Untrodden paths

By Andrei Shkarubo

From the author: The author is in no way responsible for the politically incorrect actions and words of the characters in his play: it takes place in a psychiatric hospital 50 km. east of Moscow in the summer of 1985, at the start of Gorbachev’s perestroika.

To those who might view the plot as contrived and unrealistic, saying that people, finding themselves in a psychiatric hospital, are unlikely to spend their time debating at length the complex issues of philosophy, our being, and politics; thinking that in a psychiatric hospital these people are likely to be preoccupied with their own problems and sorrows, rather than the problems of the whole mankind – the author would like to remind those that the characters of his play are not normal healthy members of society, but personalities whose minds are thought to be seriously affected – which is evident from their painful, obsessive, pathological drive toward some alleged Truth; indifference toward their own fate and wellbeing; and finally total disregard for authority and state.

Gentlemen, and former comrades, too, please, be patient with my characters – they are sick people, besides, they are living in Russia – the country where the questions «who’s to blame?» and «what to do?» are inherent.