The Life of Man (Russian: Жизнь человека, romanized: Zhizn cheloveka) is a five-act symbolist drama by Leonid Andreyev.
[1] An allegorical play, stylized to some extent after Maeterlinck's "static" plays, it is recognized now as a dramatic summary of several important short stories and novellas by Andreyev of the 1903–1906 period ("The Wall", "The Thought", "The Life of Vasily Fiveysky"), focusing, through a set of abstract and schematic characters and scenes, upon the meaning of human life, or rather the tragic lack of it, epitomized by the mysterious Someone in Grey, the symbol of both disinterested God and desperate human mind.
Zinaida Gippius (writing under the moniker Anton Krainy) attacked the author personally, describing him as 'uncultured', 'poorly educated', 'pretentious' and thus unequal to the task he'd burdened himself with.
[4] Unlike his friend Maxim Gorky who, while praising his rebellious, anti-establishment attitude, still considered Andreyev's outlook be utterly pessimistic, the author himself insisted that his play was life-affirming.
They are totally abstract and rhetorical, the distant relatives of the Byron mysteries, seeped in through their Teutonic interpretations, written in tense, lofty, didactic manner... daubed with crude palette of black and red, no overtones allowed.