Quote of the Day

[The simple-minded playwright] goes to different places, notes down the conditions, mores, and everyday life, observes various people, and depicts all of it with great verisimilitude. Kozmodemyansky and Nalimov and Vaskel recognize themselves and their neckties, and are very happy if the author—for friendship’s sake—has flattered them, or they become angry if the author has made it understood that he doesn’t like their looks or their behavior. The director is happy that he has enough material for an entertaining staging of a play. The actor is happy that he can get himself made up in a good and interesting way and can mimic the looks and mannerisms of painter X, or poet Y, engineer A, advocate B…The public is in ecstasy—it recognizes its acquaintances and nonacquaintances, and feels at an undoubted advantage: no matter how widespread the sins dragged out onto the stage are, every viewer, except for the small number of people on display, clearly sees, nonetheless, that he is not being depicted, but someone else.

—Fyodor Sologub, “The Theater of One Will”