Protasov, detached and idealistic, wants only to immerse himself in chemical experiments to perfect mankind. He’s more or less oblivious to the voracious advances of the half-crazed widow Melaniya and his best friend’s unrelenting pursuit of his wife.
Play title: Children of the Sun
Author (s): Maxim Gorky (translated and with introduction by Stephen Mulrine)
Publisher: Nick Hern Books
Publication Date: 1913, 1999 (Nick Hern Books)
Genre: Drama
Primary Discipline: Chemistry
Scientist (s): None
Source Texts: Unknown
Character Breakdown: 8 Men, 7 Women
Protasov, Liza, Yelena Nikolaevna, Vaghin, Chepurnoy, Melania, Nazar Avdeyevich, Misha, Yegor, Avdotia, Yakov Troshin, Antonovna, Fima, Lusha, Roman
Setting: Russia
Time Period: 1862
Synopsis of Play: Protasov, detached and idealistic, wants only to immerse himself in chemical experiments to perfect mankind. He’s more or less oblivious to the voracious advances of the half-crazed widow Melaniya and his best friend’s unrelenting pursuit of his wife, let alone the cholera epidemic and the starving mob at his gates. While Nanny fusses round, Protasov’s admiring circle, variously skeptical, romantic and lovesick, spar over culture and the cosmos. Only Liza, neurotic and patronized, feels the suffering of the peasantry and senses that their own privileged world is in jeopardy.
Written during the abortive Russian Revolution of 1905, Maxim Gorky’s darkly comic Children of the Sun depicts the new middle-class, foolish perhaps but likeable, as they flounder around, philosophizing, yearning, or scuttling between test tubes, blind to their impending annihilation. https://www.amazon.com/Children-Sun-Maxim-Gorky-ebook/dp/B00B7GX8RS
First Performance Date: October 12th, 1905
First Producer: Moscow Art Theatre
Performance History: Children of the Sun premiered in St. Petersburg on October 12th, 1905 and was staged at the Moscow Art Theatre.
Links:
https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2013/apr/17/children-of-the-sun
https://www.londontheatre.co.uk/reviews/children-of-the-sun
Entered by: Meaghan Yesford
Photo/Visual Research with citations
2013; Lyttelton, London; Photo: Tristram Kenton 2013, The National Theatre.
Photo: Nigel Norrington
2014, Sydney Theatre Company 2014, Sydney Theatre Company
2014, Sydney Theatre Company 2014, Sydney Theatre Company
2014, Sydney Theatre Company 2014, Sydney Theatre Company
