Ekatérina Ivanovna, Requiem

Ekaterina Ivanovna (of which my translation, published by Corti, had long been unavailable) is a so-called realist, psychological play: performed in December 1912 at the Moscow Art Theater, it's the slow shipwreck of a woman in a society that can only go under, a play of uncompromising cruelty and violence.

Requiem, performed at the end of 1916, is Andreyev's last play, and is, in fact, a requiem for his entire theater: the phantom performance of a phantom play, given by actors who seem to be shadows to an audience of painted figurines. A strange, agonizing play, like the last cry of a world that is engulfing itself.