ABSTRACT
At the height of Stalinism and just before the outbreak of World War II, Evgenii L'vovich Shvarts (1896–1958) wrote a fairy tale drama that puts orphans, a prince and princess, robbers, ravens, an elk, a queen, and a storyteller on the Soviet stage. Besides this cast of traditional fairy tale characters, it was the perceived playfulness, the deep humanism, and the anti-ideological stance of Snezhanaia koroleva (The snow queen, 1938) that made the play special in these times of great ideological pressure. The audience in the Leningradskii Teatr Iunykh Zritelei, or LenTIUZ (Leningrad Theater of Young Spectators) did not miss out on these qualities. One contemporary review of the production reads as follows:
… Children's theaters have demonstrated a sense of play which evidently has been lost on many of the old, grown-up theaters…. The Theater equals performance and play. And this is, what we experience [in Snezhanaia koroleva] right from the start, from the moment the auditorium sinks back into darkness and the stage lights illuminate the curtain. At this point, the young storyteller appears, with his attractive, happy face and his appealing red beard. Snipp, snapp, snurre, purre, basiliurre! This classical nonsense formula from children's folklore is a signal, a signal of play. 1
