Gas masks
| Data | |
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| Title: | Gas masks |
| Original title: | Противогазы |
| Genus: | Melodrama in three acts |
| Original language: | Russian |
| Author: | Sergei Tretyakov |
| Publishing year: | 1923 |
| Premiere: | February 29, 1924 |
| Place and time of the action: | A factory site. |
| people | |
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Gas masks ( Russian Противогазы ) is a play in three acts by Sergei Tretyakov . It first appeared in 1923 in the avant-garde magazine LEF (= Left Front of the Arts).
content
first act
The (unnamed) plant director of a gas company is expecting guests from the Economics Council and is only concerned about the presentability of the plant. He delays the replenishment of gas masks that the workers demanded.
Second act
Gas escapes through a leak in the pipeline and an accident occurs. One worker has already passed out from the inhaled gas. The call for gas masks is getting loud. Since the director claimed that there were gas masks in the box in the office, this box is opened. However, bottles of rum come to light that the director has stashed for himself.
The workers initially refused to mend the hole without protective masks. Only the workers correspondent Dudin can change her mind. He reminds them that they, the workers, made the October Revolution and that the work belongs to them, not the sanctimonious Directory. Against the protests of their wives, the workers go to work. Everyone should mend the hole for three minutes. The worker Foma, who actually wants to leave the scene to take care of his sick son, joins the group.
Third act
When the Komsomol arrives, they want to help the workers immediately. Even the director's son, a staunch communist, pushed his way forward despite his heart disease and was not deterred by his father's requests. He dies as a result of his mission. When the secretary reveals to the director that she was with his son and is expecting a child, she mockingly promises him to call it a 'gas mask'.
Ultimately, the leak is repaired. Of the 70 workers who took part, 64 show symptoms of intoxication. The director is ashamed and declares himself the main culprit for the disaster.
background
- “ Tretyakov had taken the contents of gas masks from a report from Pravda , according to which 70 workers at a gas works in the Urals had repaired the leak in the main gas line independently, collectively and at the risk of their lives, each by three minutes without a gas mask repaired the main pipe and suffered poisoning. "
Full text
- the drama in the Russian original (agitclub.ru)
translation
- Gas masks. Melodrama in three acts. German by Günter Jäniche. In: Sergei M. Tretyakov: poetry, drama, prose. Edited by Fritz Mierau . Leipzig: Reclam 1972. pp. 67-97.