THE LOWER DEPTHS
BY
MAXIM GORKY
[Frontispiece: A SCENE IN ACT I OF MAXIM GORKY'S MASTERPIECE, "THE
LOWER DEPTHS," AT THE MOSCOW ART THEATRE. STANISLAVSKY IN THE RÔLE OF
SATINE SITS ON THE TABLE]
THE MOSCOW ART THEATRE
SERIES OF RUSSIAN PLAYS
-----------------------
_Edited by_ OLIVER M. SAYLER
THE
LOWER DEPTHS
_A DRAMA IN FOUR ACTS_
BY
MAXIM GORKY
_English translation by_
JENNY COVAN
NEW YORK
BRENTANOS
PUBLISHERS
COPYRIGHT, 1922, BY MORRIS GEST
All rights reserved
INTRODUCTION
_De profundis ad te clamavi._ In this phrase, with his penchant for
epitome, the late James Huneker summarized the masterpiece of Russia's
single living master of the drama, Maxim Gorky, as he saw it in Berlin
under the German title of "Nachtasyl" or "Night Lodging." "Na Dnye" is
the Russian--literally "On the Bottom." Partly because "The Lower
Depths" is a more faithful rendering of the original than "Night
Lodging" and partly because it implies so vividly the play's keynote
as the shrewd Huneker detected it beneath a guise alien to both
Russian and English, the title adopted by Laurence Irving for the
British version has been preferred for its introduction to American
audiences by the company which discovered it and first set it on its
stage in Moscow, December 31 (our calendar), 1902.
In "The Lower Depths" more than in any other single play throughout
its history, the Moscow Art Theatre concentrates its dramatic ideals
and methods, its esthetic theory and practice, and through the
production of this play it most emphatically justifies its artistic
faith in spiritual or psychological realism as a dramatic medium of
expression. The plays of Tchekhoff, of course, serve the same ends,
but no single one of them does so quite as richly as does Gorky's
masterpiece. At the hands of Stanislavsky and his associates, "The
Lower Depths" draws much of its convincing power from its unusual use
of and dependence on the channels of expression which are peculiar to
the art of the theatre. It is almost wholly independent of drama as
literature. Less than any play I know, is it possible to imagine its
potential effect in the theatre from a reading of its printed lines.
In my book, "The Russian Theatre," I have thus analyzed this factor:
"'The Lower Depths' is not so much a matter of utterable line and
recountable gesture as it is of the intangible flow of human souls in
endlessly shifting contact with one another. Awkward but eloquent
pauses and emphases, the scarcely perceptible stress or dulling of
word or gesture, the nuances and the shadings of which life is mostly
made and by which it reveals its meaning--these, and the instinctive
understanding of the vision of the playwright by those who seek to
interpret him, are the incalculable and unrecordable channels through
which 'The Lower Depths' becomes articulate at the Moscow Art
Theatre."
Just as this theatre discovered or, rather, rescued Tchekhoff as a
dramatist, so it first stood sponsor for the author of "Foma
Gordeyeff" as a playwright. During the first half of the season of
1902-1903, two of his plays were produced--"Smug Citizens" and "The
Lower Depths." The latter was recognized at once as a work of supreme
merit and moment. Tchekhoff himself had written to its youthful author
five months before its première: "I have read your play. It is new and
unmistakably fine. The second act is very good, it is the best, the
strongest, and when I was reading it, especially the end, I almost
danced with joy." At the première, the rival dramatist's verdict was
publicly ratified, for Gorky was called before the curtain twenty
times, and the press was unanimously enthusiastic. The play has held
its place in the repertory of the Moscow Art Theatre ever since, and
eight of its most important rôles are still played by those who
created them, just two decades ago.
Miss Covan's translation of this play, I believe, deserves particular
attention. There have been numerous translations, differing only in
the nature of their ineptitude. Here for the first time, the vigor,
the virility, the humanity and the humor of the original survive the
transfer from the Russian tongue to our own, without mysterious and
vaguely symbolic "meanings" gratuitously appended. As nearly as it is
possible with printed words to convey the impression which Gorky
desires and obtains through the intangible media of the living stage,
the following version succeeds. I realized for the first time, as I
read it, that the overwhelming impression of the play at the hands of
the Moscow Art Theatre is due as much to the genius of the playwright
as to that of his interpreters.