The Silver Age was not rich in dramatic works. However, even the little that was published had a social connotation and to one degree or another reflected reality. Mayakovsky’s “bug” (we will review the summary in the article) is one of these plays.
About the work
The play was written in 1928. The genre of the work is an enchanting comedy, it was designated by V. Mayakovsky himself. “Bedbug” (a brief summary confirms this) is a satirical play based on materials collected by the author during the work in various publications. It is thanks to these developments that such characters as Oleg Bayana and Prisypkin appeared.
The play was first published in 1929 in the magazine Young Guard. And the premiere of the performance took place in February of the same year. She was a great success with the audience.
The play "Bedbug" (Mayakovsky): summary
Place of action - Tambov. The duration of the action is 1929 at the beginning of the performance, 1979 - from the middle to the end.
The main character, Ivan Prisypkin, is a former worker and party member. He did not really like his name, so he changed it to Pierre Skripkin. So, Prisypkin is going to marry the daughter of a hairdresser Elsevira Davidovna Renaissance, who works as a cashier.
Ivan and his future mother-in-law go to the department store and buy everything necessary for the upcoming family life. Among his purchases are figures of dancing ballerinas, a bra that was mistaken for bonnets for twins, etc.
Mayakovsky wants not just to show Soviet reality. "Bedbug" (a brief summary illustrates this) is a play that ridicules bourgeois vices. It is them that Prisypkin personifies.
The wedding is called Oleg Bayan. For work, he asks for a bottle of vodka and 15 rubles. In return, he promises a real labor exalted marriage in the best traditions of modern life. Discussion of the celebration hears an employee Zoya Berezkina. She was once Prisypkin's lover. Zoya does not understand what is happening, and asks Ivan to explain everything to her. In response, the newly-minted Skripkin says that he no longer loves the girl. Zoe begins to cry.
The action is transferred to a hostel for working youth. Here everyone discusses the change of the name of Prisypkin and his upcoming wedding. Some condemn him, others try to understand - it's time to start living for yourself.
The bayan teaches Skripkin good manners: how to imperceptibly scratch oneself, how to dance a foxtrot, not to wear two ties at the same time, not to wear a starched shirt overhand, etc. The teaching is interrupted by an unexpected shot. After a few minutes, it turns out that Berezkin committed suicide.
Wedding
We continue to study the play "Bedbug" by Mayakovsky. The summary describes the wedding of Elsevira Renaissance and Pierre Skripkin. The fun is in full swing. Bayan gets up, gives a congratulatory speech, everyone drinks, then he sits down at the piano and starts playing. The company drinks and sings songs.
However, the best man, standing up for the honor of the newlywed, starts a quarrel with the guests. Gradually verbal insults turn into a fight, during which they accidentally overturn the stove. The fire begins . Firefighters do not have time to arrive on time. They only state the death of the participants of the celebration in the fire. Only one person was missing.
Unusual find
Actions in the play "Bedbug" by Mayakovsky (a brief summary confirms this) resumes after 50 years. The working team digs a trench under the foundation of the future building. Suddenly, people find a person covered in earth and frozen.
The find is transferred to the Institute of Human Resurrection, where corns are found on the hands of the found. It follows from this that this citizen belonged to the working class. Among all regions of the Earth's Federation, a vote is taken at which a decision is made - to resurrect an individual for the study of a working person. A mysterious person from the past is Prisypkin. The world press announces the resurrection, placing high hopes on it.
Defrosting a guest from the past is a professor. Assists him Zoya Berezkina - her attempt to end her life was unsuccessful. The operation is successful, and Prisypkin comes to his senses. At the same time, the bug on his collar comes to life, which immediately creeps onto the wall. Prisypkin is informed that he was in 1979. From this news, the failed husband faints.
Adaptation
Describes the perfect future play "Bedbug" by Mayakovsky. The summary depicts the world of built socialism, where freedom, equality and fraternity reign. However, as soon as a guest from the past gets there, much changes.
Journalists broadcast the latest news from the institute. Prisypkin, to facilitate the transitional stage, was ordered to give beer - "a mixture that is poisonous in huge doses and disgusting in small ones." But along with it, the drink was tasted by 520 workers, who are now in the hospital with a diagnosis of poisoning. There are victims of romances with the guitar that Prisypkin performed. They were struck by the epidemic of love - they sigh, dance, compose poems.
At the same time, no less important events are taking place. The director of the zoological garden with assistants is trying to catch a bug. This insect has died out today, but at the beginning of the 20th century it was very common.
In a clean room, dirty Prisypkin lies on snow-white sheets. He asks to get a hangover and bring something to read "for the soul." Zoya Berezkina delivers books to him. But not one of them does not like Prisypkin - they are all either documentary or scientific.
Denouement
The denouement that Mayakovsky satirically portrayed is approaching. The "bug" (a summary of the chapters described in this article) ends with a very revealing scene.
In the center of the zoological garden is a cage. From all sides it is surrounded by spectators. The word takes the director of the zoo. In his speech, he reports that Prisypkin was mistaken for homo sapiens of the highest kind - the worker. In fact, this is just a simulator with a humanoid appearance, who responded to the director’s announcement about the search for a person who would agree to undergo bug bites daily. Now in the cage are placed both the “average vulgaris” and the “clopus normalis”.
Prisypkin is removed from the cell. He sees the crowd and turns to her with joy: “Brothers, and you have thawed, come to me.” Prisypkin is taken away by force and locked in a cage.
Analysis
Philistinism is the main thing that Mayakovsky ridiculed in his work. "Bedbug" (summary, analysis serve as proof of this) is no exception. And here the main character is a tradesman. A double name speaks of the deceit of this man. Prisypkin did not like his mundane, unremarkable surname, and he took a more refined and refined - Skripkin.
But this is not the only attempt to change its origin, to become better and more refined - he begins to learn etiquette. The comic with which Mayakovsky portrays this underlines the absurdity of such attempts.
And only at the end of the play Prisypkin is taken to clean water - it turns out that he is not a worker, but a simple layman, trying to look like a tradesman, and his place is in the same cage with a bug.