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Reception (play)

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Reception
Written byMaxim Gorky
Original languageRussian
GenreComedy
SettingA railway station five verstas away from the small town of Verkhneye Myamlino

Reception (Russian: Встреча, romanizedVstrecha) is a one-act comedy by Maxim Gorky.[1] It was first published in 1910, in Sovremenny Mir under its original title. Simultaneously it came out as a separate edition under the title Children (Russian: Дети, romanizedDeti), via the Berlin-based Ladyzhnikov Publishers.[1]

Gorky mentioned it in his 20 November 1910 letter to Mykhailo Kotsiubynsky: "I send you my Reception, perhaps it will make you smile," he wrote from Capri.[2]

Characters

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  • Prince Svir-Mokshanski, of uncertain age, balding and frail[3]
  • Bubenhof, solid and behaves like a conqueror
  • Mokey Zobnin, of around fifty, shifty, perky and prone to fantasizing
  • Ivan Kichkin, old, fat and unhealthy
  • Pyotr Tipunov, soft-spoken and peace-loving
  • Kostya Zryakhov, a plump young man, speaks condescendingly and with unexpectedly long vowels
  • Yevstigneyka, a disheveled character with eyes of a lunatic
  • Tatyana Zobnina, a widow, stout and moving lazily
  • Marya Viktorovna, a perky and lively girl
  • Drunken passenger, Old woman with a petition, the Station master, Bykov the janitor, the Gendarme, the Telegraph man

Synopsis

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Two rival families of the local merchants grudgingly unite to buy a huge plot of land from a local aristocrat, with a view to build a timber factory. The reception at the railway station astounds the Prince (who arrives with a German companion). He is delighted with the way how the people here admire him and are such pure and nice creatures, 'like children'. Some other locals (including a perpetuum mobile inventor) join the party with their pleas and complaints. The celebration turns sour when it transpires that the land has just been sold, to the German man.

References

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  1. ^ a b Commentaries to Дети. Collected Works by A.M. Gorky, vol. 12 // На базе Собрания сочинений в 30-ти томах. ГИХЛ, 1949-1956. ТОМ 6
  2. ^ Letter to M.M. Kotsyubinsky, 20 November 1910.
  3. ^ As described by Gorky
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