• The play after the play: Woe from Wit by A.S. Griboyedov as an open dramatic structure

УДК: 821.161.1-22:792.09

DOI: 10.35852/2588-0144-2024-4-149-164

EDN: PPDBDQ

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Svetlana A. Kolesnikova

Cand. Sc. in Philology, Associate Professor
North Caucasus Branch Russian State University of Justice
Krasnodar, Russia
E-mail: ck16@mail.ru

The play after the play: Woe from Wit by A.S. Griboyedov as an open dramatic structure

Abstract

The problem of the potential interpretation of the open ending of the comedy by A.S. Griboyedov Woe from Wit as the most important and conceptual part of the author’s idea is projected onto the internal structure and poetics of the play, which have a delayed effect extending beyond the author’s life and his time. At the beginning of the twentieth century, with the development of directing and the assignment of co-authorship rights, the play Woe from Wit underwent active destruction: its genre nature varied, the titular concept of “mind”was replaced by “feeling”. But most of all, ideological and aesthetic transformations revealed themselves through the finales of performances. The author’s incompleteness opened up space for alternative director’s versions. The article analyzes this trend using vivid examples of performances in Moscow, Leningrad, Minsk and Sevastopol. In each case, the finale is interpreted in the context of time and the ideological priorities put forward by it. In the Leningrad Bolshoi Drama Theatre (1962) and the Moscow Satire Theatre (1976), the conflict of the hero escalated primarily along the lines of his moral opposition to an aggressive social environment. In Maly Theatre (1963), this confrontation was of a political nature and was associated with historical events in St. Petersburg at the Senate Square on December 14, 1825. At Minsk Operetta Theatre (1983) and at Moscow Art Theatre named after A. Chekhov (1992) the directors designed the finales based on their own fantasies and guesses. At Sevastopol Drama Theatre (2023), Griboyedov’s comedy ended with a broad timeless generalization. The author comes to the conclusion that the finales realized on stage, as a rule, were motivated by the socio-political context, to a lesser extent by an aesthetic position.

Keywords

A. S. Griboyedov, Woe from Wit, directing, the twentieth century, concept, genre transformation, drama, poetics.

For citation

Kolesnikova S.A. The Play after the Play: Woe from Wit by A.S. Griboyedov as an Open Dramatic Structure. Theatre. Fine Arts. Cinema. Music. 2024, no. 4, pp. 149–164.

DOI: 10.35852/2588-0144-2024-4-149-164

EDN PPDBDQ

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Received: 12.10.2024

Revised: 12.11.2024

Accepted: 14.11.2024