Moscow Theater of Satire

a theater founded in 1924.

The theater’s repertoire originally consisted of revues, lampoons, and vaudevilles. In the 1930’s, the theater staged comedies of manners, including V. V. Shkvarkin’s Someone Else’s Child and A Simple Girl and K. Ia. Finn’s A Large Family, Talents, and Sashka, and such comedies as Monsieur de Pourceaugnac by Moliere and The City of Glupov, based on a work by Saltykov-Shchedrin. In the 1940’s it staged Nadezhda Durova (1942) by Kochetkov and Lipskerov, The Island of Peace (1947) by Petrov, and Taimyr Summons You (1948) by Galich and Isaev. D’iakonov’s comedy Wedding With a Dowry (1950) was highly successful. N. V. Pluchek’s productions of V. V. Mayakovsky’s plays were landmark events at the Moscow Theater of Satire; these productions included The Bathhouse (1953; jointly with N. V. Petrov and S. I. Iutkevich), The Bedbug (1955; jointly with Iutkevich), and Mystery Bouffe (1957).

Of great importance to the development of the theater were the stage directors D. G. Gutman, N. M. Gorchakov, N. V. Petrov, and P. P. Vasil’ev, and the actors D. L. Kara-Dmitriev, V. D. Doronin, O. P. Zvereva, F. N. Kurikhin, I. A. Liubeznov, E. Ia. Maliutina, P. N. Pol’, K. V. Pugacheva, N. I. Slonova, Ia. M. Rudin, and V. Ia. Khenkin. The theater’s repertoire is very diversified.

The theater’s productions of the 1960’s and early 1970’s included N. Khikmet’s The Sword of Damocles (1959), Slavin’s Intervention (1967), Beaumarchais’s The Marriage of Figaro (1969), Shtein’s Prisoner of Time (1970), D’iarfash’s Wake up and Sing (1970), Makaenok’s The Henpecked Apostle (1971) and Pill Under the Tongue (1973), Tempo-29 (1971; based on Pogodin’s Tempo), Gogol’s The Inspector-General (1972), and Mikhalkov’s A Slap in the Face (1974).

In 1974, the theater company included People’s Artists of the USSR A. D. Papanov and T. I. Pel’tser, People’s Artist of the RSFSR and of the Tadzhik SSR G. P. Menglet, People’s Artists of the RSFSR V. K. Vasil’eva and V. G. Kozel, People’s Artist of the Uzbek SSR R. D. Tkachuk, Honored Artist of the RSFSR and of the Tadzhik SSR O. P. Solius, and Honored Artists of the RSFSR N. N. Arkhipova, F. A. Dimant, N. A. Zashchipina, S. V. Mishulin, B. V. Runge, and G. B. Tusuzov. Since 1957, the theater’s chief stage director has been People’s Artist of the RSFSR V. N. Pluchek.