Each playwright dreams of creating a play that would be liked not only by contemporaries, but also by future generations. Only a work that has some meaning, can teach something, reveal the unpleasant aspects of society, and solve social problems can remain relevant for many decades . The play “At the Bottom” refers precisely to such works.
Drama Writing History
The work of Maxim Gorky “At the Bottom” was released in 1902. It was written specifically for the troupe of the Moscow Art Public Theater. This play has a very difficult fate: it has survived prohibitions and censorship, for so many years disputes about its ideological content and artistic originality have not ceased. The drama was praised and criticized, but nobody was indifferent to it. The creation of the play “At the Bottom” was laborious, the writer began working on it in 1900, and only finished two years later.
Gorky drew attention to drama at the beginning of the twentieth century. It was then that he shared with Stanislavsky his idea to create a trampy play in which there would be about two dozen characters. The author himself did not know what would come of it, he did not count on great success, characterized his work as a failed one, with a weak plot, outdated.
The main characters of the drama
The story of the creation of the play “At the Bottom” is quite prosaic. Maxim Gorky wanted to tell her about his observations of the world of the lower classes. The writer referred to “former people” not only the inhabitants of the shelters, proletarians and wanderers, but also representatives of the intelligentsia, who were disappointed in life and failed. There were real prototypes of the main characters.
So, the story of the creation of the play “At the Bottom” tells that the writer created the image of Bubnov by combining the characters of a familiar tramp and his intellectual teacher.
Gorky wrote off the actor from the artist Kolosovsky-Sokolovsky, and the image of Nastya was borrowed from the stories of Claudia Gross.
Censorship
A lot of time had to be spent on obtaining permission to stage the play. The author defended every remark of heroes, every line of his creation. In the end, permission was granted, but only for the Art Theater. The story of the creation of the play “At the Bottom” was not easy, Gorky himself did not believe in his success, and the authorities allowed the production, hoping for a loud failure. But everything turned out exactly the opposite: the play was a resounding success, a huge number of newspaper publications were dedicated to it, the author was repeatedly called onto the stage, standing ovation.
The story of the creation of the play “At the Bottom” is notable for the fact that Gorky did not immediately determine its name. The drama has already been written, and what to call it, its author did not decide. Among the well-known options were the following: “Without the sun”, “In an overnight house”, “At the bottom of life”, “Nochlezhka”, “Bottom”. Only in the 90s of the twentieth century in one of the Moscow theaters was the production of a play entitled “At the Bottom”. Be that as it may, the drama was well received by the viewer not only in Russia, but also abroad. In 1903, the play premiered in Berlin. The drama was played 300 times in a row, and this indicates unprecedented success.