Without a Dowry

Director-Dmitry Krymov/Дмитрий Крымов

School of Dramatic Art/Школа драматического искусства

Duration: 2hours and 40 minutes with one intermission

Dmitry Krymov:

"At the heart of the history of this" Russian Carmen ", but it is not surrounded by the romantic bullfighters and violating military regulations soldiers and strictly hierarchical and violent team of business people with strange, fictitious names, for example - Moky Parmenych and Harith Ignatyevna. This allows you to look at them as characters Russian black comedy dell'arte and Ostrovsky as the founder of a special genre in the Russian drama. "

Synopsis[edit]

In Bryakhimov, a "large city on the bank of the Volga River", after a hard, desperate year and devastated by the abrupt (and unexplained) end of her romance with a rich man (Paratov) with whom she was in love and almost worshipped, Larisa decides to marry the first man who approaches her. Karandyshev is a silly, obnoxious and vain person, but Larisa doesn't much care about that, wishing only to get away from it all and to live in the country. Suddenly, Paratov arrives and causes a stir both in the local community and in the girl's heart. It turns out he's about to marry a rich woman and now enjoys his last bachelor spree, selling ships he owns to get money to burn. He finds out Larisa still loves him and realizes that his own feelings for her are also still strong.

Karandyshev, just to show off, throws a party, inviting among others a young man Vozhevatov (Larisa's childhood friend), local millionaire Knurov (who'd earlier told Larisa's mother he'd be willing to become her daughter's 'sponsor' and take her to Paris should she feel inclined that way; the mother is quite receptive to the offer) and Paratov himself. Paratov, to punish Karandyshev for being impolite and to make Larisa see him for what he was, stages a kind of practical joke. Using his alcoholic actor friend's drinking prowess he makes the young man get drunk and make a fool of himself, prompting laugher and ridicule from the other guests. Leaving Karandyshev behind, Paratov, Knurov and Vozhevatov take Larisa out for an impromptu nightime picnic.

As the party ends, Larisa approaches Paratov and proposes marriage. She gets a straight answer: no, he won't marry her after all, for he is betrothed to that other woman. Larisa feels humiliated, betrayed and compromised. Feeling unable to return home and face her fiancé, whom she now hates, she contemplates suicide. Knurov and Vozhevatov discuss her position among themselves too; they end up tossing a coin to decide which of them will be lucky enough to take her on to a romantic trip to Paris. The older man wins, but Larisa rejects his offer. Drunk Karandyshev appears brandishing one of the Turkish pistols from his collection and implores Larisa to return home. Full of contempt, she refuses. In a fit of desperation, he draws the pistol and shoots her. Mortally wounded, she reaches for the pistol, trying to make it appear as if she shot herself, and even thanks her murderer. "You all are... good people and... I love you all," are her last words.