Shalva Dadiani's The Yesterday’s People: The Theatrical Version of the Play in the Period of Developed Socialism

Abstract

Shalva Dadiani's play The Yesterday’s People was written in 1917, long before the establishment of the Socialist Realism method and the Soviet Union itself. In the 1930s, Georgian literary critics put the writer's early works in the Soviet ideological context and compared them to the works of Maxim Gorky, the founder of Socialist Realism.

What do one of the best examples of Georgian drama and the works of a classic of Russian literature have in common? Why was Shalva Dadian's dramaturgy denounced as one of the earliest examples of Socialist Realism? Why are the characters of the play unique, and why did the author judge them? To what extent was the fate of the play determined by the time fac­tor? These issues will be discussed in the paper.

In 1972, by then a well-known theatre director, Temur Chkheidze sta­ged The Yesterday’s People at the Rustaveli Theatre. What created his inte­rest towards the play written in 1917 during the period of so-called Deve­loped Socialism? How was realism understood in the 1970s, and how did this understanding differ from the realism of the literary works of the beginning of the century?

The Yesterday’s People is a satirical comedy in which Shalva Dadiani’s goal is to criticise the social reality, and he indeed succeeded. Shalva Dadi­ani's characters are the objects of the writer's harsh criticism, these features of critical realism are abundant in the play. However, Temur Chkheidze reinterpreted the play and created a tragicomedy, which he considered among his top three productions. At the same time, he was deeply emotional about it and had a painful attitude; even after some time had passed, he still avoided watching the recorded material.

In the paper, we will discuss the main messages of the theatre director, communicated through the play by Shalva Dadiani, and their consistency with the playwright's concept.

In the performance, the stage space was occupied by only one long tab­le. This pictorial solution, proposed by the stage designer Mikheil Chavcha­vadze, became a visualised metaphor of the world view of the playwright and the theatre director. This metaphor has become a classic of Georgian scenography. The paper will present an analysis of interesting facts about the collaborative work of the director and scenographer, based on materials preserved at the Rustaveli Theatre Museum.

Based on the press materials of the 1970s, we will demonstrate how, during the period of developed socialism, performance and play were eval­uated, and how The Yesterday's People is perceived today.