SCENE 4 - the yard

Prepared linocut (50 x 38 cm) with grid from the TLT paint shop.

Stage with painted drop, image size: 1050 x 800 cm.

 

Props: Plate with coloured potato soup (Philipp Baumgartner) and a box of rat poison.

Boris, who is unable to sleep, reveals his lecherous character. The light in Katerina's room is still on and, as he is about to enter to perform her absent husband's marital duties, he sees the lovers take leave of one another.

 

When Sergei leaps down from the guttering, Boris catches him, calls his men and gives him a savage beating. Katerina, who has been summoned by Boris, witnesses his cruelty in powerless fury. Sergei bears the beating in silence and then passes out.

Whip-instrument and a bottle of make-up blood.

Boris orders Sergei to be locked in the storeroom while sending someone to fetch his absent son. He asks Katerina for something to eat. She brings him the mushrooms, into which she has put rat poison.

While Boris lies dying amid terrible convulsions, Katerina takes the storeroom key from him. Before he dies Boris tells the workers, who have arrived on the scene, to call the priest and accuses Katerina of murdering him. The priest, however, is convinced by Katerina's display of sorrow and makes a few commonplace remarks.