Inga

Glevov has brought together in one factory and in one community house attached to it a group of women combining in varying proportions the old, pre-revolutionary psychology and the new Soviet attitudes. Inga, the intellectual organizer is contrasted with the clinging, softer character of Glafeera. Mera, who outwardly at least seems committed to a sexual freedom carried over from the chaotic civil-war days, is at one extreme; and Nastya, an old fashioned wife who still accepts old-fashioned beatings from her husband as the appointed scheme of God’s world, is at the other. The relations of these women to one another and their men provide the substance for a very human and revealing story, unfolded against a background of the Five Year Plan in a clothing factory. It is the transformation of Glafeera -her emancipation from the kitchen and her development into a self-reliant woman- that dominates the play. Inga is childless by choice and by physical necessity. She is a little too “manly” to be sympathetic, even to Soviet partisans of sex equality. Glafeera, in whom the mother instinct remains fresh and natural even after she is politically emancipated, is a closer approach to the author’s, and to the Soviet, ideal of a woman who is man’s equal without sacrificing the distinctive qualities of her femininity.

This event takes place at Calder Bookshop and Theatre, 51 The Cut, Waterloo, London Se1 8LF