Unpublished play adapted from Tolstoy’s masterpiece for the London stage where it premiered at the Ambassador’s Theatre in December 1913. The playwright John Pollock’s wife, Lydia Yavorska, previously Princess Bariatinsky, played the tragic heroine for the premier and we have here an inscribed copy of that script which was annotated for dramatic use by Yavorska’s successor in the role of Anna: ‘To Barbara Couper. It is to the soul of Anna Karenina that my play should be dedicated; but since her soul has passed into you, it is your name, Barbara, that I write on this page. John Pollock.’ Pollock’s first Anna, his wife Lydia, had died in 1921 and the transfer of this dedication was clearly an emotional moment for the author. The second volume is a heavily annotated prompt copy of Act IV of the play which was much lauded in its 221 performance London run and transferred to Edinburgh and other locations before being revived in 1943.
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION:
Quarto sized carbon copy typescript bound in black card wrappers with coffee mug stains; inscribed by Pollock to Barbara Couper and with a crossed out ownership label of ‘Edward Stirling’ in Dolphin Square, London. Barbara Couper has signed her name in pencil over Pollock’s inscription. The typescript is extensively annotated by Couper; all stage directions have been underlined in red with pencilled annotations around Anna’s part making adjustments to the text as well as adding additional guidance.
Act IV is a little larger in size, labelled as ‘Prompt Copy [crossed out] Anna Karenina Act IV’, noted as Pollock’s property over leaf; title page and ff23, carbon copy typescript on verso of Ambassadors Theatre headed paper. This revised version of the denouement is itself elaborately altered and annotated by Pollock himself, paying particular attention to the moments in the railway station leading up to the death of Anna herself.
PRODUCTION EPHEMERA relating to 1943 revival:
1 Certificate of the US Copyright Office, 1943
2 Q Theatre, Chiswick, 1943 Contract between Jack Leon and Pollock for performance of the play.
3 Additional correspondence relating to this production with Eric Glass
This adaptation of ANNA KARENINA was the product of the driving ambition of Lydia Yavorska to play Anna on the stage. In her Russian days she was a friend to Tolstoy and mistress to Chekhov, being immortalised as Arkadina in the Seagull. In London she was not yet married to Pollock when he accepted the commission to adapt Tolstoy’s novel for the stage, becoming a fashion icon, defying the Bolsheviks and campaigning for women’s suffrage in her spare moments. After their marriage the couple travelled to Russian in 1916 to give aid on the Eastern front before fleeing the Bolshevik revolution that ensued.