| The Living Corpse | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Written by | Leo Tolstoy |
| Date premiered | 5 October [O.S. 23 September] 1911 |
| Place premiered | Moscow Art Theatre |
| Original language | Russian |
The Living Corpse (Russian:Живой труп) is a Russian play byLeo Tolstoy.[1] Although written around 1900, it was only published shortly after his death—Tolstoy had never considered the work finished. An immediate success, it is still performed.Arthur Hopkins produced its Broadway premiere in 1918 under the titleRedemption, starringJohn Barrymore.
The central character of the play, Fedor Protasov, is tormented by the belief that his wife Liza never chose between him and Viktor Karenin, a suitor for her hand. He wants to kill himself, but doesn't have the nerve. Running away from his life, he first falls in with gypsies, and into a sexual relationship with a gypsy singer, Masha. However, due to the disapproval of Masha's parents, he runs away from this life as well. Again he wants to kill himself, but lacks the nerve; again, his descent continues.
Meanwhile, his wife, presuming him dead, has married the other man. When Protasov is discovered, she is charged with bigamy, accused of arranging her husband's disappearance. He shows up in court to testify that she had no way of knowing that he was alive; when the judge rules that his wife must either give up her new husband or be exiled to Siberia, Protasov shoots himself. Hysterically, his wife declares that it is Protasov whom she always loved.
The play premiered at theMoscow Art Theatre, in a production that opened on 5 October [O.S. 23 September] 1911.[2] It was principally directed byVladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko, withKonstantin Stanislavski acting as a co-director.[3] A production in Saint Petersburg followed shortly after. Soon translated into many languages, it played in Berlin, Vienna, Paris, and London.
The play received its English-language premiere in London on 6 December 1912, under the titleThe Man Who Was Dead (a translation by Z. Vengerova and John Pollock), in a production by the Literary Theatre Society.[4] It was directed by A. Andreev, who came from theTheatre Royal in Belgrade.[5]Edmond Breon played Fedor, Violet Lewis played Lisa, Laurence Anderson played Victor, Lydia Yavorska played Masha, and Anthony Ward played Prince Abreskov.[6]
Its first performance in the United States was a Yiddish-language production in New York, produced by and starringJacob Adler, in a translation byLeon Kobrin. It opened on 3 November 1911. Several days beforehand, theNew York Times ran an extensive piece on the play by Herman Bernstein, with a synopsis so thorough as almost to amount to an English translation. Typical of theTimes's somewhat disdainful attitude towardYiddish theater at that time, the article never explicitly mentions Adler's impending production, despite being written by one of their few Jewish correspondents at that time. The production, which ran for four months, has been credited with reviving the fortunes of serious Yiddish-language theater in New York, after a period of about six years in which lighter fare had dominated.
A German-language production was staged in New York in 1916.
The play was finally performed onBroadway in English in 1918, under the titleRedemption and produced byArthur Hopkins.John Barrymore played the lead role.
The play has been filmed numerous times:
(1911) (1918) (1952)| International | |
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| National | |
