Vladimir Mayakovsky is a tragedy in verse by Vladimir Mayakovsky written in 1913, premiered on December 2 of that year and published in 1914 by the First Futurists' Journal, later to be included into the Simple as Mooing collection. An avant-garde verse drama, satirizing the urban life and, at the same time, hailing the up-and-coming revolution of the industrial power, it featured a set of bizarre, cartoonish characters and a poet protagonist.
History
The play, which had two working titles, "The Railway" (Железная дорога) and "The Riot of Things" (Восстание вещей), was written in summer 1913 in Kuntsevo nearby Moscow, at the family friend Bogrovnikov’s dacha where they resided from May 18 till the end of August. Sister Lyudmila Mayakovskaya remembered: "Volodya felt very lonely. For days he was roaming the Kuntsevo, Krylatsky and Rublyovo parks, composing his tragedy… [In the house] he scribbled words, lines and rhymes upon scraps of paper and cigarettes' boxes, imploring mother not to throw anything away." In October the work was completed.
On 9 November 1913 the Mayakovsky presented the copy of the play to the Petersburg theatrical censorship committee, having cut some of the risqué bits. In the first printed version of it which appeared in March 1914 in the First Futurist's Journal, phrases with words "God", "demented God" and "crucified prophet" were also removed.
Plot
Prologue
Vladimir Mayakovsky, "the last of the poets," carrying his "soul on a plate for the Future's dinner," declares himself "the king of all lamps" and promises to reveal for the people their brand new, true souls.
Act 1
The Holiday of the Paupers goes on in the City. After an Old man (with cats) greets the advent of the new age of electricity and an Ordinary man protesting against the impending mutiny, gets brushed off, a giant woman gets unveiled and carried by the crowd to the Door to be just thrown down to the floor there. A riot of things commences, with human limbs running about, disconnected from their bodies.
Act II
At the City's main square Mayakovsky, dressed in toga is treated as a new god, people bringing him presents, three Tears among them. One man relates the story of how two kisses that's been given him turned into the babies and started to multiply. The Poet packs the three Tears he's received from the three women and promises to deliver them to the great Northern god.
Epilogue
The Poet says farewells to his followers he refers to as "my poor rats," declares Heavens "a cheat" and, after meditating upon what he'd rather be - "a rooster from Holland or a Pskovian king," - decides he likes "the sound of my name, Vladimir Mayakovsky, the best."
Characters
Vladimir Mayakovsky, a poet, 20-25 years old
His girlfriend, 2 or 3 sazhens in size. Doesn't speak. An Old man with black and dry cats, several thousand years oldAn "ancient symbol" of electricity. Later in his article "No White Flags" (Без белых флагов) Mayakovsky thus explained the meaning of this image: "...The Egyptians and the Greeks while stroking black and dry cats might have been able to produce electric spark, yet it's not for them that we sing hymns of glory but for those who’s given shiny eyes to hanging heads and the power of a thousand arms poured into the humming tram arks." A man without a leg and an eye A man without an ear A man without a head A man with stretched-out face A man with two kisses An ordinary young man A woman with a small tear A woman with a tear A woman with a huge tear Paper boys, girls and others
Reception and legacy
Premiere
According to actor Konstantin Tomashevsky, people attending rehearsals (Alexander Blok among them) were quite impressed with what was happening on stage. "Those were the times of turmoil, anxiety, dark forebodings. All of us instantly recognized in Mayakovsky a revolutionary, even if his hectic sermons to the human souls, mutilated by the vile city, sounded a bit muddled. It was an attempt at tearing off masks, revealing the sores of the society, sick beneath the veneer of respectability."