seep vol.11 no.2 summer 1991

Volume eleven, no 2

summer 1991

soviet and

east european

performance drama

theatre

film 7

SEEP (ISSN # 1047-0018) is a publication of the Institute for Contemporary Eastern European Drama and Theatre under the auspices of the Center for Advanced Study in Theatre Arts (CASTA), Graduate Center, City University of New York. The Institute Office is Room 1206A, City University Graduate Center, 33 West 42nd Street, New York, NY 10036. All subscription requests and submissions should be addressed to the Editors of SEEP: Daniel Gerould and Alma Law, CASTA, Theatre Program, City University Graduate Center, 33 West 42nd Street, New York, NY 10036.

EDITORS Daniel Gerould Alma law

ASSOCIATE EDITOR Edward Dee

ADVISORY BOARD Edwin Wilson, Chairman Marvin Carlson Leo Hecht Martha W. Coigney

CASTA EDITORIAL ASSISTANT Richard Brad Medoff

CASTA Publications are supported by generous grants from the Lucille Lortel Chair in Theatre and the Sidney E. Cohn Chair in Theatre Studies in the Ph.D. Program in Theatre at the City University of New York.

Copyright 1991 CAST A

SEEP has a very liberal reprinting policy. Journals and newsletters which desire to reproduce articles, reviews, and other materials which have appeared in SEEP may do so, as long as the following provisions are met:

a. Permission to reprint must be requested from SEEP in writing before the fact.

b. Credit to SEEP must be given in the reprint.

c. Two copies of the publication in which the reprinted material has appeared must be furnished to the Editor of SEEP immediately upon publication.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Editorial Policy .................................... _ ................................................. 4

From the Editors .................................................................................... 5

Events .................................................................................................... 6

"Kantor's Marionettes: Taking It Personally" Agnieszka Per1inska ...................................... ...................................... 11

"Soviet and American Scholars Gather at Harvard Theatre Collection" Michael Yurieff .............................................................................. ....... 19

PAGES FROM THE PAST

"Russian Drama and Performance in the United States Prior to the Arrival of the Moscow Art Theatre in 1923" compiled by Laurence Senelick ............................................ 22

REVIEWS

"Three Soviet Suicides" John Freedman ......................................... ................ ............. 37

"Diary of a Madman by Nikolai Gogol Prop Theatre, Chicago• Jeff Stephens ......................................................................... 46

"The Lenigrad Leteiny Theatre's Lolita: A Review" Shir1ey Burke ...................................................................... .... 49

"Blue Nights of the K.G.B. • Edward Dee ................................................. ................ .......... 51

Contributors ................................................ ............. ............................ 54

Playscripts in Translation Series ......................................................... 55

Subscription Policy ..................................................................... ........ 57

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EDITORIAL POLICY

Manuscripts in the following categories are solicited: articles of no more than 2,500 words, performance and film reviews, and bibliographies. Please bear in mind that all of submissions must concern themselves either with contemporary materials on Soviet and East European theatre , drama and film , or with new approaches to older materials in recently published works, or new performances of older plays. In other words, we welcome submissions reviewing innovative performances of Gogol but we cannot use original articles discussing Gogol as a playwright.

Although we welcome translations of articles and reviews from foreign publications, we do require copyright release statements.

We will also gladly publish announcements of special events and anything else which may be of interest to our discipline. All submissions are refereed.

All submissions must be typed double-spaced and carefully proofread. The Chicago Manual of Style should be followed. Transliterations should follow the Library of Congress system. Submissions will be evaluated, and authors will be notified after approximately four weeks.

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FROM THE EDITORS

The Spring issue for 1991 continues our tribute to Tadeusz

Kantor with a feature article by Agnieszka Perlinska about how

Kantor actually worked in the theatre. In June Cricot II has been pre

senting The Dead Class and Today Is My Birthday at La MaMa as

part of the New York Theatre Festival. The rest of the issue Is

devoted to reviews and reports on recent theatrical events here and

abroad. Providing such Information is the central function of our

journal, and we encourage readers to send us such articles. The

concluding Pages from the Past. an occasional feature of SEEP, is a

chronicle of Russian drama and performance In the United States,

1895 to 1923, compiled by Laurence Senelick.

Daniel Gerould and Alma Law

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EVENTS

FESTIVALS

Foreign

From June 27 to July 14 at the Theater der Welt being held this year in Essen, Germany, there will be performances by two Yugoslav companies and a Soviet company. From Yugoslavia the Theatre Mladinskol offers Zenit, and Das Albanisches Drama Theatre presents The Mysterious Yarn-Spinning Bee. The Omsk State Academic Drama Theatre is bringing Dostoevsky's The Insulted and the Injured.

At the London International Festival of Theatre running from June 29 to July 21, the following Eastern European plays are being offered: The Maly Theatre of Leningrad will be presenting Brothers and Sisters (see review SEEP vol. 9, nos. 2 and 3, fall 1989, page 55) and Gaudeamus; Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream by the Comedy Theatre of Bucharest, Romania, directed by Alex Darie; and Poland's Kalina Theatre's production of Welcome to Poland by Jerzy Kalina.

On August 5 and 8, the Russian company Litsedei will present Catastrophe and Assissai as part of the Festival International du Mime de Perigueux in France.

This fall BITEF (the Belgrade International Theatre Festival) will celebrate its 25th anniversary. The program, entitled "Theatre Summit 91," runs from September 19 to 30, and will bring to Belgrade, Yugoslavia ten theatres from ten different countries, including both veterans of former festivals as well as first-timers.

This year'sfestival will open with Moscow director Roman Viktiuk's highly theatricalized interpretation of David Hwang's M. Butterfly. Among this year's other offerings are the Taganka Theatre's production of Pushkin's Boris Godunov directed by Yuri Lyubimov. From Lyon, France will come La Cite Cornue, written and directed by Wladislaw Znorko; from Stockholm, the Royal Dramatic Theatre of Sweden with Lars Noren's Autumn and Winter directed by Brigitte Ornstein; and from Brussels, a new production entitled, Always the Same Lies, conceived and directed by Wim Vandekeybus.

Shakespeare will be represented by two productions: Andrzej Wajda's Hamlet IV from the Stary Theatre In Krak6w; and another Hamlet from the National Theatre in Maribor, Yugoslavia, directed by Tomaz Pandur.

6 Soviet and East European Performance Vol. 11, No. 2

As part of BITEF's program for this anniversary year, on the weekend of September 21-22 there will be an international symposium dedicated to a discussion of theatrical performance past and future. Among the invited panelists are Ellen Stewart, Richard Schachner, Robert Wilson, Eugenio Barba, Nurid Espert plus representatives yet to be designated from Germany, Italy, the Soviet Union and Poland.

The YU Theatre Marathon, a two day showing of significant Yugoslav theatr productions from the past season, will also run the weekend of September 21-22.

Additional information about the Festival can be obtained by writing Iovan Cirilov, Artistic Director, BITEF, Terazige 29, 11000 Belgrade, Yugoslavia, or by contacting Ms. Baca Vuco, Producing Director, cj o The Acting Company, 420 West 42 Street, New York, NY 10036, tel. (212) 564-3510.

United States

From June 8 to 23 the second New York International Festival of the Arts, with dance, theatre, music, and multi-media events, will be held throughout New York City. The State Theatre of Lithuania at the Joyce Theatre will perform two productions by director Eimuntas Nekro~ius: Chekhov's Uncle Vanya and The Square, a modern political parable. From Yugoslavia, the Open Stage Obala offers Mladen Materits Tatoo Theatre which won a Fringe First award at the Edinburgh Festival. The Cathedral of St. John the Divine will present Gulanye, groups of dancers, singers, and musicians recreating the spirit of Old Russia. Featured performers include a folk dance group from the village of Plechovo, a polyphonic folklore chorus of Old Believers and a collective of specialists in Cossack songs and dances.

Among the highlights of the Festival will be the Cricot 2 Theatre, presenting the U. S. premiere of Tadeusz Kantor's last work, Today Is My Birthday and a revival of The Dead Class at La MaMa E.T.C. The performances which were arranged before Kantor's death ear1ier this year, will now be a tribute in his memory.

llkhom from the U.S.S.R. will be performing Clomadeus at the International Clown-Theatre Congress from June 24-28 in Philadelphia. They will also be onstage at the New York International Festival of the Arts from June 8 to 23.

The Moscow-based Tovarishchestvo of Actors and Musicians will show Tverboul, a depiction of life on Moscow's Tverskoi Boulevard with folk and contemporary music, at the Sixth

7

International Theatre Festival at Stony Brook University in New York from June 14 to July 28.

CURRENT AND UPCOMING PRODUCTIONS

The Phoenix Ensemble in New York will perform a collection of short plays by Joe Pintauro at GITIS in Moscow in mid-June. In return, a troupe from GITIS under the direction of Sergei lsaev will perform three one-act plays under the heading "Funny and Sad Stories" from the end of September through the beginning of October. The plays are based on three stories from Russian literature: The Barber by Chekhov, The Twelve Chairs, based on llf and Petrov's story, and The Dragon, based on a story by Shukshin. The performances will be held at the theatre of Hunter College in Manhattan.

The New York Metropolitan Opera is presenting the Bolshoi Opera from June 25 to July 6. The Bolshoi will perform the wor1d premiere of a new production of Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin, as well as the American stage premiere of his Maid of Orleans. They will also offer the centennial production of Rimsky-Korsakov's Mlada featuring the Bolshoi Ballet.

A special project of the 1991 National Playwrights Conference, held annually at the Eugene O'Neill Theatre Center in Connecticut will be the development of a translation of Aleksei Khlapovsky's play Russian Melancholy.

NOTES OF PAST PRODUCTIONS

During March and April, the UConn Nutmeg Theatre presented Vaclav Havel's The Memorandum in a new translation by Marie Winn, directed by Jerry Rojo.

In March, the BACA Downtown Theatre in New York presented Romanian emigre Oana-Maria Hock's new play, The Almond Seller, directed by Tina Landau. The play recounts the story of a Romanian emigre journalist who returns to do a photographic essay of free Romania, and how she has become an outsider.

The New York State Theatre Institute in Albany presented Vasilisa the Fair with book by Sofia Prokofieva and Irina Tokmakova: translated by Sabina Modzhalevskaya and Harlow Robinson; adapted by Adrian Mitchell; music by Alia Lander, and directed by Patricia Snyder from May 6 to 26.


At the Istanbul International Theatre Festival in Turkey, the Rustaveli Theatre of the U.S.S.R. presented Brecht's Caucasian Chalk Circle from May 18 to June 3.

The Jean Cocteau Repertory at the Bouwrie Lane Theatre presented ~womir Mroiek's The Emigrants from May 23 to June 2.

The Dead Class by Tadeusz Kantor was performed by his Cricot 2 Theatre at the Festival de Theatre des Ameriques in Montreal from June 3-8.

As part of the Vienna Festival from June 5-7, Tadeusz R6i:ewicz's The Trap was presented In German, directed by Jerzy Grzegorzewski.

An American play, A Chekhov Concert, created, directed and performed by Sharon Gans and Jordan Charney was performed this spring in New York. It will also be performed later this year at the Moscow Art Theatre, as well as the "Sovremennik" and Chekhov State Theatre, also in Moscow; the St. Petersburg Salon Theatre in Leningrad; the Georgian Film Actors' Studio Theatre in Tblisi, and at the State Theatre Academy for a conference of cultural ministers in Krak6w.

FILM

This year's Cannes Film Festival, from May 10 to 20 had numerous Eastern European connections. The president of this year's jury was noted Polish director, Roman Polanski, who had just returned from what he described as a "very difficult" experience, acting in a Soviet film. Another judge was Soviet actress Natalya Negoda, best known for Little Vera. Two Soviet films were in competition, Karen Chakhnazarov's meditation on regicide, Assassin of the Czar, with Malcolm McDowell and Oleg Yankovsky, and Anna Karamzova , directed by Roustam Khamdamov and starring Jeanne Moreau.

From East Europe came a joint French-Polish production of Krzysztof Kieslowski's The Double Life of Veronica starring the French actress Irene Jacob, who was voted Best Actress. The Palme d'or for best short film went to Polish director Mitko Panov for his film, With Hands in the Air.

The organization, Human Rights Watch, presented a weeklong Human Rights Film Festival at the Angelika Film Center in New York City during May. The Festival screened 36 films, 15 of them

9

U.S. or New York premieres. Among the films from East Europe were The Interrogation starring Krystyna Janda, winner of the 1990 Cannes Film Festival award for Best Actress. From Poland came Agnieszka Holland's Europa, Europa about a Polish-Jewish boy durIng World War II . Bulgarian refugee Kalina Ivanov presented The Longest Shadow about her return to Bulgaria in 1990 to discover the fate of both her grandfathers who had been arrested in 1951. The Soviet Union was represented with Homecoming, Tatyana Chubakova's film about Soviet soldiers returning from Afghanistan.

As part of its New Directors/New Films series, the Museum of Modern Art in New York presented the Czechoslovak film The Time of the Servants written and directed by Irene Pavlaskova.

CONFERENCES, LECTURES AND EXHIBITIONS

From May 2 to 4, the University of Ottawa held an international symposium entitled "Slavic Drama: The Question of Innovation." Among the sessions was a Playwrights' Forum with Zoran Bozhovich of Yugoslavia, Una Kostenko from Ukraine and Tadeusz R6iewicz of Poland.

This spring the Hayward Gallery in London, in cooperation with a number of Soviet art galleries presented an exhibition titled "The Twilight of the Czars" dealing with the period from 1861 to the Revolution In 1917. Accompanying the many exhibits were 14 hours of silent films including Merchant Bashkirov's Daughter.

NEWS

On May 15, the one hundredth anniversary of the birth of novelist and playwright Mikhail Bulgakov (The Master and Margarita, Zoya's Apartment, Heart of A Dog, The Day of the Turbins), the Soviet government granted him full birthday honors, the country's highest literary accolade.

Jerzy Grotowski, Polish director and theatrical experimenter (see article by Jan Kott, SEEP, vol. 9, nos 2 & 3, pp. 20-24) has received a grant by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. These non-conditional grants are commonly known as the "genius awards".

prepared by Edward Dee

10 Soviet and East European Performance Vol. 11 , No. 2

KANTOR'S MARIONETTES: TAKING IT PERSONALLY

Agnieszka Perlil1ska

The First New York International Festival of the Arts in 1988. A hot June evening. Standing on a dark stage among his nervous actors and the troubled La MaMa staff, Tadeusz Kantor stages one of his infamous awanturas, or fits of anger, half an hour before the performance. The temperature in the small auditorium, already high after a day of unbearable heat, steadily rises. Wildly gesturing, screaming in both Polish and French, Kantor accuses the theatre personnel of not providing decent working conditions for his actors. Translation becomes a difficult task bordering on diplomacy. Kantor demands immediate action. That New York City has been hit by a heat wave resulting in power failures and that everyone suffers from a service shortage is dismissed as an unacceptable explanation.

The exchange becomes more heated as some of the actors back the director, asserting that they cannot perform in a room without any ventilation. It's like adding fuel to the fire. "How can you say such a thing?" Kantor explodes. "How can you even think of not performing?" Yet the real climax comes only after news that some of the audience has left. In the confusion, it had been announced that the show was canceled due to the heat. "I never said that we would not perform," the Polish director furiously shouts. "Cricot 2 is a great theatre! We will suffocate and die, but we will not cancel the show! We will perform even if there are only three people in the audience! Let's go!"

The performance begins. Andrzej Welminski, playing the part of the innkeeper, turns to the audience. Instead of his usual opening line: "A wonderful evening," he devilishly announces: "A hot evening!" Everybody laughs at the "inside" joke.

The entire evening becomes an artistic manifesto, exposing the director's relationship with his actors in all its complexity, and capturing the intricate ways in which Kantor's life intertwines with his art. No one questions who is in charge. Yet the evening also proves that Kantor's angry voice, still resonating in the room, simultaneously confirms his supreme authority and reveals his extreme vulnerability.

This performance of I Shall Never Return confirmed what I witnessed every day while working as Kantor's interpreter and translator. For a man who calls his productions "personal confessions," life and art merge on stage and off. Every event, every aspect of life is a deeply personal matter with an immediate impact on the integrity of the artistic work. In such an unequivocal, almost painful, commitment to art the stakes are always high, and everything, particularly the actors, must be subordinated to the directorial concept. Yet, the

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actors are not merely Kantor's phantoms, not merely the embodiment of his dreams, memories or fears, but also vibrant and creative forces, so well captured by Wehninski's improvisatory flair.

The performance progresses under the scrutiny of the observant ever-present Kantor. More things go wrong. Literally, the heat is not meant to subside this evening. At the end of one scene, the burning wick of a candle falls to the floor. Noticing it, Kantor nervously gestures to the innkeeper to put it out. Without losing his composure, Welminski walks to the burning wick, and energetically stamps it out. He then comes up to Kantor, sitting behind a table, and declares: "Pyromaniacs!" The audience roars with laughter. The scene manifests the dynamic interplay between the director and his actors, showing how dependent and independent Kantor's actors really are.

Many of the director's metaphorical formulations acquire surprising reality during the evening. According to Kantor, for a great actor, coming out on stage Is like coming out for an execution. Since the director is equally responsible for the performance, Kantor feels he also must come out for an execution. He does not consider his presence on stage a performance; he sees himself more a victim than a director. Kantor insists that he only makes a few signs from time to time. The actors, he claims, build the performance with him; he says he gives them their life, and they give him their in return.

Not surprisingly, the actors revolt against Kantor during the show. "That's him! That's him!" they shout excitedly as if recognizing their worst enemy. They come together, curse him, shake their fists, and finally execute him, shooting him with an oldfashioned camera turned machine gun. In the final scene, however, it is the actors who are buried under the black shrouds of a selfdestructive civilization, an image evoked by Kantor in universal, yet deeply personal terms.

Born during the first world war and reaching manhood in the second, Kantor acquired military jargon. He describes his theatre as a battle map, the company as his headquarters and his army, a performance as an attack, and rehearsals as a review of soldiers ready for the attack. This vision materializes in the production as a hauntingly recurring parade of silver-gray soldiers, all playing violins and marching in sync across the stage. Kantor's attack, as the director confessed, Is aimed against mass culture, mass wars, and mass suffering. Kantor pits an individual's single, weak, yet beautiful life against totalitarianism, emphasizing what is universal in that Individual life.

Just as the individual becomes part of the universal, the figure of the lone actor merges into a collection of vagabond artists. Dressed in black, white or gray, and leveled out by the grayish-white make-up of Kantor's own invention, all the actors seemingly lose their

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individuality. Just as an individual opposes the bigger powers, the actors become the anonymous heroes of each performance.

Kantor starts work on a new show by first jotting down the main ideas and situations. Then he develops them into sketches. Yet the text is not shaped fully until his work with the actors begins. He lets them say the lines and try out new variations. Much depends on their individual personalities. Music and props are incorporated into the performance from the very first rehearsal. Kantor shapes the production by manipulating all the elements and gradually stripping down all the layers. He strips everything down: costumes, props, set pieces. Even music is left only in fragments. The actors often complain: "We are tired of wearing the same old rags on stage, we want to look good for a change!" "All right," Kantor responds, "this time I will dress you up, you'll all look very elegant.· But when he begins work, the same thing happens again.

As the rehearsals proceed, little by little Kantor strips the beautiful costumes until nothing but rags are left. "Tear that sleeve off, rip the skirt on the side, smudge up this coat,· he commands. Kantor always wants to show a reality of the lowest kind, believing that a thing of the lower kind arouses sympathy and has a stronger appeal to our humanity. An ordinary table, for example, does not mean anything. A table that is stripped has a more powerful meaning. In Kantor's theatre, an actor is not so much tied to things as etched into them. A thing has the same meaning as an actor, and together they form reality of the lowest kind, they partake in, as well as create, Kantor's disturbing visions.

An intimate, but distant relationship develops between the actors and Kantor. There seem to be no boundaries that could not be crossed. 'They know me very well. And I know them; I'm a good psychologist. I know all their weaknesses, pains and deviations. It is very important because only out of human weakness can a truly great piece of art be created." On the other hand, there is always a sense of distance off stage. Very few of the actors are on a first name basis with Kantor; the majority address him as "Maestro" or "Professor".

When asked about what he required in an actor, Kantor answers: an ability to concentrate, a sense of humor, a tendency toward exhibitionism, and an awareness of the relativity of life. Kantor never holds any formal auditions in his theatre. He does not like to work with professionally trained actors, repeatedly stressing that acting as such disgusts him. He claims that his actors never play parts but only play themselves. Except for one professionally trained actress, the group represents a variety of professions. One is a Professor of Art at Warsaw University, another a painter, a third and engineer. Some are, so to speak, picked up from the street. Ever observant, Kantor would notice someone who fit his current needs. That person

15

would then be approached and asked to participate in the rehearsal. "The encounter in theatre is like an encounter in love,· Kantor

explained. "An actor and the ensemble must meet as lovers do." A love affair at first, but later more and more like marriage. The actors joke that once somebody comes into Cricot 2, they never leave. A graphic designer who came to make posters, for example, was gradually incorporated Into the acting ensemble. This process is inevitable and unnoticeable. Kantor likes to involve everyone in the performance, especially while touring. For example, the official Polish manager who travels with the group would, after running around doing business all day, change into a costume each evening and perform the part of a soldier along with the ensemble.

The same actors participate in Kantor's theatre for decades. They not only perform; they live their lives there. "See the older woman with the big suitcases," the company doctor points out to me during a rehearsal. "She used to be the gir1 in the cage in the cabaret costume. Her husband was also one of Kantor's actors, the main figure in The Dead Class. He died a few years ago. That's why Kantor is so apprehensive about staging The Dead Class again. He can't see recreating it without that actor. •

We are sitting in the La MaMa auditorium the day before the opening. Everybody is nervous as rumor spreads that Kantor is in a particular1y bad mood. The rehearsal begins with the sound test: the water dripping at the beginning of the show. Kantor is very particular. He explains what he wants to the sound technician: the sound should be louder at the beginning and then gradually fade away. The scene starts. The sound is too loud. Kantor immediately interrupts. The attempt is repeated. Kantor screams again. As he curses out the technician with a vengeance, the effect Is surprisingly comic. The vulgar words notwithstanding, the director uses a very formal mode of address. Finally the volume is adjusted and the scene continues.

Kantor sits on the side for a while, calmly observing the action. With a cigarette In his mouth, he starts walking around the actors, prompting them with small gestures. The sound and movement are to go together. Kantor steps back to gain some distance. He concentrates on a scene in which all the characters rush through a door and, as they fill the stage, talk in turns. Kantor gets annoyed. "What happens on stage is chaotic and senseless," he explodes. The point of the scene is for each speaking person to take the limelight for a few seconds. As one actor talks the others are to turn to him, stop whatever they are doing, and freeze. "Respect the other person," Kantor demands, "notice the other actor, move closer." The director begins to demonstrate. The actors start again. But It Is no good. Kantor sends them all back like naughty children. As they reemerge, the focus still lacks sharpness. Kantor interrupts with a series of insults--unusual for their inventiveness and original plasticity


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of language. Nobody appreciates the humor. In this climate of extreme tension, Kantor seems driven to despair.

The director's obsessive desire for absolute precision only escalates in the next scene. An actor. speaking at a podium assembled out of two chairs, is to step down backward, while continuing to deliver his speech. As he retreats further into the background, his voice is to get lower and lower. In the end, the actor is to back into an open door without glancing over his shoulder. Afraid of running into the wall , the actor stiffens up. Slight shifting his eyes toward the wall, the actor moves backward, trying not to upset the director. Kantor Is furious, making the actor repeat the scene several times. Under such pressure the actor simply fell apart. Kantor reacts to the failure of the actors to execute his directorial conceptions as a personal insult. His anger is indistinguishable from his love for the work.

The literal tension underlying Kantor's performances equals the artistic tension underlying the production's frightening images. As Roger Planchon, the French director puts it, Tadeusz Kantor is "an authoritative, outrageous and despotic poseur. a skillful magician of ruins. He stamps his foot, makes a wry face, and with tenderness. kindness and humility, he organizes, fixes, and rearranges the circle of his inert mannequins.·

One year later, I was struck by this interplay at a performance of I Shall Never Return in Paris. The director's last emballage in the production--a coffin--had been replaced by an actress, who like a wax figure of eerie beauty became the symbol of Kantor's actor: a thing and a being, a marionette and a woman, uniting the realms of the animate and inanimate, of the living and the dead.

In the New York Times review of I Shall Never Return, Frank Rich concluded that "It can't be easy being Tadeusz Kantor, at once blessed and cursed with the ability to dream the nightmares of our century.· By the same token, it cannot be easy to be Kantor's actors. at once blessed and cursed with the privilege to enact those dreams and nightmares. Entangled in the unique interplay of life and art. caught between the most intimate and most universal theatrical visions of the twentieth century, they are the faithful lovers who carry out Kantor's work even after he is gone.


SOVIET AND AMERICAN SCHOLARS GATHER AT HARVARD THEATRE COLLECTION

Michael Yurieff

In the aftermath of the October revolution, two culturally creative Russias were formed--Soviet and emigre. Though each developed on its own, their relationship constitutes a fascinating chapter in twentieth century Russian culture. From February 13-16 at the Harvard Theatre Collection, a handful of American and Soviet scholars began writing a portion of this chapter in a symposium on Russian emigre theatre.

Sponsored by the International Research and Exchanges Board, the symposium offered a wide range of lectures and presentations that showed how Russian theatrical culture continued and developed in emigration, becoming part of world culture. The Harvard Theatre Collection's holdings, capturing a part of this legacy, made it a fitting site for the discussions.

The four-day symposium, skillfully moderated by Tufts Drama Professor Laurence Senelick, brought to light the need to share materials from here and abroad to get a more complete picture of Russian theatre and the fate of some of its practitioners. Curator Jeanne Newlin of the Harvard Theatre Collection began this process by detailing the Henry W. L. Dana Russian theatre collection and their holdings on Fyodor Komissarzhevsky, Nikolai Roerich, and Sergei Sudekin for the Soviet guests.

American and Soviet delegates alike discussed the impact of the emigres on their host cultures, the impact of the host cultures on the emigres and the effects of the cultural divide on those left behind. In an articulate and thought-provoking summation of the conference's proceedings, Senelick cited some of the key themes raised: trauma, crisis, opportunity, adaptation, nostalgia, the redefining of oneself, a longing for a past that was far from idyllic, and the emigre artist as a cultural mediator who at times dilutes the original work to fit the new context.

Several biographies and chronologies illustrated these themes. Mary Hunter-Wolf, founder of the American Actors' Company, detailed her study of acting with Andrias Jilinsky. Senelick gave a thorough account of Pavel Orlenev and Alia Nazimova's American tour. Svetlana Kurach, a graduate student at GITIS, presented her research on Michael Chekhov's final season before leaving the Soviet Union, a narrative continued on this side of the Atlantic by Deirdre Hurst du Prey, a teacher at the Michael Chekhov Studio, who had worked closely with him until his death in 1955. Sergei Ostrovsky, a Soviet exchange student at Tufts, gave valuable factual data on Maria Germanova in London and the Prague followers of the

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Moscow Art Theatre. Alma law, co-director of the Institute for Soviet and East European Theatre, captivated both delegations with her lecture and slide presentation on Nikita Baliev and the emigre cabaret of the 1920s.

Throughout the symposium, a picture of emigres' lives and their influence on actors, designers, critics, audiences, directors, teachers, and scholars began to emerge. That Stanislavsky's techniques were absorbed into the new culture through his writings and students is well known. Less known is the material presented by Sharon Carnicke, Associate Professor of Theatre at USC, who talked about Richard Boleslavsky, one of Stanislavsky's first spokesmen in America, and the problems with the translation of Stanislavsky's writings and terminology Into English.

The Soviet delegates' research gave insight Into a seminal event in American theatre, the 1922-23 tour of the Moscow Art Theatre. Elena Pollakova, the Chief Collaborator of the Theatre Section of the Moscow Scientific Research Institute, discussed the Moscow Art Theatre's repertoire during Its tours abroad and Anatoly Smelyansky, General Secretary of the U.S.S.R. Union of Theatre Workers, Vice Rector of the Moscow Art Theatre Studio School, and Chief Editor of a new edition of Stanislavsky's Collected Works, offered the delegates and observers glimpses Into the unpublished writings of Stanislavsky. Using Stanislavsky and NemirovichDanchenko's transatlantic communiques, Smelyansky documented their complex relationship, MXAT's financial difficulties, and the intricate political and social context at the time of the tour. On a lighter note, Smelyansky noted Stanislavsky's adaptation to what he thought were the customs of the culture, Including a compulsion to eat all of the boxes of bad chocolates given to him, so as not to offend American admirers. The Russian perspective on the tour also yielded another significant fact: MXAT experienced almost nolanguage barrier In the United States since they played to largely Russian-speaking audiences. This insight helps account for the overwhelmingly favorable response of American audiences.

With the political situation now allowing for a freer exchange of delegates and materials, theatre historians can better piece together the biographies of emigre artists and trace their contribution to world culture. Such an exchange of views also allows for new interpretations of the emigres and their work as in Vladislav Ivanov's "Michael Chekhov and Russian Existentialism," Brown University Theatre Professor Spencer Golub's dense analysis of Nikolai Evreinov's work In emigration, and English theatre specialist Aleksei Bartoshevich's discussion of Komissarzhevsky's Shakespearean productions, which foreshadowed Peter Brook's work. Question and answer sessions expanded on this exchange of views and the range of topics. Bartoshevich broke new ground by asking to what culture


Peter Brook (whose parents were Russian emigres) belongs--French, English, American, or Russian? Emigre culture, he says, is world culture in the twentieth century.

The effect of emigration on Soviet culture was also raised. In her fascinating outline of emigration as a search for a lost homeland, lnna Soloviova, a co-editor of Stanislavsky's promptbooks and a Moscow Art Theatre School instructor, dramatically repeated the question asked of those the emigres left behind, "Do you have relatives abroad?" Their polit ically correct answer was always an emphatic "Nyet!" Valery Semenovsky, editor-in-chief of the new theatre journal, Moscow Observer, discussed the idea of an inner emigration. Those who remained on the soil of the U.S.S.R., Semenovsky says, emigrated in all other respects, adopting America as their model--the "quintessence of being abroad." From the Soviet point of view, he brought the effects of the emigration up to date. First there was silence and an inner emigration, then a desperate quest for an invitation to go abroad to wait out the situation, then to return, only to quickly leave again. The wave of emigration have given way to an ebb and flow of repetitive migrations.

Having been stifled by Socialist Realism for more than half a century, Soviet culture now relishes the information, ideas, and creativity of the emigres in all fields of endeavor. Personal contacts, exchanges, joint research, and publications add to the creative efforts in the U.S.S.R., satisfying the unquenchable thirst for what had been created in the other Russia. Emigre culture is coming home.

21

RUSSIAN DRAMA AND PERFORMANCE IN THE UNITED STATES PRIOR TO THE ARRIVAL OF THE MOSCOW ART THEATRE IN

1923

Compiled by Laurence Senelick

Recently, in carrying out research on the American tours of Pavel Orlenev, I found it useful and instructive to compile this list, to get some idea of how familiar Americans were with Russian stagecraft before the much-publicized tour of the Moscow Art Theatre. Starting at the turn of the century, the Russian element grows from a mere trickle to a mighty torrent, swelling in particular during the years of Revolution and Civil War (a Jewish influx from Russia was much more evident during the pogroms and abortive rebellions of the 1904-6 period). The interaction among drama, ballet, opera and design is considerable, but I have not tried to trace appearances by instrumental soloists which had been frequent since the middle of the nineteenth century. Names and titles are given as they were transliterated and translated into English at the time with the original Russian name or title provided in parentheses in a modified Library of Congress transliteration.

1895 December3.

The Story of Rodion the Student by Charles Henry Meltzer (adapted from Prestuplenie i nakazanie by F. M. Dostoevskii), starring Richard Mansfield, Garrick Theatre, New York

1900 March 2.

The Storm (Groza by A.N. Ostrovskii), Carnegie Lyceum, New York; 1 performance only.

1903 Februarv 17.

Resurrection by Henri Bataille and Michael Morton (from Voskresenie by L.N. Tolstoi), with Blanche Walsh, Hammerstein's Victoria Theatre, New York.

1904 March 1.

Ivan the Terrible, Tzar (adapted by S. A. de Meissner from Smert Ivana Groznogo by A. K. Tolstoi), starring Richard Mansfield, New Amsterdam Theatre, New York (remained in his repertory through 1906).


Russian Symphony Orchestra of New York founded to play Russian music, Modest Altschuler (Aitshuller), conductor; It endures to 1919.

1905 Louis H. Chalif dances at the Metropolitan Opera House and

teaches ballet and folk-dancing at New York University (to 1907).

1905-6 March 23.

Opening of Paul Orleneff and Alia Nasimoff (Pavel Nikolaevich Orlenev and Alia lakovlevna Nazimova) with the "St. Petersburg Dramatic Co." at Herald Square Theatre, New York in The Chosen People; play other East Side houses until June 18. Resume October 27 at E. 3rd Street Theatre renamed "Orleneff's Lyceum"; later tour U. S., Including Boston, Chicago and Berkeley. Orleneff returns to Russia~; Nazimova remains to become an American star. Repertory includes: The Chosen People (Evrei by E. Chirikov), The Son of Ivan the Terrible (Tsar Fedor loannovich by A.K. Tolstoi), Crime and Punishment (Prestuplenie i nakazanie by F. M. Dostoevskii), The Brothers Karamazov (Bratia Karamazovy by F. M. Dostoevskii) , Out of Place (Nevpopad by A. Liudvigov), The Forest (Les by A. N. Ostrovskii), The Inspector (Revizor by N. V. Gogol), The Red Flower (Krasnyi tsvetok by I. Shcheglov), The Misery of Misfortune (Gore-zloschaste by V. A. Krylov), The Children of Vanyushin (Deti Vaniushina by Naidenov),Ghosts (Ibsen), A Doll's House (Ibsen), The Master Builder (Ibsen), Miss Julie (Strindberg), Zaza (Berton and Simon), The Farewell Supper (Schnitzler) Love and Intrigue (Schiller), The Family Zvee (Pinski).

1906 April10.

Maxim Gorky and his actress-mistress Marla Andreyeva (Marlia Fedorovna Andreeva) arrive In New York. After they are lionized by Mark Twain, W.O. Howells and the press, the revelation of their non-marital status causes a scandal. They depart the U. S. October 13.

November 13. Nazimova makes her English-language debut in Hedda

Gabler, directed by Henry Miller, Princess Theatre, New York.

1907

Ermete Novelli's company presents Povere Gente (adapted from Bednye liudi by F. M. Dostoevskii, in Italian), New York.

23

September 2. Anna Karenina by Edmond Guiraud, adapted by T. W.

Broadhurst (from the novel by L. N. Tolstoi) with Virginia Hamed, Herald Square Theatre, New York

November 20. Feodor Chalipiane (Fedor lvanovich Shaliapin) appears as

Boito's Mefistofele, Metropolitan Opera House, New York (remained in company to February 15. 1908. also singing Don Basilio, Leporello and Gounod's Mephistopheles).

Tenor Ivan Altchevsky ·(Ivan Alekseevich Alchevskii) sings Corentin to Tetrazzini's Dinorah, Manhattan Opera House, New York.

Louis N. Chalif opens the Chalif Russian Normal School of Dance, which remains in operation until 1948.

1908 February 1.

Concert version of Eugen Onegin (Evgenii Onegin by P. I. Chaikovskil) performed, Carnegie Hall, New York.

February to April. The Fool Hath Said in His Heart ·There Is No God• by

Laurence Irving (from Prestuplenie i nakazanie by F. M. Dostoevskil), starring E. H. Sothern, Lyric Theatre, New York

March 2-May 2. Vera Komisarjevsky (Vera Fooorovna Kommlssarzhevskaia)

at Daly's Theatre and Thalia Theatre, New York; then on tour to Brooklyn, Philadelphia, Chicago, etc. Repertory Includes: A Child of Nature (Dikarka by A.N. Ostrovskii), The Dowerless Bride (Bespridannitsa by Ostrovskii), Uncle Vanya (Diadia Vania by A. P. Chekhov), The Life of Man (Zhizn Cheloveka by L N. Andreev), The Children of the Sun (Deti Solntsa by M. Gorkii), The Wild Duck (Ibsen), A Doll's House (Ibsen), The Master Builder (Ibsen), The Battle of Butterflies (Sudermann), The Fires of St. John (Sudermann), Magda (Sudermann), Sister Beatrice (Maeterlinck), The Miracle of St. Anthony (Maeterlinck).

April20. Reviz6r (by N. V. Gogel), Yale Dramatic Association ,

Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, New York (also played Hartford, Waterbury and New Haven, Connecticut, April 21-25).


1909 Alexis Kosloff (Aieksei Kozlov) dances in support of Adeline

Genee, Washington, D.C. With his brother Theodore (Fedor Kozlov) tours the Orpheum vaudeville circuit in divertissements from Russian and Diaghilev repertories.

February 28-April 2. Anna Pavlova and Michel Mordkin (Anna Pavlovna Pavlova

and Mikhail Mikhailovich Mordkin) dance at Metropolitan Opera House, New York in Werther, Orfeo ed Euridice, Coppelia , Hungary and divertissements.

March 5. U. S. Premiere of Pique Dame (Pikovaia Dama by P. I.

Chaikovskii), Metropolitan Opera House. New York (sung in German, conducted by Gustav Mahler).

Autumn. Henry Russell's Boston Opera Company opens with three

Russian singers in the troupe. The bass George Baklanov (Georgyi Andreevich Baklanov) will remain till 1913, singing Barnaba, Amonasro, Rigoletto, Escamilla, Nilakantha, Valentin, Scarpia, T onio, lago, Telramund and the title role in The Miserly Knight (Skupoi rytsar by S. V. Rakhmaninov). Of the two coloratura sopranos, Lydia Lipkowska (Lidiia lakovlevna Lipkovskaia) will stay till 1 911, singing Violetta, Gilda, Lucia, Rosina. Micaela and Mimi; and Evgenia [Adolfevna] Bronskaya [Bronskaia] will last only one season, as Micaela, Musetta, Gilda. Violetta, Nedda. Lucia and Marguerite in Gli Ugonotti.

1910 Bass Lev Sibiriakov sings Mefistofele, Mephistopheles and

Don Basilio at the Boston Opera, all in Russian.

December 30. Tenor Dmitri Smirnoff (Dmitri Alekseevich Smirnov) makes

his debut at the Metropolitan Opera. singing the Duke in Rigoletto. and stays there to 1912, also playing Alfredo and Romeo.

1911-12 Morris Gest produces Gertrude Hoffman's Ballets Russes at

Winter Garden Theatre, New York. and on the Keith vaudeville circuit: the company includes Lydia Lopokova (Lidiia Vasilevna Lopukhova) and Alexis and Theodore Kosloff.

25

Mordkin establishes the All-Star Imperial Russian Ballet with Lopokova, Geltzer (Ekaterina Vasilevna Geltser) ldzikowsky (Stanislas ldzikovski) and Volinine (Aieksandr Emelianovich Volinin), which tours the U. S.

1911-13 Alexander N. Ivanov's Balalaika Orchestra tours the U. S.

1912 Januarv 3.

Paul Orleneff returns to New York, playing a reduced version of his earlier repertory plus Brand (Ibsen) and Czar Paull (Pavel/ by D. Merezhkovskii), Garrick Theatre. After touring to Buffalo, Chicago, St. Louis and Cincinatti, he leaves the U. S. in June.

1913 Yiddish dramatist Halper Leivick escapes from Siberia and

comes to U. S.

1915 George Baklanov tours in Max Rabinoff's company as

Mephistopheles.

February. A Bear (Medved by A.P. Chekhov), Washington Square

Players, Bandbox Theatre, New York.

Love of One's Neighbor (Liubov k blizhnemu by L. N. Andreev), Washington Square Players, New York.

May25. Theodore Kosloff appears in The Passing Show of 1915,

Winter Garden Theatre, New York.

December 30. U. S. premiere of Prince Igor (Kniaz Igor by A. Borodin),

Metropolitan Opera House, New York (sung in Italian).

1916 January.

The Beautiful Sabine Women (Prekrasnye Sabinianki by L. N. Andreev), produced by S. A. Eliot, Jr. Indianapolis Little Theatre, Indiana.


January 12-29. Serge Diaghilev's (Sergei Pavlovich Diagilev) Ballets Russes

with Adolph Bolm, Leonide Massine (Leonid Fedorovich Miassin) , Lopokova dance, Century Theatre, New York (repertory includes L 'Oiseau de feu, Scheherazade, Les Sylphides, Carnaval, L 'Apresmidi d'un faune, etc.). They subsequently tour eastern and central u. s.

January 16. Maria Kouznetsova (Mariia Nikolaevna Kuznetsova-Benua)

sings at the Chicago Opera in the U. S. premiere of Massenet's Cleopatra.

April23. The Marriage Proposal and The Swan Song (Predlozhenie

and Lebedinaia pesnia by A. P. Chekhov), Neighborhood Playhouse, New York.

May 20-31 . The Seagull (Chaika by A. P. Chekhov), translated by Marian

Fell, Washington Square Players, Bandbox Theatre, New York.

October 2. A Merry Death (Veselaia Smert by N. N. Evreinov) Washing

ton Square Players, Comedy Theatre, New York.

The dancers Serge Oukrainsky and Andreas Pavley (Sergei Ukrainskii and Andrei Pavlei) leave Pavlova's troupe to work at James Whitcomb Riley Festival, Indianapolis, and Chicago Opera.

Adolph Bolm and his Ballet lntime tour the Otto Kahn operahouse circuit ; he becomes chief choreographer of Metropolitan Opera House, New York, and Chicago Civic Opera.

1917 January 14.

The Life of Man (Zhizn Cheloveka by L. N. Andreev). Washington Square Players, Comedy Theatre, New York.

March 22. Nju (Niu by Osip Dymov), produced by Joseph Urban, Band

box Theatre, New York; Ossip Dymow (Joseph Pearlman) had arrived in New York in 1916 to become an American citizen. April12.

Vaslav Nijinski (Vatslav Fomich Nizhinskii) dances in Scheherazade, Le Spectre de Ia rose, Prince Igor, Petrouchka,

27

Metropolitan Opera House. New York.

October 23. Nijinski dances in his own ballet, Till Eulenspiegel, designed

by Robert Edmond Jones, Manhattan Opera House. New York.

Oukrainsky and Pavley open a school of dance in Chicago.

Alexis Kosloff becomes choreographer for the Shubert Brothers in Chu Chin Chow and Peter Pan (and in 1918 in Sinbad).

Theodore Kosloff becomes a member of Cecil B. De Mille's Hollywood stock company, playing an Aztec warrior in the film The Woman God Forgot.

George Baklanov joins Chicago Opera to sing Mephistopheles; he remains there to 1926, reputed to be its best Boris Godunov.

1918 Exhibition of Boris (lzrailovich) Anisfeld's theatrical designs

at Christian Brinton Gallery, New York.

March 6. U. S. premiere of Le Coq d'or (Zolotoi Petushok by N.

Rimskii-Korsakov). Metropolitan Opera House, New York (sung in French with Adolph Balm as the pantomime King Dodon).

October 3. Redemption (Zhivoi Trup by L. N. Tolstoi), directed by Arthur

Hopkins, starring John Barrymore, designed by Robert Edmond Jones, Plymouth Theatre, New York.

December 5. Resurrection (Voskresenie by L. N. Tolstoi) (in Yiddish), star

ring Maurice Schwartz, Irving Place Theatre, New York.

1919 Pavley-Oukrainsky Ballet becomes a fixture of the Chicago

Grand Opera (to 1927).

March 6. Believe Your Wife (Ekaterina lvanovna by L. N. Andreev) (in

Yiddish), starring Maurice Schwartz, Irving Place Theatre, New York.


November 24. Michel Fokine (Mikhail Mikhailovich Fokin) makes his U. S.

debut in the musical spectacular Aphrodite by P. Fronduit and G. C. Hazelton, produced by Morris Gest, Century Theatre, New York.

December 22. Night Lodging (Na dne by M. Gorkii), directed by Arthur

Hopkins, Plymouth Theatre, New York with Edward G. Robinson as Satin (revived 1920).

December 25. The Lower Depths (Na dne by M. Gorkii), (in Yiddish), star

ring Maurice Schwartz, Irving Place Theatre, New York.

1920 January 15.

The Power of Darkness (VIast Tmy by L. N. Tolstoi), produced by the Theatre Guild, designed by Lee Simonson, Garrick Theatre, New York.

March 24. New York premiere of fully-staged Eugen Onegin (Evgenii

Onegin by P. I. Chaikovskii), Metropolitan Opera House, New York (sung in Italian).

Spring. The Beautiful Sabine Women (Prekrasnye Sabinianki by L

N. Andreev) , Neighborhood Playhouse, New York.

Autumn. Nicolas Roerich (Nikolai Konstantinovich Rerikh) arrives in

New York, "loaded with paintings and theosophy".

November 17. Jacob Ben-Ami, Yiddish actor trained in Minsk and Odessa,

first plays in English in S. Lange's Samson and Delilah, Garden Theatre, New York.

The Power of Darkness (VIast Tmy by L. N. Tolstoi) (in Yiddish), Jewish Art Theatre, Garden City, New York.

1921 January 15.

Mishtanya (Meshchane by M. Gorkii), (in Yiddish), starring Maurice Schwartz, Irving Place Theatre, New York.


He Who Gets Slapped (Iot Kto Poluchaet Poshchechenii by L. N. Andreev),

Theatre Guild, Garrick Theatre, New York

-(')

February. Anathema (Anatema by L. N. Andreev), directed by Vadim

Uraneff {Uranev), Apollo Theatre, New York.

September 1. The Dybbuk (Ga-Dibbuk by S. An-ski) {in Yiddish), opens the

first season of Maurice Schwartz's Yiddish Art Theatre, Irving Place Theatre, New York.

September 3. The Thunderbird, choreographed by Fokine, appears in the

spectacular Get Together, New York Hippodrome. Fokine also choreographs Shaitan tor Gertrude Hoffman's troupe.

December9. Boris Shaliapin, now called Chaliapin without the "e", returns

to the Metropolitan Opera House, New York, in Boris Godunov {by M. Musorgskii) {he sings in Russian, the rest of the cast in Italian). During the 1922-23 season also appears as Mefistofele and Philip II.

December 30. U. S. premiere of The Love for Three Oranges (Lyubov k

trem apelsinam by S. S. Prokofev), Chicago Auditorium {sung in French), conducted by Serge Prokofiev, with designs by Roerich, and Nina Koshetz {Nina Pavtovna Koshits) as Fata Morgana.

1922 Fokine choreographs Russian Toys, a dance sequence for

Gilda Gray, and Adventures of Harlequin, a "Prolog" at the Mark Strand Theatre, New York.

Alexis Kosloff made principal mime at Metropolitan Opera House.

January9. He Who Gets Slapped (Tot Kto Poluchaet Poshchechenii by

L. N. Andreev), Theatre Guild, Garrick Theatre, New York.

January 12. The Thought (Mys/ by L. N. Andreev) , {in Yiddish), starring

Maurice Schwartz, Irving Place Theatre, New York.

January 23. U. S. premiere of Snegourotchka (Snegurochka by N.

Rimskii-Korsakov), Metropolitan Opera House, New York {sung in French).

32 Soviet and East European Performance Vol. 11, No.2

Peer Gynt by Henrick Ibsen directed by Theodore Komisarjevsky (Fedor Fedorovich Komissarzhevskii)


~

February 4. The Chauve-Souris (Letuchaia Mysh) cabaret, hosted by

Nikita Balieff (Nikita Fedorovich Baliev) designed by Serge Sudeikin and Nicolai Remisoff (Sergei lurevich Sudeik in and Nikolai Vladimirovich Remizov), opens at 49th Street Theatre, New York (moves to Century Theatre on June 5, and continues to play in U. S. to 1931). A member of the original company, Tamara Daykarkhanova (Deikarkhanova), will become an important teacher of acting and make-up in New York.

The Green Ring (Zeli!moe koltso by Z. Gippius), Neighborhood Playhouse, New York

April 26. Ossip Dymow's "fantastic comedy" The Bronx Express,

opens at Astor Theatre, New York, starring Charies Coburn; the play written in Russian about Dymow's experiences in America, is translated by Samuel Goldberg and adapted by the popular playwright Owen Davis.

May 10. Uncle Vanya (Diadia Vania by A. P. Chekhov) (in Yiddish),

starring Maurice Schwartz, Irving Place Theatre, New York.

May 13. New York premiere of The Demon (Demon by A.

Rubenshtein), performed by the Russian Art Grand Opera Company, New Amsterdam Theatre; the company is organized by baritone Max Panteleieff (Maksim Panteleev); its repertory will include Boris Godunov and Khovanschlna (Khovanshchina by M. Musorgsky).

June. Theodore Komisarjevsky (Fedor Fedorovich Komis

sarzhevskii) directs at Chauve-Souris; the Theatre Guild invites him to direct for them; his 1923 season will include The Tidings Brought to Mary (Ciaudel) Peer Gynt (Ibsen) and The Lucky One (A. A. Milne).

June 23. Sawa (by L. N. Andreev), Beechwood Players, Vanderlip

Theatre, Scarborough, New York.

October 1. U. S. premiere of Rusalka (by A. S. Dargomyzhskii), San

Francisco.


The Tidings Brought to Mary directed by Theodore Komisarjevsky (Fedor Fedorovich Komissarzhevskii)


~

October 5. Maria Kouznetsova's Revue Russe arrives from Paris; the

company includes Eugenie Leontovitch (Evgeniia Leontovich) and her husband Gregory Ratoff (Grigorii Ratov) . Leontovich will become an important American actress and teacher; Ratoff will become prominent as a Hollywood film actor and director. Former Moscow Art Theatre actor Richard Boleslavsky (the Pole Ryszard Srednicki) serves as conferencier and directs the pantomime tragedy "Lachete" by Leon Bakst (lev Samoilovich Bakst) . Under Shubert management, the revue plays 20 performances at the Booth Theatre, New York, and closes in Philadelphia.

October6. Revizor (by N. V. Gogol) , (in Yiddish), with Maurice Schwartz

as Khlestakov, Irving Place Theatre, New York.

Alexis Kosloff joins the ballet troupe of the Metropolitan Opera House, New York.

1923 January-Februarv.

Exhibition of Russian emigre painters at Brooklyn Museum; includes works by Anisfeld, Sudeikin, Bakst, Boris (Dmitrevich) Grigoriev, David (Davidovich) Burliuk, Natalia (Fedorovna) Goncharova, Mikhail (Fooorovich) larionov, Vasili (Vasilevich) Kandinski, and Alexander Archipenko.

January 8. The Moscow Art Theatre (Moskovskii Khudozhestvennii

Teatr) opens at Jolson's Theatre, New York, In Tsar Fyodor lvanovitch (Tsar Fedor loannovich by A. K. Tolstoi); the tour is produced by Morris Gest, subsidized by Otto Kahn.

copyright 1991 L. P. Senelick


THREE SOVIET SUICIDES

John Freedman

Since the Soviet rehabilitation of Nikolai Erdman began to unfold slowly in 1987, the question that has most nagged directors and critics has been, "How do you stage his plays?" The Warrant appeared first in a plodding production at the Theatre of the Soviet Army. The following year the small Moscow Theatre of Comedy produced a frivolous-albeit funny--staging, and in 1989, the Fili TheatreStudio created a dreamy phantasmagoria that drifted away from Erdman's play as often as it clung to it. The Suicide, too, has had its troubles finding a home. Despite dozens of stagings throughout the Soviet Union, until 1990 none attracted serious attention.1

One increasingly began to hear that Erdman was unstageable, that time had passed him by, or even that his plays weren't as good as legend had it. As rumors grew that Yuri Lyubimov was planning to stage The Suicide, after banned efforts in 1965 and 1982, one often heard that if his staging didn't succeed, Erdman's drama was in danger of falling back into oblivion. However, before Lyubimov released his work on June 26, 1990, one of the Soviet Union's most respected regional theatres took some of the pressure off by producing an unusually powerful interpretation.

Naum Orlov's staging of The Suicide in spring of 1990 at the Tsvilling State Academic Dramatic Theatre in Chelyabinsk reveals several key qualities that previous productions failed to grasp. 2 Foremost are his attention to Erdman's highly rhythmic, poetic text that provides an introspective tone, and his realization onstage of key metaphors that emphasizes the play's most crucial themes. Perhaps the most obvious is the tuba, which serves as a symbol of the hero, Podsekalnikov's higher yearnings. Hanging out of reach above the stage throughout the entire performance, it is lowered onto Semen's shoulders at the outset of the scene In which he attempts to "become• a musician. But when he fails to master his dream, so to speak, it again rises into the heavens, carrying him with it until he can hang on no longer. His fall back to earth is, itself, a neat illustration of the scene's basic intent. Similarly, the steed in white horsecloths that Aristarkh promises will bear Podsekalnikov gloriously to the grave after he has committed suicide is brought out in the banquet scene as an absurd, enormous Trojan horse of sorts that Podsekalnikov rides about the stage. Furthermore, after the scene in which Semyon and his wife, Mariya, smash all the family dishes, Orlov adds a small touch of his own. At this moment, when Semyon first takes the notion of committing suicide seriously, he, like Adam, slowly and thoughtfully bites into an apple. The striking set by Timur Dldishvili is especially effective in the final scenes when Podsekalnikov hangs

37

suspended in his coffin ten feet above the stage and the other characters regale him from three balconies even further above him.

Everything in this staging strives upward. When Mariya goes to enlist Kalabushkin's help in saving her husband, she does not knock at his door, but stands dwarfed in a darkened, cavernous street and stares up at Kalabushkin who appears on a balcony high above. Through the use of music, props, and lighting, this production emphasizes the lyricism of Erdman's drama. (Critic Pavel Markov, against the strenuous objections of Meyerhold, rightly claimed that Erdman's drama harbors deeply lyrical tones.) Emphasizing this, the deaf-mute appears holding a violin, and after Semyon's parodical monolog of Hamlet's to-be-or-not-to-be speech, they begin a slow dance together. If Oriov downplayed the work's comic aspects, he sought at all times to reveal its philosophical and poetic underpinnings, and he did so without making it preachy or maudlin. The actors are seldom carried away or overmatched by the dense, figurative language which can easily turn an actor who isn't up to the task into a shrieking or weeping buffoon.

One of the many highlights is the writer Viktor Viktorovich's convoluted homily to Rus. (i.e., Russia) delivered by A. Rubtsov as a rhythmic chant, punctuated by the stamping feet of the large cast and the gradual building in volume of accompanying music that lead to an exhilarating, wild crescendo. Aleksandr Mezentesev's Podsekalnikov finds the perfect balance of timidity, sincerity, and boorishness. His phone call to the Kremlin. and his self-defensive speech in the final act, especially succeed in achieving the proper tone. He is capable of dreaming, but is not dreamy, is capable of tyranny, but is not tyrannical, is capable of warmth, but is not sentimental.

The early scenes, lacking the sense of musical and poetic composition which make the production so engaging as a whole, are the least effective. Mariya (T. Kameneva) and her mother (L. Bokareva, who otherwise is funny and charming) are unable to find the tone or precision needed to transform these scenes into something more than frivolous domestic patter. Kameneva, however, is sublime when being fitted for her funeral raiments. Following Meyerhold 's plan to play this scene as an imitation of Rembrandt's "Removal from the Cross, • Kameneva stands frozen in an eloquent, sculpture-like pose.

In all, Orlov produced a powerful , moving production by bringing out the introspective and internal aspects of Erdman's text. As I walked to the subway after the performance, I fell into conversation with an elderly gentleman who frequented Meyerhold's theatre In the 1930s. He told me that the Chelyabinsk staging was the closest approximation of those great productions he has seen in many


The Suicide, Taganka Theatre, Moscow

directed by Yuri Lyubimov

39

years, no small praise from one who has more right than I to make such a comparison. 3

The production at the Taganka literally attacks the play from the opposite direction. Lyubimov calls the play a tragi-farce, but he hits hardest on the farcical elements, incorporating elements from the circus, commedia dell'arte, variety show, and even shadow theatre. It is full of physical humor (falling, tripping, hitting, nosewiping, water in the face), absurdly exaggerated solemnity, and wacky, "low" humor. When it succeeds (most of the time) , It is a raucous, Rabelaisian spectacle. When it fails, it descends into superficial, noisy excess.

None of the characters is played in a single style throughout; the timbre of their performances often changes from scene to scene. In accordance with Nadezhda Mandelstam's observation that people ceased conversing in the 1920s and began making speeches to one another, many of the lines are delivered not so much as dialog, as Individual mini-performances. Transitions are often seemingly unmotivated on the surface, but are usually called up from the depths of the text itself, which tends toward the theatre of the absurd. lnna Ulyanova, as Podsekalnikov's dingy mother-in-law, creates a very sympathetic buffoon. Mariya Politseimako, in the role of Mariya, is at once her husband's timid doormat and a threatening force to be reckoned with. If one can put a finger on the heart of this production it is probably Politseimako. With her large body draped in loose, flowing clothing, she careens about the stage, first in angry pursuit of her husband, them in an attempt to protect or soothe him.

Fillip Antipov as Podsekalnikov, Is at most times a sympathetic simpleton who is as sloppily dressed and as roly-poly as his wife. (Lyubimov made size a crucial element by means of costume, lighting, movement, and in the case of Serafima llinichna, an absurdly padded rear end.) Despite muffing his lines several times at the performance I saw, and occasionally falling into rote recital, Antipov succeeded in unburdening Semyon of the weightiness that often hinders actors in this role. He did an admirable job of seeking out the slightly thick-headed, but sympathetic Russian-type that lies at its essence. His most effective moment comes in the penultimate scene when he appears dressed in a sharp, three-piece suit, and delivers Podsekalnikov's defense in a calm, straightforward tone without the slightest hint of hysteria, anger, or downing. In fact, he can hardly even be said to be performing this segment; the actor steps out of character and out of the farcicality of the play to deliver a moving, human plea.

Veniamin Smekhov as Aristarkh Dominikovich and Vsevolod Sobolev as Viktor Viktorovlch add their own eccentricities to the proceedings. Smekhov's stiff, mannered portrayal of the rather childish (as opposed to child-like) intellectual and Sobolev's portrayal of the


The Suicide, Taganka Theatre, Moscow

directed by Yuri Lyubimov

41

rather bullish and coarse anti-writer add wonderfully weird touches to the odd menagerie of characters.

One of the many unexpected touches of eccentricity is the white cloth Viktor Viktorovich invariably wears around his head (for a head-ache, a tooth-ache, an ear-ache, for no reason at all?) until the final scene when he exchanges it for a black one, presumably of mourning. In touches like these, Lyubimov invariably undercuts pomposity with farce. True to the play, this staging never evokes humor by making fun of the characters, but by creating an overall atmosphere of farce and comedy.

As is his wont, Lyubimov staged more than just The Suicide. The performance begins as an officer of the N.K.V.D. Song and Dance Ensemble (in which Erdman toiled in the 1940s) enters with a flying clown, and announces the appearance of several members of the ensemble (Mikhail Volpin, Sergei Yutkevich, Lyubimov, etc.), all represented as a composite by a single actor who enters and then gives way to Erdman (played by Valery Zolotukhin). After putting the play into motion, this quartet constantly responds to the action of The Suicide, frequently Interrupting it in order to perform short numbers culled from Erdman's letters, skits and interludes written over the span of his career.

The idea of bringing Erdman, et al., onstage is a good one that Is not always as effective in deed as it is in principle. It works because it literally sets the stage for a comedy, interrupting, pacing and interacting with the play in a way that either deflates or heightens moments of farce or pathos. Zolotukhin is an effective, silent Erdman, grinning, laughing, or falling into thought over his own witticisms and scenes of psychological tension. This solves one of the play's touchiest moments: neither audience not actors need assume that Podsekalnikov is either a portrait of, or a mouthpiece for, Erdman himself. However, Zolotukhin is far less convincing when speaking his lines. His flat, rather uninspired manner drags down the sharp, snappy tone of the production as a whole.

David Borovsky's versatile set is a jungle of white rags and linens that frequently seem to attack the characters trying to go about their odd business. It is fronted by an enormous curtain bearing the image of Karl Marx, who constantly threatens to cave in on the odd proceedings (and even drops to bite Kalabushkin's finger). Two walls of sheets on either side of the stage allow for some very effective shadow scenes, and the four-poster bed at one point turns into Semyon and Mariya's prison.

Lyubimov's production has not been well received by the peevish Moscow corps of critics, but it seems to me that the basic reason for this Its the eternal enigma of the half-full or half-empty cup.4 This Suicide is certainly not Lyubimov's best production, and it is not the masterpiece that is lurking in this play, but it is engaging


theatre, and it is indisputably a significant step towards unlocking the secrets of an extraordinarily complex work. Lyubimov seized The Suicide with both hands, shook it up and freed it of sixty years of ponderous expectation. His and Or1ov's very different interpretations make it evident that The Suicide has begun to find its niche on the Soviet stage.

Since it was the world of film that quietly harbored Nikolai Erdman in relative safety for forty years after the banning of The Suicide, it is only natural that a new film adaptation of the play has been the object of much attention and gossip in Moscow. Valery Pendrakovsky, a young filmmaker from Yalta, completed his work in the fall of 1990. However, Mosfilm's artistic council requested that he re-edit his work substantially, and his original three-hour film in two series was cut down to a single segment of one-and-a-half hours. Among other things, Pendrakovsky was told that Soviet filmmakers must make shorter movies if they want to compete on the wor1d market. that may(or may not) have been a legitimate notion had he been told about it before writing his script and shooting the film, but the post factum decision of his administrative bosses had a decidedly detrimental effect on his work. The result is a film which is too often disconnected and too often drowns beneath the weight of the near-perfect original that ever hovers in the shadows.s

Pendrakovsky's essential idea was a good one. He set the action in a eerie, pseudo-futuristic atmosphere that reminds one of the monstrous apartment building-ships in Evgeny Zamyatin's story "Mamai. • This crumbling, leaking, self-contained wor1d exists within a recognizable modern Moscow while remaining almost entirely independent of it. It was a marvelous choice intended to free the work of "domestic comedy" elements which so often dog interpretations of The Suicide. The film, however, is hampered by two fatal flaws: a chaotic attempt to break free of Erdman's exquisite text and the acting which usually does not correspond to what the director was after.

If, for instance, the first half of the film is too much a captive to the play, occasionally resembling a filmed stage performance, one soon finds that some of Erdman's most crucial scenes are either cut or entirely absent (such as Podsekalnikov's attempt to play the tuba and his Hamlet parody). Obviously, any film adaptation of a work from another medium must include some hard decisions, but the ones made here inevitably prompt unflattering comparisons to the original.

The film begins to acquire a sense of independence with Podsekalnikov's first meeting with Aristarkh Dominikovich. Played out as a kind of mystical meeting between a second-rate Faust and Mephistopheles, it transpires on the rooftop of an apartment building towering over the Moscow river and the Kremlin--one of the first

43

times the characters foray from the insulated world in which they live. The banquet scene builds on the other-worldly aspects of Pendrakovsky's conception and despite some flat moments, sets the stage admirably for the film's interesting ending. When Podsekalnikov's supplicants learn that he was unable to finalize his pact with the devil, they pursue him out into the streets of Moscow. Suddenly, these people who seemed to be living at some undetermined time in the future, appear to be odd creatures from the past. Podsekalnikov meets with nothing but stony, indifferent stares from various crowds of modern Muscovites, all in eerie Podsekalnikov masks, and all of whom are preoccupied with perestroika and political street-meetings. This Podsekalnikov, rather than being a reduced hero of his time, proves to be an anti-hero of no time at all.

The biggest failure--and the film's biggest success--come in the work of the actors. Elizaveta Nikishchikhina's inspired, wry and eccentric performance of Serafima llinichna carries the first half singlehandedly. She doesn't have many lines, but her every move and facial expression are bomb shells on the screen. Unfortunately, she is the only performer fully up to the task. Aleksandr Trofimov as Aristarkh Dominikovich has some effective moments of subversive deviltry, but at times he falls into caricature. Sergei Shakurov as Podsekalnikov matches his task only when the action is removed from the futuristic interior into the world of modern Moscow and provides the necessary sense of estrangement itself; otherwise he too often resorts to blatant posing. Irina Byakova as Mariya stubbornly plays a stock character out of a domestic comedy, violating not only the movie's intent, but the essence of Erdman's play as well. Elena Bushueva as Margarita lvanovna was handed a particularly difficult task. Her part is cut severely, and in those few moments when she does appear, she doesn't seem to know what is expected of her. Vladimir Menshov--known in the West as the director of Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears--plays an almost nonexistent Viktor Viktorovich. His monolog about Rus', for instance, is chopped to pieces and passes almost unnoticed. Leonid Kuravlyov plays a beefed-up Kalabushkin--interpreted in the script as a kind of Stalinist bureaucrat. But relies too much on the conventions of this nowstandard amplua, never really bringing him to life. Valentin Gaft's role as a cabaret singer in several interludes in neither performed convincingly not integrated with the action.

Ultimately, one can't help but regret that the film was cut so mercilessly. Perhaps this is the main culprit in the actors' lack of interaction with the central idea. But whatever the reason, one is left with the feeling that Pendrakovsky's film version of The Suicide is a fascinating idea gone wrong.6


NOTES

11 saw four. Valentin Pluchek's production at the Theatre of Satire (1987) is largely a bombastic domestic/political comedy. The Radomyslensky Theatre-Studio (1988) produced a plodding, disjointed effort, and Evgeny Simonov's production at the Ruben Simonov Theatre-Studio (1988) is an odd, saccharine treatment that hits all the wrong notes. Only Kirill Dateshidze's undeservedly obscure production in 1989 at the Leningrad All-Union Society of Theatre Workshops (VOTM) captured the essence of the play. His resolution of the extremely difficult opening scenes deserves note. Following the Intent of Erdman's stage directions, these scenes were performed in total darkness with the actors themselves actually reading the stage directions to keep the audience oriented. Also of note: the actors' almost acrobatic movement and their measured, often monotone delivery of their lines. Not once In the course of the play did an actor raise his or her voice. The effect was very powerful. 21 attended a performance at the Mossoviet Theatre on September 24, 1990. 3See also N. Zhegin, ·v nepogodu." Teatr, No. 5 (1990); Irina Bagrationi-Mukhraneli, "Cheliabinsk," Teatral'naia zhizn', No. 11 (1990) ; Aleksandr Svobodin,"V kogo streliaet 'Samoubiitsa'?" Sovetskaia kul'tura (October 27, 1990). 4See N. Lorkipanldze, "lurii Llubimov: lgralte tak, chtoby spektakl' zakryll," Ekran i stsena (July 19,1990) ; Viacheslav Stepnov, "Podsekalnlkov pod ognem kritikl." Ekran i stsena (November 22, 1990); Anatolii Smelianskii, "Spektakl', kotoryl ne zapretiat." Moskovs/e novostl, No. 30, 1990. 51 attended a private showing of the movie on April 5, 1991 at the Mosfilm Studios. The official premiere took place May 20, 1991. 6For further information about Nikolai Erdman and The Suicide, see Soviet and East European Drama, Theatre and Film, December 1988 (vol. 8, nos. 2 and 3) for John Freedman's article on Erdman, his interview with Yuri Lyubimov on the playwright, and Alma law's conversation with Elena Tiapkina about the night Stalin was scheduled to see Meyerhold's preview performance of The Suicide.

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DIARY OF A MADMAN BY NIKOLAI GOGOL PROP THEATRE, CHICAGO, MARCH 1991

Jeff Stephens

Rush Pearson's production of Diary of a Madman at the Prop Theatre's Garage in Chicago is a testament to the dramatic capacity which seems to mark all of Gogol's prose. (No mean dramatist himself, Gogol is, of course, the man behind The Inspector General, Russia's most stalwart comedy.) Written less than a decade after the failed Decembrist revolt of 1825, Diary of a Madman concerns itself with, well, madness. The short story on which this production is based is probably the most stageworthy of those short stories for which Gogol is best known : The Overcoat, The Nose, Nevsky Prospekt, Ivan Shponka and His Aunt, The Carriage. Unlike these works, rife as they are with bizarre juxtapositions of lyricism and grotesquery, freaky narrative interventions, and an ambiguous realism, Diary of a Madman stands alone as a frontal assault (albeit softened somewhat In this production by the lighting designer's Illadvised decision to punctuate each "entry'' with a blackout rather than a cross-fade). Its monologic structure, coupled with the tour de force role of the madman himself, makes it both an adaptor's and actor's choice for dramatization.

The texts depiction of a roguish clerk's abrupt transformation from faceless St. Petersburger to Ferdinand VIII has been stage before in the United States by such theatre practitioners as Eric Bentley and, more recently, Tim McDonnell in 1989. Rush Pearson's oneman show is a pastiche of various translations, but seems most dependent on Andrew R. Mac Andrew's 1960 version.

Diary of a Madman offers its interpreters both the wildly theatrical nature of Gogol's own life from which to gird any interpolations, as well as the fascinating prospect of a post-glasnost madman. Presented In dramatic form, Diary of a Madman is ripe for a reworking of its signifiers. If the show is flawed, it is because the pre-show soundtrack sets us up for a deconstruction of the piece, whereas the production itself never moves outside the realm of a "faithful" staging to take into account the endless dramatic possibilities Gogol's text so generously bequeaths. The Prop Theatre's Garage is just that-a garage--which serves as both art gallery and theatre. As patrons meander among the works of the anti-war exhibit, tunes such as What Kind of Fool Am I? and the Beach Boys' classic In My Room issue from the house's speakers. Not surprisingly, the twentieth century musical selections foreground Gogol's expressionistic nineteenth century tale. And from the moment we see the madman eying the house, pacing among the three small (6'x8') black screens positioned upstage, while I Gatta Be Me blares in the background, we are


prepared for what might be deemed a "romp". Framed by the crumbling brick and mortar of the theatre itself, the text appears primed for dissection. But as soon as Mr. Pearson begins to speak things fail into line and he merely plays the text. This particular criticism notwithstanding, the show succeeds beautifully as a vehicle on which Mr. Pearson hangs his vibrant interpretation.

Every element of the pre-show seems intent on erasing the Gogolian image most tend to reify, i.e., the frenetic, megalomaniac genius desirous of Russia's salvation; the pawn in a game between religion and rationality; the emaciated post-Dead Souls Gogol. And this is only right since the madman's "cierkish wit"--not Gogol's despair--sustains his diary. Mr. Pearson's madman is excruciatingly humorous, but then one doesn't really have to try too hard In order to glean the text for its boisterous humor. To achieve its supposed end, the production subtextualizes nothing which might be construed as a commentary on Gogol's own bitter fate. Indeed, Gogol in not a madman. Or is he?

It is tempting to argue that Gogol's mental collapse intermittently manifested itself years before his death in 1852. It is also a reasonable assumption to associate Gogol's vision with the notion of "madness." Within the parameters of our postmodern sensibility it is impossible fully to comprehend the impact his seething imagination had on nineteenth century Russia. Some critics praised his use of colloquial language; others, such as Belinsky, Dobrolyubov, his "naturalism"; all of them, his Russian world-view. Gogol's scathing satire, his dramatic criticism in the form of the playlet On Leaving the Theatre After the Performance of a New Comedy, the picaresque travels of Russian literature's greatest anti-hero, Chichikov--all found vehement detractors and passionate champions among the ranks of the intelligentsia. At any rate, whether or not Gogol was "mad" in offering what Voice critic Mark Gevisser in reviewing Tim McDonnell's 1989 production of Diary of a Madman called his "tauntingly ambiguous social commentary--(i.e.) you have to be mad to rebel against the system• is not the point. That Mr. Pearson's production fails to take advantage of the dramatic possibilities inherent in this historical perspective is.

There is much which is fine about this production. Acting the madman's circuitous path from doltish clerk to King of Spain is a formidable task and Mr. Pearson delivers at every twist and turn. His level of commitment to each "entry" /monologue is complete and handled with absolute surety. Dashing in and out between the playing area proper and the vomitorium, he forces the audience to choose between directing its attention forward or backward. When we choose to view the madman's domain while he is playing far upstage of us In the vomitorium, a slight movement of the head may suddenly find his face-eyes flashing--just above our shoulder. Just

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as often, he drops his confrontational mode and disappears altogether, leaving us but one visual option, i.e., the consideration of the madman's hovel while a disembodied voice rants about his smug superiors, his object of affection, and his plan to steal letters from a chatty poodle.

Certainly, the Prop Theatre's meager budget presupposes a minimalist set, but the paucity of the design is quite effective: a table and chair placed stage left, balanced by a longish chaise lounge stage right which acts as bed, and, figuratively, as analyst's couch. The table at which the madman performs his menial tasks serves as anchor. Believing himself unjustly abused by his Spanish retinue, the madman pushes the table on its side for protection. Mr. Pearson eventually positions himself In such a way that as we hear the madman's haunting lament--"Mother! Hold me, a poor waif, in your arms!"--we see him cradled not by a memory, but by the wooden legs of the omnipresent table. Humorist to the core, Gogol (and Mr. Pearson) refuses us this catharsis and instead leaves us to ponder the wart under the Dey of Algiers' nose. Nevertheless, this last image simply cannot dispel the harrowing one preceding it. The two mesh, and one doesn't know whether to weep for the madman, Russia, Gogol, or the sins of the world. Such is the nature of Gogol's art.


THE LENINGRAD LETEINY THEATRE'S LOUTA: A REVIEW

Shirley Burke

The recent opening of Lolita at Leningrad's Leteiny Theatre did not meet with the protests, picketers, scathing reviews, and disappointed audiences of the controversial short-lived production directed by Frank Dunlop on Broadway in 1981. This may be the result of a difference in production style, moral sensibility, lack of feminist advocates, or the passage of time. Another possibility may be an unfamiliarity with the original text. The argument that Edward Albee's adaptation failed to express the author's original points and exploited the sexual idea would be lost if one had not read the novel by Vladimir Nabokov, originally published in 1955. This could indeed be the case in the Soviet Union where all of Nabokov's works were banned until very recently.

The clash of morals in American and European societies was clearly seen in the Soviet production in the way the surreal style and ironic tone commented on its content. This awareness began in the opening scene with the entrance of the narrator, "A Certain Gentlman," in whiteface and wearing a 1940s black double-breasted suit with one white lapel. Played by V. Gushchin with an attitude of gnawing mockery, this narrator diverged sharply from the distinguished, gentlemanly demeanor of lan Richardson at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre in New York.

The entrance of the protagonist, Humbert Humbert played by A. Ryazantsev, followed shortly after the narrator's opening monologue to the audience. In contrast to the controlled performance by Donald Sutherland in the New York production, the Leteiny Theatre's Humbert Humbert, wearing a mousy brown suit and brown bowler, seemed in a near constant state of anxiety. N. Burdukova's Lolita, appeared in combinations of red, white, and blue, an unavoidable comment by its choice. The different facets of the Soviet production blended together well.

In brief, the story of Lolita concerns Humbert Humbert, a 38-year-old European professor with a thwarted adolescent relationship and a failed marriage, and his sexual obsession for "Nymphets," demonic girls between the ages of nine and fifteen, who either consciously or unconsciously tantalize older men. When he looks for a place to reside in New England, Humbert meets and is obsessed by Lolita. At the untimely death of Charlotta Haze, Lolita's mother and Humbert's landlady (and for a very brief time, also his wife), Humbert takes Lolita on an odyssey across America to entertain her while trying to avoid detection of his deviant behavior. During one of these trips, Lolita Is abducted.

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When she contacts Humbert three years later, she is happily married, pregnant and in need of financial assistance. Unable to persuade Lolita to return to him, Humbert demands to know who her abductor was. Lolita admits that the guilt was hers just as much as Clare Quilty's, an old friend and writer. Humbert tracks down Quilty and murders him. The narrator closes the play with the details of Humbert's arrest, trial, death, and a comment on the elusiveness and effects of time.

The imaginative staging designed by A. Shapiro also contrasted to William Ritman's New York set of black curtains and sliding panels covered with text from the novel. Shapiro's raked platform placed on a turntable was sparsely decorated with a window frame, door frame, two erotic pieces of sculpture, a bench, and some greenery. A swing hung behind and to the right of the platform. Directly behind the platform was a picture which mirrored the surreal setting when the platform was placed at a particular angie. There were also three minor playing areas adjacent to the platforms which were revealed as the turntable revolved . A rocking chair placed down stage right was used intermittently by the narrator.

The Leningrad production was directed with insight, deftness, and restraint by Gennady Rudenko. The performances of the actors and actresses were for the most part very entertaining, although, N. Burdukova's Lolita, like Blanche Baker's in New York, failed to convey the idea of a twelve-year-old nymphet. This is one of the problems in adapting Nabokov's novel for the stage. The performance of I. Kushnir as the maid was especially notable. The shock value evoked with the appearance of the novel in 1955, and again with the first production in 1981, appears to have waned. The racial overtones of the black maid in the script and original production were discarded. The discomfort experienced by the Leningrad audience was not with the material or technical structure of the production but in the comments made by the narrator and protagonist suggesting that the audience should be grouped with Humbert with regard to their behavior and morals. When Humbert is about to have his way with Lolita, the narrator draws a curtain in front of them, with the comment: "You don't want to see it. You have all imagined it."


BLUE NIGHTS OF THE K. G. B.

Edward Dee

Playing this April in New York, San Francisco, Oregon, New Hampshire and at their host institution, Montana State University in Bozeman, was the Moscow University Student Theatre. They brought their cabaret piece, Blue Nights of the K. G. B .• which played very successfully at last year's Edinburgh Festival. While this Moscow group is composed of amateurs, they perform like professionals. The performance I saw at Barnard, the day after their arrival in the U.S. was marred a bit by both jet lag and inadequate facilities, but the talent and the nerve of this young group were still evident. The performance space at Barnard, arranged on very short notice, was In the student center and had no technical facilities, with the sounds of bowling occasionally heard in the background. The Student Theatre performed the "highlights• of their full production, with no scenery and only a piano, saxophone. and drums to accompany the singers.

Blue Nights of the K. G. B. contains the traditional cabaret elements: songs and dance, poetry and comedy routines. held together by two devices. One Is the compere, played by Valery Golavsky, shirtless under his tuxedo jacket. The other device, not only original, but daring, Is the "Grey Mackintoshes•, a Keystone Cops version of K. G. B. agents who wander around the stage holding flashlights on various performers and getting involved In the various acts. The K. G. B., at first thought, seems no better a target for jokes than Hitler's SS, but in this case, the satire is sharp and funny. Not only do the secret police drag off the occasional hapless entertainer, they perform one number themselves, with an agent singing of life after perestroika with "full shops• and "green trees." As he gets deeper into the song, "crying tears of happiness", the agents who are backing him up realize that they will be out of work in this utopia, and sobbing all the while, they go out into the audience, hats in hands. and beg for spare change.

The genesis of these singing, dancing secret police agents comes from a strange but real historical event. According to the director, Yevgeny Slavutln, during the days of Stalin, theN. K. V. D. (the ancestor of the K. G. B.) had a Song and Dance Ensemble to provide "safe" entertainment for the Party elite. Among the many famous entertainers who worked for the secret police was the noted director, Yuri Lyubimov. To Slavutin, these N. K. V. D. shows "became a wonderful metaphor" of art in the U.S.S.R. He points out that things haven't changed that much and that the artist Is still a prisoner, performing "at the point of a gun." The Moscow University Student Theatre first successfully performed this cabaret at the height of glasnost two years ago, having been banned during

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previous production attempts. Slavutin says that he wishes to use this window of opportunity since there are no guarantees that life won't go back to what it used to be.

Blue Nights of the K. G. B. is the collective work of graduate students and recent graduates, who are mostly mathematicians, with a physicist and chemist thrown in. The cabaret was developed through improvisation in class and onstage, based on Slavutln's directing theory using psychotherapy techniques in rehearsal. He prefers working with amateur actors as he considers that "professionalism in art is like professionalism in love." The members of the company tend to remain with it for up to 7 years after graduation. At home, they perform in a 450 seat theatre on Herzen Street that was built in 1756 and is directly opposite Red Square. Slavutin argues that their primary mission is not political, but "to help the audience work out their problems. •

But it Is Impossible to see Blue Nights of the K. G. B. in anything but a political light. The ever-present secret police present a continuous political subtext that cannot be ignored, no matter how innocuous the subject matter. Most of the numbers do not have an overt political bent, such as a man's lament for the woman he loves who has just been drafted. The music is very good, especially the wonderful blues songs written and performed, in both English and Russian, by Irina Bogushevskaya. The company continually subverts the musical numbers, allowing no song to be presented straight through without some bit of mischief. The lament, for example, Is continually broken up by both the piano player and by a Garcon, played by Denis Chesnokov, who wanders in and out serving vodka. K. G. B. agents also crawl all over Bogushevskaya, or between her legs, blowing bubbles through straws in their vodka and waving around flashlights.

The cabaret is full of funny moments, but the two that stand out most strikingly are a joke told by Valery Golavsky about a cuckoo and a cow in a pine tree that reminded me of all the strange Russian jokes that Ronald Reagan used to tell. They are much funnier, however, if just as senseless, when told by Golavsky. Perhaps because the president didn't flap his arms.

The other moment was called the "Siberian Glass Rap". Reminiscent of Peter Schikele during a P.D.Q. Bach concert, the glass rap consisted of all the male members of the company banging vodka glasses on a table in an elaborate and intricate rhythm. This falr1y long piece, which the audience watched with awe, ended with the performers filling their glasses with vodka, downing them in one swallow, and gargling the grand finale. The show ended with a rather shameless bit of audience-pandering, with the cast doing a highenergy version of the Beatles' classic, "Back in the U.S.S.R.".

This group is especially adept at playing with languages,


making fun of their inability to speak English while speaking fluently, or by having the compere speak in English while being translated into Russian, with both Golavsky and his translator getting more confused over which language each is supposed to be using. In another Instance, the poets Nester and Chankin tell the audience that they will be doing "virgins" for our entertainment. After a hurried conference, they tell us they meant to say "verses." The poetry and the music also alternate between Russian and English, and while the Russian-speaking portion of the audience seemed to get the jokes faster than the English speakers, the latter were never left out of the fun for long. At times, unfortunately, the vocal part seemed quite garbled. It was difficult to determine at times whether this was intentional, resulting from the space, or whether they were just sloppy.

Still this is a minor quibble, and Blue Nights of the K. G. B. provides an entertaining, surreal evening. This production must be one the few that has the rare distinction of having both been banned because of its content and also selling a bloc of tickets to the secret police. Their reaction is unknown, but the thought that the dreaded K. G. B. has a sense of humor is hard to reconcile with its traditional image. And even with a newly opened public relations office, this is probably not the reputation they want to have.

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CONTRIBUTORS

SHIRLEY BURKE is a doctoral student at the City University of New York Graduate School concentrating in Modern Italian Drama. She recently attended a theatre conference in Czechoslovakia and the Soviet Union with other American theatre educators.

EDWARD DEE, associate editor of SEEP, is a doctoral student in Theatre at the City University of New York Graduate School.

JOHN FREEDMAN lives in Moscow, where he recently completed a book, Silence's Roar: The Life and Drama of Nikolai Erdman for Mosaic Press, Canada.

/

AGNIESZKA PERLINSKA, a native of Warsaw, is a doctoral candidate in the Ph.D. program in Comparative Literature at New York University. She is a regular contributor to the Encyclopaedia Britannica Book of the Year on Eastern Europe and Russian Expatriate Literature.

LAURENCE SENELICK is Fletcher Professor of Drama at Tufts University and author of many books on Russian theatre. This past season he has spoken at Russian theatre conferences throughout the U.S. His most recent publication is Cabaret Performance: Europe 1890-1920. Sketches, Songs, Monologues, Memoirs and as editor, National Theatre in Northern and Eastern Europe, 174~ 1900.

JEFF STEPHENS is a doctoral candidate in the Ph. D. program in Theatre at the Ohio State University.

MICHAEL YURIEFF is an Assistant Professor of Russian and Russian Theatre at Norwich University in Vermont. He has also been a visiting lecturer on twentieth century Russian culture and civilization at the University of Vermont.


PLAYSCRIPTS IN TRANSLATION SERIES

The following is a list of publications available through the Center for Advanced Study in Theatre Arts (CASTA):

No. 1 Never Part From Your Loved Ones, by Alexander Volodin. Translated by Alma H. Law. $5.00 ($6.00 foreign)

No. 2 /, Mikhail Sergeevich Lunin, by Edvard Radzinsky. Translated by Alma H. Law. $5.00 ($6.00 foreign)

No. 3 An Altar to Himself, by lreneusz lredynski. Translated by Michal" Kobialka. $5.00 ($6.00 foreign)

No. 4 Conversation with the Executioner, by Kazimierz Moczarski. Stage adaptation by Zygmunt Hubner; English version by Earl Ostroff and Daniel Gerould. $5.00 ($6.00 foreign)

No. 5 The Outsider, by lgnatii Dvoretsky. Translated by C. Peter Goslett. $5.00 {$6.00 foreign)

No. 6 The Ambassador, by Slawomir Mrozek. Translated by Slawomir Mrozek and Ralph Manheim. $5.00 {$6.00 foreign)

No. 7 Four by Liudmi/a Petrushevskaya (Love, Come into the Kitchen, Nets and Traps, and The Violin) . Translated by Alma H. Law. $5.00 ($6.00 foreign)

No.8 The Trap, by Tadeusz R6zewicz. Translated by Adam Czerniawski. $5.00 ($6.00 foreign)

Soviet Plays in Translation. An annotated Bibliography. Compiled and edited by Alma H. Law and C. Peter Goslett. $5.00 ($6.00 foreign)

Polish Plays in Translation. An annotated Bibliography. Compiled and edited by Daniel C. Gerould, Boltlslaw Taborski, Michat KobiaK<a, and Steven Hart. $5.00 ($6.00 foreign)

Polish and Soviet Theatre Posters. Introduction and Catalog by Daniel C. Gerould and Alma H. Law. $5.00 ($6.00 foreign)

Polish and Soviet Theatre Posters Volume Two. Introduction and Catalog by Daniel C. Gerould and Alma H. Law. $5.00

55

($6.00 foreign)

Eastern European Drama and The American Stage. A Symposium with Janusz Glt>wacki, Vasily Aksyonov, and moderated by Daniel C. Gerould (April30, 1984). $3.00 ($4.00 foreign)

These publications can be ordered by sending a U.S. dollar check or money order payable to CAST A to:

56

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SEEP is partially supported by CASTA and The Institute for Contemporary Eastern European Drama and Theatre at The Graduate Center of the City University of New York. Because of Increased printing and mailing costs, it is necessary to raise the annual subscription rate to $10.00 a year ($15.00 foreign). Individual issues may be purchased for $4.00.

The subscription year is the calendar year and thus a $10.00 fee is now due for 1991. We hope that departments of theatre and film and departments of Slavic languages and literatures will subscribe as well as individual professors and scholars. Subscriptions can be ordered by sending a U.S. dollar check or money order made payable to "CASTA, CUNY Graduate Center" to:

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seep vol.11 no.2 summer 1991

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