SEEP Vol.15 No.2 Summer 1995

volume 15, no.
2
summer 1995
SEEP (ISSN # 1047-0018) is a publication of the Institute for
Contemporary East European Drama and Theatre under the auspices of
the Center for Advanced Study in Theatre Arts (CAST A), Graduate
Center, City University of New York. The Institute is Room 1206A,
City University Graduate Center, 33 West 42nd Street, New York, NY
10036. All subscription requests and submissions should be addressed to
the Editors of SEEP: Daniel Gerould and Alma Law, CASTA, Theatre
Program, City University Graduate Center, 33 West 42nd Street, New
York, NY 10036.
EDITORS
Daniel Gerould
Alma Law
ASSOCIATE EDITORS
Patrick Hennedy
Jay Plum
ADVISORY BOARD
Edwin Wilson, Chair
Marvin Carlson
Leo Hecht
Martha W. Coigney
Stuart Liebman
CAST A Publications are supported by generous grants from the Lucille
Lortel Chair in Theatre and the Sidney E. Cohn Chair in Theatre Studies
in the Ph.D. Program in Theatre at the City University of New York.
Copyright 1995 CASTA
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;
c. Two copies of the publication in which the reprinted material
has appeared must be furnished to the Editors of SEEP
immediately upon publication.
2 Slavic and East European Performance Vol. 15, No. 1
Editorial Policy
From the Editors
Events
Books Received
TABLE OF CONTENTS
"The Problem with Anatoly Vasilyev"
John Freedman
"Theatrical Life in Budapest: A Snapshot"
Eszter Szalczer
"Kama Ginkas Directs Fyodor Dostoyevsky"
John Freedman
PAGES FROM THE PAST
" The Possessed Produced by Michael Chekhov
on Broadway in 1939"
Liisa Byckling
REVIEWS
4
5
6
11
12
19
22
32
"The Beekeeper's Daughter: A Play on 46
the Genocide in Bosnia"
Odette Blumenfeld
"An Inspector Calls: Director Mark Weil's Journey 53
from Tashkent to Honolulu"
Lurana Donnels O'Malley
" Puzzl ing Theatre: Edvard Radzinsky's 59
How to Murder a Man"
Philip Alexander
Contributors 63
Playscripts in Translation Series 65
3
EDITORIAL POLICY
Manuscripts in the following categories are solicited: articles of
no more than 2,500 words, performance and film reviews, and
bibliographies. Please bear in mind that all submissions must concern
themselves either with contemporary materials on Slavic and East
European theatre, drama and film, or with new approaches to older
materials in recently published works, or new performances of older
plays. In other words, we welcome submissions reviewing innovative
performances of Gogo! but we cannot use original articles discussing
Gogol 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. Trans-
literations should follow the Library of Congress system. Submissions on
computer disk are strongly encouraged and will receive priority in the
printing queue. Submissions will be evaluated, and authors will be
notified after approximately four weeks.
4
Slavic and East European Performance Vol. 15, No. 2
FROM THE EDITORS
The commitment of Slavic and East European Performance to film
as well as to drama and theatre is highlighted in the current issue. We are
pleased to welcome Stuart Liebman as a new member of our advisory
board. Stuart is Chair of the Department of Communication Arts and
Sciences at Queens College and Coordinator of the Certificate Program
in Film Studies at the Graduate School of the City University of New
York.
"Events" contains full listings of current Slavic and East
European film showings at the Walter Reade Theatre and the Museum of
Modern Art. In "Books Received" a special section is devoted to recent
works by and about Tarkavosky, which have been supplied by Stuart
Liebman.
Theatre, of course, remains central to Slavic and East European
Performance and is featured in the current issue, as witness the articles by
John Freedman on Anatoly Vasilyev and Kama Ginkas, and Eszter
Szalczer on theatre in Budapest. Pages from the Past presents an article
by Liisa Byckling on Michael Chekhov. In addition we publish three
reviews by Odette Blumenfeld, Lurana Donnels O'Malley, and Philip
Alexander.
-Daniel Gerould and Alma Law
5
EVENTS
STAGE PRODUCTIONS
The Guardsman, by Ferenc Molnar, was staged at the Huntington
Theatre Company in Boston and ran from March 10 to April 9. The play
was directed by Jacques Cartier.
The Goodman Theatre in Chicago presented Chekhov's The
Three Sisters, directed by Robert Falls, March 10 to April 15.
The Yara Arts Group presented Spinning Spells/Changing
Landscapes, an evening of poetry and photography, on March 18 at the
Ukrainian Institute of America in New York. Artists Olga Maryschuk
and Nadia Maryniak curated the exhibit, featuring photographs by
Margaret Morton, Thaya Salamacha, and Petro Hrystyk. Also shown was
a pictorial retrospective of Yara's shows with pictures by Victor
Marushchenko, Watoku Ueno, and Dorian Yurchuk. Slides of Ukraine
from the 1970s to 1995 were projected throughout the evening.
Y ara actors presented a short program of the oldest and newest
poetry by women from Ukraine. The poems were performed both in
Ukrainian and in English translations by Virlana Tkacz and Wanda
Phipps.
Chekhov's Uncle Vanya received a staging at the Yale Repertory
Theatre in New Haven, Connecticut that ran from March 30 to April15.
The play was translated by Paul Schmidt and directed by Len Jenkin.
The Mint Theatre in New York City presented Chekhov's The
Seagull, which ran through March 27.
From April12 to 30 at New York's La Mama E.T.C., East Coast
Artists presented acts from Chekhov's Three Sisters, a work-in-progress
based on a new translation by Michelle Minnick and directed by Richard
Schechner.
The Tiny Mythic Theatre presented a new Dostoyevsky
adaptation by director Kristin Marting, who previously deconstructed
6
Dostoyevsky's Possessed. The new work, based on three short stories, is
called 7he Fever and ran through May 14.
At the Arena Stage in Washington, DC, Ivan Turgenev's A Month
in the Country ran from April 28 to June 4. The production was directed
by Kyle Donnelly. The same play was also produced at the Roundabout
Theatre Company in New York City, directed by Scott Ellis. It ran
through June 11.
Chekhov's 7he Cherry Orchard was directed by Martin Benson,
May 26 to July 2, for the South Coast Repertory in Costa Mesa,
California.
The Maly Drama Theatre of St. Petersburg brought their
productions of Gaudeamus, by Sergei Kaledin, and The Cherry Orchard, by
Anton Chekhov, to the Holland Festival in Amsterdam from June 12 to
17. Both plays were directed by Lev Dodin.
The Royal Shakespeare Company will present Chekhov's The
Cherry Orchard, directed by Adrian Noble, at their Swan Theatre
beginning June 28.
From August 15-20, the New York Street Theatre Caravan will
perform an adaptation of Dostoyevsky's The Grand Inquisitor at the
Tampere International Theatre Festival in Finland. The play is adapted
and directed by Marketa Kimbrell.
Also at the Tampere International Theatre Festival, Theatre
Dybbuk of Norway will present Mordechaj Gelbirtig's Farewell Cracow,
directed by Bente Kahan and Jerzy Markuszewski, August 19-20.
FILM
I Am Cuba, a 1963 film that resulted from the then-fledgling
Cuban film institute's efforts to co-produce films with its Warsaw Pact
allies, was screened at Film Forum in New York City from March 8 to
21. Written by Yevgeny Yevtushenko and Enrique Pineda Barnet and
directed by Mikhail Kalatozov, the film was never shown outside the
USSR or Cuba until a Kalatozov tribute was held at the 1992 Telluride
7
Film Festival. Yevtushenko currently teaches at the University of
Oklahoma in Tulsa.
The Film Society of Lincoln Center presented A Dream, A
Promise: Films of the Glasnost Era at New York's Walter Reade Theater
from April 7 to May 4. The series was curated by Richard Peiia and Alia
Verlotsky and featured films made during the period which roughly
encompasses the ascension of Gorbachev (1984-5) to the August 1991
coup. The films included were Long Farewells (K.ira Muratova, Ukraine,
1971); Elegy (Alexander Sokurov, Russia, 1984/rel. 1987); Non-professionals
(Sergei Bodrov, Kazakhstan, 1987); My Friend Ivan Lapshin (Alexei
German, Russia, 1983); Assa (Sergei Soloviev, Russia, 1988); Solovki Power
(Marina Goldovskaya, Russia, 1988); Plumbum, or a Most Dangerous Game
(Vadim Abdrashitov, Russia, 1987); Taxi Blues (Pavel Lungin, Russia,
1990); The Asthenic Syndrome (Kira Muratova, Ukraine, 1990); Kings of
Crime/Thieves Within the Law (Yuri Kara, Russia, 1988); Little Vera
(Vassily Pichul, Russia, 1988); Scarecrow (Rolan Bykov, Russia, 1984); The
Needle (Rachid Nugmanov, Kazakhstan, 1989); Moscow Elegy (Alexander
Sokurov, Russia, 1987); Repentance (Tenghiz Abuladze, Georgia, 1984/rel.
1986); Commissar (Aleksandr Askoldov, Russia, 1967 /rei. 1987); Is It Easy
To Be Young? Quris Podnieks, Latvia, 1986); Freedom Is Paradise (Sergei
Bodrov, Russia, 1989); Interpretation of Dreams (A. Sagdansky, Ukraine,
1990); Defense Council Sedov (E. Tsimbal, Russia, 1989); The Story of Asya
Klyachina W'ho Loved But Did Not Get Married (Andrei Konchalovsky,
Russia, 1967/rel. 1987); The Second Circle (Alexander Sokurov, Russia,
1990); Intergirl (Pyotr Todorovsky, Russia, 1989); My Name Is Harlequin
(Valery Rybarev, Russia, 1988); House Under the Starry Sky (Sergei
Soloviev, Russia, 1991); The Personal Life of Anna Akhmatova (Sergei
Aranovich, Russia, 1990); The Cold Summer of '53 (Alexander Proshkin,
Russia, 1988); We Can't Live Like This Anymore (Stanislaw Govorukhin,
Russia, 1990); YaHa (Rachid Nougmanov, Kazakhstan, 1986); The Three
(Alexander Baranov and Bakhyt Kilibarev, Kazakhstan, 1988); and Black
Rose Stands for Sorrow, Red Rose Stands for Love (Sergei Solovyev, Russia,
1989). Also screened were "Glasnost TV," "Glasnost Animation," and
"Soviet Parallel Cinema," showcasing key works by the experimental
movement's founders Evgeny Yufit, Evgeny Kondratiev, and the
Aleinikov brothers.
8
This year's Oscar winner for best foreign language film, Burnt by
the Sun, premiered in New York on April 21. Nikita Mikhalkov directed
and co-wrote the film with Rustan Ibragimbekov.
New York's Museum of Modern Art screened three musical
satires written by and starring the Czech comedy team of Jan Werich and
JiH Voskovec, May 21-26: Your Money or Your Life (1932); The World
Belongs to Us (1937); and Face Powder and Gas/Greasepaint and Gas (1931).
The New York Philharmonic celebrated with fiftieth anniversary
of Sergei Eisenstein's and Sergei Prokofiev's collaboration on Ivan the
Terrible, June 1-3. Entitled "Symphonic Cinema: Scenes from Ivan the
Terrible," the program was conducted by Russian maestro Yuri
Temirkanov.
Three films from Eastern Europe made their New York
premieres at the Human Rights Watch Festival sponsored by the Film
Society of Lincoln Center, June 16-29: Eugeny Mikaylov's Canary Season
(Bulgaria, 1994) Bose Ovidiu Patina's Timisoara-December 1989 (Romania,
1991-93); and Costa Gavras's The Minor Apocalypse, an adaptation of
Tadeusz Konwicki's novel (France/Italy/Poland, 1992).
Kazimierz Kutz's The Convert1Nawr6cony makes its American
premiere at the Film Society of Lincoln Center, June 18.
Yugoslavian filmmaker Emir Kusturica won top honors at the
Cannes Film Festival for Underground. According to Janet Maslin of the
New York Times: "It was easily the most affecting, far-reaching film
shown here this year."
MISCELLANEOUS
Danuta Kuznicka, a member of the Polish Academy of Sciences,
gave a talk entitled "Polish Scenography and Theatrical Styles" at the
Polish Studies Center at Indiana University, March 29.
Theater Instituut Nederland and De Balie, a center of culture and
politics in Amsterdam, will begin the first phase of a program "Dissident
Theatre in Central and Eastern Europe, 1945-89" with a symposium and
9
series of events, November 29 through December 3. For more
information, write Theater Instituut Nederland c/o Agatha Regeer, P.O.
19304, 1000 GH Amsterdam.
1995:
10
The following item appeared in New York Newsday on May 6,
Poland's playwright of the absurd, Stanislaw Ignacy
Witkiewicz, would have been pleased.
A Polish commission announced yesterday that
Witkiewicz's body-solemnly brought home from the Soviet
Union in 1988 and buried in his beloved Polish mountains with
an outpouring of patriotic sentiment-was actually that of a
woman.
The commission blamed Polish officials and a Soviet
doctor who failed to notice the difference in the age and sex of
the corpse.
Witkiewicz kiled himself in 1939, in what later became
part of the Soviet Union, after learning Russian troops had
entered Poland.
Curtain.
For an earlier report, see SEEP, vol. 14, no. 3, p. 50.
BOOKS RECEIVED
Gombrowicz, Witold. History ?4n Operetta}, An Unfinished Play. Trans.
Allen Kuharski and Dariusz Bukowski with an introduction by
Allen Kuharski. Tilustrations from the French edition by Jan
Lebenstein. The translation, the first into English, appears in
Periphery: Journal of Polish Affairs 1.1 (1995). The editor is
Tadeusz Witkowski; the address 2753 Plymouth Road, Suite 110,
Ann Arbor, MI 48105.
Johnson, Vida T. and Graham Petrie. The Films of Andrei Tarkovsky: A
Visual Fugue. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1994.
Tarkovskaya, Marina. On Tarkovsky. Moscow: Progress Publishers,
1990.
Tarkovskaya, Maya. Tarkovsky: Cinema as Poetry. Trans. Natasha
Ward. London/Boston: Faber and Faber, 1989.
Tarkovsky, Andrey. Sculpting with Time. New York: Alfred A. Knopf,
1987.
Tarkovsky, Andrey. Time Within Time: The Diaries. Trans. Kitty
Hunter-Blair. London/New York: Verso, 1993.
11
THE PROBLEM WITH ANATOLY VASILYEV
John Freedman
Showings of two vastly different works at Anatoly Vasilyev's
School of Dramatic Art renewed suspicions that, at least in Moscow, the
renowned director has found a way to make everything look the same.
Whether it was in Moliere's Amphitryon
1
or in excerpts from
Dostoyevsky's Uncle's Dream,
2
Vasilyev's static actors declaimed, shouted,
and giggled in monotone recitals that were almost identical in style,
conception and performance to those used in excerpts from joseph and His
Brothers in 1993 and the staged Platonic dialogues in 1991.
The problem would seem to be that Vasilyev has misjudged his
talent and confused his mission, something that was confirmed especially
in the excerpts from Uncle's Dream. There, for the first time in the 1990s,
an actress of major talent walked onto Vasilyev's Moscow stage, and for
the first time in as long the director's minimalist ideas took legitimate
form, at least at times. The actress was Marl Torocsik, the Hungarian star
of the stage and screen who played Maria Alexandrovna in Vasilyev's 1994
adaptation of Dream at the Budapest Art Theatre. That production
received mixed notices in the Hungarian press,
3
but the actress was so
taken with her director that she accepted his invitation to come to
Moscow to work with his students for six weeks at the beginning of 1995.
As in Budapest, the Moscow version consisted of excerpts from
various chapters, most of which were dialogues and all of which were
performed by actors "trapped" in chairs. Throughout the three-hour
performance, they stood only to enter or exit, the sole exception being
when Torocsik once walked a short loop behind her chair before sitting
down again. Aside from Alexander Anorov (who also impressed as
Amphitryon's servant in A mphitryon), not a one of Vasilyev's actors could
raise the performance above the level of a beginner's learning exercise as
they traded among themselves the limited number of roles. This was
made all the more apparent by Torocsik's fluid and subtle mastery of
nuance, expression, and energy. Her Hungarian-language performance of
Moskaleva, the mother who wants to marry her daughter to the most
advantageous match, was gripping and profound.
What all this indicates is that Vasilyev has a rare and undeniable
gift for working with talent. He has shown that repeatedly over the years
12
in his productions starring gifted actors. The best known among them
include Solo for a Clock with Chimes at the Moscow Art Theater (1973),
The First Variant of "Vassa Zheleznova", and A Young Man's Grown-Up
Daughter at the Stanislavsky Theatre in 1978 and 1979, respectively;
Cerceau at the Taganka Theatre in 1985; and Six Characters in Search of an
Author, originally staged in 1986 with Vasilyev's students as a "diploma
production" at the State Institute of Theater Arts (GITIS), and later made
the first production of the School of Dramatic Art when it was founded
in 1987. But by this time Vasilyev's temperamental nature and his
continuing drift away from the idea of a theatre for the public had caused
his core of talented established actors to move on to other theatres and
other projects, and had essentially left him alone. He further alienated old
friends and loyal colleagues by attacking Russian actors as selfish and
criticizing the Russian system of theatrical education for ruining, rather
than raising actors.
That is what prompted him to found the School of Dramatic Art,
a hermetic world where in theory he planned to create a new strain of
actor. However, the reality has been that he experiments on his students
with ideas which he only takes before the public in rare productions
abroad. Moscow spectators, if they can get on the invitation list to the
infrequent showings, see nothing but parts of works-in-progress which
until now at least have never been brought to conclusion. Meanwhile,
Vasilyev has spawned a strange hybrid of actor who with rare exception
bears a striking resemblance to a robot, and who seldom gets a chance to
perform in public. It is certainly only prudent and fair to allow that these
students may yet blossom. But as the years pass and the young actors
show no signs of acquiring even the most elementary aspects
individuality-on the contrary, they consistently move farther from it-it
is equally prudent and fair to suggest that Vasilyev may not be the teacher
he hoped to be.
Whether he does not trust his actors with the freedom of natural
mannerisms, or whether his goal is nothing less than to reinvent the
ABCs of acting, Vasilyev limits his charges to a bare minimum of
expressive devices, with the actors seemingly nailed to their chairs from
beginning to end. Uncle's Dream is an exception, of course. But in
Amphitryon, as it was in joseph and the Platonic dialogues, the actors
seldom do more than sit or stand stiffly as they speak, and they seldom
interact physically. But most striking-or, perhaps, most irritating,
depending upon one's point of view-is the highly stylized speech that all
of the actors have learned as if by rote. It is a choppy manner of chant
13
in which at least minor stress falls on every word, no matter what its
semantic value, and every word is separated from those around it by a
mini-pause or hesitation. By and large, those words which receive major
stress are pronouns and the conjunction "that." The following
hypothetical text is an attempt to express in writing the rhythmic effect
of such speech:
YOU. SAID. 11lAT. I. WAS. THE. ONE. 11lAT. GAVE. HER.
THE. RIGHT. etc.
Within these structural boundaries, the actors may dip into a whisper,
carry on at a more or less normal volume, or, as is most apt to occur with
the actresses, rise into a hysterical, guttural yell. But in all cases, the basic
rhythm remains the same. While superficially creating the feel of a
philosophical dialogue, over a period of time this inflated, oratorical style
actually begins bleaching the text of meaning.
The delivery of the text, if it is not done in anger, is usually
accompanied by grins and laughter as if the actors were responding to
inside jokes. Frequently, when two actors are carrying on a dialogue,
other actors sit by silently, laughing and grinning among themselves or,
more rarely, turning to the spectators to draw them into the process. It
is not uncommon for the young actors to slip out of character (or at least
to pretend to) and laugh heartily at some moment in the text or the
action which they apparently find amusing. All of this mirth, having
precious little to do with what is being said or done, is most apt to arouse
in one the desire to rephrase Tolstoy's damnation of Leonid Andreyev as,
"These actors continuously try to amuse me, but I am not amused."
Meanwhile, actors left out of the action for extended periods are even
capable of slipping into their own world and staring blankly into space.
Against this backdrop, which at its worst in Uncle's Dream was
down right amateurish, Marl Torocsik was living proof that Vasilyev is
capable of inspiring talent. Even confined to her chair at stage right, she
commanded an extraordinary freedom of spirit and depth of
understanding, both of her own character and of those whom she
opposed. Her facial expressions, her gesturing hands, her hunching of her
shoulders, her shifting in her chair as she occasionally snapped up her
dress to cross or recross her legs, all blended into a compelling physical
portrait of an indomitable, wilful and wily woman. And, of course,
behind the flawless physical image which the actress created, there was the
fire of the director's vision shining in her eyes. Never did Torocsik resort
14
either to the grinning masks or the oratorical style of her partners. She
was a brilliant palette of shades and tones, effortlessly turning Vasilyev's
form into content.
The scenes from Uncle's Dream were performed to mark both the
eighth anniversary of the founding of the School of Dramatic Art and the
reopening of Studio One on Povarskaya Street (formerly Vorovsky
Street). And as Vasilyev had already shown in his delightfully whimsical
and theatrical design of the new stage at the former Uranus movie theater,
the renovated Studio One is minor masterpiece of modern theatrical
architecture.' The ceiling in what used to be a basement room was
removed, uniting the cells of two stories and creating an extraordinarily
tall, narrow hall. On the upper half of the walls (stage right), the
apertures which used to be doors are now small loges fenced off with low
wooden railings. Natural light pours in through the windows above and
below at stage left, while theatrical light is aimed through the former door
openings. The thickness of the walls has been increased, so that the
artificial light entering from the side stage appears to the audience
reflected off the back side panels of the apertures. At the end of the room
farthest from the stage, a diagonal slice of the former ceiling/floor was left
in place, creating a small balcony that hangs over the tiered rows of
wooden seats below. The new high ceiling is divided into four panels that
are painted in an eclectic range of colors and styles including the medieval
Russian icon and European Renaissance. Upstage, just a few feet from the
back wall, stands a low white wooden partition with modest decorative
Ionic columns at either side and framing a doorway at upstage right.
Signalling Vasilyev's nearly religious attitudes toward theatre, many of the
doorways leading in different directions from the spacious, carpeted coat
room are thick, narrow, low, and arched in imitation of those that might
be found in a monastery. The new Studio One and the existing stage at
the Uranus comprise the two finest modern theatrical spaces in Moscow
and, in my opinion, are Vasilyev's greatest contributions to Russian
theatre in the 1990s.
5
A mphitryon was performed at the Uranus stage shortly before
Torocsik came to town. It exhibited the same basic limitations of Uncle's
Dream, but also revealed in rare moments the sparks one expects from a
Vasilyev production. In any case, it had a greater sense of play than I
have seen in other recent works. As if it were a mix of joseph and His
Brothers and Uncle's Dream, the performance began on chairs placed on
the floorspace in front of the stage. However, in time the actors-once
again working essentially in pairs reciting dialogues-began to stand and
15
move about not only on the floor, but on the stage as well . When on
stage, the actors shared space with a row spectators who had been
personally seated and arranged by Vasilyev before performance began.
Moliere's text was cut and performed so that it became a kind of
philosophical tract about the nature of identity, with Amphitryon's
servant the center. The other main thrust-which has been a key in all
of Vasilyev's recent works-was the war between the sexes, trimmed to
its most basic and most confrontational. The costumes, similar to those
in Dream, mixed styles from eighteenth-century France, New York or
Chicago in the 1930s, and Oriental motifs. In one brief, gorgeous
moment, Amphitryon's servant signalled the fall of night by using two
fifteen-foot poles with long, blue streamers attached to the ends. Standing
at the edge of the elevated stage, he waved the poles in circles that carried
the streamers nearly to the ceiling, right up to the faces of the spectators
sitting in the narrow, upper balconies, then dropping them all the way to
the floor.
Still, the performance was seldom able to break free of the stiff
oratory and the borderline smart-aleck masks. There were a few attempts
to incorporate the moves and gestures of the marti al arts, but the actors
performed them clumsily and sloppily. One scene featured simultaneous
dialogues in which three different pairs, as though singing in the round,
began delivering the same texts at staggered intervals, so that at the middle
of the scene there was nothing but a screeching roar emanating from the
stage. Now, I have seen this device used well by Viktor Sibilyov, a
graduate of Vasilyev's directing course, whose Sibilyov Studio enjoyed a
short flight of creativity the early 1990s before falling apart in the spring
of 1994.
6
In Sibilyov's hands it was handled in a mesmerizing hush from
which the key words seemed to emerge as if by chance so that the
meaning of the dialogue came through with unusual force. As done in
Amphitryon, the result was little more than senseless cacophony.
The case of Sibilyov is germane to the problem of Vasilyev
because it once again raises questions about the director's value as a
teacher. The fact is, the vast majority of directors Vasilyev has turned out
have either followed in his footsteps so closely that they could not acquire
their own identity, or they have not been able to function in the real
world. For a short time, Sibilyov was a "transitional" figure who broadly
imitated his teacher while also bringing his own clear vision to the
process. But he was eventually tripped up by another quality that
Vasilyev instills in all of his students: a disdain for the practical elements
of theatre life. With no money whatsoever, Sibilyov was too proud to
16
Slavzc and East European Performance Vol. 15, No. 2
ask for it and too proud to accept any conditions attached to the financing
or housing that were occasionally offered him. In end, he fell victim to
an idealistic dream that art can exist outside of life:
Several graduates ofVasilyev's directing courses have never moved
on to practice their profession, choosing instead to remain in the safe
confines of the School of Dramatic Art in the capacity of assistants. Of
the three who are best known in Moscow now, only Boris Milgram has
forged his own style with a couple of intriguing productions at the
Mossoviet Theatre: Love, based on the writings of Samuel Beckett, and
Moliere's The School for Wives.
The others, Vladimir Klimenko (known as Klim) and Boris
Yukhananov, have gathered small but loyal followings primarily because
they have remained faithful to the Vasilyev style. Yukhananov's two-day,
seven-hour fantasy based on The Cherry Orchard utilizes the same endless
Vasilyev grins and giggles with the difference that Yukhananov builds
them into a relentless, sarcastic irony. Klim, whether in an adaptation of
Gogol's The Inspector General, or in a three-day trilogy of plays by Alfred
de Musset running a total of twelve hours, imitates Vasilyev's static,
motionless style, expanding it even farther through interminable pauses
and the barely audible muttering of the actors. Invariably, even the most
hostile spectator at one of these shows will admit that the Vasilyev pupils
are not bereft of interesting ideas, but even the most die-hard fan will
surely be caught yawning before the evening is over.
It is too early to count out the value of Vasilyev's work at the
School of Dramatic Art if for no other reason than talent should never be
counted out. On the other hand, the trends marking the last eight years
are undeniable. Since opening his school with a ready student production
that toured the world (Six Characters), Vasilyev has not created a single
finished production in Moscow. The vast majority of directors he has
turned out have been ineffectual due to their inability to break his grip on
their imaginations. His sporadic showings of scenes, excerpts, public
rehearsals and the like clearly indicate that he misses contact with
seasoned actors and is not able to raise inexperienced actors to a level that
would correspond to his own. Unlike a true teacher, who helps students
find their own keys to self-expression, Vasilyev appears able only to
impose his will on others.
More than anything, Marl Torocsik's marvelous performance in
Uncle's Dream left one wondering what Vasilyev might be capable of if he
once again had access to Albert Filozov, Alexei Petrenko, Vasily
Bochkaryov, Yelizaveta Nikishchikhina, Natalya Andreichenko, and the
17
other splendid actors who were once his partners tn creating some of
Moscow's best productions in the 1970s and 1980s.
NOTES
1
Performed 24 December 1994.
2
Performed 23-25 February 1995. I attended the last of them.
3
Tamas Koltai wrote of the show which premiered 9 April 1994,
"Professionals and the lazy half of the public could not swallow [the
production]; it stuck in their throat." Quoted in Alexander Sokolansky's
survey of the Hungarian responses, "Anatolii Vasil'ev postavil
'Diadiushkin son' v Budapeshte," Moskovskii nabliudatel, Nos. 9-10 (1994):
12-14. Following is Sokolyansky's own article, "Videnie kniazia:" 14-19.
1
For a description of the stage at the former Uranus, see my "A
Glimpse into Anatoly Vasilyev's School of Dramatic Art," SEEP 13
(Summer 1993): 19-22.
5
However, I was told by an inside source that the stage at the
Uranus is to be redone again soon.
6
See my "Recreating a Tradition: Moscow's Sibilyov Studio,"
SEEP 12 (Spring 1992): 20-29.
18
THEATRICAL LIFE IN BUDAPEST: A SNAPSHOT
Eszter Szalczer
The 1994-95 winter program in the theatres of Budapest was
evidence that the five years of a new political system has visibly changed
the face of theatrical life in Hungary. At first sight it seems that there is
much more theatre, in the broad sense of the word, than before. Many
clubs and small cafes that have sprung up alongside the "regular" theatres
offer a variety of entertai nment-from magicians and poetry readings to
mime and folk dance.
Yet I felt that it was not these performances but new Hungarian
drama that could tell me most about the state of the theatre of today.
However, to my surprise, I could not find any new plays during the
month I spent in Budapest this winter. Where are the young dramatists
of Hungary? Aren't authors of the new generation writing plays?
One reason for the lack of new drama in the repertory is
certainly the difficulty that playwrights face in a chaotic time of
transmon. But even if such plays are being written, they don't
correspond to the needs of the new Hungarian theatre which must seek
commercial success in order to survive.
Until the twentieth century, theatre in Hungary was traditionally
a place for raising political consciousness where playwrights could at least
by parable and allusion fight against oppression and for national
independence. The early twentieth century saw the emergence of an
urban, bourgeois drama (Ferenc Molnar is the best known example), more
akin to Western theatre. After World War II and the triumph of
Communism, theatre companies became state-subsidized and thus
controlled and subject to censorship. This centralized ideological system
ended abruptly in 1989, leaving theatres without any financial security but
with previously unknown freedom.
The chaotic period of transition at present is in the financial
organization of Hungarian theatres. The Nemzeti (National) Theatre is
still fully state-subsidized; other theatres receive a percentage of their
budgets from city governments and must cover the remaining expenses
from their own box-office receipts. Private or corporate sponsorship is
not yet a developed practice.
19
Although the main concern today is to survive, a sense of the
theatre's mission as a bastion of culture is still alive in a large number of
productions of both foreign and Hungarian classics. But risk taking is not
the order of the day.
I discovered that most contemporary Hungarian playwrights who
are still working in the theatre have found a haven in musicals. Peter
Muller contributed to the musical Doctor Herz at the Madach Theatre; Pal
Bekes wrote a dance theatre production by adapting the Theatre
Campagnol's Ihe Ball at Vigszinhaz. Their new plays-and those of
others-are undoubtedly lying in their desk drawers. Theatre directors
prefer the already well-established modern Hungarian classics, such as the
works of Istvan Orkeny, Ferenc Karinthy, or Istvan Sarkadi.
The change in the way the repertory is chosen has brought about
a new form of censorship-that of profit. There has never been such an
abundance of musicals as today. The Nemzeti Theatre heads the list with
My Fair Lady, alternating with Imre Madach's Ihe Tragedy of Man, the
great Hungarian Romantic drama. The Madach Theatre, which in the
1960s and 70s was the home of many great Hungarian actors, now seems
dedicated to profitable musicals. No Hungarian theatregoer needs to
travel to New York to see Cats or Miss Saigon. The commonly heard
expression "boulevard theatres" is the Hungarian equivalent of Broadway.
Political cabaret has traditionally been a popular genre in
Hungary, providing a direct, yet controlled outlet for anger and
frustration. East Europeans have always found pleasure in making fun of
their own misery. The genre is still flourishing, but now instead of the
absurditi es of Communism, the targets are power-plays in a multi-party
system and coalition government.
The classics-from Shakespeare, Marlowe, Moliere, and Gogo! to
Pirandello, Brecht, Ionesco, and O'Neill-are very much alive in the
Hungarian theatre. But, except for a few isolated attempts in dance
theatre, there is no trace of the semi-professional alternative theatre
movement Oocated in universities or existing as actors' communes) that
flourished during the communist period. There is no place for such
experiments in a theatrical world growing ever more rigid and uniform.
Yet this threat of conformity makes it important for artists like Tamas
Fodor to go his own way. After spending eight years at an "official"
provincial theatre, Fodor decided to assemble a group of actors and revive
Studio K, an alternative theatre group that gave legendary performances
in the late seventies under his direction.
20
The same need is manifest in occasional guest-performances by
Peter Halasz who, after participating in the Hungarian alternative theatre
movement, became a founding member of the former Squat Theatre
(created by a group of Hungarian emigres in New York in 1978). His
latest series of performances-Power, Money, Fame, Beauty, Love at the
Katona J6zsef Theatre's Kamra (chamber theatre)-contained quotations
from his earlier experimental pieces.
The Katona J6zsef Theatre itself is home to one of the most
daring and energetic companies in Budapest. In the past, it gave a hearing
to many young Hungarian dramatists, but at the moment the classics
dominate here too. A closer glance at one of their current productions,
A Midsummer Night's Dream, which I just saw in January, reveals much
about the problems and ambiguities of today's Hungary. Director Peter
Gothar commissioned a new translation of the play from Adam Nadasdy.
The classic nineteenth-century translation of A Midsummer Night's Dream
by one of our greatest poet, Janos Arany, has been replaced with one that
not only uses modern colloquial speech, even slang, but is more scenic
than poetic, more robust than elevated, allowing a stage interpretation
closer to today's reality. The director' s decision to use this new
translation can be seen as an attempt to compensate for the lack of
contemporary Hungarian drama in the repertory.
In the multilayered world of the play, Gothar has chosen to
stress the coarse imprint of reality on our dreams. Puck, who has become
the protagonist in this production, is a weary and lonely old bag lady.
Played by Eszter Csakanyi, she moves-full awake and homeless-in
others' dreams, executing Oberon's orders and manipulating them without
enthusiasm.
The set is a forest of suspended white bags that are movable and
can carry the actors, sitting inside or clinging to the sides, across the
entire stage. This stage device suggests both a labyrinth and a puppet
show where people are moved on threads held by invisible hands. Placed
in such a context, the characters' loves appear mechanical, their dreams
confused, and their awakening apathetic.
Gothar's Midsummer Night's Dream is not a cheerful, reassuring
performance, but rather one that suggests that the dream world has been
confronted with a bleak reality; the dream is in crisis. And thus
Shakespeare at the Katona J6zsef Theatre is made to convey an alarming
message for present-day Hungarians.
21
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22
KAMA GINKAS DIRECTS FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY
John Freedman
One of the highlights of the first half of the 1994-1995 Moscow
season was the "return" of Kama Ginkas. His production of the
enigmatically-titled K. l from "Crime", based on the character of Katerina
Ivanovna Marmeladova from Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment, was
not merely his first show in Moscow since 1991. It is now the only one
of the numerous productions he has done in Moscow over the last decade
which is being performed. Due to problems with changing casts and the
insurmountable difficulties of introducing new actors into old shows,
every one of his other shows had gradually dropped out of various
theatres' repertories by 1993. K. l from "Crime" was also notable for
being Ginkas's third consecutive production of Dostoyevsky for the
Moscow Young Spectator Theatre, making it clear that his attraction to
the great novelist is anything but passing.
Ginkas began building a reputation as a gifted director shortly
after graduating from Georgi Tovstonogov's directing course at the
Leningrad State Institute of Theater, Music and Cinema in 1968, but it
was only in the mid-1980s that he achieved broad recognition. After
more than a decade working in the provinces and staging now-legendary
shows in his apartment in Leningrad when no one would hire him-the
most famous being Pushkin and Natalie, a one-actor show starring
Ginkas's longtime favorite actor Viktor Gvozditsky-he finally got an
invitation to direct in Moscow. His first production in the capital was of
Sergei Kokovkin's Five Comers in 1981 at the Mossoviet Theatre. Then
followed his acclaimed interpretation of Nina Pavlova's The Club Car at
the Moscow Art Theatre in 1982, Ibsen's Hedda Gabler at the Mossoviet
Theatre in 1983, and Alexander Galin's The Toastmaster at the old Art
Theatre affiliate on Moskvin Street in 1987. But Ginkas only acquired
something resembling a professional home with the perestroika-inspired
appointment of his wife Genrietta Yanovskaya to the position of artistic
director at the Moscow Young Spectator Theatre in 1986. There he
seemed to find fitting surroundings in which to tackle Dostoyevsky, the
author who would occupy the greater part of his thoughts for some time
to come.
1
23
24
Returning to an old Leningrad "apartment project" that he never
could complete, Ginkas staged his own dramatization of Notes from
Underground in 1988. It was an intense, jarring production which some
accused of lacking taste, but which many more, this observer included,
found to be extremely powerful. (Viktor Gvozditsky's rancorous
underground man drooled saliva and spat food, while Irina Yuryevich's
angelic Sonya appeared stark naked from her bed in Act Two.) In 1990
Ginkas mounted an innovative production of scenes from Crime and
Punishment at the Lilla Theatre, a Swedish-language venue in Helsinki,
Finland, which he then recreated in mirror-image in 1991 at the Young
Spectator Theatre under the title of We Play "Crime". In Helsinki, the
cast was joined by Irina Yuryevich, who performed the part of Sonya in
Russian. In Moscow, Ginkas brought the star of the Helsinki show,
Marcus Grott, to play Raskolnikov in Swedish, while the rest of the cast,
all Russian actors, performed in Russian. The result was an extraordinary
display of penetrating theatrical devices that, among other things,
challenged the traditional, primary role of language as a means of
communication. In 1992 Ginkas returned to Helsinki, where he teaches
at the Helsinki Academy of Arts, to stage his own dramatization of 1be
Idiot. Finally, with K. l from "Crime", he returned again to Crime and
Punishment, creating a one-actress show based on a dramatization written
by his son Daniil Gink, the author of the 1991 hit play, Bald/Brunet.
In a conversation held shortly before the premiere of K.L on 1
November 1994, Ginkas said his fascination with Dostoyevsky centers
around the writer's profound understanding of the inviolability of the
individual. "What I, and not only I, see in his genius," he said, "is that
Dostoyevsky diagnosed the major ills of the twentieth century. The idea
of socialist prosperity is unnatural. You can't make everyone equal.
People don't want equality, they want to be different. If I can't be
prettier than you, then I'll be uglier. If I can't be smarter, then I'll be
dumber."
For Ginkas it all boils down to a matter of people having the
freedom to express themselves. "A person can be good or bad," said
Ginkas turning to a vocabulary clearly connected with Dostoyevsky, "but
if you don't let them develop, you begin getting what I call 'epileptic
seizures.' And when a person is in a state like that, he is capable of
killing you. He starts thinking, 'what can I do to be different?' If he's
a great poet, he writes poetry. If he can't, then he might kill, or blow up
a mausoleum."
25
26
Kama Ginkas during rehearsals of K.l.from "Crime",
Moscow Young Spectator Theatre
According to Ginkas, Dostoyevsky had a rare insight into the
herd instinct that determines so much of human behavior. "We need to
have our herd distinguish itself in some way," Ginkas said. "Russians will
do it one way and Americans will do it another, but if you don't allow
groups, peoples, or nations to express themselves, it means driving them
to 'epileptic seizures.' That is why Dostoevsky was pathologically against
revolution. Not for political reasons, but because he understood the
problem on a genetic level. He knew that no matter what prohibitions
people or civilizations may create, people will still be moved to make
their mark by whatever means they have available to them.''
And frequently the means are violent and destructive. To a
certain extent, Ginkas sees the Bolshevik Revolution as an example of
frustrated people striving to leave their mark by "defiling and burning."
How does Ginkas, a Lithuanian Jew, respond to the sticky
question of Dostoyevsky's anti-Semitism? Philosophically and with a
sense of humor.
"You can be a genius and still have pimples," he said, "but that
doesn't change the more important things. Dostoyevsky didn't hate only
Jews, he hated Poles and Europeans in general." Calling the writer's
refusal to accept Poles, Germans, and Jews a response on a
"physiological," rather than a "global level," Ginkas explained that it was
less a matter of racism or nationalism than a matter of rejecting Western
rationalism. "For Dostoyevsky," he continued, "logic and ideology were
terribly dangerous. And he pitted against them the childlike qualities of
ingenuousness. Rationalism is always complex and impressive, and even
the greatest evil is very attractive. That is the source of Dostoyevsky's
'fear and hatred' of Jews and Europeans, whom he perceived as being too
rational."
That is also at the crux of what attracted Ginkas to the story of
Katerina Ivanovna, who, he says, comprises the most difficult female role
in world literature. Calling Dostoyevsky an "impulsive constructivist,"
Ginkas pointed out the symmetrical qualities of Crime and Punishment,
wherein a character with the irrepressible life force of Katerina stands
diametrically opposed to that of Raskolnikov. Ginkas explains:
"Napoleon and Hitler had almost nothing human in them because they
excluded others; they didn't put themselves in others' places. Similarly,
Raskolnikov thinks he has to get rid of the human elements in him,
because they make him funny and weak. He wants to cut out his
conscience like you would an appendix, although he can't quite do it.
Unlike Raskolnikov, Katerina Ivanovna is five hundred percent human.
27
28
Kama Ginkas during rehearsals of K.l. from "Crime",
Moscow Young Spectator Theatre
She's unpleasant, she's petty, she's even malicious and cruel, but she is
alive! And she is totally natural, which makes her funny and charming
at the same time. Even as she is dying and has no hopes of recovering,
her natural impulse is to go on living at full speed. Her most important
task in life is simply 'to be,' and she is instinctively aware that the goal
of life, with all of its horrors, is the very fact and process of life."
Like We Play "Crime", K. I . from "Crime" is performed for a
small audience of just over fifty. It begins in a foyer on the Young
Spectator Theatre's third floor before moving into a blinding white
rehearsal room adapted for use as a performing space. Suggesting that
"you need to give people air," Ginkas pointed out that his last three
Dostoevsky productions have all been done in white. He described Sergei
Barkhin's set for The Idiot as "brilliant and fantastic," with three thousand
white roses and snow gently falling on stage as sparklers burn all around.
K. I. is significantly less ornate with its sole large props being a long
banquet table that seats part of the audience and a ladder which descends
to take Katerina away in the finale. But it runs a risk that none of the
other Dostoevsky productions had. With its action taking place during
Katerina lvanovna's memorial dinner for her late husband, the actress and
her three children (Oksana Mysina plus Olga, Anna and Oleg Rayev)
interact with the spectators as though they were the invited guests,
including the respected Raskolnikov and Katerina's hated landlady,
Amaliya lvanovna. "This creates difficulties," Ginkas says matter-
of-factly. "The actress's partner is the audience, and a lot in this
production depends on the partner."
Perhaps Ginkas's greatest triumph is to bypass Dostoyevsky's
sentimentality, melodrama, and agony, mining instead the author's
intellect, emotional, and, frequently, comic power. Spectators at
performances of K. I. are often involuntarily coerced into laughing
uproariously at scenes that are anything but funny, leaving them wide
open to be hit full-force by the tragedy of Katerina Ivanovna's
predicament. The widow sits down next to spectators; shows them a tiny
picture of her husband or a dried flower she keeps as a memento; ties a
mourning band on someone's arm; drifts off quietly into a world of her
own; explodes in anger at the woman chosen to be Amaliya Ivanovna; or
huddles in a friendly, confidential chat with the man selected as
Raskolnikov. It is invariably done without aggression and without
pathos, allowing the qualities that Ginkas is driving at to shine through
undistorted. For all its pushing and pulling of the emotions, K. I. is a
profoundly cathartic production, one that genuinely transforms pain into
29
joy. A few critics have seen vague hints at some religious revelation, but
in fact, this show is more open-ended than that. More to the point is that
while K. I. is relentlessly challenging, it is a soaring celebration of that
which will not be extinguished, be it some aspect of theatre or be it some
element of life.
"What I am trying to stage," said Ginkas, "is the desperate effort
to live life fully to the very last second of life. I want people to be in
ecstasy over Katerina Ivanovna. I want them to say, 'This is one fabulous
woman!' She may be out of her mind, but you can't play neurosis. On
the contrary, she has nerves of steel even if her head is totally turned
around. She is convinced that you live in her world, while you keep
thinking she must be nuts."
While Ginkas's use of the children caused a small minority of
observers to raise questions about bad taste-Katerina beats them, sends her
son Kolya begging among the spectators and then strips them all to their
underwear in the finale before she dies-in fact, this is one of the
production's more powerful elements. Never exploitative and never
maudlin, the image of the children is laced with a tough veracity that
draws no conclusions and makes no judgments. Ginkas himself was taken
from his parents at the age of six weeks and placed by the Nazis in a
Jewish ghetto in his hometown of Kaunas. Of the thousands of people
interred with him, he was one of just six to emerge alive. And when
watching Katerina's children silently respond to every humiliation and
every warm word with the same kind of blank stoicism and inner
fortitude, it is difficult not to sense the vague aura of an experience that
still exists within the director himself.
Ginkas was probably drawn to directing by what Yanovskaya has
called his "egotistical meticulousness."
2
When asked what a director
does, he replied: "Ginkas would say Ginkas is trying to record what is
going on between people. An artist 'sees' in color and form, and a writer
'sees' in language, but a director's eye is not just an eye-it is more. A
director sees multiplicities and sees everything in terms of action. He
must have the ability to see everything at once: rhythm, color, meaning,
sound, movement, humor and tragedy, and the falseness, superficiality,
and inadequacies of the human experience. You may suffer very sincerely
while I talk about my childhood and yet, at the same time your shoe is
pinching your foot and causing you great discomfort. That's natural and
that's the kind of thing I see and give form."
K. I. from "Crime" would appear to be a summing up for Ginkas.
It echoes Pushkin and Natalie in that it is essentially a one-actor show
30
where the audience plays a crucial role. We Play "Crime" is the flip-side,
female half of Ginkas's two treatments of Crime and Punishment. And,
finally, it has a history similar to Notes from Underground in that both
were conceived in Ginkas's Leningrad apartment long ago, but only
brought to the stage at the Moscow Young Spectator Theatre in the
1990s.
"I tried to create a play based on these scenes twenty years ago,"
Ginkas explained. "But I couldn't do it. I had done lots of
dramatizations, but this one just wouldn't work. Then, at my request,
Danya [Gink] found a way to overcome the difficulties. I think he
created a stunning play. That may not be apparent to reader, but I think
the spectator will see it in performance."
As usual, the director's eye did not fail him.
NOTES
1
Ginkas has also showed an abiding interest in Anton Chekhov,
staging dramatizations of Ward No. 6 in Finland at the end of the 1980s
and a collage of stories under the title of The Lady with a Pet Dog at the
Lilla Theatre in Helsinki in 1995. He made an earlier attempt to stage a
dramatization of The Lady with a Pet Dog in Turkey in 1993, but left it
unfinished due to artistic differences with the theatre.
2
Genrietta Yanovskaya, "My s nim davno ne razgovarivali,"
Moskovskii nabliudatel', 5-6 (1992): 30.
31
PAGES FROM THE PAST
7HE POSSESSED PRODUCED BY MICHAEL CHEKHOV
ON BROADWAY IN 1939
Liisa Byckling
A play based on Dostoyevsky's novel, The Possessed, was the first
professional endeavor of the Chekhov Theatre, newly arrived in the
United States. The task here is to establish the ideas, reception, and
aftermath of the production. Michael Chekhov was the most talented of
Stanislavsky's pupils in the West. Yet he was very much a Russian
emigre, not only because of his background but also because of his
preoccupation with Russian themes and methods of acting based on
Stanislavsky's "system."
Michael Aleksandrovich Chekhov (1891-1955) was the nephew of
Anton Chekhov and was one of the original members of the First Studio
where he worked under the direction of Stanislavsky. In 1923, when the
First Studio became the Second Moscow Art Theatre, he became its
director and carried on the work there single-handedly for five years. He
acted as well as trained his company developing them in accordance with
his own ideas. The writings of Rudolf Steiner, the German
anthroposophist had, during Chekhov's last years in Russia, exerted a
powerful influence upon him. After emigrating from Russia in 1928, a
new orientation took place in Chekhov's philosophy of theatre. From
Stanislavsky, from the European theatre, and from Steiner, Chekhov drew
the material out of which he later created his own method. He worked
with Reinhardt and the Habima Players in Berlin, subsequently in Paris,
Kaunas, and Riga.
In 1935, Chekhov played with a group of Russian players in New
York, Boston, and Philadelphia. At the end of the American season, he
was invited to England by American millionaire Dorothy Whitney
Elmhirst, and his dreams were realized in the foundation of the Chekhov
Theatre Studio at Dartington Hall. Students were selected from all over
the world and embarked on a three-year training period under Chekhov's
direction prior to the formation of a permanent acting company. The
finances were shared by Beatrice Straight, Dorothy's daughter, and the
Dartington Hall Trustees. By Autumn 1936, twenty-two students had
been accepted. Beatrice, the moving spirit behind the whole venture, was
32
herself a student. Chekhov felt that only with young, nonprofessional
actors would he be able to train a troupe capable of creating new
standard for the modern theatre.
The studio was to create the theatre of the future, to fulfill the
utopian aims of Chekhov. At the center of Chekhov's method was an
emphasis on the creative imagination, and it was in this area that many
of his ideas related to Steiner's teachings. Chekhov believed that the
actors should develop not only physically but spiritually, acquiring an
inner life rich with images from which they would be able to draw when
creating a character. He had developed a method which he hoped would
bring out the latent powers of his students. Chekhov's system was closer
to his ex-colleague, Vakhtangov, than to his former master, Stanislavsky,
for he was more interested in theatrical form than in psychological
representation.
Dostoyevsky was naturally close to Chekhov as an actor in his
probing into individual psychology. The work on The Possessed began in
the second year. It was one of the plays considered for future
performance. A play in the style of commedia dell'arte and a fairy tale
were also rehearsed. George Shdanoff, a young Russian actor who
worked in the film industry as a scriptwriter, was enlisted as a playwright-
in-residence for the studio. Mstislav Doboujinsky, an artist of the "Mir
Iskusstva" group who had his studio in London, was invited to design the
sets and costumes. In the same way as Vakhtangov in his last
productions, Chekhov aimed at pointed relevance to the contemporary.
Chekhov wrote to Doboujinsky on May 25, 1938: "The play was not
meant to be a VARIANT of a novel by Dostoyevsky, but, rather, and
APPLICATION of Dostoyevsky's ideas to writing a play which would
reflect our modern problems . . . ."
1
Impetus for creating the
performance came from the experience of Soviet Communism and
German Fascism. In an interview, Chekhov's secretary, Deirdre Hurst du
Prey, said: "After the events in Russia and in Germany he felt that a
prophetic theme had to be done to arouse the public. He wanted to
comment on present life."
2
Chekhov's view of the literary material was determined by his
acting and directing experience at the Moscow Art Theatre. He conceived
the play as material for actors, as a libretto which actors had to fill with
their own emotions. The text written by Shdanoff was used as a basis for
improvisation at Chekhov's rehearsals, it was rewritten and reproduced
several times. Chekhov as director was never prone to comment directly
on Soviet life; an enemy of direct propaganda, he resorted to allusions.
33
Shdanoff recalls Chekhov saying that the ideas of Dostoyevsky had to be
"disguised," presented in a "mask"-true to the concept ofVakhtangov's
theatre of transforming reality into fantastic realism. From Vakhtangov
derives Chekhov's interest in the grotesque, the comic, and the tragic. He
defined the genre of the play as "a sharp contemporary satire with a
philosophical message." The bitter, satirical, even grotesque, approach to
Russian classics was practiced in the Second Moscow Art Theatre and later
by Chekhov in his production of 7be Inspector General in Riga in 1932,
when the canon of Gogo! was revised once again. The model for the
eventual American production was the MAT-2 style with its interest in
stylization and expressionism.
When we turn to the letters and memoirs of the Chekhov company,
we find out more about how the play was produced. The experimental
angle was very much stressed during rehearsals. Chekhov's method of
presenting the play to the actor applied the concepts of concentration and
imagination. "Creating the role through images as if on the screen which
you observe, you finally fall in love with the character. We did
improvisations of the play in our own words," Hurst du Prey said.
3
Stressing the theatrical nature of the performance, Chekhov did not even
allow the students read the novel. Dorothy Elmhirst's letters to her
husband, Leonard, give a clear account of the Studio's progress. Chekhov
wanted her to play the part of Mrs. Stavrogin. Dorothy wrote:
The work, of course, is fascinating, and now that I am in it I
want to be absorbed by it .. .. Chekhov's mind seems to work
on everyone at every instant, and his consciousness can
encompass the whole and the parts simultaneously and something
new is seen and created at every step. His effort now with me
is to teach me how to increase tension throughout the scene
without using outward means-no increase, for instance, in
volume of sound. . . . Such a fascinating problem today-how to
compress space on one tiny spot, then open it out again! This
occurs four times in this scene. It's like breathing, it is rhythm.
4
Events in Europe prevented Chekhov from fulfilling his plans for
the Studio in England. After the Munich crisis in 1938 the lengthening
shadow of tyranny became insupportable for Chekhov. At his request the
theatre studio was transferred to America to continue its work in a more
congenial atmosphere. It was thought that in America there would be
more understanding for Russian training and students would be more
34
eager for the method. During the 1930s, Stanislavsky's method was
winning acceptance in the United States where the Group Theatre and
other Russian emigres were expounding it.
The Studio was reopened in January 1939 at Ridgefield,
Connecticut. Until 1942 the large estate was the home of Chekhov and
his studio and the theatre. Substantial financial backing was secured by
the Elmhirst Foundation and Beatrice Straight. New students were
auditioned for the Studio; among the twenty-two members of the
permanent company, seventeen were American-born; three were
Canadian; one, English; and one, Austrian. The Chekhov Theatre
Production, Inc. was formally chartered to extend the work of the
Chekhov Theatre Studio, and to fulfill the three-year goal of becoming a
professional theatre with a permanent acting company prepared to present
plays on Broadway in the 1939-1940 season. Two plays were to be
introduced into the repertory. The Possessed was chosen "because of
Dostoyevsky's prophetic handling of themes and motifs that are the basis
of the world situation today," as the press release declared. The second
play on the schedule was The Adventures of Samuel Pickwick, a play based
on Dickens's novel.
For Chekhov this meant reconsidering his methods and facing the
harsh commercial theatre in the US. The main points of his new,
simplified method were four: the first was to apply a method of training
which would develop emotional flexibility and body technique; the second
and third aims were a knowledge in the methods of the playwright and
director; the fourth aim was to form a professional company. True to his
utopian ideas, Chekhov underlined the message of his theatre in a speech
to the students: "If you will concentrate on this one thing (becoming an
actor), you will get a wonderful feeling, as a religious person does when
he concentrates on one idea .... Our profession can be very important
in cultural life . . .. "
In Chekhov's opinion, Stanislavsky's method was covered only
in part by his approach, and it was much more complicated than his own.
The three-year training course had the following classes: Techniques of
Acting; Training and Developing the Imagination; Speech-formation
(Rudolf Steiner Method); Eurythmy; Dramatic Studies, Improvisations,
and Scenes from Plays; Stage Design, Lighting, Make-up, etc. ; and
Coordinated Experimental Work. Opportunity was given to students to
express original artistic ideas as actors, directors, playwrights, scene
painters, and costume designers. The Chekhov Theatre Studio was
35
regarded as the most exclusive place of drama instruction in the United
States.
7he Possessed opened on Broadway at the Lyceum Theatre on
October 24, 1939 and ran for three weeks until November 4. Before the
premiere, the production was shown at closed previews for two weeks.
The main roles were played by John Flynn (Stavrogin); Woodrow
Chambliss (Verkhovensky); Beatrice Straight (Liza); Mary Lou Taylor
(Lebyadkina); Blair Cutting (Shatov); Hurd Hatfield (K.irilov); Ellen van
Volkenburg (Mrs. Stavrogin). Settings and costumes were designed by
Mtislav Doboujinsky.
5
Critical reaction to the production in the newspapers was mixed.
It was in strong contrast with the reactions of the first-night audience that
was both friendly and social, and there were several curtain calls at the
final curtain. The audience at the premiere was special: it was "the
bejewelled socialites-Whitneys, Vanderbilts, and spectators of the 'white
guard persuasion,' " as the critic in 7he Daily Worker gibed.
6
7he
Possessed could scarcely be expected to be a commercial success, but there
might be a small but interested public waiting for it, Burns Mantle
observed in the Daily News. However, it was clear that Broadway would
not take The Chekhov Players or Dostoyevsky to its heart.
The ideas were considered worth discussing in the theatre, and
the critics were aware of the political implications in the play. Brooks
Atkinson wrote in the New York Times that Shdanoff's adaptation "traces
the misgivings of a liberal who finally recoils from the murder and
treachery of the party line and takes refuge in religion. Although the play
is laid some time in the past, it applies directly to the spirit of Russian
socialism today. In the Soviet Republics they would denounce it as
counter-revolutionary."
7
The play was felt as something akin to a
political or social document which "veers strongly away from present-day
Communist ideology."
8
"It seems to predict, in fact, the eventual
triumph of the spiritual-even the religious-force over the hypocritical
opportunism of a man like Peter Verkhovensky in the stage play or Stalin
in reallife."
9
John Anderson agreed: "In current terms, which do make
Dostoyevsky's statement of nearly eighty years ago seem prophetic, it is
the struggle between the God-States of European Dictators, and shall we
say, Buchmanism and Moral Rearmament."
10
In the invented scene with The Stranger, the positive message was
expressed in accordance of the novelist's stress on true Christian charity.
"Ultimately 7he Possessed turns out to be elementary enough. In fact, its
final point as to the choice faced between Christ or a 'Man-God' created
36
by the destructive forces of mob worship is so simple that the only
wonder is that it would take so long to make."
11
Even if in New York the play did not have to be adjusted to
ideological requirements-as the author presumed-a more serious mistake
was that the demands of dramatic craft had been forgotten. Shdanoff's
script was heavily criticized. "The text upon which the members of the
Chekhov Theatre have squandered their time, loyalty, gifts, and high
ideals is as unworthy a hodge-podge as they would have found if a bad
play had been their deliberate quest."
12
The density of meanings with
which the text was invested was too much for the audience. "There can
be heard speeches, if one had time to analyze them, that might explain the
origin and theory of the double-cross of the Russian revolutionary
weapon; that might give us a faint conception of the immortalities of
dictatorship .... "
13
The early scenes in which Stavrogin returns home,
meets his wife, and indulges in violent arguments with Verkhovensky
were confusing and tedious.
The play rose to a realistic level only in the lively revolutionary
meeting scene, which opened the second act. It almost achieved the feat
of making abstract ideas properly dramatic, and the scene received the
overwhelming applause of the audience. Shdanoff remarked that the
brilliant mob scene was directed by Chekhov only shortly before the
premiere with new supporting actors. (What a pity Chekhov appeared on
the stage only in rehearsals!) "There was a wealth of colorful details; new
characters were created by Chekhov for each small part; he acted the part
of Verkhovensky, the demon possessed by evil powers (I called his
creations in this role a combination of Goebbels and Hitler with an
universal diabolical spirit); his delivering of Verkhovensky's speech at the
meeting was masterful and genial in its power, temperament, and
frightening aggressiveness."
14
Brooks Atkinson described the scene in detail:
That one scene is worth a little discussion. It sketches a secret
meeting of one unit in a revolutionary organization t hat intends
to reorganize humanity. Read into it the prelude to bolshevism
if you see fit. It is populated by an ill-assorted group of
malcontents and intellectual fanatics, made up for the stage with
a daring extravagance that the Russians achieve much better than
the Americans do. By applying his stylized method crisply, Mr.
Chekhov has skillfully managed in this scene to satirize the
cynical dogmatism of revolutionary leadership, the confusion of
37
the party members and the excitement of people overwrought by
diabolical forces that are sweeping them on. The scene has
something to say, and says it without the dullness of a literal
statement, meanwhile filling the theatre with sound, movement,
and frenzy. It has the genius of theatricality.
15
The scenery by Mstislav Doboujinsky was considered a brilliant
part of the production. Doboujinsky was already known for his designs
for the "Chauve Souris." The costumes and scenery "made use of
significant detail, of exaggeration and distortion to create the mood
required. His colors and lighting were most effective, especially in the
decadent baroque of his aristocratic interiors and the symbolic bridges and
broken arches of his exteriors."
16
From the same description by
Rosamond Gilder we learn that the designer used a series of small inset
stages set against black hangings with window and sky effect projected
against the backdrop. "The platform stages permitted quick changes of
scene but also tended to hamper the action by forcing it continuously
center-stage and by providing crowded and occasionally awkward playing
spaces for the performers."
17
The settings seemed clustered in the
foreground also to Anderson, but were admirabe in their use of lighting
and an impressionistic backdrop.
If the production almost destroyed Shdanoff's status as a
playwright, it restored the reputation of Chekhov as a director. Chekhov
was given credit for creating "an arresting example of directorial
virtuosity."
18
"The Possessed was molded by Mr. Chekhov with a
passionate intensity that flamed through its unfamiliar idiom and
demanded attention and respect even in its most turgid moments."
19
"But it will be the excellences of the production that win The Possessed
most of its friends. Here is something special, something unlike anything
else in New York at the moment," wrote Arthur Pollock in the Brooklyn
Eagle.
2
Chekhov's experiments in stagecraft were felt to be audacious
and desirable, but they called for questions. "The style kills the freshness
and plasticity of acting," Atkinson claimed. "What a despotic dictatorship
has done toward destroying the spirit of human beings in Russia Mr.
Chekhov has done to his actors here. Ironically enough, he has done it
in a play that pleads the cause of the free man."
21
No wonder the
expressionistic style of acting was unfamiliar to Broadway.
38
The difficulty was not merely that Mr. Chekhov had conceived
his production in the terms of symbolism and exaggerated
emphasis, but that he failed to win his audience to an acceptance
of his technique of expression by a gradual approach. . . .
Chekhov kept the action at fever heat, and demanded and
obtained from his young people stylized movement, clear speech,
and feeling for ensemble which augur well for the future. It will
be interesting to see what they can do in less violent
circumstances. With an animateur such as Michael Chekhov,
they should go far. There is too little variety in acting styles, too
little boldness in directorial techniques in the theatre not to
welcome such experiments even when they are not altogether
successfulY
The acting was uneven, partly because of the tenseness of many
of the young people under the strain of their first Broadway appearance,
and partly because of their actual differences in training through the shift
of the theatre from England to New York and the consequent changes
involved. With the exception of Ellen van Volkenburg (Mrs. Stavrogin),
Burke Clarke (Governor), and Reginald Pole (The Stranger), the members
of the cast were students. The group "acquitted themselves of their first
public assignment with honor.'m "Obviously these American actors .
. . are gifted performers. "
24
Some of the actors were at least good types
for their roles. John Flynn built an understandable portrait of Stavrogin's
difficult, tortured character. His Stavrogin was "pictorially ascetic" but
his performance was considered halting. Woodrow Chambliss as
Verkhovensky was inclined to overstate too often. The conception of this
character as a mischievous rather than a terrifying villain at times
bordered on the absurd. Blair Cutting was particularly effective as Shatov,
and Beatrice Straight, Mary Lou Taylor, Hurd Hatfield, and Sam Schatz
were others whose work attracted attention. "The Chekhov Players are
all American and their speech is clear and their voices carefully
modulated. They have evidently given much study to body control and
facial expression, and there is not a mumbler among them. Which could
probably be noted by many Broadway players and their directors."
25
The company as a unit proved interesting:
Plainly they know how to work together as an exceptional
ensemble. No less manifestly they have rehearsed long and
arduously, perfecting themselves in small and sometimes
mannered details such as few of our native companies either
dream of achieving or care about. Their sincerity is exceeded
39
only by the steadfastness with which they are in
the approved Russian manner. They betray their concentration
in various and sundry ways . . . by immovable stares, or by
sinister posturing, and by turning (as a group) the mere act of
listening into something of a major industry.
26
"Working from Moscow Art Theatre standards and training, he has
created a series of amazingly picturesque scenes and groupings and taught
his players, several of whom, I assume, are beginners or graduate
amateurs, a great deal about acting and concentration in character
portraiture."
27
"Mr. Chekhov has worked wonders with the company,
and evolved the sort of coherent team playing that is to be expected of a
disciple of the Moscow Art Theatre. The system does lead, now and
then, to over-acting in details, as if everybody on the stage were busy
calling attention to an incidental but self conscious perfection, but the
company has power and concentration with some excellent individual
performances. "
28
After the premiere, Chekhov experienced a crisis that
accompanied his cultural transplantation. Even though he was toughened
up by criticism, not only in Russia but later in Paris and Riga, he was
upset by the New York reviews. He wrote to Dorothy Elmhirst two
months after the fiasco on January 1, 1940:
Things have turned out so unexpectedly in every way, that I am
crushed and depressed indeed! I was prepared for the worst, but not
for the plain, banal, huge, shameless dishonesty, which, above all
became terribly contagious! I am helpless, like a beaten dog. If
you would be here, Dorothy, you would not speak about style,
translation, etc. You would see it from the other point of view
and first of all you would see what sort of plays have success on
Broadway! You would understand where the real cause lies. But
all these things here are insignificant and everyone gets what he
deserves.
29
It turned out that The Possessed was another act of Chekhov's
"quixotism" -as was his experiment with The International Theatre in
Paris a couple of years earlier.
The success of the play was also inhibited by powerful external
factors. There was not a real audience for serious drama with a political
message on Broadway at the time; many of the most popular plays were
40
light comedies or musicals. It was a premature production. Another
reason might have been that there was a perceptible slowing down of the
entire leftist movement in the theatre and society about 1937. Edith
Isaacs from 7heatre Arts wrote to Dorothy Elmhirst:
It is not fair to the papers to say that they were prejudiced in
advance, but there are two causes for their rather violent
disapproval that may have had an unconscious effect. The first
is that anything Russian is unpopular here just now, though how
Dostoyevsky falls into that category of disapproval, it is hard to
say. The second is clearer: the theatre undoubtedly made a poor
choice of a press agent. Oliver Sayler is not only fairly
incompetent and unpopular, but puts on so many airs about
everything that he discourages cooperation.
30
But far more important was that the culture gap remained
unbridged between Chekhov's utopian way of thinking and Broadway's
hard realities. The basic mistake of the Chekhov Theatre was the same
as that of the Group Theatre-it was hopeless trying to operate a
noncommercial theatre on Broadway. In the case of the "Chekhovians,"
the attempt led to an economic and artistic failure. Dorothy Elmhirst and
Beatrice were really "seeing the light of Mischa's genius and sacrificing all
to it," as Alan Harkness, Chekhov's assistant, put it.
31
Beatrice Straight
had lost over $40,000 on the production. In November 1939, it was
decided that the work on Dickens's novel, Pickwick Papers, had to be
postponed. Norris Houghton remarked that if "the company had sought
American advice or even got accustomed itself to the American public
before facing Broadway's cold scrutiny, it might have avoided the charge
of Russianism which rather deservedly was leveled against it."
32
Some of the members of the group felt that in his ideals Chekhov
was very out of touch with them and with reality. But after the failure
of 7he Possessed "he may now see things more clearly and then there will
be more chance of a group." Harkness wrote about his gratefulness "for
Mischa's great inspiration and his clear thinking on the theory of acting
and theatre." The feeling among the students was now more hopeful:
"the older group is more awake and alive to the difficulties and stronger
as individuals. "
33
41
Chekhov turned his attention to preparing a professional touring
company, fulfilling one of his major aims for the studio. The following
year (1940), the group's prospects began to improve. Under the direction
of Beatrice Straight and Alan Harkness, they went on three long tours to
American towns and colleges, playing to sell-out crowds and enthusiastic
audiences everywhere. The Chekhov Theatre Players were able to
demonstrate the possibility of playing classics in a way that was relevant
to contemporary audiences. The first tour took place in 1940. During
two months the company travelled by truck, bus, and automobile,
performing at universities and colleges in fifteen states. It was a venture
which had rarely been tried on such a large scale but had long seemed an
ideal method of training young acting groups. This tour included Twelfth
Night by Shakespeare and The Cricket on the Hearth by Dickens, and two
plays for children: Hurd Hatfield's The Mother (based on Andersen's
story) and Iris Tree's Troublemaker-Doublemaker.
The following year Chekhov produced King Lear. On Broadway
the company played Twelfth Night in December 1941. In the winter and
spring of 1942, the company toured the South and Midwest as well as the
East, taking in new territory in Florida, Texas, Oklahoma, and the
Midwestern states. Norris Houghton wrote soon after the first tour: "It
has been hard to assign a place to the Chekhov Theatre Players in the
American theatrical pattern. As an itinerant organization, it should
perhaps be grouped with the 'Roadrunners.' Because it originated as a
Studio and continues to operate a school from which new talent is
enlisted into the company, its consideration ... should perhaps be in
connection of the professional theatres on Broadway."
34
The rest of the group's history is now well known: a branch of
the Studio was opened on Broadway in the winter of 1941-1942 where
Chekhov conducted drama courses for professional actors, among whom
were actors of the recently expanded Group Theatre. Again, it was the
war that dogged their steps, and America's entry in the war caused most
of the leading actors to be drafted. The theatre was forced to close. The
farewell performance of the Chekhov Theatre Players took place on
Broadway in September 1942. Chekhov appeared in two one-act plays
based on his uncle's short stories. After moving to Hollywood, he acted
in ten films, gave private acting lessons, and lectured on acting and the
creative process. Chekhov published his memoirs, Life and Encounters (in
42
Russian), and two other books: On the Technique of Acting (in Russian)
and To the Actor.
NOTES
1
Michael Chekhov, letter to Mstislav Doboujinsky, 25 May 1938,
Files of the Michael Chekhov Studio, Dartington Hall Records.
2
Deirdre Hurst du Prey, interview by author, 20 January 1994,
Westbury, New York.
3
Hurst du Prey, interview.
4
Dorothy Elmhirst, letter to Leonard Elmhirst, 24 April 1939,
Files of the Michael Chekhov Studio.
5
The play is available in publication: The Possessed. A play in
fifteen scenes by George Shdanoff (Based on ideas from Dostoyevsky's
writings, especially "The Possessed.") Translated by Elizabeth Reynolds
Hapgood. The Chekhov Theatre Studio, Inc., Connecticut, 1939. The
text also includes episodes from The Idiot, scene XIV was written by the
directors.
6
G.B., "A Play to Warm the Heart of Dies and His Friends," The
Daily Worker, 25 October 1939.
7
Brooks Atkinson, " 'The Possessed' from Dostoevsky's Novel
Under the Direction of Michael Chekhov," New York Times, 25 October
1939.
8
Sidney B. Whipple, " 'The Possessed' Given by Michael
Chekhov Group," New York World Telegram, 25 October 1939.
9
Whipple.
10
John Anderson, Review of The Possessed, New York journal
American, 25 October 1939.
43
11
John Mason Brown, "The Chekhov Theatre Does 'The
Possessed,' "New York Post, 25 October 1939.
12
Ibid.
nwhipple.
14
George Shdanoff's memoirs (in Russian), The Michael Chekhov
Archive, CGALI, Moscow, f. 2316.
15
Atkinson.
16
Rosamond Gilder, review of The Possessed, Theatre Arts Monthly,
November 1939: 857-8.
17
Ibid.
18
Brown
19
Ibid.
20
Arthur Pollock, "Chekhov Theater's Debut an Event," Brooklyn
Eagle, 25 October 1939.
21
Atkinson.
22
Gilder.
23
Ibid.
24
Brown.
25
Mantle.
26
Brown.
27
Mantle.
28
Anderson.
44
29
Michael Chekhov, letter to Dorothy Elmhirst, 1 January 1940,
Files of the Michael Chekhov Studio.
30
Edith Isaacs, letter to Dorothy Elmhirst, 25 October 1939, Files
of the Michael Chekhov Studio.
31
Alan Harkness, letter to Dorothy Elmhirst, (circa November
1939), Files of the Micheal Chekhov Studio.
32
Norris Houghton, Advance from Broadway: 19,000 Miles of
American Theatre (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1941;
reprint, Freeport, N.Y: Books for Libraries Press, 1971), 63-4.
33
Harkness.
34
Houghton.
45
1HE BEEKEEPER'S DAUGHIER.:
A PLAY ON THE GENOCIDE IN BOSNIA
Odette Blumenfeld
Karen Malpede's most recent play, The Beekeeper's Daughter, had
its American premiere on February 3, 1995 at the Florence Mission
Project, 21 Bleecker Street, in a production directed by the author and
starring Obie Award winners George Bartenieff and Lee Nagrin. It was
first performed at the 1994 Dionysia World Festival of Contemporary
Drama in Veroli, Italy, where it enjoyed a warm critical reception.
Slobodan Snajder, a well-known Croatian playwright and journalist,
praised it as "one of the most honest representations of our tragedy I have
encountered so far." Naum Panovski, a critic and theatre director from
the former Yugoslavia, called it "a play about the poignant transformation
of humankind at the end of this millennium which brings to the stage an
imaginative landscape in which one feels reborn." Jasna Perucic of New
York University's Institute for Advanced European Studies stressed those
elements t hat make it a valuable theatre piece: "Malpede's innovative
treatment of the subject matter and refinement of technique and
expression combine to create drama of the most subtle order."
The Beekeeper's Daughter is a breakthrough in Karen Malpede's
work: it successfully brings forward a new type of political drama that
she labelled "theatre of witness." Her main source of inspiration has been
the concept of witnessing used in psychotherapeutic work with Bosnian
survivors of "ethnic cleansing. " Malpede discarded the trodden path of
the agit-prop style or the trial-type documentary drama. She chose instead
to deal with layers of witnessing that bring together vital political issues
and personal reactions to them, thus rendering the content complex.
Their stage translation, through well-individualized characters and
extremely tense relationships between and among them, turns this
substance into a very effective dramatic and theatrical piece. Furthermore,
Karen Malpede asked Steven Weine, Co-Director of the Project on
Genocide, Psychiatry, and Witnessing at the University of Illinois at
Chicago, to be the dramaturg and help her explain and clarify to the cast
members the witnessing process of their characters.
The key witness is Admira Ismic (Christen Clifford), a young
Muslim woman from Sarajevo, a survivor who experienced rape, one of
46
The Beekeeper's Daughter, Florence Mission Theatre, New York
47
the most abominable atrocities in this ongoing war. It is a trauma
inscribed both on her body and in her mind. Hence, it is not surprising
that at times the language of gestures and looks is most expressive in
unveiling a wide range of feelings, from fear to disgust, scorn or hatred.
For Admira, rape was not only painful but also shameful, since many of
her torturers were former pupils of hers. In other words, she experienced
rape primarily as a sexual assault rather than as a crime of power. In her
case, the dramatist focuses on the contradictory moods she passes through:
the nightmarish visions she cannot express in words, only in animal-like
screams, suggestively reminding us of the brutality of rape itself; the desire
to punish her body by refusing to eat; the denial of self and of her name;
a longing for death so that her newly born son will not have to avenge
her honor and thus perpetuate hatred into the next generation.
Moreover, it is her very presence as the only witness with first-hand
experience that forces the other characters to react and define themselves.
Thus she also becomes a pivotal element in the structure of the play.
Rachel Reichenthal (Carolyn Goelzer), the American human
rights activist working in Bosnia and Admira's friend, is a witness from
inside the event. She believes in an alternative morality propounded by
those feminists for whom "identity is defined in a context of relationships
and judged by a standard of responsibility and care." In her views, rape
has become "a tactic of war" in Bosnia. Young soldiers are "allowed to
destroy a woman at the same time as making her pregnant," so that these
children of unknown fatherhood might become a revenge substitute for
the physical wounds a weapon can cause. Rachel is also aware that this
"tactic" has highly complicated the victim's response to "this cruel
undifferentiated brutality."
The quiet, domestically idyllic Ibsen-like beginning of the play is
set on a Mediterranean island where Rachel's father, Robert Blaze (George
Bartenieff), lives in his 'ivory tower,' only three hundred miles away from
the hell of the Bosnian war that he treats with indifference. It is a
protected life that he devotes either to writing or to keeping alive the
memory of his dead wife by giving extensive interviews to young feminist
critics who consider it a duty to revive interest in women's writings
including his wife's. As the play opens, we learn that the young critic
who came to learn more about Robert's wife is a man, Jaimie Knox
(Brendan Corbalis), and the two seem to enjoy their homosexual
relationship. They live in a paradisiac isolation, while their daily
experiences are almost Dionysian. Their menage is taken care of by Sybil
(Lee Nagrin), Robert's sister. A woman deeply affected by a trauma in
48
49
the past, a victim of patriarchal oppression, for years she has kept bees,
a symbol standing, among other things, for altruism, love, prophecy,
harmony, all of them attributes of Sybil's own personality.
The peaceful atmosphere is suddenly disrupted by Rachel's
unexpected return accompanied by Admira whom she tries to save by
placing her into this protective environment, as symbolized by a huge
house-like beehive dominating the backstage. This is as much to say that
the safety, understanding, and empathy she is looking for will be provided
by her aunt, the beekeeper. Meanwhile, Rachel does her best to
strengthen Admira both physically and psychically by using a variety of
methods. Yet, like a true psychotherapist, she insistently asks her to tell
in detail the story of what happened to her, aware that only such a
narrative-testimony can lead to a better knowledge of her own trauma, a
basic step in her healing process.
However, Rachel is not only a political activist; she is also a
feminist who treats her sexuality in a pragmatic manner. She views her
body as a field of pleasures and passions to be satisfied. Consistent with
this viewpoint, she consents to have sex with Jaimie who recognizes that
he is bisexual. She goes back to the war scene to return pregnant nine
months later. Like Admira, who is not certain who the father of her son
is-either her husband or one of those "sexual monsters" who abused
her-Rachel does not know whether the father of her forthcoming baby
is Jaimie or the war resister she married "to get him out of the slaughter."
The marriage was not out of personal feeling, but out of a general sense
of responsibility for others, while the unborn child remains her own
concern only. She has inscribed on her body what she does not say
aloud: "the female body is the vehicle of human making and remaking
of the world."
Sybil's witnessing is of a spiritual nature, involving a psychic
bond with all women whose traumatic sufferings have been inscribed on
and in their bodies. Her eyes, like theirs, "can look through people." It
is different from the male gaze, which is limited to the outside, hence to
appearances. Her nurturing capacities spring from a world view that
values intuition and relatedness. The connectedness reached by the three
women is strengthened by a ritual they perform: they all taste Admira's
breast milk.
The second scene, very Chekhovian in its atmosphere-the
characters bask in the sun while remembering funny incidents from their
past-is dominated by a statuesque image of a large seated Sybil, a kind of
mother-earth figure, holding the heads of the two young women in her
50
lap and caressing them. Yet, the moment this outer peace is traversed by
the slightest sign of sensuality-Rachel tries to eat some grapes from a
cluster that Jaimie is holding like a penis-Admira's sudden screaming and
desperate gesturing bring them back to another reality, the cause of this
persistent inner turmoil.
Robert's witnessing evolves from indifference-it is somebody
else's tragedy-to regarding Admira, the suffering survivor, as a strangely
beautiful art object to be photographed, and finally to a conscious
involvement in her healing process by assuming a father role for her son.
Jaimie enters this process most reluctantly. He considers Admira a threat,
a destabilizing element in their household. He is jealous of her for having
monopolized Robert's affection. He agrees to be an empathic other to
please Rachel rather than out of personal conviction.
Two powerful, illuminating scenes structured like overlapping
monologues bring forth the idea that the survivor's healing can also come
about through a trustworthy other's heartbreaking story. Admira's desire
to kill her own son echoes in words what Sybil fulfilled in deed in her
youth. What Sybil gradually reveals in a terror stricken voice is a
narrative with a therapeutic effect that helps Admira give up her
destructive obsession. In the other scene, Admira's revenge visions are
juxtaposed to Robert's Machiavellian plotting of how to separate Rachel
and Jaimie, a jealousy he translates into fictional scripts. It is an approach
to reality that stimulates Admira to shape her terrifying experience into
an optimistic symbolic image: "all the women alone in that room were
like the waves in the sea." The wave, usually associated with the
feminine, suggests, in its positive connotations, both physical and spiritual
regeneration, the flux of life and time. It is in this light that her next
statement "I am going to live" can be interpreted. It is but appropriately
connected to the epi logue of the play which opens with the sound of a
hammer chipping a piece of marble. It is Admira sculpting the final
significant detail-a mother's belly-in a piece she is planning to call
"Survivors." Her feverish labor points to a harmonious reconciliation
with her self, while the sculpture itself stands as both witness to and
remembrance of what she and other women have experienced with their
bodies. Thus Admira follows Sybil's example: exorcism through a
creative act, rather than Rachel's, reality therapy through confrontation
with misery, war, and violence.
Karen Mal pede has worked hard with the actors to explore every
aspect of these relationships, enabling them to integrate their psycho-
physical possibilities within the creative act. They are, as Grotowski
51
envisaged, "a totality of physical and mental reactions," speaking with
their whole bodies, gratifying the spectators' taste for erotic obsessions,
their savagery and chimeras, but, above all, forcing them to become
witnesses. They may remain complacent witnesses to the drama
unfolding on the stage, thus experiencing theatre as "exercise," i.e., as a
useful instrument of knowledge that facilitates the comprehension of the
world.
But, as Karen Malpede hopes, the spectators can also expand their
capacity for witnessing, for wanting to know more than the cold figures
of war casualties they can find in newspaper articles or TV news
broadcasts. They can engage in a learning process that might lead to a
more adequate understanding of the historical and individual traumas
surrounding the genocide in Bosnia and, consequently, to a search for
positive actions meant either to stop these massacres or to restore their
survivors to a normal life. This is exactly what Karen Malpede had in
view when she wrote the play. "I feel that as an artist I must try to
create dramatic actions which though they arise out of trauma also act to
oppose atrocity with empathy."
52
AN INSPECTOR CALLS: DIRECTOR MARK WElL'S
JOURNEY FROM TASHKENT TO HONOLULU
Lurana Dannels O'Malley
From March 10-18, 1995, a remarkable production played in
Honolulu, Hawai'i. While down the street the University of Hawai'i
celebrated 101 years of Kabuki performance in Hawai'i with a production
of the Japanese classic Sukeroku: Flower of Edo, a different kind of cultural
borrowing from the East was also occurring. Director Mark Weil of the
Ilkhom Theatre in Tashkent, Uzbekistan was brought in as artist-in-
residence by the Drama Department of Punahou School, Honolulu's most
prestigious private high school. Weil, who founded Ilkhom as an
independent theatre in 1976, has endured an ever-changing political
climate to create his varied repertory, including contemporary Russian
playwrights, Gozzi, Chekhov, and Brecht, as well as scenarios created by
Wei! himself through the use of improvisation and pantomime.
Weil's Hawaiian mission was to direct a production of Nikolai
Gogel's The Government Inspector, working with some fairly formidable
challenges. The performers were young and completely unfamiliar with
Gogel's text. Due to Weil's professional schedule, he was only able to
work seven weeks to create the production (hardly an ideal time frame for
a Russian director accustomed to a more leisurely rehearsal process). In
this short time, Wei! not only directed but also adapted the text to
English, with some help from his cast. The result was astonishing.
Against these odds, W eil created one of the most inventive and effective
shows seen recently in Honolulu.
Rather than miring the play in a period set, designer Wayne
Kischer created a flexible playing space inspired by Meyerhold's famous
1926 scenic design. The backdrop was a single curved white wall with
many doors decreasing in size on either side of a central pair. A few
chairs and sofas draped in white sheets formed an initial playing area;
throughout the production actors maneuvered these into various positions.
From the opening moments of the production, as characters tiptoed in
and out of the many-sized doors to an unsettling squeaking sm1nd that
may well have been Chekhov's breaking stri ng, the director paintc:'d in
broad and clear strokes a portrait of a town gripped by fear. To heightt-n
the Mayor's paranoia, Wei! borrowed from Yuri Lyubimov's
extraordinary use of shadow play to reveal eerie silhouetted figures against
53
54
.

;:l
]
0
c:
0
::r:
the backlit backdrop. Another recurring leitmotif, using sudden flashes
of red and green dappled light on an otherwise severe black and white set,
evoked a dreamy St. Petersburg luxury. Such visual stylization was
complemented by carefully chosen musical excerpts from Alfred
Schnittke's "Gogo! Suite."
Although Wei! made no explicit reference to Hawai'i politics, the
bribery and corruption seemed all too familiar. The multicultural cast,
which included many Americans of Asian and Polynesian descent, showed
the diversity of Honolulu, just as Weil's own Ilkhom Theatre company
reflects Tashkent with a multi-ethnic, multi-lingual company of Russians,
Uzbeks, and others. The youthful Hawai'i cast of 1he Government
Inspector varied in talent and experience, yet the director worked a kind
of magic with them: gone was the self-consciousness and the lack of focus
that can make high school acting so deadly. Rather, each of the fourteen
players was confident and precise. Wei! had clearly empowered them as
performers, for they adroitly handled even the most difficult sequences of
overlapping dialogue and improvisation.
The highlight of the production was a breathtakingly energetic
turn by Dean Kaneshiro as Ivan Alexandrovich Khlestakov. Weil's
direction did not concentrate on any deep symbolism for this character;
here we saw not Khlestakov-as-cipher nor Khlestakov-as-devil. Rather, the
production brought out a more basic vision of Khlestakov as a superficial
comic foil. Never have I noticed so clearly Gogol's talent for precise
comic timing or the dizzying escalation of his comic sequences. In
Kaneshiro's hands, Khlestakov was an utter cad, a foolish dandy with
boundless ability to manipulate his situation; as Kaneshiro's plastic face
and overall agility brought out the physical humor of the role, one could
suddenly imagine the part played by Keaton or Chaplin. His outrageous
accent was part part Latin lover, and part (I suspect) a send-up of
Weil's own Russianized English.
Although the production abounded in belly-laugh sequences of
farcical physical action, my favorite moment in the play was a surprisingly
subtle one. Although in most scenes Khlestakov was brash and aggressive,
as he seduced Sarah Callies's innocent Marya Antonovna, he became an
enchanter. The huge central chandelier was lowered. Both characters
stepped into the fixture, sitting on one of the tiers across from each other.
The chandelier was then raised a few feet, and the couple sat and spun,
gently whirling and flirting in a sweetly silly scene. Later, the boasting
Mayor mounted this same chandelier. His exuberant swinging out into
55
56
the audience was reminiscent of the famous hanging clock in Lyubimov's
production of Master and Margarita.
When in the finale, the chandelier plummeted loudly to the
ground, the shock of the townspeople was ours- we too were viscerally
affected by the news of the inspector's arrival. But in a greater irony,
Weil's falling chandelier was a signal and a warning to Honolulu's audience,
whose obsession with British import Phantom of the Opera has approached
delirium in the past year. Like Khlestakov, the false genius Andrew Lloyd
Webber has fled; the true inspector-artist has arrived: Mark Weil of
Tashkent.
57
58
PUZZLING THEATRE: EDV ARD RADZINSKY'S
HOW TO MURDER A MAN
Philip Alexander
How to Murder a Man by the contemporary Russian playwright
Edvard Radzinsky was presented at the Tribeca Performing Arts Center
in March and April, 1995. As part of the theatre's Eastern European
Theatre Festival, this Russian play in one act actually represented two
countries, since it was performed in Czech (with simultaneous English
translation).
How to Murder a Man, which deals with the relationship between
an actress and her lover, offers a metatheatrical exploration of reality.
The actress in Radzinsky's play is Nina. As we learn from her opening
monologue while talking to a friend named Marisha over the phone, her
theatrical career has had few successes recently. In a circuitous discussion
that blends her present and past with fantasy, Nina also describes her
rocky relationship with another actor, Sasha. He became her lover after
helping her gain entrance to the acting institute, but he later ended their
affair. Though she married another man, Nina couldn't deny her
attraction to Sasha and found herself pursuing him. Their reunions were
short lived and fraught with tension since he only accommodated her
while waiting for his next conquest.
While she is talking on the phone, Nina suspects someone is
eavesdropping outside her apartment. The man in the hallway claims to
be a man with whom Nina danced at a restaurant, but when Nina lets
him in, she discovers it is Sasha. He has come to retrieve some jogging
clothes from her apartment, but makes himself right at home. He begins
to eat some mushrooms cooking on the stove and ignores Nina's warnings
to stop. Since she picked them for their colors and aesthetic value, she
isn't sure if they're poisonous or not. When Sasha tries to leave, Nina
tricks him into staying, insisting that he perform a few scenes from a play
that he has written. The subject is quite familiar to both of them, since
Sasha's play is about Nina and himself.
The scenes Nina chooses to perform further reveal the
dysfunction of their relationship, depicting an episode in which Nina feels
she must sleep with another man to get Sasha's attention. Ironically, by
assuming the role of director of this play-within-a-play showing her as
59
How to Murder a Man, Tribeca Performing Arts Center, New York
60
weaker than the men in her life, Nina reverses the power structure. She
becomes dominant and tells Sasha how to read his lines while he grows
weak from the poisoned mushrooms. At its finish, How to Murder a Man
has become a revenge play of sexual dynamics.
Radzinky's purpose (as indicated in his afterward to the script) is
to challenge our perception of reality. In this play everything is a
performance. Indeed, before they start reading from Sasha's script, Nina
and Sasha act for each other. Sasha must disguise himself to gain entry
into Nina's home and soon discovers that the phone has been
disconnected. Though he never asks, the question is clear: Was Nina's
conversation to Marisha only pretense? Nina provides an answer when
she states "Life is like a game. I constantly keep acting." The connection
between life and theatre is emphasized by references to a variety of
theatrical sources, such as George Bernard Shaw, Stop the World, I Want
to Get Off!, and the most famous of all revenge plays, Hamlet. Nina
renames her telephone friend Fortinbras and uses a prop skull, which
becomes a dual image of life and death when she puts it under her dress
to imitate a pregnant belly.
Our perception is severely tested by Nina's constantly shifting
stories and by her equivocation about the poison mushrooms. The
distinction between Nina and Marisha, the name of a fictional character
who poisons her husband with mushrooms, becomes blurred as the stories
of their lives begin to mirror each other. After trying to decipher the
fictions Nina creates about herself, one can only be skeptical of the
validity of her stories. Nina's meandering dialogue is filled with strange
and wonderful images such as dancing with a large-footed Georgian,
growing flowers in the ashes of dead friends, and being delivered to a
friend's house inside a stereo box. As the play progresses however, the
numerous allusions to restaurants and streets can be overwhelming,
especially to those spectators unfamiliar with the play's setting
(presumably Moscow).
In Radzinsky's pl ay, female-male interactions are more
competitive than compassionate. In addition to the struggle between Nina
and Sasha, several other couples are mentioned, all of whom have had
violent disputes. The women described in the play fit two molds: they
are either subservient to their men, garnering comparisons to animals like
squirrels and dogs, or they are bitter and vengeful (and stereotypical)
"feminists." The men are hardly paragons either. They are uncaring and
manipulative-from the "fascist" director and womanizer to Nina's
one-time husband who married her only to sire a son. It's not surprising
61
that Sasha feels men and women need a translator to understand each
other.
An actress who is continually recreating herself is a demanding
role to play. Jana Paulova gave an energetic performance that anchored
the play for its entire eighty minutes. She depicted Nina's mercurial
disposition with an emotional intensity and supple manner similar to
Meryl Streep's. Paulova's Nina was amazed, sarcastic, childlike, hopeful,
angry, scared, and sorrowful, but never forced or histrionic. Jiri Svarc as
Sasha provided a suitably enigmatic partner, but he was never given the
chance to display the charisma that attracted Nina and Sasha's other
lovers. With two actors in a small space and a word-heavy script,
Gregory Abels provided fluid direction that was never self-conscious. He
also reinforced the theatricality of the play by supplying a prologue that
prefigures the play's conclusion, in which the actors leave their final
tableau and walk off stage. When this final sequence is ultimately
executed, the spectators understand that this performance may be simply
one of many that these characters have given.
Entitled a comedy, How to Murder a Man is a series of puzzles
that appeals more to the head than the heart.'
NOTE
1
How to Murder a Man is available in English translation by Alma
Law from Theatre Research Associates, Stonegate Apts. 1-B6, Peekskill,
NY 10566.
62
CONTRIBUTORS
PHILIP ALEXANDER is a doctoral candidate in the Ph.D. Program in
Theatre at the City University of New York Graduate School.
ODETTE BLUMENFELD is Associate Professor of English and Theatre
at the University of Iasi, Romania. She is currently a CASTA scholar on
an ACLS research grant. Author of Perspectives in the Semiotics and
Poetics of the Theatre, she has published widely on the American and
British theatre. She is engaged in a project on feminism(s) in
contemporary American theatre.
LIISA BYCKLING is Assistant in Russian language and literature,
Department of Slavonic Languages, University of Helsinki, Finland. Her
publications include several articles on Michael Chekhov's work
(published in Russian in the Helsinki University series Slavica
Helsingiensia, and also in Moscow and St. Petersburg). She has also edited
and written the introduction (in Russian) to Letters from Michael Chekhov
to Mstislay Doboujinsky (emigre years, 1938-1951} (Helsinki 1992; 2nd,
comp. edition: St. Petersburg 1994; 179 pp.) At present she is completing
a book on Michael Chekhov's work in the West (1928-1955).
JOHN FREEDMAN recently completed translating and editing Two
Plays from the New Russia: "Bald/Brudet" by Danil Gink and "Nijinsky"
by Alexei Wagner for Gordon and Breach Science Publishers. He lives in
Moscow were he is the theatre critic for the Moscow Times.
LURAN A DONNELS O'MALLEY is an Assistant Professor of Theatre
and Dance at the University of Hawaii. Her research interests in Russian
theatre include contemporary theatre in Moscow and early twentieth-
century manifestations of commedia dell'arte. Her current project is a
book on the drama written by Catherine the Great, and she is working
on English translation of several of Catherine's comedies.
ESZTER SZALCZER, a native of Hungary, is a doctoral candidate in the
Ph.D. Program in Theatre at the City University of New York Graduate
School.
63
Photo Credits
K.J. from "Crime", Moscow Young Spectator Theatre
Victor Bazhenov
Beatriz Schiller
64
PLA YSCRIPTS IN TRANSLATION SERIES
The following is a list of publications available through the Center for
Advanced Study in Theatre Arts (CASTA):
No. 1 Never Part From Your Loved Ones, by Alexander Volodin.
Translated by Alma H. Law. $5.00 ($6.00 foreign).
No. 2 I, Mikhail Sergeevich Lunin, by Edvard Radzinsky. Translated by
Alma H. Law. $5.00 ($6.00 foreign).
No. 3 An Altar to Himself, by Ireneusz Iredynski. Translated by Michal
Kobialka. $5.00 ($6.00 foreign).
No. 4 Conversation with the Executioner, by Kazimierz Moczarski.
Stage Adaptation by Zygmunt Hubner; English verstion by Earl
Ostroff and Daniel C. Gerould. $5.00 ($6.00 foreign).
No. 5 The Outsider, by Ignatii Dvoretsky. Translated by C. Peter
Goslett. $5.00 ($6.00 foreign).
No. 6 The Ambassador, by Slawomir Mrozek. Translated by Slawomir
Mrozek and Ralph Mannheim. $5.00 ($6.00 foreign).
No. 7 Four by Liudmila Petrushevskaya (Love, Come into the Kitchen,
Nets and Traps, and The Violin). Translated by Alma H. Law.
$5.00 ($6.00 foreign).
No. 8 The Trap, by Tadeusz R6:iewicz. Translated by Adam
Czerniawski. $5.00 ($6.00 foreign).
Soviet Plays in Translation. An annotated bibliography. Compiled
and edited by Alma H. Law and C. Peter Goslett. $5.00 ($6.00
foreign).
Polish Plays in Translation. An annotated bibliography. Compiled and
edited by Daniel C. Gerould, Boleslaw Toborski, Michal
Kobialka, and Steven Hart. $5.00 ($6.00 foreign).
Polish and Soviet Theatre Posters. Introduction and Catalog by Daniel C.
Gerould and Alma H. Law. $5.00 ($6.00 foreign) .
65
Polish and Soviet Theatre Posters Volume Two. Introduction and Catalog
by Daniel C. Gerould and Alma H. Law. $5.00 ($6.00 foreign).
Eastern European Drama and The American Stage. A symposium with
Janusz Glowacki, Vasily Aksyonov, and moderated by Daniel C.
Gerould (April 30, 1984). $3.00 ($4.00 foreign).
These publications can be ordered by sending a U.S. dollar check or
money order payable to:
66
CASTA-THEATRE PROGRAM
CUNY GRADUATE CENTER
33 WEST 42nd STREET
NEW YORK, NY 10036
' \ .. .. ,I" H '' " \
lUI 1 II 11 14 ', II ... ''"I \1\' 111 11 \ 1
ff II I I I \1 II I HI '>I '
An indispensable resource in keeping abreast of the latest
developments in Western Europe. Issued twice a year - Spring and Fall -
and edited by Marvin Carlson, each issue contains a wealth of information
about recent European festivals and productions, including reviews.
interviews. and reports. Also, special issues on the theatre in individual
countries. News of forthcoming events: the latest in changes in artistic
directorships. new plays and playwrights, outstanding performances, and
directorial interpretations. - $10 per annum ($14.00 forei gn).
Please send me the following
CASTA publication:
Wesum European Stages
__ @ $10.00 per year
(foreign) __ @ $14.00 per year
Total __ _
Send order with enclosed check to:
CASTA. CUNY Graduate Center
33 West 42nd Street
New York. NY 10036
The Journal of
American Drama
and Theatre
.........
The widely acclaimed journal devoted solely to drama and theatre
in the USA - past and present. Provocative, thoughtful articles by
the leading scholars of our time providing invaluable insight and
information on the heritage of American theatre, as well as its
continuing contribution to world literature and the performing
arts. Edited by Vera Mowry Roberts. Published three times per
year- $12 per annum ($18.00 foreign).
Please send me the following
CAST A publication:
Journal of American Drama
and Theatre _ @ $12.00 per year
(Foreign) _ @ $18.00
Total
Send order with enclosed check to:
CASTA, CUNY Graduate Center
33 West 42nd Street
New York, NY 10031i

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