SEEP Vol.26 No.3 Fall 2006

volume 26, no.
3
Fall 2006
SEEP (ISSN # 1047-0019) is a publication of the Institute for Contemporary
East European Drama and Theatre under the auspices of the Martin E. Segal
Theatre Center. The Institute is at The City University of New York
Graduate Center, 365 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10016-4309. All
subscription requests and submissions should be addressed to Slavic and East
European Performance: Martin E. Segal Theatre Center, The City University of
New York Graduate Center, 365 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10016-4309.
EDITOR
Daniel Gerould
MANAGING EDITOR
Margaret Araneo
EDITORIAL ASSISTANT CIRCULATION MANAGER
Cady Smith George Panaghi
Marvin Carlson
Stuart Liebman
ADVISORY BOARD
Edwin Wilson, Chair
Allen J Kuharski
Leo Hecht
Dasha Krijanskaia
Martha W: Coigney
Laurence Senelick
SEEP has a liberal reprinting policy. Publications that desire to reproduce
materials that have appeared in SEEP may do so with the following
provisions: a.) permission to reprint the article must be requested from
SEEP in writing before the fact; b.) credit to SEEP must be given in the
reprint; c.) two copies of the publication in which the reprinted material
has appeared must be furnished to SEEP immediately upon publication.
MARTIN E. SEGAL THEATRE CENTER
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
Daniel Gerould
DIRECTOR OF PROGRAMS
Frank Hentschker
DIRECTOR OF ADMINISTRATION
Jan Stenzel
Martin E. Segal Theatre Center publications are supported by generous grants
from the Lucille Lortel Chair in Theatre and the Sidney E. Cohn Chair in
Theatre of the Ph.D. Program in Theatre at The City University of New York.
Copyright 2006. Martin E. Segal Theatre Center.
2 Slavic and East European PeifomJance Vol. 26, No. 3
Editorial Policy
From the Editor
Events
Books Received
ARTICLES
TABLE OF CONTENTS
"Back to Novi Sad, a Serbian Athens"
Dragan K.laic
"One Table and Two Theatres"
Artur Grabowski
PAGES FROM THE PAST
"The Bim-Bom Theatre: Cultural De-Stalinization
of the Polish People's Republic"
Anna Muller
"Reflections of a Bim-Bom Actor:
Mieczyslaw Kochanowski, Gdansk 2004"
"Lilina and K.achalov in Letters"
Maria Ignatieva
"Remembering Maria Lilina: Part II"
Maria Igoatieva
5
6
8
23
25
32
44
55
59
63
3
REVIEWS
"The Thirteenth Sibiu International Theatre Festival"
Dasha Krijanskaia
"Don Quixote and The Birds in Dubrovnik 2006"
Marvin Carlson
"The Dubrovnik Summer Festival 2005"
Yvonne Shafer
Contributors
68
79
86
89
4 Slavic and East European Peiformance Vol. 26, No. 3
EDITORIAL POLICY
Manuscripts in the following categories are solicited: articles of no
more than 2,500 words, performance and film reviews, and bibliographies.
Please bear in mind that all submissions must concern themselves with
contemporary materials on Slavic and East European theatre, drama, and
film; with new approaches to older materials in recently published works; or
with new performances of older plays. In other words, we welcome
submissions reviewing innovative performances of Gogol, but we cannot
use original articles discussing Gogo! as a playwright.
Although we welcome translations of articles and reviews from
foreign publications, we do require copyright release statements. We will also
gladly publish announcements of special events and anything else that may
be of interest to our discipline. All submissions are refereed.
All submissions must be typed double-spaced and carefully
proofread. The Chicago Manual of Style should be followed. Transliterations
should follow the Library of Congress system. Articles should be submitted
on computer disk, as Word Documents for Windows and a hard copy of the
article should be included. Photographs are recommended for all reviews.
All articles should be sent to the attention of Slavic and East European
Performance, c/o Martin E. Segal Theatre Center, The City University of New
York Graduate Center, 365 5th Avenue, New York, NY 10016-4309.
Submissions will be evaluated, and authors will be notified after
approximately four weeks.
You may obtain more information about Slavic and East European
Performance by visiting our website at http/ /web.gc.cuny.edu/metsc. E-mail
inquiries may be addressed to SEEP@gc.cuny.edu.
All Journals are available from ProQuest Information and Learning as
abstracts online via ProQuest information service and the
International Index to the Performing Arts.
All Journals are indexed in the MLA International Bibliography and are
members of the Council of Editors of Learned Journals.
5
FROM THE EDITOR
Volume 26, No. 3 of SEEP opens with a pair of articles in which
travel occasions personal reflections on theatre. In "Back to Novi Sad, a
Serbian Athens," Amsterdam-based theatre scholar and cultural analyst
Dragan Klaic revisits the city of his youth and discovers how theatre there
has fared in the past decade. Polish playwright and dramaturg Artur
Grabowski travels to Chicago for a Mrozek production and discovers
much about the differences between American and Eastern European
conceptions of acting and directing. PAGES FROM THE PAST is a
double feature. Anna Muller looks at a crucial moment in the birth of
post-Stalin Polish theatre through the reminiscences of a Bim-Bom actor
and her own study of the growth and demise of the Gdansk student
theatre. Maria Ignatieva concludes her study of the Moscow Art Theatre's
actress Lilina, providing excerpts from Lilina's letters to Kachalov and
examining her life with Stanislavsky.
The fall issue 2006 concludes with three surveys of international
theatre festivals. Dasha Krijanskaia examines the thirteenth Sibiu
International Festival, while Marvin Carlson and Yvonne Shafer confront
the Dubrovnik Festivals in 2006 and 2005.
SEEP Vol. 26, No. 3 is the third and final issue of our twenty-
fifth anniversary year. It is a fitting occasion to salute two older theatre
journals also celebrating anniversaries in 2006, Dialog and Performing Arts
journal, whi ch have served as exemplary models and sources of
inspiration. Both have had connections to the Ph.D. Program in Theatre
at the Graduate Center. Dialog, founded in Poland in 1956 by Adam Taro,
has just celebrated its fiftieth anniversary, making it the longest-lasting
theatre journal in the world. Dialog has published (usually prior to
performance) several thousand outstanding plays by contemporary writers
both Polish and foreign, as well as articles and symposia on all aspects of
modern theatre. I t is thanks to Dialog that I acquired my taste for Polish
drama. Konstanty Puzyna, Dialogs assistant editor from 1956 to 1969 and
editor from 1971 to 1989, was a visiting graduate student in the Ph.D.
Program in Theatre at the Graduate Center in 1987-8. Performing Arts
Journal, celebrating its thirtieth anniversary, was started in 1976 by Bonnie
Marranca and Gautam Dasgupta, when they were graduate students in the
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Slavic and East European Performance Vol. 26, No. 3
Ph.D. Program in Theatre. Performing Arts Journal and PAJ Publications
have been leaders in promoting knowledge of Eastern European and
Russian Theatre through the many articles and translations of plays
published both in the journal and the series of PAJ anthologies.
7
EVENTS
STAGE PRODUCTIONS
New York City
Under the Sign of the Hourglass, an adaptation of the short stories of
Bruno Schulz by Stephen Cedars and co-written and directed by Anthony
Cerrato, was presented at the Ontological Theater at St. Mark's Church from
June 17 to 24.
The Romanian Cultural Institute of New York (RCINY), in
association with Immigrants' Theatre Project, presented After the Fall: Reality
and the New Romanian Theatre, a series of staged readings, lectures, and
presentations showcasing emerging Romanian playwrights in dialogue with
Romanian and U.S. artists, scholars, and journalists, curated by Roberta Levitow
and Marcy Arlin, from july 5 to 15. The series included:
8
Stop the Tempo by Gianina Carbunariu, directed by Melanie Sutherland,
and a discussion with Nicolae Mandea and Iulia Popovici, moderated
by Marcy Arlin and dramaturg Saviana Stanescu, at the Martin E.
Segal Theatre Center, July 10.
Red Bull by Vera I on, directed by Marcy Arlin, with a discussion
moderated by Roberta Levitow and Saviana Stanescu, at the Martin
E. Segal Theatre Center,July 11.
Romania.Kiss Me by Bogdan Georgescu, directed by Kaipo Schwab,
with a discussion moderated by Roberta Levitow and Saviana
Stanescu, and presented at the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center on July
11.
After the Fall: Creative Writing in Romania, a lecture/demonstration
charting the development of the Romanian theatre movement, with
Nicolae Mandea, Julia Popovici, Gianina Carbunariu, Bogdan
Georgescu, and Vera Ion, at La Guardia Community College, July 12.
After the Fall: Reality and the New Romanian Theatre, a multimedia
presentation by Iulia Popovici, at RCINY, July 13.
The Terezin Foundation and the Present Company presented the
U.S. premiere of The Unlucf9 Man in the Yellow Cap by JR. Pick, adapted by
Zuzana Justman with Alex Zucker, directed by Marcy Arlin, as part of the
New York International Fringe Festival from August 11 to 27.
REDEYE: A New York- Ljubljana Translation Think Tank, the
first -ever playwright exchange between Slovenia and the U.S., organized by
Simona Semenic of PreGlej and Ivan Talijancic, was presented as part of
the European Dream Festival. Staged readings in English translation of the
plays Shelter by Saska Rakef, Balance by Zalka Grabnar Kogoj , and 24 Hours
by Simona Semenic took place at the New York Theatre Workshop from
October 1 to 4.
Dreaming Anderson, a multimedia performance piece incorporating
puppetry, live performance, video projections, and music, created by actors of
the Archa Theatre of the Czech Republic, was performed at TRIBECA
Performing Arts Center from October 12 to 14.
The first-ever English reading of work by the Free Theatre of
Belarus, co-produced by Aaron Landsman, was presented as part of the
Culture Project's IMPACT Festival. The following plays were read under the
series title New York- Belarus: A Night of Free Theatre at Baruch
Performing Art Center's Nagelberg Theater on October 16:
We.Belliwood by Pavel Priazhko, Konstantin Steshik, and Pavel
Rassolko, directed by Michele Chivu, presented by LABrynth
Theatre Company.
Generation jeans by Nikolai Khalezin, directed by Johanna Mckeon,
presented by Naked Angels.
They Saw Dreams by Natalia Kolada, directed by Paul Willis.
9
Slejy/Nikita Mitskevich by Andrei Kurei, directed by Cynthia Croot,
presented by Tinderbox Theater.
Horizon Theatre Rep presented Vassa Zheleznova by Maxim Gorky,
directed by Christopher Carter Sanderson, at the Duo Theatre from October
5 to 29.
The Polish Cultural Institute presented Polyphony of Images, an
evening of contemporary Polish video, live performance, and other media,
curated by Monika Fabijariska, at the Consulate General of Poland on October
19.
LARK Play Development Center and the American Romanian
Theatre Exchange Program (ARTE) presented two plays by Stefan Peca:
Bucharest Calling, a work in progress developed with Tanya Barfield, in
a staged reading directed by Victor Maog at the Lark Play
Development Center, November 2.
Bucharest Calling, a full performance directed by Ana Margineanu at
Romanian Cultural Institute in New York, November 3.
The Sunshine Plqy, directed by Ana Margineanu at the Telephone Bar
and Grill, November 6 and 7.
The Wrodaw Puppet Theatre of Wrodaw, Poland, presented the
play Ostatnia Ucieczka (The Last Escape), based on the writings of Bruno Schulz,
at the Jewish Community Center in Manhattan on November 18. The project
also toured to Swarthmore, Philadelphia, Claremont, Pomona, Irvine, and Los
Angeles from October 30 to November 4.
La MaMa and the Polish Cultural Institute presented Dada von
Bzdiilow Theatre's Kilka btyskotliU!Jch spostrzezen (Several Witry Observations),
based on writings of Wirold Gombrowicz, at La MaMa from November 16 to
19 and November 24 tO 26.
The Harriman Institute at Columbia University (where Vaclav
Havel is currently in residence examining the role of arts and citizenship),
Barnard College Theatre Department, WalkingShadow, FHB Productions,
Oracle Theater, True Comedy Theater, Tyna Collective, Evolve Company,
Soho Think Tank, Nomad Theatrical Company, GeminiCollisionWorks,
Piper McKenzie, Works Productions, Cardinal Stage Company, the Ohio
Theater, the Brick Theater, and Untitled Theater Company #61 presented
the Havel Festival, the first-ever presentation of the complete plays of
Viclav Havel. The performances included:
Mistake, in a new translation by Carol Rocamora and Tomas
Rychetsky, directed by Issac Rathbone and Jennifer Rathbone, at the
Brick Theater, October 26, 28, 29, and November 4, 11, 12, 18, and
19.
The Garden Party (or The Office Party), in a new translation by Jan
Novak, directed by Andrea Boccanfusco, at the Brick Theater,
October 26, 28, 29, and November 1, 3, 4, 11, 18, and 26.
Guardian Angel, translated by Paul Wilson, directed by Jeff
Lewonczyk, on a double bill with the English language premiere of
An Evening With the Fami!J, translated by Carol Rocamora and Tomas
Rychetsky, directed by Glory Sims Bowen, at the Brick Theater,
October 27, 29, and November 1, 2, 3, 4, 11, 18, and 26.
Mountain Hotel, the English language premiere, translated by Jitka
Martin, directed by Michael Gardner, at the Brick Theater, October
28, 29, and November 9, 10, 12, 15, 18, 19, 26, and 27.
Audience, translated by Jan Novak, directed by Edward Einhorn, at
the Ohio Theater, October 30 and November 4, 8, 11, 16, 18, 24, and
25.
Unveiling, translated by Jan Novak, directed by Randy White, at the
Ohio Theater, October 30 and November 2, 4, 8, 10, and 11.
Protest, in a new translation by Carol Rocamora and Tomas
Rychetsky, directed by Robert Lyons, at the Ohio Theater, October
30 and November 4, 8, 11, 16, 18, 24, and 25.
11
12
The Memo, in a new translation by Paul Wilson, directed by Edward
Einhorn,atthe0hio Theater,November1,4,6, 11, 17, 19,20,and
25.
Temptation translated by Marie Winn, directed by Ian W Hill, at the
Brick Theater, November 2, 4, 8, 11, 12, 16, 17, 19, and 26.
The Increased Difficulty of Concentration, in a new translation by Stepan
Simek, directed by Yolanda Hawkins, at the Ohio Theater, November
2, 5, 7, 10, 18, 19, 22, and 26.
Largo Desolato, translated by Tom Stoppard, directed by Eva Burgess,
at the Ohio Theater, November 3, 5, 9, 12, 14, 18, 24, and 25.
A Butterfly on the Antenna, the English language premiere, translated by
Carol Rocamora and Tomas Rychetsky, directed by Henry Akona, on
a double bill with the world premiere of Motomorphosis, also translated
by Rocamora and Rychetsky, directed, designed, and performed by
Tanya K.hordoc and Barry Wei!, at the Ohio Theater, November 3, 5,
9, 12, 16, 18, 19, 22, and 26.
Redevelopment (or Slum Clearance), translated by James Saunders,
directed by Grant Neale, at the Ohio Theater, November 4, 5, 11, 12,
15, 21, and 25.
The Conspirators, the English language premiere presented as a staged
reading, translated by Carol Rocamora and Tomas Rychetsky, directed
by Kay Matschullat, featuring Kathleen Turner, at the Ohio Theater,
November 13.
Tomorro111, the English language premiere presented as a staged
reading, translated by Barbara Day, directed by Hilary Adams, at the
Makar/Steinhardt Center, November 27.
The Beggar's Opera, translated by Paul Wilson, directed by Amy
Trompetter and Sergei Zemtsov, at the Miller Theater, December 1
and 2.
STAGE PRODUCTIONS
U.S. Regional
Arden 2, the Consulate General of the Republic of Poland in Los
Angeles, and the Polish Cultural Institute in New York presented Poland's
Modjeska Theatre's adaptation of Othello, written and directed by Jacek
Glomb, at the Lobero Theatre in Santa Barbara on October 14, 15, and 17,
and at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles on October 21
and 22.
Double Edge Theatre presented Republic of Dreams, a work based on
the writings of Bruno Schulz, at their theatre in Ashfield, Massachusetts, from
November 2 to 18. The piece will have its New York premiere at La MaMa in
March 2007.
STAGE PRODUCTIONS
International
Anton Chekhov's Three Sisters, directed by Krystian Lupa, was
presented in English by the American Repertory Theatre at the Edinburgh
International Festival in Edinburgh, U.K., from August 29 to September 2.
New Parham Repertory Actor's Company presented Kolbe's Gift, a
new play by David Gooderson, at POSK Theatre in London, U.K., from
September 19 to 21.
The Divadelni Nitta Festival was held in Nitra, Slovakia, from
September 22 to 27. Productions included:
WOyzeck by Georg Buchner, directed by Maja Kleczewska, at the
Andrej Bagar Theatre, September 22.
Penthesi!ea by Heinrich von Kleist, directed by Sandor Zs6ter, at the
Andrej Bagar Theatre, September 23.
Sonja by Tatiana Tolstaya, directed by Alvis Hermanis, at the Andrej
Bagar Theatre, September 24.
13
Swap by Joo Costa, Rudolfo Quintas, and Tiago Dionisio, at the Old
Theatre in Tatra, September 26 and 27.
J14y Life, written and directed by Emma Dante, at the Andrej Bagar
Theatre, September 26.
The Vilnius International Theatre Festival SIRENOS, which
explored the theme of theatre and space, was held in Vilnius, Lithuania, from
September 21 to October 1.
Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, directed by Oskaras Korsunovas, was
presented in Lithuanian with English supertitles as part of the Festival de
Otoi'io at Teatro de la Abad.ia in Madrid on October 13.
EUROKAZ, the International Performing Arts Festival in Zagreb,
and Shadow Casters presented EX-POSITION, a multimedia urban
performance project by Boris Bakal, Stanko Juzbasic, ]elena Lopatic, l\1laden
Hrvoje Ilic, Emil Matesic, Bojan Navojec, Katarina Pejovic, and Tanja Vrvilo,
in Zagreb, Croatia, from October 19 to 26.
The Polish Cultural Institute and the Arts Council presented Polish
Performance Art Presentation, an exhibition of live performance art and post-
performance talkbacks relating to the exploration of local and mass identity
formation, by Wladyslaw Kazimierczak, Ewa Rybska, Pawel Kwasniewski,
and Karolina curated by Beata Dudzic, at the Empire Gallery in
London, U.K., from October 28 to November 5.
Agency Culture-Europe presented Days of Contemporary Theatre in
Ukraine, an event showcasing the work of Andriy Zholdak in Kiev, Ukraine.
Performances included:
14
Ham/et.Dreams, adapted from William Shakespeare, at the Taras
Shevchenko National Theatre of Opera and Ballet, December 3.
One Dt1)' in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, adapted from Alexander
Solzhenitsyn, at the International Center of Art, December 4.
Slavic and East European Peiformance Vol. 26, No. 3
FILM
Go/doni. Venice, adapted from Carlo Goldoni, at the Taras Shevchenko
National Theatre of Opera and Ballet, December 5.
Love's Month, adapted from Ivan Turgenev, at the Taras Shevchenko
National Theatre of Opera and Ballet, December 6.
Romeo and Juliet. Fragment, adapted from William Shakespeare, in the
Ukrainian premiere of the 2005 production commissioned by the
Berliner Festspiele in cooperation with Volksbi.ihne Theatre,
December 8.
Fedra, adapted from Euripides, Racine, and Seneca, at the L. Ukrainka
National Russian Drama Theatre, December 19 and 20.
New York City
New Video, New Europe, a survey of recent video work from
Eastern Europe, including work by Azorro, Anna Niesterowicz, and Piotr
Wyrzykowski, was presented at the Kitchen from May 31 to June 30.
Taticek and Liii Marien and Sculpture of Granddad Vznda, both directed
by Jan Sikl, were screened at Czech Centre New York on September 19.
The European Dream Festival presented Occident, directed by
Romanian f.tlmmaker Cristian Mungiu, at the Florence Gould Hall at the
French Institute on September 23.
H11sak's Silence, the last in the trilogy At the Time, directed by Robert
Sedlacek, was screened at the Czech Centre New York on October 10.
The Film Society of Lincoln Center presented the series Resistance
and Rebirth: Hungarian Cinema, 50 Years after '56 at the Walter Reade Theatre
from October 27 to November 15. The films included:
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Apa (Father), directed by Istvan Szabo, October 27.
Szerelmem, Elektra (Electra, A[y Love), directed by Miklos Jancso,
October 28 and 30.
Feher Te!!Jer(White Palms), directed by Szabolcs Hajdu, October 29, 31,
and November 1.
Szamdrkohiiges (Whooping Cough), directed Peter Gardos, November 8.
Meg Ker a Nep (Red Psalm), directed by Miklos Jancso, November
8 and 9.
Kontrolf ( Controg, directed by Nimrod Antal, November 10.
Vagabond, directed by Gyorgy Szomjas, November 11 and 13.
Nekem Ldmpdst adott Kezembe az Ur, Pesten (The Lord's Lantern zn
Budapest), directed by Miklos Jancso, November 13 and 14.
Husz ora (Twenty Hours), directed by Zoltan Fabri, November 15.
BAMcinematek and the Czech Center New York presented the series
New Czech Cinema, curated by Irena Kovarova and organized as part of the
2006 Czech Independence Day Celebrations, at the Brooklyn Academy of
Music from November 3 to 7. Films included:
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Sileni (Lunacy), directed by Jan Svankmajer, including a post-screening
Q&A with the ftlmmaker, November 3.
Pribery ol?ycrjneho Silenstvi (Wrong Side Up), directed by Ivan Trojan,
including a post-screening Q&A with the filmmaker, November 4.
Zralok v hlave (Shark in the Head), directed by Maria Prochazkova,
November 4.
Stesti (Something Like Happiness), directed by Bohdan Slama,
November 5.
Indian a sestricka (Indian and the Nurse), directed by Dan Wlodarczyk,
November 5.
FILM
International
The Polish Cultural Institute, in association with the Polish National
Film Archive, presented a K..rzysztof Kidlowski retrospective in Vancouver,
Canada, at the Vancouver International Film Centre and the Vancity Theatre
from September 1 to 24. The retrospective was also presented in the United
States in Denver from October 1 to 21 and in Boston from October 5 to 29.
The films screened as part of the Vancouver presentation included:
Kr6tki film o milofci (A Short Film about Love) at the Vancity,
September 1.
Amator (Camera Buff) at the Vancity, September 1.
Kr6tki film o zabijaniu (A Short Film About Killing) at Pacific
Cinematheque, September 2.
Pr.rypadek (Blind Chance) at the Vancity, September 3.
Bez konca (No End) at the Van city, September 3.
Robotniry '71: Nic o nas bez nas (Workers '71: Nothing About Us Without
Us) at Pacific Cinematheque, September 4.
Klaps (Slate) at the Vancity, September 5.
l i ~ a (The Scar) at the Vancity, September 5.
17
Siedem kobiet w n5'{pym wieku (Seven Women of Different Ages) at Pacific
Cinematheque, September 6.
Dekafog 1-10 at the Vancity, September 8 to 10.
Podwojne zycie Weroniki (The Double Life of Veronique) at the Vancity,
September 14.
Trzy kolory: Niebieski (Three Colors: Blue) at the Vancity, September
14.
Pierwsza milofi (First Love) at Pacific Cinematheque, September 16.
Trzy kolory: Bia!J (Three Colors: White) at the Vancity, September 17.
Trzy kolory: Czerwony (Three Colors: Red) at the Vancity, September
17.
Personel (Personnel) at Pacific Cinematheque, September 21.
Spok6j (The Calm) at Pacific Cinematheque, September 22.
Krotki dzien prary (A Short Working Day) at Pacific Cinematheque,
September 24.
The Reality Check Festival, a film festival focused on Central
European documentaries, took place in London, U.K., from October 6 to 9
and included the following films:
Trapped, directed by Helena Ti'dtikova, October 7.
Sheep and Mammoth, directed by Filip Robar-Dorin, October 8.
Protect an Office, directed by Marko Skop, October 8.
The Center, directed by Stanislaw Mucha, October 9.
18
Document 4, The Document International Human Rights
Documentary Film Festival, presented the following Polish films in Glasgow,
U.K.:
God Is With Us, Men, That Is, directed by Jan Sosinski, October 13.
The Seeds by Wojciech Kasperski, October 14.
One Day in People's Poland, directed by Maciej Janusz Drygas, October
15.
The Norwich International Animation Festival paid a tribute to
Walerian Borowczyk with the program Dazzle: Walerian Borowczyk, which
included panel sessions, rarely screened early shorts, and the feature-length Le
Theatre de M et Mme. !VJbal, in Norwich, U.K., from October 18 to 21.
Ode to Joy, directed by Anna Kazejak-Dawid, Jan Komasa, and Maciej
Migas, recent graduates of the L6dz Film School, was screened at Tricycle
Cinema in London, U.K., from October 28 to 29.
The Irish Film Institute presented the Polish Film Festival at the IFI
Cinema in Temple Bar, Dublin, Ireland, from November 10 to 19. Films
included:
The Collector, directed by Feliks Falk, November 10.
Three Colors: White, directed by Krzysztof Kieslowski, featuring a
talkback with Jerzy Stuhr, November 11.
Tomorrow's Wi!ather, directed by Jerzy Stuhr, with a post-screening
talkback, November 12.
Tulips, directed by Jacek Borcuch, November 17.
Persona non Grata, directed by Krzysztof Zanussi, featuring a post-
screening talkback with the director, November 18.
19
!Vczrsaw, directed by Dariusz Gajewski, November 19.
LECTURES, SEMINARS, and CONFERENCES
New York and U.S. Regional
The Romanian Cultural Institute in New York (RCINY) launched
the New Drama Support Program for 2006-2007. Its summer program,
ARTE Project, was a roundtable discussion on the current partnership
between Lark Theatre of New York and Theatre Odeon of Bucharest. The
discussion, introduced by RCINY director Corina and moderated by
Saviana Stanescu and John Eisner, took place in New York on June 21.
RCINY presented Romanian Artists for All Seasons:
Buhagiar, a presentation by stage designer Buhagiar, at RCINY on
October 5.
RCINY and the Teachers College, Columbia University, in
conjunction with the European Dream Festival, presented Changing
Frames: An Impossible Comparison-European and American Cultural
Policies, curated by Corina RCINY Director, and Joan Jeffri,
Director of the Program in Ar ts Administration at Teachers College,
Columbia University. Panelists included Anne-Marie Autissier, Milena
Dragicevic-Sesic, Colin Mercer, and J. Mark Schuster. The panel took place
at Teachers College, Columbia University, on October 28 and 29.
RCINY and the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center, with the
participation of Anne-Marie Autissier, Milena Dragicevic-Sesic, and Colin
Mercer, presented the following two panel, curated by Corina and
Frank Hentschker:
20
The Strategies of European Cultural Centers in New York,
featuring the directors of the European cultural institutions
participating in the European Dream Festival, at the Martin E.
Segal Theatre Center, October 30.
Challenges of Working Internationally, featuring Jacqueline Z.
Davis, Barbara G., Lawrence A. Fleischman, Sam Miller, Richard
Pena, and David Sheingold, Martin E. Segal Theatre Center,
October 30.
RCINY, in collaboration with the Stevens Institute of Technology,
presented The New York Literary Translation Festival: Turning Tables and
Tapestries, which included readings, talkbacks, workshops, and roundtables.
The festival was held at RCINY from November 16 to 18.
The annual meeting for the American Association of Teachers of
Slavic and East European Languages will include a panel entitled Russian
and East European Expatriate Film and Theatre and will take place in
Philadelphia from December 27 to 30.
LECTURES, SEMINARS, and CONFERENCES
International
Maska, a Slovenian journal for performing arts, celebrated its one
hundredth issue wi th a series of exhibitions, performances, artistic
interventions, installations, publications, and panels that took place under
the title of Maska 001 , in Lj ublj ana, Slovenia, from September 20 to 24.
Events included:
Pupilija, Fadtfy Pupilo and Little Pupilcheks, reconstructed from the
original per formance and directed by Emil Hrvatin, September 20,
23, and 24.
Baptism under Trigfav, a digital reconstruction of the original 1986
per formance by the Theatre of the Sisters of Scipion Nasice, by
Meta Grgurevic and Jure Novak, curated by Emil Hrvatin,
September 21.
Mapping & Archiving & Ana!Jsing the Defunct Spaces of Art, an
interactive map of deleted arts spaces curated by Bojana Piskur at
Moderna Galerija, September 22.
21
Paul Allain of the University of Kent in conjunction with the
Grotowski Center in Wrodaw and the Workcenter in Pontedera is leading a
research project on Grotowski's work and its influence on the British
theatre. The project, entitled The British Grotowski Project-a
Re-evaluation, is scheduled to run from October 2006 through October
2009.
OTHER EVENTS
Swarthmore College professor Allen Kuharski has been named
winner of the 2006 Stanislaw Ignacy Witkiewicz Award by the Polish chapter
of the International Theatre Institute-UNESCO in Warsaw.
Paul Bargetto, Troy Lavallee, and the East River Commedia won three
of the first annual New York Innovative Theatre Awards for their 2005
production of Mrozek's Serenade and Philosopher Fox.
The Hungarian Cultural Center presented Shadows to Wear, an
exhibition by Remete Kriszta, including a video installation exploring the
theme of transparency and motion in the relationship berween the body and
clothing, at the Hungarian Cultural Center in New York on November 14.
Real Art Ways, Central Connecticut State University, and the Polish
Cultural Institute are presenting POZA, a multidisciplinary exhibition, curated
by Marek Bartelik, featuring a diverse body of work ranging from painting to
sculpture to site-specific installations and performances to films, all by artists
from different generations with various connections to Polish culture. The
exhibition is at Real Arts Ways in Hartford, Connecticut, from October 19 to
January 14.
The Barbican Art Gallery in London is featuring photographs by
Stanislaw Ignacy Witkiewicz (Witkacy) as part of their exhibition In the Fact
of History: European Photographers in the 20th Century. The exhibition,
which also includes work by Eugene Atget, Joseph Sudek, Jitka Hanzlova, and
Henryk Ross, among other artists, runs from October 13 to January 29.
22 Slavic and East European Performance Vol. 26, No. 3
BOOKS RECEIVED
Brylewska, Justyna, ed. Horyzonty Teatru ll Droga Kazimierza Brauna. Torut1:
Adam Marszalek, 2006. 335 pages. Contains an interview with Kazimierz
Braun by Rafal Zgorzelski, a sketch on roots, and eight articles about
Braun's work in Poznan, Lublin, Wroclaw, and the United States. Includes a
U.S. calendar, biographical note, list of stagings, list of books,
bibliographical addendum, index of authors' names, and index of names in
the bibliography.
Czech Theatre 22 (issued by Theatre Institute Prague). 62 pages. Contains
Barbara Topolova, "Editorial"; Dora Vicenikova, "A Stroll Through Brno
Theatre Scene"; Josef Mlejnek, "Devotion to the Cross"; Marie Reslova, "A
Century Fascinated with the Devil"; Jana Machalicka, "The Czech Lands
Rediscovery Political Theatre"; Jan Kerbr, "Exploring Male Vocations and
Pastimes (Two New Czech Plays and Their Staging)"; Jana Rezkova, "Iva
Perinova, Playing with Fire, or Czech National Issues in the Puppet
Theatre"; Radmila Hrdinova, "The Greek Passion and Curlew River (Opera
in the Czech Republic, 2005)"; Nina Vangeli, "Czech Dance Zone 2005";
and "Notebook." Includes dozens of photographs.
Degler, Janusz. "Szpryngle Witkacego," in ffo.pa], No. 6 Ganuary 2006),
28-34. Interview with Konrad Wojtyla on the occasion of the publication
of Volume One of Witkacy's letters to his wife.
Zbigniew, Zbigniew Osinski, and Grzegorz Ziolkowski, eds.
Podrot Rena Mirecka, aktorka Teatru Laboratorium. Wroclaw: Osrodek Badan
Tw6rczosci Jerzego Grotowskiego i Poszukiwan teatralno-kulturowych,
2005. 165 pages. Contains articles, memoirs, letters, and interviews about
the life and work of Rena Mirecka. Includes calendar, bibliography, and list
of the 34 photographs.
Redeye-A New York- Ljubbana Think Tank. A Special Edition of Mentor,
Ljubljana, Slovenia, 2006. 151 pages. Contains Rok Vevar, "A New York-
Ljubljana Playwriting Exchange and the Purpose of Socializing" and six
plays with authors' biographies: Jason Grote, Hamilton Toumship; Zalka
23
Grabnar Kogoj, Balance; Young Jean Lee, Pullman, WA; Ruth Margraff, Cafe
Antarsia; Saska Rakef, Shelter, and Simona Semenic, 24 hrs.
"Russian Theater: The Twenty-First Century." Theater (Yale) 36: I (Spring
2006). Edited by Tom Sellar and Yana Ross. 161 pages. Contains articles and
interviews by Tom Sellar, John Freedman, Yana Ross, Sasha Dugdale, Nina
Karpova, and Marina Dmitrievskaya; two plays, Oxygen by Ivan Vyrypaev
(translated by Sasha Dugdale) and Five T!ven(y-Five by Danila Privalov
(translated by Yana Ross); Theater: Portfolio"(14 photographs); and
Olga Bokshanskaya, "Letters to Nemirovich-Danchenko" (introduced by
Anatoly Smeliansky and translated by Ryan McKittrick and Julia Smeliansky).
Dozens of photographs accompany the articles and translations.
6 10 minute Bistrita workshop 2004/6 piese de 10 minute: atelier Bistrita 2004.
Editura Charmides, 2004. 119/110 pages. Bilingual English/Romanian
edition, read from opposite ends. Contains Radu Andrei Hora, Story of a Watch;
Ioana Moldovan, Diagnosis; Ioana Paun, Head; Ioana Leca, S+P=; Vera Jon,
Red Bull; and Bogdan Georgescu, Romania. KISS ME! and an introduction by
Roberta Levitow. Translations by Saviana Stanescu and Roberta Levitow.
BACK TO NOVI SAD, A SERBIAN ATHENS
Dragan Klaic
Novi Sad, like many other cities, is better to visit in May than in
December or March. Entire downtown streets are closed to traffic and
turned into endless cafe terraces. In the inner courtyards of nineteenth-
century buildings, mini shopping malls have been created, some in a most
rudimentary, improvised manner, others with expensive and pretentious
decor. Mos t stores sell the same cheap clothes smuggled from Turkey and
all sorts of knickknacks. Young, excessively made-up women sit there
utterly bored for long hours and for a small wage. Bakeries, patisseries, and
pizzerias sell snacks around the clock, and drugstores, video clubs, and
newsstands seemingly never close. At night, the city center remains alive
and busy until the small hours. It was not like that before; the center was
deserted and quiet after 10 P.M. I know, I remember-because I grew up
there in the 1950s and 1960s.
Since the fall of the Milosevic regime, I have been coming back to
Novi Sad (eighty kilometers north of Belgrade) but only on hurried, private
visits. Now I am back for a few days to attend, after fifteen years, the
Sterijino Pozorje Festival, set up in 1956 to stimulate contemporary
playwriting in the former Yugoslavia. By the 1980s, the festival amply
fulfilled this mission and made domestic drama the most popular part of
the theatre repertory. The leading playwrights would have ten to fifteen
productions of a new play in various repertory companies throughout the
country. The festival offered much-coveted prizes; ran discussions and
conferences; and created a research, documentation, and publishing
institution as its base. In the 1970s, it initiated a series of triennial
international exhibits of stage design, theatre photography, and theatre
books and periodicals, coupled with a triennial symposium in association
with the International Association of Theatre Critics. It was at the Sterijino
Pozorje Festival that I learned to think and debate about the theatre; it was
where I started building up my professional Yugoslav and international
network of contacts and to experience the thrill of a festival atmosphere. In
J une 1991, only a few weeks before the disintegration of the country, I
chaired one of those international symposia on the transcultural impact of
25
theatre. A few months later, I started my own transcultural adventure as a
freshly arrived exile in Amsterdam.
The festival somehow survived the gray Milosevic years and the
heavy NATO bombing of Novi Sad, but it lost its direction and purpose.
Crippled by the loss of its Yugoslav dimension, the festival continuing as
one celebrating Serbian and Montenegrian drama made no sense, so the
programming was enlarged with some productions from the neighboring
countries. These included the former Yugoslav republics whose theatre
professionals in r ecent years started coming back to Novi Sad in May. This
year, the international symposium tackled the topic of national and
nationalist theatre, a cue I did not want to miss, especially in the city of my
youth. Novi Sad had grown and changed much with the inflow of the war
refugees from Bosnia, Slavonia, Kosovo, and Krajina and had consequently
fallen under the control of the super-nationalist Serbian Radical Party. Two
days of the symposium did not bring a confrontation of nationalists and
anti-nationalists. Instead, it brought a polite, restrained polemics between
the defenders of the national theatre model and its criticasters, like me, who
argued that this is an exhausted formula with no emancipatory capacity. A
Swiss critic felt an urgency to defend Handke and his plays from Handke
himself, the Milosevic acolyte, and his funeral eulogist. Many of us who
entered theatre with Handke's early plays felt no need to write him off as a
playwright, even though his political flirt with Serbian nationalism made
him despicable. An old professor, a former colleague of mine, brushed up
his old story of the Vienna Burgtheatre as the model of Central European
national theatres. Some foreign guests felt a need to inform us in detail
about the genesis of their national theatres. A Croat critic criticized the
nationalism of the current theatre in Croatia. A Serb dramaturg criticized
the nationalist repertory of the National Theatre in Belgrade during the
1990s.
My thesis, which maintained that ardent nationali sts do not care
about theatre and instead seek to control the media, was challenged by
several colleagues who invoked examples of nationalist meddling in affairs
of the stage.
Our symposium was held in a gigantic, pretentious new building of
the oil industry of the Vojvodina region, a luxury office palace built in the
Milosevic year s by a company that is still nominally owned by the state. We
26 Slavic and East European Pe!formance Vol. 26, No. 3
were in the small conference hall. In the bigger space, a medical congress
was taking place. The next day, I was proudly shown a fully equipped stage,
with top notch equipment, ready for a most demanding production. It,
however, had not been used thus far and had a very dim prospect of serving
any theatre creation in the near future. That an oil company shows off with
such an edifice in an impoverished country, whose hospitals, nursing homes,
and orphanages have fallen into a dismal state, is a moral affront in itself,
but instead of outrage, I encountered only resigned shrugs among my kind
hosts.
In contrast, the edifice of the Serb National Theatre, where the
festival was held, illustrates amply my critical stances on the symposium.
This venerable company, established in 1861 as the first professional Serb
ensemble in what was then the Austrian Monarchy (while Turks still
controlled Belgrade), is nowadays a tired giant with six hundred employees.
It has drama and opera, ballet and orchestral music, too much old glory, a
surplus of troubles, and a shortage of means and vision. It never succeeded
in functioning properly in its new building, which was opened twenty-five
years ago but was designed in the mid 1960s by a Polish architect. A huge
marble bunker keeps the urban life firmly outside. It appears as a distant
fortress with a steep staircase that oppresses from the entrance with its low
ceiling foyers. Expensive Japanese polished wood panels look like the cheap
tiles of a metro station. Wear and tear is obvious, in the corridors and in the
toilets, and the air conditioning system is broken so that the make-up of
actors and of those overtly elegant ladies in the audience melts and mixes
with sweat in the hot summer night. But in both the big and the small halls,
the sightlines are excellent, leg space more than generous, and the chairs
comfortable.
The few festival productions I saw in those few days were mainly
slow and long-one even crowded with real horses, geese, and goats but
deprived of any sense of drama. The anti-Austrian diatribes in Bernhard's
Heroes' Square, presented by the Yugoslav Drama Theatre, Belgrade, caused
much sniggering because Austria is still resented for its support of the
Slovene and Croat secession and for the strong anti-Serb sentiment of its
press and politics. Yet the reactions turned to hilarity as the harangue was
grasped as perfectly applicable to the domestic idiocy and power
monopolies. Bernhard became instantly a domestic satirist, along the line of
27
Jovan Sterija Popovic (1806-1856), the father of the Serb drama, whose
anniversary the festival celebrated and whose satiric plays still maintain a
strong contemporary edge. Hungarian guests stole the show, however, with
the Kretakor Theatre's production of BLACK/and and Bela Pinter's Peasant
Opera, both sardonic views of the current Hungarian "transition." Both
productions have traveled widely across Europe. The former develops a
series of absurdist scenes, each prompted by some horrendous SMS news
message; the other mocks the nationalist infatuation with an imagined rural
authenticity, purity, and innocence. Half-life by Filip Vujosevic, directed by
Ana Tomovic and acted by a very young cast of Belgrade Atelje 212, is a
short, compact take on the semi-abandoned underground station where
Belgrade's adolescents seek to counter their own disillusionment and
vacuity with a passionate pursuit of the Internet war games.
BlACKland, directed by Arpad Schilling, Kn!takor Theatre, Budapest
28 Slavic and East European Perjor111ance Vol. 26, No. 3
Peasant Opera, written and directed by Bela Pinter
29
30
Slavic and East European Peifom;ance Vol. 26, No.3
I found time to walk through all the emblematic spots of my
childhood and adolescence, discovering much decay, misery, and neglect
behind the fancy new constructions. I passed the well-kept Danube Park,
with some new ugly sculptures, and shocked the guards in several museums
by knocking to get in where seemingly hardly anyone enters nowadays.
There were no tourists, and most of the locals lost the habit. Each July
300,000 young people descend from all over Europe to the old Austrian
Petrovaradin Fortress, with a great view of the Danube, the entire city, and
the nearby Fruska Gora Hills. It was a weekend of pop music at the Exit
Festival where performances were held simultaneously on seven stages
scattered among immense ramparts. This "Woodstock on the Danube" is
presumably the major economic impulse in the much-shrunk Novi Sad
economy. On a May afternoon, the fortress was silent and abandoned,
everything shut down and deserted-neglect ubiquitous and depressing. My
old friends sought to console me with the news that one of the local new
tycoons, with a quite dubious past, had leased the fortress restaurant, which
was once famous for its Gypsy music. In addition, he took over a hotel that
served as an emblem of elegance in my youth. Once he renovates them with
lot of money, this will be called "economic progress." Novi Sad citizens
have liked to fl.atter themselves by calling their ci ty the Serbian Athens
because it was the cultural center of Serbs in Austria in the nineteenth
century. Seen from a post-historical perspective, there is still some truth in
this much-repeated label: with its cultural policy in shambles, the tourist
industry is again seen as an alibi and a rescuer. The National Theatre
struggles with the protracted agony of its building and anachronistic
institutional model, and the Sterijino Pozorje Festival still has to put up a
fight to clarify its mission and safeguard its professional autonomy from the
political appetites. Remembering all the current troubles of the Greek
capital in the post-Olympic sobering up period, I nodded in resigned
agreement: a Serbian Athens, indeed.
31
ONE TABLE AND TWO THEATRES
(HOW TO PRODUCE A POLISH DRAMA ABOUT EUROPE FOR
AN AMERICAN AUDIENCE, OR WHAT USE A DIRECTOR CAN
MAKE OF A DRAMATURG)
Artur Grabowski
Prologue: Slawomir Mrozek's Tango is set in a drawing room
furnished in a style that prevailed a century ago. Patterned rugs cover the floor;
heavy wardrobes guard the corners, chandeliers hang down from the ceiling;
and in the middle of the stage, a huge solid oak table displays its power-like
an axis mundi. First Aunt, Uncle, and Eddie play cards on it; Arthur, after
returning home, eats his breakfast at it; then Ala comes out from under it. And
finally all the characters circle around it at the denouement. Here, in the
Midwest, such a huge solid table is still the location that unites a family in a
suburban household. In the climactic scene of the play, Ar thur will stand on
that table and deliver his romantic monologue. The words carry him away. His
inspired speech changes into a politician's harangue, bearing a false gospel,
whose job it is to impose order upon the world.
We were sitting at a table, drinking red wine. The big, heavy table
stood in the middle of the apartment of Zygmunt Dyrkacz, owner of the
Chopin Theatre. We didn't yet know that in three months the table would
become par t of the stage set. We were exactly above the two stages of the
theatre. A panoramic window overlooked the bustling intersection of three
streets: 11ilwaukee, Division, and Ashland. We were at the very center of
Chicago's artistic life, at the heart of America and its spiritual dilemmas. Our
first meeting-of producer, director, and dramaturg-began with a discussion
of U.S. culture in the early 1960s when Tango was written. The conversation
soon turned to politics, without which there is no history, not even the history
of art.
We could not refrain from looking out the window at what before the
war had been the "Polish triangle," vividly described in Nelson Algren's novels.
Today it is the heart of Chicago's artistic quarter, Wicker Park, with its galleries
and studios, European style cafes, and small theatres. I t was here, at the
Chopin Theatre, that the French organized a survey of their drama last year.
POL TEL
............ -
one ot the lc.idmg satirical writer"
of lhc hht halt of che 20th ccnnu} ..
- Encyclopedia Britta11ica
33
In the summer, the Polish theatre Cogitatur performed here, garnering
exceptionally enthusiastic reviews. The first festival of European monodrama
recently took place here. Those events earned the Chopin Theatre the title of
the "most European" stage in Chicago. Even though it does not deny its
Polish roots, the Chopin Theatre has been, since its rebirth fifteen years ago
under Zygmunt Dyrkacz's management, an American institution that draws
the best theatre companies from all of Chicago, and its literary events host
famous writers.
Why Tango? 1-Iy experiences with American students convinced me
that the avant-garde experiments of early twentieth-century Polish
playwrights, like Witkacy and Gombrowicz, would not much interest
Midwestern spectators. We instead chose Tango, the best known of Mrozek's
works, because this play- written over forty years ago-seemed the most
susceptible to the "modernizing Americanization" that would be necessary to
render it intelligible to young American audiences brought up on traditional
realism dealing with contemporary social issues. We needed images from the
media, easily recognizable types, and an almost television style of acting. Tango,
with its graying hippies stubbornly refusing to grow old but whose children are
prematurely aged, seemed to be a comedy about our times. Right from the
start, this was the premise of the producer: offer American theatregoers a
snapshot of the current problems of their own homeland.
The young American director Brandon Bruce, manager of the
Backstage Theatre and known for his brilliant staging of Joseph Heller's Catch
22, has a propensity for the political grotesque. What attracts him most in the
art of direction, as I found out during our rehearsals together, is the
juxtaposition of psychological realism and overt theatricality. Brandon comes
from the American heartland and has never been to Europe. He did not know
much about Poland and had never heard of Mrozek before. I thought: Here is
the peifect candidate to Americanize the Polish grotesque and make it more real.
From the very start I saw that Brandon was fascinated, but at the
same time confused, by Mrozek. However, as he later confessed, he considered
this encounter with an alien theatre a unique opportunity to explore new
regions of his own sensibility. I think that was why he asked to work with a
dramaturg.
We started by discussing the play's characters. As opposed to the
major Polish tradition of playwriting, which puts on stage a conflict of
34 Slavic and East European Petformance Vol. 26, No. 3
attitudes embodied in figures more meraphoric than human, American
dramatic art wants living human beings. That's why the director's initial
questions were aimed at revealing the social-psychological background of each
character. For example, he asked about their names and whether they were
behaving "normally." I had to tell him about the historic situation of the artist
in Poland as the moral guide to the nation. I recounted the complications of
Polish history and described the spiritual background of my generation in
Poland-a long introduction.
Initially, because Mrozek's family seemed to Brandon too "unnatural"
and artificially constructed, he kept searching for psychologically grounded
relationships. To point them out was no easy task. For me, the schematic
structure was entirely natural, even requisite for a universal interpretation of
the drama. However, whereas I sought for generalizations of a problem on a
philosophical level, he was looking for something particular and
Slawomir Mrozek's Tango, directed by Brandon Bruce, Chopin Theatre
35
extraordinarily practical. And this, we soon found out, was the difference
between the "European" and ''American" approach to the text. ''An American
play, even an extremely unrealistic one, is written stage-ready," said Brandon,
"whereas a European one needs to be adapted for the stage; it is written to be
interpreted."
My experiences with theatre in Chicago taught me that American
theatregoers expect a play to be a record of a person's particular case or, in
other words, a personal story. Only in performance does the text achieve its
general dimension and become a universal human exempfum by enclosing a
personal adventure within the current cultural debate. The director
concentrates mainly on revealing suggestively and convincingly those
characteristics that cause the whole event to be perceived as "authentic."
At the first glance, Tango has an explicitly political subject matter; it is
about social revolution, or counterrevolution. It is not, however, possible to
identify unequivocally the participants in this conflict. As a psychological
drama, the characters are too schematic. And finally, the conflict between the
characters seems to be one of "rational" world views, moving the whole
debate from the sphere of "human nature" to the field of historical drama of
ideas.
But what is the time frame? Brandon asked me about Poland in the
sixties, about which I said little because I do not believe that that is Mrozek's
subject. I pointed to the European context of the play, explaining that at the
time of writing Tango, Mrozek left his own country and settled in Italy. This
was not to make himself a political exile but to attempt to free himself from
provincial culture, which he saw as constricting.
For me personally, Arthur is above all a romantic hero, another
incarnation of Mickiewicz's Konrad. It is impossible to accept him, but at the
same time, one cannot refuse him sympathy. From the very beginning, I
suspected that the director did not like Arthur and had no feel for the
character. He couldn't identify with his human weakness, nor could he believe
in the purity of his idealism. In the eyes of my American friends, Arthur was
inherently a tyrant, a fascist mad for power, rather than a warped idealist or
dreamer.
Here were two distinct and disparate visions of man. If we interpret
Arthur's behavior as motivated exclusively by his own personal emotions, then
by the principle of contrast, Eddie will gain our sympathy. His boorishness,
emphasized by the author, has to be interpreted as na!ve simplicity. In this
model, the ending of the play, in which the amiable simpleton assassinates the
nasty ideologue, will seem illogical, psychologically unmotivated, and in fact
absurd. Rather than end in tragedy, the comedy turns into farce. Grotesque
and over-the-top acting are the obvious consequences of such
characterization. And it was here that we reached that crucial moment when
the dramaturg confronts the director.
Where we seemed to be heading was making Mrozek's tragicomedy
an absurdist farce in the style of Ionesco. And I have to admit that during the
ftrst few rehearsals I could see that the director was toying with this possibility.
We were at an impasse. While I wanted a romantic myth about a Promethean
hero, both a victim and villain, who loses his ideals when tempted by the power
of pure violence, Brandon tended to favor an absurdist parody of a family
drama with psychological subtexts. For me, as a Polish playwright, the
protagonist of a drama could not exclusively represent his own personality and
nature- he is also a delegate of a community of attitudes and part of
tradition.
The American director, however, was clearly afraid that it would be
impossible to give metaphorical characters human ballast; the actors would not
be able to sustain the roles, and the whole performance would be unbelievable.
He was unable to make the story personal-a day in the life of real people-
because he was not able to find simple, psychological motivations that would
free the whole situation from schematism.
In that case the only solution seemed to be an escape into the pure
grotesque. On the other hand we both were subject to certain pressures from
the producer, who was openly pushing the interpretation toward political satire
with transparent allusions to ideological debates of the moment in the
contemporary United States, in hopes of making our performance a big
success.
As dramaturg for the production, I began to think as the author.
Here, my "professional" knowledge of Mrozek's works came in handy. I knew
that Mrozek's characters are usually arranged in complementary pairs. The son
is an ideological opponent of the father but opposes him not for any particular
reason but on principle; his rebellion, philosophical in origin, grows fanatically
doctrinal. As a lover, shy Arthur is the opposite of liberated and cynical Ala.
In reality, the decent fiance loses his self-control time after time, and Ala's
37
Slawornir Mrozek's Tango, directed by Brandon Bruce, Chopin Theatre
indifference turns out to be pretense, hiding maidenly sentimentality. Stomil
and his wife Eleanor constitute a similar pair: a know-it-all and a nai:ve
"natural."
At last I understood why Brandon had begun with questions about
names of the characters. Arthur is a mildly snobbish name, given in the sixties
to the sons of the modern intelligentsia to demonstrate a cosmopolitan
European flair. But it is also a royal name. Likewise, the name Eleanor has
something pretentious about it, maybe a touch of former nobility. Even the
seemingly arbitrary name Stomil, to Polish ears immediately associated with
the name of a big tire manufacturer (like Michelin in France), literally means
"one hundred miles" and suggests perhaps speed, the future, progress. Like
city, crmvd, and machine, it is a word from a futurist manifesto. Eugene and
Eugenia are "meekness" personified in both genders simultaneously, which in
38
this case signifies a naive and somewhat ridiculous helplessness. Finally, Edclie
is the footman Edward (shouldn't a footman be dressed in Edwarclian style?)
who, having thrown off the master's clothes imposed on him, returned to his
true nature, that is, simply to Nature.
Thus my interpretations, evoked by the actors' questions, went in this
direction. During two analytical and one reading rehearsal, we tried to find a
model that could shape the community that was to appear on stage into a
comprehensible unified form. The actors, however, were asking practical
questions. They wanted to know the real people and asked such questions as:
Do Arthur and Ala truly love one another? Isn't Eddie, by chance, Arthur's
"rejected brother"? What connects all the women in that household? Maybe
little Arthur really suffers from an Oedipus complex, as his frightened father
suggested? Time was running out. "Is it true that in Poland a director can
extend rehearsals over many months?" Brandon asked one day. True, but
applicable only to a handful of masters. And it is not a privilege, but rather a
tolerated transgression.
After a dozen or more initial rehearsals, I started to fear that the lack
of a firm directorial hand imposing a unified approach would lead to a
situation in which all the actors would play their roles individualistically,
desperately grasping at accidentally found associations. And indeed, of the
seven actors, three found something to play relatively quickly. Ala, young and
attractive, quite spontaneously based her role on the real emotions of a girl
who wants to be loved and not taken advantage of in the service of ideology.
In the course of the rehearsals, she instinctively built a scenario of the
character's development, going from trust to loss of faith in the purity of the
intentions of her boyfriend. Her final "betrayal" is revealed as a
psychologically understandable act of revenge. However, when she finally sees
how she has wounded her fiance, she becomes horrified by her act and its
irrational motivation. As he clies, Arthur will confess his love to her and then
her words, "\X'hy didn't you tell me?" will turn her into both an accomplice and
a fellow victim.
The actor playing the role of Uncle Eugene proceeded equally
spontaneously but in an opposite direction. Unable to find within himself any
points of kinship with his character, two generations his elder, or to recognize
Eugene's distinct social model, he played a clownish caricature of an Old
World aristocrat, with fast and rigid gestures from the silent movie era. His
39
goal was not a true, convincing and recognizable character, but a comedic
effect, turning his character into a ludicrous puppet. On the other hand, Eddie,
lost and confused at the beginning, was gradually moving toward a kind of bete
humaine or human animal. The rest of the actors clearly did not know what
they were supposed to play.
During rehearsals, the actors repeatedly sought to initiate discussions
with me. They clearly felt the need to define their characters intellectually. But
the director immediately stopped what he regarded as fruitless deliberations.
The actor must be self-reliant. You need to do it yourself, and the conviction
(how American!) that if you give it your all you'll succeed. In Poland, the
director gives the actor a sense of security; here he puts him at risk. But we all
have similar needs. So I felt a little embarrassed when the abandoned actors
sensed in me Slavic caregiving. The dramaturg had a new task.
I would meet with the actors after the rehearsal, one at a time, serving
as a patient interlocutor. In Poland, that role is fulfilled by the director himself.
He engages in discussion, treating the actor as an intellectual partner.
I always tried to end my talks with some simple project involving
stage action, which led to the characters becoming more fully human to the
actors. The actress, whose role was Grandma Eugenia, justly complained that
there was not much to play there, but she found her form in a series of small
gestures, performed compulsively, entirely without regard to the rest of the
household, as if acting in a parallel play. Stomil and Eleanor discovered how to
be themselves by constantly snuggling, as if they were afraid to part and were
still trying to sustain their youthful infatuation. Arthur, a very intelligent and
talented actor, turned out to be the most interesting case, and I spent the most
time working with him. My ad>;ce to him was to think of the play as a game
in which he had to define himself in relation to each of the other characters,
as if he were in a different drama, in a different role, with each one of them.
"That means," I said, "that you are losing your sense of identity; you don't
know how to behave, so you do everything against yourself, unnaturally".
This approach (perhaps derived from the protagonist of
Gombrowicz's Marriage) allowed the actor to add dimensions to his character
by revealing a fanatical tyrant to be a complicated overly sensitive type whose
final defeat and sacrifice became more believable. "Ideology," I prompted, "is
initially your only weapon, over which you soon lose control. Initially you hold
forth to gain the upper hand over someone else, but the ruthless logic of your
40 Slavic and East ENropean Perforlllance Vol. 26, No. 3
utterances soon becomes an independent power, a daemon, that seizes control
of your decisions." When he was unable to find motivation for his
philosophical speculations, I advised him, "Talk to yourself." A fanatic keeps
listening to his own voice, and that's why he starts to believe that a Voice is
speaking through him.
Doubt drained the company's energy and weakened their enthusiasm.
Here we were more than half way through the rehearsals and I still didn't know
what idea was guiding the director's interpretation. I anxiously watched him
blocking scenes to stress their comical aspect, as if that would suffice. He
would burst out laughing, but clearly only he found all this funny. The situation
was becoming tense. I was afraid that all this would produce, at best, a comedy
built on gags; the producer was complaining that there were not enough
political allusions. The actors became louder and louder and their gestures
more and more exaggerated ... until, finally, something started to emerge.
I noticed, not without satisfaction, that Brandon was becoming more
self-confident and something of a dictator. He seemed to know now what he
wanted, but at the same time, during rehearsals, he asked my opinion more
often. He also began to cut the text more courageously. That resulted in a
simplification and a pruning of the subplots from excess digression.
More and more frequently the actors requested that I compare the
translation with the original text since they found the language often
ambiguous. Finally, I started to bring the Polish original with me to rehearsals.
I must admit that we made minor corrections without consulting the
translator. The shorter, somewhat Americanized text proved to be clearer and,
as a consequence, psychologically truer. Thanks to these changes, the whole
was slowly transformed into a quite ordinary family comedy. What I didn't yet
know was that it also meant a comedy that was in fact ... oh, woe is me! ... a
sitcom.
As a result, the performance picked up speed, the action moved
dynamically from scene to scene, to such an extent that I started waiting to
hear the laugh track. I did not know, of course, what TV series it was or who
the character types were. Had Mrozek's play become alien to his fellow
countryman? Such a family soon became a network of interrelations
understandable to actors and spectators alike. Son fights father; despised
Eddie takes his revenge on favored Arthur, rivals in love like envious brothers;
liberated Ala uses her body to tempt the idealism of an unsullied consenative.
41
Everything is clear. All that remained to be done was to get the actors to start
reacting to one another, as befits the dwellers in a family nest, living on the
reflexes of revenge. That seemed to solve the problem of fragmented stage
unity. But another conversation with the director fully opened my eyes.
"Tango, why Tango?" Brandon kept asking. I couldn't readily find an
answer, having always found the title inadequate. "Because everybody is
dancing here!" Brandon answered himself. "They are dancing the tango, which
is a dance of love and aggression." That metaphorical discovery proved to be
an extraordinary tool for organizing the moYement on stage. The director
started to arrange the characters as "dance" partners; then the actors
themselYes started to play at dancing with one another. Brandon put all the
relationships in the same scheme of "a 10\e-and-hate affair," which
immediately bore fruit by producing the feeling that we are all playing an
identical game, following the same rules. I liked this idea, so much so that I
started to suggest dance movements myself. But when l pushed for the
complete transformation of a tool into a form, the director stopped my
attempts. On one hand, he encouraged me to give suggestions, but on the
other, he refused to stress formal expressiveness. The play must not lose its
realistic naturalness. The stage design was realistic; there was real furniture-
one could not play against all that.
I was constantly learning lessons in American constraint. I would
often hear the catchphrase, "It lacks motivation." "Forget motivation," I
would reply. "Make a sign out of it." My Polish sensitivity to symbols,
allusions, and signs had taught me to Yiew performance as a text to be
deciphered. Here in Chicago, I was met not only with indifference to
symbolism but even a fear of it as something too intellectual for the theatre. I
did not entirely give up, however, and under the guise of motivation, I
smuggled in several symbolic elements. This became all the more possible
because, since we were playing "television" in operetta costumes, free use of
the aesthetics of kitsch became a viable option. Conscious excess in the palette
of colors, a trash pile of styles, and many redundant objects in their hands
seemed to give the actors a new sense of freedom, justifying exaggerated
gestures and lines spoken too loudly. The stage itself, crowded with furniture
and covered ~ i t rugs, forced the actors to maintain focus at all times and be
careful not to trip or bump into one another.
The last tv;o rehearsals entirely allayed my initial fears. I thought that
if I were the director now, taught by Brandon how to read Mrozek the
American way, I might have pushed the production in the same direction-
toward democratic kitsch in order to strike a spark of self-irony from my
romantically frenzied Arthur. The production now was American, as the
producer had wanted, but it was not simple journalism. It was psychologically
convincing, as the actors had wished. It was dynamic like a farce and clear like
a tragedy, thus fulfill.ing the director's expectations. And it proved to be
formally expressive, as the dramaturg had desired.
Epilogue: Audiences were plentiful and responsiYe. We gave fifteen
performances, with an average attendance of 80% in the tv:o-hundred-seat
theatre. Approximately half of the spectators had some ties to Poland, but
they invited their American friends. One could overhear conversations carried
on in both languages simultaneously. I attended several receptions after the
show and never met a single person who disliked it. The public was so stirred
and moved as I remember I had been in the 1980s when, as a teenager in
Cracow, I saw celebrated productions by Andrzej Wajda, Jerzy Jarocki, and
Krystian Lupa. The local Polish press reacted just as enthusiastically and
seriously. The American Tango was apparendy to their liking.
But the American critics turned up their noses at the production.
After consulting their old editions of Esslin's Theatre of the Absurd, they were
indignant that an Eastern European avant-garde absurdist had been made into
the author of a sitcom! I was surprised that local theatrical pundits were
incapable of appreciating the actors' convincing performances or of
interpreting the subtlely coded figures placed in psychologically true
relationships. Couldn't they recognize the American types. Could it be that
they didn't know how to view Tango in an American way?
Didn't it occur to any of them to look around the kitchen in his or
her suburban home? There must be a large sturdy table there ... in the center
of the global village.
This article was translated from Polish by the author and Renata Krempl.
43
THE BIM-BOM THEATRE: CULTURAL DE-STALINIZATION
OF THE POLISH PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC
Anna Muller
"There is still frost, there is still ice, but the thaw is in the air."
In 1954 in Gdansk, a port city in northern Poland, a group of
students, under the supervision of a few older actors from Cracow,
established a theatre with the catchy name Teatrzyk (Litde Theatre) Bim-
Bom. The theatre's unexpected growth after Stalin's death, its remarkable
success, and finally its sudden demise in 1957, after the events of October
1956, reflected the changes that took place in Poland in the first half of the
1950s.l For people who participated in this venture, student theatres like
Bim-Bom became a lifestyle and as such reflected not only the political and
cultural changes but also the concerns and hopes of this particular
generation, a generation that entered adulthood at the dusk of Stalinism.
What lay at the heart of Bim-Bom's activity was a critical and ironic attitude
toward reality, inspired by the actors' acute sensitivity to their own world and
experiences, although not from a conscious attempt to criticize socialism.
At the beginning of the 1950s, Gdansk did not have its own liberal
arts university. Intellectual and artistic life was concentrated around the
Technical University and the Academy of Fine Arts. As a result, it was
primarily artists, architects, and engineers who participated in Bim-Bom, and
it was their visually oriented thinking that dominated the student enterprise.
Bim-Bom became a theatre of metaphors, a play of lights and music, colorful
costumes and surprising stage scenery, blackouts and pantomimes. The
troupe's performances consisted of short skits in which active roles were
played by, among others, flying poster kiosks, bricks bursting with flowers,
singing heads, animated statues, and children playing with balloons.2
The generation born in the 1930s, to which Bim-Bom belonged, was
particularly important to the communist regime. Young people corning to
adulthood at the beginning of the 1950s were recognized as important
components of society and the new political order-people who, despite
being situated between the old and new order, were young enough to be re-
educated to fit into the regime's ideological framework. The state
organizations were very involved in the education of young people. In the
early years of the communist regime, the most prominent of the socialist
''Ahaaa," an early Bim-Bom skit, 1956
youth organizations was w i ~ z e k Mlodziezy Polskiej (ZMP) [Association of
Polish Youth). ZMP personalized the regime's efforts to control young
people's social and private lives. If Stalinist terror affected the young people
only indirectly, ZMP became part of their everyday reality. Discipline, long
obligatory meetings, nonsensical self-criticism, information boards displaying
the names of both the heroes and enemies of socialism not only made up the
everyday reality of these "comrades in struggle" and "first helpers" of the
Polish United Workers' Party, but also became very good material for Biro-
Born's satire-sensitive ear.3
At the beginning of the 1950s, ZMP's role among the youth started
to weaken, only to be replaced by Zrzeszenie Student6w Polskich (ZSP)
[Association of Polish Students). To a certain extent, ZSP and ZMP's work
overlapped. Both organizations, aiming at enhancing social commitments
among youth, took advantage of young people's readiness to become
involved. Yet both organizations created the straitjackets of uniformity out
45
of which youth could not break. Nor could the young people's needs for
engagement and action be satisfied. Ironically, both ZMP and ZSP, as state
institutions designed to provide leadership and enhance students' social
activity, became stepping stones for a new phenomenon, which consequently
led to the diminishing of the authority of both the state's institutions and the
state itself that lurked behind them. Young people, taking advantage of
opportunities provided by existing institutions that welcomed their social
and artistic involvement, began boisterously talking about their fears,
anxieties, and hopes. What drove students was the hope of recovering the
private space that had been ruthlessly seized by the state.
Bim-Bom was a result of these attempts. The very name Bim-Bom
became a vignette of the theatre's meaning. On one hand, the childish and
trivial name brings to mind Bim-Bom's devotion to the idea that children
bring delight and joy to the serious adult world.4 On the other hand,
according to Bim-Bom member Jacek Fedorowicz, it was precisely through
the allegedly meaningless name of the theatre at a time when everything had
to make sense that one could find the theatre's meaning.s "If our official
art," claims Jacek Fedorowicz, "was deadly serious, sulky, and pompous, our
theatre had to define itself as something different: a non-serious theatre,
Bim-Bom, a non-committal joke."
6
The conscious refusal to be engaged
became an engagement a rebours. Both explanations suggest Bim-Bom's
strategy of adopting an ironical and mocking attitude toward reality. They
show that Bim-Bom's childishness became a conscious tactic that allowed
the theatre's members to position themselves metaphorically as innocent
children who mocked the seriousness of the adult world.
As a result, spontaneity, and "the world on its feet," to cite
Afanasjew's expression, played a role in all of Bim-Bom's performances. At
the core of this strategy was carnivalesque laughter resulting from ridicule
mixed with rejoicing. The first of Bim-Bom's shows, ''Ahaaa," which grew
from the strange surprise that there was so little color in the Polish People's
Republic in the mid 1950s, is a good example of the theatre's strategy. It
consisted of two parts-official and artistic. "In this it resembled every
official academy," recollects the journalist Barbara Szczepula. "During the
first part, the socialist realism scheme is repeated: people with gray faces in
gray uniforms are building a wall and singing: the red wall is growing."
7
Unexpectedly, actors began jumping from exploding bricks, throwing
colorful, plastic flowers to the audience. Two shirkers, who instead of
reading "Number 16 Produces," read the subversive, ''Arsen Lupin's
Bim-Bom's "Dictators," 1956
47
Crimes," suddenly began evoking ghosts. The scheme of official
performances was broken. The message was clear. ''Ahaaa" mocked the
culture of the brick created by socialist realism and rejected the seriousness
and predictability associated with socialism. Instead, it proposed
carnivalesque joy and the fun that is usually reserved for children.
A confirmation of Bim-Bom's popularity was provided by the
World Youth Festival that took place in Warsaw. For many members of the
group, it was the most important moment in Bim-Bom's development.
During the festival, Bim-Bom members met with student theatre groups
from all over Poland and from abroad. The mutual contacts, trips, and
camps, where groups were able to discuss ideas initiated by the festival,
contributed to the radicalization of student culture. What resulted was
intellectual "ferment" that gained full momentum just before the post-
Stalinist thaw reached its peak.
The success of Bim-Bom in Warsaw encouraged young people to
analyze reality and, with a childlike belief in simple solutions to big
Organ-Grinder and Rooster, in "Serious Joy," 1956
problems, seek an alternative model for life. The result was "Serious Joy," the
most mature show, which pondered the eerily close relationship of ugliness,
grayness, and meanness to indifference, and ultimately evil. In Bim-Bom's
theatrical language, the world was neatly divided between black, cynical
roosters and white, lyrical organ-grinders.
According to Pakszys, "Roosters are noisy. An organ-grinder brings
music and joy. With his delicate music, he harmonizes moods. That was what
we wanted-joy and gentleness. The rooster is ugly and annoying. The
organ-grinder is beautiful and pleasing."
8
In Pakszys's formulation lies the
key to understanding the message that Bim-Bom conveyed in "Serious Joy."
Bim-Bom introduced a new aestheticism, which equated the aesthetic realm
with the ethical realm. While in earlier shows Bim-Bom had sensitized its
audience to the ugliness, grayness, and standardization of the surrounding
world, in "Serious Joy" Bim-Bom made a clear statement that evil was
tantamount to ugliness and goodness to beauty. Aesthetic ugliness was also
moral ugliness. The battle began. There were row after row of enemies
behind the rooster's mask. Socialist realism, ZMP's green shirts and red ties,
and the gray, sad reality were all roosters. A serious, balding man with a
briefcase who did not understand young people in love was a rooster. A
famous singer who kept his accompanist in his shadow was also a rooster.
Those who bombed Hiroshima and those who started wars were roosters,
too. The roosters were everywhere, and the organ-grinders were engaged in
an endless struggle against them.
"Serious Joy" brought Bim-Bom its greatest popularity. Maintaining
the contacts initiated during the Warsaw Festival, the group traveled around
Poland performing its show. According to Edward PaHasz, "Sometimes the
assault by spectators trying to get tickets to our shows was shocking. The
word that passed from mouth to mouth was that it is something fresh,
incredible, and astonishing."
9
It looked as if Bim-Bom managed to create its
own imaginative world of color, where the brave organ-grinders never
ceased to fight the roosters. Anti-Stalinism per se was not what created a
common bond among Bim-Bom members and between the group and their
audience. What united them was rather a nostalgia for a world where children
were given time to enjoy their balloons and lovers were given time to enjoy
their love, nostalgia for a world they felt they had not fully experienced. They
felt a youthful desire to change the world.10
October 1956 marked the end of the so-called thaw, following
Nikita Khruschev's famous February 1956 speech, which officially
49
repudiated Stalin's excesses. In October 1956, there were workers' strikes in
Poland. At the same time, students and workers in Hungary were protesting
on the streets of Budapest. The situation appeared dangerous. As
enthusiasm mixed with fear, nobody knew what would follow. The popular
communist politician Imre Nagy was installed as Prime .Minister by the
Hungarian Communist Party. Yet soon after his decision to withdraw from
the \X'arsaw Pact, Soviet tanks entered Hungary and crushed the resistance.
In October, the political changes begun by the thaw following
Stalin's death were felt by the group. For the first time, Bim-Bom's skits
assumed a somewhat more oYertly political dimension. Zbigniew Towianski,
a Bim-Bom member, explained:
In 1956, I went with my friends from Bim-Bom to Katowice, then
Stalinogr6d. W/e arrived in Stalinogr6d, and we left from Katowice.
The name of the city changed while we were there. There we showed
"Serious Joy." During one of the skits, when we were performing
fairy-tales, the spotlight was directed on Afanasjew .... Suddenly the
light was turned off. The word truth came from the stage. From the
audience one could hear the mirror reflection of what was
happening on the stage, one could hear: "truth, truth." Silence, and
next a spontaneous ovation. Bravo!!! All the people in the audience
stood up.1
1
The change was similarly perceived by Afanasjew:
It was the time of October. The audience was packed. After our
show, we showed an additional pantomime about the cult of the
individual. Dictators in history ... Every one of them attempted to
stand higher than, to overshadow the previous one. Oh, we know
them very well. Long, unceasing ovations. Flowers.t2
Inspired by those events, Bim-Bom started working on its next show, "Toast."
The premiere of this program, which was supposed to be a work worthy of
the ages, took place a few months later, in 1957. In the third part of the show,
the actors built a house from black and white bricks.
13
They were building
"LIFE." They raised glasses in a toast to fish-which, as a result of the
atomic bomb tests, now live in the trees-and to the speaker who was asking
50 S/m;ic and Easl European Performance Vol. 26, No. 3
for money for sick children.14
"Toast" had strong political underpinnings: it harbored ambitions of
instructing people how to live in politically turbulent times. As such, "Toast"
was a child of the October 1956 protest. Yet "Toast," a show saturated with
a black-and-white vision of violence, turned out to be a failure. "Bim-Bom is
still a theatre of metaphor. Yet it ceased to be understandable, and when we
don't understand it, it is embarrassingly nai've," wrote Jan Kott after the
premiere.lS Why? A short diagnosis would be that the expectations of the
audience changed, and the student theatres lost their momentum. The
pressure of time was too great for student culture. In response to the bloody
events in Hungary and the turmoil in Poland, Bim-Bom tried to be serious.
Yet this seriousness was out of place in 1957. "Toast" was simply performed
too late. The year 1957 showed that Poland had managed to escape the fate
of Hungary. The pessimism of October 1956 was replaced by optimism and
hope for change that went along with the nation's support for Wladyslaw
Gomulka as the new leader of the Party and state. The audience's
Biro-Born's "Toast," 1957
51
expectations had changed. It was time for fresh enthusiasm and revisionist joy
stemming from a conscious rejection of Marxism and an attempt to reform
socialism. With "Toast," Bim-Bom ceased to be an amateur theatre reflecting
the problems and concerns of their generation and attempted to be a
professional theatre. Bim-Bom was not ready for this.
Bim-Bom was jusdy called one of the stones in the avalanche of the
cultural renaissance in post-Stalinist Poland. The strategy it used,
carnivalesque laughter combined with romantic reverie, aimed at a catharsis
that would transform the students' reality. The carnivalesque strategy of
rejecting the division between performers and audience members allowed
Bim-Bom to speak for more than just the small group of students that had
created it. In addition to being creators, Bim-Bom's members were also
spectators. As a result, the theatre became a medium that young people could
use to express their internal anxieties and converse with the reality of 1950s
Poland. Revisionism, which in 1956 rallied people on the streets, was not yet
a part of their horizon. It was too early for that. In this sense Bim-Bom was
a barometer of the post-Stalinist changes, showing the sensitivities of a
generation on the brink of October 1956, when the population rose up
against the communist government.
With the eclipse of Bim-Bom, the season of colorful clouds came to
an end, to use Afanasjew's metaphor. What followed was a season of black
clouds. "\1/{'as Bim-Bom a theatre, fun, a dream, or a book?" Afanasjew asks in
his imagined conversation with Cybulski:
I don't know. It was everything. If I were to die ... all my
plays, dreams, my art-that is nothing. Our theatre would
be everything I would think about. Thanks to Bim-Bom, I
came closer to human beings ... to my profession. This is
Bim-Bom. Why? Because whatever you say, Bim-Bom was
based on the curiosity of people. We had our ups and
downs, but exacdy there in our theatre, love for humankind
was gcrminating.
1
6
Bim-Bom provided young people with an opportunity to carry on a
dialogue with themselves and their personal experiences. For its members,
Bim-Bom became a point of reference delineating their place in society as
well as their lifestyle.
52
NOTES
Bim-Bom had four programs in its repertory: "Ahaaa" (1954), "Radosc Powazna"
("Serious Joy," 1956), "Toast" (1957), and the post-mortem "Cos by trzeba"
("Something Would be Necessary," 1960). An additional show called "Program Zero"
(1954) was prepared before Bim-Bom was formally established. The only analysis of
Bim-Bom as well as translations of three of its skits appear in Daniel Gerould's
Twentieth-Century Polish Avant-Garde Drama. Gerould also includes one of the groups
(Afanasjeff Family Circus) that was established by one of Bim-Bom's originators,
Jerzy Afanasjew, after Bim-Bom ceased to exist. Daniel Gerould, Twentieth-Century
Polish Avant-Garde Drama (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1977), 67-83,
245-53.
2 The only longer text, "The Professor," was written by Slawomir Mrozek, who
turned a story told by one of Bim-Bom members into a skit. Joanna Chojka, "Moda
i historia: Notatki o Teatrzyku Bim-Bom," in Zbigniew C)bulski. Aktor XX 1vieku, ed.
Jan Ciechowicz and Tadeusz Szczepanski (Gdansk: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu
Gdanskiego, 1997), 35. For the translation of the skit written by Mrozek, sec
Gerould, Tiventieth-Century Polish Avant-Garde Drama, 249-53.
3 Joanna Kochanowicz, ZJ1.1.P 111 terenie. Stalinowska proba modernizacji opornej rzec1Jwistofci
Trio, 2000), 36. The PZPR (Polska Zjed11oczona Partia Robotnicza [the Polish
United Workers' Party] was the sole party in Poland from December 1948 until the
regime's electoral defeat in 1989. [ZMP was an organization founded in 1948 to
transform the consciousness of people according to the party's ideology. Young
people entering the ZMP had to pledge loyalty to the communist cause.]
4
Jerzy Afanasjew, when explaining the meaning of the name of their theatre, wrote:
"Perhaps the bell was supposed to wake up some dead souls. Bim-Bom, Bim-Bom ...
Perhaps it was related to 'Winnie the Pooh."' Jerzy Afanasjew, Sezon Koloro11;ych Chmur,
(Gdynia: Wydawnicruo Morskie, 1968), 24.
5 Jacek Fedorowicz, "0 Bim-Bom nieco inaczej," in Gdansk Teatrai'!J'- Historia i
W.rpolczesnofi, ed. Jan Ciechowicz (Gdansk: Wydawnictwo Teatru \X'ybrzeze, 1988),
109.
6 Ibid, 115.
7
Barbara Szczepula, "Bim-Bom," in Dziennik Bairycki, 16 June 1995.
8 Kajetan Pakszys, interview by author, tape recording, July 2004, Gdansk.
9 Edward PaHasz, interview by author, digital recording, July 2005, Sopor.
lO Ewa Nawrocka, "Jerzy in Afanasjew z SopotJI (Muzeum Narodowe
Gdansk, Gdansk: Marpress, 1993), 19.
53
11 Katowice was renamed Stalinogr6d, "Stalin's city," between 1953-1956. Zbigniew
Towianski, June 2004, interview by author, tape recording, July 2004, Gdansk.
12 Jerzy Afanasjew, Kaz4J ma imry fwit (Gdansk, 1986), 82.
13 Tadeusz Chrzanowski, interview by author, tape recording, July 2005, Gdansk-
Sopor.
14 Afanasjew, Kaztfy ma inny fwit, 108.
15 Quoted in Joanna Chojka, "W<tchanie czasu, STS kontra Bim-Bom," Dialog, no. 4
(April 1998), 108.
16 Afanasjew, Kaz4J ma inny fn,it, 109.
I wish to thank l\1arci Shore for her generous help and patience in revising
this text and in translating the following interview.
54
REFLECTIONS OF A BIM-BOM ACTOR:
MIECZYSlA W KOCHANOWSKI, GDANSK 2004
1
Art either is or is not dependent on its time. Bim-Bom was
dependent on its time. In the 1980s, my friend Afanasjew wanted to revive
Bim-Bom's skits from almost a century ago. I was surprised he did not
understand something, which was very clear to me: putting on our skits
again would be embarrassing. Young people would come and wonder what
all the fuss was about, why there was such a legend .... This was so na'ive,
so sentimental- some balloons, some bubbles, so what? If Bim-Bom's
skits were shown today, they would be treated as something unintelligible
and banal. Yet there must have been something to it if years ago it was hard
even to get into Bim-Bom's shows: tickets were sold by scalpers, people
came flocking. One can see it today in the photographs. The militia had to
cordon off the theatre due to threats that the crowds would force their way
inside-there must have been something to it.
For us, the point was a certain atmosphere, relations among
people, how we related to one another, to everything that surrounded us.
For us, Bim-Bom was a reaction against the previous period, against ZMP.
\X' hat bothered us was not simply indoctrination-for in the end one could
reject indoctrination. What was worse was the mood, the absence of a
smile, shared values, the absence of tolerance. There was no place in ZMP
for individuality: you could not dress differently, you could not walk along
your own path. We dressed alike; we walked together. ZMP meant
standardization, uniformity, and gloom. During Z:MP's meetings one could
laugh only when somebody was telling a joke that was supposed to evoke
laughter. One could laugh, for example, at President Tito-that is, at the
chained dog of imperialism. It was necessary to laugh at him, but other
laughter was suspect.
Most of us had no serious, purely political intentions. Marxist
doctrine did not pain us-what pained us was that the world was so
gloomy. It went against the nature of teenagers. That collar of uniformity
was suffocating us. We were full of something, but that something had no
outlet. The world around us was gray and gloomy, and in the end, we began
to search for ways to add some color to it. We decided to regain a bit of
our childhood. Take a look at my biography. I was born in 1934. The war
broke out in 1939. Then a year or two of respite in a poor but nevertheless
55
joyful country-joyful because the war was over. I'd barely managed to
look around this world, and suddenly ZMP, the whole Stalinist period, fell
on me. It was 1950-something, I was a teenager .... I didn't have a
childhood; I clidn't experience simple joys. So I wanted somehow to get this
back. Hence the balloons and the children in Bim-Bom's plays. In real life
I didn't have a balloon. We played partisans, we shot at each other, and our
slightly older classmates shot for real. But what is natural-the right to
childhood, to color and warmth, to absence of responsbility-this we
didn't have. Hence, Bim-Bom's yearnings to regain a bit of this color.
And this kind of experience art could give us. But the art of that
time didn't provide this because socialist-realism reigned in theatres; a spy
or a saboteur was always being chased. And now it is worth mentioning a
characteristic feature of art by amateurs: amateurs create something if they
are missing something, if professionals are not giving it to them. People
need fiction. If it's missing, they create it themselves. Let's put a couple of
tables together, hang a drape, and let's create fiction ... and in such a way
amateur theatres are formed. We go to their shows; they go to ours.
But why were these young people, this generation, capable of such
things? It was not that just a handful of amazing kids from Gdansk were
capable of such explosions .... This was a country-wide phenomenon.
Throughout all student milieus various things were created-theatres,
newspapers ... and please don't treat this as a paradox, but here our ZMP
education played its role. It was the darkest period in my life, but despite
that I have to admit that the ZMP instilled in me a serious attitude toward
what I did. We had to be solid, reliable; the ZMP did not tolerate colorful
socks and indolence. ZMP's balance, per sa/do, is negative. And yet we were
solid and we had a feeling that it was necessary to do something: one either
harvested potatoes, or one organized some kind of joyous theatre.
Then began the changes, changes we felt only after some time. One
could feel the thaw in the air. There was still frost, there was still ice, but one
already felt that the air was growing warmer. Some references appeared in
the press, some doubts. We felt that something was happening. And that
scent of thaw was growing more and more distinct, until finally the
culmination arrived, and this was well before October 1956. The passage of
time manifested itself in the International Youth and Student Festival in
Warsaw in 1955.2 To us the sight of people who had come from abroad was
56 Slavic and East European Peifor1!1ance Vol. 26, No. 3
unusual. The world came to Warsaw. \X'e'd heard various things about this
world, but we had never seen it. And suddenly people we had only heard
about appeared here. It was something of a magic time when impossible
things happened. Of course everything happened under the auspices of the
political powers of that time; it could not have been otherwise. All the
previous festivals were political in the manner of the Komsomol and ZMP.
The participants demonstrated; they shouted "away with .. . " or "long live
... . " In \X'arsaw, how it happened no one knows, but it was fun. Of course
somewhere some meeting was taking place, some activists were gathering at
some forum, but that had no meaning.
The essence of the festival was fun. Fun on the ruins. The
decorations were extraordinary. Warsaw adorned its ruins with colorful
fabrics, and it looked uncanny. There was the atmosphere of a ballroom in
this ruined city, in large part dead. A carnival went on, where there were no
speeches, no indoctrination, because indoctrination was impossible in this
situation. And we discovered that here and elsewhere there lived people,
people who didn't differ from one another in any special way. We talked a
lot and we felt a generational unity; we felt ourselves part of the youth of
the world-but in a different way from what emerged from our books, our
songs, or our descriptions of our generation. Those few hundred thousand
people having fun, dancing-this was a revolution of carnations. And Bim-
Bom, with its program, was a perfect fit in this atmosphere. All of Bim-
Bom's skits were met with huge ovations. For me, too, this was
confirmation that those nai"ve jokes, that sweetened fun of overgrown kids
made sense. People about whom we read in books came backstage to
congratulate us, students in the second or third year of Gdansk Technical
University.
We returned from the festival in Warsaw changed. After that,
neither ZMP nor indoctrination was possible any longer.
57
NOTES
1
This excerpt is part of an interview that I conducted in the summer of 2004 with
one of Bim-Bom's actors, Mieczyslaw Kochanowski, currently Professor Emeritus
of Architecture at the Gdansk Technical University. Mieczyslaw Kochanowski,
interview by author, tape recording, June 2004, Gdansk.
2
October 1956 marks the end of the short period of the so-called thaw, which
refers to the changes in Soviet domestic as well as international politics began by
Nikita Khruschcv after his famous speech in February 1956 officially repudiating
Stalinism, three years after Stalin's death.
LILINA AND KACHALOV IN LETTERS
Maria Ignatieva
Was Lilina a happy woman? This question reveals an aspect of Lilina's
life, which has been known only to a small group of theatre historians. The
fact is that Lilina's romantic feelings were awakened once again by a friend and
one of the best actors of the Moscow Art Theatre, Vassily Kachalov, when she
was forty-two years old. Nine years her junior, Kachalov was the pride and
glory of the Art Theatre. He was an incurable admirer of women, but while
paying attention to various women, he was especially devoted to a thorny
woman, also an actress of the company, his wife Nina Litovtseva. Lilina acted
with Kachalov in several productions. She was the Snow Maiden during his
debut at the Art Theatre in the role of Berendey; she appeared as Natasha in
The Three Sisters with Kachalov as Tuzenbakh; she played Anya in The Cherry
Orchard opposite his Petia Trofimov. In 1908, Lilina was cast as Elina in Knut
Hamsun's play Near the Gates of the Kingdom, opposite Kachalov's Kareno, and
that decision caused tension between the co-founders. Maria Germanova
wrote:
VI. Iv: [Nemirovich-Danchenko] brought Hamsun's play Near the
Gates of the Kingdom, which he chose for me, but Lilina, a wonderful
actress and Stanislavsky's wife, liked the play so much that that she
wanted to play it. Despite VI. Iv:'s efforts to keep this role for me, he
could not do much since such a renowned actress as Lilina decided to
play her. I took it very hard- it was hurting me too much to see how
:MY role was snatched from me and being played in a different
manner. Lilina is a beautiful character actress, a virtuoso in her field.
Her Natasha in The Three Sisters is an immortal creation. She found
great devices and details to portray that ordinary woman. Cast as
Elina, she also became interested in the character's ordinary features.
The main aspect of the role Lilina found in Kareno's phrase "My little
philistine of a wife," and that was her mistake, I think. Elina is as
romantic as Kareno-my interpretations would have been very
different.
1
59
Lilina as Elina and Kachalov as Kareno in Near the Gates of the Kingdom
In 1909, under the strong pressure of Nemirovich-Danchenko, the group of
shareholders voted to consider Germanova as the lead for Elina in Near the
Gates of the Kingdom and to move Lilina to the status of an understudy.
Stanislavsky sent a special note, in which he contested the decision, calling it
unfair and unjust toward one of the most modest and hardworking actresses
of the Art Theatre. He wrote:
60
Lilina is an exception in the theatre, considering both her talent and
the conditions of her service [neither she nor Stanislavsky were
paid salaries, MI], her exclusively pure attitude to the Theatre, her
artistic modesty, and finally, the countless favors to the Theatre,
which are often unseen, but sometimes are very difficult for her,
and which she has performed during the last twelve years for the
Theatre, and before that for ten years in the Society of Art and
Literature .... Lilina played the role [of Elina] according to her
understanding, and well, too. Additionally, the change of actresses
is not profitable for the Theatre. . .. In conclusion: I find the
decision of the Board unjust, unfair, heartless, and indelicate
toward Lilina, and I also find this decision unfavorable for the
further artistic life of the play, Near the Gates of the Kingdom.2
Stanislavsky won, and Lilina continued to play the part. Her Elina was another
down-to-earth woman, energetic and earthy, all "strawberries and cream."
Lilina never intended to portray Elina as a romantic figure but as a villager who
was inadvertently deceived by the romantic Kareno. At the end of the play,
Elina elopes with another man.
In Near the Gates of the Kingdom, Kareno was played by Kachalov. The
performances in St. Petersburg in 1909 coincided with the two actors' strong
romantic interest in each other. Although their romance was brief, Lilina's
feelings for Kachalov did not change during her life. Lilina's fondness for
Kachalov did not challenge her understanding of her great duty, respect, and
love for Stanislavsky. Her feelings for Kachalov were an oasis of what she
called her "little private happiness." It is interesting to note that Kachalov,
while secretly meeting with Lilina, was also spending time with Alyssa Koonen,
who fullly described their mutual interest in each other in her memoirs. Most
likely, Koonen and Lilina were not the only women tO whom Kachalov paid
his attention during 1909-1913-such was the magnetism of this actor. He
appeared as a guide to young Koonen and as someone in need of guidance to
Lilina.
In 1910, while taking care of Stanislavsky who had just barely escaped
death from typhoid fever, Lilina wrote to Kachalov:
I imagine so vividly how you were sitting in your pajamas, pale, dark,
with your hair messed, and surrounded by medicine. And I wanted-
I wanted so much-to come from behind quietly and to kiss you on
the crown of your head. (Please tell Nina Nikolaevna [Litovtseva, his
wife] not to be angry with me for my dream, for I have not seen you
for a long time and have missed you with all my heart.) My mood is
very natural here, not social and not deceptive. I have missed
dreadfully work and rehearsals; I would have loved to steal a look at
Nemirovich's and Luzhskii's flights of imagination; to look reverently
61
at the favorites Moskvin, Kachalov, ButoYa; with a little envy and
great curiosity at Gzovskaya; with prejudice at Germanova; etc, etc.
With such joy, I would have parted with the local sun, warmth, and
silences and have flown to all of you if not for those big, childlike,
innocent eyes and the touching, humble smile on Stanislavsky's
exhausted face. Just from glancing at him it becomes clear that there
is a need to wait unwearyingly, patiently, and help him recover and
regain his strength. 3
In 1910 she wrote to Kachalov, "Thank you for being you," and in 1915 wrote:
Those roses I have sent you, they don't congratulate but thank you,
for with the production Near the Gates of the Kingdom in the Moscow
Art Theatre [repertory], there is a sunbeam of immense and definite
happiness in my life. Was this happiness based on illusion or on truth?
It is for you to judge but I was very happy! Thank you! Whatever is
ahead, the memory of those five years will be the best of my life. I
am not asking for anything, I am not expecting anything, and only
thanking you. I kiss you and love you tenderly and ceaselessly. Your
first Elina-M. Lilina.4
NOTES
1 Vladimir Nemiro\ich-Danchenko, Tvorcheskoe Nasledie [Artistic Heritage), vol. 2,
(l'vfoscow: lzdatel'st:vo Khudozhestvennvi Teatr, 2003), 681.
2
Letopis Zhizni i Tvorcheslva Stanislavskogo (Stanislavsky's Life and Times], vol. 2
(Moscow: lzdatcl'stvo Khudozhestvennyi Teatr, 2002), 212.
3 Lilina to Kachalov, 10 October 1910, Kachalov fund, 10214, MKhAT Museum.
4
Lilina to Kachalov, Kachalov fund. Kachalov fund, 10215, MKhAT Museum.
REMEMBERING MARIA LILINA:
PART II
Maria lgnatieva
Stanislavsky and Lilina's life after the October Socialist Revolution
of 1917 was difficult and humiliating. Stanislavsky lost his factory and
capital, and thus became entirely dependent on his salary at the Moscow
Art Theatre. Between 1918 and 1919, Stanislavsky constantly looked for
additional opportunities to earn either money or food stamps. Some of his
relatives lived in poverty, others were killed. Stanislavsky was burdened
with responsibilities not only for his family but also for the theatre, his
relatives, and his colleagues in art, many of whom lived in poverty. But
since 1914, when he and his wife were German prisoners during the
beginning of WWI, he knew for certain that they would not emigrate.
When in 1919 a group of actors (The Kachalov Group], with some of the
most prominent performers of the Art Theatre, exhausted by starvation in
Moscow, went on tour to Ukraine, Stanislavsky and Lilina refused to join
them. In 1922, Lilina did not travel with the Art Theatre to the United
States: she chose to stay in Europe with their son, Igor, who was being
treated for tuberculosis. Between 1924 and 1928, the life of Stanislavsky
and Lilina changed for the better (if compared to the post-Revolutionary
years). Stanislavsky's status became that of a living legend; he and his wife
were considered members of the so-called Soviet elite, with frequent trips
abroad and access to the best provisions. Who could have known that in
1928 Stanislavsky would be required to protect his wife's good name?
In March 1928, Stanislavsky got involved in an unpleasant and
dangerous episode concerning his wife. Lilina was sixty-two years of age,
still rehearsing with great enthusiasm and ceaselessly striving to perfect her
roles at rehearsals. However, during the rehearsals of Squanderers, Lilina
slapped an assistant director who had failed repeatedly to correct the
positioning of props, thus jeopardizing her rehearsal process. Stanislavsky
expressed his disapproval of the incident at once, and Lilina apologized.
But in these new times, she was accused of having "sneering aristocratic
manners," and the episode was "leaked" to the press. Stanislavsky and
Lilina were called "elite" in their attitude to the "regular workers" of the
theatre. Stanislavsky was deeply offended by these public accusations of
his and his wife's disrespect toward "workers." To him, it appeared as
63
"mockery" and "cynicism," and in a letter to Nemirovich-Danchenko, he
asked that they both (Lilina and Stanislavsky) be replaced. Although the
conflict finally was resolved, the whole episode left both Stanislavsky and
Lilina deeply traumatized. In the remaining years, Lilina masterfully played
several small parts in the Art Theatre's productions, among which were
Anna Andreyevna in Nikolai Gogel's Inspector General (1921); Nadezhda in
Vsevolod Ivanov's The Armed Train 1469 (1927); Janina in Valentin
Katayev's Squanderers (1928); Karpoukhina in Uncle's Dream (based on
Fyodor Dostoevsky's novel, 1931); Korobochka, which means "a small
box" in Russian, in Dead Souls (based on Nikolai Gogol's novel, 1935); and
Countess Vronskaya in Anna Karenina (based on Leo Tolstoy's novel, 1936).
During the last ten years of their marriage, Stanislavsky was still
directing, finishing his books, conducting lessons at the Opera-Dramatic
Studio, and writing many letters to the upper echelon of Soviet authority
trying to protect Russian culture; several times he wrote to Stalin. In 1936,
Kachalov wrote in his diary that Stanislavsky complained about loneliness
in his private life, not in art; Stanislavsky blamed himself for his solitude,
stating that he never had expressed enough interest in people, only in
theatre.l But he was lonely in theatre, too-only his wife, his sister Zinaida,
and Lubov Gurevich, a theatre critic, supported him in his artistic quests.
In the thirties, Lilina started to dedicate a lot of time to pedagogy
and was often able to touch an actor's soul quicker than Stanislavsky. Maria
Knebel', who met Lilina during the rehearsals of Dead Souls, described an
episode that occurred at a time of impasse:
64
We rehearsed the scene at the Governor's, at the end of which
Korobochka enters and asks, "How much are dead souls these
days?" Konstantin Sergeyevich was not pleased with the reaction
of the crowd, and he made us repeat the scene again and again.
His voice thundered from the audience's quarters, "I don't believe
you!" Maria Petrovna patiently whispered encouraging words to us
behind stage, but once we re-entered again, she said suddenly, "So
how much are marinated pickles these days?" We were stunned.
We looked at each other and then back at Lilina. Did we really hear
what we had heard? "Great, thank you!" Stanislavsky exclaimed.
"That was the real and live reaction."2
Slavic and East Europeatl Peiformance Vol. 26, No. 3
Although Lilina played this part only two times, she continued to improve
it at home, working on i t for year s. Her last role was Countess Vronskaya
in Anna Karenina, directed by Nemirovich-Danchenko; it was a part that
Stanislavsky never saw.
In 1939, Stanislavsky and Lilina would have celebrated their
fiftieth wedding anniversary; Stanislavsky died on August 7, 1938. After his
death, Maria Lilina wrote that she missed him desperately, having been
"left without my guide and protector."
He is still alive for me, and I don't feel t hat he is dead .... For me,
he did not die. Just in t he same manner as it was when he was alive,
I am trying to live up to his expectations, his tastes, his opinions
and demands. [For example] something like this would be
possible, while something like that would not.3
At the end of her life, Lilina became one of t he most knowledgeable
teachers of the System. She always avoided using terms from the System
and so did Stanislavsky. Lilina rehearsed The Cherry Orchard with the
students of the Opera-Dramatic Studio. Not very comfortable with the
method of physical actions at first, she encouraged the students to develop
their "inner longing." (Stanislavsky used this term during rehearsals of The
Drama of Life and The Turgenev Evening.) Just as Stanislavsky had in the last
years of his work, she asked the students not to read the play beforehand.
She was always thoroughly prepared for every class. While working with
students on her own, without Stanislavsky, Lilina had learned to appreciate
the System even more than before. But she had bitter thoughts after
Stanislavsky's death. She wrote to Olga Pyzhova,
4
an actress from the First
Studio, who played Mirandolina (The i'vfistress of the ltm by Carlo Goldoni)
in the United States:
My Dear, Darling Olga l vanovna:
Since he died, every day I discover that he was hated more
than he was loved, and many welcomed his death with true
joy .... About a month and a half before he died, we talked about
it, and out of all the people loving him sincerely, he named only
Vassily Ivanovich (Kachalov); I added Knipper, too. A poet wrote
once there was love in this world .... But there isn't! How many
65
awful dissertations I have read about the Stanislavsky System!
Their false and overcomplicated "scientific" interpretations will
poison actors' interest in Stanislavsky's words! I am glad you
received the book (An Actor Prepares); if you try to understand it
not with your head but through your very soul, which is
responsible for an actor's vision and openness to everything that
surrounds him, you and your husband will be the world's best
directors. In his book, e\erything is explained so effortlessly,
clearly, and with such logic. But it should be read not once, not
twice, or not even three times but all the time, and afterwards kept
on one's desk, near and dear. How many times I listened to his
reciting out loud random chapters; but only now when I read them
myself a.ll together in the book, the final colossal impression falls
upon me.
5
The physical sufferings that Lilina endured at the end of her life (her leg
and arm were amputated) did not dispirit her. Even in bed, she continued
to meet with her students. During rhe years of the Great Patriotic War,
Lilina stayed in Moscow, where she died in 1943. Olga Knipper wrote:
Her undying image will be preserved for the whole Moscow Art
Theatre forever, and especially for us, the founders, she will always
shine, with her immortal purity, poetry and appeal _6
NOTES
1 Letopis Zhizni i Tvorchestva Stanislavskogo, vol. 4 (Moscow: Jzdatel'stvo
Khudozhestvennyi Teatr, 2003), 378.
2 Maria Lilina, Ocherk ZhiiJii i Tvorchestva [Maria Lilina: Life and Times] (Moscow:
VTO, 1960), 104.
3 Maria Lilina, 241.
4
Olga Pyzhova (1894-1972): an actress, director, and professor at the Moscow
State Institute of Theatrical Arts. Pyzhova played roles at the Moscow Art Theatre
Studios; she played Mirandolina in The Mistress of the Inn and Varia in The Cherry
Orchard during the Moscow Art Theatre U.S. tour. Starting in 1924, Pyzhova was an
actress at the Moscow Art Theatre-2. Pyzhova had a conflict with Mikhail
Chekhov, and in 1928 she left the Moscow Art Theatre-2 for the Theatre of the
Revolution.
5 Olga Pyzhova, Zapiski aktrisy (Actress' Memoirs), (Moscow: STD, 1989), 328-9.
6 Ezhegodnik MKhAT za 1949- 1950 [Yearly Edition for 1949-1950], (Moscow:
Izdatel'stvo MKhAT, 1952), 310
Bios have been checked in R11sskii Dra111aticheskii Teatr, Entsyklopedia (The Russian
Drama T heatre, Encyclopedia) (Moscow: Nauchnoe I zdarel'stvo Bol'shaia
Rossiiskaya Entsyklopedia, 2001), 249 and 370.
67
THE THIRTEENTH SIBIU INTERNATIONAL
THEATRE FESTIVAL
Dasha Krijanskaia
The Thirteenth Sibiu International Theatre Festival took place in
Sibiu, Romania, between May 25 and June 4, 2006. According to its
organizers and patrons, it was meant to be a dress rehearsal for 2007, the year
Sibiu becomes a European Cultural Capital.
Sibiu is a small city with a population of about 200,000, located in the
middle of hilly and green Transylvania. While the whole region takes pride
in being home to Vlad the Impaler, the prototype for Dracula (settlements
around Sibiu compete in showing tourists Dracula's "true" castle), Sibiu,
placed in a valley between mountain ranges, has the charm of a hidden jewel.
Its beginnings date back to 1191, and it reached its heyday with the advent
of the Saxons, who changed its name to Hermannstadt. With this
indisputable German influence, the city demonstrates stylish baroque
buildings topped with small semi-oval windows known as "the eyes of Sibiu"
and narrow whimsical streets opening onto the vastness of a nearby valley.
Count Samuel von Brukenthal (1721- 1803), the eighteenth-century
enlightened ruler, added much to the architectural look and cultural
prominence of the city. He built churches and mansions, constructed
bridges over a rapid mountain stream running through the city, and founded
a library; for years his former palace has housed a municipal art museum.
Until recently, all these historical monuments had been in a state of neglect,
but the prospects of Romania's EU accession and Sibiu's 2007 Cultural
Capital designation definitely facilitated the work of restoration. In addition,
the city presents a case of rather successful multicultural coexistence: its
population consists of Romanians, Germans, and Hungarians, who,
according to Sibiu's mayor Klaus Werner Johannis, "have lived in harmony
for centuries." The Radu Stanca National Theatre boasts a small German-
speaking company, while the German-speaking schools have been
considered the best schools in town since the times of the Ccaus:escu regime.
The town was still in deep decline when thirteen years ago Constantin
Chiriak, the managing director of local Radu Stanca Theatre, founded the
Sibiu International Festival. Following a characteristically Eastern European
68 Slavic and East European Peifomtance Vol. 26, No. 3
pattern, he first used the premises and infrastructure of his own theatre
(strictly speaking the theatre is owned by the state, and therefore is, at least
partly, subsidized by the state and municipal authorities), and then, over the
years, expanded the festival territory. He correctly sensed Sibiu's own
performing potential and the possibilities the city could offer. With its
baroque Main Square; Small Square; numerous cloisters and backyards;
medieval church/fortress, Cisnadiora, just a twenty-minute drive away from
the city; and Thalia Hall, a new art center built into the outer part of the
medieval city wall, Sibiu is a grandiose performance on its own and a natural
site for a street theatre, dance, and music festival. In addition, Italianate
stages at Radu Stanca National Theatre, at the Gong Theatre, and at the
Union House (a run-down architectural monument to communist times)
offer reasonable spaces for medium-sized drama productions.
While only eight groups came in 1994, the 2006 edition saw 359 shows
and other events performed by participants from seventy-one countries at
forty-three different locations in and around the city. These are impressive
numbers.
Constantin Chiriac favors numbers. Numbers and quantities have
been and still are his major arguments in the on-going game of persuasion
he plays with politicians, EU cultural officers, foreign sponsors (primarily,
foreign banks with branches in Romania), and fellow festival makers. He has
a natural talent for combining the demands of the mass-production market
with a concern for aesthetics. Yet I fear that over the years the aesthetic
concern has been gradually declining. Speaking to Chiriac in his impressive
Radu Stanca Theatre office, I got bombarded with enthusiastic figures:
twelve new 'Tenues this year, up to eight hundred guests and participants
daily, an expected audience of about 60,000, and a total budget of 7,200,000
Euros.
One would imagine that with such a serious budget Sibiu would have
been able to invite prestigious European shows as well as produce and co-
produce them. But this never has been the case. The major part of the seven
million Euro went directly to finance special foreign projects as part of
promotional strategies adopted by various foreign cultural bodies present in
Romania. Thus, this year, the Japanese Embassy paid all expenses and, I
presume, substantial honorariums to the traditional Japanese company,
Onkura Kyogen. An additional120,000 Euro in costume insurance was also
69
provided. Likewise, the powerful Dutch bank, ABN AMRO, paid for the
Rotterdam Dance Works in 2005.
This seven million, thus, is not what it seems to be: "disposable"
assets to freely program a major international festival. \X'ith 300,000 Euro of
state money still in transfer in the middle of the festival run, the real budget
was much smaller. This affected the structural, organizational, and artistic
components of Sibiu 2006, although in a paradoxical way.
The program didn't shrink, quite the opposite-it expanded
compared to the previous year. The festival booklet listed theatre
performances, dance performances, interdisciplinary performances
(including a multimedia show and a dance theatre show), street theatre
performances, underground theatre performances, concerts as well as
"events": play readings, workshops, exhibitions, book launchings, lectures,
press conferences, etc. The striving for the gigantic shaped the atmosphere
of the festival: 359 shows and events running parallel to each other were
squeezed into the usual ten-day period and brought about a joyfully stressful
chaos. The Russian program, including two new drama shows, published
translations of the four new Russian plays, as well as the launching of Marina
Davydova's newly translated survey of contemporary Russian theatre; a
Romani cultural project; a Performing Arts for Marginalized Young People
project; the Beckett Centenary celebration, including three stagings of
Waiting for Godot and a portable display of pictures provided by the Irish
Embassy in Romania; and ARTE-the American Romanian Theatre
Exchange-were just several of the numerous events presented in the frame
of the festival. Distinguished guests who gave lectures and workshops
included Andriy Zholdak, George Banu, Andrei Serban, and Robert Cohen.
Seeing at least three or four shows a day was a grueling necessity.
I encountered extended staff who tried to accomplish the impossible.
Despite their efforts, they could not prevent lapses in communication, and
participants complained about logistics and equipment. For the international
guests, detailed information on the performances would have been highly
desirable as well.
With a relatively small budget and grandiose plans, Chiriac was forced
to look for inexpensive theatre, invite groups that agreed to travel at their
own expense, and bring shows as part of exchange programs and those on
offer by various official cultural institutions. Although he vociferously
70 Slavic and East E11ropean Perfor1llance Vol. 26, No. 3
Waitingjor Godot, directed by Silviu Purcarete
denied that his festival follows the fringe model, each year it has become
more and more obvious. Small groups with easy-to-mount sets, university
theatre groups, and various street theatres dominate the international part of
the program providing for the festival's diversity and multiculturalism.
'X'hile high-profi.le international shows were ruled out, Chiriac found
a way to bring in some internationally acclaimed directors. Silviu Purcarete,
a Romanian living in France, keeps coming back to Sibiu almost every year
to direct a show with the Radu Sranca company, which is one of the festival
highlights. The same goes for Andriy Zholdak, a Ukrainian, who staged The
Idiot, and Othello?! with local actors and is presently working on Life with an
Idiot, based on Venedikt Erofeev's story. There are plans for another
Romanian emigre, Andrei Serban, to direct a show next season. Thus, the
Radu Stanca National Theatre essentially functions as a producing body
within the festival structure-a smart move, allowing Chiriac to kill two birds
with one stone. In this way, he gets state funding for a show (as Radu Stanca
is a national theatre), has at least one hit in the repertory each year, keeps his
71
actors working with renown directors, and strengthens the program of Sibiu
International.
Now, the shows. This year, Purcarete scored his annual festival success
with Wttiting for Codot, in which Virgil Flonda and the festival's director
Constantin Chiriac gave inspiring performances as Didi and Gogo. What
makes the show phenomenal is the director's scrupulous and faultless work
with the actors, evident in e\'ery scene. Boisterous and strident Chiriac got
transformed outwardly and inwardly into what seemed to be Purcarete's own
alter ago. Using a worn-out portfolio as protection from the outside world, his
Gogo is a big child in a padded shabby suit, insecure, timid, and apprehensive
of disasters to come. Side by side with him, Flonda's suffering and wise Didi
is torn between his immediate attempt to protect Gogo and a full
understanding that no protection whatsoever exists. Together, they play out a
story-a succession of states, to be more precise-in which two human
crearures try to rediscover harmony, humanity, and brotherhood against all
odds.
The story is set in what appears to be a theatre space before or after a
rehearsal--diagonally placed metal scaffolds suggest an unfinished set, and a
blazing bulb offers no comforting light on the shabby red plush of a curtain.
Stage left, on a patch furnished like a deserted green room-a couple of
armchairs covered with white long covers-a stage manager is immersed in
reading without paying attention to the action. For her, the characters'
existence is ultimately superfluous, their laughs and tears fictitious. One reality
does not recognize the other. The major theme of Codot, that is, the theme of
longing for ultimate recognition, acquires specifically theatrical undertones.
Setting the play in the theatre, Purcarete shrewdly reads Codot in the light of
Six Characters in Search of an Author.
The first act closes with a group of musicians playing live against a sky-
blue backdrop. The obscure Schubert piece they perform is an event in itself:
it was discovered by Purcarete in a European archive. Rescued from the
oblivion, it only adds to the poignant feeling the show evokes-the feeling of
universal entropy that prevails despite all efforts to rescue even minute
manifestations of the human.
Harmony created by human genius proves to be unattainable. In the
finale, when some suspicious creatures play musical instruments, the image of
the first act recurs. Yet this time, Schubert's melodies quickly disintegrate into
a cacophony of sounds.
Concealed and impersonal violence saturates the world around Didi and
Gogo. By suggesting rather than naming the threat, Purcarete renders it more
dangerous. The only questionable moments come with the scenes in which
violence becomes embodied, that is, with the arrival of Pozzo (Cristian Stanca)
and Lucky (Pali Vecsei). In a slighdy old-fashioned style, Pozzo is presented as
a stout gentleman in a top hat with languorous and intimidating gestures, while
Lucky is reminiscent of an emaciated horse beyond the limits of its physical
strength. Despite solid performances by the two actors, the image of \-iolence
as an inescapable supra-individual presence, violence committed in cold blood
and out of curiosity, is not successfully comeyed. Purcarete's image of
Yiolence still has a human face. In this-as in the use of Schubert's Romantic
piece-Purcarete reveals once again his humane, all too humane, directing
talent showing how far he is from the cold-blooded generation of Sarah Kane.
Mihai Maniutiu, another prominent Romanian director \\'hose work
habitually meets with the enthusiastic approval of the local critics, presented
two shows: a version of Electra and a composition based on contemporary
Romanian poetry called The Banquet. Having seen his works in the past, I
always questioned the possibility of some theatre pieces getting across cultural
borders. If anything, Maniutiu's work is defmitely an unmovable feast. I found
his vision superfluous, if not aggressive toward the play-ungrounded in the
text (in particular, in such classical texts as Marlowe's Doctor Faustus and
Aeschylus's Persians). In addition, his style seems pretentious rather than
refreshing. The Banquet, a co-production of the National Theatre in Cluj
Napoca and the Radu Stanca National Theatre, was no exception. \X' ith a
chorus of women in nuns' outfits singing mournfully, and the actors speaking
their lines in allegedly "profound" voices, the piece was set in some shabby
outskirts-an abandoned construction site, a run-down playground-and
reminded me of a modernized version of The Lower Depths, performed by a
self-styled nonconformist cast somewhere in the Soviet provinces in the mid
1980s.
Unlike The Banquet, the cast of thursdqy.megajoy demonstrates virtuoso
performance of an excellent ensemble, which indulges itself in playing a light-
hearted comedy. While the elderly actors of the established Bucharest Odeon
company are fun to watch indeed, the show displays characteristics of a
73
74
respectable popular theatre: musical numbers instead of a generational
conflict and an elegantly comic flirt instead of brain-twisting problems. The
play written by contemporary Hungarian dramatist Katalin Thur6czy depicts
a regular Thursday meeting of elderly people who have known each other for
a very long time. Formerly of high class, they now amuse themselves in a game
of memories, restaging the stories of their past to endure the present. With its
nostalgia for lost nobility and good old times destroyed by social changes
(don't forget that Hungary once was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire
and then became a communist country) the piece is reminiscent of Oswald
Zahradnik's Solo for a Striking Clock, the stunning debut of then young Anatoly
Vasiliev at MKhAT in 1973. Yet, while the Russian piece manifested the
emergence of a major directing talent, thursday.megajqy staged by a young
director Radu Afrim resulted in a more modest outcome. Included in the
repertory as a show for elderly actors who might have not been performing for
years, it addressed the inner needs of the company rather than an artistic need
for an innovative and experimental project, despite the superb performances
by the actors.
Unlike Afrim, who works in a traditional psychological manner, Radu
Alexandru Nica has no interest in theatre as an imitation of life. An ethnic
German born in Sibiu, and trained at the Bavarian Theatre Academy, he rejects
narrative, fully rounded characters, and realistic use of objects. His Doff's House
staged last season with Radu Stanca actors was a down-scaled and grim version
of Thomas Ostermeier's Nora at Berlin's Schaubi.ihne, played with the same
tenacity, verve, and determination. Now in his late twenties, Nica has a taste
for contemporary play, which he demonstrated this year with Arabian Night, a
recent piece by German playwright Roland Schimmelpfcnnig. With a group of
young German-speaking actors, he created on a bare stage a small scale show,
unpretentious and self-ironic, full of intricate rhythms, disco lights, and body
movements.
Foreign groups dominated the street theatre section of the program
(fifteen foreign and only one Romanian), with Antagon from Germany as the
highlight of the festival. The group presented Frame Games (directed by
Bernhard Bub), an exquisite theatrical commentary on the themes of social
framing, outer and inner censorship, and liberation of the inner self. Set in a
perspective of hanging frames and rendered in a black-and-white color
scheme, the show presents a successful blend of modernized commedia defi'arte,
75
Frame Games, directed by Bernhard Bub
Chaplin-like slapstick comedy, and stilt works. The set of frames sit,rnifies a
magnifying glass, speaking of reflections, mirrors, dreams, and deep secrets of
the human subconscious in an unstable and mutable world.
Out of the nine shows, which comprised the dance program, I was able
to sec less than half of them. Lia Rodrigues Companhia de Dancas from
Brazil deserves a special praise among them. Such Stu.ff as We Are 1 'v!ade Of is an
eighty-minute long dance theatre piece explicitly divided into two parts: naked
bodies and silence in the first, casual outfits and contemporary music in the
second. The actors share the space with the audience, and although
humorously prescriptive, these relations equally contribute to the piece's
structure and the construction of its space.
Discovering corporeality is the major theme in the first part. The slow
movement and tantalizing concentration of the acrors allows the creative
process to become visible and continuous. Just centimeters away from my
76 Slavic and East European Perjorlllance Vol. 26, No. 3
body, the performing bodies transform themselves into dynamic Rodin
sculptures and create unexpected and intriguing configurations. In solos, duos,
and trios they establish a space unspoiled by the strictures of society and
civilization, a space full of vigor and primal beauty. The youth of the
performers contributes to the purity and energy of the created universe.
Late capitalist civilization intrudes in the second part of the show,
making it more of a social commentary. As the bodies get dressed, rhythms
become maddening and the movements aggressive. Screaming out brand
names and commercial slogans, the actors move as a group, presenting beliefs
and social patterns that are part of the teenagers' collective consciousness
rather than individual comictions. The group dynamics supersedes the
individual corporeality that dominates the first part of the show.
Clean cut and performed con anima, the piece certainly lives up to the
le,el of international festival production, but regrettably for Sibiu, it was
performed only once and didn't have enough advertisement.
Such Stuff as We Are Made OJ, Lia Rodrigues Companhia de Dan cas
77
As the 2007 European Cultural Capital year draws closer for Sibiu, it is
time to think about changes in the format of the festival. Fringe was a
successful model and sheer numbers worked well in the past, ensuring a splash
on the festival map of Romania and the region. It also ensured an acute sense
of place and occasion, a sense of togetherness enthusiastically put forward as
this year festival by Chiriac: "We run away from loneliness by getting all
together! Together means communication! Together means society! Together
means a nation! Together means faith! Together means love!"l Yet "the act of
meeting"2 is not the only thing festivals usually celebrate.
Now that the groundwork has been successfully laid out, it may be wise
to forget about numbers, limit the international section of the festival to
several prestigious shows, and put together a clear and doable program. It is
time to start thinking about quality. Otherwise, Sibiu risks drifting away from
the festival of arts and becoming a festiYal of friendships.
NOTES
1
See Constantin Chiriac, Foreword in the Festival Anthology of Texts (Nemira,
2006), 6.
2 The expression belongs to Zygmunt Duczynski, the late artistic director and founder
of Teatr Kana in Szczecin, Poland. See Kathleen Cioffi, "In Memoriam: Zygmunt
Duczyriski, 1951-2006," SEEP vol. 26, no. 2 (Spring 2006): 18.
78
Slavic and East European PerjorfJiance Vol. 26, No. 3
DON QUIXOTE AND THE BIRDS IN DUBROVNIK 2006
Marvin Carlson
The fifty-seventh annual Dubrovnik Summer Festival of Music and
Theatre was held this year from July 10 to August 25, 2006. The festival has
been directed since 2002 by Ivica Kuncevic, the director of the Croatian
National Theatre in Zagreb. For some time each summer, he has directed a
major production at Dubrovnik, and this summer he revived in a new version
a work he created in 2005, an updated and very DubroYnik-oriented
postmodern version of Cenantes's classic Don Quixote.
Unconventional and largely open-air settings have long been a special
feature of the Dubrovnik festival, and Don Quixote demonstrated this clearly,
taking place in three different locations in the ancient walled city, all of which
had been utilized by other productions in previous years. The play began in a
small plaza against the fa<_;:ade of a baroque church, largely hidden by a
medieval-style curtained trestle stage. The section presented here was the one
drawing most directly upon the Cervantes original. A chorus of children, with
a choric leader and drummer, introduced the action and watched it with
interest from the sidelines. Goran Grgic was excellent as the melancholic
knight, an ideal physical type, with a rich voice and an engaging angular
awkwardness in both movement and posing. The more solid Niksa Butjer
prmided a very effective counterweight as Sancho Panza. The play began with
the famous windmill scene (the windmills conveniently located offstage) and
continued with the taYern scene and the adYenture of the wineskins.
With the appearance of Dulcinea, however, the characters moved
away from Cervantes and into contemporary Dubrovnik. Speculating that
Dulcinea, the most beautiful of women, should be sought in the most
beautiful of cities, the production reveals that city as Dubrovnik itself-a
claim substantiated by an English-speaking producer of what appears to be a
tra,el ftlm, who wanders into the set narrating his film, which seems to include
the current production, and presenting a strong tourist pitch in his narration.
He is followed by three Dubrovnik girls, who come up the stairs into the
square from the city below, possibly having just had dinner in one of the many
outdoor cafes that line the lower streets. \X'ith much laughing and joking, they
select one of their number to step into the play and accept the homage of Don
79
Don Quixote, directed by Ivica KunceYic
80 Slavic and East European Peiformance VoL 26, No. 3
Quixote. From the opposite side of the square, another set of characters move
into the action, a harlequin, devil, angel, cupid, and death figure.
Accompanied by these and inspired by Dulcinea, Don Quixote,
Sancho Panza, and their new allegorical companions, leave their stage world
and move into that of Dulcinea, going down the stairs which she ascended
toward the main part of the town, surrounded by the audience. On these
monumental stairs they encounter other citizens of contemporary Dubrovnik,
a well-to-do couple who invite them to an elegant party at their home in
another part of the city. With the audience following, the production moves to
its third space, a platform high above the main city which represented the
salon where the party was being held. So far the action was generally clear to
the relatively small number of non-Croatian speaking audience members, but
for the largely local audience, a much richer intertextuality was being
developed. Not only did each of the sites recall previous productions, but this
final one specifically recalled a popular staging the previous season of The
Dubrotmik Trilogy in this same space, with characters and situations echoed in
the current Don Quixote. Although this dimension was lost on visiting audience
members, the moving through the city spaces, from the medieval feel of the
opening scene, to the very contemporary closing one, with real fueworks
bursting overhead and the lights of the modern city twinkling on the distant
hills, was nevertheless a fascinating experience.
The other major production of this year's festival was an adaptation
of Aristophanes' The Birds, created by Paolo Magelli, one of Croatia's best-
known and most controversial directors. His production took place in a
wooded hilltop near the old city, a very nice site with a massive stone wall,
some twenty feet high and several hundred feet long, forming the background
to an open area, where a large pit had been dug among the trees with two
elevated walkways in the form of an X allowing actors to moYe above it.
Magelli's reputation and the limited seating meant that the four nights of this
production were sold out long in advance, as was a dress rehearsal that was
opened to the public to help accommodate the demand for tickets. The
ground preparation crew even cut down a few extra trees the morning of the
dress rehearsal in order to expand the seating area but unfortunately did not
inform the director, who had utilized these trees in the production, and had to
spend a frantic few hours before the first performance frenzi edly and
doubtless furiously adjusting the movement to the new space.
81
82

57. dubrovaeke ljetne igre
r;; k rn'.f f-fl \'31
200
Hrvatska Jt il
Festivalski dramski ansambl
Fest1val Drama Ensemble
Zeljka Udovicic, Paolo Magelli & Friends
po motivima Aristofana I cuu;;o mot'VeS of AristopharleS.
Ptice@tocka.hr
TheBirds@dot. hr
Paolo Magelli
redatelj director
Medarevo
20 . 22 .. 23 .. 24. kolovoza ". .. 1 I\IJI1
21.30 'D:;pm
Slavic and East European Peifor!llal/te Vol. 26, No. 3
This did not cause any apparent problems with the staging in general,
although it really did not make a very inspired use of the unusual surroundings.
Again, for non-Croatian speaking audience members when the production
departed from its original, it became quite opaque, especially in the sections
where the chorus spoke at length with little action to suggest the content of
their speeches. Obviously in the site-specific locales favored by the Dubrovnik
festival, the sort of projected translations found at other festivals are
impossible, and simultaneous translation by earphones would present great
difficulties. Nevertheless the programs, which are in Croatian and English,
could surely provide something in the way of a synopsis instead of confining
themselves, as they currently do, to general background information on the
artists and the text.
That said, I must report that speaking the language did not seem to
aid much in the enjoyment of Magelli's The Birds. Croatian-speaking colleagues
seemed unanimously negative about the text, which they found crude, obscene
without humor, and in certain key passages, especially the parabasis and long
concluding chorus unclear and unmotivated. The basic outlines of
Aristophanes were followed. The two Athenians, Makads (Prederag Vusovic)
and Goodhope (Sreten Makrovic), made an impressive entrance, coming from
the other side of a high wire fence that enclosed the area and gaining access
by cutting through the fence with a large pair of bolt cutters. They met
Hoopoe (Nina Volic) and then the birds, who also made a wonderful entrance.
The trees behind the high wall were first illuminated, and then the birds
appeared along the top of the wall. Traditionally the costuming of the birds
provides a spectacular visual element of this play, and there were certainly
plenty of feathers and bright colors, but the overall effect, encouraged by
suggestive and somewhat skimpy dress, was of a not very well funded
burlesque or review chorus, an impression heightened by the rather cliched
sexual poses and movements of the group.
The cameo appearances of the various visitors, human and divine,
who appear in the newly founded city, were on the whole satisfactorily and
amusingly rendered, but the final part of the play went in odd, and at least for
this viewer, inexplicable directions. After the departure of Prometheus and a
typically suggestive dance of the chorus, Makeds appears with a chain saw and
cranks it up with shouts of "Kissinger, Schwarzenager, Bush," apparently as
code words for mindless aggression. He then pursued the fleeing birds, caught
83
The Birds, directed by Paolo Magelli
two of them and threw them into the pit, where, out of sight, he apparently
cut them to pieces (a burst of white feathers signaled this deed). It was perhaps
the most theatrical moment of the production, but its exact purpose was not
dear. The appearance of the divine delegation, with the amusingly inarticulate
Triballan god, restored us to the normal line of the play, but this was followed
by a long un-Aristophanic conclusion, in which the bird chorus, without their
wings, set up chairs facing the audience and (supplemented by the "dead'
birds), apparently nude under a coating of what seems to be mud) pass a
microphone among themselves and make a variety of comments. Since some
of these were quite passionate, I assumed that they were discussing political
matters, perhaps including the kind of crude depictions of women that we had
seen in this production, but Croatian colleagues informed me afterward that
the comments were seemingly random, a collection of personal reminiscences
and general observations, apparently improvised by the individual performers.
They were unanimous in their opinion that the conclusion was both unclear
and uninteresting, I had read a much more relevant meaning into it, and thus
paradoxically experienced a more coherent theatre experience than if I could
understood what was being said. It was an odd sensation indeed.
85
THE DUBROVNIK SUMMER FESTIVAL 2005
Yvonne Shafer
2005 marked the fifty-sixth year of the DubroYnik Summer
Festival and involved the talents of more than 2,000 artists from twenty
countries, including Germany, India, Slovenia, Egypt, and Mexico. More
than 60,000 people attended the performances, which ran throughout July
and August.
Although many countries are involved with the festival, there is a
special relationship between Croatia and nearby Italy. This is eYident in
many aspects of the culture and cuisine in Dubrovnik. This season featured
the revival of Grizula (given the previous year) by the sixteenth-century
Croatian comic playwright Marin Ddic; it was directed by Paolo Magelli,
who also played one of the minor roles. It was a spectacular production
presented by the Festival Drama Ensemble in the Old Hospital's Park. This
was an international production with stage design by Hans Georg Schafer
and production and casting with Croatians. The play was a fantasy with
bizarre costumes, lighting, and theatrical effects. Utilizing an orchestra of
five, the surrealistic visual and acoustical elements utilized the setting of the
park fully. One re,iewer wrote that it was a "magical performance about
two worlds, one on earth, one in the air"-literally in the air, as some of the
performers were in the trees!
Another remarkable setting for productions was Fort Lovrjenac
"'ith its stunning views of the city. High on the hills, a monumental fortress
constructed to protect Dubrovnik against the aggression of Venice, the
architectural wonder is a marvelous space for dramatic productions.
The Fort was the setting for Antigone, Queen in Thebes, by the
contemporary Croatian playwright Tonci Petrasovic Marovic, known for his
postmodern grotesque. Performed by the Festival Drama Ensemble of the
Split Theatre, the play was significantly enhanced by the use of music and
choreography.
The Dubrovnik Festival Drama Ensemble presented Giraudoux's
Ondine and Stravinsky's A Soldier's Tale at the Fort. Staged by Kresimir
DolenCic, Ondine-the tale of a mermaid's love for a mortal-was made
more poignant by the proximity of the sea. Poignant, too, in a city recently
86 Slavic and East Performance Vol. 26, No. 3
embroiled in war v:as Stravinsky's tale of the unfortunate soldier who makes
a pact with the devil and loses. A Soldier's Tale was directed by Dora Ruzdjak-
Podolski to much acclaim.
Cvjjeta ZuzoriC, a quasi fantasy conceived and directed by Matko Sr5en,
was based on the writings and life of the great Renaisance Croatian poetess
C\ijeta Zuzoric (1552-1648). The play was an attempt to reconstruct a poetic
drama by a writer who was known as the "perfect Renaissance woman
involved in an extraordinary poetic love relationship with her friend of equal
learning and value, Mara Gundulic di Gozze." Two famous Croatian actresses
Anja Sovagovic-Despot and Doris Saric-Kukuljica played the leading roles in
this play, which involved "the mystery of love, crime and inspiration." The
setting was one of the most treasured locations in the center of Dubrovnik,
the former Rector's Palace dating to the fifteenth century, now a museum; the
Atrium is used for musical and theatrical eYents.
The Island of Lokrum, a ten-minute ferry ride from Dubrovnik, is
known in myth and legend from the year 1023 in connection with the
founding of a Benedictine abbey and monastery. Awarded many prizes as the
best production of 2004, Equinox (1895) about life in his native Dubrovnik by
lvo Vojnovic (1857-1929) as revived by the Festival Drama Ensemble took
full advantage of the setting. Director Josko Juvancic and set designer Marin
Gozze, according to one critic's account, "transformed the rocky landscape of
the island of Lokrum into a dream setting reviving images of the world that
disappeared a long time ago but still lives in the collecti,e mind of Dubrovnik
residents."
The Revelin Fort Terrace was the location for the performance of a
ballet Yersion of A Streetcar Named Desire by the Croatian National Ballet of
Zagreb. The music by l\fiaden Tarbuk complemented Williams's text and
afforded manelous opportunities for the dancers. Dinko Bogdanic was
praised for his choreography. One reviewer wrote, "The complex and anxious
relationships bet\\:een the characters, both psychological and multiple sexual
ones in particular, are presented in a meticulously elaborated play of
interactive interweaving of the bodies of the excellent dance ensemble."
Another production of the Festival Drama Ensemble was a part of
the four hundredth anniversary of Don Quixote. Theatre and opera houses
throughout the world celebrated this event. lvica Kuncevic, Artistic Director
for the Drama Program of the festival, directed a huge cast of adults and
87
children in this celebration of the exploits of the Spanish Don. Audiences
followed his passage with his faithful Sancho Pansa, "walking from BoskoviC's
Square, down the Jesuit Staircase to the Art School's Park" where the play was
performed.
Plays were performed seemingly in every possible spot in the city.
Each year international stars come to take part in this celebration, but the real
star each year is the city of Dubrovnik. The Natural Theatre Company of
London returned for the opening performance of the festival to join in the
celebration. Full of fun and ready to interact and play games with people on
the streets of the city, the company moved from place to place in their amusing
costumes, creating humor and enjoying the spaces through which they moved.
They were but part of the huge festival which celebrates the heritage of
Dubrovnik, its present beauty, the richness of Croatian talent, and the
international ties that have been created since the festival began fifty-seven
years ago.
CONTRIBUTORS
MARVIN CARLSON is the Sidney E. Cohn Distinguished Professor of
Theatre and Comparative Literature at the Graduate Center of the City
University of New York. His newest book, Speaking in Tongues, was published
in 2006 by the University of Michigan Press.
ARTUR GROBOWSKI is a poet, playwright, and essayist. He is Professor of
Polish and Theory of Literature at Jagiellonian University, Cracow, Poland .
.NIARIA IGNATIEVA is Associate Professor in Theatre at Ohio State
University at Lima. She is a specialist in Russian theatre and has lectured and
presented papers in Australia, Canada, Finland, the Netherlands, Poland,
England, and Germany. Her recent publications deal with the actresses of the
Moscow Art Theatre and their work with Stanislavsky. In 2004 Ignatieva
received a Coca-Cola Grant-"Critical Difference for \X'omen."
DRAGAN KLAIC, a theater scholar and cultural analyst, is a Permanent
Fellow of Felix Meritis in Amsterdam. He teaches arts and cultural policy at
the Leiden University and chairs the European Festival Research Project
Consortium. He is the author of several books, most recently E urope as a
Cultural Prqject (Amsterdam: ECF, 2005). He is also a contributing editor of
Theater (Yale).
DASHA KRIJANSKAIA is Assistant Professor of Theatre and Drama at
Roosevelt Academy/Utrecht University (The Netherlands). She is a member
of the European Festival Research Project and the founding chief editor of
the journal IEATR Russian Theatre Past and Present (2002-2005). Her research
interests include contemporary East European theatre, modernist theatre in
Russia and Europe, new Russian drama, twentieth-century directing, as well as
the European festival circuit. She has contributed as a freelance writer to a
number of publications, both in the USA, UK, and Russia.
89
ANNA MULLER is a Ph.D. student at Indiana University, Bloomington. She
holds a Master of Arts in History from the University of Gdansk, Poland. Her
dissertation research focuses on women's invohement in the anti-Stalinist
resistance of Eastern Europe.
YVONNE SHAFER is Professor Emerita, St. John's University, New York.
She is the author of American Women Plqywrights, 1900-1950; August Wilson: A
Research and Production Sourcebook; Henrik Ibsen: Life, Work, and Criticism; and
many articles and reviews
Photo Credits
Bim-Bom
Tadeusz Chrzanowski
BLACKland
Sterijino Pozorje Festival
Peasant Opera
Sterijino Pozorji Festival
Ha{f-life
Sterijino Pozorji Festival
Tango
Chopin Theatre
Waiting for Godot
Sibiu International Theatre Festival
The Banquet
Frame Games
Such Stuff as We Are Made Of
:;.,; 3
Don Quixote
Dubrovnik Summer Festival of Music and Theatre
The Birds
Dubrovnik Summer Festival of Music and Theatre
91
MARTIN E. SEGAL THEATRE CENTER PUBLICATIONS
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Comedy:
A Bibliography
Editor
Meghan DuffY
Senior Editor
Daniel Gerould
Initiated by
Stuart Baker, Michael Early,
& David Nicolson
This bibliography is intended for scholars,
teachers, students, artists, and general
readers interested in the theory and
practice of comedy. It is a concise
bibliography, focusing exclusively on
drama, theatre, and performance, and
includes only published works written
in English or appearing in English
translation.
Comedy is designed to supplement older, existing bibliographies by including new areas
of research in the theory and practice of comedy and by listing the large number of new
studies that have appeared in the past quarter of a century.
USA $10.00 plus shipping $3.00 USA, $6.00 International
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The Arab Oedipus:
THE ARAB OEDIPUS
FOUR PLAYS
Four Plays
Editor
Marvin Carlson
Translators
Marvin Carlson
Dalia Basiouny
William Maynard Hutchins
Pierre Cachia
Desmond O'Grady
Admer Gouryh
With Introductions By:
Marvin Carlson, Tawfiq AI-Hakim,
& Dalia Basiouny
This volume contains four plays based on the
Oedipus legend by four leading dramatists of the
Arab world: Tawfiq Al-Hakim's King Oedipus, Ali
Ahmad Bakathir's The Tragedy of Oedipus, Ali
Salim's The Comedy of Oedipus, and Walid
Ikhlasi's Oedipus.
The volume also includes Al-Hakim's preface to his Oedipus, on the subject of Arabic tragedy, a
preface on translating Bakathir by Dalia Basiouny, and a general introduction by Marvin Carlson.
An awareness of the rich tradition of modem Arabic theatre has only recently begun to be felt by the
Western theatre community, and we hope that this collection will contribute to that awareness.
Martin E. Segal Theatre Center.
Circulation Manager
365 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10016-4309
Visit our web-site at: web.gc.cuny.edu/ mestc/
Witkiewicz: Seven Plays
Translated and Edited
by Daniel Gerould
This volume contains seven of
Witkiewicz's most important
plays: The Pragmatists, Tumor
Brainiowicz, Gyubal Wahazar,
The Anonymous Work, The
Cuttlefish, Dainty Shapes and
Hairy Apes, and The Beelzebub
Sonata, as well as two of his
theoretical essays, "Theoretical
Introduction" and "A Few Words
about the Role of the Actor in the
Theatre of Pure Form."
Witkiewicz . . . takes up and
continues the vein of dream and
grotesque fantasy exemplified by
the late Strindberg or by
Wedekind; his ideas are closely paralleled by those of the surrealists and
Antonin Artaud which culminated in the masterpeices of the dramatists of the
absurd- Beckett, Ionesco, Genet, Arrabal- of the late nineteen forties and the
nineteen fifties. It is high time that this major playwright should become better
known in the English-speaking world.
Martin Esslin
USA $20.00 PLUS SHIPPING $3.00 USA, $6.00 International
Circulation Manager
365 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10016-4309
Visit our web-site at: web.gc.cuny.edu/mestc/
THE HEIRS OF
MOLIERE
FOUR FRENCH COMEDIES OF THE
17rtt AND 18rH CENTURIES
@ Reg.,ard: TheAhoent-Minded Lover
@ De.touches: The Conceited Count
L. Cbo.-e..: The FASiuon..hle Prejucllce
@ L.IJ"'TheFnendoltheL.""
TRANSLATED AND EDITED BY
MARVIN CARLSON
The Heirs of
Moliere
Translated and Edited by:
Marvin Carlson
This volume contains four
representative French comedies of
the period from the death of Moliere
to the French Revolution: Regnard' s
The Absent-Minded Lover,
Destouches's The Conceited Count,
La Chaussee's The Fashionable
Prejudice, and Laya's The Friend of
the Laws.
Translated in a poetic form that
seeks to capture the wit and spirit of
the originals, these four plays
suggest something of the range of
the Moliere inheritance, from
comedy of character through the
highly popular sentimental comedy
of the mid eighteenth century, to
comedy that employs the Moliere
tradition for more contemporary
political ends.
In addition to their humor, these comedies provide fascinating social documents that
show changing ideas about such perennial social concerns as class, gender, and
politics through the turbulent century that ended in the revolutions that gave birth to
the modem era.
Circulation Manager
365 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10016-4309
Visit our web-site at: web.gc.cuny.edu/mestd
CHRISTOPitER. COLUHIIUS
THE Doc OF MONT ... RGIS
0 '"0 EDIT 0 IIY
Dlol"lfl G & MARVI!Io CARL 0"
Pixerecourt:
Four Melodramas
Translated and Edited by:
Daniel Gerould
&
Marvin Carlson
This volume contains four of
Pixerecourt's most important
melodramas: The Ruins of Babylon,
or Jafar and Zaida, The Dog of
Montatgis, or The Forest of Bondy,
Christopher Columbus, or The
Discovery of the New World, and
Alice, or The Scottish Gravediggers,
as well as Charles Nodier's
"Introduction" to the 1843 Collected
Edition of Pixerecourt' s plays and
the two theoretical essays by the
playwright, "Melodrama," and
"Final Reflections on Melodrama. "
"Pixen!court furnished the Theatre of Marvels with its most stunning effects, and
brought the classic situations of fairground comedy up-to-date. He determined the
structure of a popular theatre which was to last through the 19th century ...
Pixerecourt determined that scenery, music, dance, lighting and the very movements
of his actors should no longer be left to chance but made integral parts of his play."
Hannah Winter, The Theatre of Marvels
Circulation Manager
365 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10016-4309
Visit our web-site at: web.gc.cuny.edu!mestd

SEEP Vol.26 No.3 Fall 2006

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SEEP Vol.26 No.3 Fall 2006

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volume 26, no.

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