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

opera is a product of the best poet
and best composer that old Russia
mad. But the most interesting thing
here is, that it was sung in a
ukraine translation-cIaSsical Rus
sian art is opened to the workers of
a formerly oppressed nationality.
Another old-timer is the comic
opera, Natalka Poltavka ("Natalie
OF Poltava') a Ukrainian language
classic, lit years old, perhaps one
OF the Oldest comic operas in the
world, but still very popular. There
is young poor man in love with
Natalie. Natslie's mother favors a
rich clerk, who is made a comic
figure, speaking in very high brow
language and boasting continually.
The head of the village is a Fall
stafflan type, drunk and disorderly;
ne helps the girls mother. The
chief comedian is a ragged pan
taloon; he helps the young lovers,
who eventually win out. There are
lots Of drinking and dancing. Many
light operas were constructed on
this model.
saw Natalka Poltavka at the
Railroad Workers Clubhouse in
Kharkov, played by a professional
company. But the mixed company
at Makievka had it billed for pro-
duction in the club house of the
Tomsky mill there, and placards
and posters were up at Paris Com
mune, announcing that at Mine No.
10, about five miles away, the Ma
kievka troupe would come soon with
" .atalka Poltavka."
saw this Makievka company in
another production, in the Tomsky
steel mill clubhouse. 1t was on the
day Of the Paris Commune, March
10, and the Chairman of the Ma
kievka Communist Party Committee
stepped on the stage just before the
curtain went up and spoke for ten
minutes on the significance of that
first workers government, So years
ago. He told Of the Partisan work
ers' heroism and their mistakes. The
fact that workers we're meeting in
free society, in their own beau
tiful club house in the grounds of
the former owner of the steel mill,
now the workers steel mill, proved
that Russian workers had needed
the lessons of the Paris Commune.
The play that evening was called
Sailors of Cattaro," and was a
story of the mutiny in the Austrian
fleet and was put on here in the
Ukrainian language translated from
the German.
besides the plays already men
u toned as produced by the Red
Theatre in Gorlovka, I saw that
company's staging of "Wolf's Way"
by Afinogenev, author of another
great success Fear" "Wolf's Way"
describes the clash within the family
of a former white guard, who has
managed to worm himself into the
Communist Party and into an i'm
portant executive position in indus
try, when the wife bit by NIT pieces
together his recent history. 1t is a
play in which suspense rises as in
Greek tragedy, and reaches
climax with the murder Of the
wife, followed instantly by a dark
ening of the stage, and the presi-
dent of court reading a sentence
of death against the white guard
for numbering workers.
l saw the Red Theatre actors next
night in Russian translation of
a French comedy called, THE Tar
get" which satirizes the role money
plays in bourgeois marriage. The
most interesting thing about what |
was an otherwise quite common
place French farce was the fanciful,
lifting, absolutely ludicrous charac-
ter playing. No worker could see
1t without getting some idea of the
bourgeois social life.
The Red Theatre was playing in
the Palace of Culture which serves
the miners Of Gorlovka No. l mine
and a few others, and the workers
OF the mining machinery manu-
featuring plant there The theatre
seats 1,010, and all seats were full.
To this Gorlovka Palace OF Gull
ture is coming the Berezil Theatre
Company, of Kharkov. 1t is the
most famous Ukranian theatre, ard
l saw it in its biggest success this
year, The Citadel of The Virgin"
by Niketenko, in its own theatre