LITHUANIA: A Drama in One Act

by Rupert Brooke

The story depicts the home of a poor family living in a valley of-LITHUANIA, an agricultural country under Russian rule. When the story opens, a rich stranger arrives in their midst for a nights rest at this poor family, the father not being at home, the mother and the daughter allow him to stay. When asked about her son, the mother tells the stranger that he had run away when he was about thirteen and that she is not sure whether she will welcome him if he ever comes back. When the father returns, the stranger reveals that he has a lot money and gold watch with him and he shows it before going to bed. The family had been under prolonged spell of poverty and misery. The strangers wealth provokes uncontrollable greed in the poverty stricken family. The parents and the daughter conspire to rob him of his valuables and kill him in his bed. They justify their decision to him by taking him for a thief. The father goes with a knife but is not courageous enough to kill the man. He wants to drink before killing him. He goes out for a drink and does not return for an hour. Meanwhile, the mother and the daughter are tired of waiting for him. The daughter takes an axe and kills the stranger ruthlessly with her mothers assistance. The vodka keeper and his son bring the father home. The shop keeper reveals that the stranger was the son of the family who had run away from home. He had now come back to share the wealth he had accumulated. However , he wished to keep his identity a secret until the following day. He wanted to give them the most pleasant and thrilling surprise of their lives. This shocking revelation leaves the mother in remorse and anguish. She said.” He kept saying MOTHER MOTHER………”

Genres: Plays

Paperback

First published January 1, 1915

About the author

Rupert Chawner Brooke (middle name sometimes given as Chaucer) was an English poet known for his idealistic war sonnets written during the First World War, especially The Soldier. He was also known for his boyish good looks, which it is alleged prompted the Irish poet W.B. Yeats to describe him as "the handsomest young man in England."

Brooke was born at 5 Hillmorton Road in Rugby, Warwickshire, the second of the three sons of William Parker Brooke, a Rugby schoolmaster, and Ruth Mary Brooke, née Cotterill. He was educated at two independent schools in the market town of Rugby, Warwickshire; Hillbrow School and Rugby School.
While travelling in Europe he prepared a thesis entitled John Webster and the Elizabethan Drama, which won him a scholarship to King's College, Cambridge, where he became a member of the Cambridge Apostles, helped found the Marlowe Society drama club and acted in plays including the Cambridge Greek Play.

Brooke made friends among the Bloomsbury group of writers, some of whom admired his talent while others were more impressed by his good looks. Virginia Woolf boasted to Vita Sackville-West of once going skinny-dipping with Brooke in a moonlit pool when they were at Cambridge together.

Brooke belonged to another literary group known as the Georgian Poets and was one of the most important of the Dymock poets, associated with the Gloucestershire village of Dymock where he spent some time before the war. He also lived in the Old Vicarage, Grantchester.

Brooke suffered a severe emotional crisis in 1912, caused by sexual confusion and jealousy, resulting in the breakdown of his long relationship with Ka Cox (Katherine Laird Cox). Brooke's paranoia that Lytton Strachey had schemed to destroy his relationship with Cox by encouraging her to see Henry Lamb precipitated his break with his Bloomsbury Group friends and played a part in his nervous collapse and subsequent rehabilitation trips to Germany.

As part of his recuperation, Brooke toured the United States and Canada to write travel diaries for the Westminster Gazette. He took the long way home, sailing across the Pacific and staying some months in the South Seas. Much later it was revealed that he may have fathered a daughter with a Tahitian woman named Taatamata with whom he seems to have enjoyed his most complete emotional relationship. Brooke fell heavily in love several times with both men and women, although his bisexuality was edited out of his life by his first literary executor. Many more people were in love with him. Brooke was romantically involved with the actress Cathleen Nesbitt and was once engaged to Noel Olivier, whom he met, when she was aged 15, at the progressive Bedales School.

Brooke was an inspiration to poet John Gillespie Magee, Jr., author of the poem "High Flight". Magee idolised Brooke and wrote a poem about him ("Sonnet to Rupert Brooke"). Magee also won the same poetry prize at Rugby School which Brooke had won 34 years earlier.

As a war poet Brooke came to public attention in 1915 when The Times Literary Supplement quoted two of his five sonnets (IV: The Dead and V: The Soldier) in full on 11 March and his sonnet V: The Soldier was read from the pulpit of St Paul's Cathedral on Easter Sunday (4 April). Brooke's most famous collection of poetry, containing all five sonnets, 1914 & Other Poems, was first published in May 1915 and, in testament to his popularity, ran to 11 further impressions that year and by June 1918 had reached its 24th impression; a process undoubtedly fueled through posthumous interest.

Reviews

[Heba · Rating 4 out of 5]

مأساة من فصل واحد تنتمي الى الأدب الانجليزي ...
لابد وأن الغريب قد خلد إلى النوم ، هل تحسبه حقاً رجلاً ثرياً أم تراه لصاً ؟؟...
تراءى للزوجة أن يقضي زوجها على الغريب ويستولوا على المال لكي يمكنهم الرحيل الى المدينة وألا يموتون جوعاً ، لكنه لم يستطع أن يفعل ذلك ؟
الابنة رأت أن الانتظار هو الجحيم ، إنها صاحبة الأيدى الخشنة ، النظرة القاسية والروح الذابلة هى من ستفعل ، ستقضي على رجل المدينة ، صاحب الأيدي الناعمة ، والنظرة الحانية والروح المرحة....
تراه حقاً كان لصاً ، أو ثرياً ، أم غائباً وقد عاد بعد مضي العديد من السنوات ؟ ..حقاً كانت مأساة مروعة 😔

[Shriya · Rating 4 out of 5]

It may be because of my partiality towards Lithuania that I am giving it a four on five rating. Others may or may not love it as much. Some of you might find it a work of plagiarism as it is a LOT like the Biblical story of the Prodigal Son. Others might think it isn't half as good as other plays and might thank the Universe that it was the only play Rupert Brooke ever wrote. However, for me this play holds a special place, primarily because I have grown up on its story. My mother told me the story of Lithuania when I was not even six years old and it has stayed with me ever since and so, when I finally found this extremely rare one act play, despite knowing the whole story, I just couldn't resist reading it.
For me Lithuaniawas more than a play and reading it was like travelling through the old, familiar roads of childhood. The whole experience was nostalgic. It reminded me of my Grandmother's house, of bonfires in the winter, of the smoke that my Grandfather's cigar. So, call it bias but here it is...a four on five!

[Ravina P · Rating 4 out of 5]

........!!;

[Marti Martinson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Quick, awesome, and very disturbing read. A simple one act play right out of Night Gallery. Enjoyed this MORE than Brookes' poetry. Would LOVE to see this play on a rainy Halloween night.

[Abhinay · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found it to be a very dramatic and disturbing short story. Having read it first as part of 12th class English, 10 years on, it still has the same gut-wrenching effect on me. This story, more than any other, has forced to me to think upon the correlation between poverty and violence. A good story to read and think upon.

[Ahmed · Rating 3 out of 5]

جيدة و ان كانت الي حد ما شبيه بمسرحية سوء تفاهم لأبير كامي في بعض افكارها

[Sally nasralla · Rating 2 out of 5]

عامل زي فيلم المجهول بتاع عزت العلايلي و نجلاء فتحي
حزين اوي

[Dhanya Jothimani · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the Tamil movies Kondraal Paavam is based on this story. I read the story after watching the movie - so, no suspense on the storyline except for a couple of changes here and there in the movie to suit the audience.

A very disturbing story - when a stranger comes to stay overnight at a home with a family of three (Mother, Father and Daughter) while on business. It's about the events that unfold at the house during the night.

One should have control over their desires irrespective of what life throws at them.

[gerda · Rating 1 out of 5]

A play, and writer, with zero ties to Lithuania. This may have just as easily been titled Sweden, Peru, Madagascar, Neptune. The one-act drama seems to say a lot more about the prejudices of this Englishman than anything about the one dimensional characters. He paints Lithuanians as poor, ugly alcoholics and brutish murderers. The plot is transparent, the geography makes no sense, and the dialogue is stale.

Only redeeming quality is that it’s over with in only 20 pages.

[syna|سينا · Rating 2 out of 5]

سبق وأن تكررت ذات الفكره فلم اشعر بالدهشه للإستماع

[linschq · Rating 4 out of 5]

baru mulai baca setelah baca ulasan singkatnya di majalah. Lalu ternyata saya beruntung karena berkesempatan membaca naskah ini. Well, ini merupakan sebuah potret kemiskinan yang diangkat dari kisah nyata di Lithuania. Hanya karena kedangan tamu misterius yang sangat kaya, mereka sekeluarga pun memutuskan untuk membunuh tamunya demi mengincar uang yang dibawa sang tamu. klimaksnya ialah ketika sang keluarga akhirnya membunuh sang tamu tanpa belas kasihan. Kejutan ada di bagian akhir. cerita yang melihat poteret kemiskinan yang dapat mengubah masyarakat menjadi begitu hina.. Ironis.

[Adhi Satya]

cool

[Hany Ramadan · Rating 2 out of 5]

تقليد لمسرحية سوء تفاهم لالبير كامو... لا شيء جديد بها...