Ostrovsky: The great playwright we’ve never heard of
The censor’s report on Alexander Ostrovsky’s first full-length plarovsky'y “A Family Affair” read: “All the characters are first class villains, the dialogue is filthy, the entire play is an insult to the Russian Merchant Class.”
The Tsar banned the play, but later his status was assured and his work is still topical and entertaining. Today he is one of Russia’s most popular and often-performed playwrights.
So why have most of us in the west never heard of him?
Jacqui Honess-Martin, who recently directed the English language premiere of Ostrovsky’s “Bespridannitsa” (“Girl with no Dowry” or “Fiancée without Fortune”) at London’s Arcola Theatre, has several possible answers: “British theatre doesn’t do a lot of foreign classics,” she explained. “It tends to be Ibsen and Chekhov and that’s about it. We’re very comfortable doing drama about the remote upper classes; we’re not so comfortable doing drama that criticizes the middle classes. Ostrovsky is also very difficult to translate. He …
The Tsar banned the play, but later his status was assured and his work is still topical and entertaining. Today he is one of Russia’s most popular and often-performed playwrights.
So why have most of us in the west never heard of him?
Jacqui Honess-Martin, who recently directed the English language premiere of Ostrovsky’s “Bespridannitsa” (“Girl with no Dowry” or “Fiancée without Fortune”) at London’s Arcola Theatre, has several possible answers: “British theatre doesn’t do a lot of foreign classics,” she explained. “It tends to be Ibsen and Chekhov and that’s about it. We’re very comfortable doing drama about the remote upper classes; we’re not so comfortable doing drama that criticizes the middle classes. Ostrovsky is also very difficult to translate. He …