| The Power of Darkness | |
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| Written by | Leo Tolstoy |
| Original language | Russian |
| Genre | Naturalisticdrama |
The Power of Darkness (Russian:Власть тьмы, Vlast′ t′my) is a five-actdrama byLeo Tolstoy. Written in 1886, the play's production was banned in Russia until 1902, mainly through the influence ofKonstantin Pobedonostsev. In spite of the ban, the play was unofficially produced and read numerous times.
A peasant, Nikita, a farmhand of another wealthy peasant seduces a young orphan girl and abandons her for the wife of his master, Anisya, who poisons her already sick husband to marry Nikita. At the same time he has an affair with Anisya's daughter and eventually impregnates her (i.e., his new stepdaughter). Under his wife's and mother's influence, he murders the newborn. On the day of his stepdaughter's marriage, he surrenders himself and confesses to the police.[1]
French theatre pioneerAndré Antoine stagedLa Puissance des Ténèbres—a French translation of the play, by Pavlovsky andOscar Méténier—in Paris at theThéâtre Montparnasse on 10 February 1888 to great acclaim.[2]Constantin Stanislavski, the Russiantheatre practitioner, had wanted to stage the play in 1895; he had persuaded Tolstoy to rewrite act four along lines that Stanislavski had suggested, but the production did not materialise. He eventually staged it with hisMoscow Art Theatre in 1902. That production opened on 5 December and enjoyed some success. Stanislavski, however, was scathingly critical, particularly of his own performance as Mitrich.[3] Years later, in hisautobiographyMy Life in Art, he wrote:
Realism only becomesNaturalism when it is not justified by the artist from within. [...] [T]he external realism of the production ofThe Power of Darkness revealed the absence of inner justification in those of us who were acting in it. The stage was taken over by things, objects, banal outwardevents [...] which crushed the inner meaning of the play and characters.[4]
ActorJacob Adler had aNew York hit in 1904 with his ownYiddish translation—the first successful production of a Tolstoy play in the United States.[5]
In 1923, the Germanepic theatredirectorErwin Piscator staged the play at his "proletarian Volksbühne" (a rival to theVolksbühne), inBerlin.[6] "Our intention," Piscator writes, "was to move toward a political message from a broad artistic base."[7] The production opened on 19 January at the Central-Theater on the Alte Jakob Strasse.[8] Having aimed for "the greatest possiblerealism in acting anddecor," Piscator described his production as "thoroughlynaturalistic."[9]Herbert Ihering approved of its attempt to bring serious drama at low ticket-prices toworking-class audiences, though he thought that its attention to naturalistic detail distracted from the core meaning of the play.[10]
Mint Theater Company staged a production of the play inNew York City in 2007. They used a new translation by director Martin Platt.[11]
In addition to worldwide staging, the play was put to film several times.
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