Overview
Synopsis
Tony Kushner’s 1994 play Slavs! paints a darkly comical picture of the USSR as it crumbles in the mid-1980s through its later rebirth as a collection of independent states. Aleksii Antedilluvianovich Prelapsarianov, the world’s oldest living Bolshevik, addresses the Hall of the Soviets in 1985 on the dangers of entering a new era without first devising a system of order, or “great theory”, to guide the nation through the ensuing chaos. Along with his elderly comrades, they discuss how to rebuild life within a system, which once based on ideals, has now collapsed. The play then moves to focus on the victims of this collapse, led by a young, alcoholic lesbian, Katherina, and her lover Bonfila, a pediatrician exiled to Siberia after their relationship is discovered. There, Bonfila hopelessly struggles to treat the huge numbers of children made mute and zombie-like by the poisoning from nuclear waste. Metaphysical, personal, and political, Kushner’s follow up to Angels in America, Slavs! remains faithful to its subtitle: "Thinking About the Longstanding Problems of Virtue and Happiness".
Show Information
- Book
- Tony Kushner
- Category
- Play
- Age Guidance
- Mature Audiences (M)
- Number of Acts
- 3
- First Produced
- 1994
- Genres
- Dark Comedy, Drama
- Settings
- Period, Multiple Settings
- Time & Place
- Moscow, March 1985, Talmenka, Siberia, 1992
- Cast Size
- medium
- Ideal For
- Professional Theatre, Regional Theatre, Mostly Female Cast, Includes Young Adult, Adult, Mature Adult, Elderly, Child, Early Teen Characters, Medium Cast
Context
Plot
Characters
| Name | Part Size | Gender | Vocal Part |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Lead |
Male |
Non-singer |
|
|
Lead |
Female |
Non-singer |
|
|
Lead |
Female |
Non-singer |
|
|
Supporting |
Male |
Non-singer |
|
|
Supporting |
Male |
Non-singer |
|
|
Supporting |
Female |
Non-singer |
|
|
Featured |
Female |
Non-singer |
|
|
Featured |
Female |
Non-singer |
|
|
Featured |
Male |
Non-singer |
|
|
Featured |
Male |
Non-singer |
|
|
Featured |
Female |
Non-singer |
|
|
Featured |
Female |
Non-singer |
Songs
A song with an asterisk (*) before the title indicates a dance number; a character listed in a song with an asterisk (*) by the character's name indicates that the character exclusively serves as a dancer in this song, which is sung by other characters.
Monologues
Scenes
Key Terms
A full-time, professional functionary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union or the Soviet government apparat.
A member of the majority faction of the Russian Social Democratic Party, which seized power in the October Revolution of 1917.
A government and economic system in which people do not own individual property.
The principal policy-making committee in the former Soviet Union, founded in 1917.
The Soviet Union, officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, was a country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991
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Guide Written By:
Alexandra Appleton
Writer, editor and theatre researcher