The Bathhouse

A radio play from the Gosteledradiofond archive.

On the one hand, the play is titled “The Bath,” but on the other—there’s no bath there at all. On the one hand, it’s a “drama,” but on the other—“... with a circus and fireworks,” meaning it’s a real cheap show, not a drama. On the one hand, the entire conflict in the play is built around Chudakov’s “machine,” but on the other—this machine is invisible, so it’s as if it doesn’t exist. On the one hand, we seem to be looking at a theater, but on the other, we can also see theater within theater, so the first theater doesn’t seem like theater anymore—it looks like reality. And so on. In short, across the whole play and each of its individual elements we find a mismatch between the object and its meaning. The most abstract concepts here are lowered, made tangible, materialized—and vice versa: concrete objects, phenomena, and even people are de-materialized, down to complete disappearance.

Explanatory text read by R. Plyatt

Pobedonosikov — G. Menglet
Polya, his wife — K. Kanaeva
Comrade Optimistenenko — V. Lepko
Isaak Belvedonsky — G. Doré
Comrade Momentalkin — F. Diamant
Mr. Pont Kich — D. Kara-Dmitriev
Comrade Underton — G. Kozhakiyna
Spendthrift Nochkin — G. Ivanov
Comrade Velosipedkin — B. Runge
Comrade Chudakov — D. Dubov
Madame Mesalliansova — N. Slonova
Comrade Foskin — V. Bombenkov
Comrade Dvoykin — L. Berlin
Comrade Troitkin — A. Kotovshchikov
Petitioner — V. Boykov
Petitioning woman — A. Skuratova
Director — O. Solyus
Ivan Ivanovich — V. Petrovsky
Militiaman — G. Znamennov
Phosphorescent woman — N. Arkhipova
Composer Vano Muradeli