SEEP Vol.10 No.2 Summer 1990

volume 1 0 no.
2
summer 1990
soviet
and
east european
performance
SEEP (ISSN # 1047-0018) is a publication of the Institute for Con-
temporary Eastern European Drama and Theatre under the auspices of
the Center for Advanced Study in Theatre Arts (CASTA), Graduate
Center, City University of New York. The Institute Office 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 EDITOR
, Edward Dee
ADVISORY BOARD
Edwin Wilson, Chairman
Marvin Carlson
Leo Hecht
Martha W. Coigney
CASTA EDITORIAL ASSISTANT
Richard Brad Medoff
Copyright 1990 CASTA
SEEP has a very liberal reprinting policy. Journals and newsletters
which desire to reproduce articles, reviews, and other materials which
have appeared in SEEP may do so, as long as the following provisions
are met:
a. Permission to reprint 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 Editor of SEEP immediately upon
publication.
2
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Editorial Policy ....................... , ............................ ............................................ 4
From the Editors .............................................................. .. ............................. 5
Events ................................................................................................................ 6
"R K . . B " 10
eport on aztnuerz raun .... .. ... .............................................. .............. .
...
"Arpad Goncz
Elected Interim President of Hungary ............................................ ............ ll
"Hungarian Playwright Attacked" ................................................................ 12
"The Polish Puppet Theatre:
A Report from the UNIMA Conference"
Jane McMahan ............................. .. .. ................................................ ............. 14
"Czechoslovak Theatre During the Velvet Revolution"
Olga F. Chtiguel. ............................................................................................ 21
"Compensation: A Liturgy of Fact"
Alma Law ....................................................................................................... 27
"New Life for an Old Idea:
The Reappearance of Moscow's Bat"
John Freedman ........................... ................................................................... 35
"Red Fish in America"
Alma Law .......... ............................................................................................. 41
PAGES FROM THE PAST
"A Moscow Letter--May 7, 1922"
Nikolai Y arovoff .............. ............................ ......................... ... ..... .. 45
Contributors ............. : .............................................................. ....................... 53
Playscripts in Translation Series .................................................................. 54
Subscription Policy ..................... .............................. ...................... , .. ...... ...... 56
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 of submissions must concern themselves either with contemporary materials on Soviet
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 wel-
come submissions reviewing innovative performances of Gogol but we cannot use
original articles discussing Gogol as a playwright.
Although we welcome translations of articles and reviews from foreign pub-
lications, we do require copyright release statements.
We will also gladly publish announcements of special events and anything else
which may be of interest to our discipline. All submissions are refereed.
All submissions must be typed double-spaced and carefully proofread. The
Chicago Manual of Style should be followed. Transliterations should follow the Library
of Congress system. Submissions will be evaluated, and authors will be notified after
approximately four weeks.
4
FROM THE EDITORS
Soviet and East European Performance has a new look.
Readers of the first Issue of 1990 will already have noticed that we
are now including photographs to illustrate the reviews and articles.
We urge you to send us two or three pictures with your submissions,
preferably showing the staging of a production or the nature of an
ensemble rather than close-ups of individual performers. Wherever
possible we shall use appropriate Illustrative photographs.
In this issue we continue the emphasis on the extraordinary
developments in Eastern European theatre brought about by the
social and political changes following upon the end of the cold war.
Articles and reports on the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia, Hungary,
and Romania reveal more of the involvement of theatre and theatre
artists in the remarkable transformations occurring in those
countries--transformations that sometimes produce heroic
responses, but may be fraught with tragic consequences. Actors as
leaders of revolution and playwrights as heads of state are aspects of
"performance" in Eastern Europe that warrant serious attention.
Theatre is still of the utmost importance in the other half of Europe--
the new freedoms have not yet reduced it to the role of mere
entertainment.
Daniel Gerould and Alma Law
5
EVENTS
CURRENT AND UPCOMING PRODUCfiONS
, As part of the Goodwill Games in Seattle, the Moscow "Sov-
remennik" Theatre will be performing two plays, Chekov's Three Sisters
(June 29-July 22) at the Intiman Theatre, and Krotoi Marshkut (The
Steep Route) by Aleksandr Getman, based on Eugenia Ginsburg's Into
The Whirlwind (July 25-August 5) at the Bagley Wright Theatre. This
production features a cast of 5 men and 55 women. Both productions
are directed by Galina Volchek.
The Seattle performances will not be the only opportunity to
see the "Sovremennik" in the United States. They will also present
Kmtoi Marshkut at the New York International Festival in June 1991,
and at George Mason University's new Theatre of the First Amendment
where Ginsburg's son, Vassily Aksyonov is a writer in residence.
Also at the Goodwill Arts Festival, The Empty Space Theatre
will be presenting a series of rehearsed readings of newly commissioned
translations of three Soviet plays: Paul Schmidt's translation of
Vladimir Mayakovsky's The Bathhouse; Oleg Anotonov's Egorushka,
translated by Elise Thoron, and Michael Heim's translation of Alek-
sander Buravsky's The Body Shop. The readings will be on Sundays and
Mondays from July 15 until July 30.
A one-man show by Andrew Harris, Rapping with Repin, with
David Coffee, about the 19th century painter, Tiya Repin, will be pre-
sented at the Dallas Museum of Art as part of an exhibition on the
"Wanderers" of 19th century Russian realist art. The play will also be
performed in Dallas and Fort Worth schools during October and
N evember 1990.
A Light From the East, which had a workshop performance in
March, 1990, will be given a full production at the La Mama E.T.C.
from November 23 to December 10, 1990. The production conceived
and directed by Virlana Tkacz is based. on the experiences of Les
Kurbas, innovative Ukranian director of the 1920s. It uses the poetry of
Taras Shevchenko and Pavlo Tychyna, selections from Kurbas' diary
and memoirs of his actors. It will be presented in English and
Ukrainian by the Y ara Arts Group, a new group that sponsors perform-
ing arts events with a special focus on the East.
The Moscow Experimental Theatre-Studio, under the direction
of Vyacheslav Spesivtsev, is attempting to present a dramatization of
Solzhenitsyn's Gulag Archipelago. The production which was developed
6
Soviet and East European Performance Vol.lO, No.2
without Solzhenitsyn's consent is currently being performed for invited
audiences at "rehearsals", in the hope that the author will eventually
agree to public performances.
NOTES OF PAST PRODUCfiONS
The John Houseman Studio Theatre in New York presented a
pair of one-acts collectively titled "By and For Havel" that opened
March 8. The plays were Vaclav Havel's Audience in a production that
was staged in Prague in January and Catastrophe by Samuel Beckett,
which was dedicated to Havel and inspired by his imprisonment. The
production was directed by Vasek Simek.
The Circle in the Square presented Mikhail Bulgakov's Zoya's
Apartment, directed by Boris A. Morozov, resident director of the Maly
Theatre in Moscow. The American premiere of Zoya'a Apartment took
place in 1978 at the Gene Frankel Workshop Theatre, directed by Earl
Ostroff. In a review of this production by the New York Times, Richard
Eder said, "If the production does not do full justice to the work, it does
it the essential justice of conveying its excitement. Mr. Ostrow has dis-
covered "Zoya" for us, and that is a lot."
Russian film director Andrei Tarkovsky's only opera produc-
tion, Mussorgsky's Boris Godunov for The Royal Opera, was presented
at the Kirov Opera in Leningrad in the first joint production of the
Kirov and Royal Operas. Tarkovsky was recently awarded the Lenin
Medal posthumously.
Brecht's Caucasian Chalk Circle directed by Slobodan
Unkovski opened May 11 at the American Repertory Theatre in Cam-
bridge, Massachusetts. Also at ART, Andrei Serban directed The King
Stag by Carlo Gozzi in a translation by Albert Bermel. It ran from May
15 to June 10.
From April16-May 6 the Vakhtangov Theatre Company pre-
sented Mikhail Shatrov's docudrama The Peace of Brest-Litovsk,
directed by Robert Sturua, at the Civic Center for Performing Arts in
Chicago.
The State Youth Theatre of Lithuania presented The Square, a
vivid tale of a love affair that is stronger than the jackboots of a repres-
sive society, and Chingiz Aitmatov's A Day Lasting Longer Than A
Century, both directed by Eimuntas at the International
Theatre Festival of Chicago. Performances ran from June 28 to July 1.
Also at the International Theatre Festival of Chicago was the
7
Katona J6zsef Theatre from Hungary, making its U. S. debut with
Nikolai Gogol's farce, The Government Inspector. The performances
were from June 18-26 at the Blackstone Theatre.
FILM
As part of its recent New Directors/New Films series, the
Musuem of Modern Art presented the winner of the 1989 Cannes Film
Festival Camera D'Or (best debut film) My 20th Century, directed by
Ildik6 Enyedi of Hungary, and it also showed Bogdan Dziworski's short
film A Few Stories About a Man.
At the Cannes Film Festival this year, the Polish actress,
Krystyna Janda was voted best actress for her performance as a prisoner
in The Inte"ogation, recently released but held up by the censors since it
was made in the early 1980s. Soviet director Pavel Lungin won best
director for his first film, Taxi Blues, while the Camera D'Or was given
to Vitaly Kanevsky's popular Soviet film Don't Move, Die or Come Back
to Life. A lower-level jury prize was also given to The Mother, Soviet
director Gleb Panfilov's epic film about the rise of Communism. Polish
director Andrezj Wajda's film Korczak, set during World War II, about
an orphanage filled with Jewish children and the man who took care of
them, while not in competition was given a commendation by the prize
jUry.
The 4th American Film Institute Los Angeles Film Festival,
which ran from April 19 to May 3 had as its centerpiece,"Hollywood
Glasnost," a group of 47 movies from the Soviet Union and Eastern
Europe, with more than a dozen of them making their American
premieres. Among the films shown were Zero City, by Soviet director
Karen Shakhnazarov, Hungarian director Gyula Gazdag's Standoff and
Czech director Jiri Menzel's Larks on a String.
CONFERENCES, LECTURES AND ORGANIZATIONS
The University of Washington announced its summer program,
Preparing the Acting Teacher: East European Theatre from July 16
through July 27, 1990. The faculty will include Joachim Tenschert,
Intendant of the Berliner Ensemble, Oleg Tabakov of the Mosxow Art
Theatre, and Igor Kvasha of the "Sovremennik" Theatre of Moscow.
As part of their exhibition Russian Painting 1965-1990: The
Quest for Self-Expression, on October 12 and 13, 1990, the Columbus
Museum of Art, in conjunction with The Ohio State University, will host
a symposium to provide students and a general audience with an over-
view of the state of the arts in the Soviet Union, as developed over the
last twenty-five years. Keynote addresses will be by Dr. Frederick Starr
8 Soviet and East European Performance VoJ.lO, No.2
of Oberlin College and Dr. Maria Carlson of the University of Kansas,
Lawrence. Other speakers include Dr. Vassily Aksyonov, Dr. Anna
Lawton, Dr. Alma Law and Anna Kisselgoff.
The University of Ottawa Department of Modern Languages
and Literatures is sponsoring a symposium entitled, "Slavic Drama: The
Question of Innovation" from May 1-4, 1991. For information write to
Professor Andrew Donskov, Department of Modern Languages and Lit-
eratures, University of Ottawa, 550 Cumberland, Ottawa, Ontario,
Canada, K1N 6N5 (613) 564-6529.
New York University held an Eastern Comparative Literature
Conference on May 5. The topic was, "Culture 'As Ir: Literature and
Politics in Central Europe."
ANNOUNCEMENTS
The Leningrad State Institute of Theatre, Music and
Cinematography (LGITMiK) has announced a program enabling for-
eign students to receive an education in the following areas of con-
centration: acting, puppet theatre (both 4-year programs), directing,
scenic design, and the theory and history of theatre (teatrovedenie) (all
three 5-year programs). A knowledge of Russian is obligatory.
Tuition and housing are $2,500 per year. The academic year
begins September 1. The Institute also offers a four-month preliminary
course (Russian language and the basics of the chosen concentration),
beginning February 1, at a fee of $1,250. Applications and requests for
further information should be addressed to: Prof. V. Ivanov, Dean for
Foreign Relations, 34 Mokhovaya Street, 191028 Leningrad, U.S.S.R.
Beginning in January 1990, the R.S.F.S.R Union of Theatre
Workers is publishing a new monthly magazine entitled Plotlines (Syuz-
hety). Each issue will contain two or three new plays along with a brief
description of each.
According to Aleksandr Gelman, prominent playwright and
secretary of the R.S.F.S.R. Union of Theatre Workers, P/otlines is dedi-
cated to helping young new playwrights. "We will try to publish original
and unusual plays in an effort to open the way to experimental forms of
dramaturgy. One of the objectives of our publication is to acquaint
theatres with the new dramaturgy--to give impetus to creative innova-
tion and to encourage unexpected bold concepts. It seems to us that the
times are ripe for such an undertaking."
Additional information on the monthly, Plotlines, can be
obtained by writing to the Department of Dramaturgy, R.S.F.S.R.
Union of Theatre Workers, Gorky St. 16/2, Moscow 103009, U.S.S.R.
9
REPORT ON KAZIMIERZ BRAUN
The Polish director, author and theatre historian Kazimierz
Braun has been working in the United States since 1985. Because of his
involvement with Solidarity and his opposition to the military
government of Jaurzelski, in 1984 he was dismissed from his position as
manager and director of the Contemporary Theatre in Wroctaw and not
allowed to continue as a professor at the University of Wroctaw.
Braun has lectured at many American universities. Since 1987,
he has served as Professor and Head of the Acting Program at the State
University of New York (SUNY), Buffalo. He has been a visiting direc-
tor at a number of theatres, staging Ionesco's Rhinoceros at the Guthrie
Theatre in Minneapolis, Witkiewicz's Shoemakers at the Odyssey
Theatre in Los Angeles, and Roiewicz's The Hunger Artist Departs in
Buffalo. Most recently he directed two productions in Ireland: in
Celtic, Bullai Mhartain, a dramatization of Irish short stories, and in
English, Braun's own play, The Immigrant, about the Polish-American
actress Helena Modjeska, starring Teresa Sawicka from Poland.
Braun has continued his work as a scholar and theatre his-
torian. His novel Pomnik (The Monument) has just been published in
Paris. As the political situation has evolved in Poland, so has Braun's
status. In the spring of 1989 his play about Modjeska, under the title
Pani Helena, was given at the Stary Theatre in Cracow, directed by Jan
Maciejowski and starring Anna Polony. At the end of 1989, the new
Ministry of Culture and Art offered Braun the position of manager and
artistic director of the Teatr Polski in Wrocraw, the city's largest theatre.
The entire Polish theatre is in a state of transition. New principles
affecting the organizational and financial operation of the theatre are
being put into effect. There has been a decrease in the number of spec-
tators as a result of the rising cost of tickets. Unemployment among
actors has increased. Yet theatre continues to occupy an essential place
in society.
Braun has declined the offer to undertake the management of
the Teatr Polski. Given the present status of his own work, he is more
interested in directing, writing and teaching. Therefore he has decided
to remain as a professor at SUNY, Buffalo. But he will return to
Poland as a guest director from time to time. He plans to direct his own
adaptation of Jerzy Andrzejewski's novel Miazga (The Pulp) in 1991 at
the Teatr Polski. He will also direct Orwell's Animal Farm at the
University of Buffalo. The recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship,
Braun is presently writing The History of the Polish Theatre after 1944.
10 Soviet and East European Performance Vol. 10, No.2
/ ,; ..
ARPADGONCZ
ELECTED INTERIM PRESIDENT OF HUNGARY
kpad Goncz, the new interim President of Hungary was born
in 1922 in Budapest, where he studied law, receiving his Doctor of Laws
degree in 1944. During this period, he was a member of the Hungarian
underground and was wounded by German troops in 1944. After the
war, Goncz was a lawyer in an agricultural bank in Budapest and
managing editor of the Smallholders Party youth weekly. The Inde-
pendent Smallholders Party was a left-center oppposition party which
won the last free elections in Hungary in 1945.
After the Communist takeover, Goncz became a pipefitter and
returned to college at Godoll6 University of Agricultural Engineering
where he studied soil reclamation until the Hungarian uprising of 1956.
Sentenced to life imprisonment for his part in the rebellion, Goncz
taught himself English in prison and translated the speeches of John F.
Kennedy for the Ministry of the Interior. At the same time, he began
translating John Galsworthy's Forsyte Saga, smuggling it out of prison.
Released in the general amnesty of 1%3, Goncz worked as a free-lance
writer and translator. Among the authors he has translated are: E. L.
Doctorow, William Faulkner, Ernest Hemingway, William Stryon, John
Updike, Edith Wharton and Thomas Wolfe.
Mr. Goncz resumed his political work as president of the
National Writers' Association, president of Hungarian PEN, vice-
president of the Hungarian section of the International League for
Human Rights. He was also a founding member and vice president of
the Alliance of Free Democrats, a left-center social party founded in
1987. On May 2, 1990, the new Hungarian Parliament elected Mr.
Goncz the interim president.
Mr. Goncz, winner of the J6zsef Attila Literary Prize and the
Wheatland Prize, has published five plays, as well as a novel and
numerous short stories. His most successful play is Magyar Medeia (A
Hungarian Medea) (1978) which has been performed in Poland,
Romania, Yugoslavia, East Germany, Czechoslovakia and the U.S.S.R.
as well as Hungary. His other plays are: Racsok (Iron Bars), 1978;
Sarusok (Men of God), 1978, and Pesszimista Komedia (A Pessimistic
Comedy), 1989. He has also written two radio plays: Perszephone (Per-
sephone), 1989 and Mer/eg (Balance), 1989.
English translations of A Hungarian }fedea and Iron Bars are
available in Voices of Dissent: Two Plays of Arpad Goncz, translated by
Katherina M. Wilson and Christopher C. Wilson, published by Associ-
ated Universities Pressej. In July, Garland Press will bring out Plays
and Other Writings of Arpad Goncz, also translated by Katherina M.
Wilson and Christopher C. Wilson.
11

According to a press release issued by the New York based
Hungarian Human Rights Foundation, the prominent Hungarian writer
Andras Stito was attacked on March 19 by pitchfork-wielding ethnic
Romanian nationalists during an anti-Hungarian pogrom in his
hometown of Tirgu Mures (Hungarian: Marosvasarhely), Romania.
Mr. Stit6, who has consistently advocated reconciliation among the vari-
ous nationalities of Transylvania, was attending a meeting with approxi-
mately 70 other members of the Hungarian Democratic Union of
Romania at the organization's local office when it was besieged by an
armed crowd of hundreds of anti-Hungarian attackers.
As a result of the beating he received, Mr. Stito suffered a
detached retina and an internal cut in his left eye. He underwent eye
surgery on April 3, at the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary in
Boston.
Transylvania, which had been under Hungarian sovereignty
since the tenth century, was transferred to Romania by the peace treaty
of World War I in 1920. As a consequence, over two million ethnic
Hungarians now live in Romania. The regime's brutal
repression of Hungarian identity in Transylvania took a severe toll on
the region's Hungarian schools and other cultural institutions, on the
public use of the Hungarian language, and on the ethnic compactness of
Hungarian settlements such as Tirgu Mures. Many Romanians came to
regard the Hungarian presence in the country as a threat to Romanian
national unity and purity. Thus the pogrom of March 19 grew out of
hostility toward ethnic-Hungarian strivings for restoration of linguistic
rights and cultural autonomy.
In an interview with Hungarian television in Budapest after the
attack, Mr. Stito described the scene:
"We tried our best to hide the fact that we were up in the attic.
We decided not even to show our faces at the window for whenever
someone in the crowd outside got even a glimpse of us, he immediately
cried out: 'There they are! Bring them out so we can hang them!' We
were caught totally by surprise by this screaming, frenzied mob of
Romanians, entirely beside themselves with rage, demanding our blood
and our deaths. Some of them were from Tirgu Mures; some were
from the countryside, especially Romanian peasants bused in from the
Gorgeny Valley, who armed themselves with pitchforks, slashing and
cutting weapons, and chains, which they obviously intended to use on
someone. As it turned out, they used them on us . . . "
Despite several calls for assistance, army officers did not
respond for about five hours. Soldiers then led the first four of the
cornered victims out of the building and into an uncovered army truck,
but failed to protect them from being attacked by the screaming mob.
Andras StitO, regarded as the leading Hungarian writer living
outside of Hungary, was born into a Transylvanian peasant family in
1927. By the early 1950s, his dramatic and poignant stories about
peasant life had established him as an important literary stylist. In 1970,
he won critical acclaim and wide popular attention for his highly original
novel, My Mother Promises Untroubled Sleep. In the 1970s he estab-
lished himself as a major Hungarian playwright with The Palm Sunday
of a Horse Dealer (1974), Star at the Stake (1975) and Cain and Abel
(1977), dramas that examine the confrontation of the individual with the
identity-threatening forces of arbitrary authority. Mr. Siit8's dramatic
subjects, which are often historical or mythological, convey the
playwright's concern for communal survival and spiritual self-
preservation.
In Hungary, Mr. Siit5's works have always enjoyed frequent
exposure in print and on the stage. In Romania by contrast, during the
last decade of its rule, the Cealliescu regime imposed a total ban on his
works. Although he was subjected to increasing harassment, he chose
to stay in Transylvania and confront the hostility of the
regime. On November 9, 1989, Mr. Siita' was placed under house arrest
where he remained until the revolution the following month. The tragic
irony of his fate in the post-Ceauescu era is, therefore, all the more
poignant.
NOTE
Two of AndrAs plays are available in English translation:
Star at the Stake in Modem International Drama, Vol. 13, No. 2,
(State University of New York at Binghamton: Max Reinhardt Archive,
Spring 1980).
The Palm Sunday of a Horse Dealer will appear in the upcom-
ing anthology Drama Contemporary: Hungary (New York: P AJ Pub-
lications, 1980).
13
Growing Up with Baby Arlekin Puppet Theatre, Lodz, Poland
14
Soviet and East European Performance Vol. 10, No.2
THE POLISH PUPPET THEATRE:
A REPORT FROM THE UNIMA CONFERENCE
Jane McMahan
"The Language of the Puppet," a conference co-sponsored by
UNIMA USA (the American Center for the Union Internationale de la
Marionette) and the Tears of Joy Puppet Theatre, took place on May 2-
5, 1990, in Vancouver, Washington. Scholars, directors and puppeteers
from around the world presented papers, participated in panel discus-
sions and viewed performances by companies from Japan, Finland, the
United States, the Soviet Union and Poland.
Among the speakers were Henryk Jurkowski, president of
UNIMA, noted author on puppet theatre, and professor at the Higher
School of Drama at Warsaw and Bialystok; Jan Wilkowski, actor,
playwright, director and professor at Warsaw's State Higher Academy
of Theatre; and Wojciech Wieczorkiewicz, director and playwright at
the puppet theatre Arlekin of wdz (Poland).
The performing groups included the Moscow Shadow Puppet
Theatre, the Kiev State Puppet Theatre, and Arlekin. By far the most
involving performance for both adults and children was Arlekin's "Co z
tego wyrosnie" (Growing up with Baby), performed in English transla-
tion.
The play is a composite of sequences in the life of a theatre
couple, Arlekin an Arlekina, confronting the experience of a new baby.
Their reactions, trials and fantasies are presented in a touching,
humorous and at times dramatic way, as they search for meaning and
understanding. The stylistic mode is a fluid interchange of mime, vari-
ous forms of puppetry and straight, spoken acting.
At first, Arlekin and Arlekina enact a playful mime episode
leading to the conception of a baby. The mood is playful and gentle.
Arlekina seductively winds a snake-like ribbon around her wrist. Her
hands gracefully shape a heart. Baby cries emerge from a large (preg-
nant) drum. In spite of the preliminaries, the advent of the child is per-
ceived by the couple as a shock, and they are unprepared for the con-
sequences. But soon, Arlekina is holding her new son lovingly in her
arms (likened in the text to "the wings of a bird"), and Arlekin is dither-
ing about.
A cradle is evoked by a bunched-up draping of cloth high on
the center of the backdrop, an open triptych. On either side is projected
a larger-than-life photographic portrait of the actors. They are Jerzy
Stasiewicz and Joanna Ignaciuk, who themselves form a couple and have
provided much of the material for this play from their own experience.
Both actors give an honest and evocative performance. Ms. Ignaciuk's
singing voice is particularly appealing and Mr. Stasiewicz's buffoonery is
neatly timed. However, a more tightly structured pantomime style
15
would have given the piece a more forceful beginning.
The child puppet, a stuffed cloth form, is well-designed to
articulate life-like motions. It is manipulated not only by Arlekin and
Arlekina but also from behind the screen by a hidden actress, Liliana
Ochma6ska, who does the baby vocalizations with complete authenticity
and a wide range of vocal expression. The fact that this infant moves
around without strings or any other visible devices, seems to underline
his overwhelming independence, already achieved.
In an effort to stem the endless crying, the parents try to amuse
their son with a mock bullfight. An allusion is being made here to more
traditional Polish puppet theatre, in which Joseph clowns around with
animals in the manger. Total frustration is evident in the more con-
temporary reaction of Arlekina as she repeatedly tosses the baby in the
air while Arlekin luckily catches him.
This section becomes sheer slapstick: the couple tries to feed
the baby a string of frankfurters before stuffing a bottle in his mouth,
and Arlekin blindfolds himself with a diaper before they are most
graphically peed on. Exhausted, Arlekin says, "He's far from being a
real man. Am I far from being a real man? How far?" Arlekina crypti-
cally answers: "A meter of time."
The words of the text come as occasional droplets, falling
among exclamations and silences, sometimes in short phrases or in
simple, stream of consciousness style with the audience expected to
make the associations and connections. The director and author, Wiec-
zorkiewicz, has taken much of his material from the writings of the poet
Krystyna
In the next section, the text and indeed the whole mood
changes. Using ingeniously devised cloth marionettes on a miniature set
improvised with oversized books and a clothesline of diapers, our com-
media protagonists now enact three action-packed scenes from the
worrisome, projected future of their child. They imagine him first as
Faust, then as Don Juan and finally as Don Quixote. The dialogue for
this section is composed of fragments from traditional Czech puppet
plays and Evgeny Shvart's Don Quixote delivered in exaggerated parody
form. An indistinct red shadow figure and a shadow butterfly argue
Faust's fate. Still manipulated in full view by Arlekin and Arlekina, the
puppets enact a courtship, love triangle and duel. Sword gestures are
timed to coincide with chords as music from Don Giovanni and Man of
La Mancha blares in the background and shadow images streak across
the screen. Diabolical laughter and scary shadow hands accompany the
moralistic voice from above.
The play returns to its original simplicity as Arlekin and
Arlekina, hearts beating in trepidation, give their child a loving send-off
to fmd his own way.
I was fortunate to be able to speak with Wojciech Wiec-
zorkiewicz immediately after the performance. He communicated with
the same finesse, charm and directness that is evident in his artistic
work. He explained that the play "is constructed on the principle of
commedia dell'arte to provoke the actors to improvise and introduce
new ideas. The performance is based on the idea of permanent
change."
In the panel discussion on "Directing the Puppet Stage," Wiec-
zorkiewicz outlined the changing role of director during his forty years
of work in theatre. In the 1950s the director was virtual dictator and the
actor-puppeteers were called "puppet carriers." In the 1960s, everyone
became involved. This led to the "theatre of the liberated actor" of the
1970s and changed concepts of "styles, space, partnership." "This is why
the puppeteer is now visible, the word 'actor' is used more, and space is
changed to an open stage." In the 1980s, what has become important is
"the expression of the actor's concept" with the director helping "like an
obstetrician. . . to liberate the unconscious." Wieczorkiewicz described
his own role not only as "guardian of the puppet, but of the actor as well.
I work to assure the actor a feeling of security, to care for the whole
person. I am an instrument working on an instrument working on an
instrument."
When I asked him how important it had been for him to pre-
sent traditional Polish theatre, Wieczorkiewicz answered: "There was a
time in my life when I both wanted to and was obliged to do Polish
theatre. Now I think it is most important to come close to children's
minds with human values, not Polish values, but general human values."
When asked if he saw this as the function of the new freedom, he ans-
wered, "I think that the Polish theatre has been talking about general
human values for many years, and the changes that have happened in
Poland are a result of this."
Asked if he had been hampered by politics, Wieczorkiewicz
replied, "Never hampered, but I wasted part of my life when I wanted to
do political theatre. Now I think politics in puppet theatre has no mean-
ing. . . . A theatre used for propaganda has little in common with real
art." He sees the future of art in a liberalized Poland as "a process
within a process." Asked if the new era of freedom came as a shock, he
said, "No. We take it for granted. We deserve it. We look at the
Czechs dancing in the streets with surprise. For us, it was our will that
was realized."
Wieczorkiewicz is optimistic about the future of puppet theatre
in Poland, in spite of the inevitable diminished subsidies and the
dangers of commercialization. "You will see Polish artists using dif-
ferent forms of expression, meanings, ideas, values to their fullest."
As to his own work, the director sees his future mostly in terms
of his students. 'This is a difficult question for someone who has a past
and is not sure about the future. I have been working for forty years in
theatre." When probed further, he said, "I'll tell you a secret. There will
be a continuation to this very story: how Arlekin and Arlekina build a
17
18
home--not a house, but a home for themselves as a family."
I also talked with Jan Wilkowski, whose work in puppet theatre
has had an enormous impact both on the stage and on television. He is
described by his daughter Kaja Perkowski, who served as interpreter for
the interview, as the "grandpa of Polish TV puppet theatre," akin to Mr.
Rogers in this country in popularity. Although the creative conditions
were "very comfortable," Wilkowski says he left television because "the
censors blocked our work," requiring that it be "very patriotic." "Now all
that is changed, but the times in which we live are very hard. We have
freedom now, but we will have to pay for it with economic poverty. We
have to rebuild all the structures destroyed in 1939. The actors and
theatres are rebuilding Polish art. Puppet theatre was big and rich.
Now there will be smaller companies of two or three people. This will
correspond better with our economic situation, but the period of transi-
tion will be very difficult.''
In his conference presentation, Wilkowski stressed that "it
becomes a problem if the use of words destroys the true elements of
puppetry: the juxtaposition of shape and movement. Acknowledging
the double language of the puppet implies avoiding rich but clumsy writ-
ten drama that does not offer intensive action for the puppet. Each art
has its limitations and conventions. Puppet theatre loses its meaning
when word dictates action. We must split them so they can work
polyphonically, with words and gestures meeting contrapuntally from
time to time."
This coming year Wilkowski is certain to have an impact on
American puppet theatre. He will be living in Oregon and will be guest
director at the Tears of Joy Puppet Theatre, a company of seven actors
directed by Reg Bradley based in Vancouver, Washington. He sees his
contribution as, "sharing my knowledge and my own experience. Not
that it's better, but different. I would like to encourage a more dramatic
theatre. Many American theatres have too much show and entertain-
ment. This is completely different from the Polish theatre. We have no
entertainment," he said with a smile.
Wilkowski will be directingA/addin and his Lamp at Tears of
Joy as a gift for his grandson, who lives in this country. This, he says will
be his last production. At 70 (a fact that he mentions significantly, as
though to make some sense out of it for himself), Jan Wilkowski seems
outrageously young, bristling with uncontainable creative energy and
innovative ideas. It is unthinkable that this could be his last perform-
ance.
In a conversation with Dr. Henryk Jurkowski, who is currently
working on an English translation of his three-volume history of puppet
theatre, he spoke of puppetry in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe
as an art of enormous importance within the official state-controlled
system of culture. "In the Soviet Union you have 120 puppet theatres; in
Poland 27; in Czechoslovakia 20; and in the German Democratic
19
Republic, 17. They are all state theatres. What does this mean? Each
has its own building, its own auditorium, its own administrative staff.
The average puppet theatre in Poland has 60 to 80 employees. Of
course there was censorship, but in the end they were able to develop
quite freely."
I asked him to comment on the Arlekin performance. Was
there anything about it that he found to be distinctly Polish in its
sources?
"In Europe we have accepted commedia dell'arte. I wouldn't
say that there is something typically Polish in the material. It is the
thinking that is Polish--combining tradition with contemporary observa-
tions of life. Wieczorkiewicz asks us about the future of all of us, espe-
cially those who are young, and his answer, his anthropological answer,
is to go back to archetypes. Don Giovanni and Don Quixote, they are
the most popular European archetypes. In this respect, it is stylistically
European, but Polish in its intellectual construction."
Asked what drew him to puppetry and what he considers to be
the inherent artistic possibilities of the art form, Dr. Jurkowski
theorized, "Puppetry can be an art of important intellectual content. It
is less linked with the need for personal expression. The one who
thinks, who feels, is more objective in his expression because he is
speaking via objects, via props, via artificial items. It is just this that I
most like in puppetry, this intersection of the ancient animistic object
and contemporary intellectual concepts. Besides, puppetry is an art
form that is open to the whole poetic experience. In the human theatre
you have a kind of unity. When you see an actor, when you see one ele-
ment, it is there to represent this element or a group of elements. But
when you see two elements together, animate and inanimate juxtaposed,
there is a chance of evoking new meaning. So I think that the puppet
theatre--this mixing of different elements--is an art which holds great
promise for the future."
CZECHOSLOVAK THEATRE
DURING THE VELVET REVOLUTION
by
Olga F. Chtiguel
For Czechoslovak actors, the November rebellion against the
Communist regime was an unprecedented event. In support of the stu-
dents who had been beaten by police during a demonstration on
November 17, 1989, actors, directors and technical crews walked onto
the stages of their theatres and declared a strike. The theatre buildings,
nonetheless, did not fall silent. On the contrary, the applause which
resounded in theatres in Prague, Brno, Bratislava and the provinces will
never be forgotten. It was theatre artists who awakened the nation from
the nightmare of its history.
When the students commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of
the murder of Jan Opletal by the Nazis marched on National Avenue
(Narodnf tlfda), they were greeted by the actors of The National
Theatre (Narodni divadlo). The meeting had powerful historical
resonances. In 1881, while under Austrian rule, the Czechs completed
construction of the National Theatre where plays in the Czech language
were to be performed. Due to circumstances never fully explained, the
theatre caught fire and was severely damaged two months after its
provisional opening. Within two years the theatre was rebuilt with
money donated by the Czech people. Since that time, the National
Theatre has been the pride of the nation in its struggle for self-
determination.
Under the Communist regime, the National Theatre went
through a series of ideological and artistic upheavals which affected the
style of its three ensembles: drama, ballet and opera. Withstanding
pressures from the Ministry of Culture and the internal unit of the
Communist Party in the theatre, Milan L u k e ~ head of the drama
ensemble, sought to create artistically and intellectually valid produc-
tions. As a consequence, he and a few outstanding actors, including
Jana Hlava<!ova, Vlasta Fabianova, Dana Medficka, L u d ~ k Munzar,
Josef Kemr and Rudolf Hrurl'nskf, suffered more or less open harass-
ment from the administration. Most of the ensemble consisted of mem-
bers of the Communist Party whose artistic abilities were rather
questionable.
In the 1970s and 1980s, those attached to the National Theatre
had very mixed feelings. On one hand, they enjoyed a sense of prestige,
tours abroad and higher salaries than in other theatres. At the same
time, ongoing political and artistic battles became an ugly part of the
theatre's life. When the members of the National Theatre joined strik-
ing students, the unified ensembles' spontaneous response seemed truly
21
breathtaking. Defying the stubborn refusal of the director, Ji1i Pauer, to
open the buildings of the National Theatre, the actors, opera singers,
and technical crews organized opposition rallies on the street in
front of the theatre buildings.
Shortly after passing the historic National Theatre building, the
demonstrators were brutally attacked by the police. Angered by these
terrifying events, the students of the Theatre Academy of the Arts
(Divadeln1 Akademie Mmiclcych Umtm') headed from National Avenue
directly to the Theatre of Realism (Realisticke divadlo). Their bloodied
faces and torn clothing were in stark contrast to the festive atmosphere
of the opening night of Mary'Ja, a Czech classic. The students then went
back to their schools. By the next morning, they had transformed it into
student strike headquarters and had written a short declaration, includ-
ing a demand for an investigation of the police action and a call for a
general strike on November 27, 1989.
In another part of Prague, in an auditorium named the Junior
Club on Hop-Garden (Junior klub Na Chmelnici), two theatres from
Brno--the Theatre on a String (Divadlo na provazku) and the Theatre of
Hana (Hanacke divadlo)--were performing Rozrazil (Veronica) . This
collaborative performance, called a "stage journal," was conceived as a
protest against the oppressive regime and a call for democratic political
changes. A student from Brno, beaten in the demonstration on
National Avenue, came to the Junior Club that evening. In a powerful
fusion of life and art, he was immediately included in the second part of
the performance so that he could share his experiences with the hor-
rified audience.
The following day, theatre artists from both mainstream and
off-mainstream theatres gathered at the Theatre of Realism to for-
mulate their response to the events of the previous night. Arno!t Gold-
flam, director of Ha-Theatre, and Petr Oslzlf, dramaturg of Theatre on
a String, were the first artists to declare a strike in their theatres. Gold-
flam recalled in an interview for BBC, "There was a rather simple, yet
very intense, reaction from one participant that for forty years we have
performed like idiots. If we do not react today, then we will perform
like idiots for another forty years".l The session concluded with
leskych divadelnikt\" ("The Declaration of Czech Theatre
Artists"), calling for a theatre strike and support of the students'
demands. In the afternoon, Milan Mejstlik, a student from the Theatre
Academy, announced in Wenceslas Square that the actors and students
were on strike. The Velvet Revolution was born.
The following day, on November 19, at the Drama Club
Studio), a group of intellectuals headed by Vaclav Havel
organized Civic Forum f6rum). In the intimate space of the
Drama Club, Grossman and Havel, as well as Ladislav J aroslav
V ostry and Jan sought to appeal to the civic consciousness of
Czech citizens. In the 1960s, the repertory of both theatres included
classics, modern Western plays of topical relevance and contemporary
Czech drama explicitly criticizing the neo-Stalinist regime in Czechos-
lovakia.
After the Soviet invasion of 1968, the artistic and intellectual
standards of both theatres deteriorated as a result of ideological purges.
Only with the arrival of Evald Schorm, a director banned from the filin
studios, did the Balustrade re-emerge as a politically engaged theatre of
high artistic standards. Smolek tried to revive the Drama Club despite
the fact that Vostry and were forced to work in the provinces.
After years of subordination to bizarre censorship by the Ministry of the
Interior, it came as no surprise that the ensembles of both theatres
immediate?' joined the opposition. During the first days of the revolu-
tion, Oslzly of the Theatre on a String, Jifi Bartotka of the Balustrade,
and Jil'i of the Drama Club emerged as leading figures in Civic
Forum. On Monday night, all Prague theatres except the National
Theatre opened their doors for public discussions. People who had
never attended a performance now eagerly stood in long lines in freez-
ing temperatures. Hundreds who could not get into the theatres
remained on the streets or in the lobbies in order to listen to the per-
formances and discussions through loudspeakers. Workers, students,
farmers, economists, journalists and priests shared the stages with the
artists in creating history. Stormy applause and happy laughter
repeatedly exploded in the auditoriums and on the stages of Czechos-
lovak theatres.
Throughout these revolutionary days, theatres were turned into
political tribunes where, after years of repression, spectators and actors
now freely expressed their hope and fears. In semi-improvised evenings,
actors conducted interviews and discussions with guests and spectators.
Some of these were broadcast by the newly-liberated television network.
In a program called Dialogue, the members of Studio Ypsilon appeared
together with Vlra a gymnastic star of the 1968 Olympic
Games in Mexico City (subsequently an adviser to Havel and proposed
ambassador to Japan) and Vaclav Klaus, an economist (subsequently
Finance Minister in the new government).
In the Theatre on the Vineyards (Divadlo na Vinohradech), as
_in other theatres, actors gathered onstage and recited short poems and
proverbs, performed short excerpts from plays and even read from
Marx's writings. Between the performances and songs (presented on a
set designed for Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita) the actors carried
on a discussion with invited experts, Civic Forum members and journal-
ists. At the Balustrade, one evening was devoted to a meeting with Jan
Trefulka, LudvHc Vaculik, Ivan Klima and Milan Jungman, all writers
banned after the 1968 invasion. Another evening, the spectators greeted
Pavel Landovskf, an actor of the Drama Club, who had lived in Vienna
for the past ten years. A signatory of Charter 77, LandovsicY had been
stripped of his citizenship and prevented from returning home after a
23
two-year engagement at the Burgtheater in Vienna.
The Theatre of i ~ l Wolker (Divadlo JiYiho Wolkera), whose
repertory is oriented toward a young audience, prepared a series called
What Is Not in Textbooks. These semi-educational performances con-
sisted of discussions for high school students with invited experts on law,
sociology, ecology, aesthetics, philosophy, psychology, political science
and history. The Theatre of Realism also scheduled mid-day perform-
ances for discussions with high school students.
V aclav Havel sometimes appeared at the theatres, at least for a
few moments, to greet spectators and answer their questions. During
his short talk at the first discussion evening at the National Theatre, he
quipped, "I apologize for not wearing appropriate attire for attendance
at a theatre, but I did not know I would be here .. . I am glad, however,
that I am slowly moving from the squares toward the theatre". Whether
on the stage of his "domestic" Balustrade or at the National Theatre,
Havel always expressed pride in his fellow theatre artists. He reminded
spectators that the role of actors in Czech history goes back at least to
the beginning of the 19th century when travelling companies revived the
Czech language in the heavily Germanized country. Talking about Civic
Forum's activities, Havel joked, "Suddenly the media works so perfectly
that it often knows something even before I do."
At one theatre, however, the spectators did not come to listen
to the actors. The spectators were both foreign and Czech journalists
who hoped to learn about the rapidly changing situation from the mem-
bers of the coordinating committee of Civic Forum. Civic Forum's
headquarters was established at the Magic Lantern (Laterna magika),
whose celebrated founder, Alfred Radok, had been a repeated victim of
political changes in Czechoslovakia. As a radical experimenter after
World War II, Radok fell into disgrace during the years of Socialist
Realism. His short-lived fame during the 1960s came to a sudden end
after the Soviet invasion in 1968. Radok emigrated to Sweden where he
died in 1976.2 Except for a few moments of former glory, the once
innovative Magic Lantern degenerated into a tourist attraction. In 1989,
the theatre, literally overnight, gained a world-wide audience. The his-
tory of Czechoslovakia was "performed" amidst the set for Diirenmatt's
Minotaurus.
3
In reaction to the controlled media's false reports about events
in Prague, actors and students began their trips to factories and
cooperative farms on November 20. The Communist regime had for
years "bribed" actors with high salaries to perform in the state-owned
television network and film studios. In an ironic twist of fate, these
same actors now turned into revolutionaries. The nation, long con-
demned to a television culture of feeble-minded soap operas, was
awakened from its agony by the very practitioners of the official culture.
Television "characters" stepped out of the television screens and
appeared in the yards of the factories to convince workers that every-
thing they had seen on the screen was a lie.
The government feared the actors' influence on the workers.
On December 1, at the Congress of the Agricultural Cooperatives, the
Communist Party distributed brochures to the participants listing the
salaries of prominent actors. Despite the government's efforts to dis-
credit the aristic community, demonstrators shouted in unison, "Long
live the actors!" As they listened on Wenceslas Square or to their radios
and television sets, the people gave their trust to Havel, the playwright,
and Miroslav the harassed director of the National Theatre,
who became the spokesman for all theatre artists.
In Brno, the Moravian capital, the opposition was immediately
strengthened by the activities of the Ha-Theatre and the Theatre on a
String after they returned from Prague. Subsequently, the State Theatre
(Statnf divadlo) opened its doors to public discussions. At the Maben's
Theatre (Mahenovo divadlo), the spectators met with a
leading Brno theatre artist in the 1960s. Like many of his colleagues,
a director and professor, had been forcefully silenced for the
twenty years. In Slovakia, Milan an actor at the National
Theatre of Slovakia, organized the Public Against Violence (VeYejnost
proti nasih'), a sister organization to Civic Forum. In other cities, too,
theatre artists followed the example of their Prague colleagues.
Because many of the theatre buildings were built on centrally located
town squares, demonstrations naturally took place there. Indeed, as he
travelled around the country, Havel, banned from the stage for two
decades, delivered speech after speech inside and outside many theatre
buildings.
After the final blow to the Communist regime, and the eleva-
tion of Havel to the Presidency, many actors continued their political
work. Oslzly and Kna:lko became Havel's close advisers; Magda
an actress from the Slovak National Theatre, was designated
ambassador to Austria. Luke!, who resigned from the National Theatre
in protest over Pauer's decision, named Minister of Culture.
Others, like Macha(ek, and Cepek, returned to their theatres.
With censorship and blacklisting abolished, the Czech theatre is
now free from the bonds of Marxism-Leninism. Theatre artists are now
able to make their own intellectual and aesthetic choices. Still
astonished by the swift changes, they are eagerly restructuring their
repertories, ensembles and administrative structures. For a long time to
come, theatre auditoriums will resound with echoes of the historic
applause of those late November days of 1989.
25
NOTES
lTen Days, a BBC broadcast in the Czech language, also broad-
cast by Civic Forum in its program on Czechoslovak Radio, Prague,
December 11, 1989.
2
Radok developed with Josef Svoboda, a renowned designer,
the concept of the Magic Lantern from the ideas and practice of Miros-
lav KouE'il, a designer, and E. F. Burian, an avant-garde director.
Burian, himself a Communist, led the Czech avant-garde of the 1930s.
After he returned from Dachau at the end of World War II, he actively
participated in building socialist culture in the newly born Communist
state. Shortly before his death Burian manifestly rejected Socialist
Realism and returned to his pre-war concept of a poetic theatre.
3
See Timothy Garton Ash, "The Revolution of the Magic
Lantern" in The New York Times Review of Books, January 14, 1990.
26 Soviet and East European Performance Vol. 10, No. 2
COMPENSATION:
A LITURGY OF FACT
Alma Law
"On April 26, 1986, at 1:24 a. m., massive explosions ripped
through the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, one of the newest and
most powerful nuclear power plants in the U.S.S.R. A ball of flame,
accompanied by clouds of black smoke rose into the sky. The wind
carried the deadly cloud, 10 times more radioactive than the atomic
bomb dropped on Hiroshima, to the northwest, sowing panic in the
Soviet Union and Western Europe alike."
1
Only now, four years later, is the Soviet government beginning
to disclose fully the tragic scope of this nuclear disaster, both in terms of
the size of the contaminated area and the number of people directly
affected by Chernobyl's fallout, now estimated to be as many as 3 to 4
million, most of whom are still living in dangerously contaminated
regions of the Ukraine and Byelorussia.
For audiences who have attended performances of Compensa-
tion since it opened a year ago in January 1989, at the Moscow Theatre-
Studio "On the Boards" (Na doskakh ), these new revelations will come
as no surprise. For this production, subtitled "A Liturgy of Fact," pre-
sents in very human terms the terrible consequences of the nuclear dis-
aster at Chernobyl. Contrary to the frequently-expressed opinion that
political theatre is a dead issue in the Soviet Union now that glasnost
allows virtually any subject to be aired in the press, this production--and
the audience response to it --suggests that there is still plenty of room for
an unflinching examination on the stage of important political and social
questions.
Headed by Sergei Kurginyan, a self-styled wunderkind with
degrees in math and physics as well as theatre, "On the Boards" has
made a speciality of staging controversial productions that leave few
audience members indifferent. Their program, aimed at what
Kurginyan calls the "lumpen intelligentsia" proposes "silent meditation"
between stage and auditorium in the context of "poor" theatre, seeing it
as a counterbalance to the extravagant spectacle of the professional
theatre. And to insure that he attracts a serious audience, Kurginyan
refuses to sell is tickets through the theatre kiosks located around Mos-
cow. If one wants to attend a performance one must go to the theatre
itself, presently located in the club attached to the Moscow Con-
servatory on Malaia Gruzinskaia Street near the zoo.
The performance of Compensation that is described in the fol-
lowing account took place on March 4, 1989.
By 7:00p.m. curtain time, all seats in the auditorium are filled,
extra chairs have been brought in, and there are people standing along
the sides. Prior to the beginning of the performance, Sergei Kurginyan
27
Compensation Theatre "On the Boards," Moscow
28
speaks to the audience, explaining that the production is called "a liturgy
of facts." He adds, "It's not so much about what happened at Chernobyl
as what its meaning is." The performance runs for one hour and twenty
minutes.
"There will then be a brief intermission," Kurginyan announces,
"during which the audience members can watch a video documentary on
Chernobyl out in the lobby. Following the intermission there will then
be a discussion with the audience." He goes on to explain that Adolf
Kharash, the psychologist whose material--interviews and rsychological
studies--on Chernobyl forms the basis of the production, will be pre-
sent for the discussion along with a journalist and a medical specialist on
radiation sickness who examined the ftremen after they were brought to
Moscow following the blaze at Chemobyl.
The cast consists of a Psychologist-narrator and five
"liquidators" garbed in white from head to foot. The performance takes
place on a starkly bare set. In the center is a table on which is lying one
of the victims of Chernobyl. The floor is covered with shiny metallic
discs which in the finale will be gathered up as part of the ritual. To one
side is a doll, an "angel" with a candle, also dressed in white. The music
for the performance is that of a church liturgy, its beauty providing a
striking counterpoint to the stark horror of the facts presented.
The narrator begins speaking, setting the context for the liturgy
by quoting from Dostoevsky, Thomas Mann, Walt Whitman. The man
on the table rises up.
"April 26, 1986 .. . It was Saturday. No one knew anything ... "
"When we heard the rumors about the accident, no one paid
any been rumors before. No one was even frightened.
"
"The worst part was the total absence of information ... "
"We kept waiting for some kind of announcement. But none
came . . . "
In rapid vignettes one gradually comes to understand the
nightmare of average people not being informed, of not understanding
the terrible consequences for them of the explosion that had occurred at
1:23 a.m. that morning at the Chemobyl nuclear power station.
"The streets were full of people. They were selling ice cream
everywhere. I even bought and ate two bars . . . "
"We went to the beach. It was a warm day and the entire family
lay in the sun."
A woman speaks, "My kitten acted strangely. It kept trying to
hide."
"The children were checked and pronounced in good health. It
was only in autumn that their hair began falling out."
"Some said to drink wine to drive out the radiation, but now it's
hard to get wine ... " "Eat more carrots . . . " "Melons will provide 'living
gl ' " ucose ....
29
30

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Question: "Will it happen again?"
Answer: "The system remains as before."
The figures in white lift the mirrored board from the table.
The white powder covering it falls like snow. One man wipes it clean
and shows it to the audience.
"Forgotten people, we turned to God."
"I don't believe in anything any more."
"Give us help. We carried out our duties. Where's the social
justice?"
"People who suffered radiation in the first days will receive as
compensation 40 rubles a month."
There is no sickness, it's all radiation phobia."
Husband: "If something happens to me, the State will help
you."
Wife: "But I don't believe it."
Narrator: "Some lost their Party membership because they
protested."
The refugees from Chernobyl, rather than being met with
sympathy and help, were shunned. People shouted, "Let all the
Chernobyl victims be crushed!" Victims who received new housing were
told by their new neighbors, "We'll wait. In another year you'll all be
dead and then the apartments will be ours!"
A banner hanging over the town: "Your life is in your hands."
"Enough! Enough, I said!"
After the intermission the radiation specialist is the first to
speak. "How much did Chernobyl cost?" someone asks. "150 billion
rubles," he answers. He goes on to say that Chernobyl affected nearly
half of Byeloru.ssia, in all, several million people. Worst of all, it's a
region of young people.
"When Mikhail Sergeevich (Gorbachev) went to the Ukraine
earlier this month, there was not a single medical question, no doctors
were along, not even the Minister of Health."
"llin and Co. (Leonid Ilin--Vice-president of the U.S.S.R.
Academy of Medical Sciences, the man who is regarded as the most
responsible for the cover-up] are now trying to hold back Threshold
(Porog), a film made about Chernobyl. It's time for glasnost."
"What about Moscow?" someone asks.
"The radioactive cloud went to the west and north, bypassing
Moscow," the specialist answers. A woman in the audience asks, "Is it
safe to have children?"
The specialist answers, "Such a nuclear catastrophe doesn't
pass without effect. Mutations have already begun to appear. They will
increase."
The specialist tells how "Ilin and Co." allowed the refugees
from Chernobyl to take with them family photographs and whatever
mementos they wanted, even though these things were radioactive.
31
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Soviet and East European Perfonnance Vol. 10, No.2
Thus the radioactivity spread by indirect means. He tells of one official
coming to Moscow and of the clothes he was wearing being tested for
radioactivity. They were contaminated and had to be destroyed. The
official objected, "No, I'll take them to the dry cleaners." "I had to
explain to him that those clothes would then touch and contaminate clo-
thing belonging to other people, including children."
Someone asks about the hazards of atomic testing. The spe-
cialist answers, "I'm not allowed to say."
Kharash takes the floor. He begins by addressing the question
of radiation phobia observing that one of the main causes of it was the
"factor of the unknown." He goes on to express his concern that it's also
being used as a cover-up for social problems. "Many sacrificed their
health in vain," he says. "One-fifth of the population stayed behind until
June 5. They knew nothing of their fate."
By the time it's the journalist's turn to speak, the audience is
totally engaged. Someone brings up the cover-up of the Cheliabinsk
catastrophe. "It was only years later that the public began to learn the
truth.3 If Chernobyl hadn't been discovered by Western monitoring sta-
tions (and a big point is made of the fact that the West knew well before
the Soviet people were told), would it also have been covered up?"
A man raises the question of the Crimean Atomic Plant. When
the medical specialist explains that the Soviet experts have pronounced
it safe and that now a committee of Western experts are to look at it,
the response he gets is very heated. "Why should we trust the Western
experts ... The West has their own political program .... How do we
know that their answer isn't a way of sabotaging us?"
From this it's only a short step to questioning whether experts
in general can be trusted. Someone quotes Einstein, "The history of
science is one of experts' mistakes." "Can we trust what the government
tells us?" another voice asks. A chorus of voices responds, "Shouldn't
the people be the ones to decide?" One man shouts out, "Why don't
they put an atomic plant on Red Square if they're so safe!''
Someone in the back of the room stands up and starts defend-
ing atomic energy. Kurginyan asks him to identify himself. It turns out
he's an engineer from the Atomic Energy Commission. (I'm told later
that they've begun sending someone to each performance to defend
their position.) A wave of laughter runs through the audience. The spe-
cialist jumps up and asks, "Why did six firemen die? Because the
cement burned! That was your responsibility!" Again the question of
inviting foreign experts comes up.
Kurginyan leaps in. He gets very excited and at one point calls
the A.E.C. fellow "a coward," words he later apologizes for using.
Kurginyan broadens the focus of the discussion by expressing his overall
concern about middle-level bureaucrats, cautioning that as the level of
competency drops, cruelty and indifference to human concerns will
increase.
33
The audience is quiet as it walks out. For many, the evening
has given them much to think about.
NOTES
1
Pytor Mikhailov, "The Chemobyl Syndrome," Soviet Life, May
1990, p. 34.
2See the two-part article by Kharash: "Zagadochnyi sindrom, ill
Chego boytsia chemobyl'tsy?" Nauka i religiia, No. 9, 1988, pp. 26-30;
Nauka i religiia, No. 10, 1988, pp. 18-21.
Yrhis person probably had in mind the Urals nuclear disaster in
autumn 1958 which occurred in the Chelyabinsk ob/ast. Reports of it
first began turning up in the West within a year. But it was the account
by exiled Soviet biochemist Zhores Medvedev in 1976 that really
brought to the attention of the West the full scope of this catastrophe.
By then, although information had still not been published in the Soviet
press, according to Medvedev, "everybody in Russia knew about it." See
James E. Oberg, Uncovering Soviet Disasters: Exploring the Limits of
Glasnost, New York: Random House, 1988, pp. 211-228.
NEW LIFE FOR AN OLD IDEA:
THE REAPPEARANCE OF MOSCOW'S BAT
by
John Freedman
Posters in Moscow advertising a new "performance-
divertissement," The Reading of a New Play, state that, "The theater-
cabaret Bat, which left Russia in the 1920s to shine in Paris and on
Broadway in New York has reopened in Moscow after an intermission
of 69 years." The performance, according to the posters, consists of
"political satire; parodies, musical numbers, tragifarcical scenes, dance
miniatures and circus sketches." It comprises seven scenes, plus a
prologue and an epilogue that are loosely unified by the theme of an
imagined reading of a play by the troupe of the original Bat on the eve
of its departure for Europe in 1920.
Nikita Baliev founded the Bat in 1908 as an off-shoot of the
Moscow Art Theatre. The Bat's performances grew out of that pecu-
liarly Russian phenomenon of the kapustnik--a blend of parody, topical
satire, song, improvisation and variety show--that originated as actor-
initiated performances for the celebration of holidays. The perform-
ance of a kapustnik is still the most common manner of marking notable
dates in the Russian theatrical calendar.
During the 1980s, Grigory Gurvich, who studied directing
under Maria Knebel at GITIS (State Institute of Theatre Arts), often
staged kapustniki at the Union of Theatre Workers (STD),l and
acquired a reputation as a talented interpreter of this traditional form.
One such performance took place at a New Year's Eve celebra-
tion in 1984. "The hall was packed with stars," Gurvich told me recently.
"Bella Akhmadulina, Mark Zakharov, Andrei Mironov, Oleg Tabakov,
Bulat Okudzhava all attended. We were the only non-famous people
there. We had set up a cabaret atmosphere with long tables stretching
out from the stage, and we put on this kapustnik-parody. The effect was
totally unexpected. Throughout the performance, these venerable
members of the elite were continually shouting, whistling, and clamor-
ing. Afterwards, Mark Zakharov approached me and said, "Listen, you
ought to reopen the Bat."
Gurvich did not take the idea seriously at the time. Despite
Zakharov's continued encouragement at chance meetings, he attempted
to fmd a place for himself in the Moscow theatre world in more tradi-
tional ways. He staged plays at the Yermolova Theatre, the
Mayakovsky Theatre (performances were banned), and Konstantin
Raikin's Satirikon, but none of these efforts brought him great satisfac-
tion. More often than not, his temporary alliances lead to conflicts of
artistic interest, and in 1988 he began to consider seriously the idea of
35
opening his own theatre.
After researching the history and aesthetics of the Bat, Gurvich
became convinced that more than just a clever idea, the notion of re-
opening the cabaret was supported by solid aesthetic principles as well.
"When I learned that in addition to kapustnik-type shows and revues,
Baliev put on Chekhov, Pushkin, Gogol and the like, I became intrigued.
Style, after all, doesn't limit the freedom of art. The important thing is
to find your own style. Baliev's audience trusted that his staging of, say,
The Queen of Spades, would be unique."
Moreover, the principles which lay at the heart of Baliev's pro-
ductions not only corresponded to Gurvich's own conceptions of
theatre, but to the style of today as well: the huge influx of information
and the rapid change that Soviet society is now undergoing have clear
parallels to the situation that existed in Russia between the revolutions
of 1905 and 1917 and in the immediate post-revolutionary period.
Referring to Eisenstein's formula of the Montage of Attrac-
tions, Gurvich notes that "when a society is inundated by information
and itself begins to resemble a montage of attractions, this notion
becomes very timely for its application to theatrical form. It is no coin-
cidence that the two most popular television shows are Vzglyad (View)
and Do i pos/e polunochi (Before and After Midnight). A tragic story
about the Afghanistan war, a rock video, a meeting with a prostitute, a
story about AIDS, music again--everything develops eclectically. It
makes for engrossing viewing. I find that as soon as I've grasped the
essence of a story, I want to get on to the next. If I can guess what
they're up to, I get bored. Theatre has to be like that, too. You have to
keep your audience guessing.
"When I was a student at Baku U Diversity in the late 1960s, I
had the impression that I went into a lecture hall, fell asleep, and woke
up five years later. Of course there were the occasional challenges, but
the overall atmosphere was one of boring, frozen time. And that's how
directors staged plays then: long, drawn-out and boring. The tempo of
today makes a director's life far more difficult.
The reliance on small-form theatre in Russia--and later in the
Soviet Union--on paradox, satire and topical themes, has often caused it
to be unfairly accused of being light -weight in substance. In reality
some of Russia's best actors--Vladimir Davydov, Vasily Kachalov, Igor
Ilinsky--at one time or another worked in small-form theatres, while
playwrights such as Nikolai Evreinov, Nikolai Erdman and Vladimir
Mayakovsky used these theatres as workshops for their ideas. Gurvich's
philosophy is very much centered in this tradition.
While he is unwilling to talk about the production he is now
preparing, Gurvich said that in the future he would like to stage Twelfth
Night. He sees in the aesthetics of the Renaissance a kind of general-
ized theatricality which is close to his own concept of theatre. "Twelfth
Night", Gurvich notes, "has never been staged in a way that enables an
audience to believe in the mystification that lies at its heart. ICs got to
be staged so that nobody can figure out who any of the players are.
Find a pair of twins or doubles to play Viola and Sebastian--! have in
mind two sisters I want to invite for these roles. There are lots of things
you can do like that. What a great thing it would be to stage Twelfth
Night for the first time in history the way it was written! You can't tell
these people apart, and that's that."
Playfulness and mystification are central to The Reading of a
New Play. Gurvich, the play's author, took as his point of departure the
last known photograph of Baliev's troupe showing the members
gathered around an actor perhaps reading from the script. The per-
formance of The Reading begins with a visual recreation of this
photograph. This masquerade revives onstage a moment that unites the
original Bat with the new. The result is a sort of "twelve actors in search
of a play," in which the twelve actors of the new Bat slip in and out of
various roles, occasionally playing members of the original troupe,
occasionally playing characters from the play that never was.
The troupe also relies on the audience to play a part in the
development of the action onstage. At one point, the actor Aleksandr
Razalin saunters out into the audience and asks if anyone can identify
Matilda Kshesinskaya. He trades barbs with members of the audience
until someone provides the answer that is needed to send the perform-
ance into its next episode, "Kshesinskaya's Residence". While most
know that she was a famous ballerina, it usually takes awhile before
someone recalls that she was the last mistress of Nikolai II. Once this
response is achieved, attention is returned to the stage where a ninety
year old Kshesinskaya sits seemingly half-dead, wrapped in shawls, and
impervious to the efforts of her bustling servant (performed by lnna
Ageeva) to engage her in conversation. But once she is left alone, the
old woman transforms into a beautiful young ballerina (performed by
Natalya Somonova) who dances out her memories until she is carried
away by soldiers of the Red Army.
One of the play's most effective sketches, "Between Earth and
Heaven," portrays the fate of Valeria Barsova, one of Baliev's actresses
who elected to remain in the Soviet Union and later became a famed
opera star and political functionary. This scene, in which Barsova is
interpreted beautifully by Natalya Godunova, portrays with humor and
lyricism the fate of an actress who stepped on the throat of her own
song.
The final episode, "Children of Freedom," is performed as a
circus sketch. The actor Igor Ugolnikov, exhibiting an unfailing sense of
timing, delivers topical one-liners, punctuating the punch lines by kick-
ing balls into the audience, which, in turn, tosses them ~ c k onstage.
The violation of the "fourth wall" by physical interaction often leads to
more substantial interaction, as improvisational exchanges arise
between actor and audience. Ugolnikov's mad antics form a fitting coda
37
to the play's hodge-podge style.
The entire performance is accompanied by live music provided
by seven musicians from the Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko
Musical Theatre, while transitions between scenes are facilitated by a
shadow theatre on the back stage-wall, which plays out farcical inter-
ludes that often slip into lyrical, and occasionally even tragic vignettes.
Like the formation of a new theatre anywhere, the Bat has had
its financial ups and downs, although it would appear to have been more
fortunate than most of the small theatres which have opened (and just
as often, closed) in the last few years in Moscow. After an abortive
attempt to work out an affiliation with an established theatre, Gurvich
took advantage of the new economic atmosphere and found initial pri-
vate funding in late 1988 from a young man by the name of Aleksei
Savchenko-Belsky. With a backing of 80,000 rubles, he spent three
months hand-picking his troupe of twelve actors and support crew of
ten. All of the actors--graduates primarily of GITIS and the Moscow
Art Theatre school who had worked professionally for several years--
had participated with Gurvich in the past in his kapustniki at the Theatre
Union. With these organizational problems solved, his next task was to
fmd a theatre in which to perform. Through contacts at GITIS and the
Theatre Union, he contracted for six performances in May and June
1989 at the GITIS student theatre on Bolshoi Gnezdikovsky Lane,
located in the center of Moscow just off Gorky Street. As fate would
have it, this was the very theatre built expressly for the original Bat in
1915. However, Gurvich was told by the theatre administration that he
could not count on remaining there beyond the six agreed-upon per-
formances.
Since it is almost unheard of for young theatres to fmd such a
prime location, and all the more because of the historical--one might
even say spiritual--ties in this case, Gurvich still harbored hopes that he
might find a way to remain as a resident in the old theatre. Although
they only began rehearsing A New Play in March 1989, it was imperative
for them to use the offered six performances to make an impact. When
the premiere date of May 26 arrived, the troupe still faced a host of
unresolved problems.
"We simply weren't ready," the 32-year-old Gurvich now
reminisces. "The actors were in a trance. They thought I had gone out
of my mind. I thought I had gone out of my mind. We can't do this, I
thought. It's too early. My set designer, Boris Krasnov, screamed
hysterically that I had ruined everything. He told me, 'You're going to
have a full house tonight and they're going to see a piece of crap. In a
month no one will remember you.'"
"I knew that if we slipped even the slightest, we would be just
another in the crowd. No matter how much I lied to the audience that
this was only a dress rehearsal, that we could change what needed
changing, I knew this show would. decide our fate. But the response
from the audience was incredible. When the performance ended, I
heard wild shouting and applause. When they called me onstage, I
thought, 'God, maybe we've pulled it off.'"
In fact, the new theatre's frrst outing was an amazing success.
The select audience of actors, directors, artists and journalists--not
unlike the invitation-only audiences attending Baliev's Bat in the early
years--gave Gurvich and his troupe a welcome he could only have
dreamed of. Within days, news about them had spread by word of
mouth throughout theatre circles. Despite occasional lapses (I attended
the second performance at the urging of actor friends), the troupe's
inspired theatricality easily overshadowed any shortcomings of a techni-
cal nature. And whatever rough edges existed in those frrst days have
since been smoothed out without any loss in the spontaneity which
marks their style; they continue to perform to full houses seven to ten
nights a month. The theatre was recently invited to perform at festivals
in Germany and Poland, and numerous articles have appeared about
them abroad as well as in the Soviet Union.2
The success of the first performances made it possible for Gur-
vich to pressure GITIS officials to allow him to remain in the building
for the 1989-1990 season. At present he has an agreement by which he
has access to the hall for the indefinite future, although--despite the
obvious advantage of the historical connections contained in the present
location--he hopes one day to find his own building. The old Bat
theatre is no longer suitable for the genuine cabaret atmosphere Gur-
vich one day hopes to revive.
Aside from the logistical problems the theatre faces, it is also
confronted by a lack of dramatic texts suitable to its needs. Everyone
these days is bemoaning the lack of modern plays, but the unorthodox
Bat is, perhaps, even more handicapped than most theatres. Gurvich's
dissatisfaction with contemporary playwrights has led him to search for
potential authors in film writers and journalists. Thus far he has found
nothing that suits him. Until he does, he will continue to write his own
plays or stage classics in his own evolved style.
As for The Reading of a New Play, Gurvich says, "No one could
have written the kind of play I wanted--a sort of psychological happen-
ing. Not that the audience would actually participate in the perform-
ance, but that they would be invited to take part in a revelation about a
theatre that once existed here and then left. For that reason I come out
every night and tell them, 'This theatre existed right here.' The
audience begins to feel that connection and to grasp our sense of play-
fulness. Each performance is, in effect, a reopening and rediscovery of
the Bat."
In fact, it is much more. It is also one of the most lively and
innovative theatres in Moscow today. There is nothing small-scale in
the so-called small-form aesthetics that form its basis. Its theatricality is
matched only by a handful of other Moscow theatres, and its manner of
39
responding to the changing world in which it exists is more effective
than a hundred new plays on "contemporary themes."
Despite its unquestioned popularity among a small circle of
influential admirers, Baliev's Bat was never more than a star in a firma-
ment of suns. It is true that one play does not make a theatre. But
assuming that the new incarnation of the Bat is able to develop freely, it
has the potential of linking small- and large-form aesthetics in a way
that could make a genuine contribution to the development of Russian
and Soviet theatre.
NOTES
1
Until1987, the All-Russian Theatre Society (VfO).
2
See: Bernard Genies, "Cabaret," Nouvelle Observateur, No. 15
(1989); Natan Eidel'man, "V podvale doma svoego," Moskovskie novosti,
No. 26 (1989); Francis Klines, "Russian Life is a Cabaret Again: With
New Chums," New Yorlc Times (August 16, 1989)(Reprinted as "Glas-
nost is a Cabaret" in the International Herald Tribune [August 19-20,
1989]); Anatolii Smelianskii, "Cabaret? Kabare!" Moskovskie novosti,
No. 33 (1989); Cicilia Bertolde, "Rossiia noch'iu," Amika, No. 39 (1989);
"Spustia vosem'desiat odin god," Teatral'naia Moskva, No. 35 (1989);
Katia Gliiger, "Die Rettung liegt im Lachen," Stem, No. 49 (1989); Alek-
sandr Minkin, "Kabare," Ogonek, No. 11 (1990).
RED FISH IN AMERICA
Alma Law
On April 21 and 22, the Collective for Living Cinema in New
York offered American audiences their first opportunity to see the work
of young, independent film and video artists from the Soviet Union.
Curated by Marie Cieri of the Boston-based Arts Company and Mos-
cow independent filmmaker, Igor Aleinikov, it presented ftfteen works
by thirteen artists, all dating from the period 1985-1990. Following its
New York showing, the program traveled to eleven other cities during a
month-long tour of the United States.
A part of the new youth culture, the parallel cinema movement,
as it is known in the Soviet Union, has up until now worked entirely out-
side the State film production and distribution system which does not
recognize either 16 mm film or video as legitimate art forms. As Boris
Yukhananov, perhaps the leading theoretician of the movement, has
explained, "We're neither for nor against the official system of film
making; that's why we reject the term underground which suggests some
kind of protest. We merely want to be free to work on our own terms,
nothing more."
This small, but growing band of young media innovators (most
of them are under thirty) has been working since the pre-glasnost days
of the early 1980s. At the first festival of parallel cinema held in Mos-
cow in March 1987, some twenty-five film and video artists from Mos-
cow, Leningrad, Riga, Tallinn and Vilnius took part. By the time they
held their second festival in March 1989 the number had grown to fifty.
Some sense of the radical change in attitude toward this form of art over
the past several years is evidenced by the fact that while the first festival
brought accusations of "damaging the state monopoly on cinematic pro-
duction," the second festival was held in the Union of Cinematog-
raphers' Dom Kino and was sponsored in part by the Leningrad Kom-
somol which footed the bill for the participants' travel and living expen-
ses.
The representative selection of 16 mm films and videos
included in the U.S. exhibition reveals a wide-ranging exploration of
styles and subject matter ranging from music videos (represented by
Latvian video artist, Ilze Petersone's Damn It (1989) featuring the Lat-
vian punk rock group Zig Zag) to the freewheeling Leningrad style of
"scratch animation" as in Supporter of 0/f (1987) by Inal Savchenko,
Evgenii Kondratyev, K. Mitenev and A. Ovchinnikov.
Among the best known of the independents are the Leningrad
founders of nekrorealizm (deathly realism), twenty-nine year old Evgenii
Yufit and Andrei Mertvyi (mertvyi is the Russian word for "dead").
Their films, filled with images of violence and death, represent some of
the most vivid and extravagant manifestations of parallel cinema. They
41
are represented in the program by Yufit's first ftlm, Orderly-Werewolves
(1985) and Yufit and Mertvyi's Spring (1987), a nightmarishly humorous
tale reflecting the brutality of former Soviet regimes.
The Aleinikov brothers, Igor (28) and Gleb (24), who are
accompanying the program on its tour around the United States have
been making 16 mm films together since 1986. Their film, Tractors
(1987), one of the most interesting of the works shown, co-opts one of
the icons of Soviet cinema, the tractor (Eisenstein's The Old and the
New is the classic example), and presents it parodistically using the
swollen rhetoric and overblown style of the typical Soviet documentary,
in much the way that Sotsart parodies the conventions of classical
Socialist Realist painting and sculpture.
Central to the film is the narration which starts out with an
account of the history of the tractor and an explanation of how it works.
Up to this point one could easily mistake this for the typical Soviet
documentary. But as Tractors takes off into flights of rhetoric, the voice
of a tractor operator is heard enthusing over how she "leaps out of bed
in the morning, quickly gulps down her breakfast and rushes out to her
dear tractor." This paean to the tractor culminates in a song likening
the tractor to a space ship: "Our own dear Chelyabinsk tractor /Is in
orbit as high as the moon,/ And at night, next to the sun's partner /The
best metal in the world makes me croon."
Video and theatre director Boris Yukhananov (33) is
represented in the program by excerpts from two of his works, Game of
HO (1987) and Crazy Prince Kuzmin, Part II ''Actor" (1989). Yuk-
hananov's videos have for good reason been called "slow," and at times
even that's an understatement. Crazy Prince Kuzmin, Part II ''Actor", for
example, is a single chapter from an extended work in progress
ambitiously titled, "Video Novel on a Thousand Cassettes."
Working very much in the style of "cinema verite," Game of HO
is built, as Yukhananov explains, on an inductive game which his per-
formance group Theatre-Theatre invented in the mid-1980s. The game,
whose rules are made up in the course of play, and which has no winner
or loser, is based on the two letter-symbols comprising its name--"H," in
Russian "X" (pronounced "kh"), combining the meaning of the crossing
out of life, the symbol of the cross and the multiplication sign, and "0,"
representing the meaningless of the life crossed out.
In its uncut version Game of HO runs for three hours, focusing
mainly on the interaction between the youth culture of the eighties and
the dissident culture of the seventies as seen through an argument
between two friends, Mark and Nikita: to leave, or to stay, that is the
question. The shortened version shown on the U.S. tour ranges from an
angry monolog by one of the heroes about how lousy life is, delivered in
the courtyard of an apartment house as the actual, unsuspecting
inhabitants go about their business, to an evening with a pair of
prostitutes (again the genuine article) in a hotel overlooking Red
Square, and fmally, a visit to the studio of a Leningrad artist.
Dreams (1988), a 16 mm film by Evgenii Kondratyev (31), pre-
sents a grim panorama of Soviet reality in Central Asia, which by being
run at fast speed takes on an almost surreal quality. Riga video artist,
Dainis Klava is represented by his short video Homo Rullis. Based on
the theme of the legend of Salome, it stood out as one of the best exam-
ples of experimental video art in the program. Like many of the other
works included in the program, Action in Kabul (1989), by Riga film-
maker, Andrejs Ejtis, draws on documentary associations, this time of
the Afghanistan war. It won first prize at an international festival of
amateur ftlms held in Leningrad last year.
The ideological center of the parallel cinema group is the inde-
pendent film journal Cine Fanton. Begun in 1985 by Igor Aleinikov as a
serial artist's book, it took its present form two years later as a journal
featuring criticism, theory and reporting. The journal has also been a
principal source of information about Western directors, including
German filmmakers, Wim Wenders and Rainer Werner Fassbinder,
both of whom have had a strong influence on the independents. In
addition to Aleinikov as editor-in-chief, and an editorial board of ten
Moscow and Leningrad critics, the journal also draws on the services of
some twenty regular contributors. Cine Fanton was initially distributed
in a typewritten edition of thirty copies, but beginning this year it will
come out in a regular printed edition with a planned circulation of
several thousand copies for distribution in the Soviet Union and
abroad.
1

As uneven, and at times even primitive, the work of this grow-
ing number of independent film and video artists is given the primitive
state of their technology, it is nevertheless quite remarkable. As I have
observed from my contacts with some of these filmmakers over the past
several years, what they lack in finances and facilities they more than
make up for by the fertility of their imagination and the energy they give
to their work. For anyone who is interested in exploring where Soviet
art of all forms, from painting (and many of these independents are art-
ists as well) to film, video and theatre is heading, it seems to this writer
that this is the place to start looking. For as Boris Yukhananov has
remarked about the already established ftlm and theatre culture, "It's
history."
43
NOTE
1
The catalog which accompanies this exhibition of independent
film and video from the Soviet Union includes translations of several
articles from Cine Fanton as well as an iconography of the artists
represented. It is available by sending a check for $6.50 to The Arts
Company, Inc., 43 Linnaean St., Suite 25, Cambridge, MA 02138. The
Soviet art journal, Dekorativnoe iskusstvo has also launched a special
pull-out section of their journal, Rakurs (Point of View), dedicated to the
"unofficial" art movement. Rakurs No. 10 (Dekorativnoe iskusstvo, Oct.
1989) was devoted to the parallel cinema.
PAGES FROM THE PAST
When the critic Oliver Sayler's Russian archive was sold in the
mid-seventies, I purchased a folder of correspondence between him and
Nikolai Y arovoff, a young Russian photographer living in Moscow who
was fluent in English.
1
Sayler, who knew little or no Russian, had
apparently met Y arovoff during his sojourn in Moscow in the winter of
1917-1918, a stay which resulted in the publication in 1920 of Sayler's
book, The Russian Theatre Under the Revolution. When Mr. Sayler pub-
lished his up-dated second edition in 1922, The Russian Theatre, he drew
heavily on the information on Moscow theatres supplied to him in these
letters written by Y arovoff. Some of the reports sent to Sayler were also
published by him as separate articles in American periodicals and news-
papers.
In addition to reporting on the theatre, Y arovoff also provided
vignettes of everyday life during the two-year period covered by these
letters. Just a few months after he began corresponding with Sayler in
September 1921, Lenin's New Economic Policy (NEP) of limited free
enterprise was introduced in an effort to revive a dying economy. This
was a time of rampant inflation and great economic hardship. "What
can I buy on my augmented salary of 54,000 rubles a month," Y arovoff
asks in a letter dated Oct. 14, 1921, "when a pound of black bread costs
2,800 rubles, a pound of sugar, 38,000 rubles and an egg, 1,700 rubles .... "
In a report entitled, "Men and Dogs," (January 16, 1922),
Y arovoff describes watching from the window of his apartment at 22
Malaya Bronnaia St. as early every morning "badly clothed men and
women sometimes with little children," would come to the rubbish heap
in the courtyard looking for something edible.
Y arovoff was able to correspond with Sayler mainly through
contacts at the American Relief Administration in whose Moscow
offices he worked from November 1921 until January 1922. His primary
objective in helping Sayler, whom he designated as his "New York agent
for publication in the Press," was to earn additional money to enable
him and his actress wife to move to Berlin where their young son was
already living, and apparently they did depart shortly after Mr.
Yarovoffs fmal post card to Mr. Sayler dated September 27, 1923.
2
In reading even the brief excerpt from Yarovoff's cor-
respondence published here, one cannot help but be struck by the paral-
lels with what is happening today in the Soviet Union and Eastern
Europe as once again Communist ideology is being rejected in favor of
free enterprise, art is giving way to commerce, and everyone is striving
to find a way to go abroad. Inflation has not yet reached the level
Yarovoff describes, when a million rubles was called a "lemon," but eco-
nomic collapse and the problems of surviving on one's legal salary are
just as real today, as are also the growing number of food shortages and
people going hungry.
45
In a chapter in The Russian Theatre entitled "Plus Ca Change,"
Oliver Sayler concludes that if nothing else could be gained from the
government's failure to enlist the theatre in its political and social
program in the previous four years, one could at least hope that this
experiment would "prove for all time the futility of mixing propaganda
with art." Sayler goes on to add, rather prophetically, "I haven't much
faith, though, that any such proof will be admitted by those who prefer
to have it otherwise. They will say, no doubt, that the conditions were
not favorable, bide their time and try again."
3
As we now know,
beginning with the establishment in February 1923 of G/avrepertkom, a
special department for theatre censorship under the Commissariat for
Education, government control over the theatres was steadily increased
so that by 1939 it had far exceeded anything existing prior to NEP. Only
in the last five years have the shackles of absolute government control
over the theatre once more been thrown off. Let's hope that this time
history doesn't again repeat itself
By a curious coincidence, several years after purchasing this
correspondence, on one of my visits to Moscow the theatre historian
and specialist on Meyer hold, Aleksandr Fevralsky, asked me if I would
try to locate a certain Nikolai Y arovoff in New York. Fevralsky said
that he had known Y arovoff as a photographer who had frequently
visited the Meyerhold Theatre in the early 1920s, and had in fact,
photographed performances there, including the only series of shots
taken during an actual performance of Meyerhold's The Magnanimous
Cuckold.
4
Fevralsky knew that Yarovoff had emigrated and he was
certain that America had been his ultimate destination.
As it turned out, Y arovoff did settle in America, but in South
America rather than in the United States as evidenced by photographs
of the Kamerny Theatre taken when they were on tour in Buenos Aires
in 1930. Y arovoff had apparently opened a photo studio in that city, as
on the back of the photographs was stamped, "Yarovoff Photo Studio,
Buenos Aires." There the trail ends. Whether Nikolai Yarovoff
remained in Buenos Aires is not known. In any case, it is highly unlikely
that he would still be alive today, since he was born in 1883.
Alma Law
46 Soviet and East European Performance Vol. 10, No.2.
A Moscow Letter--May 7, 1922
If I had been told only one year ago that in 1922 we would have
more theatres, cabarets and other amusements than in pre-revolution
times, I would have called this man a liar. But seeing all the walls of
buildings and fences covered with theatre posters announcing amuse-
ments of all descriptions, I must confess my error. We have, in fact, too
many theatres now. Don't think, please, that these theatres work under
Soviet guidance, or are kept especially for the propaganda of Com-
munism! Not a bit. They have all been opened by private
entrepreneurs, and they have a right to produce any play they like.
Under the New Economic Policy (NEP] many communistic ideals have
faded out, and the communistic theatre went out with them.
Not very long ago we declare the theatre to be a mighty weapon
for enlightenment of the masses, and we distributed tickets among
workers' organizations for a nominal sum of 3,000 to 25,000 rubles per
ticket, or very often quite free of charge. We exercised very strict con-
trol over the repertory and punished theatre directors very severely for
every play that did not agree with our revolutionary ideas. Many pro-
ducers were completely ruined, artists were declared as mobilized and
sent to play even in the provinces without their consent.
5
But now if you have the money and can pay the Soviets, you will
be permitted to have 10, a 100, or a 1,000 theatres, if you like, and to do
with them whatever you wish. But what about revolutionary ideas,
propaganda of communism? Forget it! Just make money and pay the
taxes, the rent, etc . . ..
No wonder that after four years of spiritual starvation we have
such a desire to refresh our feelings in a private theatre where no one
will annoy us with any propaganda or feed us plays or music by authors
standing on a "revolutionary platform." The constant reading for four
long years of exclusively official communistic papers has made us well-
versed in communistic matters. Every educated man, regardless of his
political opinions, can easily write a "Steklovitsa" (Mr. Steklov is the
editor of Izvestia). We have absorbed so much Communism free of
charge that now we do not want to spend any money hearing about it.
The actors became free citizens again, and many unemployed
ones got good jobs. The repertory of our theatres does not remind us
that we are living in the land of Communism: Nora {The Doll's House],
Madame Sans-Gene, The Tales of Hoffman, Carmen, The Princess of
Dollars, Le Roi s'amuse, The Merry Widow and purely Russian plays of
the same kind.
At eleven p.m. when theatres close, night cabarets open their
friendly doors. Everything in them resembles the old cafe-chantant,
with the exception of the "Etoiles." Wine up to 20 is sold there and
everywhere. Many theatres opened their own cabarets in order to
improve fmances. The best of them were at the Musical Drama and the
47
Kamerny Theatres under the name "Eccentricism." I expected to see
more of the Kamerny Theatre's artists when I saw the performance.
The cabaret at the Musical Drama has also employed only their own
artists. Both of these cabarets died a natural death after a few weeks of
lamentable living. This is not to be regretted. It made one feel badly to
see a respected actor or actress sing before a chewing public. There was
something humiliating in it.
The taxes imposed upon theatres are so high that we hear of
bankruptcies every day. The public has to pay the taxes anyhow. A box
at the Bolshoi Theatre costs from 4,500,000 rubles up to 10.000,000
rubles. A seat in the stalls costs no less than a half-million rubles.
Movie palaces in general charge one million for a seat. The Academic
State Theatres (partly supported by the Government) always have full
houses. This brings quite astronomical sums to the box office, but the
taxes are so heavy that the Theatre of Comedy and Melodrama had to
close its doors after 30-40 nights left them with a deficit of 1 billion, 100
thousand rubles. All season the Bolshoi and Maly Theatres were unable
to pay for the electricity consumed by them. On Good Friday the Elec-
tric Works stopped supplying them energy until they paid their debt
amounting to as much as 5 billion rubles. After some negotiations and
personal attention to the matter by the People's Commissar for
Enlightenment, Anatoly Lunacharsky, the Electric Works consented to
receive a partial payment of 1 billion 700 million rubles which Mr.
Lunacharsky promised to obtain. The cutting off of electricity at these
theatres might have had very dangerous consequences. First of all, the
electric fire alarm system would have been rendered inactive; and it was
absolutely inevitable that a workman looking for his way in an absolutely
dark house would use matches and immediately cause a fire.
The fresh spring air makes us all feel younger and fills us with a
desire for new adventures. Moscow theatre entrepreneurs feel it this
spring more acutely than ever. Many of them plan to take their theatres
abroad to Europe or to the U.S. for the summer or early autumn sea-
son. In mid-June, the First Studio-Theatre of the Moscow Art Theatre
leaves for Sweden. Mrs. A[ntonia] Nezhdanova and Mr. [Nikolai]
Golovanov have already received visas and permission to give several
concerts in England and will depart very soon. Mr. Tairov of the
Kamerny Theatre dreams of America. It is very possible that you will
see him with his company next autumn in New York. I am sure he will
have a great success. Mr. [Boris] Borisov, our "King of Laughter,"
would like to go to America too. It is a "Drang nach ... Westen!"
The management of the Academic Theatres has received an
offer from American capitalists to give them a 25-year concession for
exploitation of these theatres. One fourth of each company would play
abroad. The opinion of the literary and artistic circles is decidedly
against this scheme, but Mrs. (Elena] Malinovskaya, the Commissar for
Academic Theatres has said, "It is better to invite foreigners to keep up
our theatres than to hang a lock on the doors." The bankrupt country
cannot allow itself such a luxury as having first-rate theatres and support
them with governmental money!
As you can see from the above, Moscow theatre life goes on as
in the pre-war days. Some producers get rich, actors are starving. We
do not have many new plays, because their success is uncertain.
Unsuccessful plays mean bankruptcy and we need money above all now.
Much talk has been heard about the misadventures of the Nezlobin
troupe. The Nezlobin Theatre no longer exists. About December 20,
1921, the company was literally thrown out the door (as Mrs. Julia
V asilyeva, a former actress of this theatre and a member of the Council
of the Moscow Theatrical Society, has told me). This theatre, after a
major fire in 1914 which completely destroyed the stage, scenery,
costumes, etc., was rebuilt with money furnished by the actors. They
put in it all the money they had and have suffered great privations by
doing so. In 1921, just before Christmas they were deprived of every-
thing and became beggars without any roof over their heads. All of
their property was declared "nationalized." Their protests led to no
results. For two long winter months they made use from one to four
p.m. of the hospitality of [Bailev's theatre-cabaret] the "Bat" for their
meetings, etc.
The Nezlobin Theatre's fault was that they had a "bourgeois"
repertory, for example, Jealousy by (Mikhail P.] Artsybashev, The Eagle
by Rostand ... After two months of hanging between heaven and earth,
the company was given the Sohn Theatre, a cold damp building without
any heating accommodations, no stage inventory, etc.
6
In it [under its
new name, The Actor's Theatre], the Nezlobin company organized a
series of performances adapted to the new requirements of the Soviet
authorities. The new producer appointed by the Soviets, Vsevolod
Meyer hold, a very talented man, an innovator in stage routine, could not
work successfully with a company worshiping the old ideals. Unable to
inoculate the actors with his ideas, he dispensed with nearly all of them
leaving only the youngest. Many of the discharged actors were unable
to get a new job and are starving to death in the full sense of the word.
The old Nezlobin building is now occupied by the State New
Theatre.
7
Operas, dramas and ballets are in their repertory. Nothing
new, nothing revolutionary ... the same stagnation so typical of all the
State theatres. A new play, The Importance of Being Earnest, by Oscar
Wilde was recently produced there. Wilde's spirit was not felt in it. The
problem of revealing Wilde's true spirit of pose, pretty gestures, ringing
phrases was too difficult to solve. It is difficult to play an author who is
a born actor himself, who does not give passions and the consequences
of them, but only contrived posturings. Anyway, taken as a whole, it was
a conscientiously constructed production with good acting and it left a
good impression. The actors were from the Maly Theatre Studio-
School.
49
One of the most successful ballets staged this spring at the New
Theatre was The Nutcracker by E. T. A. Hoffmann. Mr. A[leksandr]
Gorsky, the balletmaster, took only the idea of Hoffmann's intentions
and worked out in a very original and interesting manner a ballet viewed
with interest from beginning to end. It was full of color, life, movement
and was very picturesque with splendidly executed decor by [Fedor]
Fedorovsky. The straight lines and dance-graphics were absent.
8
Miss
A[nastasia] Abramova had the "prima" role and showed splendid techni-
que of "points, arabesques, fouettes." Miss Abramova is a young and
promising dancer. The purity of every "pas," her temperament, gra-
ciousness, expressiveness will soon make her our foremost ballerina.
The ballet was danced by the youngsters of the Bolshoi Theatre Com-
pany, of which Mr. Gorsky is a deserved producer.
The operas given during this season in the State New Theatre
hardly deserve being mentioned. With the exception of one or two per-
sons in an opera with voices and scenic reputations, the rest did not
amount to much and sang horribly. It was the same repertory as twenty
years ago or even longer: The Barber of Seville, Puccini's La Boheme, _
Rigo/etto, La Traviata. The dramas staged this season were a little bet-
ter than the operas, the best example of them is the above-described
The Importance of Being Earnest.
In considering the work of the wandering companies
( Cha/toora )9 of the Moscow State Theatres, at the "nationalized" Nez-
lobin Theatre and their achievements, one must say that the work of the
government theatres is as far from revolutionary ideals and problems of
enlightenment of the people as Nezlobin's Theatre were.
Nikolai Y arovoff
NOTES
1
In all, the folder contained twenty-eight letters and articles, the
majority of them written by Y arovoff. Y arovoff wrote to Oliver Sayler
in English. In publishing these excerpts from his correspondence, I have
taken the liberty of editing and correcting his rather stilted and some-
times inaccurate English. I have, however, retained Yarovoff's own
spelling of his name. The correct transliteration would by Y arovov.
2
Y arovoff had great difficulty obtaining what he considered
suitable payment for his labors from Oliver Sayler. It is not clear who
was in the right in this dispute which runs through much of the cor-
respondence between the two men. Y arovoff did not want the articles
he sent published under his own name because he feared that he might
suffer as a result at the hands of the Soviet government. On the other
hand, he apparently wanted more credit than he felt Sayler gave him
when this material was_ published. He also felt that he was due a greater
percentage of the proceeds Sayler received whereas Sayler felt that
given the amount of editing he had to do and the time consumed in
placing the articles, he was justified in keeping as large a percentage as
he did. In large part the misunderstanding was undoubtedly the result
of the difficulties in communicating with each other, which at best were
haphazard.
311Je Russian Theatre, New York: Brentano's, 1922, p. 296.
4
Yarovoff's photographs of The Magnanimous Cuckold can be
found in an album located in the Meyerhold archives at TsGALI.
5
This paragraph and the two that follow are quoted verbatim in
Sayler's The Russian Theatre, pp.288-89.
6
The Sohn Theatre, located on what is now Mayakovsky
Square, was subsequently renamed the Meyerhold Theatre. It was
closed in October 1931 and tom down in order to make way for Meyer-
hold's new theatre which was never completed. The site now houses the
Tchaikovsky Concert Hall.
7
The Nezlobin Theatre was located opposite the Maly Theatre
on what is now Theatrical Square. This building presently houses the
State Children's Theatre. The State New Theatre was basically a filial
of the Bolshoi Theatre; they shared the same opera and ballet troupes
and the same repertory.
8
An apparent reference to the more avant -garde dance produc-
tions directed by choreographers such as Kasyan Goleizovsky and
designed by artists including Sergei Yutkevich and Boris Erdman.
Y arovoff seems to have preferred more traditional performance forms
as testified to by the fact that he says nothing in his letters about the
51
experimental work of directors like Foregger, Eisenstein and Fer-
dinandov.
9
Kha/tura, as the Russian word is correctly transliterated,
means "hack work" or "pot-boiler." It was also used, as Yarovoff
explains in a letter to Sayler (Nov. 6, 1921) to mean "performances by
actors working in other than their own theatres" in order to make extra
money. In one evening a popular actor would play at two or three
theatres where he was featured in the starring role, showing up at each
only in time for the third act. "The duped public," Yarovoff explained,
"cannot understand why the announced celebrity played so badly in the
first two acts and so magnificently in the last one."
CONTRIBUTORS
OLGA F. CHTIGUEL a native of Moscow, lived and studied in
Czechoslovakia, and moved to the United States in 1984. She received
her M.A. and Ph.D. at New York University.
JOHN FREEDMAN has recently completed his Ph.D. on Nikolai
Erdman at Harvard University. He currently lives in Moscow.
JANE MCMAHAN, Associate in Music at Barnard College, teaches
voice. She has reviewed for WBAI-FM and Australian Radio.
PHOTO CREDITS:
"The Polish Puppet Theatre"
Chwalisfaw ZieliDski
"Compensation"
Alma Law Archive
53
PLAYSCRIPTS 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 Iredy6ski. Translated by Michal
Kobialka. $5.00 ($6.00 foreign)
No.4 Conversation with the Executioner, by Kazimierz Moczarski.
Stage adaptation by Zygmunt Hubner; English version by Earl
Ostroff and Daniel Gerould. $5.00 ($6.00 foreign)
No.5 The Outsider, by Ignatii Dvoretsky. Translated by C. Peter Gos-
lett. $5.00 ($6.00 foreign)
No.6 The Ambassador, by stawomir Mrozek. Translated by Sl'awomir
Mrozek and Ralph Manheim. $5.00 ($6.00 foreign)
No.7 Four by Liudmila Petrnshevskaya (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 R6iewicz. 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 for-
eign)
Polish Plays in Translation. An annotated Bibliography. Compiled and
Edited by Daniel C. Gerould, Boleslaw Taborski, 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)
Polish and Soviet Theatre Posters Volume Two. Introduction and
Catalog by Daniel C. Gerould and Alma H. Law. $5.00 ($6.00
foreign)
54
Eastern European Drama and The American Stage. A Symposium with
Janusz Gfowacki, Vasily Aksyonov, and moderated by Daniel
C. Gerould (April30, 1984). $3.00 ($4.00 foreign)
These publications can be ordered by sending a U.S. dollar check or
money order payable to CASTA to:
CASTA--THEATRE PROGRAM
GRADUATECENTEROFCUNY
33 WEST 42nd STREET
NEW YORK, N.Y. 10036
55
SUBSCRIPTION POLICY
SEEP is partially supported by CAST A and The Institute for
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to $10.00 a year ($15.00 foreign). Individual issues may be purchased for
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The subscription year is the calendar year and thus a $10.00
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and departments of Slavic languages and literatures will subscribe as
well as individual professors and scholars. Subscriptions can be ordered
by sending a U.S. dollar check or money order made payable to
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