[KAZAKH THEATER] Uchenik d'iavola [i.e. The Devil's Disciple]

Alma-Ata [Almaty]: Kn.-zhur. tipogr. NKMP, 1936. 3 pp. 22,5x16 cm. A leaf folded in half with letterpress design on front side. Lower and outer edges chipped, small water stains on lower edge, few minor wormholes along spine, otherwise very good.
One of 1500 copies. Extremely rare program pamphlet of a Soviet Kazakh theater of the period of Yangalif alphabet.
Paradox drama 'The Devil's Disciple' was staged at the Russian Drama Theater of the Almaty City Council in 1936. This Russian theater was founded by Yuri Rutkovskii (1891-1970) in 1933. Working earlier in different Russian and Soviet Asian theaters, he stayed in Almaty and was an administrative and art director of a local Russian theater until 1939. Apart from that, he taught in the Almaty theatrical college in 1937-1939. Shaw's play was staged by director R. Lenogorskaia. Stage and costume designs were produced by artist Igor Bal'khozin (1913-1988) who designed overall 170 performances of this theater in 1934-1986. Music for performance was created by violinist Iosif Lesman (1885-1955) who then taught in the Almaty conservatory in 1935-1951.
A program for this performance lists a cast in Kazakh and Russian languages, has a bilingual cover design, but credits other employees of the theater in Russian only. Just like other Turkic languages on the territory of the Soviet Union, Kazakh language was switched to the Latin alphabet Yangalif replacing Arabic script. Soviet plans of latinisation were cancelled in 1939 and the Soviet Turkic languages used Cyrillic script later.
In all, the rarity of the early years of Soviet reforms and an interesting example of 1930s Almaty ephemera.