New South African Plays Book

I love Pushkin. And I quite liked the plays collected in this volume but they, or at least the main play Boris Godunov, are not his very best work. With the rather large caveat that I am not qualified to judge the quality of the language -- especially in translation -- it is hard to see how Pushkin could have become known as the Shakespeare of Russia solely on the strength Boris Godunov.

Boris Godunov consciously follows the tradition of Shakespeare's history plays, telling the story of the accession of Boris Godunov, the rise of the Pretender Dimitri, his gathering of Polish and Russian soldiers to invade Moscow, Boris Godunov's death, and Dimitri's triumph. It is an epic canvas stretching from Moscow to the provinces to Lithuania and Poland, featuring dozens of characters, and fast paced action that goes from short scene to short scene. Moscow itself feels almost like a character.

The biggest weakness is that Pushkin seems to have stuck quite literally to the actual history, which does not have quite the same drama as a classical play -- for example Godunov dies of natural causes before Dimitri reaches Moscow. The characters also lack depth and evolution and although there are a few minor comic scenes, there is nothing resembling Falstaff and his friends.

This volume also collects four "little tragedies," tiny one act gems that in some cases are only a few pages long. Mozart and Salieri imagines Salieri poisoning Mozart for the sake of art -- or specifically so that he Mozart does not eclipse and render null and void all of the lesser art produced by other composers. In a few places it calls for music and when I once saw it performed with the accompaniment of Mozart's music it was especially powerful. The Stone Guest, a compressed version of Don Juan, is also quite good. The other two seems lesser, although I cannot judge if they are redeemed by the verse.

None of this should be taken to say this is not excellent or worth reading (although Eugene Onegin and Pushkin's stories are worth reading first). To say a play falls short of Shakespeare is not exactly to dismiss it. Just that this is the most natural comparison, likely courted by Pushkin, so worth thinking a bit through that lens.

A few of the four "little tragedies" collected in this volume are