Fourteen Little Red Huts and Other Plays

By Andrei Platonov

In this essential collection of Andrei Platonov’s plays, the noted Platonov translator Robert Chandler edits and introduces The Hurdy-Gurdy (translated by Susan Larsen), The Fourteen Little Red Huts (translated by Chandler), and Grandmother’s Little Hut (translated by Jesse Irwin). Written in 1930 and 1933, respectively, The Hurdy-Gurdy and The Fourteen Little Red Huts constitute an impassioned and penetrating response to Stalin’s assault on the Soviet peasantry. They reflect the political urgency of Bertolt Brecht and anticipate the tragic farce of Samuel Beckett but play out through dialogue and characterization that is unmistakably Russian. This volume also includes Grandmother’s Little Hut, an unfinished play that represents Platonov’s later, gentler work.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Columbia University Press
• Release date: Dec 6, 2016
• ISBN: 9780231543538

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Reviews for Fourteen Little Red Huts and Other Plays

[pomo58 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This volume collects three of Andrei Platonov's plays and, most importantly for most English speakers, a contextualization which places the works in their historical and political period. While the plays are certainly able to be appreciated as general social and political statements without the background the experience is considerably richer with the history.My background is literature and not theater so I did not, on first reading, pay attention to how easy or difficult they would be to stage. Because of that I read it much as one would read a novel. It was the rereading with an eye toward staging, through my amateurish eyes, when I saw both the difficulty in doing so but also the potential for making the plays speak to contemporary times as well as the early 20th century in the Soviet Union. That said, I also acknowledge that what I can picture in my head and what can be reasonably accomplished on stage are likely very different.I would highly recommend this to students of Soviet history or literature. For the history student this is a primary document that addresses issues from how the peasants were treated to how art can sometimes circumvent authoritarian rule. For general literature or drama fans I would also recommend this though I would suggest reading it initially from the perspective of story and dialogue and not staging, then come back to it as a work written to be staged.