ABSTRACT
I The Chosen People is remembered at all today by Broadway statisticians, it is only as the play in which Nazimova, speaking in Russian, directing and acting with an obscure St. Petersburg repertory company, made her American debut many years ago. The drama was not a theatrical ‘event’ in its time — as the Moscow Art Theatre’s American premiere was years later. It received but scant attention in the press. It was ignored by the rank and file of theatregoers. And it was practically forgotten before many moons had crossed the Great White Way. Yet among the small audience who, by good fortune or necessity, attended the opening at the old Herald Square Theatre, there are a few people who still look back to the event as a theatrical landmark, not only because it introduced to America a great artist and a vivid personality but because it was the first production to point the way to a style of acting and direction, altogether foreign to the American stage, which has exerted a major influence on our theatre.
