The Life of Man
| The Life of Man | |
|---|---|
| Written by | Leonid Andreyev |
| Date premiered | 22 February 1907 |
| Place premiered | Komissarzhevskaya Theatre |
| Original language | Russian |
| Subject | Futility of life |
| Genre | Symbolist drama |
The Life of Man (Russian: Жизнь человека, translit. Zhizn cheloveka) is a five-act symbolist drama by Leonid Andreyev. Written in the September 1906, it premiered on 22 February 1907 in the Komissarzhevskaya Theatre, directed by Vsevolod Meyerkhold. On 12 December 1907 it was performed for the first time in the Moscow Art Theatre, directed by Konstantin Stanislavski and Leopold Sulerzhitsky.
An allegorical play, stylyzed to some extent after Maeterlinck's 'static' plays, it is recognized now as a dramatic summary of several important short stories and novellas by Andreyev of the 1903-1906 period ("The Wall", "The Thought", "The Life of Vasily Fiveysky"), focusing, through a set of abstract and schematic characters and scenes, upon the meaning of human life, or rather the tragic lack of it, epitomized by the mysterious Someone in Grey, the symbol of both disinterested God and desperate human mind.
Surveyed by Someone in Grey (as well as another, anonymous character who is never leaving the stage), Man passes through life (in the grey world where all things are of colour grey) from birth to death as a blind man, unable to see what comes to him next. First he is destitute, then rises to affluence, and finally hits the bottom again. Cursing the anonymous witness to his tribulations, he imagines himself as a hapless warrior who loses everything in his strife against the unfathomable, evil forces. "I am armless now," he exclaims, before the candle (a symbol of life) dies and darkness falls.
The original critical response to the play was mixed, even if the Moscow Art Theatre production was met with unanimous acclaim. Especially harsh were the modernist critics who chose to pan it for its allegedly 'reactionary' politics. Avrely in Vesy called the play "the unique, in its own right, collection of banalities." Dmitry Filosofov (in the May 1907 issue of Tovarishch) labeled it "the most reactionary piece of work in the Russian literature to date." Zinaida Gippius (writing under the moniker Anton Krainy) attacked the author personally, describing him as 'uncultured', 'poorly educated' , 'pretentious' and thus unequal to the task he'd burdened himself with.
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