Arcola Theatre and KP Productions

The Lower Depths

by Maxim Gorky, translated by Jeremy Brooks and Kitty Hunter-Blair

Directed by: Helena Kaut-Howson

“The truth is a blade that can turn.”

Out of sight and out of mind, Russia’s lost souls spend their days in squalor. Hope can be found in a drink or a dream. But when reality is ignored, how can it be changed?

Visceral, fierce, stark and often funny, The Lower Depths pushes at the limits of the human spirit and reveals a society at breaking point.

Having shocked audiences right across Europe, Maxim Gorky’s masterful portrait of the disenfranchised and left-behind became one of the most celebrated and influential plays of the 20th century.

For this major and timely new production, internationally-acclaimed director Helena Kaut-Howson returns following her productions of Platonov: Sons Without Fathers, Uncle Vanya and Yerma at Arcola, King Lear at the Young Vic and A Tender Thing at the RSC.

Arcola’s Revolution Ensemble perform the play, prior to Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard, on the 100th anniversary of the Russian Revolution.