Variations on the Death of Trotsky

Last updated

Variations on the Death of Trotsky is a short one-act comedy-drama written by David Ives for the series of one-act plays titled All in the Timing . [1] The play fictionalizes the death of Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky through a number of distinct variations, though all from the same, historically accurate cause: a wound to the head by an ice axe —referred to in the play as a "mountain-climber's axe", for comic effect, to distinguish it from an icepick. [2]

Contents

Overview

While keeping with the tradition and style of Ives's plays of taking an odd conceit and playing it for laughs as the audience finds its feet before giving the big payoff, Variations is distinguished, along with Words, Words, Words and Philip Glass Buys a Loaf of Bread in that, while it begins comically, it may end either comically or dramatically, depending on the production. It is unique in that, of all of his works, it calls the most for an unexpectedly tragic, sentimental ending. Arguably, it is also Ives' only piece centered around a single character (while Philip Glass Buys a Loaf of Bread could be similarly considered, in fact the majority of that play is an ensemble piece).

Synopsis

The play is divided into eight scenes or "variations", each depicting a differing final moment of Trotsky's life and making satirical allusions to soap opera conventions, The Honeymooners , and Act 5, Scene 1 from Hamlet. True to its title, the play calls for Trotsky to die at the end of each scene, and then continues on (after the ring of a bell) from near where the last scene left off, usually progressing the story a bit further each time. Since the play takes place on the day of Trotsky's death (one day after the attack) Trotsky is depicted throughout the show with a mountain-climber's axe sticking comically out of his skull (not an icepick, as is made clear a number of times). Though this is apparent to the audience from the very beginning, Trotsky himself does not realize that the axe is there until his wife, known only as Mrs. Trotsky, comes in with an encyclopedia from the future which tells of Trotsky's demise. The third and final character is introduced near the end of the play: Ramon Mercader, the Spanish assassin who "smashed, not buried" the axe into Trotsky's skull. Trotsky has a deep fear of icepicks, and is taken aback when he finds that his fear should have been directed towards mountain-climber axes.

After seven essentially comedic variations, the eighth involves Trotsky seeing Mercader out of the house in a civil manner, with Ramon—having posed as a gardener—revealing that he actually did perform some gardening on Trotsky's property and requesting that Trotsky go outside to admire his nasturtiums. Trotsky then comes to grips with the facts of his impending demise, settling affairs with his wife, pondering the nature of man and humanity ("So even an assassin can make the flowers grow") and reciting some future events that he will never live to know about. Finally he declares that he is in his "last room", though Mrs. Trotsky tries to explain that he is, in fact, unconscious in a hospital. Trotsky accepts that he is fortunate just to have lived for another day after the attack—that this seems to be symbolic of some sort of hope concerning human life. He decides to go look at the garden that Ramon had tended to, but before he can, he dies for the final time.

Productions

Variations on the Death of Trotsky was originally presented in January 1991 [3] at the Manhattan Punch Line Theatre (Steve Kaplan, artistic director), in New York City as part of its annual Festival of One-Act Comedies. It was directed by Jason McConell Buzas, and stage managed by David Waggett. The set design was by Vaughn Patterson; the costume design was by Sharon Lynch; the lighting design was by Patt Dignan. The cast was as follows:

Variations on the Death of Trotsky was performed as part of the Ives' six one-act plays All in the Timing Off-Broadway at Primary Stages in December 1993 and revived in 2013. [4]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ramón Mercader</span> NKVD agent and assassin of Leon Trotsky (1913–1978)

Ramón Mercader, was a Spanish Communist and NKVD secret agent who assassinated the revolutionary Leon Trotsky in Mexico City in August 1940. Mercader was imprisoned for 19 years and 8 months in Mexico for murdering the exiled Russian Communist with an ice axe.

Comic timing or comedic timing emerges from a performer's joke delivery: they interact with an audience—intonation, rhythm, cadence, tempo, and pausing—to guide the audience's laughter, which then guides the comedic narrative. The pacing of the delivery of a joke can have a strong impact on its comedic effect, even altering its meaning; the same can also be true of more physical comedy such as slapstick. Comic timing is also crucial for comedic video editing to maximize the impact of a joke, for example, through a smash cut.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Frederick Lonsdale</span> British playwright (1881-1954)

Frederick Lonsdale was a British playwright known for his librettos to several successful musicals early in the 20th century, including King of Cadonia (1908), The Balkan Princess (1910), Betty (1915), The Maid of the Mountains (1917), Monsieur Beaucaire (1919) and Madame Pompadour (1923). He also wrote comedy plays, including The Last of Mrs. Cheyney (1925) and On Approval (1927) and the murder melodrama But for the Grace of God (1946). Some of his plays and musicals were made into films, and he also wrote a few screenplays.

David Ives is an American playwright, screenwriter, and novelist. He is perhaps best known for his comic one-act plays; The New York Times in 1997 referred to him as the "maestro of the short form". Ives has also written dramatic plays, narrative stories, and screenplays, has adapted French 17th and 18th-century classical comedies, and adapted 33 musicals for New York City's Encores! series.

All in the Timing is a collection of one-act plays by the American playwright David Ives, written between 1987 and 1993. It had its premiere Off-Broadway in 1993 at Primary Stages, and was revived at Primary Stages in 2013. It was first published by Dramatists Play Service in 1994, with a collection of six plays; however, the updated collection contains fourteen. The short plays are almost all comedies, focusing mainly on language and wordplay, existentialist perspectives on life and meaning, as well as the complications involved in romantic relationships. High-school and college students frequently perform the plays, often due to their brevity and undemanding staging requirements.

<i>Crime Classics</i> American radio docudrama series (1953–1954)

Crime Classics is a United States radio docudrama which aired as a sustaining series over CBS Radio from June 15, 1953, to June 30, 1954.

Charles Olney Cornell was an American Communist.

Sure Thing is a short comic play by David Ives featuring a chance meeting of two characters, Betty and Bill, whose conversation is continually reset by the use of a ringing bell, starting over when one of them responds negatively to the other. The play was first produced in 1988, and was published in 1994.

Philip Glass Buys a Loaf of Bread is a one-act play by David Ives, published as part of his 1994 All In The Timing collection.

Words, Words, Words is a one-act play written by David Ives for his collection of six one-act plays, All in the Timing. The play is about Kafka, Milton, and Swift, three intelligent chimpanzees who are put in a cage together under the experimenting eye of a never seen Dr. Rosenbaum, a scientist testing the hypothesis that three apes hitting keys at random on typewriters for an infinite amount of time will almost surely produce Shakespeare's play Hamlet. The show's title is a phrase quoted from Hamlet. The performance comprises the ape characters humorously confronting and conversing with each other in order to understand the purpose of the exercise put upon them.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mark Zborowski</span> American anthropologist and spy (1908–1990)

Mark Zborowski was an anthropologist and an NKVD agent. He was the NKVD's most valuable mole inside the Trotskyist organization in Paris during the 1930s and in New York during the 1940s.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nahum Eitingon</span> Soviet intelligence officer (1899–1981)

Nahum Isaakovich Eitingon, also known as Leonid Aleksandrovich Eitingon, was a Soviet intelligence officer, who gained prominence through his involvement in several NKVD operations, including the assassination of Leon Trotsky, the orchestration of partisan movements during World War II, and atomic espionage. He has been described by Yevgeny Kiselyov as one of the organisers and managers of the state terrorism system under Joseph Stalin and later a victim thereof. He may have been a great-cousin of Max Eitingon, though this has been disputed.

Censorship of images was widespread in the Soviet Union. Visual censorship was exploited in a political context, particularly during the political purges of Joseph Stalin, where the Soviet government attempted to erase some of the purged figures from Soviet history, and took measures which included altering images and destroying film. The USSR curtailed access to pornography, which was specifically prohibited by Soviet law.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Christian De Sica</span> Italian actor and director

Christian De Sica is an Italian actor and film director.

Artists' Repertory Theatre (ART) is community theatre group based in Fresno, California. Founded in 2005, the group's maiden performance took place in 2006, with the critically acclaimed Love's Fire. In 2009, ART produced the Fresno premier of the Pulitzer Prize–winning Rabbit Hole, by David Lindsay-Abaire, and caused a local stir with the Fresno premier Richard O'Brien's The Rocky Horror Show.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Play (theatre)</span> Dramatic literary form

A play is a form of drama that primarily consists of dialogue between characters and is intended for theatrical performance rather than mere reading. The creator of a play is known as a playwright.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Leon Trotsky House Museum</span> House museum in Mexico City

The Leon Trotsky House Museum, Trotsky Museum, or Trotsky House Museum, is a museum honoring Leon Trotsky and an organization that works to promote political asylum, located in the Coyoacán neighborhood of Mexico City. Its official name is Instituto del Derecho de Asilo - Museo Casa de León Trotsky.

The Universal Language is a short comedic play written by David Ives. The play is part of the collection of plays called All in the Timing. The show features two characters, Don and Dawn. Don is a con artist trying to swindle customers into learning a fraudulent language, Unamunda, and Dawn is a shy 28-year-old woman with a stutter. Through the course of the play, Don and Dawn learn about each other and themselves, and fall in love.

Joseph Leroy Hansen was an American Trotskyist and leading figure in the Socialist Workers Party.

<i>The Man Who Loved Dogs</i>

The Man who Loved Dogs is a novel by Leonardo Padura and involves the complex political narratives that surround the assassination of Leon Trotsky by Ramon Mercader. The novel was a finalist for the Book of the Year Award in Spain. It was originally published in 2009 by Tusquets Editors, Spain. It has been translated into English by Anna Kushner. The english translation was published in the U.S. in 2014 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Padura’s novel traces the saga of Trotsky’s 11-year flight from Stalin; the recruitment and creation of an assassin in the form of Catalan communist Ramón Mercader; and the marginalization of Iván Cárdenas Maturell, a Cuban novelist who learns early in his career the hazards of writing in his homeland.

References

  1. ↑ "All in the Timing, Six One-Act Comedies" dramatists.com, accessed February 8, 2014
  2. ↑ Andrucki, Martin." 'All in the Timing' Study Guide" Archived 2014-02-22 at the Wayback Machine thepublictheatre.org, November 1995, accessed February 8, 2014
  3. ↑ Ives, David. Variations on the Death of Trotsky All in the Timing: Six One-act Comedies, Dramatists Play Service, Inc, 1994, ISBN   0822213966, pp 85ff
  4. ↑ Lipton, Brian Scott. "Reviews. 'All in the Timing' " theatermania.com, February 12, 2013


This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.