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Mystery-Bouffe

Mystery-Bouffe

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Myster-Bouffe is a socialist
Socialism
Socialism refers to various theories of economic organization advocating public or direct worker ownership and administration of the means of production and allocation of resources, and a society characterized by equal access to resources for all individuals with a method of compensation based on...

 drama
Drama
Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance. The term comes from a Greek word meaning "action" , which is derived from "to do" . The enactment of drama in theatre, performed by actors on a stage before an audience, presupposes collaborative modes of production and a collective...

tic play written by Vladimir Mayakovsky
Vladimir Mayakovsky
Vladimir Vladimirovich Mayakovsky was a Russian and Soviet poet and playwright, among the foremost representatives of early-20th century Russian Futurism.- Early life :...

 in 1918/1921. Mayakovsky stated in a preface to the 1921 edition that "in the future, all persons performing, presenting, reading or publishing Mystery-Bouffe should change the content, making it contemporary, immediate, up-to-the-minute."

First version


The play was written for the anniversary of the 1917 revolution, and was accepted by the Central Bureau to be part of the festivities. This original version was directed and produced by Vsevolod Meyerhold
Vsevolod Meyerhold
Vsevolod Emilevich Meyerhold was a Russian and Soviet director, actor and producer whose provocative experiments dealing with physical being and symbolism in an unconventional theatre setting made him one of the seminal forces in modern theatre.-Life and work:Vsevolod Meyerhold was born Karl...

, and the art was done by Kazimir Malevich
Kazimir Malevich
Kazimir Severinovich Malevich , was a painter and art theoretician, pioneer of geometric abstract art and the originator of the Avant-garde Suprematist movement.- Life and work :...

. The premiere was in the Theatre of Musical Drama on November 7, 1918.

Mayakovsky himself played the role of the "simple man", as well as some bit roles including Methuselah and one of the demons. This version of the play lasted three seances.

Second version


After two years, Mayakovsky reworked the text of his play. This second version premiered in the First Theatre of the RSFSR on May 1, 1921. A printed edition of the second version was released in June of that year. This version of the play lasted about 100 shows.

Later versions


A 60-minute animated film adaptation of the play was made in 1969, directed by David Cherkasskiy. It was the first animated feature to be made in Ukraine. The Soviet government banned screenings outside of the Ukrainian SSR.

In 2007, after several decades of the play not being seen anywhere, the Moscow A.R.T.O. theatre put on an updated version of the play which was dubbed "Mystery-Bouffe. The Clean Variant", based on the texts of the first and second versions. It premiered in France on May 1, 2007.

Characters

  1. Seven Pairs of the Clean:

  1. 1) The Negus of Abyssinia
    2) An Indian Raja
    3) A Turkish Pasha
    4) A Russian Merchant (Speculator)
    5) A Chinese
    6) A Well-fed Persian
    7) Clemenceau
    Clemenceau
    Clemenceau may refer to:* Georges Clemenceau , French physician, journalist and statesman* Clemenceau , a French aircraft carrier* Mount Clemenceau, a mountain in the Canadian Rockies...

    8) A German
    9) A Russian Priest
    10) An Australian
    11) His Wife
    12) Lloyd George
    David Lloyd George
    David Lloyd George, 1st Earl Lloyd-George of Dwyfor OM, PC was a British statesman and the only Welsh Prime Minister of the United Kingdom; he is also the only one to have spoken English as a second language, Welsh having been his first.During a long tenure of office, mainly as Chancellor of the...

    13) An American
    14) A Diplomat

  1. Seven Pairs of the Unclean:
    1) A Soldier of the Red Army
    Red Army
    The Red Army The Red Army The Red Army was the Soviet government’s revolutionary militia beginning in the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the USSR. Since 1946, after the Second World War, it was called the Soviet Army.The 'Red...

    2) A Lamplighter
    3) A Truckdriver
    4) A Miner
    5) A Carpenter
    6) A Farmhand
    7) A Servant (Female)
    8) A Blacksmith
    9) A Baker
    10) A Laundress
    11) A Seamstress
    12) A Locomotive Engineer
    13) An Eskimo Fisherman
    14) An Eskimo Hunter
  2. A Compromiser
  3. An Intellectual
  4. The Lady with the Hatboxes
  5. Devils:
    1) Beelzebub
    Beelzebub
    Beelzebub is the name of a demon derived from Ba‘al Zebûb, Ba‘al Zəbûb or Ba‘al Zəvûv , a deity worshipped in the Philistine city of Ekron....

    2) Master-of-ceremonies Devil
    3) First Messenger
    4) Second Messenger
    5) Guard
    6) 20 of the Clean with Horns and Tails
  6. Saints:
    1) Methuselah
    Methuselah
    Methuselah or Metushélach is the oldest person whose age is mentioned in the Hebrew Bible, given as 969 years. The name Methuselah has become a general synonym for any living creature of great age.-Methuselah in the Bible:...

    2) Jean-Jacques Rousseau
    Jean-Jacques Rousseau
    Jean Jacques Rousseau was a major philosopher, writer, and composer of the eighteenth-century Enlightenment, whose political philosophy influenced the French Revolution and the development of modern political and educational thought.His novel, Emile: or, On Education, which he considered his most...

    3) Leo Tolstoy
    Leo Tolstoy
    Leo Tolstoy, or Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy , was a Russian writer widely regarded as among the greatest of novelists. His masterpieces War and Peace and Anna Karenina represent in their scope, breadth and vivid depiction of 19th-century Russian life and attitudes, the peak of realist...

    4) Gabriel
    Gabriel
    In Abrahamic religions, Gabriel is an angel who serves as a messenger from God....

    5) First Angel
    6) Second Angel
    7) Angels.
  7. Jehovah
    Jehovah
    Jehovah is a transliteration of , a vocalized Hebrew variant of the tetragrammaton that occurs 6518 times in the Ben Chayyim Hebrew Text of 1525 A.D., on which the Old Testament of the King James Bible is based...

  8. Actors of the Promised Land:
    1) A Hammer
    Hammer and sickle
    The hammer and sickle is a part of communist symbolism and its usage indicates an association with Communism, a Communist party, or a Communist state. It features a hammer and a sickle overlapping each other. The two tools are symbols of the industrial proletariat and the peasantry; placing them...

    2) A Sickle
    Hammer and sickle
    The hammer and sickle is a part of communist symbolism and its usage indicates an association with Communism, a Communist party, or a Communist state. It features a hammer and a sickle overlapping each other. The two tools are symbols of the industrial proletariat and the peasantry; placing them...

    3) Machines
    4) Trains
    5) Automobiles
    6) A Carpenter's Plane
    7) Tongs
    8) A Needle
    9) A Saw
    10) Bread
    11) Salt
    12) Sugar
    13) Fabrics
    14) A Boot
    15) A Board and Lever
  9. The Man of the Future

Settings of the Acts

  1. - The entire universe.
  2. - The Ark.
  3. - Hell.
  4. - Paradise.
  5. - Lord of chaos.
  6. - The promised land.

External links