- Title:
- "'Cheerful, carefree, beautiful life': The Trouble with Staging A Midsummer Night's Dream in Early Soviet Theater"
- Author:
- Khomenko, Natalia.
- Type:
- Journal Article
- Year:
- 2022
- Publication Information:
- Shakespeare Bulletin 40, no. 3 (2022): 365–83.
- Annotation:
Challenges notion that early Soviet Russia regarded A Midsummer Night’s Dream as politically unobjectionable and unproblematic play. Considers early staging history of play in Soviet Russia from 1919 through 1920's to assess play's usefulness in building "proletarian theater" and investigates use of Shakespearean comedy in 1930's to provoke "humanist vision of an idyllic, egalitarian, and conflict-free future." Concludes with case study on 1941 production of Midsummer Night's Dream at the Central Red Army Theater in Moscow. English summary, online.