What should we do

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

What should we do is a three-part play by Tankred Dorst . The play was premiered on November 28, 1997 under the direction of Antoine Uitdehaag in the Bad Godesberg Kammerspiele of the Bonn theater and on the same evening under Tobias Wellemeyer in the Small House of the Staatsschauspiel Dresden .

content

The god under the maple tree

Gorky remembers a conversation with Tolstoy in the Yasnaya Polyana Garden under a maple tree. Tolstoy give hope. This ability - so the young poet - made the greatness of the old poet.

The door half open

Tankred Dorst's original is based on Kassen's Tolstoy drama fragment “And the light shines in the darkness” (Russian “И свет во тьме светит”) from 1900. At the beginning, a question is considered: Why did Princess Anna Filipovna shoot the rich man Landowner Count Nicolai Ivanovich Saryntsev? Boris, the only child of the princess, who became a conscientious objector under the influence of the count, was locked in the madhouse by his commander during military service because he does not want to go into the field with the Serbs .

Count Sarynzew not only raised young aristocrats - like Boris - to be human friends, but he even wants to help adult lawbreakers - like the wood thief Ivan Stabrev - in court. And some of the Count's utterances not only cause his family to shake their heads, they also cause incomprehension. For example, the fatal accident of little Alyosha from a landowning family in the neighborhood had Sarynzew to the statements "We live wrong" and "We all live so useless and immoral". So, after seeing the dead boy, the count had gone on to the monstrous assertion that Alyosha would - had he lived on - probably become as “a worthless person” as any other member of a landowning family in the vicinity of the Sarynzews is.

Certainly the very poorly aimed shot of Princess Anna Filipovna at the Count causes his family to be in a state of excitement and of course triggers endless discussions about the abnormal behavior of Saryntsev. But actually it's about Countess Marja - the wife of the landlord Saryntsev. The landed aristocrat Sarynzew wants to give his property away and leave the estate together with a tramp. The count is of the opinion that if he does not give everything, he is deceiving God. Saryntsev wants to end his parasitic lifestyle - the well-being, the exploitation of those who have nothing. Marja cannot follow her unworldly husband and does not want to accept the decision of the head of the family. Because the mother worries about the inheritance of the daughters Natascha and Sonja as well as the almost 30-year-old demanding son, the geology and philosophy student Alexej. You don't give away private property.

Acrobats. An act

Around 1918 in North America : Tolstoy's son Lyova had to leave Russia head over heels during the October Revolution . The dilemma of the young Count Tolstoy: Although he hates his father, in capitalist America he lives on fatherly fame.

The aristocratic refugee Lyova travels with nothing more than a suitcase full of junk via Antwerp in America and applies for a job with a circus director, an old admirer of his father. The director can hardly cease to be amazed. Before him stands the image of the great Leo Tolstoy. The circus man knew Leo Tolstoy personally. Twenty-five years ago the poet had given the emigrant twenty rubles on his trip overseas. The self-confident demeanor of the have-not from Russia enrags the director. Nevertheless, he bailed out the old pacifist's son . The director has an idea. Because: "If you don't have good ideas, you won't get any further in capitalism!" The beggarly compatriot is engaged with the number “Birch grove in Yasnaja Polyana”. The bearded Leo Tolstoy doppelganger in a Russian peasant smock sits silently on a bench in the ring in front of a group of Russian birch trees draped as if it is real.

reception

Both productions of the play were barely noticed by theater and literary critics and so far no new productions have followed. Although "Der Spiegel" announced the premiere, it was not followed by any theater criticism.

literature

Text output

Secondary literature

Web links

  • On Tolstoy's drama fragment in the middle part of the trilogy: November 2010: Radio play by Elisabeth Panknin.

annotation

Partly in Russian

  1. ↑ This refers to the Russian writer Ilja Lwowitsch Tolstoy (Russian Илья Львович Толстой (1866-1933)). Tankred Dorst has apparently made a calculation error. In 1918 the Russian refugee was not 42 (edition used, p. 106, 12. Zvo), but 52 years old. In addition, he left his Russian homeland towards the end of the Tsarist era (1916).

Individual evidence

Partly in Russian

  1. ^ Erken bei Arnold, p. 88, left column, first entry
  2. ^ Kässens in the afterword of the edition used, p. 384, 13. Zvu
  3. ↑ see also Johannes 1,5  EU
  4. ↑ Russian Библиография Льва Толстого (Tolstoy Bibliography)
  5. ↑ Edition used, p. 99, 16. Zvo
  6. ↑ Edition used, p. 73, 8th Zvu
  7. ↑ Edition used, p. 74, 20. Zvo
  8. ↑ Edition used, p. 74, 15. Zvo
  9. ↑ Edition used, p. 123, 7. Zvo
  10. ^ Spiegel : "Normal madness"