The Lower Depths

The play is set in 1900s Russia, a country suffering from a brutal economic crisis. Across the land, in search of means to live, crowds of ruined peasants and jobless proletarians roam, and in the end they sink to the “bottom” of life. Under the gloomy vaults of a homeless shelter, people of very different fates, characters, and social positions find refuge—coming from nearly all strata of the Russian society of that time. All of them, without question, deserve a better fate. And it is precisely here, “at the bottom,” among miserable, physically and spiritually maimed drifters, in the darkness and hopelessness, that a debate about the human being and the meaning of life begins. Here, in their voluntary prison, words are spoken about the freedom of choice given to people, about human dignity: “A person is free… he pays for everything himself: for faith, for unbelief, for love, for reason—a person pays for everything himself, and therefore he is free!.. A person—that is the truth!.. Everything is in the person, everything is for the person! There is only the human being; everything else is a matter of his hands and his brain! Human-be-ing! This is magnificent! This sounds… proud!..”.