"One Hundred Thousands" is a tragicomedy in four acts by Ivan Karpenko-Kary , whose main theme is satire on human greed. The play was written in 1889 . Her theme was continued in another comedy Karpenko-Kary " The Master ". The genre of the play “One Hundred Thousands” is defined as a satirical tragicomedy of characters, because in the work an excessive thirst for enrichment is ridiculed - a defining character trait of the main character Gerasim Kalitka.
Ivan Karpenko-Kary approved the genre of comedy in Ukrainian literature as a universal form of artistic reflection of life, showing the most diverse manifestations of relationships between people, their inner world in the context of national and universal values.
Content
Story
The main character of the play is Gerasim Nikadimovich Kalitka, a rural rich man. At the beginning of the play, he meets an unknown Jew who offers him a fraud - to buy 100 thousand fake rubles , paying only five thousand for them. He leaves Wicket with samples of fake money, which supposedly cannot be distinguished from real ones, to check the quality of the fake. The gate itself is afraid to go to the bank with false bills, and persuades its godfather to do this. Meanwhile, another Jew, agent Gershko Mayufes, offers Gerasim a more reliable business - lend five thousand rubles to a landowner on the security of his lands. The landowner will not be able to return the money and the land will be in the hands of the Gate.
Kumovskaya trip to the city was a success. "Fake" money accepted. Then Gerasim decides to fraud in full, having received a bag of "money". However, the “money” turned out to be ordinary paper, and only on top of the bag were several packs of real notes. Having lost five thousand (in fact, at the last moment he gives three thousand instead of five), the Wicket tries to hang himself, but he is saved by the excavator Bonaventure. Recovering, the deceived “schemer” says: ““ The land of Smokvinov has disappeared! Why did you take me off the rope? Better death than such a loss "", on which the play ends.
In addition to the main line, the play also contains secondary ones, the purpose of which is to best reveal the character of the protagonist. One of the side lines is the love of the son of Kalitka Roman with the maid Matrena, whose marriage is hindered by his father. He wants to make friends with the millionaire Terenty Bubble (who later became the main character of the play The Boss ). However, when Roman visited the Bubble, they treated him like servants , which greatly disturbed his father. When the godfather returned from the city with joyful news, Wicket, wishing to secretly celebrate the event, agrees to the engagement of Roman and Motri so that there are no suspicions about the true reason for the holiday. The line of the digger Bonaventure introduces the opposite of Wicket, a dreamer who dedicated his life to getting rich in a flash, finding a buried treasure. The image of the wife of Wicket, a simple working woman, helps to show the stinginess of Gerasim - for example, he makes her walk three miles to the church, sparing horses.
Stage
- " One Hundred Thousands " (1958) - a film-performance of the Kiev Ukrainian Drama Theater. I. Franco . The director of the performance is Gnat Jura , the director of the film is Viktor Ivanov .
- In 2008, "One Hundred Thousands" staged the Kiev Theater in Podil [1] . In the role of Gerasim Gates Bogdan Benyuk .