The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1934-07-02

"the sticks" For instance. at tn
Theatre Of the Revolution in
Kharkov, they were playing Some
body Else's Child" in Russian.
Kharkov is bilingual, about two
thirds Ukrainian and one third
Russians, with most of the Ukrain-
ians understanding Russian, more
or less, and many Russians also
speaking Ukrainian.
At Stalino, principal city of the
Don basin coal and steel region.
city of some 250,000 inhabitants,
local company was playing
Somebody Elses Child" in Ukrain-
ian. They we're professionals, and
they are putting on a good produc-
ton. But in Gorlovka, coal and
steel town of $1,000 inhabitants, the
Red Theatre from Leningrad was
giving finished performance Of
Somebody Else's Child, lin Russian.
At Makievka, another steel and coal
town, a mixed company, several
stars from the center, aided by sew
eral local people. products of the
club circles, were to perform it, in
Ukrainian.
At the mine known as "17-17 Bis
the secretary of the mine commit
tee of the miners union told me
with pride that their club house had
recently had a series of plays pre-
sented by the Theatre of the All
Union Central Council of Trade
Unions, regular professional, and
popular, Moscow Theatre, owned
and paid by the Russian trade
unions. Among their plays was
again, Somebody Elses Child"
And by the way, the Moscow Phil
harmonic Orchestra, whose fame
here equals that of the Philadelphia
Philharmonic in America, was ex-
pected soon, and had been before.
at Mine "17-17 Bis" This is a.
mining settlement of about 5000
miners, away out across the plains
by auto from Stalino.
I have traced Somebody Else's
Child" up and down across the
Ukraine simply because I happened
to run into it most frequently. But
the theatre and music are many
sided, with a rich selection, and the
workers get every sort of enter
tainment. Perhaps it would be worth
while to describe a few of the
things that are given.
First of all, Somebody Else's
Child" by Schkvarkin, is rollicking
comedy, full of clever dialogue, and
with definite but not over obstruc-
tive social criticism. An actress,
being given the part of a ruined
maiden" mother of an illegitimate
child, doesn't know how to play it.
In the Soviet Union there are no
illegitimate children. All children
are legitimate, their parents must
support them, and there is no social
prejudice against them. So, partly
by accident and partly by intention,
she let's the rumor spread that she
is to become an unmarried mother,
in order to watch the reactions of
those around her. The point in the
play is that her old parents, her
sweetheart, a philandering engineer
and others, still have some vestiges
of the point of view of a capitalist
society, though the best of them
overcome these prejudices before
the trick is exposed.
AT Kharkov, the Ukrainian State
n Opera and Ballet Company was
playing in its own opera house,
Eugene Onegin." This is an old
classic Russian opera, verse by
Pshkin, music by Chaikovsky. Soviet
workers and critics regard it as
true mirror of the manners and
customs of the land-owning aris-
tocracy and intellectuals of a CEN
fury ago. The aristocratic Onegin
repulseS the sincere advances of a
young lady whose mothers chief
amusement is slapping the faces of
her serfs. Then he gets into
quarrel with his best friend over
another woman, and kills the friend
in duel and leaves the country
for some time.
When he comes back he finds that
the lady he was so cold to before is
now a big figure in society, wife of
an elderly famous general. He now
makes the advances, and she re-
pulses him, leaving him in fearful
state of hopeless agitation. The