SEEP Vol.26 No.2 Spring 2006

volume 26, no.
2
Spring 2006
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 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10016-4309. All
subscription requests and submissions should be addressed to Slavic and
East European Performance: Martin E. Segal Theatre Center, The City
University of New York Graduate Center, 365 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY
10016-4309
EDITOR
Daniel Gerould
MANAGING EDITOR
Margaret Araneo
EDITORIAL ASSISTANT
Cady Smith
CIRCULATION MANAGER
Louise Lytle McKay
ADVISORY BOARD
Edwin Wilson, Chair
Marvin Carlson Allen]. Kuharski
Martha W. Coigney Stuart Liebman
Leo Hecht Laurence Senelick
Dasha Krijanskaia
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
Daniel Gerould
DIRECTOR OF PROGRAMS
Frank Hentschker
DIRECTOR OF ADMINISTRATION
Jan Stenzel
Martin E. Segal Theatre Center Publications are supported by generous grants &om
the Lucille Lortel Chair in Theatre and the Sidney E. Cohn Chair in Theatre of the
Ph.D. Program in Theatre at The City University of New York.
Copyright 2006 Martin E. Segal Theatre Center
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Slavic and East European Performmtce Vol. 26, No.2
Editorial Policy
From the Editor
Events
Books Received
IN MEMORIAM
TABLE OF CONTENTS
"Zygmunt Duczynski, 1951-2006"
Kathleen Cioffi
ARTICLES
"Wroclaw- Breslau:
Searching for New Theatrical Space and Local Identity"
Magdalena Golaczynska
"Theatre in Hungary:
From Past to Pees, 1984- 2004"
Robert Cohen wit h Andras Marton
PAGES FROM THE PAST
"Remembering Maria Lilina: Part I"
Maria Ignatieva
REVIEWS
"Staging Lithuania's ' New Situation':
Cezaris Grauzinis's Attempts on Her Lift"
Jeff Johnson
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6
7
17
18
25
37
45
61
3
"Slava's Snowshow at the Union Square Theatre:
A Long-Running Clown Act in New York City"
Olga Muratova
"Satanas Ex Machina:
Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita
in Vladimir Bortko's Cinematic Adaptation"
Ekaterina Sukhanova
"Redeeming Nudity: Gombrowicz's Operetta
at La MaMa, New York City"
Krystyna Lipinska Illakowicz
Contributors
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82
89
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Slavic and East Europemt Peifonnance Vol. 26, No.2
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 with
contemporary materials on Slavic and East European theatre, drama, and
film; with new approaches to older materials in recently published works;
or with 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 of Style should be followed. Transliterations
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 Peiformance, 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 our website at http/ /web.gc.cuny.edu/metsc. E-mail
inquiries may be addressed to SEEP@gc.cuny.edu.
All Journals are available from ProOuest Information and Learning as
abstracts online via ProQlest information service and the
International Index to the Performing Arts.
All Journals are indexed in the MLA International Bibliography and are
members of the Council of Editors of Learned Journals.
5
FROM THE EDITOR
Volume 26, no. 2 is the second issue of the twenty-fifth anniversary
year of SEEP, which we celebrated on April 4 with a gathering of authors,
editorial staff, and friends at the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center. Eugene
Brogyanyi, Krystyna Lipinska Illakowicz, Maria lgnatieva, Jeff Johnson,
Veronika Tuckerova, and Maxim Krivosheyev participated in a round-table
discussion of recent developments in Eastern European theatre.
The current issue has as its core four articles that are concerned with
historical reckonings and reassessments. It opens with Kathleen Cioffi's IN
MEMORIAM tribute to the director, Zygmunt Duczynski, whose
contribution to the Polish theatre it appraises. Then Magdalena Gofaczynska
examines the work of three experimental groups in Wrodaw engaged in
exploring the complex Polish and German identity of the city through a
quest for new theatrical spaces that becomes a journey in time to the 1930s,
the war years, and the Stalinist era. Next Robert Cohen surveys the 2003
festival in Pees, seen from the perspective of his earlier experiences with
Hungarian theatre over a twenty year period. In the first of two articles under
our rubric PAGES FROM THE PAST, Maria Ignatieva considers the life and
art of Lilina, Stanislavsky's wife and one of the leading actresses in the
Moscow Art Theatre, whose importance in the work of the company and in
the evolution of the method has been underestimated. Four reviews round
out the issue. Jeff Johnson discusses a new Lithuanian production of an
experimental British play, Olga Muratova salutes a long-running Russian
clown show now in New York, Ekaterina Sukhanova takes the measure of the
first Russian film version of Bulgakov's Master and Margarita, and Krystyna
Lipinska I!fakowicz examines a recent production of Gombrowicz's Operetta
at La MaMa in New York.
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Slavic and East European Peiformance Vol. 26, No.2
STAGE PRODUCTIONS
U.S. Regional
EVENTS
Two Polish guest artists, Luba Zarembinska and Patryk Czaplicki,
from Stacia Szamocin Theatre, along with guest actor Michael Griggs,
collaborated with students from Willamette University on the staging of two
plays by Jan Wilkowski at Willamette University's Kresge Theatre in Salem,
Oregon, April 20 to 23:
Confession in Wood, translated for this performance by Mateusz
Perkowski.
The Lives of the Saints, or The World According to Wowra, adapted by
Luba Zarembinska, translated by Patryk Czaplicki and Ida Bocian.
Northwestern University presented Chekhov's Three Sisters,
directed by Mary Poole at the Josephine Louis Theatre in Evanston,
Illinois, May 13 to 22.
STAGE PRODUCTIONS
New York City
Shoot Them in the Cornfields!, a new play by Sophia Murashkovsky,
directed by Yuri Joffe, from the Mayakovsky Academic Theatre, Moscow,
was performed at the Producers Club Theatres (PC2 Theatre), March 30 to
April16.
Catch 86, a one-man play about the legacy of Chernobyl, written
and performed by Taras Berezowsky, was presented at the Ukrainian
Museum, May 5.
Czech Center New York, in collaboration with the Immigrants'
Theatre Project, presented the Fifth Series of Staged Readings: Czech Plays
in Translation at the Public Theatre. The readings included:
7
The Conspirators by V aclav Havel, directed by Gwynn MacDonald,
May 1.
Bikini by ZuzanaJochmanova, directed by Andreas Robertz, May 8.
Theremin by Petr Zelenka, directed by Marcy Arlin, May 15.
ARTE (American-Romanian Theatre Exchange), part of the 2006
New Drama Program coordinated by Saviana Stanescu and John Eisner, will
bring four American playwrights (Tanya Bartfield, David Henry Hwang,
Kelly Stuart, and Saviana Stanescu) to Bucharest for a collaboration between
the Lark Theatre of New York and Bucharest's Teatrul Odeon. The project
will begin in Bucharest from May 21 to 29 and continue in New York in t he
summer of2007.
Bass Saxophone, written and directed by Vit Horejs, was performed
at the Grand Army Plaza Memorial Arch in Brooklyn, May 27 to June 25.
Galapagos Art Space's Evolve series will present Richard Caliban's
Teatro Slovak, a collage of dance, music, and video performed by a troupe of
Slovakian actors, at Galapagos, June 2, 9, 16, 23, and 30.
Women & War, a fund-raiser for V-Day, the global movement to
end violence against women, will include a reading of Eve Ensler's Necessary
Targets about the victims of the war in Bosnia, featuringJ ane Fonda, Marian
Seldes, Shiva Rose, and Shohreh Aghdashloo, at Studio 54, June 12.
Erarit;jariijaka, a performance piece by Heiner Goebbels, Theatre
Vidy-Lausanne, and actor Andre Wilms, inspired by the writings of Bulgarian
author Elias Canetti, will be presented at the Rose Theatre of]azz at Lincoln
Center, July 27 to 29.
STAGE PRODUCTIONS
International
The National Theatre will present Martin Crimp's version of The
Seagull by Anton Chekhov, directed by Katie Mitchell, at the Lyttleton
Theatre in London, UK, June 17 to August 5.
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Slavic and East European PeifOrmance Vol. 26, No. 2
Bolshoi Drama Theatre in St. Petersburg, Russia, presented
Emigrants by Slawomir Mrozek, directed by Nikolai Pinigin, May 6.
The Maly Drama Theatre in St. Petersburg, Russia, presented
Federico Garcia Lorca's The House of Bemarda Alba, directed by Yury
Kordonsky, May 6.
The Croatian National Theatre of Zagreb presented a new play,
Hasanaginica, based on a ballad written in 1774 by Milan Ogrizovic and
Mustafa Nadarevic, who also acts and directs, May 8, 11, 18, 30, and
June 17.
Die Volksbi.ihne in Berlin presented the following two plays by
Anton Chekhov as part of the Theatertreffen Festival:
Platonov, directed by Stefan Pucher, May 12.
Ivanov, directed by Dimiter Gotscheff, May 10 and 11.
The National Theatre "Marin Sorescu" of Craiova, Romania,
performed Twe!fih Night, directed by Silviu Purcarete, in conjunction with
the Bath Shakespeare International Festival 2006, at the Theatre Royal in
Bath, UK, May 14 to 18.
The Cherry Orchard by Anton Chekhov, directed by Barbara Frey,
was presented at Deutsches Theatre in Berlin, March 25 to May 20.
The Shaw Festival Theatre will present Chekhov's The Bear and The
Proposal together under the title Love Among the Russians, adapted by Morwyn
Brebner and directed by Edna Holmes, at the Court House Theatre Ill
Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, Canada, June 10 to September 24.
FILM
New York City
The Polish Cultural Institute and the Film Society of Lincoln
Center, in association with the Polish National Film Archive, presented A
Road Map of the Soul: The Complete Kidlowski, a retrospective including
9
discussions of The Double Life of Veronique and the Three Colors trilogy. The
event was held at the Walter Reade Theatre at Lincoln Center, April 5 to 23.
It will also be presented in the following cities:
LACMA and Film Forum, Los Angeles, California, May 5 to 28.
Cleveland Cinematheque, Cleveland, Ohio, May 6 to 28.
Cinematheque Ontario, Toronto, Canada, May 25 to June 24.
Pacific Film Archives, Berkeley, Caifornia, May 25 to June 24.
The T ribeca Film Festival took place between April 25 and May 7
and included the following films:
Lunacy, directed by Jan Svankmajer, May 1 and 4.
Holiday Makers, directed by Jin Vejdelek, presented at Tribeca
Performing Arts Center, May 5.
Two Players from the Bench, directed by Dejan Sorak, presented at
AMC Loews 34th Street Cinemas, May 5.
The Shutka Book of Records, directed by Aleksander Manic, presented
at Tribeca Cinemas, May 6.
Three Days in September, directed by Joe Halderman, presented at
AMC Loews 34th Street, May 5 and 6.
The Death of Mr. Lazarescu, directed by Cristi Puiu, presented at
Film Forum, April26 to May 9.
The Museum of Modern Art presented Conjuring the Moving
Image: Lech Majewski Retrospective, organized by Laurence Kardish, senior
curator. The following films, with original musical scores by Majewski, were
screened, each accompanied by one of his VideoArt works:
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Slavic and East European Performance Vol. 26, No. 2
Blood of a Poet, Poland, USA 2006, World Premiere, May 3
(introduced by Majewski) and 11.
Gospel According to Harry, USA 1992, May 3, 7, and 13.
The Roe's Room (Pok6j Saren), Poland 1997, May 4 and 11.
The Knight (Rycerz), Poland 1980, May 5 and 8.
Angelus, Poland 2000, May 5, 8, and 13.
Garden of Earthly Delights, Great Britain, Italy 2004, May 6 and 7.
Basquiat, USA 1996, May 6 and 10.
Wojaczek, Poland 1999, May 10, 12, 14.
Light From the East, a 1991 documentary about La MaMa's
participation in an American/Ukrainian theatrical and cultural exchange
project amidst the collapse of the Soviet Union, directed by Amy Grappell,
was presented at the Pioneet Theatre, May 11 to 17.
The Film Society of Lincoln Center presented the series Farewell: A
Tribute to Elem K.limov and Larisa Shepitko, at the Walter Reade Theatre,
May 19 to 30. The following films were presented:
Heat (Znoy, 1963), directed by Larisa Shepitko, and Larisa (1980),
directed by Elem K.limov, May 19, 20, and 22.
Welcome, or No Trespassing (Dobra poshalovat', ili postoronnim vkhod
vospreshchyon, 1964), directed by Elem K.l imov, May 19, 21, and 22.
Ascent (Voskhozhdeniye, 1978), directed by Larisa Shepitko, May 19,
21, 26, and 29.
Come and See (ldi i Smotrz) 1986, directed by Elem K.limov, May 20
and 29.
11
Wings (Krylya, 1966), and The Homeland of Electricity (Rodina
Electrichestva, 1967), directed by Larisa Shepitko, May 20 and 23.
Agony (Agoniya, 1975-1981), a.k.a. Rasputin, directed by Elem
Klimov, presented in the complete, fully restored version May 20,
21, 23, 27, 28, and 30.
The Adventures of a Dentist (Pokhozhdeniya zttbnogo vracha, 1965),
directed by Elem Klimov, May 23, 27, and 28.
You and I (Ty iya, 1971), directed by Larisa Shepitko, May 24, 27,
and 28.
Farewell to Matyora (Proshshanie s Matyoroy, 1981), directed by Elem
Klimov, May 24, 26, and 28.
The Third Annual Bosnian-Herzegovinian Film Festival took place
at the Anthology Film Archives, May 19 to 21. The festival consisted of
seventeen films, including the following:
Go West, directed by Ahmed Imamovic, May 19.
Asim Free Man, directed by Rusmir Agacevic, May 20.
Frame for the Picture qf My Homeland, directed by Elmir Jukic,
May 21.
justice Unseen, directed by Aldin Arnautovic and Refik Hodzic,
May 21.
Counterpoint for Her, directed by Danijela Majstorovic, May 21.
City Cinematheque, a co-production of City University Television
and the Department ofMedia and Communication Arts of the City College,
CUNY, presented Three by Tarkovsky, Two by Wajda, featuring the films:
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One Day in the Life qf Andrei Arsenevich, a documentary profile of
Russian director Andrei Tarkovsky as he makes his final fi lm,
Slavic and East European Peiformance Vol. 26, No. 2
The Sacrifice, directed by Chris Marker, April 1, 2, and 7.
Tbe Steamroller and the Violin, directed by Andrei Tarkovsky, April 1,
2, and 7.
The Mirror, directed by Andrei Tarkovsky, April 8, 9, and 14.
The Sacrifice, directed by Andrei Tarkovsky, April 15, 16, and 21.
Man of Marble, directed by Andrzej Wajda, April 22, 23, and 28.
Man of/ron, directed by Andrzej Wajda, April29, 30, and May 5.
The Czech Center New York is screening the following new
Czech films:
Hitler, Stalin, and I, directed by Helena Trdtfkova, May 16.
The Citizen Vdclav Havel Goes on Vacation, with a post-screening
Q& A with director Jan Novak, May 25.
The Farm Keeper, directed by Martin Duba, June 22.
A.B.C.D.TO.P.O.L., with a post-screening Q& A with director Filip
Remunda, June 27.
Skfitek, directed by Tomas Vorel,July 13.
Eliska Loves It Hot, directed Otakaro Schmidt, July 28.
Ready for the Grave, directed by Milan Steindler, August 10.
A Trip to Kar/Jtejn, directed by Tomas Vorel, alongside various other
shorts from the beginning of the Skelp Troupe's work, August 31.
CUNY-TV will feature Richard W. Adam's Citizens, a documentary
chronicling Poland's Solidarity Movement between 1980 and 1981,
September 22 and 24.
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FILM
International
Ceskj Sen (Czech Dream), a documentary by Filip Remunda and Vft
Klusak, was screened as part of Indymedia Film Night at Liberty Hall in
Dublin, Ireland, May 25.
The Thirtieth Annual Hong Kong International Film Festival took
place in Hong Kong, China, from April 4 to 19 and included the following
films:
Something like Happiness (Stlstz), directed by Bohdan Slama, April 8
and 16.
The Three Rooms of Melancholia (Melancholian 3 huonetta), about the
victims of the war in Chechnya, by Finnish documentary director
Pirjo Honkasalo, April 14 and 18.
WORKSHOPS AND COURSES
International
Boris Bakal, Katarina Pejovic, Alessandro Rossetto, and BacaCi
Sjenki are currently in the process of leading Sidereus Nunci us, a project
gathering various cult ural organizations and individual artists throughout
Europe to examine the life, work, and legacy of Galileo Galilei in order to
create a dialogue among art, faith, and science. The project includes the
developmental workshop "Constellation," in which participants will create a
"specific re-reading and re-mapping of the city of Pi sa" using a combination
of live performance, digital video and audio, and web design.
"Constellation" was held at CinemaTeatroLux in Pisa, Italy, from May 8 to
18. Sidereus Nuncius will run various events and workshops in Pisa through
June 24.
The Staniewski Center for Theatre Practices (Gardzienice) is offering
an intensive summer workshop, open to fifteen applicants worldwide, who
will be invited to live and train with the company in Lublin, Poland, from
June 5 to 15.
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Hannah Hurtzig and Carolin Hochleichter, in cooperation with TR
Warszawa, will present Mobile Academy: Warsaw 2006, a proj ect offering
courses in photography, acting, directing, dance, choreography, conceptual
art, and art theory. The theme of the project is "Ghosts, Spectres, Phantoms
and the Places Where They Live"; courses and lectures with scholars and
practitioners will explore "the ghostly in social life, architecture, in politics,
in contemporary art and art theory." The Academy will hold courses between
August 25 and September 10.
OTHER EVENTS: THEATRE AND POLITICS:
Interna tiona!
The staff of the underground company Free Theatre of Belarus have
issued an appeal to all creative unions, theatre groups, and theatre activists
worldwide to join them in solidarity with Belarussian citizens demanding
their right to fair and democratic elections. Many theatre activists, including
members of Free Theatre, helped create a makeshift camp in Minsk's
Oktyabrskaya Square and participated in recent demonstrations. The
following members of the Belarussian theatre community were among the
thousands of citizens repressed by authorities during the protests:
Valeriy Mazynsk.iy, director and founder of Free Stage Belarusian
Drama Theatre, sentenced to ten days in jail.
Pavel Kharlanchuk, director and actor, National Gorky Drama
Theatre, sentenced to ten days in jail.
Svetlana Sugako, musician and Assistant Director of Free Theatre,
sentenced to seven days in jail.
Irina Yaroshevich, Assistant Director of Free Theatre, beaten by the
police.
Free Theatre urges the international theatre community to express
their support for human rights in Belarus and assist them in their resistance
to the current Belarussian political regime. (See Steven Lee Meyers, "A
Troupe Is a Potent Force in Belarus's Underground," New York Times,
9 February 2006, Section E, 1.)
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Le Madame, a popular gay club and venue for contemporary
theatre and visual art in Warsaw, Poland, was raided by police on March
25. The club, a center for multi-cultural and counter-cultural artistic and
political activities, was targeted by local members of Poland's new
hard-right government. However, Le Madame's patrons- over two-hundred
people- prevented the shutdown by staging an overnight sit-in. Negotiations
between representatives of the Warsaw city government and the club's
openly gay owner, Krystian Legierski, a Polish-born black gay activist with
the Warsaw Lambda Association, eventually led to withdrawal of police. (See
Doug Ireland, "A Polish Stonewall," Gay City News, 30 March 2006,
www .gaycitynews. com/ gcn_512/ apolishstonewall.h tml .)
Compiled by Carly Smith
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Slavic and East European Perfonnance Vol. 26, No. 2
BOOK RECEIVED
Mrozek, Slawomir. Baltazar. Autobiografia. Warsaw: Noir sur Blanc, 2006.
252 pages. Includes 43 photographs of the author, his family, and friends.
Notatnik Teatralny, Special issue "Nietzsche/Lupa." Vol. 34,2004. 199 pages.
Contains 22 articles dealing with Lupa's Zarathustra (premiere Athens 2004,
Polish premiere Cracow 2005), including texts by Nietzsche, fragments of
Lupa's scenario and diaries, many drawings by Lupa, and dozens of
photographs as well as a three-page summary in English.
Robertson, Robert. "Eisenstein's Film-Symphony Project, Que viva Mexico!,
Pa11 1: Landscape and Part 2: Music" in O.ffscreen (www.offscreen.com), Vol.
9, No.3 (March 31, 2005).
__ "Eisenstein, Synaesthesia, Symbolism and the Occult Traditions," in
O.ffscreen (www.offscreen.com), Vol. 10, No.3 (March 31 2006).
Theatre in Poland, 1-2, 2005. 70 pages. Contains four feature articles, reviews
of new productions, books, and Polish plays. Includes many photographs,
some in color.
Theatre in Poland, 3-4, 2005. 70 pages. Contains three feature articles, reviews
of new productions, books, and Polish plays. Includes many photographs,
some in color.
Zakiewicz, Anna. Witkacy. Warsaw: Edipresse, 2006. 96 pages. Contains six
chapters and a chronicle of the artist's life and work. Includes a bibliography
and approximately one hundred illustrations, primarily color paintings and
portraits but also photographs and drawings.
17
IN MEMORIAM
2YGMUNT DUCZYNSKI, 1951-2006
Kathleen Cioffi
On March 15, 2006, Zygmunt Duczynski, the artistic director and
founder of Teatr Kana in Szczecin, Poland, died at the age of fifty-four.
Called "one of the most important creators of Polish alternative theatre,"!
Duczynski was in part responsible for the 1990s becoming an era of
surprising vitality for the alternative theatre in Poland. Theatre historian
Magdalena Golaczynska writes, "The closing decade of the twentieth century
was a period of renewal for the alternative theatre in Poland. It is hard to
overestimate the role it has played in the cultural life of the country."2
Although Duczynski's reputation as a stage director rests primarily on two
outstanding productions that were presented at the beginning of the
post-1989 period, his achievement in helping to make alternative theatre play
such a large role in the cultural life of Poland was much greater. I met
Zygmunt Duczynski in the summer of 2005 when, as part of City Acts
without Borders, a project organized by the California nonprofit Arden2 in
cooperation with Teatr Kana and other Polish groups, I visited the sixth
edition of the International Street Artists Festival that Kana has organized
annually since 1999.3 I was struck by Duczynski's deep humanity and equally
deep commitment to creating a sense of community in and through the
theatre.
Duczynski founded Kana as a student theatre in 1979, and, as was
common in student theatre at the time, in the early years his productions
were based on poetry, including the works of Stanislaw Baranczak, Zbigniew
Herbert, Czeslaw Milosz, and Osip Mandelstam. In 1986, Duczynski
directed a production entitled Czame Swiatlo (Black Light), based on several
works by Jean Genet, that was considered one of the best alternative theatre
productions of the mid-1980s. However, the real turning point for Kana
came in the late 1980s when Duczynski came across the work of Russian
writer Venedikt Erofeev. In 1989, he wrote and directed Moskwa-Pietuszki
(Moscow-Petushki), a one-man show that was an adaptation of Erofeev's
novel of the same name (the novel's title has been rendered into English by
various translators as Moscow to the End qf the Line, Moscow Stations, and
Moscow Circle). The novel depicts a day in the life ofVenya, who vainly tries
to take a train to Petushki to see a woman he loves but somehow misses the
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Slavic and East European Peiformance Vol. 26, No. 2
Jacek Zawadzki in Teatr Kana's Moscow-Petushki,
directed by Zygmunt Duczynski
19
station and winds up back in Moscow, where he is mugged and killed.
Although Venya, the author's alter ego, drink.)Oonstop, Duczynski saw the
novel more as a commentary on the human condition than on alcoholism:
"Duczynski extracted from Erofeev's novel a clear, metaphysical truth about
man, about his weaknesses, ascents, and descents. Alcohol remained a comic
mask, under which hid the charlatan of fate."4 In a meeting with the City
Acts group, Duczynski declared that he considered Erofeev "an aristocrat of
the soul."
In 1993, Ouczynski returned to Erofeev for his production of Noc
(The Night), which was also based in part on Moskwa-Pietuszki, as well as on
two other works by Erofeev and a few fragments of a poem by Joseph
Brodsky. Noc again featured an autobiographical Venya-character (now called
"The Writer"). But now he was accompanied by other characters: ''The
loneliness ofVenya ... in Noc is the same, but written out in polyphony."S
This production was highly acclaimed, winning both Fringe First and Critics'
Awards at the Edinburgh Festival in 1994, as well as several Polish awards.
Moskwa-Pietuszki and Noc toured internationally to the United States and
Europe, where they garnered enthusiastic reviews. Duczynski's most
successful productions after Noc were Rajski ptak (Bird of Paradise) in 2000,
which received the Grand Prize at the Festival of One-Man Plays in Warsaw,
and in 2002, Milofc Fedry (Phaedra's Love), based on Sarah Kane's play, which
also earned good reviews.
Ouczynski, together with some of his friends from the 1970s
generation and some new young alternative theatre practitioners, revitalized
what had become a somewhat moribund Polish alternative theatre by
building on certain trends, some of which had started before 1989 but
became more pronounced after the fall of communism, and others of which
commenced only after 1989.6 One was the blurring of the lines between
"alternative" and "professional" theatre. Although prior to 1975, the worlds
of alternative/student and professional/mainstream theatre were almost
completely separate in Poland, by 1989, "professional actors" (i.e., graduates
of state drama academies) had begun to act in alternative venues, such as
apartments and churches, and alternative companies were funded by
mainstream sources and invited to theatre festivals sponsored by mainstream
repertory companies. Moreover, after 1989, there were fewer positions in
institutional theatres for graduates of the five state theatre schools, so they
were more interested in opportunities to perform outside of the municipal
theatres. Duczynski took advantage of this situation to employ Jacek
20 Slavic and East European Performance Vol. 26, No. 2
Janusz Janiszewski, Dariusz Mikula, and Jacek Zawadzki
in Teatr Kana's Night, directed by Zygmunt Duczynski
21
Zawadzki, from Szczecin's Teatr Wsp6lczesny, to portray Venya in
}V!oskwa-Pietuszki and the Writer in Noc, and Arkadiusz Buszko, also from the
Wsp6lczesny, who acted in Rajski ptak.
Another trend that Duczynski even more actively took part in was
the proliferation of theatre festivals. Qpite a few of these existed in Poland
before 1989, but after 1989, the trend accelerated. According to cultural
historian Juliusz Tyszka, in 1995 alone there were over 150 theatre festivals
in Poland.7 Kana sponsors or co-sponsors three theatre festivals in Szczecin:
Kontrapunkt (Counterpoint), for short, small-cast alternative and
mainstream productions; Okno (Window), for young alternative theatre
groups; and the aforementioned International Street Artists Festival.
According to Tyszka, these festivals, especially open-air, site-specific ones,
such as the Street Artists Festival, perform a kind of therapeutic funct ion that
allows the Polish public to unlearn the self-protective neurosis that it had
learned during forty-five years of communism and "celebrate being together
in a large group" because of their holiday-like ambiance: "During these
holidays, the daily rules of the game that lead to aggression, to ignoring and
denying others, are suspended."8 Kana, whose name is the Polish
transliteration of the name of the wedding feast where Christ performed his
first miracle, seemed to strive, at least at the festival I attended, to recreate
the atmosphere of a wedding feast or fiesta; in fact, one of the theatres
actually put on a performance called Fiesta. All the performances were free,
and the mood was very joyous and holiday-like. Whether or not Duczynski
believed in Tyszka's posited therapeutic function of street theatre festivals, he
succeeded in keeping the festival focused on "the act of meeting" (a phrase
he used in his meeting with us) rather than on being only a showcase for
performances.
Duczynski was one of the preeminent instigators of a third trend:
the tendency since 1989 for alternative theatres to become local cultural
centers in their regions. In 1991, Duczynski transformed Kana into the
Kana Theatre Association, and in 1994, it was granted its own premises by
the city of Szczecin and became the Kana Theatre Center. The Center
presents a wide range of cultural activities by experimental artists,
including musicians, poets, fi lmmakers, and dancers; it currently sponsors
approximately eighty artistic events a year. Duczynski worked to build
collaborations with local and international theatres, art centers, and
community groups. Kana has been particularly strong in regional
partnerships, organizing border projects with Schloss Brollin, an
22
international interdisciplinary art center in the former East Germany; with
German artists from Berlin, which is only a one-hour train ride from
Szczecin; and with Scandinavian groups, which frequently present their
work during the three festivals. One of the most fascinating collaborations
that Duczynski initiated is with Monar, a rehabilitation center for drug-
addicted young people, a branch of which is located in the countryside
outside Szczecin. At the Sixth Street Artists Festival, the young people
presented Cpanie Sztuki (The Gobbling of Art), a performance combining
hip-hop and butoh elements that they had created with the help of actors
from Kana. The performance-in one of the most effective instances of
drama therapy that I have seen- harnessed both the teens' energy and
anger, and put them to a non-self-destructive use.
Duczynski suffered from debilitating back pain for many years.
Tyszka wrote of him in the mid-nineties:
For his whole conscious life, he has been accompanied by pain.
Not only the pain of existence but also the very concrete physical
pain of a degenerating spine; each moment of life, even a
moment full of happiness and exultation, has been marked by
pain, the memory of pain, or the expectation of pain.9
The physical pain of his everyday existence may have been what
compelled Duczynski to identify so strongly with other outsiders: the
outcast Genet, the alcoholic Erofeev, the tormented Sarah Kane, the drug-
addicted youth of Monar. In an obituary published in the Kurier
Szczeciriski, the authors wrote:
He wanted to gather to himself people who were likewise lost and
outcast. And they came and found in Kana their own place,
sometimes for the first time in their lives. Not only as audience
members, but also as co-creators.JO
Duczynski obviously felt that creating a community through theatre had
been his own salvation, and he was eager to welcome others into that
community.
Duczynski may have known that his illness was coming to a crisis
last summer. He told our group that he was interested in creating
performances about eschatological questions of life and death, and h e
23
pointed out the idea that the dead need more nourishment than the living
because a person is dead for a much longer period of time than he is alive.
Kana- both as a theatre and as center for alternative culture-gave
Zygmunt Duczynski the nourishment he needed while he was alive. It is
up to those he embraced as his collaborators, both in Poland and in other
countries, to continue to nourish him now that he has left us.
NOTES
I Roman Pawlowski, "Zmarl Zygmunt Duczynski" [Zygmunt Duczynski Has Died],
Gazeta W)lborcza, 15 March 2006, www.gazeta.pl. All quotations from articles in
Polish are in my translation.
2 Magdalena Golaczynska, "The Alternative Theatre in Poland since 1989," trans.
Marcin W'}siel, New Theatre Quarterly 17 (2001): 186.
3 Arden2's City Acts without Borders is a multi-year, multidisciplinary creative
project, which is in part inspired by the work of Zygmunt Duczynski and others to
promote collaborative exchanges in border regions that enrich the life of the
contemporary city. The City Acts group met with Zygmunt Duczynski in Teatr Kana
onJuly 10, 2005.
4 Ewa Adamczyk-Stepan, "Lekkosc i glc;bia prawdy" [The Lightness and Depth of
Truth], Teatr 48, no. 11 (1993): 40.
5 Piotr Michalowski, "Dwukrotny cud w 'Kanie"' [A Double Miracle at "Kana"),
Odra 2 (1996): 93.
6 For more on Polish alternative theatre after 1989, see my article "New (and Not-So-
New) Alternatives," Contemporary Theatre Review 15, no. 1 (2005): 69-83.
7 Juliusz Tyszka, "The School of Being Together: Festivals as National Therapy
during the Polish 'Period ofTransition,'" trans.Jolanta Cynkutis and Tom Randolph,
New Theatre Q;tarterly 13 (1997): 171.
8 Ibid., 178- 79.
9 Juliusz Tyszka, "Sk<Id sic; wzic;la Kana?" [Where Did Kana Come From?], Dialog41,
no. 9 (1996): 157- 58.
10 Artur Liskowacki and Bogdan Twardochleb, "Dla tego i:ycia" [For This Life),
Kurier Szczecinski, 16 March 2006, reprinted as "Zymunt Duczynski (1951- 2006),'' at
www.e-teatr.pl.
24
WROCLAW-BRESLAU
SEARCHING FOR NEW THEATRICAL SPACE
AND LOCAL IDENTITY
Magdalena Golaczynska
Since the beginning of the 1990s, intensive exploration of new
theatrical venues has been widespread in Poland. These artistic experiments
have been fruitful, resulting in interesting performances created by directors
in both mainstream and non-mainstream theatres. In this broad range of
productions, the most significant projects are those in which the experiments
with theatrical space are geared to the local themes being investigated. At
present, this is a striking tendency in the life of the Polish theatre. The
themes consist of realistic or fictional past or present events that take place
in the authentically existing places, well known to the artists and to the
spectators from their everyday life. This can be described as local theatre,
addressed to the small communities within a given city, town, or district.
Contemporary directors in creating new theatrical space in non-theatrical
buildings, or in the open air, draw upon the countercultural tradition of
environmental theatre. At the same time, writing their own original
scenarios, they use genuine documents, biographies, and memoirs mixed
with fictional plots.
In W roclaw, the capital of Lower Silesia, regional themes appeared
at first in literary and historical publications. ! Authors, along with city
authorities, began to reinterpret regional history, falsified by communist
propaganda,2 by calling attention to the German heritage of Wroclaw. In
recent seasons, Wroclaw has appeared as the protagonist in several important
productions. In 2004, Wroclaw audiences have had the opportunity to see
Kamienica. Das Haus (A Tenement. Das Haus ) by the alternative Scena
Witkacego (Witkacy Theatre), Wroclawski poci4g widm (Wroclaw's Train of
Phantoms) and Historia (History/Story) by Grupa Artystyczna "Ad
Spectatores" (the Artistic Group "Ad Spectatores"), and Niskie l:.C}ki (Low
Meadows, the name of a street in Wroclaw) on the stage of the mainstream
Teatr Wsp6lczesny (Contemporary Theatre). In 2005, directors at the
independent theatres have continued local research: this year the Scena
Witkacego has prepared Na zach6d od Sao Paulo (West of Sao Paulo), while
Teatr Zaklad Krawiecki (Tailor's Shop Theatre) has staged Spiewnik wroclawski
(Wroclaw Songbook).
25
Na zach6d od Sao Paulo, which premiered March 18, 2005, was
staged by Sebastian Majewski, manager, artistic director, and actor at Scena
Witkacego. The performance is part of a five-year community project
"Nadrzeczywiste Nadodrze" (Surreal On-the-Oder), consisting of a series of
theatrical and social activities aimed at revitalizing the old Nadodrze district
ofWroclaw. Majewski explains:
The choice of Nadodrze as a subject of these actJvJttes was not
accidental. Nadodrze is an area full of rows of tenement buildings from
the middle and end of the nineteenth century, which nowadays are often
neglected and sometimes completely dilapidated. Nadodrze is
commonly considered to be dangerous, which keeps the inhabitants
[from the rest of Wroc!aw] from visiting the district. This also creates
negative, simplified stereotypes about the area and the local population.3
Majewski seeks to make the residents of Nadodrze aware of their district's
uniqueness and also to encourage them to discover their heritage and to
create a feeling of collective identity.
From the beginning, the activities of Scena Witkacego have been
multimedia in their nature, as were the artistic works of the company's
namesake, Stanislaw Ignacy Witkiewicz. Thus, Majewski and his actors have
organized and conducted walking tours to interesting places in the district,
created documental films about Nadodrze, and finally staged performances.
In 2002, they established the first regular theatre in Nadodrze, in the cellar
of SKiBA (the College for the Education of Librarians and Cultural
Animators).
Majewski's scenarios are based on the fiction of Andreas Pilgrim, a
contemporary German writer from Dresden, who makes contact with
inhabitants of pre-war Breslau and collects the stories of their lives. In the
case of Na zach6d od Sao Paulo, Majewski was inspired by a short story by
Pilgrim, Linia (A Line), about the destiny of an average citizen of pre-war
Breslau, Erika Strasser, who, after years of a sad life at the side of her surly
husband, revolts against a relationship that turned her into an object and
decides to leave him. As a forty-year-old, she sets out on a journey, searching
for the truth about herself. She goes right through Breslau, "along a perfectly
straight line." During her excursion, she passes by different points in the city
and confronts the fates of others. At the same time, she travels through the
tragic history ofWroclaw. Her journey begins in the Gross Mochbern district
26
in December 1938 and ends in August 1971 at Kielczowska Street.
Relinquishing her own personal problems allows Erika to see the
human tragedies taking place all around her. She has to pass through an
apartment on the Anderssenstrasse, where she meets Juta Grosschmidt, a
Jewess, who quite literally sells her skin to a kite workshop where kites are
made out of Jews' skin. (As "skin," the actress uses ordinary kitchen foil,
wrapped around her hand, which is then cut off with a small knife-this is
one among many well-chosen props, which are moving due to their
naturalistic specificity). Then, Erika meets Helga Braun, a young and athletic
female Nazi. Disoriented Erika, who was sympathetic to the Jewess
Grosschmidt, obediently allows herself to be turned into a glider, adorned
with Nazi symbols. She must "fly and praise the Aryan nation." In actual
fact, however, she is a grotesque object-this figure of a robust woman
covered with tiny decorations produces the effect of ridiculing the party.
In Majewski's production, images permeated with irony alternate
with poetical ones, as is demonstrated in a powerful scene portraying the
Holocaust (1942). This motif is deliberately treated during an announced
"intermission," as though the question of thousands of murdered inhabitants
of pre-war Breslau was situated somewhere on the periphety of "important"
German biographies. The actors "take a break," working on a crossword
puzzle: "A spa in Czech Republic?-Theresienstadt" -where we detect a bitter
irony about the faking of history and the dark humor of cruel anti-Semitic
jokes. At the end of this unusual intermission, in a symbolic image, the
performers take off from around their necks Jewish family photos; their
flying off into the air brings to mind the anonymity of death in the gas
chambers.
The last episode of the war takes place in May 1945 when Erika
meets an exotic Soviet soldier wearing a fur coat. Initially full of compassion,
he turns into a communist who, together with young Polish communist
activists, brutally forces her to forget Wrodaw's German past.
During Erika's journey, the characters use many topographical
names, both German and Polish, and consequently Breslau-Wroclaw
emerges as a presence primarily on a linguistic level. The city is a familiar
place only for Erika (the Russian calls it "a strange city," and the Poles accept
it mainly for propaganda purposes-they quote the patriotic poem Rota).
However, in terms of the staging, the capital of Lower Silesia is treated
abstractly. Schematic, geometrical stage design and contemporary props
build a bridge between past and present. Above all, the true nature of
27
28
West of Sao Paulo presented by Scena Witkacego,
directed by Sebastian Majewski, 2005
W rodaw appears in the complicated biographies of its characters,
representatives of different cultures, whose histories have by chance
intersected in one place. Local theatre as conceived by Majewski is a theatre
of everyday life, presenting ordinary lives of the people. Their biographies,
which are seemingly insignificant compared to the history of the "great," in
fact constitute the past of the city. The actors of Scena Witkacego, in an
attempt to revise local history, show its characters from different points of
view. An important quality of the performance is the avoidance of
sentimentality due to the fact that the characters' fates are shown with
theatrical distancing. The performance has a leisurely rhythm created by the
slow music and mechanical movement of anonymous figures, wandering
along imaginary lines, emphasizing the theatricality of their actions. These
figures (actors temporarily "detached" from their roles), who appear between
the episodes as mute observers of the characters' actions, can be interpreted
as the personification of the blind mechanism of history.
29
The performers in Majewski's company also inscribe themselves in
the history of Wrodaw's everyday life. After the scene of Erika's death
(Wroc!aw, 1971), they introduce summary versions of the other characters'
lives. Among those mentioned are young inhabitants of present-day
Wroc!aw, with the actual names of the performers, presenting imagined dark
scenarios of their own future.
In keeping with the still relatively new traditions of Scena
Witkacego, the premiere of Na zach6d od Sao Paulo took place first in the
basement of SKiBA and then in several other places in Nadodrze- among
others, in a closed cinema and an old hospital. A consequence of such an
on-going performance is the presence of the inhabitants of the district, who
can suddenly tum into the audience. Once, when the group performed
above a pub in the old Cinema Polonia, three intoxicated locals sat in the
first row among the audience. However, they did not interrupt the show but
quickly became involved in the story, loudly reacting to it. Such accidental
spectators are still very rare, but each weekend, the Majewski troupe performs
West of Sao Paulo presented by Scena Witkacego,
directed by Sebastian Majewski, 2005, performed at the Cinema Polonia
30
without fail. The actors try to develop the habit of theatre going among the
locals, as well as to attract an audience from downtown, often people who
are venturing into Nadodrze for the first time.
The search for new theatrical venues has been a constant with Grupa
Artystyczna "Ad Spectatores" Pod Wezwaniem Calderona (the Artistic
Group "Ad Spectatores" under the aegis of Calderon), an alternative
company established in 1997 by students (now graduates) from the Acting
Department of PWST (State Theatre School). "Ad Spectatores," headed by
Maciej Masztalski, a t heatre amateur and professional photographer, has
from the beginning of its activity consistently created environmental theatre,
re-animating ruined spaces in Wroclaw. Although an independent theatre,
the company administers as much as two permanent stages: a summer one
in the historic Wieza Cisnien na Grobli (Water Tower, a part of Wroclaw
Water Company MPWiK) and a smaller all-year-round chamber theatre
(Scena Kameralna), "Panama," in the building of the Dworzec Gl6wny, the
city's main railway station.
Wroclawski pociqg widm (Wroclaw's Train of Phantoms), or WPW,
written and directed by Krzysztof Kopka, perfectly realizes the requirements
of local theatre. In the performance, with stage design by Ewa Beata
W odecka and costume design by 0qbr6wka Huk, the company uses several
authentic urban spaces. WPW reveals the city's past, showing the darkest and
most dramatic period in its history, the decade 1938- 1948, from the Night
of Broken Glass up to the Peace Congress. It presents the dramas of well-
known and anonymous inhabitants of Nazi Breslau and Stalinist Wroclaw,
of Nazi activists, deported Jews, native communists, and repatriates from the
East. The first section of WPW is performed in the disused east wing of the
main railway station, and the venue plays the part of the small railway station
Brockau (Broch6w) and also the apartment of the lineman Schumman in
November 1938. The story of the Schumann family was partly based on the
fami ly of Peter Schumann, who was born in Brockau, moved to the United
States, becoming a leader of the Bread and Puppet Theatre. In the
performance, Peter, as a ten-year-old boy, stages in his puppet theatre a cruel
fairy tale about "a city by the little river" (the Oder). His prediction of a
burning city becomes a reality almost immediately- the spectators along with
the Schumann family and their friends see the glow of the Great Synagogue
burning that evening. The audience is situated in the middle of the conflict
because the railway man, old Schumann, is a subordinate of the Nazi, Miller,
and also a friend of the Jew, Walter Tausk, who is trying to hide from the
31
pogrom in Brockau. Among the family acquaintances, there is also a
Silesian- the stonemason Adolf Orzoll, whose daily work becomes the
symbol of the city's complicated history. The conscientious German Orzoll
reshapes the beaks of Breslau's eagles on civic coats-of-arms, "restoring their
Teutonic appearance."
In the next section of the performance, the audience moves to the
station platform and gets on the train in order to go settle the eastern
territories of the Reich. Drang nach Osten goes in reality from the main station
(Dworzec Gl6wny) to the Nadodrze station (Dworzec Nadodrze). The
spectators, who are uncomfortably crowded into a baggage wagon, pasted
with brown paper to cover the windows, feel like soldiers going to the front
or prisoners on the way to the concentration camps. The train, like a time
machine, takes the spectators to t he time of the Second World War, but that
period (1939- 1945) was portrayed with distance, in the conventions of the
puppet theatre, with Brecht's songs and fragments of Schweyk in the Second
World War. However, it was not the account of the prolonged siege of
Stalingrad that makes the greatest impression on the audience, but it was
rather the subsequent reading of a letter by a woman from Breslau, who had
participated in the enormous exodus of the civilian population in January
1945 and whose child had died because of exposure to the cold. The reading
made the audience aware of the universal commonality of what the Germans
and the Poles had suffered, both forced by history to abandon their homes.
The train goes back to the main city station following the same
route, but the journey is again time travel-to postwar Wrodaw. Still in the
train, the spectators fall into the hands of home-grown communists and are
taught by two women activists to sing a communist party song, "Zbudujemy
nowq P o l s k ~ (We'll Build a New Poland). On the platform, all travelers
become guests of the international Peace Congress of Intellectuals (1948),
welcomed by a red banner and activists with carnations. In the last section,
the past confronts the present because the audience, singing and marching
across the platform and the street, is observed by authentic late travelers or
the frequent night visitors to the station (the performance ends at 11.30
p.m.). In the old wing of the station, the spectators follow the further
destinies of the characters- both those from Breslau and from Wroclaw.
Somber confessions and vivid political discussion alternate with amusing
behind-the-scenes accounts of the first communist radio broadcasts. The
Silesian stonemason, now with the Polish name Wladziu Orzel, passes his
Polish nationality test and again reshapes the beaks of stone eagles. He also
32
becomes a defender of garden magnolias from the destructive impulses of
thrifty Polish repatriates (mainly farmers), who wish to plant only potatoes
and cabbages in their gardens. Thus, the symbol of the city's survival is not
the destiny of its people, not even its architecture, but rather a magnolia
bush from Broch6w. As long as there are inhabitants who take care of its
useless beauty, the city will survive.
WPWis a theatrical work that refers most literally to the space of the
city and its history because it situates its action in the real station and train.
As was the case with Majewski, Kopka alternates "important" historical
events with t he tragedies of ordinary people. True historical accounts taken
from various known sources are interwoven with fictional motifs- Schumann
and T ausk are authentic people who really lived in Breslau, although it is
Wroclaw's Train of Phantoms, presented by Grupa Artystyczna
"Ad Spectatores," directed by Krzysztof Kopka, 2004
33
The company ofTeatr Zaklad Krawiecki (Tailor's Shop)
doubtful they knew each other, and the actual four-year-old Peter was made
a teenager. So the performance used some traits of documentary theatre and
the theatre of fact.
In his next performance, Spiewnik wrodawski (Wroclaw Songbook),
which had its premiere on June 30, 2005, Krzysztof Kopka made use of true
contemporary stories. At the beginning, he had worked with verbatim
accounts, which he later transformed into fiction. Spie1emik wroclawski
(Wrodaw Songbook), was prepared by Teatr Zaklad Krawiecki (TZK),
bringing together young graduates of the Puppet Department of PWST led
by Szymon Turkiewicz. Since March 2004, the actors ofTZK have worked
in the building of an old brewery-Browar Mieszczanski-a unique historic
complex of industrial architecture. In the performance, Kopka and the TZK
actors show absolutely contemporary citizens of Wrodaw, dealing with the
controversial subject of the homeless in Polish society. Spiewnik wroclawski
(Wroclaw Songbook), is a part of a more extensive project called Wroclaw tu
34
i teraz (Wrodaw Here and Now), a series of socially engaged performances,
in which TZK criticizes consumer society by giving voice to the
underprivileged. Before rehearsals began, the actors repeatedly visited hostels
for homeless men and women. In order to stress their commitment to the
problem, the actors decided to give the characters their own names.
The structure of the performance resembles that of a songbook, with
songs smacking of trivial sentimentality, but also including scraps of moving
human dramas, such as those of a lonely young female alcoholic, a
deaf-mute boy, or a couple, who after losing their apartment were separated
and placed in two different hostels for homeless women and men. Though
the audience is seeing events from the lives of contemporary inhabitants of
Wroclaw, the characters with their sad life stories still represent an
environment scarcely known to the public. Moreover, Kopka and his actors
emphasize the helplessness of theatre in the face of homelessness. What is
most convincing is the clash of two alien worlds: the world of the homeless
and unemployed and the world of working people. The latter is represented
by a bureaucrat, the hostel's manager, and by an eager young actress who
attempts to activate and integrate the apathetic homeless, conducting them
as a chorus.
The characters talk a lot about their city, about meetings by the
Oder River, at well-known places and districts, in courtyards and backyards.
The space of Wroc!aw is portrayed abstractly by the multi-functional set.
TZK performs in an old rectangular workshop-hardly changed at
all-exposing its dilapidated character so that the peeled-off paint and
remains of brewery equipment are visible. An industrial loading platform can
be taken as wide, ascetic concrete stage. On the left side and in the middle
of the stage, the scenes from the hostel for the homeless are played (with
conventional furniture serving as sofa, chair, desk of the chief); on the right,
the scenes from city's streets are played around a bench and a peeling wall.
These local theatre performances and the other artistic activities
described above belong to a specific dialogue between the present and the
multicultural past history of the city, which is fascinating both to the
inhabitants and to the young performers. As a result, all of the people
observe their everyday life with greater awareness, and the performances
given in authentic urban spaces lead to a new perception of the surrounding
architecture and the only superficially known environment. Searching for
new theatrical space proves to be a way of making use of the aura of mystery
permeating it and of taking advantage of its natural poverty.
35
NOTES
1 For example, novels of Olga Tokarczuk and Jerzy Lukosz, or numerous historical
publications on the occasion of the city's millennium in 2000, such as Microcosm by
Norman Davies and Roger Moorhouse.
2 In 1945, Wroclaw was taken from Germany and incorporated into Poland. Stressing
a "moral right" to western territories, the socialist authorities invoked the Piasts' past
from the Middle Ages. For the centuries, Wroclaw had been Czech, Austrian,
Prussian, and German.
3 Sebastian Majewski, "'Nadrzeczywiste Nadodrze.' Dzialania tw6rcze w obszarze
miasta. Pr6ba uporz<jdkowania," in Konteksty animacji spoleczno-kulturalnej, ed.
Krystyna Hrycyk (Wroclaw: Silesia, 2004), 132.
36
THEATRE IN HUNGARY
FROM PAST TO PECS, 1984-2004
Robert Cohen with Andras Marton
It is hard to imagine a lovelier place than Pees, in the Hungarian
southwest, with its brightly colored neo-baroque buildings, always animated
pedestrian streets, and squares shaded by dew-dripping linden trees and
bursting with statuary. It was the perfect place for the third annual Hungarian
National Theatre Festival in June 2003, which brought 210 separate events-
theatre performances, art installations, exhibitions, concerts, and
discussions-from around the country and the adjacent Hungarian diaspora.
Hungary is a uniquely isolated culture. As former Hungarian
president (and longtime playwright) Arpad Goncz has said, Magyar culture
has been "quarantined by its language," which, apart from a few ancient roots
shared with Finnish, is unrelated to any other in the world. Being at the
crossroads of the Ottoman Empire and Western Europe for five centuries,
and then NATO and the Warsaw Pact during the Cold War, Hungary's
isolation is particularly distinctive-it has not been hiding in the bushes but
"comes between," as Hamlet says, "the pass and fell incensed points of
mighty opposites." Hungarians certainly know how to look out for
themselves.
Though having none but the most rudimentary Magyar, I have
lectured and directed acting workshops in Hungary several times, both
before and after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The changes between my
first visit in 1984 and that of my visits later have been enormous.
On my first visit, for which I was provided with a small apartment
in the Jewish quarter of Pest, my family and I were required to register in
person with KEOKH-Hungary's Central Office for Supervising Foreigners.
My scheduled lecture at the Academy was canceled, just prior to my arrival,
by those I understood to be political (not Academy) authorities-and was
given instead in the living room of my host, the distinguished actor-director
Dr. Andras Marton, to an audience of several Hungarian actors, directors,
and designers. But the theatre productions I saw on that occasion were truly
outstanding: a vibrant and searing Hamlet, a wildly innovative Master and
Margarita, and a hilarious but strangely pathetic Servant ofTwo Masters.
As Dr. Marton has recently explained to me:
37
Sending coded messages to the audience was the strongest
element of our theatre in those "good old days." However dull our
political landscape and isolated our society, our theatre was
extremely popular, and we enjoyed the excitement of sold-out
houses every night. For actors and directors, it was a basically happy
time-and we assumed a stable one, as we saw no possibilities of
political change in the offing. There was no mistaking the fact,
h owever, that our situations during this era were quite
unpredictable, even dangerous. A writer could easily be expelled
from the country, and an actor or director punished for
disobedience; careers could be and were suddenly destroyed, even
through the mid-1980s. We played, therefore, a game we thought
noble indeed. It was exciting to be "together," sharing the same
moral, ethical, and political principals with our audiences while
remaining acutely aware that embedded Party officers amongst us
were sending daily reports to unknown and faceless authorities.
I now realize, however, how much we were deceiving
ourselves. We had come to believe that our only mission as theatre
artists was to learn these subtle skills of "hide and seek." While we
were deeply occupied with defeating political censorship, the new
directions of the Western theatre were passing us by. When the
revolution came, our acquired skills lost their value overnight. And
we realized we had to relearn our profession.
It didn't happen quickly. First came a vibrant and exciting
period when you could say what you thought; nothing had to be
coded or disguised. But free speech has its disadvantages, it turns
out. Hungarian theatre had lost its importance. The newly free-
speaking Parliament had taken over our roles as national comedians.
People didn't come to see us; they were more amused by the live TV
broadcasts from Parliament. Politicians had become the new stars;
we were "merely players." Years of decadence had to pass until some
promising signs appeared on the theatrical horizon.
Dr. Marton's promising signs had clearly appeared by this 2003 festival.
Bravura acting, sharply defined scripts, and innovative directing and
sceneography were on full display and spanned a wide range of
contemporary and even post-contemporary styles. I found three of the
festival's opening-week productions truly extraordinary and would like to
38
Slavic and East European Peifonnance Vol. 26, No.2
describe them more fully.
The Pees hometown company is its own Pees National Theatre, and
its production of Gyorgy Spiro's 1982 The Imposter was a work exemplifying
the changeover. A play about theatre set in a theatre-it is largely a
commentary on the various acting styles of the Eastern European stage and,
particularly in this production, a disquisition on the political control over
that stage and the acting styles that play out upon it.
No recent play consolidates more Central and Eastern European
cultures than The Imposter: a Hungarian play about Polish-speaking actors in
Russian-occupied Lithuania during the nineteenth century. A historical
drama, no production (or play) could more poignantly point out the
differences between coded, Soviet-era Hungarian productions and this
post-Soviet one. The story begins with a down-at-the-heels Lithuanian
theatre troupe that has invited Wojciech Boguslawski, the legendary (yet
actual) nineteenth-century Polish actor-director, to play the title role in a
one-night performance of Moliere's Tartuffe. The invitation of such a
celebrated Warsaw star is intended as a last-ditch effort to curry favor with,
and funding from, the Russian governor who oversees the town. The
governor is expected to see Tartuffe's ending- a royal writ that rights Tartuffe's
wrongs and restores civil order-as a validation of Russian authority over the
province, a point that the local director plans to underline by lowering a
portrait of the Tsar as the new Louis XIV. But when the now-embittered
Boguslawski arrives in town on the afternoon of the performance, he proves
to have little inclination for this task. Instead, he astounds the company by
demanding an extravagant fee (to be paid in cash, which he brazenly counts
out in front of the cast), spurns the sexual advances of the company's leading
ladies, and refuses the director' s pleadings to make nice with the governor
after the show. Worse, the actor proposes radical re-interpretations for all of
Tartu.ffe's characters, based on revisionist readings of the play's hidden
psychological motivations and subtextual plotlines, which, he argues, reverse
the traditional interpretation and make Tartuffe sincere and Elmire
duplicitous. "That's not in the script !" the director screams. Most of the
company screams along with him.
But Boguslawski' s real target is not the company's old-fashioned,
provincial acting style; he's after the country's occupying rulers, who expect
only cartoon versions of the social order they've imposed and see expressions
of social ambiguity as politically subversive. Thus, in a coup de theatre that
Boguslawski devises for the ensuing performance of Tartu.ffe, the messenger
39
Gyorgy Spiro's The Imposter, presented by the Pees National Theatre,
directed by Ivan Hargitai
with the royal writ fai ls to appear, and Boguslawski pretends to ad-lib, in the
messenger's place, a mocking speech ridiculing the governor's forces and
humiliating the Czar, forcing the governor and his KGB-style henchmen to
retreat in shame. One can imagine the power of the original 1982 production
in then Soviet-dominated Budapest, but the Pees producers (the director was
Ivan Hargitai) add their own surprises to Boguslawski's coup by substituting
a poster of Leonid Brezhnev in place of the Tsar's and inserting the Polish
national anthem, sung in full chorus by the impassioned company, as an
explosive valedictory hymn. Spiro's play is a major work in the world
dramatic repertoire, and its emotional power in this 2003 production, while
locally drawing on the tragic events of the 1956 Hungarian uprising and the
events of 1989-90, evokes responses to cultural imperialism then and now,
there and everywhere.
The play certainly demands a great actor to play a great actor, and
Tamas Jordan, also the director of the festival itself, played Boguslawski with
40
Slavic and East European Performance Vol. 26, No.2
subtle charm and well-delineated irony. Yet his quiet dignity, which more or
less proves his political points by making acting choices, provides a
redoubled meaning.
The most surprising production on opening week, coming from the
northern wine town of Eger, was a new musical, alternately flinty and
affecting, that pulsed with raw (and sometimes amateur) vitality. Called
Somewhere in Europe (Valahol Eur6pdban), the play was adapted from a
well-known Hungarian film of the same name and directed by Attila Beres.
Somewhere (the country is unnamed but the soldiers' helmets are
pointedly Russian) tells the story of about twenty children abandoned in an
unspecified twentieth-century war, and the action is filled with horrendous
tank crunchings, gunshots, and cannon explosions, all played through the
most bombastic sound system I have heard to date. These blend flawlessly
with spectacular visual renditions of urban warfare: collapsing walls,
exploding buildings, and stage-filling smoke effects. And all this in a fully
orchestrated musical!
Language was hardly necessary to get the main lines of the action
across, which for the most part proves a hearty Hungarian goulash of Les
Misirables, Rent, The Sound of Music, and Oliver! And when an orchestra
conductor arises from the rubble as a battered survivor to conduct the
children in a hopeful ode, we segue into a gritty, grisly Peter Pan. Tragic and
romantic by turns, Somewhere hurtles from betrayals to couplings, despair to
fervor, and starvation to rapture, while its young singing orphans-under the
now-revived conductor's baton- are both clear-eyed and heartrending. The
play's stirring musical coda proves French playwright Jean Verdun's point
that "performance is the number one enemy of our misery," and we leave
the theatre with the sort of unembarrassed glow that only great musical
theatre can provide.
1
The Gardonyi Geza Theatre production featured an
agile cast of talented youngsters, in addition to its fine professional adult
performers. The very nimble Gergo Kaszas (a pro) and Patricia Kovacs (a
student) were terrific as teenagers who find love amidst the ruins.
Classics were prevalent in the earlier era, of course, but I found
Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, presented by the M6ricz Zsigmond Theatre of
Nyiregyhaza, a sexier and more exuberant production than I had previously
experienced east of the iron curtain; perhaps, in fact, the best Twelfth Night I
had ever seen. Directed by Eszter Novak- and I might note that women
directors are still a rarity in Hungary-the production was a rollicking delight,
infusing new insights into the character relationships inherent in
41
Shakespeare's text. Toby and Andrew steal the show, as always, but Viola and
Sebastian, in their matching unbuttoned trench coats, are each wonderfully
engaging, and their passionate, tearing-at-each-other reunion at play's end, a
sibling squeeze that completely unhinges them both (as well as their amazed
lovers), puts a thrilling button on this intensely compelling production.
Novak stages with athletic abandon on an open, jungle gym set that features
an oil-derrick/lighthouse for climbing, steel cages and crawl spaces for
hiding, fly-wires to lower props, and a diagonal runway across the stage on
which characters dash on and off at breakneck speed. An explosively gawky
Fabian (Peter Sas), whose first appearance late in the second act often seems
like a Shakespearean goof, here becomes a catalyst for escalating sexual
tensions and deepening subtextual anxieties, particularly for far-from-
pathetic Sir Andrew (this must be a first!) and a coarsened but stalwart Sir
Toby. Gyorgy Honti's Malvolio, who first appears hovering over Olivia with
an ominous black umbrella, then makes a physical tum around with his
cross-gartered yellow stockings-displaying them to his would-be mistress
toes-upward in a perfect pike position. Translation has freed this production
to extend Shakespeare's language into contemporary Hungarian idioms,
which the company extends further with ad-libs of its own. But the spirit
here is not one of mindless license; rather the actors show an appropriately
"What-You-Will" abandon, honoring the play's subtitle. The only false note,
to me, was the play's karaoke/opium-den opening, which suggested a more
sour and lethargic production than what soon developed. Perhaps this was a
deliberate set up (in which case an effective one) of the loudest and most
tumultuous tempest I have ever heard or seen on stage.
It is likely that my lack of Hungarian heightens the generosity of
these remarks, as my response to these productions is untempered by any
ability to parse the language for infelicities or flaws. Local criticism, I'm told,
was intense and even withering. But that too helps to explain the wondrously
expansive levels of ambition, imagination, vitality, and audacity fully
embraced by the Pees producers. This was a vibrant theatrical week, unlike
any I had previously experienced in that country.
It would be a mistake, of course, to presume that all these changes
are for the good. There were grim faces aplenty in Pees, even at the all-night,
every-night parties at the Palatinus Hotel across from festival headquarters.
State subsidies have been slashed from the Soviet-Kadar era. Some of the
major theatres have turned to commercial genres, chiefly light comedies and
musicals, simply to stay afloat (such as the Budapest Madach Szlnhaz, where
42
Twelfth Night, presented by the M6ricz Zsigmond Theatre
of Nyfregyhazam, directed by Eszter Novak
43
I saw a musical version of A Christmas Carol a few years ago). Hungarian
actors no longer enjoy lifetime employment at their major state or city
theatres, and even leading actors can only dream of their stellar incomes of
years past. Indeed, Dr. Marton explains that even veteran Hungarian actors
now face the intermittent, short-term employment conditions-mainly at
bottom-of-the-scale rates-of their American counterparts. Younger actors
face yet gloomier prospects since the main Budapest theatres (Vfgszfnhaz,
Katona Jozsef Szfnhaz, Madach Szinhaz) are still headed by the same Soviet-
era directors, who often favor old colleagues over emerging new talent.
Nonetheless, the spirit is high and the community of theatre,
particularly as exemplified by the smaller Eger and Nyfregyhaza companies,
is exalted. We must remember that while generous subsidies made for great
productions at the very best Hungarian theatres during the Soviet era, they
also led to sinecures in many ordinary ones, where actors and directors were
more rewarded for party loyalty than theatrical art. (In the old days, I'm told,
when actors became too feeble-or drunk-to perform competently, they
weren't fired but simply shipped out to perform on the company's school
tours.) Permanently guaranteed jobs have little place in cutting-edge artistic
innovation, needless to say, and the glories of Pees would have been
inconceivable without the enthusiasm and keen ambition of artists reaching
for their highest possible levels, and then struggling to exceed them.
NOTES
I Jean Verdun, Tibi's Law, trans. Robert Cohen, tn TheatreForum no. 24
(Winter/Spring 2004), 29.
44 Slavic and East European Performance Vol. 26, No.2
REMEMBERING MARIA LILINA
PART I
Maria lgnatieva
Konstantin Sergeyevich was a man with a capital M, while I was
ordinary, and I have always known it. I
Maria Lilina
Maria Lilina was born in 1866, and thus 2006 marks her 140th
birthday. According to the accounts of such respected people as Vassily
Kachalov (the Moscow Art Theatre leading actor) and Nikolai Efros (the
finest critic of the time), Maria Lilina was one of the best actresses of the
Moscow Art Theatre. However, Lilina and her role in Moscow Art Theatre
history and in Stanislavsky's life are practically unknown in the West
(unlike, for example, Olga Knipper, who, as Chekhov's wife, has been the
subject of various books, dissertations, and even a play). Several factors
have contributed to Lilina's shadowy role in the annals of the Moscow Art
Theatre. Kachalov's son elucidated one of them.
My father considered Maria Petrovna [Lilina] an exceptional
actress, and the best actress of the Moscow Art Theatre. He used
to say that she had not emerged as a great actress of her time
because she did not see herself as one. Not that she
underestimated her own talent, no, but she viewed herself as a
person cast to play secondary roles in life and in art: she was a
follower.2
Stanislavsky married Lilina in 1889; they had two children (their
first born died). Their life together coincided with a dramatic period in
Russian history- they met during the reign of Tsar Alexander III,
remembered the coronation of Nicolas II, and lived under Lenin and
Stalin. Lilina (who died in 1943, five years after Stanislavsky) witnessed the
beginning of the Great Patriotic War, the bombing of Moscow, and the
Soviet Army's victories over the Nazis. In 1938, soon after Stanislavsky's
death, Lilina wrote about their youth:
What can I tell you about that period? I was very much in love at
45
first; then I became a wife, a mother, a daughter-in-law in a
family, which seemed odd to me and which I did not understand;
I was a prudent and very careful housekeeper (remember, I came
from a poor family), and last of all, I was an actress. As for
Konstantin Sergeyevich: he appeared to be a wonderful ,
extraordinary, charming actor and the best-looking man in
Moscow.3
If it were not for the theatre, Stanislavsky and Lilina were ve1y unlikely to
have met. In 1888, smashingly good-looking and wealthy, Konstantin
Alekseyev was popular as a clever businessman, amateur actor and
philanthropist, and one of the most sought-after bachelors in Moscow.
On the contrary, very few people had known of Maria Perevoschikova.
She was three years younger than Alekseyev, had been born in Moscow
too, but unlike Stanislavsky, had come from a humble aristocratic clan,
which had neither wealth nor property. Upon the death of her father in
1884, Maria became a "girl without a dowry."
Lilina's life circumstances almost mirrored the early misfortunes
of Olga Knipper: the loss of a father, a change in family status, and the
necessity to work or to marry. But the struggle led both women to develop
their skills for survival, for which they were both rewarded later in life.
Thus, in the tradition of "decent work" for unmarried women without a
dowry and from good families, Knipper gave private lessons to support
herself and later to p ay for her education at the Philharmonic School;
Maria became a classroom supervisor (klassnaya dama) at the Catherine
Institute for Noble Young Ladies in Moscow, with a salary of twenty-five
rubles a month. She had graduated from the same Institute a few years
earlier, and thus, she taught t he girls the same skills that she had been
taught, such as French, dancing, manners, drawing, music, crocheting,
knitting and sewing-all qualities designed to make ideal housewives. (At
the Moscow Art Theatre, Lilina, besides acting, supervised the costume
shop.)
Maria Perevoshchikova was very slim, short, and soft-spoken,
with curly ash-blonde hair and big blue-gray eyes. She was modest, knew
her place, and seemed an ideal classroom supervisor. But behind her shy
manners, she concealed a powerful imagination, a sharp eye for details,
and a passion for theatre. On rare occasions, Maria attended performances
at the Maly Theatre, which had to satisfy her thirst for the real life
46
Maria Lilina and Konstantin Stanislavsky
experiences lacking in her own constrained circumstances. The career of
an actress was out of the question for young women from noble families.
Lilina's first stage appearances were at the Catherine Institute. She
acted in two French comedies (in French) that were put on by the
administration and the girls: Lilina played male parts in both. Except for
such performances, the life of a classroom supervisor was full of
restrictions and limitations. She was not allowed to go out with men, to
marry, or to be involved in any activity that might compromise the
reputation of the Institute (one such activity was t heatre). Nevertheless, in
the winter of 1887-88, Lilina agreed to participate in a fund-raising event
organized by amateur actors to collect money for the Association of
Affordable Public Housing. One of t he participants in this production was
Stanislavsky himself. Another participant, Alexander Sanin (Shonberg was
47
his real name), later one of the artiStiC directors of the Moscow Art
Theatre, helped Maria to invent her stage name "Lilina." Associated with
lilacs and lilies, the name was a little sentimental and pretentious, yet
musical. This tactic was futile: the deception was discovered, and Maria
resigned at the end of the school year. She left Moscow for St. Petersburg
in an attempt to start a new life. But less than three months later, in
October 1888, Lilina received a letter from Stanislavsky; he invited her to
perform in the newly established Society of Art and Literature.
Lilina played Claudine in Moliere' s comedy George Dandin at the
Society of Art and Literature on December 10, 1888. She became an active
member of the Society, where sometimes she played two new roles a week;
one of her greatest successes was Luisa in Kabale und Liebe (Love and
Intrigue) by Schiller, produced in 1889, where she played opposite
Stanislavsky as Ferdinand. From her first days at the Society, Maria Lilina
became an immense admirer of Stanislavsky, and she openly expressed her
feelings. She was a very perceptive critic too, and he always questioned her
about his performance. Stanislavsky admired Lilina's acting too; he found
it delicate, sharp in details, feminine, and natural. He noted that she
loved to rehearse almost more than to perform; most of all, she enjoyed
the process of becoming someone else.
By observing her acting, Stanislavsky polished his pedagogical
talents at a time when he was only emerging as a teacher; he had a strong
urge to guide and teach Lilina. In the winter and spring of 1889,
Stanislavsky rehearsed with Lilina during the day, performed with her at
night, and had tea with h er and her fami ly afterward; thus, their ties were
strengthening. Yet he was not ready to commit himself It was Lilina who
suggested that they marry. She wrote to Stanislavsky later: "Do you recall
those days, May 7, 8, and 9? And my proposal to you? How wonderful
everything was then!"4 Although Stanislavsky was very popular with
women, no one seemed to possess the key to his personality as Lilina did.
Her trust, her love, and her desire for him inspired him tremendously, and
Stanislavsky formally proposed on May 9, 1889. They married on July 5,
1889, in the church on the Alekseyevs' family estate, Lubimovka.
Maria Lilina became pregnant during their honeymoon, and their
first baby, a daughter they named Ksenia, was born on March 23, 1890.
She died on May 1, at the age of one month and one week. Their second
daughter was born on July 21, 1891. They named her Kyra (1891-1977);
Stanislavsky's colleagues teased him, calling him "Kir Darius," the Persian
48
king. Those years between 1890 and 1893 were filled with family disasters.
In 1893, Stanislavsky's father died. Very soon after t hat, his cousin, the
head of the Moscow City Council, was shot dead by a terrorist. And
although they had a son, Igor, in 1894, between 1895 and 1896 t he
marriage was on the edge of calamity. Lilina fel t neglected, for
Stanislavsky was spending too much time at the theatre. Emotionally
overwhelmed, she complained about frequent heartache and neurotic
pains. Stanislavsky's irritation with her complaints only deepened her
despair. In one of her later letters, when their strong ties were fully
restored, she explained:
I am very upset over the sternness you have always displayed
toward the sick-if you look around, you'll see that the whole world
is sick-some have sickness in their bodies, others in their souls.s
After having lived seven years with Stanislavsky, Lilina realized that he did
not fully belong to the family. The factory and his civil responsibilities were
a mere fulfillment of the Alekseyevs' patriarchal duties, unlike his obsession
with theatre, which was taking more and more of his time. Dissatisfied with
the limitations of the amateur t heatre, he started to dream about the
foundation of a professional theatre; in Lilina's eyes, the investment of his
personal funds into the new venture threatened the security of the family.6
Therefore, Stanislavsky was given an ultimatum: family or theatre. He
decided to try to give up theatre. He was devastated when other people
advised him "simply" to give it up. He wrote to his wife:
I am awfully offended and upset when people sneer at theatre.
Why is it a problem (they say)? Just give it up ... as if t heatre were
just a trifl e. I want my quitting theatre at least to be perceived as
a heroic sacrifice.?
His attempt did not reach fruition (as we know), but Lilina appreciated his
effort. They reconciled in 1896; at that time, Lilina finally realized that
the marriage and his love could be saved only if she supported his passion
for theatre. With bitterness t hat would never disappear, Lilina accepted
the fact that she and the fami ly would always come second, the theatre
first. Their relationship would be based on her endless patience and
sacrifice, her complete devotion and unconditional support, which she
49
would always provide for him until he died-and after his death as well. In
1897, Stanislavsky plunged into the greatest project of his life: the
establishment of the Moscow Art Theatre. Lilina joined him and became
an actress of the Moscow Art Theatre; neither was paid a salary.
Lilina's first big role at the Moscow Art Theatre was Masha in The
Seagull, which premiered in December 1898. Nikolai Efros writes:
Almost until the end of the act something was missing ... One last
shade was not there .. . But it was coming. Masha, so homely, in
her rough dress; Masha, who took snuff and behaved peculiarly ...
she stopped near the lake with the handsome Dorn. Disturbed by
the moon's rays, Masha bursts into speech. Her soul could not bear
the secret any longer on such a mysterious evening, and she pours
it out to a stranger . . .. Sobbing, Masha throws herself on a garden
bench. Through the tears, her words emerged, "I love Konstantin."
That was life itself that cried out there.B
Lilina was an eye-opener for the Moscow Art Theatre audiences. Although
she had performed for ten years at the Society of Art and Literature, she was
barely known to the public. Proudly, Lilina wrote to her mother-in-law: "He
[Chekhov] said that I amazed him, for he never expected that the part could
be played so colorfully. I am in heaven."9 Nikolai Efros continues:
I think Lilina in general is the best, most beautiful actress of the
theatre. Lilina's acting technique is natural and yet refined . . . Her
characters don't betray raging temperaments, but express pure
lyricism.!O
Lilina' s second Chekhovian part and her second recognized success was
Sonya in Uncle Vanya, played in 1899.
50
Her spiritual nobility was remarkable. Lilina played her in the same
manner as she performed her Masha in The Seagull; there was not a
trace of sentimentality or artificial dreaminess or self-pity. Her well-
known phrase "One has to be kind!" the actress pronounced with
such det ermination, such unwavering faith, that those simple words
made the play surpass the genre of family drama ... and become
universal.
11
U1
Maria Lilina as Sonya and Stanislavsky as Astrov in Uncle Vanya,
directed by Stanislavsky at the Moscow Art Theatre, 1899
In 1900, Lilina played the Snow Maiden in Ostrovsky's play of the same
title, and although the production was not considered a success, her acting
was called "brilliant."
During the rehearsals of The Snow Maiden, Lilina rebelled against
Stanislavsky's directions. In the first years of the Moscow Art Theatre,
Stanislavsky would show actors how to play their characters and then ask
them to imitate him. Lilina strongly disagreed with this tactic. For her,
acting was not about final results but about the process of becoming
someone else, and thus, imitating Stanislavsky deprived her of the process
of discovery. She was also insulted by the manner in which he addressed
her in public. She wrote:
When you lead a rehearsal with me in the manner you did today,
when you show me how to put the bucket down, how to bend, I
feel myself a manikin, and I lose interest. If, after thinking about
it, and having worked on the part, you tell me [something like],
"No, Marusia, that is not it." I'll do everything you want without
a word ... but I won't copy you from the beginning, I won't do
my part just replicating your demonstrations, I can't. I become
disinterested, dull, boring, and ungracefuJ.I2
Lilina's third and best Chekhovian part was Natasha in The Three Sisters.
Lilina was a true master of details and small touches through which she
mercilessly unveiled the essence of her characters. Thus, Natasha spoke
broken French, trying to be up to the mark of the three sisters.
When Natasha started to speak French, Kaluzhsky fell on the floor
laughing hysterically for a few minutes.I3
Efros noticed that Lilina intentionally used "a slight exaggeration, a
caricature in her truly artistic and refined acting ... . Natasha became a real
symbol of vulgarity."l
4
Following Stanislavsky's strategy, Li lina always
looked for the positive characteristics in an evil person and vice versa,I5 and
in doing, she brilliantly exposed the unsympathetic personality ofNatasha at
the same time portraying her as sexually appealing and feminine. The actress
wrote that she loved her "spicy" Chekhovian character more than the
touching ones (meaning Masha and Sonya). Natasha became Lilina's favorite
role.I6 Nemirovich-Danchenko wrote to Chekhov about her:
52
Above all compliments, she is original and natural! She
particularly underlines the idea that a few wonderful people can
fall victim to the most ordinary and vulgar woman.l7
Acting brought moments of true happiness into Lilina's life. Her artistic
methodology was very close to Stanislavsky's, who often repeated that
every shape and form could be found in reality. Lilina's imagination was
ignited by reality, which shaped her stage characters. As an actress, Lilina
mastered the art of psychological realism, always searching for unique
character details and trying to make them typical for the milieu to which
her characters belonged. But Lilina never had a chance to develop into the
leading actress of the Moscow Art Theatre because of her health.
Soon after Stanislavsky married Lilina, he noti ced that she often
developed pains when overstressed, but she was overstressed daily,
struggling with those enormous responsibilities that she had undertaken as
Stanislavsky's wife and companion, the mother of his children, his
housekeeper, as well as an actress of the Moscow Art Theatre. Not trusting
her health, Lilina always rehearsed with an understudy. For example, in
January 1901, she did not play Masha in The Seagull because of chest pains.
In 1902, she developed stage fright and could hardly control her panic
attacks while performing. When the actress ignored her condition and
tried playing her parts nonetheless, she would become increasingly frail;
sometimes she would be so weak that she would be unable to get out of
bed. In December 1901, Knipper reported to Chekhov:
My sweet! My darling! We played Uncle Vanya with Petrova [as
Sonya]. Maria Petrovna [Lilina] could not. I am wondering if her
talent has gone astray. I feel such pity for herJIS
In March 1902, while on tour in St. Petersburg, Stanislavsky wrote to his
daughter Kyra that they could not play Uncle Vanya before the Tsar for
"Mama is scared [of acting, not the Tsar]."l 9 On March 10, 1902, Lilina
was barely able to finish her performance of Natasha in The Three Sisters.
Knipper wrote that Lilina "can' t get herself in condition to act; the stage
disturbs her and her nervous condition worsens."20 A very private person,
Lilina avoided gatherings, dinners, and celebrations thrown for the
Moscow Art Theatre in St. Petersburg, always retiring to her suite for rest.
The summer vacation after the end of the season did not help, and Lilina's
53
nervous condition did not improve. In January 1903, Knipper wrote:
We played Uncle Vanya with the old cast. Immediately after the
rehearsal, I invited Maria Petrovna to my place and after dinner,
walked her to the living room and put her to bed; then I t ook her
to the theatre, and she played well, mind you her voice was
weak.2
1
Knipper helped Lilina, and Stanislavsky thanked the actress for returning to
his wife her peace of mind for this particular show. Stanislavsky tried
everything in his power to help Lilina regain her psychological strength. He
believed in his own ability to enlighten and cure people. But why did his
guidance not have the same effect upon his wife?
In 1903, Lilina turned t hirty-seven. When Chekhov's long awaited
play, 77Je Cherry Orchard, finally arrived, she, the experienced character
actress, asked to be cast as Anya, Ranevskaya's seventeen-year-old daughter.
In fact, Lilina was two years older than Knipper, her mother in the play. Why
did Lilina ask for Anya? Paradoxically, having parted with her own youth,
Lilina started to understand how to portray its essence in performance. After
long and steamy casting battles, she was finally cast as Anya. In her letter to
Chekhov, Lilina wrote:
Dear Anton Pavlovich!
In Anya, my first goal is to deceive the audience ... and
even Vishnevsky, who has told me repeatedly that I should have
given up my "juvenile parts" a long time ago. Eve1ything in Anya
should be young, even her legs; Vladimir Ivanovich [Nemirovich-
Danchenko] kept laughing and wondering, "Why do the legs
matter?" I think they do. A woman's feet differ from those of a
girl. .. . If it's not too much trouble, please write to me about Anya:
what she wears, what she thinks about before she goes to bed.22
Lilina played Anya untill910, until she was forty-three years old. The critics
of the time did not write much about her Anya; some, though, reproached
her for artificial naivete.
In June 1904, Stanislavsky took his sick mother abroad-they left
Moscow the very day after Chekhov's death in Badenweiler, on July 3.
With Chekhov's death, the high point of the Moscow Art Theatre passed.
54
Slavic and East European PeifOrmance Vol. 26, No. 2
Some say that the Theatre itself died that same year. Bewildered by
Chekhov's death and its aftershocks, both Stanislavsky and Lilina were now
re-evaluating t heir feelings toward each other. From Lilina, there came a
flow of tenderness and reassurances of her faithful love for him. She wrote,
"I love you with all my heart," and "I love you deeply and tenderly."23 But
Lilina's health condition remained the same for many years. Unable to
help her, Stanislavsky concluded that "he was losing importance in her
eyes."24
In 1905, Lilina unsuccessfully played Nina Zarechnaya in a revival
of The Seagull. In her interpretation, Nina became a prosaic down-to-earth
character. Anya and Nina were Lilina's last juvenile parts. As the years
passed, the roles she played changed. She continued to be one of the best
actresses of the Theatre and demonstrated her masterful acting skills as
Fairy Berylune (Maurice Maeterlinck's The Blue Bird), Mrs. Kareno (Knut
Hamsun's The Drama qf Life and At the Gates of the Kingdom), Varya (The
Cherry Orchard), and Toinette (Moliere's The Imaginary Invalid). Following
Stanislavsky's wishes as his best student, she became seriously involved in
the development of Stanislavsky' s acting theory.
Life with Stanislavsky was not easy for Lilina and resulted in
episodes of clinical depression and panic attacks. In 1905, Stanislavsky, a
good psychologist, was puzzled by the fact that while being sick with pains,
she was nevertheless able to come to town and to look attractive, healthy,
and gay. Stanislavsky even questioned the doctor's competence after the
latter had concluded that Lilina's nerves were in bad shape. Stanislavsky
wrote, "Nerves can't be manually examined, and so the state of one's
nerves can be judged only on the basis of t he patient's own report."25 By
that t ime, Stanislavsky knew quite well that he himself was partly to blame
for her sickness. At the same time, he could not change either himself or
their lifestyle. Thus, occasionally, he viewed his family situation as fatal
and t ragic.
Profoundly loved by his family, and deeply loving his wife and
children in return, Stanislavsky felt desperate knowing that his presence
disturbed the peace in the household. Although their marriage was not as
happy as Stanislavsky had dreamed it would be, Lilina' s importance in his
eyes grew as the years passed. Not only was she modest and tactful,
qualities that he highly valued in actors, but she also was a great worker,
ready to accept any task at all for the good of the Theatre. Lilina was a true
and firm believer in Stanislavsky and always supported him in his quests
55
56
Vassily Kachalov as lvar Kareno and Maria Lilina as his wife Eline
in Knut Hamsun's At the Gates of the Kingdom, 1908
regardless of other people's opinions. A very perceptive woman, yet very
partisan, she was Stanislavsky's eyes and ears during times of tension
between Stanislavsky and the troupe. If he could not trust her, whom else
could he trust? Gradually, Lilina started to try to protect her husband from
both real and imaginary dangers in the Theatre. Nemirovich-Danchenko
wrote in 1908:
Indeed, she [Lilina] has a sympathetic talent, but she is also petty,
and that feminine suspiciousness of Maria Petrovna's poisons the
Eagle [Stanislavsky], to the great disappointment of many people,
and mine in particular.26
One of Lilina's new roles became that of defender and protector of
Stanislavsky. As years passed, she, together with his secretary and a few
close friends from the Theatre, constructed all sorts of barriers to control
his correspondence and visits for the sake of his health and peace of mind.
That fact was later described by Mikhail Bulgakov in his Black Snow, in
which Lilina is portrayed as Auntie Nastasya Ivanovna.
During the season of 1911-1912, many actors in the Moscow Art
Theat re criticized Stanislavsky as he tried to implement the System during
the rehearsal process of The Living Corpse by Lev T olstoi. He wrote to
Kotliarevskaya, his friend and supporter:
Everyone was telling me that I behave like a child, naive
and trusting, that everyone around has been lying to me, that my
System ... is yet to be fully developed; that we need years and
years of daily exercises and lectures to understand its complex
nature, which seems simple only to me. In other words, cliches
and banalities were poured on me, the same ones that have
poisoned my life in theatre. I have grown so tired of these
explanations and this struggle with dunderheads ... that I bottled
it up, sealed my lips and stopped coming to [the rehearsals ofj The
Living Corpse. 27
Although he did not continue to use the System with the cast, Stanislavsky
and Lilina went on rehearsing their small parts according to the System
(Stanislavsky as Count Abrezkov and Lilina as Grande Dame Karenina). At
the same time, Stanislavsky organized a group of volunteers willing to
57
study the System, a group that consisted of young actors involved in the
rehearsal of The Living Corpse. Stanislavsky and Lilina's work, in accordance
with the System, was meant to demonstrate its fruitfulness. As critics wrote,
Lilina as Karenina and Stanislavsky as Abrezkov created masterpieces.
Nikolai Efros noticed that both actors' approaches to their characters were
similar:
Their acting became life. Of course, there is nothing new in such
acting. Once upon a time Prov Sadovsky [the Maly Theatre actor]
said that one should act in such a manner that "a needle couldn't
be placed between the actor and his character." The latter motto
is ... the rule for Stanislavsky and Lilina ... But that old method
has been vanishing for years. Here it has resurfaced. It has reached
wonderful fruition; even in such a tiny part as Abrezkov, it gained
true artistic beauty and significance.28
In 191 1, when Lilina started to play Varya in The Cherry Orchard, she
wrote to Stanislavsky:
Yesterday I played Varya after four rehearsals and used everything I
learned from your theory. Two things helped me most: first was the
circle of attention (the audience did not exist for me), and second
was the object of communication, which I was trying to hold onto,
and that helped me to be lifelike ... . I played Varya in a big circle
[of attention], and was not nervous for a single minute, and did not
think about the public, and did not remember even once that I had
played Anya, and did not mix up a single line .29
In 1913, Lilina was cast as Maria Timofeevna, the crippled wife of Nikolai
Stavrogin, in Nikolai Stavrogin, based on Dostoevsky's novel The Possessed,
directed by Nemirovich-Danchenko. This time Lilina did not want to
rehearse her part with Stanislavsky and chose to work outside her home at
Nemirovich-Danchenko's office.
58
As for Maria Petrovna ... she cannot rehearse at home for she is
being disturbed, and that's why she is rehearsing in my office. That
is something! She has been on stage for twenty-five years, and there
was not a single production, a single show, where she sobbed as she
Slavic and East European Perfonnance Vol. 26, No. 2
does now! In this part, her deep lyricism finally bursts out.30
It was not the System with which she had problems, but its author, who
often became easily irritable and yelled at her. During moments of
inspiration, Stanislavsky could not hear himself and later could not recall his
outbursts of fury. Although Lilina complained about it often, she knew that
nothing could change him, almost as if he were demented by the wave of
fury that had always accompanied inspiration. In such moments he
resembled his own short-tempered mother. That was why Lilina needed to
work on her own and away from her great husband. As one observer put it,
"It was her best part. And she created it with almost inhuman power."31
During the entire show, this fragile, feminine, and mysterious
creature led her own, separate, and almost saintly life . . .. From her
first appearance on stage, near the monastery, in her old-fashioned
brown dress, with a red paper rose in her hair, brightly rouged, and
with blackened eyebrows . .. audiences could not take their eyes
from her figure and her ecstatic but also pitiless and suspicious
eyes.32
Lebiadkina was the artistic peak of her acting career, although every other
part that Lilina played she prepared with passion and artistry. Lilina was
never among those Moscow Art Theatre actors who played their parts for
decades, such as Ivan Moskvin (Tsar Feodor for forty-six years, from 1898
until 1944) or Olga Knipper-Chekhov (Ranevskaya for forty-one years, from
1904 until 1945). Thus, Lilina has not become one of the Moscow Art
Theatre's "living legends" and was soon forgotten as one of the leading
actresses of the Moscow Art Theatre at the time of its establishment.
(Part II will appear in the next issue.)
NOTES
I Maria Lilina, Ocherk Zhizni i Tvorchestva [Maria Lilina: Life and Times] (Moscow:
VTO, 1960), 267.
2 Vadim Shverubovich, 0 Starom Khudozhestvennom Teatre [About the Old Moscow
Art Theatre] (Moscow: Iskusstvo, 1990), 55-56.
3 Maria Lilina, 267.
59
5 Maria Lilina, 170- 171.
6 Letopis Zbizni i Tvorcbestva Stanislavskogo [Stanislavsky: Life and Times), vol. 1
(Moscow: lzdatel'stvo Khudozhestvennyi Teatr, 2003), 182.
7 Konstantin Stanislavsky, Polnoe Sobranie Sochinenii [Stanislavsky: Complete Works),
vol. 7 (Moscow: Iskusstvo, 1998), 174.
8 Nikolai Efros, Moskovskii Khudozhestvennii Teatr (The Moscow Art Theatre)
(Moscow and St. Petersburg: Gosudarstvennoe Izdatel'stvo, 1924), 208-209.
10 Nikolai Efros, Moskovskii Khudozhestvennii Teatr, 220.
II Vitaly Vilenkin, "Maria Petrovna Lilina," in Ezhegodnik MKhAT za 1943 (MKhAT:
Annual Collection ofWorks for 1943] (Moscow: lzdanie Muzeia MKhAT, 1945),
450.
13 Stanislavsky, Polnoe Sobranie Sochinenii, vol. 7, 386.
14 Nikolai Efros, Moskovskii Kbudozhestvennii Teatr, 248.
15 Konstantin Stanislavsky, Moia Zhizn'v lskusstve [My Life in Art] (Moscow: Vagrius,
2003), 158.
17 Anton Chekhov, Perepiska [Selected Letters], vol. 3 (Moscow: Nasledie, 1996), 98.
18 Olga Leonardovna Knipper-Chekhova, vol. 1, (Moscow: Iskusstvo, 1972), 146.
2o Ibid., 666.
21 Olga Leonardovna Knipper, 183.
24 Stanislavsky, Polnoe Sobranie Sochinenii, 566.
25 Ibid.
26 Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko, Tvorcheskoe Nasledie (Artistic Heritage], vol. 2
(Moscow: Izdatel'stvo Khudozhestvennyi Teatr, 2003), 61.
28 Nikolai Efros, "Zhivoi Trup v Khudozhestvennom Teatre" in Rech', September 25,
1911. This is a review in the pre-revolutionary newspaper Rech'. No information on
the publisher is available.
29 Maria Lilina, 42
30 Nemirovich-Danchenko, Tvorcheskoe Nasledie, vol. 2, 367.
31 Ezhedgonik MKhATza 1943, 456.
60
STAGING LITHUANIA'S "NEW SITUATION"
CEZARIS GRAUZINIS'S ATTEMPTS ON HER LIFE
Jeff Johnson
In the Ecstasy of Communication, Baudrillard argues that our cultural
imagination has been sapped by the deluge of immediate flat imagery,
constantly looped through our senses to the degree that "[t]here is no longer
any transcendence or depth, but only the immanent surface of operations
unfolding, the smooth and functional surface of communication."!
Ironically, it is our inescapable interconnectedness, "where all terms must
remain in perpetual contact with one another,"Z that estranges us from the
essential particularity of the objects by which we maintain our innate
subjectivity. According to Baudrillard, a plague of "multiple networks"
simultaneously connects and divorces us from reality as we telegraph desire
from within our "private living space" or "operating area." Public space
collapses into a mirage, an "ephemeral connecting space." Likewise, as our
private space becomes fodder for reality TV, our domestic theatre is rendered
transparent by an overload of imagery. We have lost the "symbolic benefit
of alienation."
This phenomenon of collapsing the boundary between object and
self, of public and private space, "this forced extraversion of interiority, from
this forced introjection of all exteriority,"3 is acutely evident when the entire
culture of a country, ripped from its political alienation, is paradoxically
erased at the very moment of its emergence as a restored national identity.
Having lost "the obscenity of the hidden," it becomes "entirely soluble in
information and communication."4 The seduction of communication in all
its pervasive forms is absolute, irresistible: "Pleasure is no longer that of the
scenic or aesthetic manifestation (seductio) but that of pure fascination,
aleatory and psychotropic (subductio)."5
In this sense, Lithuania (and the Baltics in general) is a testing
ground for Baudrillard's thesis: the cultural, social, and psychological effects
of this sudden overload of powerful, all-pervasive imagery. This confluence
of influences certainly informs contemporary Lithuanian drama, perhaps
best exemplified by Cezaris Grauzinis's 2005 staging of the British playwright
Martin Crimp's Attempts on Her Life (1997), co-produced by the British
Council in Vilnius. The work can be viewed as a morality play denouncing
hedonism, materialism, and a loss of spiritual values, delivered, however, in
61
a surreal style of Grotowskian minimalism overlaid by a mixed-media
techno-expressionism inspired by Western theatre practices. Most
conservative critics in Lithuania look East, the progressives West. But this
dichotomy simplifies and distorts the rich hybrid emerging in a performance
such as Grauzinis's that explodes the "new situation," the sudden virulent
outbreak of liberal capitalism that erases and supplants ethnic cultures.
Performed on the small stage at the Jaunimo Teatras (the State
Youth Theatre), with its black-box stage and bleacher seating for seventy five,
the play opens with the black floor bare except for a huge white projection
screen dominating the upstage space and black cushioned desk chairs on
rollers scattered against the far wall. The lights come up on three men and
two women entering in business suits while heavy Gothic music creates a
strange sense of angst and suspense. The anonymous corporate types pose
arrogantly before the audience, but having difficulty maintaining their
posture of ceremonial self-importance, they arrange themselves in the chairs
and begin eavesdropping on a series of phone messages all directed to a
woman named Anne-recordings from what would appear to be her
husband, her lover, her mother, an assassin, a man who threatens to sexually
abuse her. Clearly Anne is the object of many people's diverse desires. At the
end of the messages, a final generic voice declares: "Messages deleted." Along
with the messages, any determinable identity of Anne is deleted too.
The uniformly dressed corporate types begin their conference by
filling in the blanks, attempting to solve the mystery of Anne's identity.
From within their virtual world of vicarious passion, they express their own
various versions of her, creating her according to their individual needs, as if
desperate to experience at least some facsimile of life. They act out their
fantasies like an exercise in improvisation, as if life has been exchanged for a
critique. The bare black stage implies the sterility of their lifeless, loveless
world where one of the women, describing actions attributable to Anne,
violently grinds her chair in a paroxysm of frottage and masturbation. The
others analyze her story and performance, offering critical summaries,
arguing, defending various possibilities and points of view-conducting, in
effect, a parody of the postmodern critical tendency to privilege the art of
criticism over the creative process (as well as the plasticity of art over the
vicissitudes oflife). Each participant offers his or her different interpretation
for the actions of the others as they assume Anne's role, devolving from
innocuous tales of everyday life to sordid descriptions of violence and
suffering and acts of inhumanity delivered in cold, philosophical tones- the
62
Martin Crimp's Attempts on Her Life, directed by Cezaris Grauzinis,
at the Jaunimo Teatras
difference between their delivery and the gruesome truth of the accounts
evidence of the protective buffer of impersonal distance they have designed
as a prerequisite to their existence. They have sanctified Anne; she serves as
their last-ditch Madonna for desensitized souls trying to imagine a "natural"
life. But because they are locked into a private, solipsistic version of Anne,
no variant personal image can be reconciled by an appeal to any authentic
model.
As if aware of this ontological trap they have created for themselves,
the executives turn fearful and hostile, accusing Anne of being the lifeless
one, trying to turn the tables on their own creation, blaming Anne for their
antibiotic reality. By this time in the performance, the irony of the title is
clear. The "attempts on her life" are the executives' efforts to create a life for
themselves by imagining Anne's life, literally projecting their desires onto
that huge white screen upstage, investing in an ideal image they cannot
necessarily control. But because they naturally fear what they desire, they
must conspire to kill her-an action illustrated obliquely on the set by an
eerie shadow play rendered from behind the white screen.
63
The suits, suffering from their acute Frankenstein complex, try to
assuage their guilt by a series of disturbing, personal confessions, but no
matter how earnest they pretend to be in atonement, their attempts at
exculpation are stripped from any semblance of sincerity by the ballad-like
chords of a lone figure strumming along with their apologies on an electric
guitar. Theirs is a world that turns even the most heartfelt truths into pop
songs, as the artificial sentimentality of the market economy transforms the
most intimate and violent sentiments into a radio sing-along. The executives,
seduced by the bottom line, exploit all values, even, maybe especially, their
own.
In a note made public through the media, Anne confesses that she
has killed herself, but the executives will not let her die. They regroup in
another board meeting. Because Anne exists only in the collective corporate
imagination, she can be neither killed nor restricted. She is a nightmare
product of a debased world, the blank screen onto which everyone projects
a vision, but, significantly, nothing ever appears on the screen but shadows.
It is as if Plato's cave has become a shopping mall, his allegory an
advertisement for a runaway consumerist society.
64
Martin Crimp's Attempts on Her Life, directed by Cezaris Grauzinis
at the Jaunimo Teatras
Slavic and East European PeifOrmance Vol. 26, No.2
The suits resurrect Anne as a disco diva, selling "the new Annie" like
a car, shouting sales homilies in Lithuanian-"Electric windows!" "Air-
conditioning!" "Available in diesel!"- while a man to one side repeats the
pitch in deadpan English through a megaphone. The bilingual effect is
disconcerting, with the hyperventilating Lithuanian sales creed finally
degenerating into a fascist rant reminiscent of Nazi hyperbole selling its
Aryan ideals.
When the executives regroup again, they reassess their product: "the
new Annie!" Like critics who reduce the vitality of art to fit their own clever
concepts, their arrogance is wrapped in rationalizations, explication and
critical jargon, psychological cant, and self-referential speculation. All this
proving nothing, demonstrating that the search for meaning destroys
meaning. The search-the process-is the meaning. Cryptically, one suit
finally admits: "Theatre has nothing to do with this," a statement pregnant
with irony yet as tautologically empty as the sardonic world of the
boardroom itself.
The executives are soon reduced to spooky secret agents in a
totalitarian state providing "security" through fear, having created an
Orwellian world where idealism is reduced to a cliche and sold with empty
phrases cooked up by corporate sponsors. As the end product of a world
infected by a language disconnected from emotion, Anne has become a
packaged, corporate piece of pornography. In the ad-speak of her creators,
pornography is her ticket to success, allowing her to achieve the virtuous life
available to those capable of realizing economic freedom. By dehumanizing
her, the purveyors of porn claim exploitation as a virtue. The action ends
with the executives applauding the blank screen, returning to their board
meeting, resorting again to the safety of critical evaluation-a.k.a. market
strategies-fearful t hat, after all, "she could be any one of us."
The target of the barbs in Grauzinis's eviscerating production of
Crimp's admittedly acerbic piece- the desecration of art by soulless critics,
the spiritual vacuity of corporate marketing-dovetails in the streets of the
"new situation" in Lithuania. The first issue, at least in the Western
experience, is almost quaint. The assault on art by the poststructuralists
invites a critical dispute best settled in other quarters more suitable for
academic mud wrestling. But the latter issue, the perversity of marketing
imagery and language, and the corrupt ethos driving the unprincipled
exploitation of global capitalism, is very real, acute, and ripe in the
experience of the locals. Along Piles, Gedimino, Vokiecu, or any number of
65
pedestrian streets through the maze of the Old Town section of the city,
advertisements create a lifeless tableau, projecting from billboards and the
sides of buildings a vision of a potential life guaranteed to deaden the
sensibilities of the most resilient citizens.
The change from the Soviet centralized state economy might have
been inevitable, and the Western style of private capitalism does not come
without certain benefits, including career possibilities and accelerated
personal freedom, but the luxuries-no matter how trivial-do not come
without a price, and the concerns about cultural homogeneity are valid,
especially given the delicate sensibility of emerging markets in which the
consumers until recently were unaccustomed to the impact of mass
marketing, on both the landscape and the spirit of the people. In this sense,
as a frontal assault on corporate vampirism, Grauiinis's Attempts on Her Lift
indicates the ability of Lithuanian directors to import work from the
West-in this case, Britain, the blackheart of the Anglo-Saxon economic
model that the French so vehemently resist. The performance also has the
indelible imprimatur of the contemporary situation on the streets of
Lithuania, showcasing the talent of Lithuanian directors in whose hands the
foreign material becomes theirs.
NOTES
1 Jean Baudrillard, The Ecstasy of Communication, ed. Sylvcre Lotringer, trans. Bernard
and Caroline Schutze (New York: Semiotext(e), 1988), 12.
2 Ibid, 14.
3 Ibid, 26.
4 Ibid. 22.
5 Ibid, 25.
66
SLAVA'S SNOWSHOW
AT THE UNION SQUARE THEATRE
A LONG-RUNNING CLOWN ACT IN NEW YORK CITY
Olga Muratova
We walk into a winter night: the theatre lies in a blue semidarkness
as if illuminated by the celestial light of distant stars. There is the constant
sound of a railroad somewhere nearby. We have not walked into a fairy tale;
we are in real, big-city life. The show has not yet started, but the audience is
already part of it, incorporated into the spectacle that will follow. People who
enter the Union Square Theatre may be the same ones who walk into any
other New York theatre, but only until they cross the threshold to the
auditorium. With their first step inside, they become part of the show.
Slava's story is not about somebody else; it is about us.
Gary Cherniakhovsky, former artistic director of the Vakhtangov
Theatre in Moscow, Russia, is well known for his staging of Bulgakov's
Madame Zoikal in 1989 and the reviva l of Vakhtangov's signature
interpret ation of Gozzi's Turandot in 1991. Russians might also remember a
popular TV program Vokrug Smekha (Around the Laughing W or! d) that he
produced from 1978 to 1991. In 1978 Cherniakhovsky invited a young
clown, Slava Polunin, to his program; more than twenty-five years later,
Slava asked Gary to become resident director for his Snowshow in New York.
Slava's Snowshow was created in 1993 and traveled the world before
it opened in New York on September 8, 2004. In the Union Square Theatre,
Slava played the main part for a couple of months when the show first
opened, and then came to perform for about three weeks in the summer of
2005 to commemorate the show's first anniversary. When Slava is not in
New York, Cherniakhovsky takes over, supervising the production and
training the actors. Under his expert tutelage (Cherniakhovsky was a
professor in the Shchukin Theatre School in Moscow and still conducts
acting master classes there, on special invitation), a group of very talented
actors win the minds and warm the hearts of their audience. Robert Saralp,
Jeff Johnson, Oleg Lugovskoy, Richard Crawford, Ivan Fedorov, Spencer
Chandler, and Kayla Fell take turns playing differe nt parts in the production
and mesmerizing the spectators with each performance.
There are six characters in the show. They all wear clown make-up
and costumes, but t hey are not clowns in the traditional sense. Slava's artistic
67
origins may lie in traditional circus practices and conventions, but as his
career has progressed, he has moved further and further away from them
toward theatre proper. His actors/characters have no names- Yellow (the
main character, who wears a canary-yellow suit), Green (the deuteragonist),
and the Green Team (four "clowns" clad in long green winter coats and
worn-out winter hats that do not shield them from the cold). Who are they?
They are us; they are everybody. There is no fourth wall in Slava's Snowsh01o;
the actors and the audience merge physically, mentally, and emotionally.
They tell us about us. We listen, and together we look for an answer to a
burning question that people have asked themselves for centuries: Can man
be happy in this cold, cruel, and senseless world?
Slava's Snowshow is not purely a mime performance. The limitations
of a dumb show are cleverly avoided. Multi-pitch whistles, an artificial,
made-up language, and various universally recognized human cries and
sounds substitute perfectly for speech in its habitual manifestation. The
supporting music plays an important role in the show. Carl Orff's "0
Fortuna," a very dramatic and urgent opening chorus from his famous
Carmina Burana, is the leitmotif for the entire production and the main
theme of the grand finale. In the twentieth century, Orff wrote music to a
collection of twenty-five medieval hymns of ancient Styria and South Tyrol.
In the twenty-first century, Slava uses the composer's powerful music to help
us fi nd a road to happiness.
Yellow shuffles onto the stage with a noose around his neck. His
knees are bent, his head is down. Judging by his bright yellow costume, he
was eager to find happiness, he searched high and low, ready to embrace it.
The rope around his neck tells us that he has failed. With a great effort,
Yellow pulls himself up, unbends his knees, lifts his head, and stands erect
for a full second. But some invisible burden is pressing and pushing him
down. His knees bend, and his head droops again. We see how much of a
strain it is to stand upright, how slowly and painfully he pushes himself up;
we also see how quickly he goes back down to his everyday misery and
misfortune. We feel his pain; most of us have been there, all alone in an
allegorical winter night-an epitome of fear, despair, and loneliness. Yellow
finally gives up and decides to end it quickly. He starts pulling the rope, the
end of which still lies hidden in the left wing, only to discover that it ends
with another noose around somebody else's head. Green, who, apparently,
has also been getting ready to commit suicide, is as shocked as Yellow to
discover that somebody else is as miserable as he is. A first step has been
68
taken; the realization that we are not suffering alone is very important in our
quest for happiness.
In Albert Camus's The Myth of Sisyphus, the tragic hero, a futile
laborer of the underworld, is always alone. Camus calls him an "absurd
hero." Sisyphus is doomed to push a huge boulder up a mountain, knowing
full well that it will come tumbling down every time it reaches the top. And
yet he keeps pushing. There is a scene in Snowshow that seems to illustrate
this myth: with visible effort, Yellow pushes an enormous snowball across
the stage. The snowball goes nowhere in particular and ostensibly serves no
purpose other than to keep the character occupied for some time. The labor
that goes into pushing the snowball from point A to point B, where it will
most likely just melt, forgotten by everybody, is in no way congruent with
the outcome, making it just another exercise in futility. Again the audience
knows exactly how it feels.
In a very impressionistic manner, with unconnected little
dots/scenes that make a full picture of man's life, Slava's show is "the mirror
image of a world gone out of joint,"
2
and his characters live in that world.
One of these impressionistic dots is a short number that lasts less than two
minutes and portrays a crooked room with a crooked table and a crooked
chair in it. Yellow manages to balance himself on the tilted chair for several
seconds and then falls down. Three times he tries, and three times he fai ls.
On his last attempt, we hold our breath, hoping beyond hope that this time
he will succeed. Yellow stays on the chair a little longer than before. We
know his fall is inevitable, we know that all the laws of physics dictate it, but
we are still waiting for a miracle to happen. If he succeeds, then we might get
lucky too. Alas, reality has no place for a miracle and no room for hope.
In today's cold and unfriendly universe that Slava equates with
winter, a person is constantly fighting for his place under the stars. He has to
fight society (ergo the scene with a huge ship running over and sinking a
small boat without ever noticing it), rivals (the number with a man ploughing
his way through deep snow to get to his goal and discovering midway that
someone is following in his footsteps, ready to rob him of the fruits of his
labor), friends who sometimes turn into backstabbing traitors (Green
shooting arrows into unsuspecting Yellow), and loved ones who sometimes
seem to be speaking a different language and refuse to understand him (the
scene with two telephones, best known internationally as "Asisyai"3).
The dominating theme of loneliness that the audience sees onstage
is broken when Yellow, crushed by society and friends, falls offstage into the
69
Slava's Snowshow, created by Slava Polunin and directed by Gary
Cherniakhovsky, at the Union Square Theatre
auditorium and requests help getting back up. Offering help selflessly, acting
together, and being able to count on a fellow human being form, according
to Slava, the second step on the road to happiness.
Real life goes on with no interruptions, and so in Slava's Snowshow,
the action continues during the intermission. The familiar background
sounds of a railroad return, invoking now not only images of a big city in the
twenty-first century, but also the idea that life is a journey and not a
destination. The Green T earn walks offstage to mingle with the audience-
and douse it lightly with water. We are faced with t he question of what to do
when an annoying rain/snow oflittle mishaps and daily troubles is falling on
our heads. The Green Team has umbrellas that they are ready to share with
the rest of us. They will protect and help, they already have the recipe for
happiness, but they are not going to tell- we will need to discover it
ourselves. The words will have little meaning, but once each and everyone of
us feels it in the heart, we will not forget easily. The quest continues; the
show goes on.
70
Slavic and East European Peifonnance Vol. 26, No. 2
,.;
_ ... _. ~
""* - .;
. -......,. ;.
Slava's Snowshow, created by Slava Polunin and
directed by Gary Cherniakhovsky,
at the Union Square Theatre
71
72
Slava's Snowshow, created by Slava Polunin and directed by
Gary Cherniakhovsky, at the Union Square Theatre
The scene of saying goodbye in Act II is Snowshow's penultimate
scene, and it is very dramatically charged. It is time to part with the most
important people on earth- our own family. Yellow has a hanger with a
woman's coat on it, and he mimes a very touching scene of parting. No, the
fami ly cannot help in the ultimate test every man has to face. At the end, just
as in Everyman, we are all alone:
All earthly things is but vanity:
Beauty, Strength and Discretion do man forsake,
Foolish friends and kinsmen that fair spake-
All fleeth save Good Deeds.4
The show's finale unites everybody in the theatre, merging the
actors and the audience into one inseparable entity. Together with Yellow,
each and every one of us has to withstand a blizzard with gusting wind and
blinding snow. Powerful stage machinery creates an extremely realistic
snowstorm in the auditorium. As no one can see anything except a bright
beam of light in the back of the stage, every person in the theatre truly
becomes everyman and feels equally alone and helpless in this outburst of an
omnipotent, transcendental force. Is this what the Judgment Day will feel
like? The blizzard lasts for two full minutes, but when it is over, the answer
to the question Can man be happy? comes naturally to all of us. Is he leading
us by the hand into a new era? Is he offering us hope? Has the time come to
add a touch of medieval morality into today's world? Is this why Orffs
pressing and imposing chanting of medieval lyrics in "0 Fortuna" is used
more than once in the course of the show? What if the snowy winter night
that we call life can be followed by a bright sunny morning?
All six actors come out and toss huge, bright-colored, inflatable balls
at the audience. No singl e man can handle the ball effectively, but many
outstretched hands can push it into the right direction. The trick is to
combine our efforts and add heart-warming smiles to the process. Let us all
treat the world the way children do, as if it were a huge bright-colored ball
that needs love and care. Let us share and have fun and help each other.
According to Slava, that is the path that leads to happiness. People stay in
the theatre long after the show is over. They play, they laugh, they share, they
get a bit kinder to each other; and that is all that matters to Slava Polunin,
the great humanist who has been searching for happiness on earth for over
twenty-five years.
73
NOTES
I Cherniakhovsky's production of /'vfadame Zoika is available in the United States on
videotape: Mikhail Bulgakov, Zoikina Kvartira, directed by Gary Cherniakhovsky,
RBC Video, 1984, videocassette.
2 Gyorgy Lukacs, The Theory of the Novel: A Historico-philosophical Essay on the Forms of
Great Epic Literature, trans. Anna Bostock (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1990), 17.
3 In this number, Yellow imitates a telephone conversation between a man and a
woman. Moving from one telephone to the other, he changes his voice from a high-
pitch female to a low-pitch male. The conversation leads to a fight because the two
interlocutors cannot agree on simple issues. The language used in the number is
made-up, and the word most frequently repeated, with different intonations, is
asisyai. This number is a quarter of a century old. Slava Polunin got his nickname
(Asisyai) from it.
4 Everyman, in Stages of Drama: Classical to Contemporary Theater, 5th edition, eds.
Carl H. Klaus, Miriam Gilbert, and Bradford S. Field Jr. (Boston: Bedford/St.
Martin's, 2003), 195.
74
SATANAS EX MACHINA
BULGAKOV'S THE MASTER AND MARGARITA
IN VLADIMIR BORTKO'S CINEMATIC ADAPTATION
Ekaterina Sukhanova
"We don't put dates, with a date the document becomes invalid,"
responded the cat, setting his scrawl to it.l
Russian urban folklore has preserved stories about Moscow typists
who, after having worked on the manuscript of The Master and Margarita,
expressed their gratitude to Mikhail Bulgakov for having finally explained to
them how the whole story of Jesus Christ really happened. This winter,
sixty-five years after Bulgakov's death, the audience WJS eagerly waiting to see
"how it all really happened" in Bulgakov's now famous novel.
Bulgakov died in 1940 while working on the proofs of the novel's
last draft; one of the earlier drafts had been burned by the author, a desperate
step his protagonist will repeat. The Master and Margarita was first published
in 196 7 in the literary magazine Moskva (Moscow), copies of which quickly
disappeared. It was not widely accessible until the late 1980s when both the
Bible and Bulgakov stopped being off limits to the Russian public.
Although plays based on The Master and Margarita have been staged
in many theatres, and Bulgakov's "Manuscripts don't burn" has since
become a proverbial phrase, the Russian audience has never seen a film
version of the novel- that is, not until late December 2005. There have been
several attempts by foreign producers to bring Bulgakov's novel to the
screen, in whole or in part, such as Andrzej Wajda's 1971 film Pilate and
Others, which focuses on the gospel story; AJeksandr Petrovich's 1972 The
Master and Margarita, a very free variation on the theme of several works by
Bulgakov; and Maciej Wojtyszko's 1988 production for Polish TV. These
productions still remain little known in Russia. The first Russian film was
produced by Yury Kara in 1994 but was never released for reasons that have
not been fully explained.
Vladimi r Bartko's film was produced as a ten-part TV serial and
broadcasted on one of the major channels, the Rossija (Russia] network,
which assured it a wide distribution. According to the film's official site,
about 47% of viewers have seen the first two parts. There was so much talk
75
about the special effects and digital technology that even Goethe's imaginary
producer of Faust with his slogan "So make sure we have machines I And
plenty of spectacular scenes"2 would have been jealous. How much this has
advanced the film's cause remains debatable. For example, the character who
was supposed to be among those benefiting from the hi-tech props, the black
cat Behemoth, who talks, cheats at chess, and is entrusted with providing
much of the novel's comic relief, no longer oozes with the charm that he has
in the book.
The Master and Margarita can be said to combine three narrative
planes: a historical reconstruction of the trial of Jesus and its aftermath, a
supposedly realistic depiction of Moscow literary life of the late 1920s that
accompanies the story of an unnamed Master writing a novel about Pontius
Pilate, and a grotesque fantasy of Satan's visit to Moscow. Each of these
planes demands a different set of literary conventions, and it is their
intersection that gives the novel its dynamic complexity. Bringing this
unsettling mixture of perspectives over into a new semiotic system, into the
language of the cinema, is a breathtaking challenge for which the
cutting-edge technology is of little help.
If the novel itself is ambiguous, Bortko raises questions about the
target audience of his production by his selection of a score by Igor
Korneliuk, widely known for his pop songs. The film score, which may be
best described as predictable, often tends toward the melodramatic or the
commercial. One of the Moscow flower shops now offers for sale a
concoction called "The Master and Margarita," alongside a "Shakespeare in
Love" bouquet- such is t he price a literary work has to pay for canonization.
Yet the promotional materials claimed that the film adhered to the original
text as much as possible and simply followed Bulgakov. To Bartko's credit,
it must be acknowledged that almost all lines of the spoken dialogue have
been preserved. Nevertheless, the myth that any such adaptation can exclude
the director's critical gaze requires a greater suspension of disbelief than most
events in the novel.
Bartko is clearly at his best in the realm of satire and social criticism,
at which he previously excelled in The Heart of a Dog, his 1987 film based on
a novella by Bulgakov. The producer relishes the inevitable ironies present in
Bulgakov's description of the well-oiled machinery of the Roman Empire,
unsurprisingly similar to that of another empire that Bulgakov and his
readers knew best. Faithfully following the text, Bartko adds only a small
detail not found in known redactions of the novel: leaving the palace of
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Slavic and EasL European PeifOrmance Vol. 26, No.2
Alexandre Galibin as the Master in Vladimir Bortko's film adaptation
ofBulgakov's The Masta and Margarita
77
Pontius Pilate, the chief of the secret service disdainfully throws on the
staircase the ring given to him by the procurator as a reward. Is the audience
to infer, on the eve of 2006 C.E., that rulers come and go, but the secret
service remains?
The Moscow scenes are introduced through an inventive mixture of
authentic chronicles and its tongue-in-cheek imitations. Thus, Bulgakov's
epilogue containing the "official version" given to the events is represented
in the film as a talk given by some high party official. The bewildering events
are explained away as the work of very powerful hypnotizers while simple
Soviet folk around the country, glued to their radios, listen to the official's
talk. The use of sepia images that perfectly emulate sugary Soviet newsreels
heightens the intended sarcasm.
The evil here hardly has any need of the supernatural. All
otherworldly pranks pale in comparison to the horror of the Master's matter-
of-fact report on his arrest, with everything left unspoken between the two
phrases, "A quarter of an hour after she left me, there came a knock at the
window,"3 and "Yes, and so in mid-January, at night, in the same coat but
with the buttons torn off, I was huddled with cold in my little yard."
4
Bulgakov's commentary on the tragic everyday reality is expressed through
the carnavalesque adventures of Satan's retinue who set out to demonstrate
that the Soviet ideological workers have failed to create a new and improved
model of humanity. The cast members clearly take delight in Bulgakov's
irreverent playfulness, which comes through well on the screen.
Bulgakov's character that descends on Moscow in a satanas ex
machina manner goes by the name of W oland, an alternative spelling
borrowed from Goethe' s Satan. Yet Woland is not identical with any of his
famous literary prototypes; his somewhat contradictory function in the novel
does not allow him to be reduced to a conventional conception of the
diabolical. Oleg Basilashvili's thoughtful interpretation of the role of
W oland reflects the complexity of this character. His W oland is no petty
demon or vulgar tempter but rather the personification of some
old-fashioned abstraction raised to a higher level, let us say, that of Reason
Unmitigated by Compassion-a striking figure in an age characterized as
much by unreason as by disbelief.
Antiheroes in literature have always tended to be portrayed with
greater plausibility. In Bartko's Master and Margarita, the heroes are also at a
disadvantage. Too often, false acting, or perhaps lack of a coherent concept,
distract from the philosophical aspects ofBulgakov's novel. This is especially
78
Aleksandr Adabashyan as Berlioz, Oleg Basilashvil as Woland, and
Vladislav Galkin as Bezdomny in Vladimir Bartko's film adaptation
of Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita
apparent in the Jerusalem scenes. Sergey Bezrukov in the role of Jesus Christ
(referred to by the Aramaic form of his name, Yeshua, in the novel) does not
manage to overcome Sunday-school cliches or to hint at another layer
behind his character's outward simplicity. There is nothing there to suggest
the condescensio-or, as the Russian scholar Sergey Averintsev calls it, "the
unparalleled celestial courtesy" of the transcendental Logos addressing
humanity in a language accessible to it.S Bulgakov's version of the gospel
events becomes in the film embarrassingly one-dimensional, undermining
the Master's achievement of having "guessed" them in his novel. The
Jerusalem narrative feels external to the rest of the plot; the audience is left
to wonder if the Master could indeed have chosen another topic.
Further, Alexander Galibin, the artist portraying the Master with a
certain amount of sensitivity, is not allowed to speak his own lines; instead,
the voice-over is done for him by Bezrukov, the actor playing Yeshua.
79
Depriving the Master of his own proper voice is a violence that would be
unseemly for the forces of light but also uncharacteristic of the forces of
darkness, given their presumed interest in anthropological research. It does
not do justice to the existential essence of the dialogue in Bulgakov, so
poignantly emphasized in the final scenes of the novel, when a young man,
whom the Master considers his disciple, has a vision of Yeshua and Pilate:
"The walkers talk heatedly about something, they argue, they want to reach
some understanding."6 This "loving struggle of communication," to use a
phrase of Jaspers, is a necessary condition in the search for truth.7
This Master has not been too lucky with his soul mate either.
Margarita is the "nerve center" of the novel and the main agent of
communication between the different narrative realms. In the contemporary
plane of the novel, there is no other female heroine of the same stature. Even
in the Jerusalem narrative, which omits the mention of the Virgin Mary or
Mary Magdalene, there are no other powerful female characters; nothing
detracts from Margarita's central place. In a reversal of conventional roles,
she is the Eurydice who descends to Hades in search of Orpheus, strikes a
pact with the otherworldly powers, and succeeds in her mission. When the
three narrative threads finally converge, it is Margarita who immediately
realizes why she and the Master have been brought to see Pontius Pilate.
Unfortunately, so little of this transpires in the film that an audience
member unfamiliar with Bulgakov's text might never have guessed any of
this. Bulgakov's heroine is so absorbed in the Master's novel that at times
this fascination makes her lover jealous. Yet Margarita, as played by Anna
Kovalchuk, picks up the manuscript casually and flips through it if it were a
fashion magazine. Margarita's own function in this adaptation of the novel
is largely decorative; she is an object and not a subject, precluded from
communication with the outside world. In between a number of striking
poses that she is asked to assume, Margarita in the film comes across as static,
indifferent, or bored. She embodies not so much the Eternal Feminine as the
love interest a male lead is universally supposed to require.
In a gesture of personal humility, Bulgakov assigns his protagonist,
who is inevitably to a large extent his alter ego, only to an updated Limbo of
sorts. Still, Bulgakov is not content with the prophetic role of a Virgil for his
hero. For Bulgakov, art serves to make history possible. Until the Master's
novel has been completed, Pontius Pilate cannot be freed from his
tormenting remorse and allowed to continue his interrupted conversation
with Yeshua-a conversation in the course of which they may "still arrive at
80
somethi ng."S An individual effort of arttstiC creatlVlty, the ultimate
expression of human freedom, is needed for History to resume its course.
Woland dismisses tradition as imitation and equates discipleship
and slavery, saying: "Why run after what is finished?"9 Of course, the devil,
himself, has long been considered an imitator, a parodist, incapable of t he
independent creation possible only by God. Naturally, W oland, an imitator
par excellence, despises all those petty imitators who are ruthlessly mocked
by his retinue in the counterfeit reality of Soviet Moscow. The respect
Woland accords the Master is an unspoken recognition of the Master's
powers of creation.
Bulgakov's protagonist believes in an ongoing creative discourse,
even though the novel leaves the reader with few illusions regarding the
difficulties of safeguarding and interpreting the tradition. Bartko's film
adaptation, while not always consistent or convincing, is an extremely
effective tool for restoring Bulgakov's novel to a central position in the
cultural landscape.
NOTES
I Mikhail Bulgakov, The Master and Margarita, trans. Richard Pevear and Larissa
Volokhonsky (New York: Penguin, 1997), 291.
2 Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Faust: Part One, trans. David Luke (New York:
Oxford, 1987) 9.
3 Bulgakov, 148.
4 Ibid., 149.
5 Sergey Averintsev, Sophia-Logos (Kiev: Dukh i litera, 2000), 387.
6 Bulgakov, 395.
7 Karl Jaspers, Reason and Existenz, trans. William Earl (Milwaukee: Marquette
University Press, 1997), 78.
8 Bulgakov, 383.
9 Ibid.
81
REDEEMING NUDITY
GOMBROWICZ'S OPERETTA
AT LA MAMA, NEW YORK CITYl
Krystyna Lipinska Illakowicz
They sang, they danced, and they galloped the text of Witold
Gombrowicz's Operetta at La MaMa during t he play's spectacular
production this past March. On March 9- 12, La MaMa opened its space
to the students and faculty of the Eugene Lang College, New School
University, who were celebrating their school's twentieth anniversary with
the performance of Gombrowicz's play. Directed by Zishan Ugurlu (a full-
time faculty member at Lang), the performance vibrated with the youthful
energy that is itself one of the play's main themes. It showed the talent and
dedication to theatre of the non-professional young performers, all of them
students of the Drama Department at Lang College. The performance
demonstrated how an imaginative director and other faculty members can
funnel all this young energy and talent into a spectacl e that many
professional stages would envy.
As Allen Kuharski mentioned in the program, this was the t hird
production of Operetta in the United States since the play was finished in
1966 (three years before Gombrowicz's death in 1969), which makes t he
production even more important. Operetta was Gombrowicz's fourth and
last play (lvona, Princess of Burgundia; History; and The Marriage being t he
other three). The play operates on many levels and connects many central
themes of his whole oeuvre. It comments on the collapse of ideologies,
the deceptiveness of totalitarian regimes, and the impotence of t he
world democracies, at the same time pointing to the ubiquitous presence
of Eros. Like most of Gombrowicz's works, Operetta draws on t he
oppositions between youthfulness and old age, form and formlessness,
institutionalization and freedom, class divisions and human desires. It
discloses the tragic state of humanity in the mid twentieth century (after
two world wars, the Holocaust, the gulags, and endless dictatorships) clad
in laughter, buoyancy, the volatility of a cheerful prank, and unbridled
playfulness.
Zishan Ugurlu, who directed and also designed t his breathtaking
spectacle, rendered the text's lightness through stage design, in a way
wrapping the whole performance space in a light golden fabric floating over
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Slavic and East European PeifOrmance Vol. 26, No.2
Gombrowicz's Operetta, directed by Zishan Ugurlu,
at La MaMa, New York City
the heads of the performers. Through this and other impressive images the
stage design reinforced Gombrowicz's main idea of history as a succession of
even ts triggered by trendy ideologies and manipulated by famous
"designers"- in other words, the vision Operetta proposes is that of history as
fashion show. Ugurlu, who is very fami liar with La MaMa's possibilities, put
to use the malleability of the Annex by opening up and incorporating into
the performance the backstage area and the space traditionally used for the
audience. Thus, she created a long fashion show runway in the middle, with
the audience on both sides, shifting the usual orientation of the performative
space. On the slightly elevated ends of this space, she situated slightly
Kantoresque figures (there are many references to Kantor in this
performance) of seamstresses bent over their sewing machines and immersed
in work. The elevated rear of the stage came into prominence at the end of
the play, creating a kind of platform for the dancing Albertine, joyfully
displaying her nudity in the company of two other actors.
83
Gombrowicz's Operetta, directed by Zishan Ugurlu,
at La MaMa, New York City
Right from the beginning, the stage design highlighted the thematic
context of Operetta, foregrounding the often invisible agents of history- the
working women, service people polishing shoes, moving tables and chairs,
and graceful little girls pushing big mirrors and creating a lot of commotion.
I find this pre-performance hustle-and-bustle a very significant compositional
element of the whole production that threw the viewer immediately into
Gombrowicz's theatricality and from the outset confronted the audience (in
a purely physical and visual way) with the main themes of the piece-history's
movement, with all its paraphernalia, marginalizations, and seemingly
unimportant details, as if taken from recent discussions about the history of
the everyday. This initial commotion captured all the possible currents of
history, going beyond the mainstream discourse of the runway, which later
in the performance became filled with the traditional main agents of
history-princesses, princes, ideologues, and revolutionary leaders.
The show unfolded in forays of movement and typical
Gombrowiczian duels, such as the initial one between the pretentious Count
84
Charmant (Sean Jones) and the extravagant Baron Firulet (Cruz Henry
Turcott) bragging about the number of women they have conquered. All
characters, including Fior, the Master of Ceremonies (Max Pingeon) paraded
down the runway in dreamlike, extravagant, timeless costumes, designed by
Oana Botez-Ban, that could "play" in a Shakespearean court but could also
appear in a recent Bryant Park fashion show. These costumes gave wing to
the actors, who sang their absurdist conversations and, through studied
gestures and overemphasized movement, mimicked the artificiality and
pomposity of the world's elites. Laughter and deceptive gaiety dominated the
castle of the Prince and Princess Himalay, played by Judit h Malina and
Hanon Reznikov (thus weaving into the performance an important
American context-that of the Living Theatre); the fast rhythm of this fanfare
blurred all distinctions, dispelling spatial and temporal borders of this very
special "fashion show."
The title of Gombrowicz's play has strong generic implications:
operetta (meaning literally small opera) implies a light musical composition
and a popular, entertaining, insignificant topic. Gombrowicz was obviously
stimulated by operetta's obsolete form, which he called "heavenly idiotic and
perfectly sclerotic,"
2
but as a music lover-Rita Gombrowicz mentions that
Gombrowicz sang the lines from the play while writing Operetta-he cared for
the musical form as well. Stefania de Kenessey created an original
score- adopted to the vocal abilities of the young actors whose musical
performance was as amazing as their theatrical skills. Making only slight
allusion to the style of operetta in its quick rhythms, her music in its slower
movements paralleled the nostalgic, sleepy, disarming presence of Albertine.
Yet, when the runway turned into an enormous loom pushed by the group
of women who previously were only able to chant the absurdist "the stools
of Lord Blotton," and who, now like the mythical Fates, weave human
destiny, the performance shifts gears and sinister tones take over. Count
Hufnagel (Anthony Guerino) gallops on a Kantoresque horse, leading the
revolution, and the stage previously dominated by the upper class characters
fills with the people-lackeys, pickpockets, seamstresses, beggars, and grooms.
In this sense Operetta clearly alludes to one of the most famous Polish
Romantic dramas, Zygmunt Krasinski's Nieboska Komedia (The Undivine
Comedy), which also presented a very broad spectrum of society, including
upper and lower classes. In Gombrowicz's text all ideologies and historical
formations crumble and dwindle into meaningless prattle epitomized by the
speech-vomit of the Professor.
85
In its deeper layers, Operetta is not a lighthearted play. It ruthlessly
dissects all the deeply hidden desires for power, fulfillment, and success in all
spheres of human life-political, social, and aesthetic. It reveals the
decomposition of ideas and political systems, displays the infantilization of
the mind (and culture), and the physical disintegration of the human body.
It ominously balances on the border between life and death. The appearance
of the loom and the Kantoresque "machines" on the runway functions as a
caesura in the whole performance and very poignantly announces this sinister
message to the audience. From this moment on, laughter and pranks will no
longer hover lightly over the stage.
But Gombrowicz's texts never allow for easy, straightforward
interpretations. In spite of the sinister overtones, the performance also
mysteriously communicates some hidden idea through Albertine's
perplexing, sleepy presence and her notorious call for nudity. What is the
meaning of Albertine's nudity, especially in the context of the present
performance?
Nudity is an expression of one of the most central themes
in Gombrowicz's writing, namely that of immaturity, which is inflected in
his texts by numerous oppositions such as youthfulness/adulthood,
form/formlessness, power/powerlessness, order/chaos, mind/body,
high/low, which reflect and refract his complex ideas about the human
condition. Gombrowicz discovered Eros and sexuality early in his life (as he
confesses in A Kind of Testament), and the murky, ambiguous, unfathomable
sphere of human desires fascinated him ever since. Eroticism subtends all his
ideas. As the present staging of Operetta so expressively showed, every gesture
and twist of the body, every verbal exchange, history, politics, fashions, and
even the flow of fabric in the air can bear erotic significance. Yet this
eroticism is very subtle, and practically impossible to pinpoint.
Youthful energy saturates the La MaMa performance with a special
force, but in no way does it solve the enigma of youthful ness. Even the
Princess and the Prince representing high social status and adulthood (in
Gombrowiczian terms their "highness" is already denigrated by age, and
therefore twisted) are still lighthearted and frivolous and in some ways erotic.
Judith Malina and Hanon Reznikov, who play the princely pair, embody the
tradition of nudity on stage in American t heatre- which was one of the
hallmarks of The Living Theatre, especially in their famous Paradise
Now-and add an important subtext to the performance. The Living
Theatre's glorification and worship of nakedness, however, stood as a
86
revolutionary invocation of freedom and called for an absolute rejection of
bourgeois politics and morality. Of course, Gombrowicz in many ways
shared the same ideas; however, nudity in his play cannot be so
unequivocally located in and explained by the political context of his time,
even though Operetta, which was fmished in 1966, was sometimes interpreted
as a "prophecy" anticipating the youth movements of 1968 in Europe.
Gombrowicz, however, never liked such immediate, literal connections of
his art to politics.
It is clear that in any version of Operetta the timeframe of the
performance, as well as Albertine's interactions with other characters, is
crucial in determining the meaning of her nudity. As Jerzy Jarzc;bski
observes,3 Albertine's nudity can be just another costume, denoting a lack of
individuality or signaling a temporary victory, depending on the time, place,
and circumstances of production. In the present performance, Albertine,
very subtly played by Melody Luisdhon, does not say much. From the
beginning, she appears mainly as an object of competition between
Charmant and Firulet. She sleeps (here I must mention another outstanding
dress/pillow design) and smiles mysteriously, and inwardly, a little bit like La
Gioconda. At the end of the play, Albertine appears in the company of her
nude father and mother on the elevated end of the runway (so that the actors
are distanced from the audience, as if seen through an invisible screen) and
performs her famous nude dance, which animates the enigma of her smile.
The play shows the collapse of all political systems and ideologies,
but Albertine's nude dance does not propose a solution for the future. Her
nudity, already softened and mediated by space, does not call for another
revolution. Albertine's dance reminds us that nudity and youthfulness can be
enjoyed and performed, but it cannot be formalized as yet another
costume-it will stay unfathomed, enigmatic and natural. And this
naturalness that evades codification is, I think, one of the greatest
achievements of the director, the young actress, and all the performers from
Lang College.
I hope t hat their performance, which lasted only for four days, will
be revived in New York so that more of us will be able to fly with it to
Gombrowicz's world.
87
NOTES
1
Operetta by Witold Gombrowicz was presented at La MaMa, New York, March 9 to
12, 2006. The production was directed and designed by Zishan Ugurlu with
translation by Louis Iribarne, music by Stefania de Kennesey, costume design by
Oana Botez Ban, dramaturgical consulting by Allen Kucharski, and movement by
Irina Constantine Poulos. Conrad Chu served as music director and chorus master.
2
Testament (Warsaw: Res Publica, 1990), 98.
3
Jerzy Podglqdanie Gombrowicza (Peeping at Gombrowicz] (Cracow:
Wydawnictwo Literackie, 2000), 210.
88
CONTRIBUTORS
KATHLEEN CIOFFI is an independent scholar and theatre historian who
was one of the co-founders of Maybe Theatre, an English-language theatre
company in Gdansk, Poland. She has contributed essays, interviews, and
reviews to TDR, Theatre journal, Contemporary Theatre Review, and Slavic and
East European Performance, as well as several anthologies, and co-edited a
special issue of Indiana Slavic Studies on "The Other in Polish Theatre and
Drama." Her book Polish Alternative Theatre 1954- 1989 won the American
Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies Orbis Polish Book Prize
and the Polish Studies Association's Third Biennial Prize.
ROBERT COHEN is Claire Trevor Professor of Drama at the University of
California, Irvine. He has been a frequent guest at the Hungarian National
Theatre and Film Academy, and in 2003, was an invited guest of the
Hungarian National Theatre Festival in Pees; two of his books have been
translated and published in Hungarian, and his play, The Prince, was
produced at the Studio of the Madach Szinhaz in 2001. In Spring 2006, he
toured his production of Bryan Reynolds's new play, Railroad, to the Sibiu
International Theatre festival in Romania.
MAGDALENA GOI:.ACZYNSKA holds a doctorate in theatre from
Wroclaw University, where she teaches as a lecturer. In 2002, she published
Teatry alternatywne w Polsce po roku 1989 [Mosai c of Contemporaneity: The
Alternative Theatre in Poland Since 1989] and a report about the conditions
of mainstream and alternative theatre in Lower Silesia. She writes articles on
contemporary theatre, focusing on experimental groups.
MARIA IGNATIEVA is Associate Professor, Department of Theatre, The
Ohio State University at Lima. lgnatieva is a specialist in Russian theatre; she
has lectured and presented papers in Australia, Canada, Finland, the
Netherlands, Poland, England, and Germany. Her recent publications deal
with the actresses of the Moscow Art Theatre and their work with
Stanislavsky. In 2004, lgnatieva received a Coca-Cola Grant-"Critical
Difference for Women."
89
KRYSTYNA LIPINSKA IU:.AKOWICZ holds a Ph.D. in Comparative
Literature from NYU, where she teaches in the General Studies Program.
She began her theatre studies in Poland, focusing primarily on Samuel
Beckett; she writes about modem discourse, cultural exchanges between
East and West, issues relating to peripherality, and about Gombrowicz,
Witkiewicz, and Schulz.
JEFF JOHNSON is the author of Pervert in the Pulpit: Morality in the Works of
David Lynch (McFarland, 2004) and William Inge and the Subversion of Gender
(McFarland, 2005). He teaches at Brevard Community College, Melbourne,
Florida, and is currently writing a book on post-Soviet Baltic theatre.
ANDRAS MARTON is a veteran actor and director in Hungary and the
author of a new (2004) Hungarian book on American acting theory.
OLGA MURATOVA teaches many of the courses in the Russian Studies
minor program (including Russian drama and literature) at John Jay College
of Criminal Justice. She is a Ph.D. candidate in the Comparative Literature
Program at the Graduate Center of the City University of New Y ark where
she is currently writing her dissertation on nineteenth-century Russian
drama. She is a frequent contributor to SEEP.
Photo Credits
Moskwa-Pietuszki and Noc
Teatr Kana
Na zach6d od Sao Paulo
Scena Witkacego
Wrodawski pociag widm
Grupa Artystyczna "Ad Spectatores"
V,e Imposter
Pees National Theatre
Twelfth Night
M6ricz Zsigmond Theatre of Nyiregyhazam
90
Attempts on Her Lite
Dmitrij Matvejev
Slava's Snowshow
Oleg Lugovskoy
Operetta
Eugene Lang College, New School University
91
MARTIN E. SEGAL THEATRE CENTER PUBLICATIONS
' ....... '
'.
Comedy:
A Bibliography
Editor
Meghan Duffy
Senior Editor
Daniel Gerould
Initiated by
Stuart Baker, Michael Early,
& David Nicolson
This bibliography is intended for scholars,
teachers, students, artists, and general
readers interested in the theory and
practice of comedy. It is a concise
bibliography, focusing exclusively on
drama, theatre, and performance, and
includes only published works written
in English or appearing in Engli sh
translation.
Comedy is designed to supplement older, existing bibliographies by including new areas
of research in the theory and practice of comedy and by listing the large number of new
studies that have appeared in the past quarter of a century.
USA $10.00 plus shipping $3.00 USA, $6.00 International
Please make payments in U.S. Dollars payable to:
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The Arab Oedipus:
Four Plays
Editor
Marvin Carlson
Translators
Marvin Carlson
Dalia Basiouny
William Maynard Hutchins
Pierre Cachia
Desmond O'Grady
Admer Gouryh
With Introduct ions By:
Marvin Carlson, Tawfiq AI- Hakim,
& Dalia Basiouny
This volume contains four plays based on the
Oedipus legend by four leading dramatists of the
Arab world: Tawfiq Al-Hakim's King Oedipus, Ali
Ahmad Bakathir 's The Tragedy of Oedipus, Ali
Salim's The Comedy of Oedipus, and Walid
Ikhlasi's Oedipus.
The volume also incl udes Al-Haki m's preface to his Oedipus, on the subject of Arabic tragedy, a
preface on translating Bakathir by Dalia Basiouny, and a general introduction by Marvin Carlson.
An awareness of the rich tradition of modem Arabic theatre has only recently begun to be felt by the
Western theatre community, and we hope that this collection will contribute to that awareness.
Martin E. Segal Theatre Center.
Circulation Manager
365 Fifth Avenue
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Witkiewicz: Seven Plays
Translated and Edited
by Daniel Gerould
This volume contains seven of
Witkiewicz's most important
plays: The Pragmatists, Tumor
Brainiowicz, Gyubal Wahazar,
The Anonymous Work, The
Cuttlefish, Dainty Shapes and
Haily Apes, and The Beelzebub
Sonata, as well as two of his
theoretical essays, "Theoretical
Introduction" and "A Few Words
about the Role of the Actor in the
Theatre of Pure Form."
Witkiewicz . . . takes up and
continues the vein of dream and
grotesque fantasy exemplified by
the late Strindberg or by
Wedekind; his ideas are closely paralleled by those of the surrealists and
Antonin Artaud which culminated in the mastetpeices of the dramatists of the
absurd-Beckett, lonesco, Genet, Arrabal-of the late nineteen forties and the
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USA $20.00 PLUS SHIPPING $3.00 USA, $6.00 International
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THE HEIRS OF
MOLIERE
!'OUR FRENCH COMEDIES Of THE
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The Heirs of
Moliere
Translated and Edited by:
Marvin Carlson
This volume contains four
representative French comedies of
the period from the death of Moliere
to the French Revolution: Regnard's
The Absent-Minded Lover,
Destouches's The Conceited Count,
La Chaussee's The Fashionable
Prejudice, and Laya's The Friend of
the Laws.
Translated in a poetic form that
seeks to capture the wit and spirit of
the originals, these four plays
suggest something of the range of
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highly popular sentimental comedy
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political ends.
In addition to their humor, these comedies provide fascinating social documents that
show changing ideas about such perennial social concerns as class, gender, and
politics through the turbulent century that ended in the revolutions that gave birth to
the modem era.
Circulation Manager
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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
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Alice, or The Scottish Gravediggers,
as well as Charles Nodier's
"Introduction" to the 1843 Collected
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the two theoretical essays by the
playwright, "Melodrama," and
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"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
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Contempormy Theatre in Egypt 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 play-
wrights who spoke at the Symposium, Alfred Farag, Gamal Maqsoud, and
Leni n EI-Ramlcy. It concludes with a bibliography of English translations and
secondary articles on the theatre in Egypt since 1955.
(USA $15.00 plus $3.00 shipping. Foreign $12.00 plus $6.00 shippi ng)
Zeami and the No Theatre in the World, edited by Benito Ortolani and Samuel
Leiter, contains the proceedings of the "Zeami and the No Theatre in the World
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"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
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F ow Works for tlze Theatre by Hugo Claus contains translations of four plays
by the foremost contemporary writer of Dutch language theatre, poetry, and
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(USA $ 15.00 plus $3.00 shipping. Foreign $15.00 plus $6.00 shipping)
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Theatre Research Resources in New York City is the most comprehensive cata-
Iogue of New York City research facilities available to theatre scholars, including
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Please make payments in U.S. Dollars payable to: Martin E. Segal Theatre Center.
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365 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10016-4309
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