Vassa Zheleznova - the first option is a theatrical performance with an interesting storyline. Events revolve around the family of Zakhar Zheleznov, who is the director of a brick factory. He is dying. His wife Vassa had to take everything into her own hands - both household chores and work at the factory. On her own, for the sake of her children, she tries to keep everything under control. Zakhar's death is approaching, and the situation on the Zheleznov estate begins to heat up. The sons are trying to leave home, grabbing their shares. And a daughter is even capable of giving brothers in order to ensure the well-being of her children. Vassa begins to realize that the whole world that she created around her family is beginning to collapse, life is losing its meaning... Everyone is invited to see how it all ends.

“Vassa Zheleznova - first version” is based on the play by M. Gorky, who wrote two works with the same name, but at different times. This performance is based on the first edition of the play, which is less known in theater circles. But on the Maly stage the production found its audience, telling about the difficult fate of women. The performance is interesting and exciting, and anyone who rushes to buy tickets on our website will be able to watch it.

The play “Vassa Zheleznova - the first version” at the Maly Theater.

Today the Maly Theater presents on its stage the play “Vassa Zheleznova - the first version” - a lesser-known version of Gorky’s work.

60 years ago, the production of “Vassa Zheleznova” at the Maly Theater thundered throughout the Soviet Union. Then the second version of the play was performed on stage.

The play “Vassa Zheleznova - the first version” was staged by director Vladimir Beilis in collaboration with artist Eduard Kochergin. The title role was assigned to one of the leading actresses of the Maly Theater Lyudmila Titova.

Rachelle, the wife of Vassa’s son Fyodor, who is dying far from his homeland, arrives from abroad. Rachelle is a socialist revolutionary wanted by the police. She wants to take away her young son Kolya, whom Vassa is hiding in the village and does not want to give to his daughter-in-law, since she expects to make him the heir to the fortune and the continuer of her business. Vassa threatens to hand Rachel over to the gendarmes if she insists on the return of her son.

The precarious prosperity of Vassa’s house rests on crime. She poisons her husband Sergei Petrovich when he becomes involved in seducing a minor and faces hard labor. But first she invites him to commit suicide, and only when he refuses does Vassa, saving the honor of her unmarried daughters, add powder to her husband. Thus, the family avoids the shame of the trial. The series of crimes did not end there. The maid Lisa suffered from Vassa's brother and, in the end, hanged herself in the bathhouse (people were told that she was crazy). Vassa is ready to do anything just to save the house and her business. She is madly in love with her failed children, who were victims of their father's former unbridled life and his cruel treatment of their mother. Fedor is not a good person in this world. Lyudmila, having seen enough of her father’s fun with dissolute girls as a child, grew up weak-minded. Natalya gradually becomes an alcoholic with her uncle and does not like her mother, whom she nevertheless resembles very much in terms of her toughness. The last hope is a grandson, but he is still too young.

There is some similarity between Rachel and Vassa that they both feel. These are solid, fanatical characters - “masters of life”;

Only Vassa is all in the past, and Rachelle is the future. They are irreconcilable enemies, but respect each other. Nevertheless, Vassa orders the secretary to report Rachel to the gendarmes, but does this solely for the sake of his grandson; the ending of the play is unexpected. Vassa dies suddenly. This feels like a punishment from above for the absurd, sudden death of her husband and the mockery of fate: part of Vassa’s money is stolen by Onoshenkova, and the rest of the wealth, according to the law, will be disposed of by the dissolute brother, who will undoubtedly squander everything. Only the weak-minded Lyudmila mourns her mother. The rest are not affected by her death at all.

Option 2

Vassa Zheleznova, the main character of the novel of the same name, is a very rich and influential woman of forty-two years old who owns a shipping company. Vassa Borisovna’s family consists of a heavy drinking sixty-year-old husband - Sergei Petrovich, a broken drinking brother - a collector of castles - Prokhor Borisovich, as well as Vassa’s daughters - Natalya and Lyudmila. Also living in Vassa Borisovna’s house are: personal spy-secretary Anna and maids Lisa and Polya (appears after a while)

Vassa Borisovna, on top of everything else, is also a grandmother. She was given a grandson by her son, Fyodor, who is seriously ill and dying somewhere abroad. Vassa clearly imagines his grandson Kolya as his heir, and therefore hides him in the village when her daughter-in-law, socialist-revolutionary Rachelle, arrives to take the boy with her.

Vassa, time after time, selflessly goes to any, most extreme measures, in order to save the good name of her family, and the extremely unstable well-being of her beloved children. Unfortunately, despite all the love and devotion of their mother, Vassa Borisovna’s children had practically no chance of normal development: Fedor was dying, Lyudmila was crazy, Natalya did not love her mother at all, and even abused alcohol. Thus, grandson Kolya became Vassa’s last hope. Vassa manages to protect the house and name of her family from scandalous fame only by committing a crime - the murder of her own husband. This happened after it became known that the elderly alcoholic and libertine Sergei Petrovich had committed violence against a young girl. For the sake of the future of her daughters, Vassa invites her husband to commit suicide, which she is forced to stage after his refusal to voluntarily leave the world of the living.

Surprisingly, such opposite characters as Vassa and her daughter-in-law Rachel, in fact, turn out to be the most fully complementary natures - bright, purposeful women. The only difference between them is that Vassa’s time has already passed, while Rachel’s time is just beginning.

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Summary of Vassa Zheleznova Gorky

Maxim Gorky edited the play, and in 1935 he wrote its “second” version, where he sharpened the theme of class struggle.

The first version of the play “Vassa Zheleznova” was included in all collected works of Maxim Gorky.

According to legend, the prototype of the main character of the play was the widow of a Nizhny Novgorod steamship owner and merchant Kashin (in Nizhny Novgorod her house has been preserved in a rebuilt form).

The plot of the second edition

The play tells about the life of Vassa Zheleznova, a wealthy shipowner. The measured course of Vassa’s life is disrupted by the unexpected arrival of his daughter-in-law Rachelle from abroad. Vassa's son, Fyodor, is seriously ill and dies abroad. Rachel came to pick up her son Nikolai, who lives with Vassa. Grandson Kolya is Vassa’s hope, her main heir, it is to him that she plans to transfer the company. Rachelle is a revolutionary and the police are looking for her. Vassa threatens Rachel with handing over to the gendarmes and promises to retreat in exchange for renouncing her claims to Kolya.

Trying to save the honor of the family, Vassa commits a crime and poisons her husband, who is involved in the seduction of an underage girl. Sergei Petrovich was threatened with hard labor, which would have left an indelible stain on Vassa’s reputation. From this moment on, Vassa’s family and life begin to crumble. It becomes known that the maid Liza is pregnant from Vassa’s brother, Prokhor Borisovich. Unable to bear the shame, Lisa commits suicide by hanging herself in a bathhouse.

Vassa, despite the strength of her character, suffers deeply. She loves her children, but realizes that her children are failures. Fyodor dies, Natalya becomes an alcoholic, Lyudmila is not of this world.

Vassa dies unexpectedly. Her death is accepted by the family indifferently, and only her daughter Lyudmila mourns her mother.

Characters

Vassa Borisovna Zheleznova- owner of a shipping company
Sergey Petrovich Zheleznov- Vassa’s husband, a drunken captain
Prokhor Borisovich Khrapov- Vassa’s brother, a carefree playmaker
Natalia And Lyudmila- Vassa's daughters
Rachelle- Vassa's daughter-in-law, wife of her son Fyodor
Anna Onoshenkova- Vassa's secretary and assistant
Lisa And Fields- maids in Vassa's house
Gury Krotkikh- manager of the Vassy shipping company
Sailor Pyaterkin- Anna's boyfriend
District Court Member Melnikov with son Evgeniy- lodgers

Theatrical productions and film adaptations

Theater

- Anatoly Vasiliev, invited by his teacher Andrei Popov to the Stanislavsky Theater, puts on its stage one of his best performances - “The first version of “Vassa Zheleznova”” - and brings this play back to life. This was Vasiliev’s first completely independent production, which, together with “The Adult Daughter of a Young Man,” opened new horizons of “theatricality” to Russian and world theater, and in the opinion of Soviet critics of that time, it unconditionally rehabilitated the so-called. "Stanislavsky method". In the work on “The first version of “Vassa...”” a team of like-minded “Vasilievsky” actors was formed - Lyudmila Polyakova, Albert Filozov, Yuri Grebenshchikov - who left the Stanislavsky Theater after the director was expelled from it... Vassa- Elizaveta Nikishchikhina.
- the play was staged at the Satire Theater on Vasilievsky. Vass played by Antonina Shuranova.
The play (in its second version) was staged at the Moscow Art Theater in 2003. In the role of Vassa - Tatiana Doronina
Vassa Zheleznova was installed at the Bolshoi Drama Theater named after. Tovstonogov. Director - Sergei Yashin, music - N. A. Morozova. In the role of Vassa Zheleznova - Svetlana Kryuchkova.
The premiere of the play “Vassa Zheleznova” at the Rostov Academic Theater took place on October 20, 2006
The premiere of the play “Vassa Zheleznova” took place at the Moscow Art Theater. Chekhov March 23, 2010. Director - Lev Erenburg, in the role of Vassa - Marina Golub.
The premiere of the play “Vassa (Mother)” based on the first version of the play took place on July 7, 2012 at the Minusinsk Drama Theater. Director - Alexey Alekseevich Pesegov, artist - Svetlana Lamanova, in the role of Vassa - Galina Arkhipenkova.
The premiere of the play “Vassa Zheleznova” took place at the Chelyabinsk State Academic Drama Theater named after Naum Orlov on March 22, 2013, Director - Marina Glukhovskaya, artist - Yuri Namestnikov, in the role of Vassa - Ekaterina Zentsova.
The premiere of the play “Vassa Zheleznova” took place at the Tyumen State Academy of Culture, Arts and Social Technologies on April 19, 2013, Director - Valery Arkhipov, artist - Sergei Perepelkin, in the role of Vassa - Elena Orlova, Honored Artist of Russia.
The premiere of the play “Vassa” took place on September 28, 2013 at the Russian Drama Theater “Masters” in the city of Naberezhnye Chelny. The director of the performance is Pyotr Shereshevsky, the set design and costumes are Elena Sorochaikina, Honored Worker of Culture of the Republic of Tatarstan. Svetlana Akmalova plays the role of Vassa Zheleznova.

Movie

Several films, including foreign ones, were made based on the play.

Biblical tradition says that the absence of work - idleness was a condition for the bliss of the first man before his fall. The love for idleness remained the same in fallen man, but the curse still weighs on man, and not only because we must earn our bread by the sweat of our brow, but because, due to our moral properties, we cannot be idle and calm. A secret voice says that we must be guilty of being idle. If a person could find a state in which, being idle, he would feel useful and fulfilling his duty, he would find one side of primitive bliss. And this state of obligatory and impeccable idleness is enjoyed by a whole class - the military class. This obligatory and impeccable idleness was and will be the main attraction of military service.
Nikolai Rostov fully experienced this bliss, after 1807 he continued to serve in the Pavlograd regiment, in which he already commanded a squadron received from Denisov.
Rostov became a hardened, kind fellow, whom Moscow acquaintances would have found somewhat mauvais genre [bad taste], but who was loved and respected by his comrades, subordinates and superiors, and who was satisfied with his life. Lately, in 1809, he more often found his mother complaining in letters from home that things were getting worse and worse, and that it was time for him to come home, please and reassure his old parents.
Reading these letters, Nikolai felt fear that they wanted to take him out of the environment in which, having protected himself from all everyday confusion, he lived so quietly and calmly. He felt that sooner or later he would have to again enter that whirlpool of life with frustrations and adjustments in affairs, with managers’ accounts, quarrels, intrigues, with connections, with society, with Sonya’s love and a promise to her. All this was terribly difficult, confusing, and he answered his mother’s letters with cold, classic letters that began: Ma chere maman [My dear mother] and ended: votre obeissant fils, [Your obedient son,] keeping silent about when he intended to come . In 1810, he received letters from his relatives, in which he was informed about Natasha’s engagement to Bolkonsky and that the wedding would take place in a year, because the old prince did not agree. This letter upset and insulted Nikolai. Firstly, he was sorry to lose Natasha from home, whom he loved more than anyone in the family; secondly, from his hussar point of view, he regretted that he was not there, because he would have shown this Bolkonsky that it was not such a great honor to be related to him and that if he loved Natasha, he could do without permission from an extravagant father. For a minute he hesitated whether to ask for leave to see Natasha as a bride, but then the maneuvers came up, thoughts about Sonya, about the confusion came, and Nikolai put it off again. But in the spring of that year he received a letter from his mother, who wrote secretly from the count, and this letter convinced him to go. She wrote that if Nikolai did not come and get down to business, then the entire estate would go under the hammer and everyone would go around the world. The Count is so weak, he has trusted Mitenka so much, and is so kind, and everyone is deceiving him so much that everything goes worse and worse. “For God’s sake, I beg you, come now, if you do not want to make me and your whole family unhappy,” the countess wrote.
This letter had an effect on Nikolai. He had that common sense of mediocrity that showed him what was due.
Now I had to go, if not to retire, then to go on vacation. Why he had to go, he did not know; but after sleeping in the afternoon, he ordered gray Mars, a long-unridden and terribly angry stallion, to be saddled, and returning home on the lathered stallion, he announced to Lavrushka (Denisov’s lackey remained with Rostov) and to his comrades who came in the evening that he was taking leave and was going home. No matter how difficult and strange it was for him to think that he would leave and not find out from headquarters (which was especially interesting to him) whether he would be promoted to captain or receive Anna for his last maneuvers; no matter how strange it was to think that he would leave without selling Count Golukhovsky the three Savras, whom the Polish count traded with him, and whom Rostov bet that he would sell for 2 thousand, no matter how incomprehensible it seemed that without him there would be that ball , which the hussars were supposed to give to Panna Pshazdeckaya in defiance of the lancers, who were giving a ball to their Panna Borzhozovskaya - he knew that he had to go from this clear, good world somewhere to where everything was nonsense and confusion.
A week later there was a vacation. The hussars, comrades not only in the regiment, but also in the brigade, gave Rostov lunch, which cost 15 rubles per head. subscriptions - two music was played, two songbook choirs sang; Rostov danced the trepak with Major Basov; drunken officers rocked, hugged and dropped Rostov; the soldiers of the third squadron rocked him again and shouted hurray! Then Rostov was put in a sleigh and escorted to the first station.
Until halfway, as always happens, from Kremenchug to Kyiv, all of Rostov’s thoughts were still back - in the squadron; but having fallen over halfway, he had already begun to forget the troika of Savras, his sergeant Dozhoyveyka, and restlessly began to ask himself about what and how he would find in Otradnoye. The closer he got, the more, much more (as if moral feeling were subject to the same law of the speed of falling bodies in squared distances), he thought about his home; at the last station before Otradny, he gave the driver three rubles for vodka, and like a boy, he ran into the porch of the house, choking.
After the delight of the meeting, and after that strange feeling of dissatisfaction in comparison with what you expect - everything is the same, why was I in such a hurry! – Nikolai began to get used to his old world at home. Father and mother were the same, they were only a little older. There was a new kind of anxiety and sometimes disagreement in them, which had not happened before and which, as Nikolai soon learned, stemmed from the bad state of affairs. Sonya was already twenty years old. She had already stopped getting prettier, she did not promise anything more than what was in her; but that was enough. She had been breathing happiness and love all over since Nikolai arrived, and this girl’s faithful, unshakable love had a joyful effect on him. Petya and Natasha surprised Nikolai the most. Petya was already a big, thirteen-year-old, handsome, cheerfully and intelligently playful boy, whose voice was already breaking. Nikolai was surprised at Natasha for a long time and laughed as he looked at her.
“Not at all,” he said.
- Well, have you gone crazy?
– On the contrary, but it’s somehow important. Princess! - he told her in a whisper.
“Yes, yes, yes,” Natasha said joyfully.
Natasha told him her affair with Prince Andrei, his arrival in Otradnoye and showed him his last letter.
- Why are you happy? – Natasha asked. “I’m so calm and happy now.”
“I’m very glad,” Nikolai answered. - He's a great person. Why are you so in love?
“How can I tell you,” Natasha answered, “I was in love with Boris, with the teacher, with Denisov, but this is not the same at all.” I feel calm and firm. I know that there are no better people than him, and I feel so calm, good now. Not at all like before...
Nikolai expressed his displeasure to Natasha that the wedding had been postponed for a year; but Natasha attacked her brother with bitterness, proving to him that it could not be otherwise, that it would be bad to join the family against the will of her father, that she herself wanted it.
“You don’t understand at all,” she said. Nikolai fell silent and agreed with her.
My brother was often surprised when he looked at her. It didn't look at all like she was a loving bride separated from her groom. She was even, calm, and cheerful, absolutely as before. This surprised Nikolai and even made him look at Bolkonsky’s matchmaking with disbelief. He did not believe that her fate had already been decided, especially since he had not seen Prince Andrei with her. It seemed to him that something was wrong in this supposed marriage.
“Why the delay? Why didn’t you get engaged?” he thought. Having once talked with his mother about his sister, he, to his surprise and partly to his pleasure, found that his mother, in the same way, in the depths of her soul, sometimes looked at this marriage with distrust.

. “Vassa Zheleznova - the first version” appeared on the stage of the Maly Theater ( Culture, 05/14/2016).

Natalya Vitvitskaya. . The Maly Theater staged “Vassa Zheleznova” in the first edition ( Teatral, 04/28/2016).

Vassa Zheleznova - First option. Maly Theater. Press about the performance

Culture, May 14, 2016

Elena Fedorenko

Strong woman crying by the window

“Vassa Zheleznova - the first version” appeared on the stage of the Maly Theater.

Maxim Gorky wrote two dramas under the same title. The first - in 1910, the second - a quarter of a century later. They are significantly different; the later version is popular with the theme of class struggle, the revolutionary Rachel, who acts as an antagonist to the owner of the shipping company Vassa Petrovna Zheleznova. On the stage of the Maly Theater, the title role was played by Vera Pashennaya - the performance with her participation became legendary.

The first edition found its stage embodiment in the Korsh Theater even before the revolution. Director Anatoly Vasiliev gave her a new life, creating one of his best performances. Gorky himself called the early version “a play about a mother.” Everything there is without social rhymes, political realities, or social pathos. A story of degeneration. It’s not the country that’s on fire, it’s the family that’s on fire. Treason, murder, forgery of documents, etc. Barricades are not on the streets, but in souls.

Maria Osipovna Knebel loved to analyze Gorky's plays and did it to perfection. She defined the initial event in “Vassa” as the fatal illness of Zheleznov, who is fading away in the room behind the scenes, next to the stage. The end-to-end action is the struggle for inheritance. Here is the key to a family tragedy. The theme of inheritance (and, by and large, the power of money) in Russian literature is heard by Gorky himself in “The Last Ones”, by Saltykov-Shchedrin in “The Death of Pazukhin” and “The Golovlevs”, by Ostrovsky, but nowhere is it revealed so mercilessly, angrily and evil, as in “Vassa Zheleznova”. The degree of tension is off the charts and forces everyone in the household to turn inside out. There are no good heroes, all are sinners, each has their own “skeleton” hidden.

Experienced director Vladimir Beilis decided to ignore the caustic earnestness of the author. The performance naively and slowly portrays the characters, the actors pronounce word by word, listening to every line - this is how they usually read Ostrovsky in Maly, with whom the theater has a special relationship. The result is not an explosion of foundations and the collapse of a dynasty, but family gatherings. True, in a house where there is no prosperity and understanding.

In the center of the spacious room is a dining table, where characters gather one by one. There is no development in them; the initially set state is maintained throughout the entire stage time. The wonderful actress Lyudmila Titova plays Vassu strictly and monotonously, is declared a sufferer and truly mourns until the last scene. Son Pavel (Stanislav Soshnikov) is crippled from birth, full of anger and obsessed with vengeance. There is a reason for this - his young beautiful wife Lyudmila (Olga Abramova) openly walks with Uncle Prokhor, Vassa’s brother, and he, a cheerful libertine (Alexander Vershinin), has his own views and the right to part of the inheritance.

The insignificant and frivolous Semyon, Vassa’s eldest son, is represented by the textured Alexei Konovalov in a sweeping and broad manner. The role of his wife Natalya, performed by Olga Zhevakina, comes out to be the most lively and changeable - obedience and helpfulness sprout in her with an animal essence and aggressive demands. Vassa's arriving daughter Anna, who has been living away from her native nest for a long time and has lost contact with it, is elegant and cold in Polina Dolinskaya's book. Vassa is right: none of them is able to save the family business. The young - from the breed of consumers and parasites - are not suitable for the desperate struggle that Gorky wrote about. Each of them dreams of money and the time when, having received it, it will be possible to finally escape from the tenacious embrace of their mother.

Of course, the director has the right to read the classic text, bypassing the violent ups and tumultuous catastrophes, bringing to the fore the technique of everyday verisimilitude. But the psychological narrative becomes boring, the meanings and accents are drowned in details. At the third premiere show, empty seats gape in the auditorium.

In a performance staged with obvious respect for detail, inaccuracies are unacceptable. The son's light suit at his father's funeral service and the large home iconostasis, made by the dominant design (artist Eduard Kochergin), are striking. The image of the prayer room, like the church hymns on stage, is in poor taste. Someone thinks differently and sees this as particularly touching. In any case, the mistakes here are offensive. According to the Orthodox canon, three icons are strictly required: the Savior is in the center, to the right of him is the Mother of God, to the left is John the Baptist. This three-figure deesis can be supplemented by saints revered in the house. The image of the Savior, surrounded by various depictions of the Mother of God, turns the home iconostasis into an exhibition of paintings.

Nevertheless, the heavy and detailed story, which does not evoke sympathy for any of the characters, in the finale makes you sincerely feel sorry for Vassa - a man of work, a woman with a scorched soul. She won. The inheritance is in her hands and will not be squandered. But this victory is Pyrrhic: Vassa lost her family, for the sake of which she increased her wealth. She imagines distant laughter and baby babble - from those times when she was young and believed in the power of home and business.

Teatral, April 28, 2016

Natalia Vitvitskaya

Road to God

The Maly Theater staged “Vassa Zheleznova” in the first edition

The premiere of "Vassa" at the Maly Theater was staged in academic traditions, not the director's imagination, but the acting work was brought to the fore. Director Vladimir Beilis chose the first edition of Gorky's play - the one in which there is not a word about class conflict and Vass, as a symbol of the collapse of Russian capitalism. The viewer is presented with a heartbreaking family drama in which there is neither right nor wrong.

The main advantage of the new “Vassa” is the artists. Theatergoers have not seen such a level of ensemble acting for a disappointingly long time. All the heroes on stage are equal, and everyone is also to blame for the tragic ending. Unbending Vassa is the conditional main character. Lyudmila Titova plays her as a sufferer.

Despite the frightening, soul-disfiguring underbelly of the family “business,” she is, above all, an unhappy woman. A beauty with a straight back (oh, that signature look of Maly Theater actresses), with a high hairstyle, in a lavender-colored lace dress, with dark shadows under her eyes. She is a mother, confident that all the worst sins in the name of her children will be forgiven her: “The Mother of God will understand.” One of the most striking scenes: Vassa looks at the family gathered at the table from the side (the occasion is the arrival of Anna’s eldest daughter), and instead of the words they speak, she hears children’s chirping.

Both of her sons, Pavel and Semyon, by her own admission, “failed.” One is an embittered freak, the second is a voluptuous fool as stupid as a plug. Artists Stanislav Soshnikov and Alexey Konovalov play both characters impeccably. So many emotional details and acting courage.

Olga Zhevakina, who plays Semyon’s hypocritical wife Natasha, is also fantastically good. Each of her appearances on stage is a small benefit performance. Alexander Vershinin (the daring Prokhor Zheleznov) is traditionally bright. Maly's artists managed to justify Gorky's characters and make the viewer empathize with them. Vassa's family is a ball of snakes that bite themselves. They are frighteningly recognizable, as is the situation of the bloody division of inheritance. Ignorant, unloved, unable to love themselves, heroes and heroines are not at all the fiends of hell. Their tragedy is that they don’t know how to do it differently. It’s not scary for them, it’s pity for them.

The set design by Eduard Kochergin is a full participant in the action. A wooden house with a non-existent roof (there is a hole above the heads of a large and unhappy family). Several pigeons on the beams, a flooded fireplace, Vassa’s office, a table with a samovar and a tablecloth. The walls narrow somewhere in the depths of the stage, and there is a whole iconostasis and lit candles. During the action, no one approaches him; in the finale, the heroine dies next to him. Realizing that there will never be an excuse for her anywhere, Vassa, throwing up her hands, runs to the icons, stumbles, and falls dead. Having decided the ending in a moralistic vein, Baylis, however, happily avoided pathos. His performance is not about the fact that evil is punishable. It's about how scary it is to live life without knowing about it.

Vassa Borisovna Zheleznova, nee Khrapova, 42 years old (but looks younger), owner of a shipping company, a very rich and influential person, lives in her own house with her drunken husband, Sergei Petrovich Zheleznov, 60 years old, a former captain, and brother, Prokhor Borisovich A ratcheting, careless, drinking person who collects all kinds of locks (the collection seems to parody the sister’s possessive instincts). Natalya and Lyudmila, the daughters of Vassa and Sergei Petrovich, also live in the house; Anna Onoshenkova is Vassa's young secretary and confidante and at the same time a domestic spy; Lisa and then Polya are the maids. The sailor Pyaterkin is constantly in the house, playing the role of a jester and secretly hitting on Liza in the hope of marrying her and getting rich; Gury Krotkikh - manager of the shipping company; Melnikov - a member of the district court and his son Evgeniy (tenants). Rachel comes from abroad - the wife of Vassa's son Fyodor, who is dying far from his homeland. Rachelle is a socialist revolutionary wanted by the police. She wants to take away her young son Kolya, whom Vassa is hiding in the village and does not want to give to his daughter-in-law, since she expects to make him the heir to the fortune and the continuer of her business. Vassa threatens to hand Rachel over to the gendarmes if she insists on the return of her son. The precarious prosperity of Vassa’s house rests on crime. She poisons her husband Sergei Petrovich when he becomes involved in seducing a minor and faces hard labor. But first she invites him to commit suicide, and only when he refuses does Vassa, saving the honor of her unmarried daughters, add powder to her husband. Thus, the family avoids the shame of the trial. The series of crimes did not end there. The maid Lisa suffered from Vassa's brother and, in the end, hanged herself in the bathhouse (people were told that she was crazy). Vassa is ready to do anything just to save the house and her business. She is madly in love with her failed children, who were victims of their father's former unbridled life and his cruel treatment of their mother. Fedor is not a good person in this world. Lyudmila, having seen enough of her father’s fun with dissolute girls as a child, grew up weak-minded. Natalya gradually becomes an alcoholic with her uncle and does not like her mother, whom she nevertheless resembles very much in terms of her toughness. The last hope is a grandson, but he is still too young. There is some similarity between Rachel and Vassa that they both feel. These are solid, fanatical characters -; only Vassa is all in the past, and Rachelle is the future. They are irreconcilable enemies, but respect each other. Nevertheless, Vassa orders the secretary to report Rachel to the gendarmes, but does this solely for the sake of his grandson; the ending of the play is unexpected. Vassa dies suddenly. This feels like a punishment from above for the absurd, sudden death of her husband and the mockery of fate: part of Vassa’s money is stolen by Onoshenkova, and the rest of the wealth, according to the law, will be disposed of by the dissolute brother, who will undoubtedly squander everything. Only the weak-minded Lyudmila mourns her mother. The rest are not affected by her death at all.

Gorky Vassa Zheleznova summary. Online reading of the book by Vassa Zheleznova