The Russian writer Maxim Gorky (1868-1936) had a great influence on the 20th century. for early literature and theater. His fourth play "Children of the Sun" was written in 1905. In the Petropavlovsk fortress, where M. Gorky was imprisoned after "Bloody Sunday", during which a peaceful demonstration of workers carrying a petition to the Tsar of Russia was suppressed. Nevertheless, "Children of the Sun" is probably the brightest play of M. Gorky - it contains not only the all-pervading sense of catastrophe, but also obvious nostalgia for the past and pain due to the animal nature of man. By the way, at that time M. Gorky asked the head of the Petropavlovsk fortress for permission to write a comedy.

The play tells about the Protasov family living in the province. The Protasovs, who live in a remote and quiet place, receive disturbing news about the rebelling peasants and the approaching cholera epidemic. However, the main character Protasov tries to stay as far away from the noise of the world as possible. He is a self-taught chemist who hopes that science will save humanity. Having forgotten everything in the world, even his family, Protasov immerses himself in scientific experiments, sincerely believing that the future of the world depends on him.

Protasov's childlike naivety and helpless charm at the same time reminds me of Rotmeister from A. Strindberg's "The Father", and Vershinin from A. Chekhov's "Three Sisters", sometimes also Myshkin from F. Dostoevsky's "The Idiot". From time to time Protasov, despite his high intelligence and good intentions, becomes simply comical, like that absent-minded professor from jokes. They do not know how to communicate with ordinary people, they simply cannot find a common language, as if they are from another biological species. Some of those ordinary people even try to use his naivety for their own purposes - budding businessman Nazar Avdejevich tries to persuade him to use his knowledge of chemistry to produce beer bottles, others, arousing his sympathy, simply throw money at him.

Yes, Protasov is naive - but perhaps more naive than the current people, the hermetic elite, who close themselves in the "bubbles" of social networks from impending calamities. In general, the entire pre-catastrophist atmosphere of the play is eerily reminiscent of the current situation of our days.

So who are the "Children of the Sun"? The author of the play himself has answered this question precisely when reviewing "Cyrano de Bergerac" by E. Rostand. These are people "for whom fate has determined the great honor of being better and smarter than their contemporaries and the difficult responsibility of hastening the movement of the ship of life."

It is interesting that a few years before writing Children of the Sun, M. Gorkis, together with his writer friend Leonid Andreyev, had planned to write a play about an astronomer living in his own world of constellations and nebulae, at the end of which a dark mob kills him with his own telescope. It was from this idea that "Children of the Sun" was born - only with a brighter finale. And L. Andreyev remained faithful to the original plot and wrote the play "The Astronomer" a year after the performance of "Children of the Sun".

History repeats itself in cycles, and each time those who find themselves in a similar situation wonder who will win: the children of the Sun, the people of the Moon, or the Hellspawn in general.

Let's do everything to ensure that telescopes in our world are used only for their true purpose.

The play is directed by Laura Groza (Latvia), a young director in the Klaipėda Drama Theater, who has won several awards. The performances she staged in the art theaters of Liepaja and Riga have won the main awards of the Latvian theater for small ("Equus" in 2015) and large format ("Piaf" in 2014, "1984" in 2015) and for the best performance of the year (2014 Piaf, 2015 "1984").

The performance based on M. Gorky's "Children of the Sun" in the Klaipėda Drama Theater will be the first production of director L. Groza abroad.