Mayakovsky: Plays / Edition 1

by Vladimir Mayakovsky, Guy Daniels

Overview

One of Russia's greatest poets, Vladimir Mayakovsky (1893-1930) was a Futurist, early Bolshevik, and champion of the avant-garde. Despite his revolutionary youth, he became increasingly disillusioned with Soviet society, and three of his plays—all banned until after Stalin's death—reflect his changing assessments of the Revolution.

Mayakovsky: Plays includes Mystery Bouffe, a mock medieval mystery written in 1918 to celebrate the first anniversary of the Revolution; The Bathhouse, a sharp attack on Soviet bureaucracy subtitled "a drama of circus and fireworks"; and The Bedbug, in which a worker with bourgeois pretensions is frozen and resurrected fifty years later, when the world has become a material paradise. The collection also includes Mayakovsky's more personal first play, Vladimir Mayakovsky: A Tragedy.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780810113398
Publisher:	Northwestern University Press
Publication date:	09/01/1995
Series:	European Drama Classics
Edition description:	1
Pages:	276
Product dimensions:	5.12(w) x 7.75(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

VLADIMIR VLADIMIROVICH MAYAKOVSKY (1893-1930) was a Russian and Soviet poet and playwright. He is among the foremost representatives of early-twentieth century Russian Futurism.
​
GUY DANIELS has translated widely from Russian. He is the editor and translator of Russian Comic Fiction.

Read an Excerpt

Mayakovsky

Plays

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By Vladimir Mayakovsky, Guy Daniels

Northwestern University Press

Copyright © 1968 Washington Square Press, Inc.
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-8101-1339-8

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CHAPTER 1

ACT I

Jolly. The stage represents a city with its spider web of streets. A beggar's holiday, MAYAKOVSKY alone. Passersby bring him food: the iron herring from a street sign; a huge golden twisted loaf of bread; swatches of yellow velvet.

MAYAKOVSKY

Ladies and gentlemen!
Patch up my soul
so the emptiness can't leak out!
I don't know whether a gob of spit is an insult or not!
I'm dry as a stone image.
They've milked me like a cow.
Ladies and gentlemen!
If you wish,
a remarkable poet will dance for you right here and now.

(Enter the OLD MAN WITH SCRAWNY BLACK CATS. He strokes them. He is all beard.)

Seek out the fat ones in their shell-like dwellings,
and beat out revels on the drum of the belly!
Catch the stupid and deaf by the feet,
and blow in their ears like the nostrils of a flute.
Break open the bottoms of barrels of fury,
for I eat the hot cobblestones of thought.
Today, as you toast me with raucous shouts,
I shall crown myself with my folly.

(The stage gradually fills with people: the MAN WITH ONE EAR, the MAN WITHOUT A HEAD, et al. They are torpid.

Confusion sets in. They continue to eat.)
A barefooted jeweler cutting faceted verses,
fluffing up featherbeds in the homes of others,
today I shall light up a worldwide fair
for all such wealthy and motley beggars!

OLD MAN WITH SCRAWNY BLACK CATS

Stop it!
You shake babies' rattles to entertain sages. Why?
I'm old — a thousand-year-old gaffer.
And I see that in you an anguished cry
has been crucified on a cross of laughter.
A gigantic grief lay over the town —
and hundreds of tiny griefs.
But the candles and lights, with their hubbub of quarreling,
drowned out the whispers of dawns.
Soft moons have no power over us: the blaze
of lights is more stylish, and harsher;
in the land of cities, having dubbed themselves masters,
soulless Things want to put an end to our days.
From the heavens, a God gone mad
looks down on the howling human horde,
his hands in his tattered beard,
eaten thin by the dust of roads.
He's God,
yet He warns of a cruel retribution;
but the midriff in your poor, shabby souls is worn thin.
Get rid of Him!
Go stroke cats —
stroke cats that are black and scrawny!
You will grasp huge bellies boastfully;
you will puff out sleek, cream-puff cheeks.
Only in cats
whose fur is shot through with blackness
will you catch flashes of electric eyes.
The entire catch of those flashes
(a big catch!)
we'll pour into wires —
those muscles of traction:
streetcars will start off in a rush;
the flame of wicks
will glow in the night like triumphant banners.
The world, in gay greasepaint, will stir into action;
the flowers in the windows will strut, peacock bright;
people will travel on rails —
always trailed
by cats, more cats, lots of black cats!
We'll pin the sun on the gowns of our sweethearts;
we'll adorn them with glittering brooches of stars.
Leave your apartments!
Go stroke cats —
stroke cats that are black and scrawny!

MAN WITH ONE EAR

That's the truth!
Above the city,
in the realm of the weathervanes
a woman —
dark caverns of eyelids —
rushes around
throwing gobs of spit down on the sidewalk;
and the gobs grow into huge invalids.
Above the city, someone paid for a crime:
people crowded together
and ran in a herd.
And there,
on the wallpaper,
among the shadows of wine,
a wrinkled little old man wept over a grand piano.

(The others crowd around him.) Above the city the legend of torments spreads wide.

Catch hold of a note,
and your fingers will bleed!
The musician can't tear his hands free
from the furious keyboard's white teeth!

(All are alarmed.)

And now
today,
since morning,
a Spanish dance has been chiseling out lips
in my soul.
I was walking along, twitching, my hands spread out wide,
and on every side
smokestacks were dancing on rooftops,
and their knees made a shape like 44.
Sirs!
Just consider!
Is this really right?
Even the side streets rolled up their sleeves for a fight.
And my own sorrow grows —
alarming and unaccountable —
like a tear on a weeping dog's nose.

(The sense of alarm increases.)

OLD MAN WITH SCRAWNY BLACK CATS

See what I mean?
Things must be destroyed!
I was right when I sensed the foe in their endearments;

MAN WITH A LONG DRAWN-OUT FACE

But maybe Things should be loved.
Perhaps Things have different souls from ours.

MAN WITH ONE ARM

A good many Things are sewed inside out.
Their hearts know no anger;
They're deaf to wrath.

MAN WITH A LONG DRAWN-OUT FACE (joyously agreeing)

And in the place where a man's mouth is carved out,
many Things have an ear attached!

MAYAKOVSKY (raises one hand, advances to center)

Don't smear the ends of hearts with your anger!
I,
my children,
will teach you most strictly and by the rod.
All you people here
are mere
bells on the duncecap of God.
I,
with a foot swollen from searching,
have walked all through
your country
and several other lands, too,
in the cloak and mask of darkness.
I was searching
for her,
the soul no one had seen,
in order to put her healing flowers
into the wounds of my lips.
(A pause)
And again,
like a slave
in a bloody sweat,
I rock my body with madness.
By the way
I did find her once —
that soul.
She came out
in a blue dressing gown,
and said:
"Sit down.
I've been waiting a long time for you.
Wouldn't you like a glass of tea?"
(A pause)
I'm a poet.
I've wiped out the differences
between faces like mine and those of strangers.
I have sought out my sisters in the pus of morgues.
I have kissed the sick most exquisitely.
But today,
on a bonfire's yellow flames,
hiding more deeply the tears of the seas,
I'll throw both the sisters' shame
and the wrinkles of gray-haired mothers.
On plates from fancy salons,
we'll chomp at you, meat, for centuries!

(THE ENORMOUS WOMAN is unveiled. Fear. The CONVENTIONAL YOUNG MAN rushes in. A hubbub.)

(Aside, quietly)

Ladies and gentlemen!
They tell me
that somewhere —
in Brazil, most probably —
there is one really happy man!

CONVENTIONAL YOUNG MAN (runs up to each of the others in turn, kissing them)

Ladies and gentlemen!
Wait!
Ladies and gentlemen!
Sir,
sir,
tell me quickly: Do you
and the others
want to burn mothers?
Gentlemen!
The mind of man is keen,
but before the world's mysteries it quails.
Yet you're going to start a blaze
with the treasures of knowledge and books!
I've thought up a machine for slicing ham.
I'm really quite clever, if you please!
I know a man
who's been working for twenty-five years
on a trap for catching fleas.
I have a wife
who'll soon give birth to a son or a daughter.
Yet you talk of monstrous evils!
Intelligent people!
Why, it's almost uncivil!

MAN WITH ONE EAR

Young man,
get up on a soapbox!

VOICE FROM THE CROWD

A barrel would be better!

MAN WITH ONE EAR

If you don't, we can't see you!

CONVENTIONAL YOUNG MAN

There's nothing to laugh at!
I have a brother —
a little one.
You'll come and chomp on his bones.
You want to eat up everything!

(Alarm. Sirens. Offstage, cries of "Britches! Britches!")

MAYAKOVSKY

Lay off it!
(The CONVENTIONAL YOUNG MAN is surrounded.)
If you'd gone without food as I've gone without food,
you
would chew
on the distant expanses of West and East,
as the smoke-blackened mugs of factories feast
on the bone of the heavens!

CONVENTIONAL YOUNG MAN

What?
You mean love is no good?
I have a sister — Sonya is her name.
(On his knees)
Kind people,
please don't start to spill blood!
Dear ones,
let's not have any flames!
(Heightened sense of alarm. Shots. A sewer pipe begins slowly to draw out
one long note. The iron of the roof starts to wail.)

MAN WITH A LONG DRAWN-OUT FACE

If you had loved as I have loved,
you would murder love;
or else, on a scaffold reared high,
you'd debauch
the shaggy, sweat-dripping sky
and the milky-innocent stars.

MAN WITH ONE EAR

Your women don't know
how to love: they are swollen like sponges from kisses.
(Blows from hundreds of feet strike the taut belly of the city square.)

MAN WITH A LONG DRAWN-OUT FACE
And from my soul you can sew,
also,
such elegant dresses!

(The excitement is uncontrollable. Everyone crowds around THE ENORMOUS WOMAN. They hoist her up on their shoulders and start to carry her off.)

ALL

We are going to where
a prophet, because of his sanctity,
was crucified; there,
we'll yield up our bodies to a naked dance;
and on the black granite of sin and vice,
we'll raise a monument to red meat.

(They carry THE ENORMOUS WOMAN to the door. Enter the MAN WITH ONE EYE AND ONE LEG. He is joyous. The madness breaks all bonds. They drop THE ENORMOUS WOMAN.)

MAN WITH ONE EYE AND ONE LEG
Stop!
On the street — where everyone wears,
like a burden,
the same face —
Old Lady Time just now gave birth
to a huge
revolt wearing a grimace!
What a laugh!
Old-timers went numb when they saw the snouts
of the years that came crawling out;
on the foreheads of cities
anger swelled up into rivers
of thousand-mile-long veins.
Slowly,
in terror,
arrows of hair
rose up on the bald pate of Time.
Suddenly,
all things went rushing off, ripping
their voices,
and casting off tatters of outworn names.
Wineshop windows, all on their own,
splashed in the bottoms of bottles,
as though stirred by the finger of Satan.
From the shop of a tailor who'd fainted,
trousers escaped
and went walking along —
alone,
without human buttocks!
Out of a bedroom,
a drunken commode —
its black maw agape —
came stumbling.
Corsets wept,
afraid of tumbling
down from signs reading "ROBES ET MODES."
Every galosh was stern and straitlaced.
Stockings, like sluts,
winked flirty eyes.
I flew along like a violent curse.
My other leg is still trying to catch up —
it's a block behind.
What do you mean,
you people,
proclaiming that I'm a cripple?
You old,
fat,
paunchy
enemies?
Today,
in the whole world,
you won't find
one person
with two
identical knees!

CURTAIN

CHAPTER 2

ACT II

Depressing. A plaza in a new city. MAYAKOVSKY is now wearing a toga and laurel wreath. Behind the door, many feet.

MAN WITH ONE EYE AND ONE LEG (deferentially)
Poet!
Poet!
They've made you a prince!
Your vassals
are outside the door, crowding around,
sucking their thumbs.
Before each one of them, on the ground,
is some kind of ridiculous vessel.

MAYAKOVSKY
Well,
I don't care,
let them come in.
(WOMEN WITH BUNDLES, timidly. Many of them bow.)

WOMAN WITH A TINY TEAR
Here's my tear —
take it!
It's no use to me.
Here.
That's all right.
It's white —
silk made of filaments
from eyes transmitting grief.

MAYAKOVSKY (uneasy)
I don't need it.
Why give it to me?
(To the next woman)
Are your eyes swollen, too?

WOMAN WITH A TEAR (unconcerned)
What's that to you?
My son is dying.
No trouble.
Here's another tear.
You could put it on your shoe —
it would make a fine buckle.
(MAYAKOVSKY is frightened.)

WOMAN WITH A GREAT BIG TEAR
Just pretend you don't see
that I'm
covered with grime.
I'll wash up —
I'll get clean as can be.
Here's one more tear for you —
a great big one this time,
with nothing to do.

MAYAKOVSKY
That's enough!
I have heaps of them now.
And besides, I must go.
Who's that charming brunette?

NEWSBOYS
Figaro!
Figaro!
Gazette!
(The MAN WITH TWO KISSES enters. All look around and talk at once.)

ALL
Look at him!
What a savage!
Step back a bit!
It's dark!
Let him in!
Young man,
don't hiccup.

MAN WITHOUT A HEAD
Eee-ee-ee-ee.
Eh-eh-eh-eh.

MAN WITH TWO KISSES
The clouds are surrendering to the sky —
they're vile and flabby.
The day is done.
The girls of the air are also grabby
for gold: they only want money.

MAYAKOVSKY
What's that?

MAN WITH TWO KISSES
They only want money — and money alone!

VOICES
Not so loud!
Not so loud!

MAN WITH TWO KISSES (does a dance with balls full of holes)
A man who was big and all dirty
received two kisses as a gift.
He was an awkward fellow
and didn't know
what to do with them —
where they should go.
The whole town,
bedecked for the holiday,
was singing hallelujahs in the cathedrals,
and people were out in their Sunday best.
But the man was cold;
there were oval-shaped holes in the soles
of his shoes. He chose one of the kisses —
bigger than the other —
and put it on like his galoshes.
But the weather
was bitter cold,
and nipped at his fingers.
"Oh, bother!"
said the angry man.
I'll throw these useless kisses away!"
And he did.
But suddenly,
one of the kisses grew ears;
it toddled about;
and then in a thin, squeaky voice, cried out:
"Mama!"
And the man was afraid.
He wrapped up the shivering
little body
in the rags of his soul,
and took it home
to put it into a light-blue picture frame.
For a long time he rummaged in dusty trunks,
trying to find the frame.
When he looked around,
the kiss was lying there on a sofa:
huge,
fat,
tall —
first laughing,
then in a rage.
"Good Lord!"
the man said, beginning to cry.
"I never believed I'd get so tired!
I'll just have to hang myself, that's all!"
While he dangled there —
vile,
pitiful —
in their bedrooms, women
(factories without smoke or smokestacks)
manufactured kisses by the millions —
all kinds,
both big
and little —
with the meaty levers of lips that smack.

CHILD KISSES (entering; playfully)
They've turned out a lot of us!
Take these!
Any minute the others will come.
So far, there's just eight.
I'm
Mitya.
Please!
(Each one puts down a tear.)

MAYAKOVSKY
Gentlemen!
Listen!
I can't stand it!
It's all right for you.
But what about me, with my pain?

THREATENING VOICES
You just go on talking that way,
and we'll make you into a stew —
like a rabbit!

OLD MAN WITH ONE SHORN CAT
You're the only one who can sing songs.
(Points to the pile of tears.)
Take them away to your pretty God!

MAYAKOVSKY
Let me sit down!

(They don't allow it. MAYAKOVSKY hesitates awkwardly, then gathers the tears into his suitcase. He stands there, holding the suitcase.)

All right!
Make way for me, then!
I thought
I'd be joyful:
with eyes clear and bright,
I would sit on the throne
like a pampered Greek.
But no!
Never,
dear roads,
will I forget
your thin legs
and the gray hairs of the northern rivers.
And so today
I'll go out through the city,
leaving
shred after shred of my tattered soul
on the spears of houses.
And the moon will go with me
to where
the dome of the sky is ripped out.
She'll come up beside me,
and briefly try on my derby hat.
I,
with my heavy load,
will walk on;
I'll stumble and fall;
I'll crawl
further
northward,
to where,
in the vise of infinite anguish,
the fanatic sea
with the fingers of waves
tears at its breast
eternally.
I'll drag myself there
exhausted;
and in my last ravings
I'll throw your tears
to the dark god of storms,
at the source of bestial faiths.

CURTAIN

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from Mayakovsky by Vladimir Mayakovsky, Guy Daniels. Copyright © 1968 Washington Square Press, Inc.. Excerpted by permission of Northwestern University Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Table of Contents

Introduction
Vladimir Mayakovsky, A Tragedy
Mystery-Bouffe
The Bedbug
The Bathhouse
Notes