Journalist and translator Olga Taranova writes for Culture about Children Of The Sun, Rough Magic Theatre's take on the classic Russian play, coming to the Abbey Theatre this April.
In 1905, when Lady Gregory, W.B. Yeats and J.M. Synge were busy establishing the Abbey Theatre in Dublin, 37-year-old Maxim Gorky, an already famous Russian writer was working on his new play. He was writing it in St Petersburg jail, imprisoned for his involvement in the 1905 revolution, one of the first disasters of the 20th century.
Now, in 2024 his characters, transformed by a whole century of global cataclysms, multiple translations and creative choices, are about to make it to the Abbey stage.
Children of the Sun is known as Gorky's most 'Chekhov-ian' play in terms of structure. There is a well-educated privileged family and their friends at the core, having pleasant philosophical chats about love and art in their crumbling old mansion while the world is collapsing all around them with a breathtaking abandon. Epidemics, wars, revolutions are all in there as a sinister and uncanny premonition.
director Lynne Parker and playwright Hilary Fannin
That feeling of impending doom was so strong in the play that, apparently, some people from the audience used to run away from the theatre during the second act of those first performances, believing their lives were in immediate danger.
Over the last century, the play has had many various adaptations all over the world. Thanks to its premise, one could make it about literally any catastrophe or misfortune with a group of nice polite people in denial in the middle of it. The most recent Russian stage adaptation premiered in 2021 and was mostly about lockdowns, art as the only form of escape, and a vaguely familiar looking creature as an omnipresent threat.
When Rough Magic Theatre asked me to do a new translation for Hilary Fannin, that was exactly why. Too many versions of the play are out there and she wanted to read a raw, calque text, word-for-word as much as possible. We discussed the characters and events in great detail. That was back in 2021.
and Abbey Theatre co-director Catriona McLaughlin
Life has since moved on in all kinds of directions, generously providing us with new unimaginable tragedies. In Fannin’s version, Roman the yardman is still digging a massive hole, Liza the neurotic sitter is still being tortured by prophetic visions of the future, and the rest is the ultimate Bakhtin’s carnival. Humour and chaos. Everything over the last 120 years, everywhere, and often all at once. Including Gorky himself, who got to be everyone - from an ardent revolutionary, to a wealthy successful writer living in Italy, to Stalin's hostage. He's the bewildered Nutcracker, observing in the second act all the surreal dances that his first act has led to.
The play is programmed as part of The Gregory Project, celebrating Abbey’s 120 years of work as well as Rough Magic Theatre’s 40th anniversary. From what I have witnessed at the rehearsals, Rough Magic makes capturing all of it seem fairly effortless. A Gorky walk in the park.
Children of the Sun is at the Abbey Theatre, Dublin from 13th April - find out more here.
