SEEP Vol.23 No.1 Winter 2003

volume 23, no.
l
Winter 2003
SEEP (ISSN # 1047-0019) is a publication of the Institute for Contemporary
East European Drama and Theatre under the auspices of the Martin E. Segal
Theatre Center. The Institute is at The City University of New York Graduate
Center, 365 5th Avenue, New York, NY 10016-4309. All subscription requests
and submissions should be addressed to Slavic and East European Peiformance:
Martin E. Segal Theatre Center, Theatre Program, The City University of New
York Graduate Center, 365 5th Avenue, New York, NY 10016-4309.
EDITOR
Daniel Gerould
MANAGING EDITOR
Kurt Taroff
EDITORIAL ASSISTANTS
Kimon Keramidas
Melissa Johnson
CIRCULATION MANAGER
Jill Stevenson
ASSIST ANT CIRCULATION MANAGER
Mark Ginsberg
ADVISORY BOARD
Edwin Wilson, Chair
Marvin Carlson Alma Law
Martha W. Coigney Stuart Liebman
Leo Hecht Laurence Senelick
Allen J. Kuharski
SEEP has a very liberal reprinting policy. Journals and newsletters that desire to
reproduce articles, reviews, and other materials that have appeared in SEEP may do
so, as long as the following provisions are met:
a. Permission to reprint the article must be requested from SEEP in writing before
the fact;
b. Credit to SEEP must be given in the reprint;
Two copies of the publication in which the reprinted material has appeared must be
furnished to the Editors of SEEP immediately upon publication.
MARTIN E. SEGAL THEATRE CENTER
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
Edwin Wilson
DIRECTOR
James Patrick
Martin E. Segal Theatre Center Publications are supported by generous grants from
the Lucille Lortel Chair in Theatre and the Sidney E. Cohn Chair in Theatre in the
Ph.D. Program in Theatre at the City University of New York.
Copyright 2003 Martin E. Segal Theatre Center
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Slavic and East European Performance Vol. 23, No. 1
Editorial Policy
From the Editor
Events
Books Received
ARTICLES
TABLE OF CONTENTS
"The Avram Goldfaden International Theatre
Festival in Iasi, Romania"
Beate Hein Bennett
"Jerzy Grotowski's Bright Alley"
Magdalena Hasiuk
"Nord-Ost: Tragic Nights in the Theatre"
Maria Ignatieva
"Siobodan Snajder: Playwright"
Milos Lazin
"Mickiewicz's Ballads and Romances on the
Contemporary Polish Stage"
Eileen Kiajewski
REVIEWS
5
6
7
11
12
24
34
38
46
"A Month in Another Country: 56
After Turgenev, By Friel"
Laurence Senelick
"Chekhov in Toronto for Russians and Non-Russians 60
Y ana Meerzon
3
"Fool's Mass: Theatre Group Dzieci at La Mama"
Edmund Lingan
"Janusz Glowacki's The Fourth Sister
at the Vineyard Theatre"
Meghan Duffy
Contributors
65
71
76
4
Slavic and East European Performance Vol. 23, No.1
EDITORIAL POLICY
Manuscripts in the following categories are solicited: articles of no
more than 2,500 words, performance and film reviews, and bibliographies.
Please bear in mind that all submissions must concern themselves either
with contemporary materials on Slavic and East European theatre, drama
and film, or with new approaches to older materials in recently published
works, or new performances of older plays. In other words, we welcome
submissions reviewing innovative performances of Gogo! but we cannot use
original articles discussing Gogo! as a playwright.
Although we welcome translations of articles and reviews from
foreign publications, we do require copyright release statements. We will
also gladly publish announcements of special events and anything else
which may be of interest to our discipline. All submissions are refereed.
All submissions must be typed double-spaced and carefully
proofread. The Chicago Manual if Style should be followed. Trans-literations
should follow the Library of Congress system. Articles should be submitted
on computer disk, as Word 97 Documents for Windows and a hard copy of
the article should be included. Photographs are recommended for all
reviews. All articles should be sent to the attention of Slavic and East
European PeJformance, c/ o Martin E. Segal Theatre Center, The City
University of New York Graduate Center, 365 5th Avenue, New York, NY
10016-4309. Submissions will be evaluated, and authors will be notified
after approximately four weeks.
You may obtain more information about Slavic and East European
Peiformance by visiting out website at http//web.gc.cuny.edu/mestc. Email
inquiries may be addressed to SEEP@gc.cuny.edu.
Martin E. Segal Theatre Center Journals are available online from
ProQ!lest Information and Learning as abstracts via the ProQuest
information service and the International Index to the Performing Arts.
www.il.proquest.com
5
FROM THE EDITOR
Our Winter issue, Volume 23, No. I, opens with two articles that
are concerned with the search for roots, as contemporary Eastern European
theatre seeks to define itself. Beate Hein Bennett explores the sources of
Yiddish theatre in Romania in her article about the Avram Goldfaden
International Theatre Festival in Iasi, and Magdalena Hasiuk looks at Jerzy
Grotowski's Paratheatrical Activities and Theatre of Sources, the second part
of an on-going project devoted to the study of the past and present of
Grotowski's Theatrical Research. With this article, we commemorate the
seventieth anniversary of Grotowski's birth. Maria Ignatieva reports from
Moscow on the tragic history of Nord-Ost and the play's subsequent re-
opening. Milos Lazin gives a biographical sketch of the Croatian playwright
Slobodan Snajder and looks at his work in the theatre. Eileen Krajewski
explores how Adam Mickiewicz's Ballads and Romances have been
interpreted on the contemporary Polish stage.
In our section devoted to reviews, Laurence Senelick examines
Brian Friel's version of Turgenev's Month in the Country, Yana Meerzon
discusses two Chekhov productions in Toronto, Ed Lingan considers the
Polish ancestry of Theatre Group Dzieci's Fool's Mass, and Meghan Duffy
finds the post-Chekhovian in Janusz Glowacki's Fourth Sister.
* * * * * *
Many Czech theatres are still recovering from the damages caused
by the catastrophic floods of 2002. SEEP has received the following
information about rebuilding. The AURA-PONT Agency, with the Alfred
Radok Foundation, the Association of Professional Theatres of the Czech
Republic and Theatre Institute Prague, has started a charitable collection, the
proceeds of which will be used for the reconstruction of the flooded and
damaged Czech theatres. They can be contacted at: Aura-Pont, divadelnf a
literarnf agentura, spol. s.r.o., Radliclci 99, ISO 00 Praha 5, tel. +420 2SISS
4938, +420 2SISS 3992, fax: +420 2SISS 0207, email: zaplavy@aura-
pont.cz, www.theatre.cz
6
STAGE PRODUCTIONS
New York
EVENTS
The Manhattan School of Music presented The Seagull, an opera
composed by Thomas Pasatieri with a libretto by Kenward Elmslie based on
Chekhov's play. Directed by Mark Harrison, and conducted by David
Gilbert, performances were held on December 11, 13 and 15, 2002.
Theatre Group Dzieci presented The Devils ofLoudun, an adaptation
of the historical novel by Aldous Huxley, at La Mama's Annex Theatre from
January 2 to 19. Theatre Group Dzieci also performed Fool's Mass, a peasant
masque dedicated to Jerzy Grotowski, on January 5, 12 and 19, and taught
a paratheatrical workshop titled Ritual and Transformation on January 13.
The Jean Cocteau Repertory presented Chekhov's Uncle Vanya at
the Bouwerie Lane Theatre. The production, translated by John Murrell,
directed by Eve Adamson, ran from January 10 to March 2.
From February 6 to March 2, Another Theatre Company
performed Chekhov's The Seagull, adapted and directed by Michael Kier, at
the Trilogy Theatre.
The Wooster Group restaged Brace Up!, their interpretation of the
Paul Schmidt translation of Anton Chekhov's Three Sisters. Performances
ran from February 19 to March 16 at St. Ann's Warehouse in Brooklyn.
The Czech-American Marionette Theatre presented Twe{fth Night,
directed by Vft Horejs, from March 6 to 16.
The Classical Theatre of Harlem will present Stanislaw Ignacy
Witkiewicz's The Crazy Locomotive, directed by Christopher McElroen, from
March 28 to April20.
7
STAGE PRODUCTIONS
United States
The Polish experimental theatre company Gardzienice performed
Metamorphosis, or The Golden Ass according to Lucius Apuleius on March 8 at
the Getty Center in Los Angeles.
STAGE PRODUCTIONS
International
Viacheslav Misin and Alexander Shaburov of The Blue Noses
Group from Siberia, Russia performed in London at Toynbee Studios on
March 1. They performed a selection of short performance works from the
series The Blue Noses, which were developed as part of a burlesque art festival
celebrating their isolation from the outside world.
FILM
New York
MOMA presented four early films by Hungarian filmmaker Bela
Tarr in a series entitled Bela Tarr: First Steps of a journey. The screening
schedule was as follows:
Oszi almanach (Almanac of Fall, 1985), February 20, 22.
Csalddu tiizflszek (Family Nest, 1978), February 20.
Szabadgyalog (77Je Outsider, 1981), February 21.
Panelkapcsolat (The Prefab People, 1982), February 21.
MOMA also screened the following three works by Eastern
European filmmakers at the Gramercy Theatre:
8
The Red and the White (1967) by Miklos Jancs6 (Hungary), January
31.
Paradox Lake (2002) by Przemyslaw Reut (Poland), February 10
Slavic and East European Peiformance Vol. 23, No. 1
Korczak (1990) by Andrzej Wajda (Poland), February 13.
OTHER EVENTS
New York
The 92nd Street Y presented The Art of the Fugitive: The Paradoxical
Life of Paul Celan, in a co-production with Nine Circles Chamber Theatre.
The performance, which interweaves the Romanian poet's poetry with
music, took place on January 13.
The Czech Center New York, The Immigrants' Theatre Project, and
The Theatre Institute, Prague presented New Czech Plays: Staged Readings in
Translation at the New York Theatre Workshop. The performances and
dates were as follows:
The Girls' Room (Pokojicek), by Jan Antonin Pitinsey, directed by
Marcy Arlin, January 13.
Tales of Common Insanity (PHblhy obycejniho fflenstvt), by Petr
Zelenka, directed by Gwynn MacDonald, February 24.
I Promised Freddy: A Collector's Unbelievable Story (Slibil jsem to
Freddymu), by Egon L. Tobias, directed by Kaipo Schwab, March
24.
It's Time for IT to Change (je na case, aby se TO zmlnilo), by Egon L.
Tobias, directed by Jaye Austin-Williams, March 24.
Minach, by Iva Volankova, directed by Marcy Arlin, April28.
The CUNY Graduate Center, in collaboration with the Martin E.
Segal Theatre Center, hosted a lecture by Macedonian theatre director and
Professor of Acting and Directing Slobodan Unkovski (see SEEP Vol. 21,
No. 1, Winter 2001) on January 24. Unkovski discussed Einstein in Athens,
the adaptation of Alan Lightman's Einstein's Dreams for the National Theatre
in Greece.
9
In Masterpieces of the Russian Underground in late January at the
Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, pianist Vladimir Feltsman and
musicians from the Chamber Music Society presented a number of
important but lesser known works by composers such as Shostakovich,
Schnittke, Andre Volkonsky and Nicolai Karentikov.
The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts presented a
series of readings, The Plays if Anton Chekhov: Translations fry Michael Frayn,
on March 10. Included were scenes from Frayn's translations of The Cherry
Orchard, The Seagull, The Sneeze, The Three Sisters, Uncle Va1rya, and Wild
Honey, directed by Lawrence Sacharow.
Compiled by Kimon Keramidas
10
BOOKS RECEIVED
Grossman, Elwira M., ed. Studies in Language, Literature, and Cultural
Mythology in Poland: Investigating "The Other." Slavic Studies, Vol. 7.
Lewiston: The Edwin Mellen Press, 2002. 327 pages. A collection of essays
dedicated to the memory of Donald P.A. Pirie. Chapter 2, "Rethinking
Representations of Otherness in Drama and Theatre," includes Halina
Filipowicz, "Othering the Kosciuszko Uprising: Women as Problem in
Polish Insurgent Discourse"; Daniel Gerould, "Witkacy's Unity in
Plurality-a World of Otherness"; Paul Allain, "Gardzienice's Performance of
Otherness"; Tamara Trojanowska, "Individuality and Otherness: Reading
Rozewicz Performing Kafka"; Agnieszka Skolasinska, "Deconstructing the
Polish Tradition in Tadeusz Rozewicz's Mariage Blanc." Includes a
photograph of Donald P.A. Pirie and a bibliography of major works written
and edited by him, as well as an index.
Lebedev, Evgenii. Velikii litsedei: Rasskazy, dnevniki, vospominaniya.
Moscow: Centrpoligraf, 2002. 522 pages. Includes stories, essays, sketches,
correspondence, reminiscence, as well as a chronology of the life and work
of Lebedev (1917-1997), bibliography, and many photographs.
Skwara, Marta, ed. Witkary w Polsce i na fwiecie. (Szczecin: Uniwersytet
Szczecinski, 2000). 456 pages. A collection of essays, growing out of an
academic conference held in Szczecin, September 15-18, 1999, and
dedicated to the memory of Anna Micinska. Includes 31 essays, 5 in
English, 26 in Polish. Also included are summaries in English and Polish, a
dictionary of the authors, an index and a list of the academic sessions.
Tabakov, Oleg. Paradoks ob aktere. Moscow: Centrpoligraf, 1999. 379
pages.
"Witkacy." Pamiflnik Literacki, Vol. XCIII, No. 4. 2002. 276 pages.
Contains 15 articles and reviews about Stanislaw Ignacy Witkiewicz and his
work.
11
THE AVRAM GOLDFADEN INTERNATIONAL
THEATRE FESTIVAL IN IASI, ROMANIA
Beate Hein Bennett
"When a city is destroyed, you can
gather the bricks and put the buildings back together; but how do you
reconstruct a culture and a language once it has been destroyed?" (Moshe
Yassur in Iasi, October 2002)
"We will leave some traces, for we are
people and not cities." (OLD MAN in Eugene lonesco's The Chairs, 1952)
In October 2002 the National Theatre Vasile Alecsandri invited
theatre artists and scholars from Romania, Israel, Germany, and the United
States to Iasi, Romania, a major city in the northeastern province of
Moldavia, for four days, October 15 to 18, on the occasion of the First
International Theatre Festival honoring Avram Goldfaden, the founder of
Yiddish theatre. Four full theatre productions (three of them in Yiddish), a
workshop production, a Klezmer concert with a combined group of German
and Roma musicians, seminars on the history of Yiddish theatre, theatre
workshops, press conferences, commemorations, tours of the city, and even
a fashion show by a very imaginative local designer filled the days and
evenings. All events and the theatre performances were well attended by
visitors and local audiences who followed the Yiddish language with the
help of simultaneous translations provided through headphones.
In October 1876, Avram Goldfaden wrote a letter to the singer
Moise Finkel containing what might be considered the Auftakt to the
Yiddish theatre:
12
Due to the fact that I am in Iasi at the moment ... at the
general request I've decided to put together a troupe with the very
best artists which I intend to organize in an European manner in
order for it to become a serious institution. Here, in lasi, will soon
be set up a permanent Jewish theatre that I was asked to manage ..
. . At the same time, I will continue writing new plays for this
theatre that will be unique in the world ... That is why I hope that,
when you receive this letter, you won't think long and you will get
here right away. Next to me, you will be here warmer than
anywhere else. We have performed in Simen Mark's garden. The
tickets were sold starting at 3 marks and 50 cents. There were never
so many spectators since the beginning of the garden ... I
That was the beginning of the Yiddish theatre, the Pomul Verde
(The Green Tree), as it came to be known, in Simen Mark's wine garden of
the same name. According to Nahma Sandrow "the story of how Goldfaden
actually came to found a Yiddish theatre in Jassy [Iasi] in 1876 has several
versions. "2 One of the more colorful ones is reported by a friend with whom
Goldfaden stayed in Iasi, where he originally wanted to start a Yiddish-
language newspaper. The friend's wife asked why he would want to start
another newspaper when the editor of the one existing Yiddish newspaper
in Romania "already starves to death seven times a day." And then she
planted the idea: "Listen to me: Jews need a theatre-that's what you should
do. Your sketch in Thejewess [one ofGoldfaden's popular ballads] was like
a play. Put it on, so we'll have a Yiddish theatre, a theatre like other people
have ... "
Starting at that point, Goldfaden, who is called the Father of
Yiddish theatre, embarked on a venture that eventually came to full bloom
in New York City, and, some would contend, in Hollywood. He himself was
not to profit much from his eventual worldwide popularity; he remained
poor, even though by the time he died in 1907 some thirty thousand
admirers followed his bier to Washington Cemetery in Brooklyn. However,
the theatre he had created found emulators and enthusiasts all over the
world. Yiddish theatre troupes were founded; the actors gained fame and
fortune; and, as Yiddish-speaking secular Jews had settled in all parts of the
world, there were ready-made audiences almost everywhere, except in Israel,
where Yiddish was associated by the native born sabras with the impotence
of the six million killed in the Holocaust and therefore largely rejected from
the official Hebrew culture. This, however, is another story, but it is worth
remembering the struggle which Yiddish-speaking survivors, and especially
actors, faced in their newly founded homeland.
Iasi is a university town with a well-known music conservatory
across the street from the National Theatre; therefore a good number of
young people attended the performances, and they responded with genuine
13
14
interest and excitement. The support for this event came from multiple
sources. Since Iasi is the capital of the province of Moldavia, and one of
Romania's oldest and the second-largest city after Bucharest, it is also the
seat of several foreign consulates and councils; thus the local and regional
institutions as well as the French, British, and German cultural centers were
partners. The Romanian Ministry of Culture supported the National
Theatre in its organizational efforts, and financial sponsorship from abroad,
notably Israel, enabled the full participation of the Israeli company
Yiddishpiel, which came from Tel Aviv with about thirty-five actors, some
of them veterans of the Pomul Verde in the late 1940s and 50s.
An institution of particular merit contributed two fully mounted
productions; the Teatrul Evreiesc de Stat (T.E.S), the Jewish State Theatre
from Bucharest, is one of the few state supported Jewish theatres outside
Israel. This theatre is a historical phenomenon; it was known during World
War II as Baraseum and from 1941 to 1944 continued to play a Jewish
repertoire with Jewish actors, albeit in Romanian, during the height of the
Holocaust.3 That is also another story and reflects only one of the many
complicated paradoxes in Romanian cultural history.
On the first day, a new sculpture marking the spot of the Pomul
Verde was officially unveiled in the park across from the National Theatre;
a bust of Avram Goldfaden had been erected nearby some years earlier. The
speeches by the Minister of Culture of Romania, the Ambassador of Israel
to Romania, the President of the Jewish Council, the Mayor of Iasi,
representatives of the community, and the cultural, artistic, and political
arenas held the assembled crowd by their emotional impact despite or
perhaps because of their multilinguality (Romanian, Yiddish, Hebrew,
English, French). A common refrain was the need for cultural encounters
and connections as symbolized by the Festival in this fractured world.
The first play, Avram Goldfaden's satire Zvei Kuni-Leml, was
presented by the Yiddishpiel &om Tel Aviv. Under the direction of Motti
Averbuch with choreographic and clowning assistance by Golan Shlomi,
young Israeli actors for whom Yiddish is a foreign language gave a broadly
comic circus-style rendering of a popular farce. The cast, dressed in a bright
mix of costume styles in bold seventies colors, literally bounded across the
stage over, through, and around a skeletal set, both designed by Ben-AriJosi.
The second and third play presentations were by T.E.S., which
maintains an active repertory of Yiddish language plays throughout the year
in its home theatre in Bucharest. For most of the ensemble of actors,
15
especially the young ones, Yiddish is a foreign language. (However, it is not
unusual for actors from European countries, especially Eastern and
Northern Europe, to perform in languages other than their native tongue.)
In order to expand the repertory of plays in Yiddish, T.E.S. frequently
presents plays from other languages translated into Yiddish (also
simultaneously translated via headphones into Romanian for the benefit of
the majority of the audience). Thus The Book of Ruth by contemporary
Argentinean/ American playwright Mario Diament and The Merchant by
Arnold Wesker were both presented in Yiddish with simultaneous
headphone translations in Romanian.
The Book of Ruth, translated into Yiddish and directed by Moshe
Y assur, was a particularly poignant and evocative production. The play is a
web of memories threading and weaving their way out of Ruth's
consciousness. Ruth has come towards the end of her life and finds that her
mind, like her attic, is a store of rejected bits and pieces of her life. In a fluid
poetic structure with four Ruths at different stages, the play interweaves
stations in her life. Shuttling from Poland in the 1930s when she was a
young girl full of artistic ambitions and in love with Max, a socialist, to her
forced (by her mother) emigration and indifferent marriage in Argentina to
Boris, a childhood friend become entrepreneur, to her love affair with
Alfredo, her children, Boris's failure in business, the play culminates in the
ruminations of her losses; the loss of her family in the Holocaust and her
own alienation and failure in achieving her dreams.
The primary Ruth was played with graceful charm and beauty by
Leonie W aldman-Eliad. (In September 1972 Harvey Lichtenstein brought
T.E.S to the Brooklyn Academy of Music where Waldman-Eliad played Lea
in The Dybbuk to great critical acclaim.)
4
She was surrounded by an
ensemble of players whose sensitive interaction, fine character delineation,
and calibrated voices created a moving piece of theatrical chamber music.
The setting and costumes designed by Irina Solomon, with lighting by
Eugen Ciocan and sound effects by Vasile Manta, supported the delicate
structure of the play and allowed the characters to emerge literally from the
cluttered emanations of Ruth's memory.
Moshe Yassur's economic translation and exacting direction
breathed an authentic life into this play, and it seemed uncannily to have
been made for that theatre, that stage, and Iasi at this time. Perhaps this
chemistry was not entirely an accident. Yassur was born in Iasi in 1934,
survived a pogrom as a child of almost seven, and acted as a child actor after
16
......
'--l
Leonie W aldman-Eliad and Nicolae Calu Garitsa in The Book
of Ruth by Mario Diament, directed by Moshe Y assur
World War II on the stages of the Pomul Verde and the National Theatre
until his own emigration to Israel in 1950.
The next evening T.E.S. performed Arnold Wesker's The Merchant
in Yiddish, under the title Shylock, directed by Grigore Gonta and starring
Maia Morgenstern as Portia, Constantin Dinulescu as Shylock, Cornel
Ciupercescu as Antonio, and most of the same ensemble that distinguished
itself in The Book of Ruth. Elegantly dressed in Venetian Renaissance
costumes by Luana Dragoescu and in a simple setting suggestive of locale,
the company presented Wesker's discourse on the social machinations of
racial prejudice as an impassioned appeal.
The third and final production of the Festival was Isaac Bashevis
Singer's story, Teibele and her Demon, adapted for the stage by Eve Friedman
and directed by the Canadian/Romanian Alexander Hausvater with the
company of the National Theatre Vasile Alecsandri Iasi. It was played in
Romanian. Blurring the boundaries between the various realities of theatre,
i.e. actor/character, rehearsal/performance, stage/theatre, Hausvater
manipulated the audience into becoming participants at the event.
The theatre lobby was made into the dressing room where actors
and audience intermingled. At a certain point the audience is invited to
enter the theatre through a narrow black veiled dark passage, obviously
alluding to a sexual passage. This set the tone for a very physical
performance in which a chorus of yeshiva boys alternately cling to and
climb the walls of their school womb, while Teibele undergoes the
paroxysms of rape by her Demon, the poor cabbalist Alchonon in the mask
of Hurmizah.
The highly expressionistic style demanded a truly awesome
athleticism of the performers; the emphasis on verticality in space and
movement, the highly sensual choreography executed with vertiginous
speed brought to the surface the immanent violence of sexual repression that
underlies the story. This was at the expense of its more delicate overtones.
The performances, especially of Do ina Deleanu as T eibele, were truly
astounding in their dynamic power. The director juxtaposed the violent
Teibele/Demon scenes with very playful loving scenes between Teibele and
her woman friend, Genendel.
The set design by Guido T ondino and Axenti Marfa played on the
oppositional chiaroscuro of passion by juxtaposing the poor confines of a
square wooden room (half is Teibele's room and half is the area of the
cabbalist's study) with Nature in the form of a fantastic tree that arches over
18
and high above Teibele; at the end the boys climb, naked as god made them,
into that tree. As a whole, the production is courageous and visually very
beautiful, but one may argue about the caricature of the sex-starved Hasid.
A very powerful one-woman show, Tata Are Lagar (My Father
Owns a Camp), inspired by the novel Nighifather by Carl Friedman and
directed by Erwin Simensen, a fifth year directing student at UATC
Bucharest, was shown in the studio space of the National Theatre in the
afternoon. The young actress Raluca Oprea together with composer Radu
Captari and musician Octavian Mardari presented a harrowing text that
delves into the soul of the children of Holocaust perpetrators once they
come face to face with the reality of their parents' dark past. Sitting together
with survivors of generations of political horror, old and young, and
listening to this solitary voice recounting her descent into memory was
deeply moving.
The previous afternoon a diversion of a light note brought a large
crowd to the main stage of the National Theatre. Originally, the whole
Megille Band from the Rocktheatre Dresden, Germany was to come.
However, only the bandleader, Detlef Hutschenreuter, and one young
saxophonist were able to come, but they received expert musical support
from a local Rom a band. The sight of Germans and gypsies playing Jewish
klezmer tunes on the stage of the lush Beaux-Arts National Theatre in Iasi,
Romania, to an audience of Romanians, Israelis, and Americans who sing
along has to be construed as a sign of civilizational progress, albeit limited
in time and space.
Workshops and lectures open to the public provided various
professional and historical insights. The eminent historian of Yiddish
theatre, Nahma Sandrow, who had come from New York, gave an overview
of Avram Goldfaden's contributions to Yiddish secular culture and theatre.
It was her first trip to Iasi, "the source," and she felt she had come to
"paradise." Moti Sandak from Israel demonstrated the launching of a new
global website, "All About Jewish Theatre," intended to be a clearinghouse
of information regarding the most varied relevant activities. Acting
workshops, one, for example, by Moshe Yassur with acting students from
the local conservatory, provided a glimpse into the work world of actor
training.
For four days, there were many opportunities for participants to
exchange ideas, impressions, and stories, although the preponderant taste by
the organizers for so-called press conferences tended to stifle the spontaneity
19
20
Moshe Yassur, director of The Book of Ruth, standing in front
of the National Theatre Vasile Alecsandri, lasi
of such exchanges. On the other hand, a forum was provided to speak
publicly about the accomplishments and anxieties that beset such unique
institutions as T.E.S. and Yiddishpiel. The directors, Harry Eliad of T.E.S.
and Shmuel Atzmon of Yiddishpiel, both spoke about the difficulty of
maintaining a company that plays in Yiddish to an audience whose first-
hand knowledge of the language and its attendant culture is diminishing or
non-existent. They also talked about the difficulty of finding a suitable
repertory and being able to compete with regular theatres for funding their
institutions. And they talked about overcoming animosity, if not latent or
open anti-Semitism, whose ominous signs are appearing again all over
Europe.
One of the most memorable events was a reception for the Festival
guests at the Jewish Community Center followed by a visit to the sole
surviving synagogue of more than one hundred before World War II. We
were welcomed to a lovely townhouse where food and drink awaited us. As
I looked around and saw the Romanian actors from T.E.S. and the Israeli
actors from Yiddishpiel, some young, some old, like Yaacov Alperin now in
his 80s, who played with the Pomul Verde in the late 1940s, standing
together, speaking and listening to a melange of Yiddish, Romanian,
Hebrew, and English, laughing with each other, I was keenly aware of the
special chemistry this moment had for all- it was a historic moment.
The concerted effort to bring about an International Theatre
Festival centered on Yiddish theatre in a city whose formerly thriving Jewish
community has been largely destroyed by the Holocaust and emigration
must be seen in historical perspective. While this Festival in 2002 was not
the first time that Avram Goldfaden was honored in Iasi as the "father" of
the Yiddish theatre, it differed in its aspiration to break beyond national
boundaries. In 1976 the National Theatre in Iasi celebrated its hundredth
anniversary by honoring Goldfaden with a T.E.S. production in Yiddish,
Firul de Aur (Golden Thread) by Israil Bercovici, with music by Avram
Goldfaden. The present general director of the National Theatre Vasile
Alecsandri Iasi, loan Holban, who spearheaded the 2002 event and who is
himself a literary scholar, clearly intends to cultivate a cultural legacy that
has contributed so much to the multicultural society that has always
constituted Romania. In a time when Romania once more is engaged in a
noisy discourse over cultural identity after a bloody revolution and
significant constitutional changes, and when chauvinistic voices for a
unicultural definition of identity are strident, it takes courage to undertake
21
such a public act of historical recovery.
Moldavia, like its neighboring regions, Bukovina to the north and
Transylvania to the west, has been for centuries home to a variety of ethnic
groups and languages. lasi, whose population in the 1920s and 30s was close
to fifty percent Jewish with a high proportion of students able to attend the
university since the emancipation of Jews in 1919, became a hotbed of anti-
Semitism which culminated in June 1941 in one of the worst pogroms
during World War II. Under the combined terror of the homegrown fascist
Iron Guard (also known as the Legion of the Archangel Michael), and the
Dictator Antonescu who allied himself with the German Nazi regime in its
campaign against Stalin's Soviet Russia, Iasi's Jewish population was
deported, killed, and suffered atrocious deprivations and degradation.s
The real dimension of the destruction became painfully palpable to
me as I visited the Jewish cemetery of Iasi. Situated on top of a long hill
overlooking the beautiful valley and vineyards that surround Iasi, the place
tells the full story. Rows upon rows of old sculptured grave stones speak of
a perhaps comfortable existence for generations; rows upon rows of white
crosses with the same family names of young men in their twenties tell the
story of the enormous losses to World War I-whenJews were drafted before
they even had citizenship. Adjacent to that field under the linden trees,
somewhat aside, and facing the Galata Monastery across the valley, we come
to four ominous rows of huge cement sarcophagi descending toward a stone
triptych. This is the mass grave for the eight to thirteen thousand killed in
the night of June 28/29, 1941 during the pogrom-the exact number could
never be established. I was grateful to the little white goat grazing in front of
the entrance in that it brought me back to the life around me, the new-found
friends from the Festival, the theatre artists who work to maintain the
creative spark and dare to kindle memory against so many odds. After all,
the community of spirit which theatre ultimately sponsors in all participants
dominated the events in a concrete way. Theatre is indeed memory work,
as Marvin Carlson elucidates in The Haunted Stage; this was never as apparent
to me as in the presence of actors and audiences who came together to evoke
the spirit of a nearly extinct culture and language and imbue it with life-
blood.
22
NOTES
1 Q!Ioted in the program notes for the Avram Goldfaden International
Theatre Festival, October 15-18, 2002.
2 Nahma Sandrow, Vagabond Stars: A World History of Yiddish Theater (New
York: Harper & Row, 1977). I am indebted to this immensely readable book
for the Goldfaden anecdotes.
3 Israil Bercovici, 0 sutd de ani de teatru evreiesc in Romania, editie revizuita si
adaugita de Constantin Maciuca (Bucuresti: Editura Integral, 1998). This
historical source book (One Hundred Years of jewish Theatre in Romania)
includes a detailed year-by-year account from 1876 until1997 of the Pomul
Verde, the T.E.S. Iasi, and the T.E.S. Bucharest.
4 Bercovici, p. 231.
5 For historical background I am indebted to two scholarly works: Irina
Livezeanu, Cultural Politics in Greater Romania: Regionalism, Nation Building,
and Ethnic Struggle, 1918- 1930 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1995)
and Radu Ioanid, The Holocaust in Romania: The Destruction ofjews and Gypsies
under the Antonescu Regime, 1940- 1944, translated from the French by Marc
J. Masurovsky (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee in association with the United States
Holocaust Memorial Museum, 2000).
23
JERZY GROTOWSKI'S BRIGHT ALLEY
Magdalena Hasiuk
Relations between space and the events which take place therein,
like the memory of place, are problems often discussed in diverse contexts.
And yet the interrelations between space and action, and by extension,
between space and time, continue to be among the most mysterious.
It is no coincidence that the first phase of the three-year long
project 'Jerzy Grotowski: the Past and the Present of the Research," entitled
"The Laboratory Theatre: Opole-Wrodaw 1959-1969," was held in the
hangars of an old factory transformed into a museum: the Museo Piaggio in
Pontedera. The space where craftsmanship and history met theatre ideally
conveyed the most important aspects of the work of the Laboratory
Theatre.
1
It was no coincidence either that most of the project's second phase
devoted to the Paratheatrical Activities and the Theatre of Sources
2
was held
in Poland at Brzezinka near Oldnica. Here at beginning of the 70s
Grotowski turned an old farmhouse and outbuildings surrounded by the
forest into the headquarters for his subsequent work on a number of
projects. No wonder that the discussions of the Paratheatrical Activities in
the space where they came into being acquired additional significance. All
the more so in that the memory of the place connected to the activities of
Grotowski's company was superimposed on an earlier memory-the old
sheepfold transformed into an exercise studio. The stone farmhouse lighted
only by a few small windows brings to mind the cave in Plato's Republic.
Engel nicht, Menschen nicht,/ und die findigen Tiere marken es schon,l dass
wir nicht sehr verlasslich zu Haus sind/in der gedeuteten Welt. 3 (Neither men nor
angels,/ and the clever animals have already marked/ that we are not very
securely at home/ in our conceptualized world.) Entering the farmhouse for
the first time, I recalled these lines from Rilke's Duino Elegy. A moment later
I reflected on the archetype of the animal and the deep layers of the human
unconscious. L'animal, qui est dans l'homme sa psyche instinctuelle, peut devenir
dangereux ( . .) L'acceptation de l'dme animate est Ia condition de !'unification de
l'individu, et de la plintitude de son ipanouissement. 4 During these cool Polish
autumn days, a blazing fire and music by the Milan Mela ensemble became
24
intertwined with recollections of activities going beyond art, whose aim was
to make contact at one of the deepest and most human of levels.
The conference "Jerzy Grotowski-the Past and the Present of the
Research: The Paratheatrical Activities 1969-1978. The Theatre of Sources
1976-1982" opened in Wroclaw with a retrospective screening of archival
films about Grotowski's activities and those of his co-workers during the 70s.
For the most part these consisted of filmed transcripts of conversations,
sessions and workshops. Nienad6wka, a very personal film made by
Mercedes Gregory in 1980 tracing the return of the already famous
Grotowski to the village of his childhood, clearly stood out. For us, the
participants at the conference, it was a journey to the beginnings.
Next morning, after the ceremony at which one of the streets in the
Wrodaw Market Place was renamed Jerzy Grotowski Alley, we left for
Brzezinka. It is worth mentioning that those who participated in the
paratheatrical activities must have followed that route many times. Now
we, the conference-goers, were covering the same ground. After our arrival
in Brzezinka, in her opening remarks Carla Pollastrelli, the co-initiator and
co-organizerS of the conference, outlined its origins and aims: "We did not
want it to be just another scholarly conference. Our aim was to build a
bridge for the new generation of theatre artists and scholars who could not
witness or participate in Grotowski's creative pursuits." She pointed out the
elements of continuity and rupture in the practice and creative thought of
the Laboratory Theatre. She stressed the fact that from the perspective of
time the most dramatic instance of rupture- as the paratheatrical activities
were considered- is now regarded as a stage in the total continuity and a
natural consequence of the earlier work. Pollastrelli also talked about the
difficulties connected with any proper assessment of that long and rich
period consisting of various projects in many different versions. This subject
was later taken up by Zbigniew Osinski. Pollastrelli also mentioned "the
present-day research" and ongoing work in Pontedera conducted by the
group under Thomas Richards's guidance. Another problem discussed from
the beginning of the session was the exact starting date of the para theatrical
activities. Ludwik Flaszen placed it in December 1970, considering the
lectures that Grotowski gave in the United States at that time as the
manifestoes of the new research.
The first meeting, in which Rena Mirecka, Ludwik Flaszen and
Zygmunt Molik took part, was moderated by Zbigniew Osinski. He
mentioned other people who had been invited to the conference but who
25
for various reasons were unable to come to Brzezinka. Osinski said that the
seminal idea for the conference came with the publication of The Grotowski
Sourcebook. 6 He pointed out the differences between the English and Polish
versions of the basic theoretical texts on the paratheatrical activities: Holiday
and The Theatre qf Sources (first published in Polish in the 70s), and the
identically titled texts in The Grotowski Sourcebook.? "The self-interpretation
of the texts made by Grotowski, who by montage-like editing completely
altered their meaning, is the most fascinating challenge for the researcher,"
Osinski commented. He also said that a book prepared by the organizers of
the conference containing texts by Grotowski and Flaszen as well as
interviews with Ryszard Cidlak, Jacek Zmyslowski, Zbigniew Cynkutis,
Stanislaw Scierski (originally published by the Polish magazines Odra and
Dialog), could not be published because Grotowski's heirs voiced objections
and would not grant permission. Focusing on the basic problem of the
seminar, Osinski posed the question: "To what extent did Grotowski
minimize the influence that his activities in the 70s had on his subsequent
work? Would the achievements in California and Pontedera have been
possible without the paratheatrical activities and the Theatre of Sources?
How can the language of experience be translated into a discursive one?"
In his long and passionate presentation, Ludwik Flaszen argued that
the 70s had been the happiest period in Grotowski's personal life and in that
of many of his co-workers. In trying to establish the origin of the
paratheatrical activities, Flaszen singled out his production of Mickiewicz's
Forifathers' Eve and his attempt to recreate a mystery drama, and he stressed
the influence of Grotowski's life-long religious sensibility. In his own texts
from the early 60s, Flaszen found the call for "a suicidal plunge into sources"
and the desire "to immerse theatre in life." (Apparently his text from the
paratheatrical period devoted to "Meditations on the Voice" was an
accurate prediction of activities developed in Pontedera many years later.)8
Flaszen also stressed how decisive an influence Grotowski's work with
Cidlak had had on the development of the paratheatrical activities,
especially as their relationship changed from director to actor to person to
person. In Flaszen's opinion, the activities in the 70s were also inspired by
the critique of the culture of the West (with its mass culture, its insincerity
different from that in totalitarian societies, its rationalism, its traditional
body-soul dichotomy, and its pragmatic thinking) that Grotowski and
Flaszen jointly undertook at that time. They lamented that Western man
did not know how to live "hie et nunc" in "the eternal present," free from
26
the demons of the past and the future. Flaszen also talked about
Grotowski's literal treatment of words which others at the time considered
metaphors; about brotherhood with all creation, about the idea of a
humanity free from original sin and living in a primal state of innocence,
which Grotowski especially longed for. The paratheatrical activities seemed
to Flaszen to be a transition from individual technique to collective
technique. It was work in a group, which was at the same time an isolated
activity. Flaszen mentioned the disappointments that occurred in
Brzezinka, emphasizing Grotowski's talent for turning all his crises into
victories. Flaszen pointed out that the paratheatrical activities were born out
of feelings of helplessness and defeat during work on Apocalypsis cum Figuris.
Another change for Grotowski in the 70s was his total abandonment of any
sort of teaching; as Flaszen explained, "he quit as a teacher of the
performer." "Likewise he left the theatre only to return to it in the end. For
as we say in Cracow, nothing doing without theatre," Flaszen concluded
half-jokingly. Trying to answer Osinski's question as to why Grotowski
minimized the influence of the paratheatrical activities and the Theatre of
Sources on his subsequent work, Flaszen explained that the fundamental
ideas for the activities developed in the 70s (i.e., resacralization of the body
and of nature, ecology of man, unorthodox religiosity, interactivity,
reciprocal activity) have since then been regarded as commonplace and
banal. "Grotowski was fleeing from any form of popularity and fashion. He
was deeply embarrassed by his own naivete in that period," Flaszen added.
He concluded his presentation by asking, "What is left of the paratheatrical
activities?" The answer came immediately: "Outstanding men of the
theatre-Wlodzimierz Staniewski, Tomasz Rodowicz and Mariusz Golaj,
and also that small spark in many people the world over which is their
sustenance and helps them live through difficult moments."
In a narrative full ofbeautiful images, the actress Rena Mirecka recalled
her personal experiences and her spiritual journey. The same themes were
touched upon in The Way, a film made by Mirecka in conjunction with
Mariusz Socha and Ewa Benesz, which was shown in the evening. The Way
is the record of a deeply personal and unusual ritual in which theatre gives
way to an unfettered expression of spirituality. She began her presentation
by remembering Grotowski as a cruel but splendid teacher and by recalling
many co-workers who are no longer alive. She talked about her spiritual
meeting in the meadow in Brzezinka, and also about meetings that could be
experienced by body and soul, heart and mind. She told about her trips to
27
India and the work she did in Sardinia, and about her search for inner
harmony and freedom. She identified love as the fundamental value that
ordered her pursuits and her life.
Later on other speakers, especially Jairo Cuesta and James Slowiak,
recalled how Grotowski taught love of work. Zygmunt Molik, in a friendly
conversation with Ludwik Flaszen, focused attention on how the acting in
Apoca{ypsis cum Figuris changed after experiences in Brzezinka. "The
structure of the production was blown up from within by what we brought
back from that forest, those meadows, and those surroundings. Brzezinka
was mystery and magic creating a feeling of harmony. That's where I
understood that achieving impossible is possible," Molik summed up.
The afternoon session, "The Testimonies of the Leaders," was
opened by Jairo Cuesta and Maud Robart. As an introduction, Grzegorz
Ziolkowski talked about Gildia, a project that Cuesta and Slowiak have been
working on for the past two years in Olsztyn. "My first challenge working
in the Theatre of Sources was to let the original material come into being.
To stand still and be at the source," Cuesta explained. "Realize where you
come from. That is the essence of wisdom," he said, referring to Lao Tse's
Tao Te King, for only then "will nature, as it was the case for us in Brzezinka,
become a door opening to something more." Cuesta talked about attention,
preparedness, confidence and awareness; about connection with life based
on a close relation to everything around us, and about the great daring of
being faithful to oneself. Repeatedly he quoted from Grotowski's text,
"Action is Literal,"9 in which the creator of the Theatre of Sources
recommended looking for answers to the most important questions not in
words but in actions. Cuesta singled out movement/stillness and song as the
basic elements of the work in Brzezinka. Creativity is the link between one's
origin and one's work. Q!Ioting Grotowski, Cuesta said that it is only
through work that we can stand up to the challenges of life. Speaking about
the principles of work in the Theatre of Sources, Cuesta referred to Ortega
y Gasset's prose and the awareness of paradox present in Morris Berman's
wntmgs. "For Berman paradox is a very old memory-a genetic
remembrance. In human beings such an awareness is based on the
simultaneous appearance of extreme emotions and the preservation of the
sort of conflict from which a new kind of reality can emerge," Cuesta said in
summation. Twenty years after his experiences with the Theatre of Sources,
what remains the most important value for Jairo Cuesta is his work. "Happy
is he who is at the beginning," Cuesta added.
28
Maud Robart declared that she feels no need to talk about her work
with Grotowski or about the Saint-Solei! group. She said that if she were
asked to repeat her experience with the Theatre of Sources now, her answer
would be "no." She explained that this is not a criticism of the Theatre of
Sources, but only of her participation in it. "In terms of technique in the
Theatre of Sources there was nothing that could be explored, for what could
be accomplished in a few days with ever-changing groups of people?" she
asked. Robart, however, agreed to take questions from the audience. With
great precision she talked about her work with young people, in which she
introduces elements of Haitian voodoo (tempo-rhythm). "For me, even
today, voodoo represents a certain fundamental value that all traditional
techniques are based on. That value is its relation to life. Voodoo says: let's
affirm life. Life in this dimension is always holy." Discussion arose on
specific problems which in Robart's opinion can be solved only through
action, not through words. She emphasized the value of effort and grace in
one's work.
Vlado Sav, who took part in Robart's workshop in the 70s, recalled
her great respect for creativity of others, even if it turned out to be of
negligible quality. He said that there are people who devote their entire
lives to fathoming certain things, and there are people-and they are in the
majority- who can commit themselves only for a short term. "Grotowski
also was concerned with questions of verticality and horizontality.
Although I'm concerned with the roots, I still feel great respect for people
who move on the surface," Sav concluded.
A screening of the unique film Vigils made by Mercedes Gregory in
Milan during the workshops conducted by Zmyslowski closed the day's
proceedings.
The next day at Brzezinka the seminar was opened by Renata
Molinari who read excerpts from her diary completed a year after her
participation in the Theatre of Sources. The diary, written in a simple,
beautiful style, is yet another attempt at transferring a direct experience into
words. Molinari's writing consists of a series of impressions based on her
observations and her emotions as a young woman, with a description of the
particular exercises and tasks that Grotowski imposed on the international
group of participants in the project. She wrote about her opening to new
possibilities of perceptions, about silence, about li stening, about
imagination and solitude; about self-irony which is an invaluable aid in work
and allows one to go beyond the threshold of one's abilities; about the
29
encounter with oneself that occurs at the moment when all that has been
learned is forgotten. In her experience, as well as in that of] ana Pilatova, the
key element of the work was waiting. Pilatova recalled her initiation into the
Laboratory Theatre workshops in the late 60s: "I had to wait one week.
During that week I understood that the ability to work is an unimaginable
privilege." Molinari added: "While you are waiting, the most important
things are taking place-you are learning exactly why you are there. Waiting
is a kind of action in which time is the acting element."
The next conversation, with Lech Raczak, founder of the Theatre of
the Eighth Day, opened with Ludwik Flaszen's remark that forcing someone
to wait is a form of domination (earlier Flaszen likened Grotowski to Ivan
the Terrible). Thanking the organizers for the invitation to participate,
Raczak turned to his critical text, Para-ra-ra.
1
0 He explained the motives that
led to its writing. It was not in the least an attack on the Laboratory Theatre,
but was rather an attempt to make a dent in the trend, then prevalent in
Poland, toward a "peaceful" paratheatricality, while the country was deeply
engaged in a bitter political battle. Raczak admitted that his polemic grew
out of conversations he had had with participants in the meetings and that
he himself had never participated in the Laboratory Theatre workshops. In
the course of the session this statement met with sharp criticism from Marek
Musial. Raczak also recalled the help that Grotowski had given the Theatre
of the Eighth Day during its emigre days in the 80s.
The second part of "Testimonies of the Leaders" began with a
presentation by Abani Biswas of dance-theatre activities based on traditional
Hindu forms of theatrical performances and battle techniques. Biwas talked
about his meeting with Grotowski, their joint work on voice in India and
their work on silence in Brzezinka. In his beautiful narrative about his
search for inner harmony Biwas drew upon Hindu philosophy. He
acknowledged that experience of the existence of Purusha (silence) and
acceptance of human suffering are the basic principles of his work.
In characterizing the work in Brzezinka, Marek Musial used terms
already introduced by the previous speakers: waiting, silence, attention,
renunciation of passivity, and he also noted that any activity is necessarily
aimless and any search is a solitary pursuit that cannot be directly
transmitted. He admitted that participation in the paratheatrical workshops
signaled a new perspective and inspired the participants to do in life what no
one had ever done before (and probably would never do again-as Katharina
Seyferth was to observe). The everyday repetitious routine regardless of
30
circumstances, the particular experience of being present "here and now "
was transformed into an extraordinary person-to-person relationship. "I
haven't come back to Brzezinka for twenty years because this place is too
strongly connected to what had been happening here."
Katharina Seyferth took up themes introduced by Marek Musial
and Renata Molinari. She discussed the very intense and solitary work that
the participants in the workshops totally committed themselves to, and
talked about learning through action and the search for movement that
would include rest. She also pointed out that another place of work-
Ostrowina-had had an influence on the paratheatrical activities. In
Ostrowina, which is less isolated from the outside world than Brzezinka, the
participants learned source techniques, personal courage, and awareness.
"What took place in Brzezinka would not have been possible without
Ostrowina," Seyferth concluded. She also made reference to Vigils, realized
jointly with Jacek Zmyslowski, which resulted in a particular unity in the
activity, a change of awareness and heightened stamina, and even a
transformation of the place itself Seyferth expressed her gratitude for the
possibility of undertaking such work and for the human warmth that
accompanied it. "Grotowski's presence made many things possible."
If the evening screening of Louis Malle's film My Dinner with Andre
had divided the conference participants, all was forgotten by the time the
concert, Songs of the Bauls by the Milon Mela ensemble, was over.
The recapitulation of the conference, which took place on Sunday
at the Grotowski Center in Wrodaw, offered a veritable kaleidoscope of
thoughts, positions, and expectations. It started with Osinski's observation
that each person has his or her own paratheatrical activities and Theatre of
Sources resulting from the differences among human beings. He also
pointed out how difficult it is to return to reality after any exceptional
experience. Grzegorz Ziolkowski commented on how enduring the memory
of the paratheatrical activities has turned out to be and, referring to the
renaming of a street in Grotowski's honor, he proposed calling the
conference "a bright alley"
11
as opposed to "a dark alley or blind alley"
(which has a strong negative meaning in Polish). He also mentioned
Gurdijeffs name for the first time during the entire conference, an obvious
connection that has been neglected in interpreting the paratheatrical
activities.
Flaszen talked about the value of silence which he had learned
during the paratheatrical activities, and he referred to the new animism and
31
the esoteric roots of all science and art. A longer commentary came from
Robart who read a letter from Marianne Ahrne describing the work that she
had done with the Tahitians on ritual dances at Brzezinka. Rafal Fabicki,
who was active in the Polish political underground of the early 80s, talked
about the subtle connections between paratheatrical activities and political
activities. Jairo Cuesta emphasized the broad perspective and numerous and
varied sources that have to be taken into account in any attempt to analyze
Grotowski 's work. He cautioned against a too facile adaptation of
Grotowski's views to the measure of one's own perceptions. James Slowiak
concluded the kaleidoscopic session by addressing the young people in the
audience and urging them to enlarge the sphere of freedom through culture
and to find their own creative response to the problems of the world they
live in. The conference ended in a fascinating discussion between Vlado Sav
and Leszek Kolankiewicz who proposed to regard the paratheatrical
activities as present-day Eleusinian mysteries. Both agreed that such an
interpretation is a valid one, but differed as to the significance of certain
details in the mysteries. In that fashion we returned to the beginnings.
For Grotowski, as someone for whom nothing was ever finished,
everything existed in a state of process. The conference, in which, as in the
paratheatrical activities, dozens of threads, thoughts, and positions would
appear and become interwoven into ever new versions and interpretations,
was undoubtedly a great success. After many difficult years, Brzezinka, an
important place, has come back to life. Let us hope it will be totally reborn.
A journey to the sources takes us through many places, landscapes,
and people, through many twists and turns of individual experience,
solitude, and suffering, through the Mystery. Like the journey to the East,
the journey to the sources never ends.
NOTES
All statements by conference participants are quoted from my notes, which
were not authorized.
1 See Janusz Degler, "In Pontedera After Grotowski and About Grotowski,"
in Slavic and East European Peiformance, Vol. 22, No.1 (Winter 2002), 32-39.
2
The conference, "Jerzy Grotowski: The Past and The Future of the
Research: The Paratheatrical Activities 1969-1978. The Theatre of Sources
32
1976-1982," was held in Wrodaw and Brzezinka, September 26-29, 2002.
3 Rainer Maria Rilke, Duinesian Elegies. The First Elegy. German Text with
English Translation and Commentary by Elaine E. Boney, (Chapel Hill:
The University of Carolina Press, 1975), 3.
4 Jean Chevalier and Alain Gheerbrant, Dictionnaire des Symboles, (Paris:
Robert Laffont!Jupiter, 1992), 46.
5 The second part of the project was organized by the Center of Studies on
Jerzy Grotowski's Work and the Cultural and Theatrical Research in
Wrodaw, the city of Wrodaw, and the Fondazione Pontedera Teatro. The
organizers of the Wroclaw Conference were jointly Zbigniew Osinski and
Jaroslaw Fret (The Grotowski Center) and Grzegorz Ziolkowski (the Adam
Mickiewicz University in Poznan).
6 Lisa Wolford and Richard Schechner, eds. The Grotowski Sourcebook,
(London: Routledge, 1997), 213-23.
7 Texts first published in Polish: Jerzy Grotowski, Odra, No. 6,
1972, 47-51; Jerzy Grotowski, "Teatr Zrodel," Zeszyty Literackie, Vol. 5, No.
19, 1987, 102-15; Jerzy Grotowski, "To stanie mozliwe.
Wypowiedi w Royaumont, 11 paidziernika 1972," Kultura, No. 52, 1972.
English translation: Jerzy Grotowski, "Holiday," The Drama Review, Vol. 17,
No. 2, 1973 (T-58), 113-19. See also: Jerzy Grotowski, "Holiday: The day is
holy," in Lisa Wolford and Richard Schechner, eds., The Grotowski
Sourcebook (London: Routledge, 1997), 213-23. Also J erzy Grotowski,
Theatre of Sources, ibid, 250-68.
8 "The human voice, the action of the voice, is the vehicle by which we
reach the dormant and forgotten energies in man, the source experiences, a
different perception." See Ludwik Flaszen, "About the art of dialogue and
other matters," Odra, No. 4, 2000, 49. See also Ludwik Flaszen,
"Conversation," in M. Miller, Reporter6w spos6b na iycie, (Warsaw: Czytelnik,
1983), 309.
9 Jerzy Grotowski, "Dzialanie jest doslowne," Dialog, No. 9, 1979, 95-101.
10 Lech Raczak, "Para-ra-ra," Dialog, No.7, 1980, 132-7.
11 I have used Ziolkowski's formulation as the title of my essay.
Translated by jadwiga Kosicka
33
NORD-OST: TRAGIC NIGHTS IN THE THEATRE
Maria Ignatieva
On December 20, 2002, Georgii Vassiliev, director and co-producer
of Nord-Ost, announced that the musical would reopen and tickets went on
sale. By late January 2003, the Palace had been renovated and new blue seats
were installed instead of the old red ones. The renovation cost the city of
Moscow two and a half million dollars; other sponsors contributed
financially to the restoration as well. Two red armchairs were left in place
as a tragic reminder of the hostage-taking and siege. In these red chairs, a
young couple, a husband and wife from a Moscow suburb, lost their lives,
hand-in-hand, not separated by death.
A total of seventeen people involved in the musical died: nine
musicians, four auditorium attendants, a music supervisor, the souvenir
seller, and two young actors, Kristina Kurbatova, fourteen years old, and
Arsenii Kurilenko, thirteen, who played the leading characters as youngsters.
A group of former hostages expressed their willingness to attend
the re-opening of the musical. Most of the actors, including the surviving
child actors, agreed to take up their roles again in the new version. Tickets
for the first performance (on February 10, 2003) sold out. However,
demographically the audience had changed: there were fewer women, more
men and many young people in their late teens, who, as we know, are
fearless.
Life in Moscow goes on; though many people I talked with do not
believe that the Nord-Ost terrorist episode will be the last. In December 2002,
anonymous callers warned three times that bombs were planted in the
theatre where 42nd Street was playing, and the spectators were hastily
evacuated. Were these real terrorist threats? Merely hooligans' jokes? The
competitors' revenge?
There are a number of issues related to Nord-Ost and the tragic
events following the terrorists' seizure of the theatre that are worth looking
at more closely: the book on which the musical was based, the mounting of
the production, and the role it played in Russian cultural life.
Nord-Ost is based on a novel, The Two Captains, written by
Veniamin Aleksandrovich Kaverin-real family name Zilber--(1902-1989) in
34
1946. The book has been a bestseller since the late forties; it combines a
realistic style of pristine linguistic simplicity with strong romantic
undercurrents. The novel takes place primarily in Moscow and Leningrad
between 1915 and 1945. In the novel's expository opening, we learn that
Captain Ivan T atarinov has disappeared in the North Sea during the first
decade of the twentieth century. Twenty years later, a young man, the
orphan Sanya Grigoriev, decides to look for the Captain and restore his
good name. Befriended by the Tatarinovs, in love with the Captain's
daughter Katya, Sanya discovers that the Captain was sent to his death by
his cousin, a well-known professor. As a result of his investigation, Sanya is
libeled and thrown out of the Tatarinov's house. Struggling alone and
without support, he becomes a pilot. But misfortune follows him: he has
powerful enemies. A fearless pilot, he fights the Nazis during World War II
in 1941 and is almost killed. At the end of the War, Sanya spends months
in a desperate search for Katya, of whom he has lost track after her
evacuation from Leningrad. The novel ends as Sanya discovers Captain
Tatarinov's remains, proving the guilt of his enemies, and is reunited with
Katya, the love of his life.
One ofKaverin's favorite themes is the false accusation of innocent
victims. Unable to write directly in the 1930s and 40s about the labor camps
and the so-called "enemies of the people," Kaverin, by historical analogy,
put on stage the central issue of the time. His main characters, libeled and
outcast, struggle all their lives to prove their innocence and to have justice
re-established. Kaverin's books are about the power of malevolence to crush
individuals. One of the reasons for the Russian infatuation with The Two
Captains is that Kaverin gave a whole generation victimized by history a
hope of seeing justice done. The government in The Two Captains, which
served as a tool of evil in the wrong people's hands, finally helps Sanya and
Katya to reveal the truth.
Veniamin Kaverin was one of a very few writers who stoically
maintained independence in the Soviet Writers' Union. This independence
was dramatically displayed by his being the only member to vote against the
Boris Pasternak's expulsion from the Union. It is highly ironic that his book,
The Two Captains, seemed to conform to the ideals of Socialist realism, and
that it received the Stalin's Prize for Literature in 1946. There is a further
tragic irony in the fact that Nord-Ost, which had sought to restore the
romantic ideals of earlier twentieth-century Russian history, was taken by the
Chechens, through their occupation of the theatre, as a symbol of the
35
present government's injustice and oppression.
It is not surprising that The Two Captains was chosen as the book for
the first large-scale Russian musical. The story is known and loved by the
public. It was filmed twice in the Soviet Union. Its underlying romantic
assumptions provide a wealth of lyrical themes for songs, while its fully
dimensional characters are heroes with whom Russians can identify.
In the late 1950s, two boys fell in love with the novel and played
The Two Captains as a childhood game, just as I and other children I knew
had. The boys' names were Georgii Vassiliev and Alexei Ivashchenko.
lvashchenko became a professional actor; he remained loyal to his friend
Vassiliev, who majored in both geology and economics and earned a Ph.D.
in economics. Vassiliev worked in the Major's office and became President
of the Moscow Stock Market and owner of a telephone company. Now in
their late forties, lvashchenko and Vassiliev played guitar duets in their spare
time and went mountain-climbing together.
The two friends, whose love for The Two Captains never abated,
decided in 2000 to bring it to the stage, and to make it as close to their
dreams as possible. Once they made up their minds, Vassiliev and
lvashchenko flew to the North Pole to see where the real Sanya might have
landed his airplane. A real 1940 airplane would be one of the props.
Without any professional experience in producing musicals, they assembled
an excellent team and created a "Broadway" show in the "proletarian"
district of Moscow. Nord-Ost opened on October 19, 2001, proving once
again that fine achievements in Russian theatre could be brought by
amateurs, who, not knowing that some things simply could not be done,
simply did it. Nord-Ost became a hit overnight. An English-language version
was created, and the musical was ready to tour the world as soon as they
could find sponsors and invitations.
There was something else even more important. This was an
attempt to create a Russian national musical, based on a story loved by
millions, that had heroic dimensions. During the last fifteen years, the
Russian people had seen so many heroic deeds and myths from the past
debunked and turned upside down. The Two Captains survived the test of
time. The musical presented the heroism of individuals, not of the
discredited Soviet system. The people were badly in need of heroic
individualism. In such nostalgia lay the appeal of Nord-Ost.
The tragedy of Nord-Ost has involved many aspects of theatre. Here
in Russia, where theatre is a deep passion, the terrorist act was staged
36
theatrically. Some spectators, who came to see a heroic musical, died heroic
deaths. The terrorists took center stage and played their war out in the
theatre. Georgii Vassiliev himself became Captain under the circumstances:
he tried to negotiate with the terrorists and talked to the hostages all the
time. As Vassiliev said in an interview on Russian Television, the terrorists
wanted to see themselves invading the theatre, as it was taped on the security
cameras. The terrorists demanded that Vassiliev show them the tape on
October 26. He was forced to comply. The showing took place just before
the gas was vented, so that some of the terrorists were killed while they were
watching themselves entering the stage of Nord-Ost.
For people throughout the world, Nord-Ost will remain a symbol of
theatre and life merged in a tragic embrace. As 9-11 had done for Americans,
so Nord-Ost marked for Russians the beginning of a new era. In the Nord-Ost
hostage crisis, terrorism struck at the core of the Russian national character,
revealing that there was no place to hide. There is no safe oasis anywhere in
the world any longer, not even in culture, theatre, and literature, where the
Russians have traditionally escaped from social problems. The re-opening of
the musical was a declaration that the spirit of the cast, crew and spectators
has not been broken. There will be no surrender to terrorism: our triumph
over the terrorists lies in the determination to keep going and to live.
37
SLOBODAN SNAJDER: PLAYWRIGHT!
Milos Lazin
At the age of twenty, he became one of the creators of the journal
Prolog, which would influence the theatrical scene of the former Yugoslavia
for two decades. At twenty-one, he had his first play produced by the
Repertory Theatre of the City of Zagreb. At twenty-nine, he founded a
publishing house, whose output of about fifty titles2 would revolutionize the
way people thought about theatre in his country. At thirty, he became a
"star author" of such magnitude that the theatres of the ex-Federation would
fight to produce his plays.
This "irresistible rise" has undoubtedly been possible because
Slobodan Snajder3, taking an alternate route, did not follow the traditional
course of the other film and theatre writers from Communist countries: he
never took a course in dramaturgy.
But his exceptional career does not stop there. Coming from a
country whose theatre was unknown abroad, he was 44 when his Croatian
Faust entered the repertory of the Vienna Burgtheater. In the next few years,
Snajder's various plays appeared on German stages in Mulheim,
Frankfurt/Oder, Frankfurt/ Main, Tubingen and Bochum, by famous
directors such as Roberto Ciulli, Hans Hollmann, and Werner Schroeter. In
the late 1990s, he became internationally known with Snakeskin. The piece
was first produced in several German theatres, and then in European
capitals, Oslo, Rome, Vienna, Dublin, Warsaw, Cracow, Copenhagen, and
finally in Belgrade in 2001.4
The student turbulence of 1968 was Slobodan's real "education
period." He left his native Zagreb to join the student movement in
Belgrade, which happened two months after the revolution in Paris, a
negligible delay in the history of the Balkans vis-a-vis that of the West.
Nevertheless, this "Belgrade Spring" was in Western media eclipsed by the
Prague Spring. What happened in Belgrade? The anti-Fascists who
supported Tito in the revolution (1941-45) were accused by their children of
having betrayed their own ideals of freedom and equality. The new
generation wanted their own "revolution." But this "children's revolution,"
which, after one month of university sit-ins, was reduced to silence by the
38
Slobodan Snajder
39
40
Snakeskin at the Royal Danish Theatre,
Copenhagen Denmark, 1998
Slavic and East European Perfonnance Vol. 23, No. 1
vague promises of Tito, symbolized, in fact, the beginning of the
Westernization of Socialist Yugoslavia.
Son of a fervent Communist and a poet (Zdenka and Djuro, who
soon divorced), Slobodan Snajder tries in his own work to marry poetry and
revolution. It is a constant confrontation in which each of these entities
constructs its own imaginary world. Slobodan views the revolution from the
perspective of politics and culture, as a new and necessary reinterpretation
of society, and poetry as the emanation of the profound consciousness of
human nature, in search of its deepest roots. Poetry is not only a literary
expression, it also includes the living word and popular beliefs.s This is why,
for Slobodan, the poet has his share of responsibility, both to history and
his society. One might say that he does not invent, but rather attempts to
reveal the hidden mystery inside all of us, the dream that helps us to find
our path on Earth. Poetry will reveal the Geist, the spirit of the world, by
translating it and giving it creative power. It accompanies and creates
dreams of revolutions, but also conveys its inaccessible message, and finally
becomes the unique consolation of failed revolution. The heroes of
Snajder's plays are poets. The Croatian writers Marin Drzic, Janko Polic
Kamov, August Cesarec, Ervin Sinko, the actors Vjekoslav Afric and Gemma
Boic, the director Branko Gavella6 represent through their own torments the
problems of their times, almost always times that experienced revolutions.
Or perhaps it is the times themselves that engender their own creators, using
them as mere marionettes? Through their own heartbreaks, they question
and sketch the world.
From a literary point of view, Slobodan creates a dialogue between
historical events and poetic myth. The Croatian Faust was inspired by the
fate of the actor Vjekoslav Afric (1906-1980). The young lead actor of the
Croatian National Theatre of Zagreb, he plays Goethe's Faust transformed
by the collaborationist regime of Ante Pavelic into a Fascist celebration. We
are in 1941. Afric, with a few actors from the company, stops the show,
leaves the big city and fame behind, and goes to rejoin the Communist
resistance in the Bosnian forest. But as soon as he joins, Tito asks him to
form a new troupe, this will be the Theatre of National Liberation.
This is exactly the balance between freedom and propagandist
theatre that Slobodan Snajder described in his version of AfriC's life. In the
last scene of the play, set in 1945, Afric, returning to Zagreb as a liberator,
receives a political order from his People's Commissioner: "You will go to
the National Theatre. You will place your 7.6 mm gun on the table. And
41
you will tell them: this is the beginning of a new era, that of art destined for
the new man. We are done with the drawing-room comedy bullshit, where
the question is who slept with who, who is a fool and why, and who slept
with his mother. Let us do away with bourgeois perversions!" And the
People's Commissioner reintroduces Faust into the revolutionary repertory,
saying, "a German play," certainly, "but after all, Marx was German too!" At
this point in the scene, Afric, not knowing who is who, ends up confusing
himself with the Commissioner. He confuses theatre and reality, as he had
done previously, at the beginning of the war, when he was vacillating
between Fascist theatre and Communist resistance. He confuses his role in
life with that of Faust and Mephisto. Slobodan's imaginary leads us towards
dreams, but at the same time helps us to better grasp reality. This is
important, because this paradox can claim victims: Afric, the actor who
inspired Slobodan's play, will never act again after the Second World War.
For the last thirty years of his life he will hide in a Belgrade drama school
(where I met him in 1971).
Ten years after the creation of the Croatian Faust, Snajder added an
appendix to the play, where he brings back AfriC's ghost to the front of the
Serbo-Croatian war in 1991; Communism is over and Fascism is a new
menace. Afric understands that his dilemma will never be resolved, and
commits suicide. Snajder makes him commit suicide.
With the arrival in power ofFranjo Tudjman and his HDZ party in
1990, Slobodan became an unfortunate hero ofhis own dramaturgy: he lost
his job as a publisher, and his plays were banished from Croatian theatres
(Serbian theatres as well, because of nationalism). Until the election of2000
and the victory of the reformist parties, he was not performed in his own
languageJ But Slobodan did not remain silent during that period. The
independent newspaper Novi List of Rijeka offered him the opportunity to
write a column each week starting in 1994.8 This chronicle of the
"calamitous epoch" is another form of Slobodan's inexorable conversation
with reality. "Les Liaisons Dangereuses" are what he calls those links that he
creates, through more than twenty plays, between the imaginary world and
real tragic life, "between the sky, too high for Man, and the Earth, too hard
to walk on." It is the same danger that inspires poetry, that creates the poet
in us. In Snakeskin, Azra, raped and mortified, finds her voice again in the
imaginary world, the only world left to her. It is the tragedy that speaks to
us, Slobodan is only its humble scribe. But in Snajder's plays, poetry is not
only a refuge. It can allow us to sublimate reality if we always turn towards
42
The Croatian Faust, directed by Roberto Ciulli
at Theater am der Ruhr, Mulheim, Germany, 1987
43
it, trying to grasp it, to understand it. Reality is the preamble of dreams.
When the Croatian Faust was translated into French in 1993, people
were afraid that the play's historical background was too local. Snajder is
undoubtedly a Croatian writer. And this is not only because of his origins.9
Croatian culture offered him his first landscape. But he understood that one
cannot understand that landscape without a broader view. A cultural
imaginary based on identity wears out, its expression becomes cliched if not
nourished by difference. The image of the other transgresses our solitude.
European culture has not created a unique imaginary, but has always
exchanged the expressions of it, even subconsciously. Afric cannot resolve
his dilemma as man and artist, nor understand his destiny without the moral
lesson of Faust; it is by rejecting the nationalist (Nazi) interpretation that he
will internalize the deeper meaning of the myth. Afric, like Azra, is
nowhere. Faust, the man pulled apart by the dream of total freedom and the
gravity of Earth, is his sole companion. Europe is an indispensable space of
communication. Its identity is constituted by a multiplicity of views; if we
could superimpose them on one another, we would discover the same image
with different colors.
NOTES
1 Slobodan Snajder was born in 1948 in Zagreb. He has written more than
thirty plays and published some ten books. From 1990 to 2000, he lived in
voluntary exile, mainly in Germany and Austria, but he also spent two long
periods in France at the Chartreuse de Villeneuve-les-Avignon. Since the
change to democracy in Croatia in 2001, he has been the director of the
Theatre ofYouth, ZKM, ofZagreb.
2 Including Louis Jouvet, Edward Gordon Craig, Erwin Piscator, Bertolt
Brecht, Mario Apollonio, Stanislaw Ignacy Witkiewicz, George Steiner,
Selma Jeanne Cohen, and some ofBrecht's plays, translated for the first time
into Serbo-Croatian.
3 Pronounced Schneider
4 English translation (M.N. Gaida) published in PAJ, A journal of Performance
and Art, The Johns Hopkins University Press, September, 1998.
5 The only book that Slobodan has offered me in the last twenty years was
44
The Old Beliefs of the Serbs and the Croats. This beautiful book, written by the
Croatian historiographer and ethnologist Natko Nodilo, is from the end of
the nineteenth century. Nodilo's book was one of the main sources for
Snakeskin and /nes and Denise.
6 Respectively in the plays, Dream of Drzic (1980), Kamov-a Necrography
(1978), Metastasis (1977), Confiteor (1984), The Croatian Faust (1982), Gamllet
(1987) and The Bride of the Winds (1996).
7 Except abroad. Croatian actors presented Snakeskin in Rome, during the
Festival of Dionysus in 1995; lnes and Denise, a bilingual show (French-
Croatian), with Denise Bona! and the Bosnian actress Ines Fancovic,
directed by Milos Lazin, was created in Sarajevo in 1997, then in Le Mans,
and toured France until May 1999.
8 Novi List was founded in Rijeka, at the beginning of the twentieth century
by the liberal Croatian politician Frano Supilo. Its democratic tradition is
very admirable. Rijeka is the biggest port of Croatia-the town itself, having
a lot of international traffic, has always had a certain cosmopolitan tone.
Tudjman's zealots were more concerned with other papers and magazines,
most of them in the capital. Novi List was bought by the journalists
themselves, that is to say, not by banks and other more or less hidden funds
connected with power, and it succeded in remaining independent to the
present day. Snajder's columns would never have been possible in any other
papers under Tudjman.
9 He is actually partially German, which is not rare in the former Austro-
Hungarian monarchy (we have accumulated many "former" and "ex"
prefixes in the course of our history).
Translated from the French by Sandra Laredo and Kurt Taro.ff
45
MICKIEWICZ'S BALLADS AND ROMANCES
ON THE CONTEMPORARY POLISH STAGE
Eileen Krajewski
Modern productions of Adam Mickiewicz's Ballads and Romances
[Ballady i Romanse] demonstrate that the work of the Polish romantic poet
and playwright need not be confined by the elements of ethnicity and time,
but can have relevance to those of other national backgrounds and younger
generations.! Written between the 1810s and the 1840s, Ballads and
Romances are a series of poems that blend elements from various Polish folk
stories, songs, and beliefs, presenting human morals that transcend
nationalities. The topics are broad and range from spiritual reformation as
seen through a reformed highwayman in "Father's Return" [Powr6t Taty] to
playful courtship in "The Gentleman and the Girl" [Panicz i Dziewczyna]
to the influence of the wieszcz or bard in Polish society in "The Shawm
Player" [Dudarz]. Very often the poems belonging to the series exhibit
dramatic influences, containing dialogue and linear plot development
complete with rising tension, climax, and denouement. In describing
Mickiewicz's ballad, "The Lilies" [Lilije], which depicts the consequences of
a woman who murders her husband, David Welsh states:
Much of the story is presented through dialogue, often without the
use of such stage directions as "he said." Hence "The Lilies" gives
the effect of a play, in which such indications are omitted
altogether.2
The dramatic qualities of Ballads and Romances have not gone unnoticed by
twentieth-century theatre artists, who have adapted a number of the poems
and produced them on stages throughout Poland and Europe.3
In recent decades, several artists worthy of note have developed
stage adaptations of BaUads and Romances, poems which, although dramatic
in their own right, were not originally intended for the stage. Some of these
adaptations were well received by critics and audiences, while others were
not. At times, the critics have divergent opinions about the same
adaptation, but the one aspect on which they all agree is the difficulty of
converting Mickiewicz's work into a dramatic form that is true to the
original and speaks to both Polish and non-Polish audiences. Among the
46
more successful adaptations are those by Irena Jun, Piotr Szczerski, and
Adam Hanuszkiewicz. While Jun's and Szczerski's adaptations give room
for creative stage interpretations, they are the most faithful to Mickiewicz's
poems; Hanuszkiewicz's version not only takes the most liberty with the
Polish bard's texts, but also allows the most license in production.
Of all the existing adaptations of BaUads and Romances, Irena Jun's
version has been the most highly regarded and the most widely staged by
Polish theatre companies throughout the 1990s. The critic Marta
Poniatowska is impressed by this adaptation, which was used in a 1995
production directed by Jun at the Teatr Wsp6lczesny in Szczecin, feeling
that the adapter put new life into Mickiewicz's ballads. Poniatowska
comments:
Irena Jun (stage manager/adapter) used a well-tested method-to
refresh that which seems to be crumbling with age with a fresh and
unprejudiced perspective. Playing with words, breaking down the
text into many characters, writing in spite of its meaning a theatrical
movement and using a comic parody convention-all of this took
away the literary heaviness of the Romantic Messenger and made
the material graceful.4
Poniatowska believes that the aim ofJun's adaptation is to present some of
the serious issues addressed by Mickiewicz in his ballads, such as dealings
with black magic in "The Flight" and human interactions with the
Otherworld in "The Girl from Switez" [Switezianka], in a lighter, warmer
way to allow audiences to connect more with Ballads and Romances and not
be weighed down emotionally. For instance, Jun further plays on the
stereotype of the baba or "old hag" in "Mrs. Twardowski" [Pani Twardowska]
and presents a comical rather than grotesque Mephistopheles to add humor
to the ballad addressing the topic of man outsmarting the devil. Artur
Liskowacki of the Kurier Szczecinski agrees thatJun's lighter interpretation of
Mickiewicz's ballads is enjoyable for audiences and helps make the poet's
work more accessible. He states that "Jun knows where are the borders that
cannot be crossed ... the spectacle shows that Mickiewicz has a sense of
humor, and in the labyrinth of his dark poems is a playful flame of a joke."S
Indeed,Jun takes Mickiewicz's work, which is already close to the hearts and
minds of Poles, and makes it even more accessible through a light adaptation
and the theatrical medium.
In an interview with Magdalena Zurad, Jun discusses Mickiewicz's
BaUads and Romances, the appeal of the ballads, and her reasons for adapting
47
them for the stage:
The ballads are very theatrical: they have action, dialogue, and are
ready for the stage. A goal of the production and adaptation of
Mickiewicz's text is to bring to light the hidden meanings and
adding extra theatrical symbols that help in understanding the text .
. . . I like working "with poetry." ... I also feel that the ballads help
us with understanding what Romanticism was and what it can be
during our time. 6
For Jun as well as for other Polish artists and the public, Mickiewicz's work
is living literature in that it still speaks to present day generations as it spoke
to the people ofMickiewicz's day.
Jun's adaptation of Ballads and Romances was further enhanced on
the stage in 1995 through Jun's production concept and the sets of scene
designer Aleksandra Semenowicz. Interestingly, Semenowicz combined
elements of Brechtian theatre with those of Japanese Kabuki. A wardrobe
containing costumes and props was placed to the side of the stage where
actors, in full view of the audience, changed costumes and obtained
necessary accessories. This act of having the actors change not only their
costumes, but also their characters, without leaving the stage served as a
distancing device for audiences, enhancing the emotional lightness of the
adaptation. Walkways, similar to Japanese hanamichi, went out into the
seating area from the center of the stage as well as from both sides to serve
as additional playing spaces that brought the audience closer to the
performers.
Piotr Szczerski's adaptation of Ballads and Romances, which he
wrote in 1998 for the two hundredth anniversary ofMickiewicz's birth, was
well received by critics and audiences at venues in various countries. The
adaptation was first used in the 1998 production at the T eatr im.
Zeromskiego in Kielce, Poland. The Kielce production was later taken that
same year to the Polski Osrodek Spoleczno-Kulturalny on King Street in
London and the Rosyjski Dramatyczny Teatr Litwy in Vilnius, Lithuania.7
This adaptation, which is only in Polish, is faithful to the original ballads,
and the production gave a light, humorous interpretation that was accepted
by audiences at all the venues. As one writer for Rzeczpospolita comments,
Mickiewicz's ballads "do not have to be a boring, monumental 'compulsory
reading,' actually the opposite-a wise, likeable diversion."8
Similar to the staging ofJun's adaptation, this production, directed
by Szczerski, strove to make Mickiewicz's ballads more accessible and
48
A scene from Adam Hanuszkiewicz's production
of Mickiewicz's Ballads and Romances (with
Hanuszkiewicz as Mickiewicz)
A scene from Irena Jun's production of
Mickiewicz's BaUads and Romances
49
50
Costume sketches by Aleksandra Semenowicz for Irena Jun's
1998 production of Ballads and Romances in Rzesz6w, Poland
Piotr Szczerski and his dog
51
relevant to modern audiences through both the reworking of the text and
the design elements. Grzegorz Kozera comments that it is "a romantic
spectacle and at the same time contemporary."9 While the scenery was
minimal, the costumes were late twentieth-century. Some components of
the production were surprising, but highly effective. For example, in staging,
"Romanticism" [Romantycznosc], a rather somber ballad that deals with a
woman grieving for her dead lover, the mourning Karusia, normally
accepted as a pure and innocent character, is attired in a low-cut dress with
a high hemline.lO This costuming decision gave a new meaning and
interpretation to this traditionally serious ballad. However, audiences,
including Polish expatriates in London and Vilnius, found the production
refreshing. A number of younger British and Lithuanian theatregoers of
Polish descent, as well as their seniors, were delighted by the adaptation and
production, feeling that the stage presentation gave new life to Mickiewicz's
work.
Audiences and critics were also pleased with Adam Hanuszkiewicz's
March 2001 adaptation and production of Romances and Ballads [sic] at the
Teatr im. A. Mickiewicza in despite its unorthodox
conception and production concept. Rather than focus solely on
Mickiewicz's ballads, Hanuszkiewicz, one of the great actors and directors of
the Polish stage, incorporates relevant fragments from other Polish
playwrights, including Stanislaw Wyspianski, Witold Gombrowicz, and
Aleksander Fredro, in addition to Mickiewicz's texts.ll In this way, the
adapter creates a theatrical montage that not only addresses Mickiewicz's
work directly, but also provides a framework for looking at it objectively
through the works of other dramatists. The result is a satirical stage piece
that pays homage to the Polish writer without exalting him. As described by
T adeusz Piersiak, the audiences were "looking at a vaudeville and cabaret on
the stage, a mad transvestite dance, and amid the laughter the author looks
with a smile in the face of death."12
As the production concept for this staging of Mickiewicz's work,
Hanuszkiewicz, who also directed and acted in Romances and Ballads, chose
to make a bed the centerpiece of the stage to serve as a silent character
joining the various poetic and dramatic fragments together. At different
times throughout the production, the character of Mickiewicz suddenly
appeared and sat on the bed; on his lap was "Maryla" (the literary name
Mickiewicz gave Marya Wereszczaka), the woman he loved and idolized for
much of his life.13 This decision to have Mickiewicz and Maryla as stage
52
characters in a sexually suggestive manner helped keep audiences objective
and critical of their national poet, reminding them of Mickiewicz's
humanity as well as his prowess with women.
Two ballads in particular that were innovatively staged by
Hanuszkiewicz in his adaptation were "The Lilies" and "Romanticism." In
the former, a man played the role of Hanka, the woman who killed and
buried her husband. Tadeusz Piersiak gives an account of Michal Kula's
performance in the role ofHanka:
His chaotic dance raises the tension onstage, and we see the dance
of Death herself He lifts up the edge of his long black gown to
show ... not what the common libertines expect to see-a pink
cheek-but a fascinating chasm of hell.14
By casting a man in the role of Hanka, Hanuszkiewicz invited audiences to
take a second look at this well-known ballad by Mickiewicz. Similarly, in
"Romanticism," the director allowed himself some freedom in the staging
and interpretation of the ballad. The character of Karusia closely resembles
the character in Mickiewicz's text, but with some key differences. Karusia
looks for her dead lover not among the peasantry, as she does in the original
ballad, but among the educated classes of the intelligentsia, who look down
on her contemptuously with a lack of understanding. Eventually she finds
Hanuszkiewicz, as himself, and mistakes him for her dead lover:
She touches his cold hands and embraces his cold chest. At that
moment, the audience experiences chills. The situation repeats a
scene from Moliere's Don juan. During that moment an impression
is created that the grave will open and take them both.IS
Hanuszkiewicz's depiction of "Romanticism" reflects present day Poland in
which the educated and the wealthy appear to scorn true love.l 6
Although the ballads in Mickiewicz's Ballads and Romances were not
written as dramas, they exhibit dramatic qualities and are easily adapted to
the stage, as is proven by the versions created by theatre artists such as Jun,
Szczerski, and Hanuszkiewicz. While Jun and Szczerski made their stage
adaptations interesting and accessible to modern day audiences without
extensively altering Mickiewicz's poems, Hanuszkiewicz developed a version
that made slight modifications in the original texts in order to create
theatrical parallels and commentaries relevant to what he sees as Poland's
current problems. The structure of Mickiewicz' s ballads, which have well-
rounded plots with a clearly defined beginning, middle, and end, allow them
to be easily transformed into one-act plays or a series of scenes. The
53
frequent dialogue found throughout the ballads also contributes to their
adaptability for the stage. Additionally, creative productions making use of
contemporary theatre conventions, style elements, and current events
promote the understanding and accessibility of Mickiewicz's ballads, which
although rooted in Polish folklore and traditions, contain universal messages
that can speak to audiences of various nationalities. The only true barrier
that remains between Mickiewicz and non-Polish audiences is that of the
poetic language of one of the world's great poets, a problem which
translators must confront.
NOTES
1 In "Wyspianski's Wesele: Poised on the Border," Theatrejourna/54 (2002):
187-202, Ann Komaromi argues that Stanislaw Wyspianski's The Wedding
[ Wesele] is an example of Polish drama that, despite its surface "Polishness"
and historical issues carrying special significance for Poles, displays universal
themes that can be understood by present day non-Polish audiences. This
is similar to what we see in Mickiewicz.
2 David Welsh, Adam Mickiewicz (New York: Twayne Publishers, Inc.,
1966), 28.
3 The poems that have been adapted for stage productions consist of the
following: "I Like That" [To "The Girl from Switei" [Switezianka],
"Romanticism" [Romantycznosc], "The Flight" [Ucieczka], "Father's
Return" [Powr6t Taty], "The Shawm Player" [Dudarz], "The Three Budrys
Brothers" [Trzech Budrys6w], "The Lilies" [Lilije], "The Gentleman and the
Girl" [Panicz i Dziewczyna], "Waiting" [Czaty], and "Mrs. Twardowski"
[Pani Twardowska]. With few exceptions, most of these poems have not
been translated into English due to the difficulty of effectively rendering
Mickiewicz's writing from the original Polish and retaining its flavor.
4 Marta Poniatowska, "Calkiem niezly ten Adam," Gazeta na Pomorzu, 14
December 1995. My translation. (Unless otherwise noted, the English
translations of the Polish texts are my own.)
5 Artur D. Liskowacki, "To Kurier Szczecinski, 3 January 1996.
6 Magdalena Zurad, pracowac 'w wierszu. '" Gazeta w Rzeszowie, 8
54
September 1998.
7 See Krzysztof Sowinski, "Gorq Kielce!", Gazeta WJ!borcza, 13 February
1998.; Grzegorz Kozera, "Romans z Mickiewiczem," Slowo Ludu, 13
February 1998.; and "Zadowoleni z Wilna," Slowo Ludu, 4 October 1998.
8 "Ballady i romanse," Rzeczpospolita, 13 January 2000.
9 Grzegorz Kozera, "Po ionia zaakceptowala kieleckie ,Ballady i romanse':
Mickiewicz bez piedestalu," Slowo Ludu, 2 February 1998.
10 Grzegorz Kozera, "Romans z Mickiewiczem," Slowo Ludu, 13 February
1998.
11 Other pieces incorporated into Romances and Ballads included portions of
Wyspianski's The Wedding, Gombrowicz's Ferdydurke, and Fredro's Vengeance
[Zemsta], Husband and Wife [Mq.t i Zona], and Maiden Vows [Slulry
Panienskie].
12 Tadeusz Piersiak, "Premiera w Teatrze im. Adama Mickiewicza," Gazeta
w Czfslochowie, 23 March 2001.
13 Tadeusz Piersiak, "Romanse Hanuszkiewicza," Gazeta w Czfslochowie, 23
March 2001.
14 Tadeusz Piersiak, "Premiera w Teatrze im. Adama Mickiewicza," Gazeta
w Czfslochowie, 23 March 2001.
15 Ibid.
16 Ibid.
55
A MONTH IN ANOTHER COUNTRY:
AFTER TURGENEV, BY FRIEL!
Laurence Senelick
The rediscovery of Turgenev as a dramatist is an unexpected
phenomenon. The recent New York success of Fortune's Fool, a version of a
play never staged in his lifetime, may be due to the presence of two stars in
the leading roles, but is certainly anomalous. Hard on its heels comes a
production of A Month in the Country in Brian Friel's remaking at the
Huntington Theatre in Boston. This visit to the world of the Russian landed
gentry is less welcome.
The Huntington program and publicity read "adapted by Brian
Friel, from Ivan Turgenev," leading one to assume that we are once more
confronting the abusive practice of commissioning a successful playwright
to adapt a nineteenth-century classic from a language he doesn't know. The
Samuel French script, however, reads "by Brian Friel, after Turgenev," which
is more accurate. The Irish playwright, having been invited by the Abbey
Theatre to adapt the play, has reworked it so thoroughly that it bears only a
superficial resemblance to Turgenev's masterpiece.
The issue is not one of cutting. A Month in the Country is a very long
work, seldom performed in its entirety even in Russia. Although I have seen
at least a year's worth of months in the country, the only uncut production
among them was a German one by the Theater der Freien Volksbuhne,
which lasted four hours. For decades, the standard version on the English-
language stage was that by the Welsh playwright Emlyn Williams, which
made excisions while seeking to preserve the sequence and tone of the
original. Friel's recension is far more drastic.
To begin with, he has "Hibemicized" A Month in the Country,
interpolating nuggets of Irish culture. There are references to the composer
John Field and Vera's offstage playing of him uudging by the recorded music
used in the production, Vera must be a virtuoso akin to Glenn Gould).
Now, John Field had spent time in Russia, and Meyerhold had his music
played under scenes in his Gore Umu (Woe to Wit) in the 1920s and 30s; but
Friel's wink-wink-nudge-nudge implies that the Islaev household is more
cultured than it is. (Turgenev makes no reference to piano-playing as one of
56
Vera's accomplishments.) In the original, Nataliya Petrovna and Rakitin are
discovered reading The Count cif Monte-Cristo in French, a suitably romantic
fantasy for a gentrified Madame Bovary. In Friel, they have been reading
Laurence Sterne's Tristram Shandy, a work known to Russian connoisseurs,
but unlikely to be a leisure pastime on a rural estate.
Similarly, despite their position in the household, all the characters
are on a first-name basis, like telemarketers. The impoverished tutor and the
dependent ward blithely refer to their betters as "Arkady," "Natalya,"
"Michel." The staid butler Matvey, who, in Turgenev, always alludes to his
masters in the third person-"The gentleman requested,"-becomes, in Friel,
a lusty if rheumatic peasant; he and Katya might just as well be called Matt
and Katie, since their jokey interchanges seem to come from Boucicault.
The most fundamental and most damaging change Friel has
wrought to the play concerns its rhythms. As a novelist, Turgenev was
especially interested in motives; he is gradual in his unfolding of the reasons
persons choose to act the way they do. It was this emphasis on the inner life
that presented Stanislavsky with a problem when he staged the play in 1908,
and led to his earliest experiments in internalized acting techniques.
Turgenev imbeds these nuanced revelations in stately paragraphs and even
soliloquies. Musically speaking, one might say that the notations of A
Month in the Country are usually largo and rallentando, with an occasional
andante or allegro for Dr. Shpigelsky. In Friel, everything is presto and
staccato. Few full paragraph speeches or even full sentences are allowed to
stand: discourse is reduced to sentence fragments and single words.
Consequently, characters seem to change their minds on a dime and subtle
shadings of emotion vanish in the rattle of curt phrases. The interview
between Nataliya Petrovna and Vera, one of the subtlest exfoliations of
intention in nineteenth-century dramatic dialogue, is cut down to a
telegraphic exchange, crude in its coloration. One seems to be watching
Feydeau, not Turgenev.
Friel subscribes to the critical commonplace that Turgenev is a
forerunner ofChekhov, and therefore reads Chekhov back into the play. He
goes so far as to pluck a speech from Uncle Vanya, the beautiful Yelena's
complaint about the family's quarrelling, and insert it, inappropriately, into
the mouth of the tutor Belyaev. In a program note, Friel claims that the core
ofTurgenev's dramatic action is "Vacillation, the inability to act decisively,
the longing to be other, to be elsewhere." This neatly fits Chekhov, but not
Turgenev. Turgenev's main theme in this play is the limitations of freedom
57
in human intercourse. By tracking them through personal relations,
Turgenev can elude the censorship and make his theme reverberate on a
broader scale throughout a patriarchal society.
By eliminating signs of class division, eliding the subservient status
of some characters to others, and thus reducing the Turgenevian concern
with parasitism, Friel ignores all this. In his excisions, he invariably cuts
those passages which expatiate on dependency, both social and emotional.
So we lose Nataliya Petrovna's first-act explanation to Belyaev of her
childhood fear of her father and her need for freedom (reflective of
Turgenev's own psychology). Her little son Kolya is omitted, which means
we never see her behave as a parent. Belyaev is bereft of his seriousness as a
university student, his interest in liberal ideas and his gaucheness amid the
gentry (his wardrobe at the Huntington is exquisite), and is thus reduced to
an exuberant toy boy. (It should be remembered that Turgenev's first draft
of the play was called The Student, but the censor's concerns altered that
focus.) Islaev, one of the few really capable landowners in Russian literature,
is reduced to a bumbling crackpot; his remarks on the opacity and
impatience of the Russian peasant are changed by Friel to comments on the
Russian need for authority.
In recompense, Friel turns the play into a lesson in marital discord.
He invents a set of speeches for the mother-in-law in which she talks of her
wayward husband and how she accommodated herself to his philandering.
This tendentious object lesson turns her into a kind of raisonneur, heavy-
handedly delivering the message: "marriage is always a compromise."
Audience members at the performance I attended left treasuring this pearl of
wisdom as if it were the souvenir that came with the Crackerjacks.
Understanding that Chekhov is a comic dramatist, Friel tries to
fashion Turgenev into a stand-up comedian. He lards the play with bad
jokes. Dr. Shpigelsky's shaggy-dog stories turn into one-liners, leading the
Boston reviewers to compare him to Groucho Marx. The German tutor
Schaaf becomes a tedious Mrs. Malaprop: in Turgenev, he simply
mispronounces words and mistakes grammatical endings. In Friel, every line
of Schaaf's is an opportunity for a vaudeville gag. The Tsarist Russian
caricature of a German was of someone emotionally arid, either hyper-
efficient or else wrapped up in metaphysical vagaries. Friel
anachronistically has Schaaf called a "Hun" seventy-five years before World
War One and even twenty years before the Franco-Prussian War. But then
Friel is not one to boggle at an anachronism. We hear of the hanger-on
58
Lizaveta Bogdanovna hiding out in the toilet (on a Russian country estate!)
to take snuff, as if she were a modem cocaine addict.
Granted, there is definite Chekhovian foreshadowing in the last act
of A Month in the Country with its sequence of departures, each leave-taking
abandoning the core group of characters to a future of solitude. Here too,
however, Friel cannot resist marring Turgenev's splendid construction. In
Turgenev, the play ends with the astonished mother-in-law turning to her
companion for an explanation of this exodus, only to hear the smug
Lizaveta Bogdanovna remark, "I may not be staying much longer myself."
Curtain. Friel finds it necessary to add two more scenes: first, a giggling
Matvey and Katya, bent on matrimony, simper on with tea things, to suggest
crudely that the lower classes are happier in love than the gentry. Turgenev
knew better than that. Finally, Bolshintsov makes a reappearance (Turgenev
had relegated him solely to Act Two) to gloat over his coming marriage. This
need to emphasize the horror of Vera' s fate smacks of bad melodrama. In
Turgenev, there are hints that, married to the unprepossessing but malleable
Bolshintsov, Vera might be able to forge a degree of personal independence
unavailable to her in the Islaev household. Friel wants us to think of her as
sold down the river to become a Natalya Petrovna in embryo.
Given the limitations of the script, the Huntington production,
directed by Nicholas Martin, rattles through the play at a mighty clip. Too
often A Month in the Country is presented as a vehicle for an aging diva eager
to swan around, vamping all the attractive men in reach. Here at least, the
Natalya Petrovna ofJennifer VanDyck is closer to the right age for a woman
facing middle age at thirty. Unfortunately, Friel's clipped rhythms make her
crises de conscience too often seem the fickleness of a neurotic. Moreover, the
actors cast as her husband and the neighboring landowner are too old for
their parts; instead of being contemporaries ofRakitin, they are presented as
elderly boobies. Only the mother-in-law of Alice Duffy and the Doctor of
Jeremiah Kissel would fit comfortably into a more authentic production of
Turgenev's play.
NOTES
lA Month in the Country was presented at the Huntington Theatre, Boston,
September 6 to October 6, 2002.
59
CHEKHOV IN TORONTO FOR RUSSIANS AND NON-RUSSIANS
Y ana Meerzon
For Russian Canadians, the art of theatre is an invisible spiritual
bridge connecting immigrants' present "here and now" with their past "there
and then." How they react to productions of Russian drama in English in
their new environment is a sign of the forging of an "emigre identity" that
tells us something important about their aesthetic expectations and
memories which have roots in their prior lives. I
The production of Chekhov's Shorts at Toronto's Smith-Gilmour
Theatre was an unusual case of dramatizing Chekhov's prose in such a way
as to retain its literary style. The production suggested the techniques of
cinematography in the evocation of specific situations or psychological
portraits against the background of an impressionistic landscape. Even
though in its tone Chekhov's Shorts was reminiscent of vaudeville, the pieces
chosen for this theatrical montage- On the Train, The Man in the Shell,
Sleepyhead, Kashtanka, Rothschild's Fiddle-were more sorrowful than joyous.
All of them depicted the loneliness of a human being experiencing
estrangement from the outer world and immersion in dreams and
unrealizable desires. This was true even when the principal character was a
dog, Kashtanka, standing in for a human being.
Chekhov's Shorts was built on the physical "impersonation" by actors
of places, objects, or humans. The stage was simply an empty black box
without any furniture or set. The only props used in the production were
numerous suitcases transformed by the actors' art and audience's
imagination into different objects: a train, a piano, a cradle, a coffin. These
objects were the key to each fictional world and to the total Chekhovian
enterprise. The directors, Dean Gilmour and Michele Smith, employed the
image of the train moving through time and space as a central Chekhovian
metaphor, representing the changing nature of Russian society undergoing
the industrial revolution at the end of the century. Passengers wait for the
train, ride in it, cut off from nature and the outside world, and tell their
stories. The stage space becomes transformed into a provincial town in The
Man in the Shell, then into a kitchen in Sleepyhead, and into streets, a trainer's
apartment, and a circus in Kashtanka.
For the Russian-speaking audience, Chekhov's Shorts seemed to be an
60
"authentic" representation of Russian wntmg on the Canadian stage,
because of the employment of the leading image of a train. For the native
Canadian audience, the fact that Chekhov's Shorts is composed of Chekhov's
most popular short stories, often adapted for the stage in Russia, provided
insight into Chekhov's prose in its ironic and playful theatricality.
Varenka in Sleepyhead is very tired, because she is the only one to
nurse, feed, rock, love and sing to the master's baby. Her only wish is to
sleep and listen to the fantastic sounds of her dreaming. So she kills the
baby. Chekhov's tale is sad and serious; the play presents Varenka (played
by Patricia Marceau) ironically and portrays the masters grotesquely as
projections of her dreams. The master (Dean Gilmour) and the mistress
(Michele Smith) appear as two huge birds flapping their wings. In her
nightmare, they punish the little servant. Their exaggerated cries and
gestures are comic, reminding us of seagulls and crows. A pathetic story is
transformed into a comedy, conveyed to the audience by the techniques of
Jacques Lecoq's physical theatre, with its roots in mime and circus, and
favoring body language over speech.
In Lisa Repo-Martell's performance as Kashtanka, gesture and
movement merge with sound to create the image of a small, starving dog
dreaming of a bigger piece of lard. The actress builds her performance from
both the physical and psychological traits of a dog lost on the street, who is
totally devoted to her master and suffers greatly. This Kashtanka seems to
jump right out of Chekhov's pages.
Russian theatre has traditionally been a serious institution,
exploring ethical issues of concern to society, whereas theatre in the West is
a form of entertainment, judged as a commodity on the market. Even
though in recent years Russian theatre has re-oriented itself from the ethical
to the commercial, earlier generations of immigrants still operate with the
standards they acquired at home.
Chekhov's early play Platonov is usually interpreted as an
anticipation of a variety of themes and elements that will appear in the
playwright's later dramas. It is often played as a rough blueprint for future
works that will be more mature.
On the contrary, SoulPepper's production in Toronto was a
refreshing surprise, stressing the play's portrayal of existential dilemmas.
The conflict in SoulPepper's Platonov resulted from the advanced,
technologically developed society of the West, leading to people's inability
to listen to each other and the impossibility of dialogue. The Canadian
61
production depicted an unhappy man, Platonov, surrounded by several
monstrous women who were unattractive both physically and
psychologically. These women, according to the very masculine directorial
reading of the dramatic conflict, represent feminist positions, claiming the
leading roles both in the public life of society-Grekova (played by Lisa
Repo-Martell)-and in the private world of Platonov-Anna Petrovna
(played by Nancy Palk).
Laszlo Marton, the director of the production, creates an
unpleasant atmosphere expressed through the sharp geometrical forms and
lighting. The stage represents a "faceless" construction; the unfinished box-
set consists of three light-brown walls with several doors and no roof. The
action takes place both inside and outside Platonov's house, which doesn't
function as "a home" for its inhabitants. It is a cold and unwelcoming
space that tortures the people living in it. There is not enough light, the
action is always in semi-darkness, and even the last event-Platonov's
suicide-happens at a dawn that resembles a gray sunset. Thus, in this
version of Platonov, the Russian immigrant audience was confronted with
not only a particular interpretation of Chekhov's play, but also with an
estranged image of the dramatist himself.
The portrayal of Chekhov as a misogynist, showing women sick
with sexual desire, jumping on men and making love to them openly and
shamelessly, is at odds with the traditional representation of the author in
Russia. It was only during the years of radical Perestroika that Chekhov's
plays went through revolutionary re-readings. Nancy Palk's performance of
Anna Petrovna as one of Platonov's lovers seduced not by his intellectual
promise but by his physical charms, reinforces certain Western stereotypes
of Russians: hysterical oversexed females and weak, drunken males.
SouiPepper's Uncle Vanya is a second example of a Chekhov
production that cuts against the grain of traditional interpretations
through its use of space. Like its Platonov, SoulPepper's Uncle Vanya is full
of cultural references that attempt to be authentic for the Slavic segment
of the audience and yet comprehensible for the North American
spectators. SoulPepper's Uncle Vanya emphasized the unresolved,
pessimistic nature of Chekhovian conflicts seen in modem terms as the
impossibility of men and women living together except in states of mutual
attraction and antagonism.
As in Platonov, the heavy atmosphere of the house in Uncle Vanya
is conveyed through the director's handling of space as a claustrophobic
62
place filled with old and useless things dear to the hearts of the inhabitants.
There are old wooden wardrobes and bookcases filled with dusty things,
glass cans, papers and bottles on top of them. There is a big solid table,
an old-fashioned washstand, and a leather armchair that used to be bright
green, but now is old and unfashionable, surrounded by a few chairs that
seem to fall apart every second. The space of the action has been
deliberately narrowed down, calling to mind the traditional nineteeenth-
century box-set. The allusion to the box-set is underlined in Uncle Vanya
even more radically than in Platonov; the playing area is surrounded by a
ditch filled with earth, which no character dares to cross except for the
worker carrying Serebryakov's luggage at the end of the play. The spatial
arrangement in Uncle Vanya provides the most powerful image in the
production, which opens with the raising of a plastic curtain containing a
waterfall of gray and seemingly endless rain- a trademark of Russian
provincial life past and present. At the very beginning of the production,
the director, Laszlo Marton, plunges the audience into the dark, tense
atmosphere of action unfolding within a limited space that serves as dining
room, kitchen, and bedrooms.
This tension is also deepened by characters' approach to the words
they say to each other. In this environment where everyone lives too
intimately with everyone else, words are superfluous.
Kristen Thompson's performance as Elena Andreevna, especially
her broad gestures, was reminiscent of the performance style of popular
North American TV sitcoms. These exaggerated postures and movements
reduced the inner conflict and trivialized the seriousness of the situation
in which she finds herself at the end of the play.
Nevertheless, Thompson's style of acting got a warm response from
the spectators, who, unfortunately, laughed in the most dramatic places-
in the scene with Sonya and during the farewell with Dr. Astrov. Evidently
Marton decided to mix different stylistic and cultural allusions in the
production, thereby transforming its genre, in order to appeal to the
ethnically diverse Canadian audience. He hoped to effect a process of
assimilation for both the Russian-speaking audience and the North-
American audience.
It may be that for Russian emigres in Canada, to see Chekhov in
English is to recall the standards by which Chekhov is judged in his native
land. This is complicated by the fact that the Russia of emigrant memory
is now seen through the lens of a new life in Canada. The problem is how
63
to belong to two cultures (to borrow Joseph Brodsky's phrase) at the same
time. These productions of Chekhov in multi-lingual Toronto illustrate
how the issue can be addressed.
NOTES
1 Chekhov's Shorts was presented at the Smith-Gilmour Theatre, Toronto,
November 9 to December 15, 1999.
Platonov was presented by the SoulPepper Theatre, Toronto, September 3
to 17, 1999.
Uncle Vanya was presented by the SoulPepper Theatre, Toronto, July 13 to
August, 2001.
64
FOOL'S MASS: THEATRE GROUP DZIECI AT LA MAMA
Edmund Lingan
From January 2 to 19, 2003, Theatre Group Dzieci ("Dzieci" is the
Polish word for "children") performed Fool's Mass at the La Mama Annex
Theatre. Fool's Mass is a highly developed improvisational performance
rooted in the ritual structure of the Christian Mass. The action of Fool's
Mass centers on a group of fools who decide to perform a mass after
discovering that their beloved pastor, who provided them with shelter and
taught them to sing, has died. This dark premise allows the Dzieci
performers to create an emotionally variegated performance, which
alternates between farcical physical humor, distracted grief, and recognition
of the sacred nature of the ritual.
Director Matt Mitler trained under Jerzy Grotowski and Ryszard
Cidlak at the Polish Laboratory Theatre. Mitler's Polish theatrical
formation was reflected in the interplay of sacred and profane, the
prominence of ritual, and in the actor's use of their bodies. In Fool's Mass,
however, contrary to Grotowski's practice in his mature work, the
performers made intimate and direct contact with the audience and they
invaded spaces traditionally allocated to the audience- in particular, seating
areas in the theatre and the theatre lobby. The Dzieci performers created a
moving performance that transcended the surface of slapstick foolery by
their varied and idiosyncratic characterizations, spontaneous
improvisations, skilled movement, and personal, familiar relationships with
the physical objects of the performance-for example, decaying and
deformed false teeth, coarse and ragged clothes resembling those of
impoverished medieval peasants (designed by Karen Hatt), the bread and
wine of the Eucharist, and the Bible. More than one audience member at
the discussion panel that followed the performance stressed that Fool's Mass
resonated as a testament to the way human beings wrestle with their own
ignorance and petty shortcomings in order to experience the sacred aspects
of existence.
The performance began in the lobby of the theatre, where a diverse
group of fools-all with extreme dental deformities- interacted with the
audience. Each fool had a unique disfigured smile, and these false teeth
65
66
67
provided every one of them with a characteristic speech impediment.
However, the fools' struggle with diction did not prevent them from
attempting to converse with every audience member. While I was sitting on
a bench in the lobby, a fool sat next to me. She wore a dress made of coarse
material and carried a basket full of fruits, herbs, and vegetables. After
asking my name, she told me that hers was "Lilith," which she pronounced
as "Lilit" because of her speech impediment. After asking if I had come for
the mass, Lilith offered me a clove of garlic. At this point, another fool in
a similar simple dress approached, indicated Lilith's basket of food, and
announced that Lilith does not cook, stating that she just carries that basket
of produce around. Other equally ridiculous conversations between fools
and audience members took place before the spectators entered the
"sanctuary."
The friendly interest that the fools exhibited in the spectators was
not limited to the lobby. Throughout the entire performance the fools
constantly touched and spoke directly to the congregants. For instance, after
entering the theatre and sitting on a pew placed in front of an altar
supporting the traditional items of the Eucharist, I was again approached by
several fools. One female fool stared into the eyes of a spectator with silent
intensity for what seemed like five or six minutes. Then a more talkative
fool dragged her away, telling the spectator "she must like you very much."
Throughout the performance, the company continued to address and make
physical contact with the audience-sometimes drawing them into the action
of the Mass itself. At one point, for instance, the fools realized that they
needed to read a Biblical passage in order to continue with the service.
Unfortunately, they also realized that no one among them knew how to
read. One fool took the holy book and found a man who agreed to read the
text for them. Becoming very excited, the fools led the man from his seat
to a wooden lectern standing next to the altar. As the man read the text, the
fools caressed him and gave enthusiastic responses to the words he read.
They responded most strongly to the word "Yahweh," chanting the name
ecstatically over and over. When the man finished reading the passage, the
fools formed a small yet grand parade to lead the helpful spectator-turned-
performer back to his seat.
One of the most striking aspects of the production was its
perpetually shifting tone. The initial mood was one of joyousness, as the
fools anticipated the mass to come with glee and interacted pleasantly with
the audience members. However, after a shrill scream shattered the
68
sanctuary, a woman walked slowly onto stage and announced weeping that
the pastor, who taught them to sing in the church choir and cared for them,
was dead. The fools mourned, comforted each other with gentle caresses,
and wondered aloud how they would get along without their friend's
guidance. The mood moved from grief to despair when the most eloquent
of the fools, who wore a simple white shirt, white pants and a skullcap,
announced in a stuttering voice that there would be "no mass today."
The tone changed again when the fools, having overcome their
despair, began to perform the mass in honor of the deceased pastor.
Moments of physical humor were scattered throughout the entire mass,
interrupting the flow of the ceremony. Comic moments developed at
transitions between different sections of the liturgy. Specifically, whenever
the fools tried to remember which part of the mass came next, they became
distracted, losing focus and exhibiting unpredictable random behavior. Just
before the Eucharist began, for instance, a big fool with a bushy beard
impulsively picked up the sanctified wine and, to the horror of his fellow
fools, brought it close to his mouth. Although another fool bashed him
over the head with a large liturgy book (a deed for which the attacker
immediately felt great remorse), the bearded fool ignored the blow and
drained the cup dry. After drinking the wine, the greedy fool grabbed the
bread. Overcome with rage, another fool attacked him with a wooden
spoon, and, instead of striking him, stabbed the loaf.
At this moment the company of performers managed to change
tone again. When the fool who stabbed the bread realized the sacrilegious
nature of her act, she began to weep. When the bearded fool saw his friend
weeping, he realized that his behavior was selfish and harmful and lowered
his head in shame. Suddenly, a third fool entered the tableau. She
approached the bearded fool slowly, repeating the word "holy" in a soft
voice. Gently taking the bread with the care of one handling the most
sacred of relics, she continued uttering the word "holy" while slowly raising
the loaf over her head and staring at it in amazement. Eventually another
fool came and tore the bread in half for her. The two pieces of bread were
then distributed to other fools who broke it into smaller pieces. Eventually
each fool held a piece of bread. They placed bread into each other's mouths
and then in the mouths of spectators. Many spectators had qualms about
receiving the bread in this manner, preferring to take it in their hands.
Another moment in which the tone of the production was
transformed occurred when the fools arrived at the part of the mass with
69
which they were the most familiar-the choral section. Suddenly, the skill
that the deceased pastor had lovingly taught them was displayed. Standing
or sitting on a large flight of stairs leading to the back of the stage, the fools
became skilled musicians, singing in beautiful harmonies.
Fool's Mass, with its blend of farcical humor, glorious song, and
moving depiction of human striving to experience the sacred, is a serious
exploration of our shortcomings and our yearnings to achieve spiritual
enlightenment by transcending those limits. In their struggle with their
beloved ceremony, the fools became increasingly aware of their inability to
stage the ritual, and yet they persevered, because they felt that the mass must
be performed out of devotion to God and to their departed friend. Thus,
they enacted the mass thoughtfully, lovingly, and with great care.
Conscious of their own unworthiness, the fools performed their sacred tasks
with appropriate humility and reverence. The fact that the Theatre Group
Dzieci sometimes performs their mass in actual churches in place of regular
masses is proof that Fool's Mass is taken seriously as both theatre and a
religious ceremony. The audience at Fool's Mass enthusiastically endorsed
Theatre Group Dzieci's demonstration of how spiritual experience and
religious practice can enrich the lives of frail human beings.
70
JANUSZ GLOWACKI'S THE FOURTH SISTER
AT THE VINEYARD THEATRE I
Meghan Duffy
Although allusions to Chekhov's works are woven into the fabric of
Janusz Glowacki's The Fourth Sister, the play is neither a send up of The Three
Sisters, nor an attempt to update Chekhov's early twentieth-century drama.
Glowacki's piece (translated from the Polish by Eva Nagorski and the
author) is a play of ideas. He satirizes capitalism, the pervasiveness of
American popular culture, the decline of morality, and the violence
permeating contemporary Russian society. Although any one of these ideas
would be enough to generate an interesting and compelling drama, The
Fourth Sister is something more than the sum of its many parts. Glowacki
has created a social and political black comedy in the style of Epic Theatre.
The Fourth Sister provides insight into contemporary Russian
society, revealing the conflicts-both personal and societal-that plague
Russians in their search for a new identity. While the old customs that
evolved under Communism no longer serve as a means of maintaining a
cohesive society, the new ones are perhaps even more inappropriate for a
country beleaguered by war, organized crime, and economic chaos.
However, for present-day Russians each new means of coping must
be tried out before being discarded, attempted before the illusion is
shattered. Each of Glowacki's characters represents central themes and the
various coping devices needed to muddle through the absurdity of human
existence. In The Fourth Sister, these solutions range from the old stand-by-
ritualized gulping of vodka-to gender-bending the adolescent houseboy,
Stiopa, as a teenage female hooker named Sonia.
Stiopa/Sonia, the fourth sister, represents escape. The other three-
Wiera, Katia, and Tania- believe that this Cinderella-type character is their
ticket out of Russia, their passport to the Promised Land: Brooklyn, New
York. Unfortunately, upon arriving in America, Stiopa/ Sonia discovers that
life abroad is no better. Contrary to Tania's belief that only Russians lie, it
turns out that Americans do as well. In other words, all of life is a sham.
Containing such a peripatetic piece as The Fourth Sister within the
confines of realism would have been a mistake. It is therefore to director
71
Lisa Peterson's credit that she employs a variety of theatrical conventions,
such as breaking the fourth wall and directing the actors to adopt different
styles. She is following a Brechtian model, as opposed to a Chekhovian one.
For example, the two older characters are portrayed quite realistically, right
down to their Russian accents, while other actors give broad interpretations,
sometimes demonstrating that they are aware that they are addressing an
audience.
Another veil of realism is successfully created by Rachel Hauck's
set. She has constructed a symmetrical stage picture by placing a table and
chairs- where the sisters will spend their time lamenting their lives and
drinking vodka-stage right, and a small sink and stove upstage left for a
kitchen. In addition, a large wardrobe and other odds and ends, which will
be used to create various spaces, such as a park, are strategically positioned
downstage to the right.
At the beginning of the play, we are voyeurs to the events taking
place in the sisters' dilapidated, one-room apartment. However, eventually,
a huge window, which is not proportional to the room, flies in downstage
left, breaking the illusion. When the old Babushka bursts into the
apartment through the upstage door-after a loud scream and the sound of
something crashing- and runs to the window, hoping to catch her son who
has been thrown out of an upstairs window by some gangsters, we again snap
out of any momentary empathy we may have been experiencing. Such is
the rhythm of the play. One minute we as audience members are entranced;
then the next moment we are confronted with something oddly out of place
that changes our perceptions and expectations.
The most interesting object on stage is a very large bed, which holds
a privileged position center stage and is the site of much of the action, both
seemingly inconsequential-such as the daily-changing-of-the-sheets ritual-
and highly dramatic-such as the youngest sister Tania's sacrificing of her
virtue to obtain money for her eldest sister's abortion. The action occurs in
the dark, undercutting the emotional impact of the scene. In fact, all the
highly dramatic and violent action takes place in a blackout or offstage. The
effect is that of a Brechtian alienation device. When the lights go out at any
of the climactic moments, we are momentarily disoriented, breaking any
identification with the onstage action or the characters.
The most surprising of these moments occurs toward the end of the
play. In what what might appear to be the obligatory scene, all the
characters come together, and it seems as if there will be a melodramatic
72
'-J
w
Marin Hinkle (Katia), Jessica Hecht (Wiera), and Alicia Goranson (Tania) in Janusz
Glowacki's The Fourth Sister, directed by Lisa Peterson, at the Vineyard Theatre
happy ending where the heroes and heroines are reunited and all's well that
ends well. In fact, Wiera, the oldest sister, who never had an abortion, goes
into labor. Just as the infant is being born, the lights go out, and we hear
the short, quick blasts of an automatic weapon.
When the lights come up, all but one of the characters is lying on
the big bed-dead. The only survivor is old Babushka, who stands alone,
center stage, and gives what can be considered a state of the world address.
She laments all the unhappiness and violence in the world, which she says
a Harvard professor has blamed on American movies. Babushka does not
know if this is true. She only knows that everyone was killed by the
newborn, Hope, who came out of the womb with a machine gun. Babushka
was only saved because she was wearing her bullet-proof vest, the most
popular one on the market. We first learned about these vests in an earlier
scene when two gangsters burst through the door and did a commercial for
this latest haute couture must-have. This is a big production number that
definitely surprises the audience, making us both laugh and shake our heads
in astonishment at the absurdity of life.
Throughout the play, intermittent radio announcements act as
Brechtian projections, keeping us informed about the events occurring in
the world that these characters inhabit. Props, such as a wreath and a
bouquet, are flung on the stage, making us-as well as the characters-step
back from the action for a moment. A legless Mghan veteran rolls onto the
stage from time to time to play the accordion. When he is not onstage, this
ubiquitous musician is sitting in a space above the audience, house left,
accompanying the onstage action. In one of the funniest and oddest scenes,
he enters to sing about Murka, the bitch dog who sniffed mines instead of
asses.
In addition to the legless musician, Russian Techno-Pop music has
been incorporated into the piece. With its heavy bass and pop beat, it acts
as an audience stimulant, once again snapping us out of any trances we
might fall into. The most touching musical moment occurs in Act I when
Stiopa, standing in a corner near the huge window, sings a quiet melancholy
tune. The young actor's voice is clear, plaintive, and moving. The moment
conjures up images of Rogers and Hammerstein's Cinderella where the
heroine sings about escaping reality through her daydreams. In The Fourth
Sister, however, Glowacki's lyrics are a lament on the heartlessness and
coldness of the world as seen by the young boy, Stiopa, from his own little
corner. Even in their daydreams, these characters find no refuge from the
74
difficulties of their lives, and yet they continue to search for an escape.
As audience members, we experience the same feelings of
confusion and sense of disruption as the characters. Slowly we come to
understand that our struggle to make sense of a chaotic world is perhaps
futile, and that there is no exit from the absurdity of life. Social constructs
and political power cannot help us escape the chaos; in fact they perpetuate
the absurdity. In The Fourth Sister, Glowacki seems to suggest that we need to
take advantage of the opportunities that life presents, as Babushka has done,
protecting ourselves from the confusion oflife with a bulletproof vest- or, at
the very least, our own illusions.
NOTES
1 The Fourth Sister was presented at The Vineyard Theatre, New York City,
from November 1 to December 8, 2002.
75
CONTRIBUTORS
BEATE HEIN BENNETT received her Ph.D. in Comparative Literature
from the University of South Carolina. She lives in New York City and
teaches at the High School for Health Professions and Human Services. As
translator and dramaturg, she has worked in New York with The Living
Theatre, the Open Space Theatre, the Third Step Theatre Company, in
Virginia with Theatre VCU, the Virginia Museum Theatre, and in Germany
with the Theater W erkhaus Moosach.
MEGHAN DUFFY is a doctoral student in the Ph.D. Program in Theatre at
the Graduate Center of the City University of New York and adjunct in the
Thematic Studies Program at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New
Y ark City. Currently, she is researching American theatre in the 1960s, with
an emphasis on performance as protest. She is also a professional actor.
MAGDALENA HASIUK is a doctoral student in the Drama and Theatre
Department of the University of E6dz, preparing her dissertation on the
Theatre du Solei!. She has published articles on cultural issues in magazines
and journals such as Odra, Didaskalia, Dialog, Opcje and Arkusz.
MARIA IGNATIEVA is Assistant Professor in the Department of Theatre,
The Ohio State University (Lima Campus). Before coming to the U.S., she
was Assistant Professor at the Moscow Art Theatre School Studio. She co-
organized and catalogued (with Joseph Brandesky) an International
Exhibition of the Theatre Designs of Boris Anisfeld (1994-97), served as
consultant on the exhibition, "Spectacular St. Petersburg," at the Columbus
Museum of Art (1999), and published an essay, "Three Hundred Years of
Theatrical St. Petersburg," in the CD-Rom catalog for the exhibit. She is
currently working on The Era of Stanislavsky and Female Creativity, co-
authored by Sharon Carnicke.
EILEEN KRAJEWSKI recently received her Ph.D. from the Department of
Theatre at the Ohio State University, where she taught "Introduction to
Theatre and Self-Images: America on Stage, 1830 to the Present." Her areas
of research include nationalism and secular messianism in Polish romantic
drama and plays of the Irish Renaissance. In Spring 2003, she plans to
conduct research in Poland on the drama of Juliusz Slowacki.
76
MILOS LAZIN is a theatre director from the ex-Yugoslavia who has been
living in Paris since 1989. He is founder and director of the "Mappa Mundi
Company." Prior to his emigration to France, he gained recognition as a
major director in the former Yugoslavia, working mainly in theatre, but also
in radio and television while holding a professorship at the School of
Dramatic Arts in Belgrade and Novi Sad. (See SEEP, Vol. 21, No.2, Spring
2001, for an interview with Lazin.)
EDMUND LINGAN is a doctoral student in the Ph.D. Program in Theatre
at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York and a Graduate
Teaching Fellow at Baruch College in New York City. He will be writing his
dissertation on theatre and the occult.
YANA MEERZON received an M.A. degree from the Russian Academy of
Theatre Arts, Moscow in 1996. She now works in Toronto as a dramaturg
and as a teacher of theatre history. She is also a member of the Canadian
National Theatre Critics Association and a Ph.D. candidate at the Graduate
Center for the Study of Drama, University of Toronto and has published
many articles as a theatre critic. She is a co-founder of the online journal,
Toronto Slavic Quarterly.
LAURENCE SENELICK, Fletcher Professor of Drama at Tufts University,
won the Barnard Hewitt Award of the American Society of Theatre Research
for his book The Chekhov Theatre: A Century of the Plays in Performance. His
translation ofTurgenev's Luncheon with the Marshal appears in his anthology
Russian Comedy of the Nikolaian Era.
Photo Credits
Avram Goldfaden Festival--Beate Hein Bennett
Ballads and Romances
Scene from Jun's production-Urszula Karpinska
Scene from Hanuszkiewicz's production-Jacenty Dedek
Szczerski-Teatr im. Zeromskiego, Kielce, Poland
Costume sketches--Irena Jun and Aleksandra Semenowicz
Slobodan Snajder--Henrik Saxgren, Slobodan Snajder, Milos Lazin
Fool's Mass-Theatre Group Dzieci
Fourth Sister--Vineyard Theatre
77
MARTIN E. SEGAL THEATRE CENTER PUBLICATIONS
E.Q_UR
Mo AR I
Pixerecourt:
Four Melodramas
Translated and Edited by:
Daniel Gerould
&
Marvin Carlson
This volume contains four of
Pixerecourt's most important
melodramas: The Ruins of Babylon,
or Jafar and Zaida, The Dog of
Montatgis, or The Forest of Bondy,
Christopher Columbus, or The
Discovery of the New World, and
Alice, or The Scottish Gravediggers,
as well as Charles Nodier's
"Introduction" to the 1843 Collected
Edition of Pixerecourt's plays and
the two theoretical essays by the
playwright, "Melodrama," and
"Final Reflections on Melodrama."
"Pixerecourt furnished the Theatre of Marvels with its most stunning effects, and
brought the classic situations of fairground comedy up-to-date. He determined the
structure of a popular theatre which was to last through the 19th century ...
Pixerecourt determined that scenery, music, dance, lighting and the very movements
of his actors should no longer be left to chance but made integral parts of his play."
Hannah Winter, The Theatre of Marvels
USA $20.00 plus shipping $3.00 USA, $6.00 International
Please make payments in U.S. Dollars payable to:
Martin E. Segal Theatre Center
Mail checks or money orders to:
Circulation Manager
The CUNY Graduate Center
365 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10016-4309
Visit our web-site at: web.gc.cuny.cdu/mestc/
Contact: mestc@gc.cuny.edu or 212-817-1868
MARTIN E. SEGAL THEATRE CENTER PUBLICATIONS
Contemporary Theatre iu Egypt, edited by Marvin Carlson, contains the
proceedings of a Symposium on this subject held at the CUNY Graduate
Center in February of 1999 along with the first English translations of
three short plays by leading Egyptian playwrights who spoke at the
Symposium, Alfred Farag, Gamal Maqsoud, and Lenin El-Ramley. It
concludes with a bibliography of English translations and secondary
articles on the theatre in Egypt since 1955.
(USA $12.00 plus $3.00 shipping. Foreign $12.00 plus $6.00 shipping)
Zeami and the No Theatre in the World, edited by Benito Ortolani and
Samuel Leiter, contains the proceedings of tbe "Zeami and the No
Theatre in the World Symposium" held in New York City in October
1997 in conjunction with the " Japanese Theatre in the World" exhibit at
the Japan Society. The book contains an introduction and fifteen essays,
organized into sections on "Zeami's Theories and Aesthetics," "Zeami
and Drama," "Zeami and Acting," and "Zeami and the World."
Four Works for the Theatre by Hugo Claus contains translations of four
plays by the foremost contemporary writer of Dutch language theatre,
poetry, and prose. Flemish by birth and upbringing, Claus is the author
of some ninety plays, novels, and collections of poetry. The plays
collected here, edited and with an introduction by David Willinger,
include The Temptation, Friday, Serenade, and The Hair of the Dog.
Theatre Research Resources in New York City is the most
comprehensive catalogue of New York City research facilities available
to theatre scholars. Within the indexed volume, each facility is briefly
described including an outline of its holdings and practical matters such
as hours of operation. Most entries include electronic contact
information and web sites. The listings are grouped as follows:
Libraries, Museums, and Historical Societies; University and College
Libraries; Ethnic and Language Associations; Theatre Companies and
Acting Schools; and Film and Other.
Please make payments in U.S. Dollars payable to:
Martin E. Segal Theatre Center.
Mail checks or money orders to:
Circulation Manager
The CUNY Graduate Center
365 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10016-4309
Visit our web-site at: web.gc.cuny.edu/ mestc/
Contact: mestc@gc.cuny.edu or 212-817-1868

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