The role of the choir in Voloshina’s play “The Choir Is Dying”

Abstract

   The article deals with the problem of using fact in modern drama. Based on the real impressions of participants in World War I, Asya Voloshina creates a character whose remarks initially set the background of the love and death story of the principal character in the play “The Choir Is Dying”. Gradually, the chorus lines become an important part of the dialogue between the doctor and the nurse. This dialogue allows the playwright to present to the reader / viewer her own understanding of the tragedy of our time. The analysis of the play by Asya Voloshina shows the possibilities of using the verbatim technique in non-verbatim drama and demonstrates its development in modern drama not only to achieve a tragic effect, but also to present the author’s own concept of the world and man in the absence of a lyrical author’s subject and the minimized role of the remark in the play. The use of living evidence of history brings the play about the horrors of war experience closer to the classic works of the twentieth-century Russian literature. This is also proved by the analysis of Asya Voloshina’s tragedy “The Choir Is Dying”.