He Who Gets Slapped

A cultured man arrives at a European circus and asks to become a clown, taking the stage name He and building an act around being slapped for the crowd’s delight. Behind the greasepaint lies a wounded past he refuses to name, and a growing tenderness for Consuelo, the young bareback rider promised in marriage to a wealthy baron. Leonid Andreyev turns the circus ring into a stage for cruelty, longing, and the masks people wear, letting laughter and despair press against each other until the final act. First performed in 1915, the play became one of the Russian symbolist’s most widely staged works. Free PDF and EPUB editions are available here.