Reception (play)


Reception is a one-act comedy by Maxim Gorky. It was first published in 1910, in Sovremenny Mir under its original title. Simultaneously it came out as a separate edition under the title Children, via the Berlin-based Ladyzhnikov Publishers.
Gorky mentioned it in his 20 November 1910 letter to Mykhailo Kotsiubynsky: "I send you my Reception, perhaps it will make you smile," he wrote from Capri.

Characters

  • Prince Svir-Mokshanski, of uncertain age, balding and frail
  • Bubenhof, solid and behaves like a conqueror
  • Mokey Zobnin, of around fifty, shifty, perky and prone to fantasizing
  • Ivan Kichkin, old, fat and unhealthy
  • Pyotr Tipunov, soft-spoken and peace-loving
  • Kostya Zryakhov, a plump young man, speaks condescendingly and with unexpectedly long vowels
  • Yevstigneyka, a disheveled character with eyes of a lunatic
  • Tatyana Zobnina, a widow, stout and moving lazily
  • Marya Viktorovna, a perky and lively girl
  • Drunken passenger, Old woman with a petition, the Station master, Bykov the janitor, the Gendarme, the Telegraph man

Synopsis

Two rival families of the local merchants grudgingly unite to buy a huge plot of land from a local aristocrat, with a view to build a timber factory. The reception at the railway station astounds the Prince. He is delighted with the way how the people here admire him and are such pure and nice creatures, 'like children'. Some other locals join the party with their pleas and complaints. The celebration turns sour when it transpires that the land has just been sold, to the German man.