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  • The Suicide
    Cover photo compliments of the Goodman Theater

    The Suicide

    Nikolai Erdman, adapted by Richard Nelson
    Acting Edition$11.95
    ePlay$15.00 + $10.00 per additional user
    Performance Rights

    Play Description

    An unemployed “little man” contemplates suicide and is besieged by discontented groups wanting him to turn his suicide into a gesture on their behalf.

    Production Info

    Cast: 24 total (9 female, 15 male)
    Full Length Comedy (about 120 minutes)
    Multiple Sets
    Contemporary Costumes
    Categories: The Plays, Classics Tags: Russian
    • Reviews
    • About the Author(s)
    • About the Book
    • Special Notes

    Press Quotes

    “More than a half a century ago, Russian playwright Nikolai Erdman came up with a comic cure for political headaches: THE SUICIDE. It gave Joseph Stalin a pain and Erdman got twenty years in a Siberian work camp. But a strikingly American adaptation of Erdman’s political farce is proving just the pill for election-year depression. Playwright Richard Nelson’s rollicking, larger-than-life adaptation of the 1920’s Russian script explodes with laughter.” —Jack Lesar, UPI

    Author(s)

    • Nikolai Erdman

      Nikolai Erdman (1900 – 1970) was a Soviet playwright and screenwriter primarily remembered for his work with the director Vsevolod Meyerhold in the 1920s. His plays, notably THE SUICIDE (1928) form a literary link between the satirical work of the great Russian writer Nikolai Gogol, and the post-WWII sensibility of the Theatre of the Absurd. Erdman's masterpiece had a tortuous production history. Meyerhold's attempts to stage the play were thwarted by Soviet authorities. The Vakhtangov Theatre also failed to overcome censorship difficulties. At last Konstantin Stanislavsky sent a letter to Joseph Stalin, in which he compared Erdman to Gogol and cited Maxim Gorky's enthusiasm for the play. The permission to stage the play was granted, only to be revoked on the very eve of the premiere. Erdman was arrested in 1933 on political grounds, exiled to Siberia, and spent the rest of his years outside theatrical circles, writing slight screenplays for children's films. It was not until 1990, twenty years after Erdman's death, that THE SUICIDE was finally produced in Moscow at Yuri Lyubimov's famed Taganka Theatre

    • Richard Nelson

      Richard Nelson's plays include the four-play series, THE APPLE FAMILY (THAT HOPEY CHANGEY THING, SWEET AND SAD, SORRY, REGULAR SINGING (Nominated for Outstanding Play in Drama Desk Awards 2014; Public Theater, 2010 – 2013), NIKOLAI AND THE OTHERS (Lincoln Center Theater, 2013), FAREWELL TO THE THEATRE (Hampstead Theatre, 2012), HOW SHAKESPEARE WON THE WEST, (Huntington Theater, 2008), CONVERSATIONS AT TUSCULUM (Public Theater, 2008), FRANK'S HOME (Goodman Chicago, Playwrights Horizons, 2007), RODNEY'S WIFE (Playwrights Horizons, 2004), WHERE I COME FROM (National Theatre Connections), MADAME MELVILLE (which ran in the West End starring Macaulay Culkin and Irene Jacob and opened in May 2001 Off-Broadway); GOODNIGHT CHILDREN EVERYWHERE (winner of Olivier Award for Best New Play, 2000), KENNETH'S FIRST PLAY (with Colin Chambers, RSC), THE GENERAL FROM AMERICA (at the RSC and the Lucille Lortel Theatre, New York), NEW ENGLAND (RSC and Manhattan Theater Club), MISHA'S PARTY (with Alexander Gelman, RSC and Williamstown Theater Festival), TWO SHAKESPEAREAN ACTORS (Tony nomination for Best Play, RSC and Broadway), COLUMBUS AND THE DISCOVERY OF JAPAN (RSC Barbican), SOME AMERICANS ABROAD (Olivier nomination, Best Comedy; RSC, Lincoln Center and Broadway), LEFT, BETWEEN EAST AND WEST (Hampstead), PRINCIPIA SCRIPTORAE (winner of Time Out Award, RSC and Manhattan Theater Club), THE RETURN OF PINOCCHIO, AN AMERICAN COMEDY, BAL, CONJURING AN EVENT, RIP VAN WINKLE, JUNGLE COUP, THE KILLING OF YABLONSKI, THE VIENNA NOTES (Obie Award). His musicals include JAMES JOYCE'S THE DEAD (starring Christopher Walken and Blair Brown; Playwrights Horizons, Belasco Theatre, Broadway, Ahmanson Theatre, Los Angeles, Kennedy Center, Washington; for which he received a Tony Award in 2000 for Best Musical Book), CHESS (the book for the Broadway musical), PARADISE FOUND (dir: Harold Prince and Susan Strohman), MY LIFE WITH ALBERTINE (with Ricky Ian Gordon; Playwrights Horizons), UNFINISHED PIECE FOR A PLAYER PIANO (with Peter Golub). His translations and adaptations include TYNAN starring Corin Redgrave (with Colin Chambers, RSC and West End), LOLITA with Brian Cox (National), Molnar's THE GUARDSMAN (Kennedy Center), Carriere's THE CONTROVERSY (Public Theater), Fo's ACCIDENTAL DEATH OF AN ANARCHIST (Broadway), Strindberg's THE FATHER with Frank Langella (Broadway) and MISS JULIE (Yale Rep), Beaumarchais' THE MARRIAGE OF FIGARO (the Guthrie and Broadway); Molière's DON JUAN, Ibsen's WILD DUCK and ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE, Pirandello's ENRICO IV, Goldoni's IL CAMPIELLO, Erdmann's THE SUICIDE. With the esteemed translators Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky, he was co-translated Chekhov's THE CHERRY ORCHARD, Gogol's THE INSPECTOR, Turgenev's A MONTH IN THE COUNTRY and Bulgakov's DON QUIXOTE. Films: Hyde Park on Hudson, staring Bill Murray and Laura Linney (Dir: Roger Michell), Ethan Frome, starring Liam Neeson (Dir: John Madden); Sensibility and Sense, staring Elaine Stritch and Jean Simmons (Dir: David Jones). Television: The End of a Sentence with Edward Herrmann (Dir: David Jones). Radio Plays include: HYDE PARK ON HUDSON, LANGUAGES SPOKEN HERE (Giles Cooper Award), EATING WORDS (Giles Cooper Award), ADVICE TO EASTERN EUROPE, AN AMERICAN WIFE (all BBC).

    Book Information

    Publisher BPPI
    Publication Date 6/1/2000
    Pages 96
    ISBN 9780881451733

    Special Notes

    If original stage producers credits appear in bold below, all licensees are required to include them in the following form on the title page in all programs distributed in connection with performances of the Play and in all advertising in which the full cast appears in size of type not less than ten percent (10%) of the size of the title of the Play:

    Originally produced by the Goodman Theater, Chicago

    In addition, the following must appear within all programs distributed in connection with performances of the Play:

    The Suicide is produced
    by special arrangement with Broadway Play Publishing Inc, NYC
    www.broadwayplaypub.com

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