‘Late Love’ by the Greatest Russian Realist Playwright

The Tbilisi Alexander Griboyedov State Russian Drama Theater will play host to a premiere of ‘Late Love’ by famous Russian playwright Alexander Ostrovsky on May 6, 7 and 18.

Alexander Ostrovsky is the most frequently read and staged dramatist in Russia, considered as the greatest representative of Russian realism. Nevertheless, unlike those of his contemporaries Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, and Turgenev, Ostrovsky’s works are little known outside of Russian-speaking countries. The two that are fairly well-known in the West got there mostly because they were adapted for operas: ‘Katya Kabanova’ (based on ‘The Storm’), and ‘The Snow Maiden’ by Rimsky-Korsakov. Ostrovsky wrote mostly of the conservative ‘old Russia’, the traditional Russian society—of the everyday life of merchants and poor city dwellers— in short, the subjects that seemed to attract little interest in the West. Ostrovsky, who lived in the 19th century during the Russian Empire and who almost single-handedly created the Russian stage repertoire, is the author of 47 plays.

He was also considered to be a driving force for the new, authentic Russian literature. The so-called “Ostrovsky circle” united many of his non-literary friends, among them actor Prov Sadovsky, musician and folklorist Terty Filippov, merchant Ivan Shanin, and shoe-maker Sergey Volkov, all attracted by the idea of Russian national revival (narodnost). It was then that Ostrovsky, initially a Westernizer, started to drift towards Slavophiles. It was in the Rostopchina Salon that he first met the young Ivan Turgenev.

This weekend’s melodrama, staged by Nugzar Lortkipanidze, is in two acts. The stage painter is Jeiran Pachuashvili while the musical decoration belongs to Giorgi Kakuberi. The actors are: Oleg Mchedhlishvili, Natalia Voriniuk, Irina Kvijhinadze, Vasil Gabashvili, Dmitri Sporishev, Irina Meghvinetukhutsesi, Zurab Chipashvili, Nana Darchiashvili, Mikheil Gavasheli, Davit Kotov, Demetre Nakopia, and Vladimir Novosardov.

“I have tried to make the performance look graphic and very simple, but at the same time supreme and romantic,” says the director Nugzar Lortkipanidze. “What is the difference if the love is late or early? Those in love are always young. However, with Ostrovsky, love is not late because the heroes are older, but because they realized it later.”

Start times: 18:00

Address: Rustaveli 2

Ticket price: 5 Gel

Maka Lomadze