• Defoe, Milton, and Kazakhstan: a Stage History of V. Kaverin’s Play The Taming of Mister Robinson, or Paradise Lost

УДК: 82.161.1-22:792.09

DOI: 10.35852/2588-0144-2026-1-80-106

EDN: JFXXAG

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Dmitry N. Zhatkin

D. Sc. in Philology, Professor,, Head of the Department of Translation and Translation Studies
Penza State Technological University
Penza, Russia
E-mail: ivb40@yandex.ru

Vera V. Serdechnaia

D. Sc. in Philology, Assistant Professor of the Department of Foreign Literature and Comparative Cultural Studies
Kuban State University
Krasnodar, Russia
E-mail: rintra@yandex.ru

Defoe, Milton, and Kazakhstan: a Stage History of V. Kaverin’s Play The Taming of Mister Robinson, or Paradise Lost

Abstract

This article is devoted to Veniamin Kaverin’s little researched play The Taming of Mister Robinson, or Paradise Lost and its theatre history. The early 1930s in USSR marked a time when both playwrights and theatres, seeking to avoid the dreaded accusation of formalism, were searching for a new Soviet comedy. These requirements largely determined the play’s genre, setting, and cast of characters. The central idea of Kaverin’s comedy revolves around the miraculous transformation of the English engineer Mr. Robinson, who arrives at a Soviet construction site in Kazakhstan, and his desire to break with the past of the capitalist “paradise” and begin a new life in the USSR. Kaverin’s play was disliked by V. E. Meyerhold, but it was accepted for production by A. Ya. Tairov at the Chamber Theatre and also by K. K. Tverskoy at the Bolshoi Drama Theatre. The Chamber Theatre production (directed by L.Lukyanov), staged in a “theatre-playing form” was widely considered a failure. Critics accused the play and the playwright of being too schematic and lacking psychological depth. K. Tverskoy and S. Morshchikhin’s production at the Bolshoi Drama Theatre, where the characters were more thoroughly developed psychologically, was more highly regarded, although this psychologism partly contradicted the play’s aesthetic. Both productions were included in the theatres’ touring schedules. In the 1930s, Kaverin’s comedy was performed in theatres across the country, from Belarus to the Arctic Circle. The play The Taming of Mister Robinson, or Paradise Lost, which the author himself later evaluated rather lowly, nevertheless proved a significant step in the development of Soviet comedy, where the new Soviet man was revealed against the backdrop of two other ideological worlds: the capitalist world of profit and the barbaric, archaic East .

Keywords

V. Kaverin, The Taming of Mister Robinson, Soviet comedy, Chamber Theatre, Bolshoi Drama Theatre

For citation

Serdechnaia V. V., Zhatkin D. N. Defoe, Milton, and Kazakhstan: a Stage History of V. Kaverin’s play The Taming of Mister Robinson, or Paradise Lost. Theatre. Fine Arts. Cinema. Music. 2026, no. 1, pp. 80–106.

DOI: 10.35852/2588-0144-2026-1-80-106

EDN JFXXAG

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Received: 22.11.2025

Revised: 07.02.2026

Accepted: 13.02.2026