Mamont Dalskii

(real surname, Neelov). Born 1865 in Kantemirovka, now in Poltava Oblast; died June 21, 1918, in Moscow. Russian actor.

Dal’skii was born into the family of a landowner. Beginning in 1885 he played in theaters in Vilnius, Rostov, and Novocherkassk. From 1890 to 1900 he was an actor of the Aleksandrinskii Theater in St. Petersburg. His acting was noted for its spontaneity as well as simplicity and naturalness. Dal’skii was best suited for roles of heroes driven by strong unbridled passions, persecuted by society and locked with it in sharp irreconcilable conflict. His best roles were Chatskii in Griboedov’s Woe From Wit, Neznamov in Ostrovskii’s Guilty Without Guilt, Rogozhin in the play after Dostoevsky’s The Idiot, Hamlet and Othello in Shakespeare’s plays, and Karl Moor in Schiller’s The Robbers. After 1900, Dal’skii toured, working in various provincial and capital theaters.