The Old Man
2 hrs. 43 min.
Description
The text was first published as a separate edition by the Berlin publishing house of I. P. Ladyzhnikov (the year is not specified; probably no later than 1921).
As M. Gorky noted, the play “The Old Man” was written in 1915. Its first staging took place on 1 January 1919 on the stage of the State Academic Maly Theatre.
Typewritten copies with the author’s corrections (A. M. Gorky Archive) and the director’s copy kept in the Maly Theatre museum, dated 23 October 1918, show that the first-printed text of “The Old Man” issued by I. P. Ladyzhnikov reproduced an early version of the play. It was from this variant that the work was subsequently printed in later collected editions of M. Gorky’s writings. However, this text was not the final version approved by the author. In 1922, “The Old Man” appeared in a revised form in the “Petersburg Almanac” (Petersburg—Berlin, 1922, Book One), but even this version proved not to be final. In the A. M. Gorky Archive, a copy of Ladyzhnikov’s separate edition is kept, with very significant author’s revisions and three handwritten inserts (one for the third act and two for the fourth). In this last revision, the play was printed in 1924 in English under the title “The Judge” by one of the New York publishing houses.
“The Old Man” is directly related to M. Gorky’s publicistic articles of 1913—“On Karamazovism” and “More about ‘Karamazovism.’” In the preface to the aforementioned American edition, Gorky wrote: “In the play ‘The Old Man’ I tried to show how disgusting is the person who is in love with his own suffering, who believes that it gives him the right to take revenge for everything he has had to endure. But if a person is convinced that suffering gives him the right to consider himself an exceptional individual and to take revenge on others for his misfortunes—such a person, in my opinion, does not belong among those whose respect by other people is deserved. You will understand this if you imagine a person who sets fire to houses and cities merely because it is cold for him!” (A. M. Gorky Archive.)
As M. Gorky noted, the play “The Old Man” was written in 1915. Its first staging took place on 1 January 1919 on the stage of the State Academic Maly Theatre.
Typewritten copies with the author’s corrections (A. M. Gorky Archive) and the director’s copy kept in the Maly Theatre museum, dated 23 October 1918, show that the first-printed text of “The Old Man” issued by I. P. Ladyzhnikov reproduced an early version of the play. It was from this variant that the work was subsequently printed in later collected editions of M. Gorky’s writings. However, this text was not the final version approved by the author. In 1922, “The Old Man” appeared in a revised form in the “Petersburg Almanac” (Petersburg—Berlin, 1922, Book One), but even this version proved not to be final. In the A. M. Gorky Archive, a copy of Ladyzhnikov’s separate edition is kept, with very significant author’s revisions and three handwritten inserts (one for the third act and two for the fourth). In this last revision, the play was printed in 1924 in English under the title “The Judge” by one of the New York publishing houses.
“The Old Man” is directly related to M. Gorky’s publicistic articles of 1913—“On Karamazovism” and “More about ‘Karamazovism.’” In the preface to the aforementioned American edition, Gorky wrote: “In the play ‘The Old Man’ I tried to show how disgusting is the person who is in love with his own suffering, who believes that it gives him the right to take revenge for everything he has had to endure. But if a person is convinced that suffering gives him the right to consider himself an exceptional individual and to take revenge on others for his misfortunes—such a person, in my opinion, does not belong among those whose respect by other people is deserved. You will understand this if you imagine a person who sets fire to houses and cities merely because it is cold for him!” (A. M. Gorky Archive.)
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36:46
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46:23
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41:10
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