Page:My Further Disillusionment In Russia.djvu/145

 hidden from the Argus eyes of the Department of Education and the numerous other censorial institutions.

Russia is now the dumping ground for mediocrities in art and culture. They fit into the narrow groove, they dance attendance on the all-powerful political commissars. They live in the Kremlin and skim the cream of life, while the real poets—like Blok and others—die of want and despair.

The void in literature, poetry, and art is felt most in the theatres, the State theatres especially. I once sat through five hours of acting in the Alexandrovsky Theatre in Petrograd when "Othello" was staged, with Andreyeva, Gorki's wife, as Desdemona. It is hard to imagine a play more atrociously presented. I saw most of the other plays in the State theatre and not one of them gave any hint of the earthquake that had shaken Russia. There was no new note in interpretation, scenery, or method. It was all commonplace and inadequate, innocent even of the advancement made in dramatic art in bourgeois countries, and utterly inconsequential in the light of the Revolution.

The only exception was the Moscow Art Theatre. Its performance of Gorki's "Night's