Volume 35, Number 17 · November 10, 1988
Glasnost Theater
By David Joravsky
Tak pobedim! (shest' p'es o Lenine) (That's How We'll Win! [Six Plays About Lenin])
by M.F. Shatrov
Moscow, 333 pp., 2.30 roubles
'Brestskii mir' (The Brest Peace)
by M.F. Shatrov
Novyi mir, No. 4 pp.
'Diktatura sovesti' (The Dictatorship of the Conscience)
by M.F. Shatrov
Teatr, No. 6 pp.
'Dal'she…Dal'she…Dal'she!' (Further…Further…Further!)
by M.F. Shatrov
Znamia, No. 1 pp.
These nights in Moscow Peter Verkhovensky climbs out of a coffin-shaped trapdoor, comes down to the footlights, a greenish white face glistening against a darkened background, and harshly declaims the message of Dostoevsky's Devils. For the intensely silent Soviet audience it is closer to lived experience than to literary fantasy: revolutionary socialism achieves equality for nine tenths of the population by enslaving them to one tenth. Outstanding individual talents destroyed, obedience exalted above all other virtues, guilt shared in the denunciation and removal of suspect people—that is what makes everyone equal, ashamed to have his own belief. Conscience withers away.
Review, 7317 words
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