Maryša

Maryša (English: Marysha) is a classical drama by brothers Alois Mrštík and Vilém Mrštík from 1894. It is set in a village in Moravia and focuses on the marriage of the eponymous character.

Summary

A young woman, Maryša, is promised by her father to Vávra, whose previous wife has died. This not only affects Maryša, but also Francek, the young man who loves her, who decides to leave the village to go to war rather than remain to see Maryša marry Vávra. The play also looks at how the marriage affects the family dynamics, for example, the Grandmother's weakness and inability to help her granddaughter, in stark contrast to the matriarchal figure of Němcová's Babička.

Women in the Play

The play explores many challenging themes in a not always easy to interpret manner. The role of women in the play is the most obvious. Maryša's father treats her as an object to be traded, and the authors' depiction of the father suggests a negative reading. However, the actions of Maryša herself, which end in murder despite her continuous rejection of help to escape the marriage as "sin", and the women of the play's lack of desire to help each other suggest that a simple feminist interpretation of the play is inappropriate.

Productions

Divadlo J. K. Tyla

Národní divadlo moravskoslezské

Adaptions

It was adapted into a film of the same name by Josef Rovenský in 1935.[1]

External links

References

  1. "Maryša". Česko-Slovenská filmová databáze. Retrieved 24 October 2012.