Stay in Your Own Sled

Stay in Your Own Sled
Written by Aleksander Ostrovsky
Date premiered 14 January 1853
Place premiered Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow
Original language Russian
Genre Comedy

Stay in Your Own Sled (Russian: Не в свои сани не садись), an idiom meaning "Don't bite off more than you can chew,"[1] is a play by Alexander Ostrovsky, written in 1852 and first published in the No.5 (March, book 1), 1853, issue of Moskvityanin. It was premiered in Bolshoi Theatre[2][3] on January 14, 1853.[4]

History

By 1852 all of Ostrovsky's work, including a translation, has been banned from being produced on stage. Years later he wrote: "The author, especially the one who is just starting, and who’s got one or two plays banned without reasons explained, starts becomes a slave to fear… Once he’s come across a long idea - he shortens it, once he's managed a strong character, he weakens it, once he’s found fiery. Weighty phrases, he smoothens them for in all this he starts to see reason for future prohibitions." His new play was the result of such inner compromise: it was a melodrama, less daring as Family Affair and not as ambitious as The Poor Bride, lots of sherp edges in characters apparently having been smoothened in the course of working upon them. The main character, Rusakov, was based on a real person, merchant Kosheverov (Prov Sadovsky's relative) who always delighted Ostrovsky with his openness and easy ways with money.[4]

The play, originally called One’s Got to Guess When Good Thing's Good (Ot dobra dobra ne ishchut), has been in the works all through 1852. On October 6 that year Mikhail Pogodin wrote in his diary that he's heard the play in its author's rendition. On November 19 Ostrovsky informed Pogodin that the text had been sent to censors.[5]

Ostrovsky staged the play for the first time himself in the house of his friend Nikolai Panov (the one who first started to collect Ostrovsky manuscripts which later continued to do Nikolai Shapovalo). Podkhalyuzin was played by the author himself and, reportedly, made even Prov Sadovsky laugh. Another 'underground' theater he found in the factory owned by Prince Yakov Gruzinsky (whose side-son Ivan Nikulin, an actor and a husband of Lyubov Kositskaya) in Pavlovsky Posad.[4]

Pogodin assisted with the play's promotion by approaching his old acquaintance, Stepan Gedeonov, the son of the director of Imperial theaters (who would later get his father's place and even write a play with Ostrovsky as a co-author). The play was declared eligible for production and in January 1853 Verstovsky assigned it to Lyubov Kositskaya's benefice. One of the latter's detractors was Countess Rostopchina who hated Kositskaya's simple ways and described her as "the creature very turnip-like with a heard like a water melon or a cabbage, ill-formed... She always comes across as a simpleton, with her silly smile. And what a vile, sloven diction!" All this, though, as biographer Lakshin noted, was exactly why the actress was admired by the majority of the Moscow theatre audience.[4]

Premiers

The play was premiered in Moscow's Bolshoi Theatre on January 14, 1853 and had great success. It was received rapturously even by Ostrovsky's detractors like Vasily Botkin. The second and the third performances were even better, both Kositskaya and Sadovsky (as Rusakov) shone, and, as Lakshin put it, this was the birth of what was later termed as 'Ostrovsky's theater', the "union of the drama and the artists". The play that season was also shown 12 times in the Bolshoy.[4]

In early February 1853 Ostrovsky went to Petersburg for the first time. Here he was received by Alexander Gedeonov, the director of Imperial theaters and became friends with actor Fyodor Burdin, not the most gifted but certainly one of the most intelligent and well-informed, and certainly the richest of his colleagues. It was Burdin who's earlier obtained the permission for The Young Man’s Morning’s production in the capital, which was premiered on February 12, 1853 in the Circus Theater. On February 19 Stay in Your Own Sled premiered in Alexandrinka [Alexandrinsky Theatre]. Again it was a success although the actors' work was less inspired and more formulaic than that of their Moscow colleagues. Ostrovsky had to leave the capital before the play's premiere after having received the news of his father's dying. Meanwhile, one of the shows in Alexandrinka was attended by Tsar Nikolai I himself who appeared to be greatly impressed, having construed the play's message as that "children should follow their parents' advices, otherwise, everything's ruined". Addressing to Gedeonov and his own entourage, he pronounced: "There's been not many plays which would have given me such pleasure. He added in French: "Се n'est phis une piece, c'est une lecon." Next evening he brought his whole family to the theater.[4]

In March 1853 the play was published in March (No.5) issue of Moskvityanin and later that year came out as a separate edition. Several years later, formulating the play's idea, Nikolai Dobrolyubov wrote in "The Realm of Darkness" essay:

The main idea of the play is that samodurstvo [petty domestic tyranny], no matter how meek or even tender forms it might take, still leads to the loss of individuality of a person who'd been subjected to it. All this de-individualisation is killing in a person both consciousness and reason. So under the samodurstvo's influence a person can unwillingly commit any kind of crime and perish - just for the lack of reason and character.[4]

References

  1. ↑ Sophia Lubensky, Random House Russian-English Dictionary of Idioms (Random House, 1995; ISBN 0679405801), p. 584.
  2. ↑ ru: А. Н. Островский и Малый театр
  3. ↑ ru: Сайт Малого театра
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5 4.6 Lakshin, Vladimir (1982). "Alexander Nikolayevich Ostrovsky". Iskusstvo, Moscow. Life in Art series. Retrieved 2012-03-01.
  5. ↑ Ostrovsky’s letter to M.Pogodin, November 19, 1852, Lenin’s Library collection, 1939, IV, p.16