Man From the USSR & Other Plays Read Online Free PDF

individual introductory notes.)
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    In the early 1920s Vladimir Nabokov wrote a couple of humorous playlets for a Russian variety theatre in Berlin; he also translated, for the same theatre, some imitation folk
chastushki
(a kind of Russian limerick).
    Â 
    Skital’tsy (The Wanderers).
A supposed translation of the first act of a play by the nonexistent English author “Vivian Calmbrood” (anagram). Berlin,
Grani,
March 1923.
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    Smert’ (Death).
A verse drama in two acts. Berlin,
Rul’,
14 and 20 May 1923.
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    Dedushka (The Grand-dad).
A verse drama in one act. Berlin,
Rul’,
14 October 1923.
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    Agasfer.
“A dramatic monolgue written as a prologue to a staged symphony” (VN’s subtitle). Berlin,
Rul’,
2 December 1923. Performed once in Berlin.
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    Traghediya Gospodina Moma (The Tragedy of Mr. Mom).
A verse drama in five acts. Excerpt published Berlin,
Rul’,
6 April 1924. Otherwise unpublished. Read by VN at a literary club meeting, early April 1924.
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    Polyus (The Pole).
A verse drama in one act. Berlin,
Rul’,
14 and 16 August 1924.
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    Chelovek iz SSSR (The Man from the USSR).
Act one only: Berlin,
Rul’,
1 January 1927. Staged in Russian in Berlin, 1926.
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    Sobytie (The Event).
A “dramatic comedy” (VN’s subtitle) in three acts. Paris,
Russkie zapiski (Annales russes),
April 1938. Staged in Russian in various countries.
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    Izobretenie Val’sa (The Waltz Invention).
A drama in three acts. Paris,
Russkie zapiski,
November 1938. English translation by Dmitri Nabokov (New York: Phaedra, 1966); Dutch and Spanish translations. Staged in Russian and English in various countries.
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    Rusałka (The Water Nymph).
“A concluding scene to Pushkin’s
Rusałka
” (VN’s subtitle). New York,
Novy zhumal (The New Review),
No. 2, 1942.
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    Lolita: A Screenplay.
New York: McGraw-Hill, 1974. Used only in part for the 1962 Kubrick-Harris film based on the novel.
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    Note: This chronology is based partly on the same source material as sections of Andrew Field’s
Nabokov. A Bibliography
(New York: McGraw-Hill, 1973), which, though flawed, was of some help in this instance.

The Man from the USSR
DRAMA IN FIVE ACTS

    Program for the 1926 Berlin world premiere of
The Man from the USSR,
produced by The Group in Russian.

INTRODUCTORY NOTE
    The Man From the USSR
was written in Berlin in 1925-1926. The first act only was published in
Rul’
on 1 January 1927. The entire play had been staged by a Russian theatrical company called
Gruppa
(The Group) at the Grotrian-Steinweg Saal in Berlin in 1926. For the present translation I have used the manuscript text preserved in one of my grandmother’s albums.
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    NB: “Kuznetsoff’ is a deliberate departure from normal transliteration.
CAST OF CHARACTERS 1
    Alexéy Matvéyevich (Alyósha) Kuznetsóff, a businessman Ólga Pávlovna (Ólya), his wife
    Víctor Iv´novich (Vítya) Oshivénski, proprietor of a small tavern, former landowner
    Yevghénia Vasílyevna (Zhénya, Mrs. Oshivenski), his wife
    Mariánna Sergéyevna Tal’, a film actress
    Lyúlya, her friend
    Baron Nikoláy Kárlovich (Kólya) Táubendorf, waiter, former officer
    Fyódor Fyódorovich, waiter, former officer
    The Assistant Director
    Ã©migrés, film extras, stagehands, and passing legs
ACT ONE
    Small tavern in a basement. In the back, a narrow horizontal window—a strip of glass spanning almost the entire length of the room. Since the window is at sidewalk level, only the legs of passers by are visible. On the left * , a door, curtained with blue cloth; its threshold is level with the bottom edge of the window, and a visitor must descend six blue steps to reach the basement. To the right of the window, an obliquely situated bar; behind it, along the right wall, shelves with bottles and, downstage of them, a low door leading into the