About the work
Fairy-tale play by Yevgeny Schwartz, based on motifs from Hans Christian Andersen's story "The Shadow," written between 1937 and 1940 in collaboration with director Nikolai Akimov. It premiered on 12 April 1940 at the Leningrad Comedy Theatre but was soon withdrawn from the repertoire because of its political undertones.
Plot
In an imaginary land, the naive scholar Christian-Theodore falls in love with a princess and, half in jest, sends his own shadow to court her on his behalf. The shadow takes on a life of its own, supplants its former master through lies and intrigue, and rises to become king-elect. Only when the powerless Christian is publicly exposed and nearly executed does fortune turn, forcing the shadow to flee.
Cultural significance
Behind its fairy-tale surface, "The Shadow" deals with betrayal, opportunism and the abuse of power, and Soviet censors accordingly read it as commentary on their own time. After decades of absence from the stage, the play returned to Soviet theatres in the 1960s and has since become one of Schwartz's most frequently performed works.