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The lower Depths Theater Performance Review

Ayna Ghotbi Yaghubi

The lower Depths is written by Maxim Gorky and directed by David Doiashvili from Georgia, International Theatre Competition.

The lower Depths portrays a lodging house, where gather the social derelicts, the thief, the gambler, the ex-actor and the ex-aristocrat. All of them had an ambition, a goal, but because of their lack of will and the injustice and cruelty of the world, they were forced into the depths and cast back whenever they attempted to rise. They also have a landlord who is an example of bourgeoisie. They are tired and angry. They fight and drink. One day an old pilgrim comes. He talks about salvation and hope. Though he has suffered a lot but grief has not taken him to darkness. He is the symbol of light in the basement. He talks about beauty and goodness. But he has come too late to their life and conditions always conspire to thrust them back into depths. To commit suicide or homicide. The lower Depths is a naturalistic text and it is the play of pain, betrayal, suffering, depression and death. You can not find any hope of salvation in any parts of the story. But the Georgia’s performance happens in surrealistic mise en scene by using creative light, smoke and set instruments. The performance is full of imaginary scenes. Using light is so creative and wonderful. Different lights make different atmosphere. It’s one of the stunning aspects of this play. The set design is also so good. The materials and designing not only show aesthetics but also are practically parallel with performance and main concepts. Actors are also playing well despite the fact that shouting sometimes hurt audience. The lower Depths is not a successful play. It’s not easy to see 170min performance based on dialogue especially for non native audience. Even if the language is not a problem but the play is full of details. Repeated and boring scenes should have been omitted and form an attractive performance. Although the director is successful in creating a lot of beautiful and amazing scenes but this emphasis of director for repeated pictures in a long performing is really boring and disappoint the audience. Perhaps it’s the key role of silence. The silence which should float during the performance so that the audience has enough time to empty his/her mind and makes it ready again. To use silence which is the lack of this play. 

 




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