Tadzhik Drama Theater

(full name, A. Lakhuti Academic Tadzhik Drama Theater), the largest drama theater in the Tadzhik SSR. It was founded in Dushanbe in 1929 by Tadzhik graduates of the Uzbek theater studio run by the Bukhara House of Education in Moscow. Among the founding members were the actors and directors Kh. Makhmudov, M. Saidov, and F. Umarov.

Among the first works to be staged were plays by national dramatists: Usmanov’s Struggle (1933), Ikrami’s The Enemy (1935), and Abdullo’s The Valley of Good Fortune (1936). The theater excelled in the production of heroic romantic and patriotic plays, giving memorable performances of Schiller’s Intrigue and Love (1937), Shakespeare’s Othello (1939), Ulug-zoda’s Shodmon (1939) and The Redsticks (1941), Pirmukhamed-zade and Vol’kenshtein’s Rustam and Sukhrab (1941), Ikrami’s A Mother’s Heart (1942), Ikrami and Faiko’s Nadir’s House (1943), Lope de Vega’s Laurencia (1942), and Ulug-zoda’s In the Fire (1944).

Among outstanding productions of the late 1940’s to mid-1970’s were Saodat by Saidmuradov and Rabiev (1948), The Examination (1958) and A Mother’s Verdict (1962) by Ansori, A Woman’s Will by Sidki (1961), Rudaki (1958) and The Radiant Pearl (1963) by Ulug-zoda, Dokhunda (1954 and 1957) and Singed Hearts (1967) by Ikrami, and The Call of Love by Abdullo (1975). V. I. Lenin and his comrades-in-arms were portrayed on the Tadzhik stage for the first time in Abdullo and Kiiamov’s Hurricane (1957) and Abdullo’s Flame of Freedom (1964) and Soldiers of the Revolution (1970). The theater’s repertoire also includes Russian and Western European classics, modern foreign plays, and plays by Uzbek, Azerbaijani, Bashkir, and Estonian authors.

In 1933 the theater was renamed in honor of the poet A. Lakhuti, and in 1939 it was designated an academic theater. In 1941 it was awarded the Order of the Red Banner of Labor. In 1941 and 1961 the company was replenished by graduates of the Tadzhik studio at the State Institute of Theatrical Art, and since 1973 it has drawn upon the Tadzhik Institute of the Arts. As of 1975 the company included People’s Artists of the USSR A. B. Burkhanov and T. Fazylova; People’s Artists of the Tadzhik SSR M. Vakhidov, G. Zavkibekov, and Kh. Nazarova; and Honored Artists of the Tadzhik SSR Kh. Gadoev, M. Isaeva, A. Mukham-medzhanov, B. Radzhabov, Kh. Saidakhmadov, and N. Khasanov. In 1973, Kh. Moibaliev was appointed principal director.