He Who Gets Slapped

He Who Gets Slapped (Russian: Тот, кто получает пощёчины, romanized: Tot, kto poluchayet poshchochiny) is a play in four acts by Russian dramatist Leonid Andreyev; completed in August 1915 and first produced in that same year at the Moscow Art Theatre on October 27, 1915. Immensely popular with Russian audiences, the work received numerous stagings throughout the Russian-speaking world in the two decades after its premiere, and then later enjoyed a resurgence of popularity in the 1970s and 1980s in Russian theaters.The work is still part of the dramatic repertory in Russian-speaking countries. While well-liked by the public, critical reaction to the work was initially negative in Russia. It was later reevaluated as a masterwork of Russian drama, and is regarded as Andreyev's finest achievement among his 25 plays.

The play is representative of Andreyev's "panpsyche theatre" in which the plot focuses on developing the internal, psychological and intellectual aspects of characters over external action.^[1] Set inside a circus within a French city, the play's main character is a mysterious 39-year-old stranger (referred to as "He"; Russian тот, tot, "that one") whose name is never revealed to the audience.^[1] "He" is fleeing a failed marriage and joins the circus as a clown. "He" falls in love with the horse rider Consuelo, the daughter of Count Mancini. The Count pushes Consuelo into marrying Baron Regnard for financial gain. "He" poisons Consuelo, Baron Regnard commits suicide in despair, and then "He" drinks the poison himself at the end.