declared a zonal review of folk theaters and drama groups. In the republic, the first degree diploma was awarded to the drama group of the Mustaevsky rural house of culture of the Sernur district. This team, among 20 teams, participated in the zonal review, which took place in Ulyanovsk. They showed Chavain's "Muksh Otar" and received a diploma of the first degree. Artistic director collective V.K.Stepanov, Z.A.Vorontsova (Clavius), I.M.Vorontsov (Epsei) were given diplomas of the first degree. Amateur artists played: M.I. Mustaev (Potr kugyzai); V.S. Bogdanov (Onton); A.A. Strizhov (Orozoy); Z.V. Ermakova (Tatiana Grigorievna); the dance of the bees was performed by the 10th grade students of the local school. In total, 20 people participated in the production. The play was staged by the People's Artists of the MASSR I.T. Yakaev and S.I. Kuzminykh. The team showed a scene from the performance in the house of officers of the local garrison, for which they were awarded a Certificate of Honor. The premiere of the performance "Apiary" directed by O. Irkabaev took place on April 26 - 27, 1988. In the next theatrical season, the performance appeared before the audience in a modified form. The scenery has been changed. The creators of the performance did some work that made the director's version more convincing. For the 120th anniversary of the birth of S. Chavain, director A. Yamaev prepared a new production of "Apiary". The play premiered in November 2007. The music was written by composer Sergei Makov. Artist Ivan Yamberdov created magnificent monumental scenery. Choreographer - Honored Worker of the RME Tamara Viktorovna Dmitrieva. The performance was warmly received by fans of theatrical art. And it is believed that the play "Apiary" will have a long and happy life on the stage of the Mari National Drama Theatre. M. Shketana. The play "Muksh otar" can be found and read in the department of national literature and bibliography in the following editions: 1. Chavain S.G. Muksh Otar / S.G. Chavain. - Yoshkar-Ola: Margosizdat, 1933. - 87p. 2. Mӱksh otar // Chavain S. Oipogo / S. Chavain. – Yoshkar-Ola: Mar. book. Publishing House, 1956. - P.186 - 238. 3. Mӱksh Otar // Chavain S.G. Sylnymutan of works-vlak: 5 volumes of dene lektesh: 4-she volumes: Play-vlak / S.G. Chavain. - Yoshkar-Ola: Prince. luksho mar. Publishing house, 1968. - P.200 - 259. 4. Muksh Otar // Chavain S.G. Vozymyzho kum tom dene luktaltesh: Volume 3: Play-vlak, "Elnet" novel. -Yoshkar-Ola: Prince. luksho mariy publishing house, 1981. - p.5 -52.

"Little Tragedies" were staged separately. Most "lucky" were "Mozart and Salieri" and "The Stone Guest", less - "The Miserly Knight" and very little - "Feast in Time of Plague".

The Stone Guest was first staged in 1847 in St. Petersburg. V. Karatygin acted as Don Juan, V. Samoilov as Dona Anna.

The Miserly Knight was also staged for the first time in St. Petersburg in 1852 with V. Karatygin in the title role. And in Moscow, at the Maly Theater in 1853, M. Shchepkin plays the Baron.

In 1899, on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of Pushkin's birth, "A Feast During the Plague" was staged for the first time.

The slow penetration of Pushkin's drama on the stage was explained not only by censorship bans. The theater was not yet ready to receive the novelty of dramaturgy, which consisted in a different system of images, in the psychological depiction of characters, in freedom from the classic "unities" of place and time, in the conditionality of the hero's behavior by circumstances.

All "little tragedies" first appeared in the cinema: in the 1970s and 80s. a film directed by Schweitzer appeared, in which the whole tetralogy found its interpretation. Critics praised the film as a worthy attempt to penetrate the essence of Pushkin's intention.

Prior to the appearance of this film (in the early 60s), a television version of Mozart and Salieri was created, in which Nikolai Simonov, a wonderful tragic actor of our time, played Salieri, and young Innokenty Smoktunovsky played Mozart. It was the most interesting work of great actors. In Schweitzer's film, Smoktunovsky has already played Salieri, no less talented than Mozart once. 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 sound.

The value of Pushkin's dramaturgy in the development of the Russian theater.

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

According to Pushkin, the playwright must have fearlessness, ingenuity, liveliness 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 assumed circumstances ...”, that is, the conditionality of the hero’s behavior by circumstances - this formula of Pushkin, in fact, is a law in dramaturgy. Pushkin is convinced that the soul of a person is always interesting to watch.

The goal of the tragedy, according to Pushkin, is a person and a people, a human destiny, a people's destiny. Classicist tragedy could not convey the fate of the people. To establish a truly national tragedy, one will have 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 theatre. However, there could not be a sharp transition to a new dramatic technique. The theater gradually adapted to the new dramaturgy: new generations of actors, brought up on the new dramaturgy, had to grow up.

N.V. Gogol and theater

Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol (1809-1852) - one of the most difficult Russian writers, contradictory, in many ways confusing (next to him you can put only Dostoevsky and Tolstoy).

In Gogol, as in Pushkin, 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 state system to be fair; was convinced that with his work he serves to strengthen the state. But the laws are poorly used, because there are negligent officials-bureaucrats who distort the laws and the state system itself. And with his work, 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 the head. When an artist completely devotes himself to creativity, he cannot analyze it at the same time, because creativity is a subconscious process. The creative process completely captures the artist, and he, against his will, reflects the truth of life (unless, of course, he is a great artist).

Gogol attached great importance to theater and drama. His thoughts about the theater and drama are scattered in his letters (to the actor of the Maly Theater M.S. Shchepkin, to his contemporaries-writers, as well as in the article "Theatrical Departure", some others and in "Foreword to the "Inspector General"). These thoughts can be summarized thus:

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

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

Gogol saw the high purpose of the theater in the education and upbringing of the people, he attached to it the significance of the temple.

“The theater is by no means a trifle and not at all an empty thing, if you take into account the fact that a crowd of five, six thousand people can suddenly fit in it, and that this whole crowd, which is in no way similar to each other, sorting it out by units, may suddenly be shaken by one shock. To sob with tears alone and laugh with one universal laughter. This is such a pulpit from which you can say a lot of good to the world ... "

“The theater is a great school, its purpose is deep: it reads a lively 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 cuts, sometimes not translated, but "retold". There were also Russian plays in theaters, but they were of insignificant content.

Gogol believed that the theater repertoire should contain old classical plays, but they "You have to see with your own eyes." This meant that the classics must be comprehended in line with modern problems, to identify its relevance.

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

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 of different spectators he characterized their tastes and mores in relation to the theater.

Interested in Gogol and acting art questions. The classicist manner of performing 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 inherent in the play, and for this it is necessary to fully heal the thoughts of the hero. "The artist must convey the soul, not show the dress."

Play, according to Gogol, should be 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 improvisationally. Gogol speaks of this, in particular, in “A warning for those who would like to play The Inspector General properly. These remarks of his are seen as the beginnings of directing and that method of rehearsal work, which will later be called the method of effective analysis of the play and role.

Gogol's friendship with the great Russian actor Shchepkin affected his views on the art of theater and 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 thing in each character, what Stanislavsky would later call "seed" of the role. It is no coincidence that Stanislavsky conducted the first rehearsal for the actor's education system he created on the basis of The Inspector General.

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

Artistic fiction, imagination, fantasy are the necessary elements of creativity. And the veracity of the artist is not that he describes what it often happens, but also in what could be.

Gogol's art hyperbolic. It 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 the work of Gogol, his grotesque do not diminish, but emphasize it realism.(Realism is not naturalism).

Gogol was aware of the need to write a public 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 feather pushes into places… that can’t be missed on stage… But what is comedy without truth and malice?”

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

In 1833, Gogol wrote the comedy "Grooms", where the situation is as follows: the bride does not want to miss any of the suitors and, apparently, loses them all. Podkolesin and Kochkarev were not in it. And in 1835, the comedy was completed, where 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 in order to give it to the theater, but, having taken up The Inspector General in October - December 1835, he postponed his intention.

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

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

The reason for the stage failure of "The 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 considered Gogol. Recall the epigraph to the "Inspector": "There is nothing to blame on the mirror, if the face is crooked." But his comedy also became a "magnifying glass" (as Mayakovsky would say about the theatre).

“The auditor was written by Gogol in two months (in October 1835, Pushkin suggested the plot to him, and by the beginning of December the play was ready). It doesn't matter if 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 emphasizes some aspects of comedy (meaningful names of characters, for example). The whole system of images carries a deep thought. Artistic approach - grotesque- a strong exaggeration. Unlike a cartoon, it is filled with deep content. Gogol makes extensive use of the grotesque.

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

Gone are the days of romance for comedy.

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

Gogol's contemporaries did not understand, did not heed the author's remarks. Gogol considered Khlestakov to be the main character 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 seasoned scoundrel. This is a person who for a moment, for a moment, for a moment wants to become something. And this is the essence of the image, so it is modern in any era. Gogol fought against the vulgarity of a vulgar person, denounced human emptiness. Therefore, the concept of "Khlestakovism" has become generalizing. The final edition of the "Inspector" - 1842

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

April 19, 1836 for the first time "The Government Inspector" was played on stage Alexandrinsky Theater. Gogol was dissatisfied with this production, in particular with the actor Dur in the role of Khlestakov, who, being a vaudeville actor, played Khlestakov in a vaudeville style. The images of Dobchinsky and Bobchinsky were perfect caricatures. Only Sosnitsky in the role of the mayor satisfied the author. He played the Gorodnichiy as a big bureaucrat with good manners.

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

Later Gorodnichiy was played by V.N. Davydov, Osip - Vasiliev, then K. A. Varlamov.

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

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

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

In the Maly Theater Khlestakov played Lensky (and also vaudeville), later - Shumsky (his performance already met the requirements of the author), even later this role was played by M.P. Sadovsky. The mayor was played by Shchepkin (later Samarin, Maksheev, Rybakov). M.S. Shchepkin, who played the Governor, created the image of a crooked rogue who is familiar with his subordinates; with them he fixes all the disgrace. Osip was played by Prov Sadovsky. Anna Andreevna played - N.A. Nikulin, later - A.A. Yablochkina, E.D. Turchaninov, V.N. Pashennaya.

The stage history of The Government Inspector is rich. But the satirical content addressed to the present was not always revealed in the productions. 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 performance 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 the characters and everyday details.

And in the 1921/22 season at the Moscow Art Theater - a new stage solution for The Inspector General. In this performance there were no naturalistic details of life. Directing went along 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 vivid example of the grotesque in acting.

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

In the mid-1950s, 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, artistic director of the Alexandrinsky Theater.

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

In this performance, an important character was Fear - the fear of retribution for what had been done. This was embodied in the form of a black carriage, which usually carries the auditor. This carriage hung like a sword of Damocles over the stage board throughout the performance. It read: all officials under the sword of Damocles. Fear, even horror, sometimes instilled in the Governor so that he could not control himself. In the first scene, in a very businesslike way, he orders the officials to put things in order so that it “sweeps”. But when Fear gets to him, he can't control himself.

Around the same time, The Inspector General appeared at the Moscow Theater of Satire. It was staged by V. Pluchek, the chief director of this theatre. The most famous actors played in it: Gorodnichiy - Papanov, Khlestakov - A. Mironov, other roles were played by no less 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 "tavern", and not Gogol's play. Probably, this is 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 dramaturgy. Before The Inspector General, only Fonvizin's Undergrowth and Griboyedov's Woe from Wit can be named - plays in which our compatriots were artistically fully depicted.

The "auditor" has acquired the force of a document exposing the existing system. He influenced the development of social consciousness of Gogol's contemporaries, as well as on subsequent generations.

The comedy The Government Inspector contributed to the fact that our Russian acting skills were able to move away from the playing techniques borrowed from foreign actors, which dominated the stage since the 18th century, and master the realistic method.

In 1842, a one-act comedy appeared "Players". In terms of the sharpness of realistic colors, the strength of the 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 cheater Ikharev, wittily and ingeniously deceived and robbed by even more clever swindlers, acquires a broad, generalized meaning. Ikharev, having beaten the provincial with marked cards, expects to "fulfill the duty of an enlightened person": "dress according to the capital's model", walk in St. Petersburg "along the Aglitskaya embankment", dine in Moscow at the "Yar". All the "wisdom" of his life is to "deceive everyone and not be deceived yourself." But he himself was deceived by even more dexterous predators. Ikharev is indignant. He calls upon the law to punish the swindlers. To which Glov remarks that he has no right to appeal to the law, because he himself acted illegally. But it seems to Ikharev that he is absolutely right, because he trusted the swindlers, and they robbed him.

The Players is Gogol's little masterpiece. Here the ideal purposefulness of the action is achieved, the completeness of the plot development, revealing at the end of the play all the vileness of society.

The intense interest of the action is combined with the disclosure of characters. With all the laconicism of events, the characters of the comedy manifest themselves with exhaustive completeness. The very intrigue of the comedy seems snatched from life by an ordinary everyday incident, but thanks to Gogol's talent, this "case" takes on a wide revealing character.

The meaning of Gogol for the development of the Russian theater is difficult to overestimate.

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

Turgenev in 1846 wrote about Gogol that "he showed the road along which our dramatic literature". These perspicacious words of Turgenev were fully justified. The entire development of Russian drama in the 19th century, up to Chekhov and Gorky, owes a lot to Gogol. In Gogol's dramaturgy, the social significance of comedy was particularly fully reflected.

(384 words) In his work, Gorky poses the question: “Which is better, truth or compassion? What is more needed? In fact, this question is applicable to absolutely every hero of the play, because it tells about the tragic fate of people who found themselves at the bottom of social life. All characters are different, each has its own destiny, its own path, which led them to the scene of the play - a rooming house.

Take, for example, the Actor. This is a drunkard trying in vain to get back to work. This is a man with a subtle soul that responds to all changes, but has lost all hope. The reader has an expectation that the actor will cope and “float” from the bottom, but even a small push to action did not help him cope with despair. You can oppose him to Klesch - a locksmith, a working person. His character can be described in one word - arrogance. He constantly said that he would definitely return to normal life, if only to wait for the death of his wife, he always put himself above others, saying that they were all idlers, and he was a working man. But it all ended with the fact that he was left in debt and without a wife. Nastya dilutes their society with high dreams. She dreams of great true love. No matter how much they mock her, she believes. Everything is limited to faith, Nastya still works as a prostitute and does not change her life. Bubnov also lives in the rooming house - a cap-maker, the only one of all who admits to himself laziness and addiction to alcohol. Quite cruel and skeptical, lives with the flow, which is probably why he does not try to get out of the bottom. In the past, he worked in a workshop, but because of his wife's infidelity, he left his job. It is interesting that Gorky does not fully reveal his character, we do not borrow what he was "before".

All people in the rooming house live in the past, despair or dream about changing everything. The Baron just refers to those who live in the past, dream of a wonderful future, but do nothing for this. Alyoshka, a good and cheerful guy, “lives” with them at the bottom. Perhaps the only one who does not suffer there. The brightest figure in the rooming house is Satin, a former convict who was imprisoned for murder. He defended the honor of his sister, and for this he lost his job and the chance to settle in a normal society. It is he who argues with Luka, proving that even a person from the bottom is worthy of respect, not pity.

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From work experience. Social-philosophical drama by M. Gorky "At the bottom"

Goals:

• give an initial idea of ​​the socio-philosophical drama as a genre of dramaturgy;
• to acquaint with the ideological content of Gorky's play "At the Bottom";
• develop the ability to analyze a dramatic work.

Tasks:

• determine the philosophical meaning of the title of Gorky's play "At the Bottom";
• find out the author's methods of conveying the atmosphere of spiritual separation of people, revealing the problem of imaginary and real overcoming of a humiliating situation, sleep and awakening of the soul.

Course of lessons

I. Opening remarks.

1. Teacher. Gorky became an innovator not only in Russian romanticism, but also in dramaturgy. Originally, he spoke of Chekhov's innovation, which "killed the realism" (of traditional drama), elevating the images to "a spiritualized symbol". But Gorky himself followed Chekhov.

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

2. Individual student's report "The stage fate of Gorky's play" At the bottom ".

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

In some of the photographs, remarks were made by Gorky's hand, from which it follows that many of the characters in "At the Bottom" had real prototypes among the Nizhny Novgorod bosyatstva. All this suggests that both the author and the director, in order to achieve the maximum stage effect, strove, first of all, for authenticity.

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

Such an inflorescence of famous actors, plus the originality of the author's and director's decisions, gave an unexpected result. The fame of "At the Bottom" itself is a kind of cultural and social phenomenon of the beginning of the 20th century and has no equal in the entire history of the world theater.

“The first performance of this play was a complete triumph,” wrote M. F. Andreeva. - The audience went wild. 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 ...” Pyatnitsky himself wrote to L. Andreev: “Maximych's drama is a delight! He will hit like a deafening blow on the foreheads of all those who talked about the decline of his talent. “At the Bottom” was highly appreciated by A. Chekhov, who wrote to the author: “It is new and undoubtedly good. The second act is very good, it is the best, the strongest, and when I read it, especially the end, I almost jumped with pleasure.

"At the Bottom" is the first work of M. Gorky, which brought world fame to the author. In January 1903, the play was premiered in Berlin at the Max Reinhardt Theater directed by director Richard Valletin, who played the role of Satine. In Berlin, the play ran for 300 performances in a row, and in the spring of 1905 its 500th performance was celebrated.

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

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

Others saw in this a manifestation of a remarkable integral personality, who came from the lower ranks of the people and, as it were, "blew up" the traditional ideas about the Russian writer.

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

This is stated in the symbolic time of the play, in the remarks of the first act: “The beginning of spring. Morning". The same direction of Gorky's thoughts is eloquently evidenced by his correspondence.

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

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

4. And what are your impressions of the read play by Gorky?

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

1. How do you understand the name of the play: "At the bottom"?

Teacher. How did Gorky connect faith in man - "the receptacle of the living God", capable of "infinitely improving", faith in life - "movement towards the perfection of the spirit" - and the vegetative life "At the bottom of life" (this is one of the options for the title of the drama)?

Do not his words seem like a mockery of a person in comparison with the characters of the play, and her characters against the background of these words - a caricature of humanity?

No, because before us are two sides of Gorky's single worldview: in letters - ideal impulses, in creativity - an artistic study of human capabilities.

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

This philosophy is realized in the system of images, composition, leitmotifs, symbols, in the word of the play.

Bottom in the play is ambiguous and, like many things in Gorky, symbolic. The name correlates the circumstances of life and the soul of a person.

Bottom - this is the bottom of life, the soul, the extreme degree of falling, a situation of hopelessness, a dead end, comparable to the one about which Dostoevsky's Marmeladov spoke bitterly - "when there is nowhere else to go."

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

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

The Kostylevs' doss house resembles a prison; it is not for nothing that its inhabitants sing the prison song "The Sun Rises and Sets." Those who got into the basement belong to different strata of society, but everyone has the same fate, they are renegades of society, and no one manages to get out of here.

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

It's early spring, the snow has just melted. "Dog's coolness ...", - says, shivering, Kleshch, entering from the hallway. In the finale, the Actor hanged himself in this wasteland.

It's still warm inside and people live here.

- Who are they?

3. Quiz on the content of the work.

A) Which of the characters in the play "At the Bottom" ...

1) ...claims that he "doesn't seem to have a temper"?(Baron.)

2) ... does not want to come to terms with life at the "bottom" and declares:
“I am a working person ... and I have been working since I was young ... I’ll get out ... I’ll tear off my skin, and I’ll get out”?(Mite.)

3) ... dreamed of such a life, "so that you can respect yourself"?(Ash.)

4) ... lives in dreams of great, real human love?(Nastya.)

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

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

7) ... says to the man who offered her to marry him: “... marrying a woman is the same as jumping into an ice hole in winter”?(Korshnya.)

8) ... hiding behind the service of God, robs people! “...and I’ll throw a half a ruble on you, I’ll buy oil in a lamp... and my sacrifice will burn before the holy icon...”?(Kostylev.)

9) ... is indignant: “And why do people separate when they fight? Let them beat each other freely ... they would fight less, because the beatings would be remembered longer ... ”?(Policeman Medvedev.)

10) ... found himself in a rooming house because he left his wife, afraid to kill her, jealous of another?(Bubnov.)

11) ... he consoled everyone with a beautiful lie, and in a difficult moment "disappeared from the police ... like smoke from a fire ..."?(Wanderer Luke.)

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

13) … asserted: “Falsehood is the religion of slaves and masters... Truth is the god of a free man!”?(Satin.)

B) What circumstances brought each of them to Kostylev's rooming house?

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

2) Watchman at the dacha?(The rooming house for Luka is only one of the points of his wanderings.)

3) Former telegraph operator?(Satin, because of his sister, "killed a scoundrel in temper and irritation", ended up in prison, after prison he ended up in a rooming house.)

4) A furrier? (Bubnov was once the owner of his own workshop; having left his wife, he lost "his establishment" and ended up in a rooming house.)

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

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

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

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

Luke. Oh you baby! Tired? Nothing!

Actor (Crooked Zob). Knave go ... jack, damn it!

Baron. And we have a king.

Mite. They will always beat.

Satin. This is our habit...

Medvedev. King!

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

Anna. I'm dying here...

2. In some replicas, words that have a symbolic sound stand out. Bubnov's words "but the threads are rotten" hint at the lack of ties between the shelters. Bubnov notices about Nastya's position: "You are superfluous everywhere." This once again indicates that the residents of Kostylev hardly "tolerate" each other.

3. Outcasts of society reject many generally accepted truths. It is worth, for example, to tell Kleshch that the overnight stays live without honor and conscience, as Bubnov will answer him: “What is conscience for? I’m not rich,” and Vaska Pepel will quote Sateen’s words: “Every person wants his neighbor to have a conscience, but, you see, it’s not profitable for anyone to have one.”

5. How does the atmosphere of the 2nd and 3rd acts differ from the 1st?

Students reflect on examples from the text.

The atmosphere of the 2nd and 3rd acts is different compared to the 1st. The situation changes with the appearance of the wanderer Luke, who, with his "fairy tales", revives dreams and hopes in the souls of the overnight stays.

The passportless tramp Luka, who was “crumpled” a lot in life, came to the conclusion that a person is worthy of pity, and generously bestows it on rooming houses. He acts as a comforter who wants to encourage a person or reconcile him with a bleak existence.

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

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

The overnight stays understand this, but listen to the old man with pleasure: they want to believe his “fairy tales”, dreams of happiness wake up in them.

Bubnov. And why is it ... a person loves to lie so much? Always - as before the investigator stands ... right!

Natasha. It can be seen that a lie ... is more pleasant than the truth ... I, too ...

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

Baron. What?

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

There is a deceptive liberation from circumstances in the replicas of the hostels. The circle of existence seems to have closed: from indifference to an unattainable dream, from it to real upheavals or death (Anna dies, Kostylev is killed). Meanwhile, it is in this state of the heroes that the playwright finds the source of their spiritual fracture.

III. Summary of lessons.

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

That's an example socio-philosophical drama.How do you understand this definition?

In the play "At the Bottom" the author did not limit himself to depicting the characteristic social aspects of Russian reality. This is not an everyday, but a socio-philosophical play, which is based on a dispute about a person, his position in society and attitude towards him. And in this dispute (in one way or another) almost all the inhabitants of the rooming house participate.

Homework.

Individual: problem Human in Gorky's play "At the Bottom".

3) Learn by heart Sateen's famous monologues about truth and man (act 4).

Student, prepared for the lesson on their own,reads a poem by N. Zabolotsky "Do not let your soul be lazy."

Chekhov, who came to literature in the 1980s, acutely felt the doom of the old forms of life and the inevitability of the emergence of new ones. This evoked both hope and anxiety. Such sentiments are reflected in last play playwright The Cherry Orchard. One French director said that this work gives "a physical sense of the fluidity of time." Three stage hours absorb five months of the life of the characters. The characters of the play are always afraid of losing time, missing the train, not getting money from the Yaroslavl grandmother.

The work intersects past, present and future. Before the reader appear people of different generations. Anya is 17 years old, Gaev is 51 years old, and Firs is 87 years old. The memory of the past is kept by "silent witnesses": "a long abandoned chapel", a hundred-year-old wardrobe, "an old livery of Firs". Unlike other works of Russian classics, there is no conflict of generations 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 an enemy in Lopakhin even after he bought a 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 characters unwittingly come into conflict with the cherry orchard itself.

This symbol has many meanings in the play. The Cherry Orchard is a wonderful creation of nature and human hands. It personifies beauty, spirituality, traditions. The garden lives in several time dimensions. For Ranevskaya and Gaev, he keeps the memory of childhood, of irretrievably lost youth and purity, of the time when everyone was happy. The garden inspires them, inspires hope, cleanses them of worldly 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 ridiculous word “whom”, which is pronounced appropriately and out of place. Ranevskaya continues to lead a wasteful lifestyle. Despite her tears, she is indifferent to the fate of the garden and the fate of her daughters, whom she leaves without a livelihood.

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

Trofimov proudly declares that "All of Russia is our garden", but has no interest in a particular estate. The Cherry Orchard is in danger and no one can take it away. The garden is dying. In the fourth act, the sound of axes destroying trees is heard. 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 wiped off the face of the earth. Perhaps that is why the fate of all the heroes seems sad. Not only the former owners of the garden feel unhappy. Lopakhin, at the moment of his triumph, suddenly realized that he was surrounded by "an awkward, unhappy life." Petya Trofimov, who dreamed of a great future, looks miserable and helpless. And even Anya is happy only because she still has a poor 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 is manifested both in small things (scattered hairpins, touched candelabra, falling down the stairs), and in big things. 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 that used to unite heroes around itself no longer exists. Along with beauty, the characters of the play lose mutual understanding and sensitivity. Forgotten and abandoned in a locked house old Firs. This happened not only because of the haste at departure, but also from some 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. Tchaikovsky Ostrovsky in the process of working on the play in parts sent her text to Tchaikovsky. “Tchaikovsky's music for The Snow Maiden is charming,” wrote the playwright. ""Snow Maiden"<...>was written by order of the directorate of theaters and at the request of Ostrovsky in 1873, in the spring, and at the same time it was given, recalled later, in 1879, Tchaikovsky. - This is one of my favorite creations. The spring was wonderful, my soul was 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 there should be a noticeable joyful spring mood, which I was then imbued with.

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

“I am staging the play myself, as a complete master,” Ostrovsky reported with joy, “here they understand very well that only under this condition will it go well and be successful. Tomorrow I am reading The Snow Maiden to the artists for the third time, then I will go through the roles with each separately. The scene of the melting of the Snow Maiden was discussed for a long time. Assistant Stage Engineer 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 were supposed to rise, which, thickening, should hide the figure of the performer, imperceptibly descending into the hatch under the spotlight.”

In connection with the renovation of the premises of the Maly Theater "Snegurochka" it was decided to play in the Bolshoi. For dramatic actors, the stage of the Bolshoi Theater turned out to be uncomfortable. It was too large and acoustically unsuitable for a natural, everyday-sounding voice. This greatly hindered the success of the play. 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 the efforts of Nikulina to speak loudly and clearly, was only half audible.” The next day after the performance, playwright V.I. Rodislavsky sent a detailed “report” to Ostrovsky, in which he reported on the same shortcomings of the performance: “... many wonderful, first-class poetic beauties, so generously scattered by you in the play, perished and can only be resurrected in print ... But I will tell you in order . Leshy's charming monologue disappeared completely. Spring's flight was quite successful, but her poetic monologue seemed long. The witty folk song about birds disappeared, because the music did not allow to hear the words, so sharp that the censors thought about them. The dance of the birds was applauded. Frost's wonderful story about his amusements was lost, because it was started up not by a story, but by singing with music that drowned out the words. Maslyanitsa's monologue failed, because Milensky spoke it from behind the curtains, and not hidden in a straw effigy... In the first act, Lel's charming song was repeated... The appearances of the Snow Maiden's shadow were unsuccessful... My favorite story 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 attitude of the public to The Snow Maiden: “... some immediately turned away from her, because she was beyond their understanding, and stated that the play was bad, that it failed, 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 is completely in the nature of the whole play.

During the life of Ostrovsky, "The Snow Maiden" was played 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, having coordinated it with the author. Subsequently, Rimsky-Korsakov recalled: “The first time I read The Snow Maiden was around 1874, when it had just appeared in print. I didn't like it much in reading then; the kingdom of the Berendeys seemed strange to me. Why? Were the ideas of the 60s still alive in me, or did the demands of so-called life stories, which were current in the 70s, keep me in fetters?<...>In a word, Ostrovsky's wonderful, poetic tale did not impress me. In the winter of 1879-1880, I again read The Snow Maiden and, as it were, saw her astonishing beauty. I immediately wanted to write an opera based on this story.”

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

In the winter of 1882/83, The Snow Maiden in a dramatic production was performed by amateurs in the Mamontovs' house. Prominent representatives of the artistic intelligentsia were involved in it. The performance marked an attempt at a new reading of the play. The artistic part of the production was undertaken by V.M. Vasnetsov. The artist's talent manifested itself in this work with the greatest force: he managed not only to imbue the poetry of Ostrovsky's marvelous fairy tale, to reproduce its special atmosphere, its Russian spirit, but also to captivate 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. Artistic design was carried out by V.M. Vasnetsov, I.I. Levitan and K.A. Korovin. In the work of artists, first of all, that new perception of Ostrovsky's fairy tale and Rimsky-Korsakov's opera was expressed, which contributed to the revival of public interest in these works. After the premiere, a number of newspapers strongly demanded that the opera The Snow Maiden be included in the repertoire of the Bolshoi Theatre. However, on the stage of the Bolshoi Theater "The Snow Maiden" was performed only on January 26, 1893.

In 1900, The Snow Maiden was shown in two theaters in Moscow - the Novy Theater and the Moscow Art Theatre. A wonderful Russian actor and director V.E. Meyerhold wrote about the performance of the Art Theater: “The play is staged amazingly. So many colors that, it seems, they would be enough for ten plays. It should be noted that the brilliance 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 approach this task seriously, to study, if possible, the real forms of folk art. applied arts: costume, conditions of life of peasants.

"Little Tragedies" were staged separately. Most "lucky" were "Mozart and Salieri" and "The Stone Guest", less - "The Miserly Knight" and very little - "Feast in Time of Plague".

The Stone Guest was first staged in 1847 in St. Petersburg. V. Karatygin acted as Don Juan, V. Samoilov as Dona Anna.

The Miserly Knight was also staged for the first time in St. Petersburg in 1852 with V. Karatygin in the title role. And in Moscow, at the Maly Theater in 1853, M. Shchepkin plays the Baron.

In 1899, on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of Pushkin's birth, "A Feast During the Plague" was staged for the first time.

The slow penetration of Pushkin's drama on the stage was explained not only by censorship bans. The theater was not yet ready to receive the novelty of dramaturgy, which consisted in a different system of images, in the psychological depiction of characters, in freedom from the classic "unities" of place and time, in the conditionality of the hero's behavior by circumstances.

All "little tragedies" first appeared in the cinema: in the 1970s and 80s. a film directed by Schweitzer appeared, in which the whole tetralogy found its interpretation. Critics praised the film as a worthy attempt to penetrate the essence of Pushkin's intention.

Prior to the appearance of this film (in the early 60s), a television version of Mozart and Salieri was created, in which Nikolai Simonov, a wonderful tragic actor of our time, played Salieri, and young Innokenty Smoktunovsky played Mozart. It was the most interesting work of great actors. In Schweitzer's film, Smoktunovsky has already played Salieri, no less talented than Mozart once. 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 sound.

The value of Pushkin's dramaturgy in the development of the Russian theater.

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

According to Pushkin, the playwright must have fearlessness, ingenuity, liveliness 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 assumed circumstances ...”, that is, the conditionality of the hero’s behavior by circumstances - this formula of Pushkin, in fact, is a law in dramaturgy. Pushkin is convinced that the soul of a person is always interesting to watch.

The goal of the tragedy, according to Pushkin, is a person and a people, a human destiny, a people's destiny. Classicist tragedy could not convey the fate of the people. To establish a truly national tragedy, one will have 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 theatre. However, there could not be a sharp transition to a new dramatic technique. The theater gradually adapted to the new dramaturgy: new generations of actors, brought up on the new dramaturgy, had to grow up.

N.V. Gogol and theater

Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol (1809-1852) - one of the most difficult Russian writers, contradictory, in many ways confusing (next to him you can put only Dostoevsky and Tolstoy).

In Gogol, as in Pushkin, 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 state system to be fair; was convinced that with his work he serves to strengthen the state. But the laws are poorly used, because there are negligent officials-bureaucrats who distort the laws and the state system itself. And with his work, 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 the head. When an artist completely devotes himself to creativity, he cannot analyze it at the same time, because creativity is a subconscious process. The creative process completely captures the artist, and he, against his will, reflects the truth of life (unless, of course, he is a great artist).

Gogol attached great importance to theater and drama. His thoughts about the theater and drama are scattered in his letters (to the actor of the Maly Theater M.S. Shchepkin, to his contemporaries-writers, as well as in the article "Theatrical Departure", some others and in "Foreword to the "Inspector General"). These thoughts can be summarized thus:

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

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

Gogol saw the high purpose of the theater in the education and upbringing of the people, he attached to it the significance of the temple.

“The theater is by no means a trifle and not at all an empty thing, if you take into account the fact that a crowd of five, six thousand people can suddenly fit in it, and that this whole crowd, which is in no way similar to each other, sorting it out by units, may suddenly be shaken by one shock. To sob with tears alone and laugh with one universal laughter. This is such a pulpit from which you can say a lot of good to the world ... "

“The theater is a great school, its purpose is deep: it reads a lively 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 cuts, sometimes not translated, but "retold". There were also Russian plays in theaters, but they were of insignificant content.

Gogol believed that the theater repertoire should contain old classical plays, but they "You have to see with your own eyes." This meant that the classics must be comprehended in line with modern problems, to identify its relevance.

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

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 of different spectators he characterized their tastes and mores in relation to the theater.

Interested in Gogol and acting art questions. The classicist manner of performing 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 inherent in the play, and for this it is necessary to fully heal the thoughts of the hero. "The artist must convey the soul, not show the dress."

Play, according to Gogol, should be 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 improvisationally. Gogol speaks of this, in particular, in “A warning for those who would like to play The Inspector General properly. These remarks of his are seen as the beginnings of directing and that method of rehearsal work, which will later be called the method of effective analysis of the play and role.

Gogol's friendship with the great Russian actor Shchepkin affected his views on the art of theater and 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 thing in each character, what Stanislavsky would later call "seed" of the role. It is no coincidence that Stanislavsky conducted the first rehearsal for the actor's education system he created on the basis of The Inspector General.

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

Artistic fiction, imagination, fantasy are the necessary elements of creativity. And the veracity of the artist is not that he describes what it often happens, but also in what could be.

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

Gogol was aware of the need to write a public 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 feather pushes into places… that can’t be missed on stage… But what is comedy without truth and malice?”

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

In 1833, Gogol wrote the comedy "Grooms", where the situation is as follows: the bride does not want to miss any of the suitors and, apparently, loses them all. Podkolesin and Kochkarev were not in it. And in 1835, the comedy was completed, where 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 in order to give it to the theater, but, having taken up The Inspector General in October - December 1835, he postponed his intention.

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

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

The reason for the stage failure of "The 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 considered Gogol. Recall the epigraph to the "Inspector": "There is nothing to blame on the mirror, if the face is crooked." But his comedy also became a "magnifying glass" (as Mayakovsky would say about the theatre).

“The auditor was written by Gogol in two months (in October 1835, Pushkin suggested the plot to him, and by the beginning of December the play was ready). It doesn't matter if 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 emphasizes some aspects of comedy (meaningful names of characters, for example). The whole system of images carries a deep thought. Artistic approach - grotesque- a strong exaggeration. Unlike a cartoon, it is filled with deep content. Gogol makes extensive use of the grotesque.

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

Gone are the days of romance for comedy.

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

Gogol's contemporaries did not understand, did not heed the author's remarks. Gogol considered Khlestakov to be the main character 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 seasoned scoundrel. This is a person who for a moment, for a moment, for a moment wants to become something. And this is the essence of the image, so it is modern in any era. Gogol fought against the vulgarity of a vulgar person, denounced human emptiness. Therefore, the concept of "Khlestakovism" has become generalizing. The final edition of the "Inspector" - 1842

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

April 19, 1836 for the first time "Inspector" was played on the stage of the Alexandrinsky Theater. Gogol was dissatisfied with this production, in particular with the actor Dur in the role of Khlestakov, who, being a vaudeville actor, played Khlestakov in a vaudeville style. The images of Dobchinsky and Bobchinsky were perfect caricatures. Only Sosnitsky in the role of the mayor satisfied the author. He played the Gorodnichiy as a big bureaucrat with good manners.

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

Later Gorodnichiy was played by V.N. Davydov, Osip - Vasiliev, then K. A. Varlamov.

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

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

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

In the Maly Theater Khlestakov played Lensky (and also vaudeville), later - Shumsky (his performance already met the requirements of the author), even later this role was played by M.P. Sadovsky. The mayor was played by Shchepkin (later Samarin, Maksheev, Rybakov). M.S. Shchepkin, who played the Governor, created the image of a crooked rogue who is familiar with his subordinates; with them he fixes all the disgrace. Osip was played by Prov Sadovsky. Anna Andreevna played - N.A. Nikulin, later - A.A. Yablochkina, E.D. Turchaninov, V.N. Pashennaya.

The stage history of The Government Inspector is rich. But the satirical content addressed to the present was not always revealed in the productions. 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 performance 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 the characters and everyday details.

And in the 1921/22 season at the Moscow Art Theater - a new stage solution for The Inspector General. In this performance there were no naturalistic details of life. Directing went along 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 vivid example of the grotesque in acting.

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

In the mid-1950s, 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, artistic director of the Alexandrinsky Theater.

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

In this performance, an important character was Fear - the fear of retribution for what had been done. This was embodied in the form of a black carriage, which usually carries the auditor. This carriage hung like a sword of Damocles over the stage board throughout the performance. It read: all officials under the sword of Damocles. Fear, even horror, sometimes instilled in the Governor so that he could not control himself. In the first scene, in a very businesslike way, he orders the officials to put things in order so that it “sweeps”. But when Fear gets to him, he can't control himself.

Around the same time, The Inspector General appeared at the Moscow Theater of Satire. It was staged by V. Pluchek, the chief director of this theatre. The most famous actors played in it: Gorodnichiy - Papanov, Khlestakov - A. Mironov, other roles were played by no less 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 "tavern", and not Gogol's play. Probably, this is 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 dramaturgy. Before The Inspector General, only Fonvizin's Undergrowth and Griboyedov's Woe from Wit can be named - plays in which our compatriots were artistically fully depicted.

The "auditor" has acquired the force of a document exposing the existing system. He influenced the development of social consciousness of Gogol's contemporaries, as well as on subsequent generations.

The comedy The Government Inspector contributed to the fact that our Russian acting skills were able to move away from the playing techniques borrowed from foreign actors, which dominated the stage since the 18th century, and master the realistic method.

In 1842, a one-act comedy appeared "Players". In terms of the sharpness of realistic colors, the strength of the 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 cheater Ikharev, wittily and ingeniously deceived and robbed by even more clever swindlers, acquires a broad, generalized meaning. Ikharev, having beaten the provincial with marked cards, expects to "fulfill the duty of an enlightened person": "dress according to the capital's model", walk in St. Petersburg "along the Aglitskaya embankment", dine in Moscow at the "Yar". All the "wisdom" of his life is to "deceive everyone and not be deceived yourself." But he himself was deceived by even more dexterous predators. Ikharev is indignant. He calls upon the law to punish the swindlers. To which Glov remarks that he has no right to appeal to the law, because he himself acted illegally. But it seems to Ikharev that he is absolutely right, because he trusted the swindlers, and they robbed him.

The Players is Gogol's little masterpiece. Here the ideal purposefulness of the action is achieved, the completeness of the plot development, revealing at the end of the play all the vileness of society.

The intense interest of the action is combined with the disclosure of characters. With all the laconicism of events, the characters of the comedy manifest themselves with exhaustive completeness. The very intrigue of the comedy seems snatched from life by an ordinary everyday incident, but thanks to Gogol's talent, this "case" takes on a wide revealing character.

The meaning of Gogol for the development of the Russian theater is difficult to overestimate.

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

Turgenev in 1846 wrote about Gogol that "he pointed out the road along which our dramatic literature will eventually go." These perspicacious words of Turgenev were fully justified. The entire development of Russian drama in the 19th century, up to Chekhov and Gorky, owes a lot to Gogol. In Gogol's dramaturgy, the social significance of comedy was particularly fully reflected.

The comedy "Own People - Let's Settle" has its own well-defined composition. At the beginning of the comedy, we do not see the 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 a plot: the reader sees a young girl Lipochka, who madly wants to become married woman, and not without protest agrees to the candidate proposed by his father - the clerk Podkhalyuzin. In every comedy there is a so-called driving force, often it is main character, which often takes a counterposition to most of the characters, or by its active participation, contributes to the sharp development of the storyline.

In the play "Our People - Let's Settle" such a status belongs 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 culmination in comedy - that part of the work where the characters experience the maximum intensity of emotions.

This play culminates in an episode in which Lipochka openly takes her husband's side 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, expose its entire essence.

The denouement of "Our people - we will settle" 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 trick - Podkhalyuzin remains true to his principles about the latter, promising instead of a creditor's discount, not to shortchange him in his future own 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 encourage or hinder the production of plays on stage. The main criterion that determines the viability of a play in the future is its relevance to the topics covered by the author.

The play "Our people - let's settle" was created in 1849. However, for a long eleven years, the tsarist censorship did not give permission for its production in the theater. For the first time, "Own People - Let's Settle" was staged by the actors of the Voronezh Theater in 1860. In 1961, state censorship made its own changes to the play and allowed it to be staged in the theaters of the empire in an edited version.

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

The play "At the Bottom" was written by M. Gorky in 1902. Gorky was always worried about questions about a person, about love, about compassion. All these questions constitute the problem of humanism, which pervades 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 do not have the meaning of life. They do not live, but exist. The topic of tramps is very close to Gorky, since there was a time when he had to wander 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 Bottom" was written for the Moscow Art Theatre. The censorship at first forbade the staging of this play, but then, after revision, it nevertheless allowed it. She was sure of the complete failure of the play. But the play made a huge impression on the audience, caused a storm of applause. The viewer was so strongly affected by the fact that for the first time tramps are shown on the stage, they are shown with their dirt, moral uncleanliness. This play is deeply realistic. The uniqueness of the drama lies in the fact that the most complex philosophical problems are discussed in it not by masters of philosophical disputes, but by “people of the street”, uneducated or degraded, tongue-tied or unable to find the “necessary” words. The conversation is conducted in the language of everyday communication, and sometimes in the language of petty squabbles, "kitchen" abuse, drunken skirmishes.

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

On the presence of social conflict in the play says even its name - "At the bottom." The remark placed at the beginning of the first act creates a dull picture of a rooming house. “A basement that looks like a cave. The ceiling is heavy, stone vaults, sooty, with crumbling plaster ... Everywhere along the walls there are bunk beds.” The picture is not pleasant - dark, dirty, cold. The following are descriptions of the residents of the rooming house, 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 beggars, miserable, miserable creatures living in a dirty hole. There is also another type of people in the play: Kostylev, the owner of the rooming house, his wife Vasilisa. In my opinion, the social conflict in the play lies in the fact that the inhabitants of the rooming house 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 seek the 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 placed in terrible conditions. They are sick, poorly dressed, often hungry. When they have money, holidays are immediately organized in the rooming house. So they try to drown out the pain in themselves, to forget, not to remember their beggarly position of “former people”.

It is interesting how the author describes the activities of his characters at the beginning of the play. Kvashnya continues to argue with Kleshch, the Baron habitually taunts Nastya, Anna groans “every goddamn day…”. Everything goes on, all this has been going on for more than a day. And people gradually stop noticing each other. By the way, the absence of a narrative beginning is a hallmark of the drama. If you listen to the statements of these people, it is striking that all of them 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 rooming house, 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 a person is exposed. Bubnov remarks: “Outside, no matter how you paint yourself, everything will be erased.” The residents of the doss-house become, as the author believes, "unwittingly philosophers." Life makes them think about the universal concepts of conscience, labor, truth.

Two philosophies are most clearly opposed in the play.: Luke and Satin. Satin says: “What is truth?.. Man is the truth!.. Truth is the god of a free man!” For the wanderer Luke, such a “truth” is unacceptable. He believes that a person should hear something from which it will be easier and calmer for him, that for the good of a person it is possible to lie. Interesting points of view and other inhabitants. For example, Kleshch thinks: “... You can’t live ... Here it is, the truth! .. Damn it!”

Luka's and Satin's assessments of reality differ sharply. Luke brings a new spirit into the life of the rooming house - 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 lights up with 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 Stranger believed that one should come to terms with reality and look at what is happening around calmly. Luke preaches the opportunity to “adapt” to life, not to notice its true difficulties and one’s own mistakes: “It’s true that it’s not always a person’s illness ... you can’t always cure the soul with truth ...”

Satin has a completely different philosophy. He is ready to denounce the vices of the surrounding reality. In his monologue, Satin says: “Man! It's great! It sounds... proud! Human! You have to respect the person! Don't feel sorry... Don't humiliate him with pity... you have to respect him!" But respect, in my opinion, is necessary for a person who works. And the inhabitants of the rooming house seem to feel that they have no chance to get out of this poverty. Therefore, they are so drawn to the affectionate Luke. The Stranger surprisingly accurately seeks out 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.

Comprehension of the truth fascinates the inhabitants of the rooming house. Satin is distinguished by the greatest maturity of judgments. Not forgiving the “lie 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 is very painful for these people. The Actor ends his life, the Tatar refuses to pray to God... The departure from the life of the Actor is the step of a person who has failed to realize the true truth.

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

Most likely, the clash of views between Sateen and Luke cannot be called a conflict. They run in parallel. In my opinion, if we combine the accusatory character of Sateen and pity for the people of Luke, then we would get the very ideal Person who could revive life in a rooming house.

But there is no such person - and life in a rooming house remains the same. Former outwardly. Some kind of turning point is happening inside - people are starting 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 contradictions: contradictions in views on life, in lifestyle.

Drama as a literary genre depicts a person in acutely conflicting, but not hopeless situations. The play's conflicts are indeed not hopeless - after all (according to the author's intention), the active principle, the attitude to the world, still wins.

M. Gorky, a writer of 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 taking place in their minds. In the play “At the Bottom”, the writer showed that the neighborhood of people brought to life in poverty with a preacher of patient expectation of a “better person” necessarily leads to a turning point in people's minds. In the rooming houses, M. Gorky captured the first, timid awakening of the human soul - the most beautiful thing for a writer.

The play "At the Bottom" manifested the dramatic innovation of Maxim Gorky. Using the traditions of the classical dramaturgical legacy, primarily Chekhov's, the writer creates a 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 predominant attention to the ideological side of human life. Each act of a person, each of his words reflects the peculiarities of his consciousness, which determines the aphoristic dialogue characteristic of Gorky's plays, which is always filled with philosophical meaning, and the originality of the overall structure of his plays.

Gorky created a new type of dramatic work. The peculiarity of the play is that the driving force of the dramatic action is the struggle of ideas. The external events of the play are determined by the attitude of the characters to the main question about the person, the question around which there is a dispute, a clash of positions. 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 emerged. The play is a cycle of small dramas, which 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 an exceptional tension of action. The structural feature of Gorky's drama is the shift of emphasis from the events of external action to the comprehension of the internal content of the ideological struggle. Therefore, the denouement of the plot does not occur in the last, fourth, act, but in the third. From the last act, the writer takes away many people, including Luka, although it is with him that the main line in the development of the plot is connected. 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.

The dramatic conflict of the play "At the Bottom"

Most critics considered "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, the development of dramatic conflicts. In fact, in the play "At the Bottom" there is a deep inner dynamics, development ... The linkage of replicas, actions, scenes of the play is determined not by everyday or plot motivations, but by the deployment of socio-philosophical problems, the movement of topics, their struggle. That subtext, that undercurrent, which V. Nemirovich-Danchenko and K. Stanislavsky discovered in Chekhov's plays, acquires decisive significance in Gorky's "At the Bottom". “Gorky portrays the consciousness of the people of the “bottom”. The plot unfolds not so much in external action as in the dialogues of the characters. It is the conversations of the overnight stays that determine the development of the dramatic conflict.

It's amazing: the more the bed-seekers want to hide the real state of affairs from themselves, the more they take pleasure in convicting others of lies. They take particular pleasure in torturing their comrades in misfortune, trying to take away from them the last thing they have - an illusion

What do we see? It turns out there is no single truth. And there are at least two truths - the truth of the "bottom" and the truth of the best in man. What truth wins in Gorky's play? At first glance - the truth of the "bottom". There is no way out of this “dead end of life” for any of the overnight stays. None of the characters in the play gets better - only worse. Anna dies, Kleshch finally “falls” and gives up hope of escaping from the rooming house, Tatar loses his arm, which means he also becomes unemployed, Natasha dies morally, and maybe physically, Vaska Pepel goes to prison, even the bailiff Medvedev becomes one of the roomers . The nochlezhka accepts everyone and does not let anyone out, except for one person - the wanderer Luke, who entertained the unfortunate tales and disappeared. The culmination of general disappointment is the death of the Actor, whom it was Luka who inspired in vain hope for recovery and a normal life.

“The comforters of this series are the most intelligent, knowledgeable and eloquent. That is why they are the most harmful. Luka should be just such a comforter in the play "The Lower Depths," but apparently I failed to make him so. “At the Bottom” is an outdated play and, perhaps, even harmful in our days” (Gorky, 1930s).

Images of Satin, Baron, Bubnov in the play "At the Bottom"

Gorky's play "At the Bottom" was written in 1902 for the troupe of the Moscow Public Art Theater. Gorky for a long time could not find the exact title of the play. Initially, it was called "Nochlezhka", then "Without the Sun" and, finally, "At the Bottom". The name itself has a lot of meaning. People who have fallen to the bottom will never rise to the light, to a new life. The theme of the humiliated and offended is not new in Russian literature. Let us recall the heroes of Dostoevsky, who also "have nowhere else to go." Many similar features 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 terribly and realistically by Gorky. In Gorky's play, the audience saw for the first time the unfamiliar world of the outcasts. Such a harsh, merciless truth about the life of the social lower classes, about their hopeless fate, the world dramaturgy has not yet known. Under the vaults of the Kostylevo rooming house there were people of the most diverse character and social status. Each of them has its own individual features. Here is the worker Kleshch, who dreams of honest work, and Ash, longing for the right life, and the Actor, all absorbed in memories of his former glory, and Nastya, passionately yearning for great, true love. All of them deserve a better fate. The more tragic their situation now. The people who live in this cave-like basement are tragic victims of an ugly and cruel order in which a person ceases to be a person and is doomed to drag out a miserable existence. Gorky does not give a detailed account of the biographies of the heroes of the play, but even the few features that he reproduces perfectly reveal the author's intention. In a few words, the tragedy of Anna's life fate is drawn. "I don’t remember when I was full," she says. all my miserable life..." Worker Kleshch speaks of his hopeless lot: "There is no work... there is no strength... That's the truth! The inhabitants of the "bottom" are thrown out of life due to the conditions prevailing in society. Man is left to himself. If he stumbles, gets out of the rut, he is threatened with the "bottom", inevitable moral, and often physical death. Anna dies, the Actor commits suicide, and the rest are exhausted, disfigured by life to the last degree. And even here, in this terrible world of outcasts, the wolf laws of the “bottom” continue to operate. The figure of the owner of the rooming house Kostylev, one of the "masters of life", who is ready even to squeeze the last penny out of his unfortunate and disadvantaged guests, is disgusting. Just as disgusting is his wife Vasilisa with her immorality. The terrible fate of the inhabitants of the rooming house becomes especially obvious if we compare it with what a person is called to. Under the dark and gloomy vaults of the doss house, among the miserable and crippled, unfortunate and homeless vagrants, the words about man, about his vocation, about his strength and beauty, sound like a solemn hymn: “Man is the truth! Everything is in a person, everything is for a person! 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, even more sharply set off the picture of the real situation of a person that the writer paints. And this contrast takes on a special meaning... Sateen's fiery monologue about a man sounds somewhat unnatural in an atmosphere of impenetrable darkness, especially after Luka left, the Actor hanged himself, and Vaska Pepel was imprisoned. The writer himself felt this and explained this by the fact that the play should have a reasoner (expressor of the author's thoughts), but the characters portrayed by Gorky can hardly be called spokesmen for anyone's ideas in general. Therefore, Gorky puts his thoughts into the mouth of Satin, the most freedom-loving and just character.

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

By 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 consoles himself with the fact that there is nothing to expect... I do not expect anything! Everything already ... was! 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 destiny of man. Sometimes we feel that he is the mouthpiece of the author, there is no one else in the play who can say it so smoothly and smartly. His phrase Man it sounds proud! became winged.

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

But all these philosophical searches of the hero are just a verbal duel with his antipode in terms of worldview, with Luke. The sober, sometimes cruel realism of Sateen collides with the soft and accommodating speeches of the wanderer. Luke fills the rooming houses with dreams, calls them to patience. In this regard, 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 what gives people hope, there is no self-interest in this. This is the need of his soul. The researcher of Maxim Gorky's work, I. Novich, spoke about Luke this way ... he consoles not from love for this life and 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 some more! All, dear, endure.

Having suddenly appeared, just as suddenly, Luka disappears, revealing his possibilities in every inhabitant of the rooming house. The heroes thought about life, injustice, their hopeless fate.

Only Bubnov and Satin reconciled themselves to their position as overnight stays. Bubnov differs from Sateen in that he considers a person to be a worthless creature, and therefore worthy of a dirty life. People all live ... like chips floating down the river ... building a house ... chips away ...

Gorky shows that in an embittered and cruel world, only people who stand firmly on their feet, who are aware of their position, and who do not disdain anything, can survive. The defenseless rooming houses Baron, who lives in the past, Nastya, who replaces life with fantasies, perish in this world. Anna dies, the Actor lays hands on himself. He suddenly realizes the unfulfillment of his dream, the unreality of its implementation. Vaska Pepel, dreaming of a bright life, goes to prison.

Luka, regardless of his will, becomes the culprit in the death of these not at all bad people; the inhabitants of the rooming house do not need promises, but. specific actions that Luke is not capable of. He disappears, rather flees, thus proving the inconsistency of his theory, the victory of reason over the dream. Taco, 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 tears the last threads of hope of the Actor, connecting 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 given names. Many rooming houses have nicknames Krivoy Zob, Tatar, Actor.

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

Creating realistic characters, Gorky emphasizes everyday details, acting as a brilliant artist. A gloomy, rude and primitive existence fills the play with something ominous, oppressive, reinforcing the sense of unreality of what is happening. The noss house, located below ground level, devoid of sunlight, somehow reminds the viewer of a hell in which people die.

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

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

The play is over, but Gorky does not give an unambiguous answer to the main questions: what is the truth of life and what should a person strive for, leaving it to us to decide. Satin's final phrase Eh... spoiled the song... the fool is ambiguous and makes you think. Who is the fool? The Hanged Actor or the Baron who brought the news about it? Time passes, people change, but, unfortunately, the theme of the bottom remains relevant today. Due to economic and political upheavals, more and more people are leaving the bottom of life. Every day their ranks are replenished. Don't think they 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, with the play At the Bottom, wanted to prove that the essence of life is only in struggle. When a person loses hope, stops dreaming, he loses faith in the future.

Similar information.

The history of creation and the fate of the play "At the bottom"

The heyday of Russian drama of the XIX 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 receive a new generally recognized rise. The banner of the new theater is Chekhov's dramaturgy, creatively read by directors_innovators, the founders of the Moscow Art Theatre. In fact, only from that time on did the director acquire great importance in the Russian theater.

The novelty of the director's interpretation of the plays and the acting, unusual for the old stage, brought great 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 Theatre. The passion for working on the drama was so strong that Gorky almost stopped writing prose for several years. The theater for him is a platform from which a call to fight against everything that leads to the enslavement of man can be loudly sounded; the writer treasured the opportunity to use this podium.

In his poetics, Gorky_the playwright is close to Chekhov's poetics, 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 captious contemporaries paid almost no attention to the typological similarity of the dramaturgy of both writers. In the first place was the individual Gorky principle.

In Gorky's plays accusation, challenge, protest sound. Unlike Chekhov, who gravitated towards revealing life conflicts with the help of halftones and subtext, Gorky usually resorted to naked sharpness, to an emphasized opposition of worldviews and public positions heroes. These are debate plays, 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 bottom of life", the Marchlevsky publishing house in Munich, without indicating the year, and under the title "At the bottom", 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 great: the entire circulation of the first St. Petersburg edition, in the amount of 40,000 copies, 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 idea of ​​the play "At the Bottom" 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 there was the role 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 rooming house was crowded, its inhabitants cursed, the atmosphere was poisoned with hatred. The second act ended with a sudden round of the rooming house by the police. With news of this, the whole anthill began to swarm, they hurried to hide the loot; and in the third act spring came, the sun, nature came to life, the rooming houses from the stinking atmosphere went out to fresh air, on earthworks, they sang songs and under the sun, on fresh air, forgot about hatred for each other, ”recalled Stanislavsky.

In mid-October 1901, Gorky informed K.P. Pyatnitsky, the founder and head of the Znanie partnership, that he had planned 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: “One more: tramps. Tartar, Jew, actor, hostess of a doss house, thieves, detective, prostitutes. It will be scary. I have already prepared plans, I see faces, figures, I hear voices, speeches, motives for actions - they are clear, everything is clear! ..».

M. Gorky began writing "At the Bottom" at the end of 1901, in the Crimea. In his memoirs about L.N. Tolstoy, M. Gorky says that he read the written parts of the play to L. Tolstoy in the Crimea.

In Arzamas, where M. Gorky arrived on May 5, 1902, he intensely continued work on the play. On June 15, the play was completed and its white manuscript was sent to St. Petersburg, to 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 that, the drama was never subjected to copyright editing.

The title changed several times during the work on the play. In the manuscript, it was called "Without the sun", "Nochlezhka", "Bottom", "At the bottom of life." The last title was preserved even in white typescript, corrected by the author, and in the printed Munich edition. The final title - "At the bottom" - first appeared only on the posters of the Moscow Art Theater.

The staging of the play on the stage of Russian theaters met with great obstacles from theatrical censorship. At first, the play was strictly forbidden. In order to destroy or at least weaken the revolutionary orientation of the play, theatrical censorship made large cuts and some changes in 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 great impressive power, a performance that formed the basis of numerous copies in the productions of other theaters, both Russian and foreign. The play "At the Bottom" was translated into many foreign languages and, beginning in 1903, it toured the stages of every major city 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, St. Petersburg theaters: the Vasileostrovsky Theater, the Rostov-on-Don Theater, the Partnership new drama 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: the Yekaterinodar and Kharkov theaters (1910), the Public Theater, Petrograd (1912), the Moscow Military Theater (1918), the People's Drama Theater in Petrozavodsk (1918), the Kharkov Russian Theater . drama (1936), Leningrad Drama Theater. 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 Bottom" can be seen in many theaters: the Moscow Art Theater named after M. Gorky, the theater-studio of Oleg Tabakov, the Moscow Theater in the South-West, the Small Drama Theater under the direction of Lev Ehrenburg.

The play "At the Bottom" was written by M. Gorky in 1902. Gorky was always worried about questions about a person, about love, about compassion. All these questions constitute the problem of humanism, which pervades 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 do not have the meaning of life. They do not live, but exist. The topic of tramps is very close to Gorky, since there was a time when he had to wander 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 Bottom" was written for the Moscow Art Theatre. The censorship at first forbade the staging of this play, but then, after revision, it nevertheless allowed it. She was sure of the complete failure of the play. But the play made a huge impression on the audience, caused a storm of applause. The viewer was so strongly affected by the fact that for the first time tramps are shown on the stage, they are shown with their dirt, moral uncleanliness. This play is deeply realistic. The uniqueness of the drama lies in the fact that the most complex philosophical problems are discussed in it not by masters of philosophical disputes, but by “people of the street”, uneducated or degraded, tongue-tied or unable to find the “necessary” words. The conversation is conducted in the language of everyday communication, and sometimes in the language of petty squabbles, "kitchen" abuse, drunken skirmishes.

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

On the presence of social conflict in the play says even its name - "At the bottom." The remark placed at the beginning of the first act creates a dull picture of a rooming house. “A basement that looks like a cave. The ceiling is heavy, stone vaults, sooty, with crumbling plaster ... Everywhere along the walls there are bunk beds.” The picture is not pleasant - dark, dirty, cold. The following are descriptions of the residents of the rooming house, 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 beggars, miserable, miserable creatures living in a dirty hole. There is also another type of people in the play: Kostylev, the owner of the rooming house, his wife Vasilisa. In my opinion, the social conflict in the play lies in the fact that the inhabitants of the rooming house 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 seek the 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 placed in terrible conditions. They are sick, poorly dressed, often hungry. When they have money, holidays are immediately organized in the rooming house. So they try to drown out the pain in themselves, to forget, not to remember their beggarly position of “former people”.

It is interesting how the author describes the activities of his characters at the beginning of the play. Kvashnya continues to argue with Kleshch, the Baron habitually taunts Nastya, Anna groans “every goddamn day…”. Everything goes on, all this has been going on for more than a day. And people gradually stop noticing each other. By the way, the absence of a narrative beginning is a hallmark of the drama. If you listen to the statements of these people, it is striking that all of them 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 rooming house, 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 a person is exposed. Bubnov remarks: “Outside, no matter how you paint yourself, everything will be erased.” The residents of the doss-house become, as the author believes, "unwittingly philosophers." Life makes them think about the universal concepts of conscience, labor, truth.

Two philosophies are most clearly opposed in the play.: Luke and Satin. Satin says: “What is truth?.. Man is the truth!.. Truth is the god of a free man!” For the wanderer Luke, such a “truth” is unacceptable. He believes that a person should hear something from which it will be easier and calmer for him, that for the good of a person it is possible to lie. Interesting points of view and other inhabitants. For example, Kleshch thinks: “... You can’t live ... Here it is, the truth! .. Damn it!”

Luka's and Satin's assessments of reality differ sharply. Luke brings a new spirit into the life of the rooming house - 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 lights up with 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 Stranger believed that one should come to terms with reality and look at what is happening around calmly. Luke preaches the opportunity to “adapt” to life, not to notice its true difficulties and one’s own mistakes: “It’s true that it’s not always a person’s illness ... you can’t always cure the soul with truth ...”

Satin has a completely different philosophy. He is ready to denounce the vices of the surrounding reality. In his monologue, Satin says: “Man! It's great! It sounds... proud! Human! You have to respect the person! Don't feel sorry... Don't humiliate him with pity... you have to respect him!" But respect, in my opinion, is necessary for a person who works. And the inhabitants of the rooming house seem to feel that they have no chance to get out of this poverty. Therefore, they are so drawn to the affectionate Luke. The Stranger surprisingly accurately seeks out 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.

Comprehension of the truth fascinates the inhabitants of the rooming house. Satin is distinguished by the greatest maturity of judgments. Not forgiving the “lie 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 is very painful for these people. The Actor ends his life, the Tatar refuses to pray to God... The departure from the life of the Actor is the step of a person who has failed to realize the true truth.

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

Most likely, the clash of views between Sateen and Luke cannot be called a conflict. They run in parallel. In my opinion, if we combine the accusatory character of Sateen and pity for the people of Luke, then we would get the very ideal Person who could revive life in a rooming house.

But there is no such person - and life in a rooming house remains the same. Former outwardly. Some kind of turning point is happening inside - people are starting 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 contradictions: contradictions in views on life, in lifestyle.

Drama as a literary genre depicts a person in acutely conflicting, but not hopeless situations. The play's conflicts are indeed not hopeless - after all (according to the author's intention), the active principle, the attitude to the world, still wins.

M. Gorky, a writer of 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 taking place in their minds. In the play “At the Bottom”, the writer showed that the neighborhood of people brought to life in poverty with a preacher of patient expectation of a “better person” necessarily leads to a turning point in people's minds. In the rooming houses, M. Gorky captured the first, timid awakening of the human soul - the most beautiful thing for a writer.

The play "At the Bottom" manifested the dramatic innovation of Maxim Gorky. Using the traditions of the classical dramaturgical legacy, primarily Chekhov's, the writer creates a 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 predominant attention to the ideological side of human life. Each act of a person, each of his words reflects the peculiarities of his consciousness, which determines the aphoristic dialogue characteristic of Gorky's plays, which is always filled with philosophical meaning, and the originality of the overall structure of his plays.

Gorky created a new type of dramatic work. The peculiarity of the play is that the driving force of the dramatic action is the struggle of ideas. The external events of the play are determined by the attitude of the characters to the main question about the person, the question around which there is a dispute, a clash of positions. 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 emerged. The play is a cycle of small dramas, which 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 an exceptional tension of action. The structural feature of Gorky's drama is the shift of emphasis from the events of external action to the comprehension of the internal content of the ideological struggle. Therefore, the denouement of the plot does not occur in the last, fourth, act, but in the third. From the last act, the writer takes away many people, including Luka, although it is with him that the main line in the development of the plot is connected. 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.

The dramatic conflict of the play "At the Bottom"

Most critics considered "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, the development of dramatic conflicts. In fact, in the play "At the Bottom" there is a deep inner dynamics, development ... The linkage of replicas, actions, scenes of the play is determined not by everyday or plot motivations, but by the deployment of socio-philosophical problems, the movement of topics, their struggle. That subtext, that undercurrent, which V. Nemirovich-Danchenko and K. Stanislavsky discovered in Chekhov's plays, acquires decisive significance in Gorky's "At the Bottom". “Gorky portrays the consciousness of the people of the “bottom”. The plot unfolds not so much in external action as in the dialogues of the characters. It is the conversations of the overnight stays that determine the development of the dramatic conflict.

It's amazing: the more the bed-seekers want to hide the real state of affairs from themselves, the more they take pleasure in convicting others of lies. They take particular pleasure in torturing their comrades in misfortune, trying to take away from them the last thing they have - an illusion

What do we see? It turns out there is no single truth. And there are at least two truths - the truth of the "bottom" and the truth of the best in man. What truth wins in Gorky's play? At first glance - the truth of the "bottom". There is no way out of this “dead end of life” for any of the overnight stays. None of the characters in the play gets better - only worse. Anna dies, Kleshch finally “falls” and gives up hope of escaping from the rooming house, Tatar loses his arm, which means he also becomes unemployed, Natasha dies morally, and maybe physically, Vaska Pepel goes to prison, even the bailiff Medvedev becomes one of the roomers . The nochlezhka accepts everyone and does not let anyone out, except for one person - the wanderer Luke, who entertained the unfortunate tales and disappeared. The culmination of general disappointment is the death of the Actor, whom it was Luka who inspired in vain hope for recovery and a normal life.

“The comforters of this series are the most intelligent, knowledgeable and eloquent. That is why they are the most harmful. Luka should be just such a comforter in the play "The Lower Depths," but apparently I failed to make him so. “At the Bottom” is an outdated play and, perhaps, even harmful in our days” (Gorky, 1930s).

Images of Satin, Baron, Bubnov in the play "At the Bottom"

Gorky's play "At the Bottom" was written in 1902 for the troupe of the Moscow Public Art Theater. Gorky for a long time could not find the exact title of the play. Initially, it was called "Nochlezhka", then "Without the Sun" and, finally, "At the Bottom". The name itself has a lot of meaning. People who have fallen to the bottom will never rise to the light, to a new life. The theme of the humiliated and offended is not new in Russian literature. Let us recall the heroes of Dostoevsky, who also "have nowhere else to go." Many similar features 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 terribly and realistically by Gorky. In Gorky's play, the audience saw for the first time the unfamiliar world of the outcasts. Such a harsh, merciless truth about the life of the social lower classes, about their hopeless fate, the world dramaturgy has not yet known. Under the vaults of the Kostylevo rooming house there were people of the most diverse character and social status. Each of them has its own individual features. Here is the worker Kleshch, who dreams of honest work, and Ash, longing for the right life, and the Actor, all absorbed in memories of his former glory, and Nastya, passionately yearning for great, true love. All of them deserve a better fate. The more tragic their situation now. The people who live in this cave-like basement are tragic victims of an ugly and cruel order in which a person ceases to be a person and is doomed to drag out a miserable existence. Gorky does not give a detailed account of the biographies of the heroes of the play, but even the few features that he reproduces perfectly reveal the author's intention. In a few words, the tragedy of Anna's life fate is drawn. "I don’t remember when I was full," she says. all my miserable life..." Worker Kleshch speaks of his hopeless lot: "There is no work... there is no strength... That's the truth! The inhabitants of the "bottom" are thrown out of life due to the conditions prevailing in society. Man is left to himself. If he stumbles, gets out of the rut, he is threatened with the "bottom", inevitable moral, and often physical death. Anna dies, the Actor commits suicide, and the rest are exhausted, disfigured by life to the last degree. And even here, in this terrible world of outcasts, the wolf laws of the “bottom” continue to operate. The figure of the owner of the rooming house Kostylev, one of the "masters of life", who is ready even to squeeze the last penny out of his unfortunate and disadvantaged guests, is disgusting. Just as disgusting is his wife Vasilisa with her immorality. The terrible fate of the inhabitants of the rooming house becomes especially obvious if we compare it with what a person is called to. Under the dark and gloomy vaults of the doss house, among the miserable and crippled, unfortunate and homeless vagrants, the words about man, about his vocation, about his strength and beauty, sound like a solemn hymn: “Man is the truth! Everything is in a person, everything is for a person! 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, even more sharply set off the picture of the real situation of a person that the writer paints. And this contrast takes on a special meaning... Sateen's fiery monologue about a man sounds somewhat unnatural in an atmosphere of impenetrable darkness, especially after Luka left, the Actor hanged himself, and Vaska Pepel was imprisoned. The writer himself felt this and explained this by the fact that the play should have a reasoner (expressor of the author's thoughts), but the characters portrayed by Gorky can hardly be called spokesmen for anyone's ideas in general. Therefore, Gorky puts his thoughts into the mouth of Satin, the most freedom-loving and just character.

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

By 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 consoles himself with the fact that there is nothing to expect... I do not expect anything! Everything already ... was! 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 destiny of man. Sometimes we feel that he is the mouthpiece of the author, there is no one else in the play who can say it so smoothly and smartly. His phrase Man it sounds proud! became winged.

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

But all these philosophical searches of the hero are just a verbal duel with his antipode in terms of worldview, with Luke. The sober, sometimes cruel realism of Sateen collides with the soft and accommodating speeches of the wanderer. Luke fills the rooming houses with dreams, calls them to patience. In this regard, 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 what gives people hope, there is no self-interest in this. This is the need of his soul. The researcher of Maxim Gorky's work, I. Novich, spoke about Luke this way ... he consoles not from love for this life and 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 some more! All, dear, endure.

Having suddenly appeared, just as suddenly, Luka disappears, revealing his possibilities in every inhabitant of the rooming house. The heroes thought about life, injustice, their hopeless fate.

Only Bubnov and Satin reconciled themselves to their position as overnight stays. Bubnov differs from Sateen in that he considers a person to be a worthless creature, and therefore worthy of a dirty life. People all live ... like chips floating down the river ... building a house ... chips away ...

Gorky shows that in an embittered and cruel world, only people who stand firmly on their feet, who are aware of their position, and who do not disdain anything, can survive. The defenseless rooming houses Baron, who lives in the past, Nastya, who replaces life with fantasies, perish in this world. Anna dies, the Actor lays hands on himself. He suddenly realizes the unfulfillment of his dream, the unreality of its implementation. Vaska Pepel, dreaming of a bright life, goes to prison.

Luka, regardless of his will, becomes the culprit in the death of these not at all bad people; the inhabitants of the rooming house do not need promises, but. specific actions that Luke is not capable of. He disappears, rather flees, thus proving the inconsistency of his theory, the victory of reason over the dream. Taco, 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 tears the last threads of hope of the Actor, connecting 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 given names. Many rooming houses have nicknames Krivoy Zob, Tatar, Actor.

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

Creating realistic characters, Gorky emphasizes everyday details, acting as a brilliant artist. A gloomy, rude and primitive existence fills the play with something ominous, oppressive, reinforcing the sense of unreality of what is happening. The noss house, located below ground level, devoid of sunlight, somehow reminds the viewer of a hell in which people die.

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

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

The play is over, but Gorky does not give an unambiguous answer to the main questions: what is the truth of life and what should a person strive for, leaving it to us to decide. Satin's final phrase Eh... spoiled the song... the fool is ambiguous and makes you think. Who is the fool? The Hanged Actor or the Baron who brought the news about it? Time passes, people change, but, unfortunately, the theme of the bottom remains relevant today. Due to economic and political upheavals, more and more people are leaving the bottom of life. Every day their ranks are replenished. Don't think they 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, with the play At the Bottom, wanted to prove that the essence of life is only in struggle. When a person loses hope, stops dreaming, he loses faith in the future.

Similar information.

The comedy "Own People - Let's Settle" has its own well-defined composition. At the beginning of the comedy, we do not see the 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 candidate proposed by her father - the clerk Podkhalyuzin. In every comedy there is a so-called driving force, often it is the main character, who often takes a counterposition to the majority of the characters, or with his active participation, contributes to the sharp development of the storyline.

In the play "Our People - Let's Settle" such a status belongs 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 culmination in comedy - that part of the work where the characters experience the maximum intensity of emotions.

This play culminates in an episode in which Lipochka openly takes her husband's side 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, expose its entire essence.

The denouement of "Our people - we will settle" 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 trick - Podkhalyuzin remains true to his principles about the latter, promising instead of a creditor's discount, not to shortchange him in his future own 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 encourage or hinder the production of plays on stage. The main criterion that determines the viability of a play in the future is its relevance to the topics covered by the author.

The play "Our people - let's settle" was created in 1849. However, for a long eleven years, the tsarist censorship did not give permission for its production in the theater. For the first time, "Own People - Let's Settle" was staged by the actors of the Voronezh Theater in 1860. In 1961, state censorship made its own changes to the play and allowed it to be staged in the theaters of the empire in an edited version.

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

Baranova Ludmila 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. Meaning of the play's title. Gorky's innovation as a playwright. Stage fate of the play.
	To give an initial idea of ​​the socio-philosophical drama as a genre of dramaturgy; to acquaint with the meaning of the name of the play "At the bottom", with the stage fate of the play; to reveal the innovation of Gorky - the playwright; develop the skill of analysis dramatic work, improving the monologue speech of students; skill independent work and group work; cultivate respect for the person.
	Determine the philosophical meaning of the title of Gorky's play "At the Bottom"; find out the author's methods of conveying the atmosphere of spiritual separation of people, revealing the problem of imaginary and real overcoming of a humiliating situation, sleep and awakening of the soul.
Technical support of the lesson:	PC, multimedia projector

Suffer! Die! But be the one

what you should be: human!

Romain Rolland

Organizing time

Work with the epigraph for the lesson. Identification of the objectives of the lesson (students themselves formulate the objectives of the lesson).

Introductory remarks by the teacher Surprisingly, the craving for the works of Maxim Gorky, and, above all, for his play "At the Bottom", has now increased surprisingly. The life depicted in the play is in many ways reminiscent of today's, when the country, like a negligent student, is busy "repeating" the past, correcting the mistakes made over the many years of the totalitarian regime. That is why the dispute about a person and his place in life in the play "At the Bottom" is still relevant today. The play was staged, filmed in Russia and abroad many times, dozens of critical, scientific works are devoted to it, but hardly anyone would dare to assert that even today everything is known about this work.

Student's message "The stage fate of the play" At the bottom ". This is interesting.

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

Gorky's handwriting on the photographs says that many of the characters in "At the Bottom" had real prototypes among the Nizhny Novgorod bosyatstvo. All this suggests that both the author and the director, in order to achieve the maximum stage effect, strove, first of all, for authenticity.

The premiere of "At the Bottom", 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 fame of "At the Bottom" itself is a kind of cultural and social phenomenon of the beginning of the 20th century and has no equal in the entire history of the world theater.

"The first performance of this play was a complete triumph," wrote M.F. Andreeva. "The audience was furious. The author was summoned 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 Bottom" 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 bottom" - the first work of M. Gorky, which brought world fame to the author. In January 1903 The premiere of the play took place in Berlin at the Max Reinhardt Theater directed by director Richard Valletin, who played the role of Satine. In Berlin, the play withstood 300 performances in a row, and in the spring of 1905. marked her 500th submission.

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

Some called it a disadvantage, others saw it as a manifestation of a remarkable whole personality that came from the lower ranks of the people and, as it were, "blew up" the traditional ideas about the Russian writer. The play was a huge success. Proof of this is a lot of 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 many times abroad: Berlin (1903, under the title "Nochlezhka"), Finnish National Theatre, Helsingfors, Krakow Theater, Paris 1905, 1922 - performer of the role of Baron J. Pitoev), Tokyo (1924,1925) New York (1956) ), London (1961), Tunisian Troupe (1962) and many others. others

VII. Who are these people who ended up in Kostylev's rooming house?

Dialogue communication: "Know the hero..."

Claims he "doesn't seem to have a temper"? (Baron)

He does not want to come to terms with life on the “bottom” and declares: “I am a working person and have been working since I was young ... I’ll get out ... I’ll tear off my skin, but I’ll get out”? (Mite.)

Dreamed of such a life, "so that you can respect yourself"? (Ash.)

Lives in dreams of great, real human love? (Nastya)

She believes that in the next world she will be better, but even so she wants to live at least a little more in this world? (Anna)

... "lay down in the middle of the street, plays the harmonica and yells:" I want nothing, I want nothing "? (Shoemaker Alyoshka)

Says to the man who offered her to marry him: "... marrying a woman is the same as jumping into an ice-hole in winter"? (Kvashnya)

Under the guise of serving God, he robs people "... and I will throw a fifty-fifty on you, I will buy oil in a lamp ... and my sacrifice will burn in front of the holy icon ..." (Kostylev)

He is indignant: "And why do they separate people when they fight? Let them beat each other freely ... they would fight less, because they would remember the pobon longer ..."? (Policeman Medvedev)

He found himself in a prison because he left his wife, afraid to kill her, jealous of another? (Bubnov)

He consoled everyone with a beautiful lie, and in a difficult moment "disappeared from the police ... like smoke from a fire ..."? (Wanderer Bow)

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

He asserted: "Lie is the religion of slaves and masters ... Truth is the god of a free man!"? (Satin)

VIII. What circumstances brought each of them to the rooming house?

(student messages)

Mikhail Ivanovich Kostylev - 54 years old, owner of a rooming house

Vasilisa Karpovna - his wife, 26 years old

Natasha - her sister, 20 years old

Medvedev - their uncle, a policeman, 50 years old

Vaska Pepel - thief, 28 years old. Born in prison. He dreams of marrying Natasha, to get away from the power of Vasilisa (the wife of the hostel), who encourages him to kill her husband.

Kleshch, Andrey Mitrich - locksmith, 40 years old. Ended up in a rooming house, losing his job. The only one of the inhabitants of the rooming house who did not accept his fate. He separates himself from the rest: "What kind of people are they? Dud, a golden company ... people! I am a working person ... I am ashamed to look at them ... I am ashamed to look at them ... I work from an early age .. "You think I won't get out of here? I'll get out... I'll rip off my skin, and I'll get out... Just wait... my wife will die..."

Anna - his wife, 30 years old

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

Kvashnya - a seller of dumplings, under 40 years old

Bubnov - kartuznik, 45 years old. He left home for a rooming house "out of harm's way" after his wife found another. It is recognized that the drunkard is lazy.

Baron - 33 years old, ruined nobleman

Satin, Actor - characters of approximately the same age: under 40 years old. Satin is a sharpie, in his youth he was a telegraph operator. He fell to the "bottom", after serving four years and seven months in prison for murder (he stood up for the honor of his sister). The actor - once played on stage under the pseudonym Sverchkov - Zavolzhsky, and now he drank himself. Lives in memories of beauty. From all the inhabitants of the rooming house he is distinguished by a fine mental organization. He admits that he has lost his name.

Luka the Wanderer, 60 years old. Luke doesn't say much about himself. He only says: "They crumpled a lot, that's why it's soft ..."

Alyoshka - shoemaker, 20 years old

Crooked Zob, Tatar - hookers

a few tramps without names and 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 some replicas, words that have a symbolic sound stand out. Bubnov's words "but the threads are rotten" hint at the lack of connections between the bunkhouses. Bubnov remarks about Nastya's situation: "You are superfluous everywhere." This once again indicates that the tenants of Kostylev hardly "tolerate" each other.

Outcasts of society reject many generally accepted truths. For example, it’s worth telling Kleshch that the roommates live without honor and conscience, as Bubnov will answer him: “What is the conscience for? I’m not rich,” and Vaska Pepel will cite Sateen’s words: “Every person wants his neighbor to have a conscience, yes You see, it’s not profitable for anyone to have her.”

IX. Teacher:

The conclusion to all that has been said about the inhabitants of the rooming house 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 a notebook and use it when writing essays on the play.

The name of the play "At the Bottom" is not only the "cave" in which Gorky's heroes found themselves, it is the very atmosphere of indifference and moral ugliness that reigns in the rooming house. The title of the play is deeply symbolic, it reveals the meaning of the whole work.

What is the subject matter of the play? (The subject of the image in the drama "At the bottom" is the consciousness of people thrown out 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 marked: on one - the owner of the bunkhouse Kostylev and the policeman Medvedev who supports his power, on the other - essentially disenfranchised bunkhouses. Thus, the conflict between the authorities and people deprived of rights is obvious. This conflict is almost does not develop, because people deprived of their rights. This conflict almost does not develop, because the Kostylevs and Medvedev are not so far from the inhabitants of the rooming house. Each of the rooming houses 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 characters are involved is of a different kind. Gorky portrays the consciousness of the people of 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 roommates that determine the development of the dramatic conflict. The action is transferred to an out-of-event series. 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 Bottom" the author did not limit himself to depicting the characteristic social and domestic aspects of Russian reality. This is not an everyday, but a socio-philosophical play, which is based on a dispute about a person, his position in society and attitude towards him. And in this dispute (in one way or another) almost all the inhabitants of the rooming house participate.

XII. Work in groups, work with text.

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

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

The room-keepers ask themselves the last philosophical questions about man - truth - freedom.

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

2 group. Bubnov and his truth about human life.

3rd group. What is the position of Sateen in the play?

4 group. What is the meaning of the finale of the play "At the bottom".

XIII. Student performances, reflection.

XIV. Homework:

Thesis plan on the topic "Innovation of Gorky - the playwright" with the involvement of the text of the play and citations to the theses.

Individual task: a well-founded message on Spinoza's statement: "The truth of a man is what makes him a man.

Current page: 3 (total book has 5 pages)

II

“The state of the Gorky repertoire in our theaters inspires serious concern. It would seem that such performances as "Yegor Bulychov" by the Vakhtangovists, "Enemies" at the Moscow Art Theater and many other productions, have long refuted the legend about the non-stage performance of Gorky's plays. Meanwhile in Lately voices began to be heard that the audience, they say, was not watching Gorky, that interest in his dramaturgy had disappeared. The number of new productions has decreased, the plays are quickly leaving the repertoire.”

Thus began the letter of S. Birman, B. Babochkin, P. Vasiliev and other theatrical figures to the editors of Soviet Culture, published by the newspaper on January 3, 1957.

Gorky, the letter noted, “is often included in the repertoire ‘according to apportionment’, because ‘it is necessary’, without trust in him as an artist, without enthusiasm. And now a whole series of performances appeared, devoid of creative searches, repeating, with various variations, classical theatrical models created a quarter of a century, or even half a century ago. The lack of psychological depth of images, the flat, one-dimensional solution of characters, the weakening of the tension of conflicts make many performances gray and everyday.

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

Theatrical criticism of the sixties also complained about the presence of a large number of stage clichés when staging Gorky's plays. The obligatory accessory of a “merchant” or “philistine” performance, she notes, was a massive iconostasis, a samovar, heavy furniture in carefully fenced-off interiors, a fake for the Volga dialect in the characters’ speech, characteristic features, a general slow rhythm, etc. The very interpretation of plays often turns out to be just as stencil-heavy, inanimate. “In different cities and different theaters,” we read in one of the articles, “performances began to appear that did not pretend to 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. - Theater, 1964, No. 8, p. 25

As examples, productions of "Egor Bulychov" in Omsk, Kazan, Orel were cited ... The performance "At the Bottom" at the Tula Theater turned out to be "a sluggish cast from the Moscow Art Theater production."

In the Moscow Art Theater itself, the play "At the Bottom", played on October 8, 1966 for the 1530th time, turned out to be, although not sluggish, but still a cast from the famous production of 1902. Kostylev, Vasilisa, Natasha, Ash, Klesch, Actor, Tartar, Alyoshka - for the first time they played V. Shilovsky, L. Skudatina, L. Zemlyanikina, V. Peshkin, S. Desnitsky, N. Penkov, V. Petrov. Luka was still played by Gribov. G. Borisova spoke about their game like this:

“A wonderful performance was created by young people - very hot, sincere, rich, talented. The colors of the performance were refreshed, and it sounded, sparkled anew ... " 27
Theatrical life, 1966, no. 2, p. 1

Another reviewer, Yu. Smelkov, was more restrained in praise and closer to the actual state of affairs. He did not deny the professional skill of the young actors, he noted that they had mastered the specificity found by their predecessors, added some of their own details, were organic and temperamental. “But, strangely,” he wondered, “the emotions that were generously spent on stage did not fly over the ramp. new life the performance did not heal, 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 the classic play, but “for the right to copy what they found sixty years ago” 28
Smelkov Yu. How do you live? - Theater, 1967, No. 3, p. 17

The youth performance of the Moscow Art Theater lacked. perhaps the most important thing - a creative, independent reading of the play.

In the critical literature of those years, another fairly common shortcoming in the staging of Gorky's plays was noted - this is an exclusive focus on the past. Thus, V. Sechin criticized the Sverdlovsk Drama Theater for the fact that in the play "Petty Bourgeois" philistinism 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 petty bourgeois is interesting “not only as a representative of a certain stratum in class society, but also as a moral category, the 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 - stretched out from the Bessemenovs' house and into our small and large apartments. 29
Sechin V. Gorky "in the old way." - Theater, 1968, No. 5, p. 17.

He also blames the Gorky (Nizhny Novgorod) Drama Theater for the same sin for staging "The False Coin". E. Balatova, touching on this issue, in the article “In the World of Gorky” emphasized: “In many productions, the accusatory power of Gorky’s dramaturgy was stubbornly directed to the last century. In the “philistines”, “summer residents”, “barbarians” hated by him, only the image of the abominations of the past was seen - no more. The Gorky performance more and more often turned into an illustration for a history textbook. 30
Theatre, 1964, No. 8, p. 25.

The 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 for them, regarded Gorky’s plays as works of the past, about a very distant and irrevocably gone “damned past”. A book about Gorky the playwright was even published, where two hundred photographs were inserted with captions: “Conservative of the early 20th century”, “Liberal of the early 20th century ...” 31
Theatre, 1957, No. 4, p. 73.

. (We are talking, obviously, about the book by M. Grigoriev "Gorky - playwright and critic." M., 1946.)

Orientation to the past, as we have seen, was also characteristic of teaching at school.

Thus, by the beginning of the sixties, the theatrical 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, delusions, joys and sorrows on the way to modernity.

The stage history of the play "At the Bottom" 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 Bottom" in the provincial theaters of Russia 32
Danilov S.S. Materials for the annals of the 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 annals of Gorky performances (1957-1962). - Gorky Readings, 1961-1963. M., 1964.

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

As for the Moscow theaters, then, according to the data presented by Mogilevsky, Filippov and Rodionov 33
Mogilevsky A. I., Filippov Vl., Rodionov A. M. Theaters of Moscow. 1917-G927. M., 1928.

The play "At the Bottom" for 7 post-October theatrical seasons withstood 222 productions and took fourth place in terms of the number of viewers - 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 viewers. "The Blue Bird" was staged 288 times, "The Government Inspector" - 218, "Twelfth Night" - 151, "Woe from Wit" - 106.

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

In short, in the twenties the play "At the Bottom" enjoyed great popularity both in Moscow and in the periphery. However, in the next decade, attention to it has significantly weakened. From 1928 to 1939, S. S. Danilov did not mention a single one. premieres. The number of performances in the Moscow Art Theater itself also decreased. The famous performance will come to life again only in 1937, after the 35th anniversary of its stay on the stage. It cannot be said that this play has completely disappeared from the stage. It was staged, for example, in the Sverdlovsk Drama Theater, in the Nizhny Novgorod - Gorky Drama Theater and some others. But still, it must be admitted that for "At the Bottom" it was the most dull time.

At the end of the thirties, interest in the play will rise again, but not for long. It 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 belongs to the same time. It is curious to note that in most productions of this time, Luca was "understated". He was interpreted most often flat and one-dimensional: 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, Luka stealing this money 35
Detailed description productions of "At the bottom" by F. N. Kaverin are given by L. D. Snezhnitsky in the article "Director's search for F. N. Kaverin." - In the book: Kaverin F.N. Memories and theatrical stories. M., 1964.

Reviewers and critics of those years pushed the theaters in this direction, demanded that the actors playing the role of Luke expose the hero, be more cunning, sneaky, sly, etc.

Discredited, "reduced" Luke and purely comedic tricks. So, in the Crimean State Theater, Luka was shown as a fussy, clumsy old man, and in the Chelyabinsk Drama Theater - comical and funny. The Tomsk Drama Theater presented Luka in the same vaudeville plan. The revelatory tendency in relation to Luka, consecrated 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 the stages of theaters. After two or three years in stage history Gorky's play again experienced a pause that lasted almost fifteen years (this, of course, does not apply to the Art Theater).

In the first half of the fifties, interest in the play revived again. It is staged in Kirovograd, Minsk, Kazan, Yaroslavl, Riga, Tashkent and some other cities. In the next five or six theatrical seasons, there were almost more premieres of this performance than in the previous two decades. L. Vivien and V. Erenberg in 1956 create a new production of the play "At the Bottom" in the Leningrad State Academic Drama Theater. A. S. Pushkin, which was an event in the artistic life of those years. In 1957, the play was staged by the Voronezh, Gruzinsky, Kalinin theaters and the theater of the Komi ASSR. Later, new performances are staged in Pskov, Ufa, Maykop and other cities.

In the 1960s, on the eve of the writer's centenary, the number of productions of Gorky's plays in the country's theaters increased significantly. Increased interest in the play "At the Bottom". In this regard, the question arose with new acuteness of how to play this famous play, especially the role of Luke. It should be noted that by this time the production of Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko at the Moscow Art Theater had already ceased to seem like an indisputable model for some theatrical figures. They began to think about finding a new, more modern approach to the play.

At the anniversary theatrical conference, which was held in the writer's homeland, in the city of Gorky, the well-known theater critic N. A. Abalkin said that if you go towards Gorky, then "it is necessary to strengthen in the image of Luka what was intended by the author - exposing the harmfulness of consolation" 36
Theatre, 1969, No. 9, p. 10.

N. A. Abalkin clearly formulated the revelatory 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 either.

The judgments of L. P. Varpakhovsky are not indisputable, but his desire for a new stage embodiment of the play is indisputable and fully justified. It was partly carried out by him in his production of the play "At the Bottom" at the Kiev Theater named after Lesya Ukrainka. In his performance, he tried to get away from the traditional historical and everyday solution of the topic and, by the very design, gave the play a somewhat generalized character. Instead of the textbook Kostylev rooming house with all its attributes, familiar to the whole world from the stage of the Art Theatre, the audience saw tiers of bunks, a huge crate knocked together from rough boards with many cells. In cells, as in dead cells, people. They are crumpled by life, thrown out of it, but still alive and hoping for something. Luka is very unusual - V. Khalatov, powerful, broad-shouldered, heavy, resolute ... Not a trace remains of Luka's usual softness. He came to the rooming house not to console, but to excite people. It doesn't look like "toothless crumb". The restless and active Luka-Khalatov, as it were, is trying to move this bulky wooden crate from its place, to widen the dark narrow aisles of the rooming house.

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

“This performance could become an example of a truly new reading of the play, if it did not feel the absence of one essential link. The whole course of events leads us to Satin's "hymn to man", but, obviously afraid of the frank pathos of this monologue, the director "restrained" it so much that it turns out to be no less noticeable moment of the performance. And in general, the figure of Satin fades into the background. The failure is quite significant, it turns us to the question that the heroism of the Gorky theater, erased by many years of textbook clichés, also needs to look for today's, new, fresh solution. 38
Theatre, 1964, No. 8, p. 34.

The critic's remark is quite fair and timely.

The performance of the people of Kiev 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 an interesting search work when preparing the aforementioned production of “At the Bottom”.

Unusually modestly, silently, without broadcast posters, without advertising newspaper interviews, he entered the repertoire of the Leningrad Academic Drama Theater. A. S. Pushkin in the theatrical season of 1956-57, the play "At the Bottom" staged by L. Vivien and V. Ehrenberg. He did not walk often, but he was noticed. Spectators and critics of that time were struck primarily by the pronounced humanistic subtext of the performance, the desire to convey to people Gorky's favorite idea that "everything is in a person, everything is for a person." The performance, unfortunately, was not smooth, but thanks to the excellent acting of Simonov (Satin), Tolubeev (Bubnov), Skorobogatov (Luka), the idea came to the fore that no matter how a person was humiliated, the truly human would still break through in him. and it will take over, as it broke through in the performance in Satin's monologues, in Bubnov's dance, in Alyoshka's merry mischief ...

Romantically upbeat, optimistic sound of the performance was also facilitated by its design. Before the beginning of each action, in the light of the dimmed, flickering lights of the auditorium, broad, free Russian songs were heard, as if pushing the backstage of the theater, evoking thoughts about the Volga expanses, about some other life than the life of the "useless". And the scene itself did not create the impression of a stone bag, closed on all sides of the space. From the heavy brick vaults of the Kostylevo rooming house, well known to everyone from the famous scenery of the Art Theater, only the riser and a small part of the basement vault remained. The very same ceiling disappeared, as if dissolved in a blue-gray darkness. A rough plank staircase enveloping the riser leads up into the air.

The directors and actors tried 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, accumulates. N. Simonov, according to reviewers, played the thinking and keenly feeling Satin. In many ways, he managed to convey the very birth of the hero’s thought about the dignity, strength, pride of a person.

Bubnov, performed by Tolubeev, as they wrote then, had nothing to do 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 kind of ageless Alyoshka is awakening in him.” The interpretation of Luka by K. Skorobogatov also turned out to be unusual.

K. Skorobogatov is a longtime and staunch admirer of Gorky's talent as a playwright. Even before the war, he played both Bulychov and Dostigaev at the Bolshoi Drama Theater, and Antipa (“Zykovs”) at the Pushkin Academic Drama Theater. He also played Luka, but in the production of 1956 he considered this role to be the final one. Not without reason, 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, efficient, bold, unfussy and humane. There is no guile in his attitude towards people. He is convinced that life is organized abnormally, and sincerely, wholeheartedly wants to help people. The performer of the hero’s words: “Well, at least I will litter here,” he interpreted allegorically: “Well, at least I will clean your souls.” Skorobogatov used to be very far from outwardly exposing the “evil old man”, and now his Luka, we read in. one of the reviews, deceives and consoles with inspiration, like a poet who himself believes in his fiction and contagiously affects simple, unsophisticated, sincere listeners.

The initiative of the Leningraders turned out to be contagious. In the sixties, besides the people of Kiev, they were looking for new ways to play in Arkhangelsk, Gorky, Smolensk, Kirov, Vladivostok and other cities. It belongs to the same time. production of "At the bottom" in the Moscow "Sovremennik". It can be said without exaggeration that never before in our theaters has this play been subjected to such extensive experimentation as at that time. Another question is how much this experimentation was conscious and theoretically substantiated, but the desire to move away from the textbook model of the Moscow Art Theater was clearly visible in many productions.

So, in the Vladivostok Drama Theater, the play "At the Bottom" was played as a duel of truth and lies. The director of the play, V. Golikov, subordinated the whole course of action and the very design famous saying A. M. Gorky about ideological content plays: “... The main question that I wanted to pose is what is better: truth or compassion? What is more needed? These words sounded from behind the curtain before the start of the performance, a kind of epigraph to the entire production. They were accompanied by a small but significant pause and ended with a heart-rending human scream. On the stage, instead of bunks, there are cubes of various sizes covered with a harsh linen. From the middle of the stage, a staircase rushed up almost to the very grate. It served as a sign, a symbol of the depth of that “bottom” where the heroes ended up. Household accessories are kept to a minimum. Signs of overnight poverty are given conditionally: the Baron has holes in his gloves, a dirty scarf around the Actor's neck, otherwise the costumes are clean. In the performance, everything - be it events, characters, scenery - is considered as an argument in a dispute.

Luka performed by N. Krylov is not a hypocrite and not 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 gracious 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 lulling dream from everything painful, sorrowful, and dirty. “The lie of such a Luke, not burdened by any personal vices of its bearer, appears, as it were, in its purest form, in the most “good” version. That is why the conclusion about the disastrous lie that follows from the performance, the reviewer concludes, acquires the meaning of an irresistible truth. 40
Chernova F. Duel of Truth and Lies. - Theatrical life, 1966, No. 5, p. 16.

However, an 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 perniciousness of consolation and lies. The heroes of the "bottom" in this performance were doomed in advance. They are cut off, isolated from the world. The giant staircase, although it rose high, did not lead any of the inhabitants of the “bottom” anywhere. She only emphasized the depth of the Kostylev slums and the futility of the attempts of Satin, Ash and others to get out of the basement. A clear and, in fact, insoluble contradiction arose between the freedom of thought and the predetermined doom and helplessness of a person who found himself at the bottom of life. By the way, we also saw the stairs on the stage of the Leningrad theater, but there it strengthened the optimistic sound of the play. In general, Richard Valentin used this attribute when designing the famous Reinhardt performance "At the Bottom".

The given idea also underlay the production of L. Shcheglov at the Smolensk Drama Theater. L. Shcheglov presented the world of Gorky's ragamuffins as a world of alienation. Here everyone lives on his 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 testimony of the author of the review O. Korneva - of enormous growth, a hefty old man, with a red, weather-beaten and sun-scorched face. He enters the rooming house not sideways, not quietly and imperceptibly, but noisily, loudly, with wide steps. He is not a comforter, but ... a pacifier, a tamer of human revolt, of every impulse, anxiety. He insistently, even stubbornly, 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, Luka, the reviewer writes, “simply orders her to die” 41
Theatrical life, 1967, No. 10, p. 24.

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

The idea of ​​overcoming alienation, interesting in itself, did not find a sufficiently substantiated expression in the performance. Throughout the action, she never managed to drown out the impression of the cold, impassive beat of the metronome, which sounded in the darkness of the auditorium and counted the seconds, minutes and hours of a human life that exists alone. Some conditional methods of 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 idea. The performers of the roles are unusually young. Their modern costumes are completely different from the picturesque rags of Gorky's tramps, and jeans on Satin and stylish trousers on the Baron puzzled even the most prejudiced reviewers and viewers, 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 Kustodievsky merchant's wife.

The Arkhangelsk Theater named after M. V. Lomonosov (director V. Terentyev) took Gorky's favorite thought about attentive attitude to each individual human being as the basis of his production. The people of the "bottom" in the interpretation of the Arkhangelsk artists care little about their external position of vagabonds and "useless people". Their main feature is an indestructible desire for freedom. According to E. Balatova, who reviewed this performance, “it is not crowding, not crowding that makes life in this rooming house unbearable. Something from the inside is bursting everyone, torn out in clumsy, ragged, inept words. 42
Theatrical life, 1966, No. 14, p. eleven.

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

In some respects, the performance of the Kirov Drama Theater was also curious .. A very commendable article appeared about it in the Theater magazine 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 performance 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 is the year of Gorky. - Theater, 1968, No. 9, p. 14.

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

Luka I. Tomkevich bursts into this stuffy, gloomy world, obsessed, angry, active. According to 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 from Luke almost a Petrel, and from Satin - just an ordinary cheater, is in no way justified by the very content of the play. The director’s attempt to supplement Gorky, “expand” the texts of the author’s remarks (beating up an old schoolgirl, fights, chasing crooks, etc.) did not receive support in criticism either. 45
Alekseeva A. N. Contemporary Issues stage interpretation of the dramaturgy of A. M. Gorky. - In the book: Gorky Readings. 1976. Materials of the conference “A. M. Gorky and the theater. Gorky, 1977, p. 24.

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

The play "At the Bottom" 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, he caused controversy in theatrical circles and on the pages of the press. Some theater critics and reviewers saw a merit in the theater's desire to read the play in a new way, while others, on the contrary, saw a drawback. I. Vishnevskaya welcomed the daring of the Nizhny Novgorod residents, and N. Barsukov opposed the modernization of the play.

When evaluating this production (director B. Voronov, artist V. Gerasimenko), I. Vishnevskaya proceeded from a general humanistic idea. Today, when good human relations are becoming the criterion of true progress, she wrote, could Luka Gorky be with us, shouldn’t we listen to him again, separating the fairy tale from the truth, lies from kindness? In her opinion, Luke came to people with kindness, asking them not to offend a person. It was this Luka that she saw in the performance of N. Levkoev. She connected his game with the traditions of the great Moskvin; to the kindness of Luke she attributed a beneficial effect on the souls of the overnight stays. “And the most interesting thing in this performance,” she concluded, “is the closeness of Satin and Luka, or rather, even the birth of that Satin, whom we love and know, precisely after meeting with Luka” 46
Vishnevskaya I. It began as usual. - Theatrical 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 auditorium feel the "gone century". He admits that Levkoevsky's Luka is "a simple, cordial 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 they represent Luke, the good that he preaches is inactive and harmful. He is also against seeing “some kind of harmony” between Satin and Luka, since there is a conflict between them. He does not agree with Vishnevskaya's statement that the alleged suicide of the Actor is not a weakness, but "an act, a moral purification." Luke himself, “relying on abstract humanity, turns out to be defenseless and forced to leave those he cares for” 47
Barsukov N. The truth is behind Gorky. - Theatrical life, 1967, No. 24, p. 12.

In a 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 controversy did not end there. The performance was in the center of attention at the aforementioned festival in Gorky. New articles appeared about him 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 Luka, said:

“I consider Luka primarily a philanthropist.

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

... In each of us there are individual traits of Luke's character, without which we simply have no right to live. Luke says - who believes, he will find. Let us recall the words of our song, which thundered all over the world: "He who seeks will always find." Luke says whoever wants something hard will always achieve it. Here it is, modernity" 48
Theatre, 1968, No. 3, p. 14-15.

Describing the production of "At the Bottom" at the Gorky Drama Theatre, Vl. Pimenov emphasized: “This performance is good because we perceive the content of the play, the psychology of people from the “bottom” in a new way. Of course, one can interpret Luka's life program in a different way, but I like Luka Levkoev, whom he played correctly, soulfully, without, however, completely rejecting 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 forbid the search for new solutions in the characters of the heroes of his plays. 49
Ibid, p. 16.