Redemption and Two Other Plays

Redemption and Two Other Plays [with accents]

The Project Gutenberg EBook of Redemption and Two Other Plays
by Leo Tolstoy et al Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook.
This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the header without written permission.
Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is important information about your specific rights and restrictions in how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved.
**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts**
**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971**
*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!*****
Title: Redemption and Two Other Plays
Author: Leo Tolstoy et al
Release Date: January, 2006 [EBook #9792] [This file was first posted on October 17, 2003]
Edition: 10
Language: English
Character set encoding: iso-8859-1
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, REDEMPTION AND TWO OTHER PLAYS ***

E-text prepared by David Starner, Skip Doughty, and Project Gutenberg Distributed Proofreaders

REDEMPTION AND TWO OTHER PLAYS
By LEO TOLSTOY
Introduction By ARTHUR HOPKINS

CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION BY ARTHUR HOPKINS REDEMPTION THE POWER OF DARKNESS FRUITS OF CULTURE

INTRODUCTION
After making a production of _Redemption_, the chief feeling of the producer is one of deep regret that Tolstoi did not make more use of the theatre as a medium. His was the rare gift of vitalization: the ability to breathe life into word-people which survives in them so long as there is any one left to turn up the pages they have made their abode.
In the world of writing, many terms that should be illuminative have become meaningless. So often has the barren been called "pregnant," the chill of death "the breath of life," the atrophied "pulsating," that when we really come upon a work with beating heart we find it difficult to give it place that has not already been stuffed to suffocation with misplaced dummies.
We seat it at table with staring wax figures and bid it to join the feast. There is no exclusion act in art, no passport bureau, not even hygienic segregation.
In writing the briefest introduction to Tolstoi's work, I am appointed by the publisher, a sort of reception committee of one to escort the work to some fitting place where it may enjoy the surroundings and deference it deserves.
The place to which I escort it is built of words, but what words have been left me by the long procession of previous committees? Where they have been truthfully used they have been glorified, and offer all the rarer material for my structure, but how often have they been subjected to base use. Perhaps some day we will learn the proper respect of such simple words as love and truth and life, and then when we meet them in books we shall know how to greet them.
The study of Redemption is so simple that it needs no illumination from me. The characters may walk in strange lands without introduction. They are part of us. F��dya is in all of us. His one cry "There has always been so much lacking between what I felt and what I could do" instantly makes him brother to all mankind. His simultaneous physical degeneration and spiritual regeneration is the glory that all people have invested in death. Tolstoi's cry against convention that disregards spiritual struggle, and system that ignores human growth, will find answering cries in many breasts in many lands.
Utterly disregarding effect, technique or method, Tolstoi has explored his own soul and there touched hands with countless other souls, and since he has trod the path of countless millions who will come after him, the mementos of his journey will long be sought.
ARTHUR HOPKINS.
The translation of Redemption here published is the one produced by Mr. Arthur Hopkins at the Plymouth Theatre, New York, in the season of 1918-1919. The part of F��DYA was played by Mr. John Barrymore.

REDEMPTION

CHARACTERS
THEODORE VAS��LYEVICH PROTOSOV (F��DYA). ELISABETH ANDR��YEVNA PROTOSOVA (LISA). His wife. M��SHA. Their son. ANNA P��VLOVNA. Lisa's mother. SASHA. Lisa's younger, unmarried sister. VICTOR MICHAELOVITCH KAR��NIN. SOPHIA DM��TRIEVNA KAR��NINA. PRINCE SERGIUS DM��TRIEVICH ABR��SKOV. MASHA. A gypsy girl. IV��N MAK��ROVICH. An old gypsy man. Masha's parent. NASTAS?A IV��NOVNA. An old gypsy woman. Masha's parent. OFFICER. MUSICIAN. FIRST GYPSY MAN. SECOND GYPSY MAN. GYPSY WOMAN. GYPSY CHOIR. DOCTOR. MICHAEL ALEX��NDROVICH AFR��MOV. ST��KHOV. One of F��dya's boon companions. BUTK��VICH. One of F��dya's boon companions. KOROTK��V. One of F��dya's boon companions. IV��N PETROVICH ALEX��NDROV. VOZNES��NSKY. Kar��nin's secretary. PETUSHK��V. An artist. ARTIMIEV. WAITER IN THE PRIVATE ROOM AT THE RESTAURANT. WAITER IN A LOW-CLASS RESTAURANT. MANAGER OF THE SAME.