“The Abyss” by A.N. Ostrovsky. Reflection on melodrama and theater

Abstract

Ostrovsky’s “The Abyss” play (1865) is a response to the French melodrama popular in the 1830s “Thirty years, or Life of a Gambler” by V. Ducange and M. Dinaux, that traces the story of the moral decay of Goige de Germanie, the aristocrat dragged into the abyss of vice. The paper treats the play by A.N. Ostrovsky as a meta-drama where characters discuss the “Life of a Gambler” theatrical performance. The Russian playwriter polemizes with the stereotype of French melodrama with its inherent accumulation of passions and crimes far from real life, as well as with the morality straightforwardly expressed at the end of the play. Feeding on the melodrama by Ducange and Dinaux, the playwriter transfers the action to his native soil and constructs his own meta-plot, while staying, paradoxical as it may sound, within the melodramatic discourse. In his play, character types, who are known from previous plays, act, and the abyss of the “realm of darkness” of the Moscow merchants gulps the “weak heart”. In the Ostrovsky’s drama, the story of an ordinary person defeated by life unfolds in time. Afterwards, this theme will be the leading one in Chekhov’s works.

It is significant that director Sergei Zhenovach perceived the Ostrovsky’s play as a meta-drama: he combined works of Russian and French playwriters in one performance, which was staged in 1993 at the Theater on Malaya Bronnaya.

Ostrovsky’s “The Abyss” is unique in form and content: it expresses the playwriter reflection on melodrama and theater.