The Kreutzer Sonata: A Play in Four Acts

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This play, adapted from Leo Tolstoy’s classic 1890 novel of the same name, focuses on the relationship between a husband and wife–Poznichev and his spouse, Laura. Poznichev gradually talks himself into believing that his young wife is having an affair with a friend of the family, in a sinister form of wish fulfillment. His insane jealousy destroys not just their relationship, but also each other. In the end he becomes a kind of Russian Othello, murdering the one he loves. The story gave Tolstoy–who was plagued with a troubled marriage of his own–an opportunity to express his view that chastity is the only proper relationship between men and women–that intimacy between men and women always results in social disaster, and that mankind can only perfect itself by rejecting sex altogether. His view was not widely adopted!