Optimistic Tragedy

Optimistic Tragedy (Optimisticheskaya tragediya)

    Author: Vsevolod Vishnevsky

    First Performance: 1933, Kiev

    Published: 1933

    First English Translation: 1937

    Genre: Hist. drama in 3 acts; Russian prose

    Setting: Naval cruiser, Baltic port, and battlefield, Russia, 1918

    Cast: 15m, 2f, extras

In the upheavals following the Bolshevik Revolution, anarchists have taken over a naval ship of the Russian Baltic Fleet. They are shabby, demoralized, bored, and frustrated; easy prey to sex and liquor; and ready to organize themselves in a democratic but arbitrary manner. When an old woman accuses a sailor of stealing her purse, he is summarily executed. Suddenly she finds her purse, so she must die too. In order to restore order, the Party sends a female Commissar to take control of the ship....

[The entire page is 336 words long]

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