seep vol.26 no.1 winter 2006

8/12/2019 SEEP Vol.26 No.1 Winter 2006

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/seep-vol26-no1-winter-2006 1/103



SEEP ISSN t 1047-0019 is a publication of the Institute for Contemporary

East European rama and Theatre under the auspices of the Martin E Segal

Theatre Center. The Institute is at The City University of New York

Graduate Center, 365 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10016-4309. All

subscription requests and submissions should be addressed to Slavic and

East European Peiformance Martin E Segal Theatre Center, The City

University ofNew York Graduate Center, 365 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY

10016-4309



EDITOR

Daniel Gerould

MANAGING EDITOR

Margaret Araneo

EDITORIAL ASSISTANTCarly Smith

CIRCULATION MANAGERLouise Lytle McKay

ADVISORY BOARD

Edwin Wilson Chair

Marvin Carlson Allen] Kuharski

Martha W. Coigney Stuart Liebman

Leo Hecht Laurence Senelick

SEEP has a very liberal reprinting policy. Journals and newsletters that desire to

reproduce articles reviews and other materials that have appeared in SEEP may

do so as long as the following provisions are met:

a Permission to reprint the article must be requested from SEEP in writingbefore the fact;

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

Two copies of the publication in which the reprinted material has appeared must

be furnished to the editors of SEEP immediately upon publication.

MARTIN E SEGAL THEATRE CENTER

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

Daniel Gerould

DIRECTOR OF PROGRAMS

Frank Hentschker

DIRECTOR OF ADMINISTRATION

Jan Stenzel

Martin E Segal Theatre Center Publications are supported by generous grants from

the Lucille Lortel Chair in Theatre and the Sidney E Cohn Chair in Theatre of the

Ph.D. Program in Theatre at The City University of New York.

Copyright 2006 Martin E Segal Theatre Center

2 Slavic and ast uropean Performance Vol. 26 No. 1



Editorial Policy

From the Editor

Events

Books Received

ARTICLES

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Hungarian PlaywrightJanos Hay: Mythologizing Reality

Eugene Brogyanyi

Rear Guard Versus Avant-Garde:

A New Frame for an Old D ebate in Latvian Theatre at

Splemai}u Nakts 2005, Riga

JeffJohnson

PAGES FROM THE PAST

The Adventures ofVoskovec and W erich in America,

1939- 1945Jarka M. Burian

Lunacharsky on Revolutionary Laughter

Daniel Gerould

We Are Going To Laugh

Anatoly Lunacharsky

REVIEWS

Exploring New Territories with Ancient Tools:

Gardzienice's lektra in New York

Margaret Araneo

5

8

16

18

24

34

58

63

67

3



'Sacred and Pure Like First Love':

Gombrowicz's Marriage Staged by Elmo Niiganen

Aneta Mancewicz

White Butterflies, Plaited Chains: A Live Metamorphosis

by Theatre-In-A-Basket from Lviv, Ukraine

Larissa M. L Z. Onyshkevych

Three of V aclav Havel 's Plays Off-Off Broadway

Veronika Tuckerova

Contributors

75

84

9

95

4 Slavic and ast uropean Performance Vol. 26, No. 1



EDITORI L POLICY

Manuscripts in the following categories are solicited: articles of no

more than 2,500 words, performance and film reviews, and bibliographies.

Please bear in mind that all submissions must concern themselves with

contemporary materials on Slavic and East European theatre, drama, and

film; with new approaches to older materials in recently published works;

or with new performances of older plays. In other words, we welcome

submissions reviewing innovative performances of Gogo , but we cannot

use original articles discussing Gogo as a playwright.

Although we welcome translations of articles and reviews fromforeign 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 o Style should be followed. Transliterations

should follow the Library of Congress system. Articles should be submitted

on computer disk, as Word 97 Documents for Windows and a hard copy

of the article should be included. Photographs are recommended for allreviews. All articles should be sent to the attention of Slavic and ast

European Performance c/o Martin E Segal Theatre Center, The City

University of New York Graduate Center 365 5th Avenue, New York, NY

10016-4309. Submissions will be evaluated, and authors will be notified

after approximately four weeks.

You may obtain more information about Slavic and ast European

Performance by visiting our website at http web.gc.cuny.edu/metsc. E-mail

inquiries may be addressed to [email protected].

All Journals are available from ProOuest Information and Learning as

abstracts online via ProQ. est information service and the

International Index to the Performing Arts.

All Journals are indexed in the MLA International Bibliography and are

members of the Council of Editors of Learned Journals.

5



FROM TH E ITOR

Volume 26, no. 1 of SEEP covers a wide range of Eastern

European theatre observed in a variety o different places and contexts.

Eugene Brogyanyi presents the Hungarian playwright Janos Hay who

recently discussed his work with American spectators after a staged

reading of excerpts from two of his dramas at the Martin E. Segal

Theatre Center in New York. NextJeffJohnson, reporting on an annua l

Latvian theatre festival, introduces the outstanding companies,

productions, and directors of Latvia. Our occasional rubric, PAGES

FROM THE PAST, consists of two parts. The first, The Adventures ofVoskovec and Werich in America, 1939-1945, about the two great

Czech comics in wartime exile, is the last essay written by Jarka Burian

(1927- 2005), to whom we paid tribute in the last issue. We are

publishing this important article as a special feature, extended in length

beyond normal limits, and we thank Gracye Burian for making it

available to SEEP. The second part of PAGES FROM THE PAST,

Anatoly Lunacharsky's We Are Going to Laugh, is a continuation of

my work on the Soviet Commissar of Education's theorizing of genreand his promotion of the popular arts in the Soviet Union. The issue

concludes with four reviews. Margaret Araneo analyzes a re-imagining

of Greek tragedy by the Polish group Gardzienice presented at La

MaMa, Aneta Mancewicz describes an Estonian director's version of

Gombrowicz's arriage shown at the Wilam Horzyca Theatre in Torun,

Larissa Onyshkevych writes about a Ukrainian one-woman show from

Lviv performed in New York, and Veronika Tuckerova discusses a New

York production of three one-act plays by Havel.

2006 is the twenty-fifth anniversary year of SEEP, which was

founded in 1981 by Leo Hecht at George Mason University, Fairfax,

Virginia, as the outgrowth o a National Endowment for the

Humanities Summer Institute in Eastern European Theatre held at the

Graduate Center, CUNY, the same year. SEEP moved to the Graduate

Center in 1987 under the editorship of Daniel Gerould and Alma Law,

who had conducted the NEH Institute in 1981. On Tuesday, April 4,

2006, at the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center, there will be a twenty-fifth

anniversary celebration, wh ich will offer past and present contributors,

editors and staff members, and subscribers and friends of SEEP an

opportunity to meet, mingle, and discuss sha red interests and work in




progress. n informal colloquium will feature a discussion of aspects of

the current state of theatre and film in Eastern Europe and Russia.

If you plan on attending, please let us know.

Tel: 212) 812-1860

E-mail: [email protected]

FAX 212) 817-1562

7



EVENTS

STAGE PRODUCTIONS

New York City

The Trap Door Theatre presented Old Clown Wanted, written by the

French-Croatian Matei Visniec, translated from the French by Alison

Sinclair, and directed by Gregory A. Fortner, at the HERE Arts Center

from November 29 to December 4, as part of New York City s Act French

Festival. The playwright appeared for discussions with the audience at the

December performances. The play was also staged by the Trap Door

Theatre in Chicago from November 18 to January 14.

The Lark Play Development Center presented Lenin s Shoe by Saviana

Stanescu, directed by Daniella Topol, at the Lark Studio from February 1

to 4 and 6 to 11.

Scena Plastyczna K.U.L. (The Visual Theatre of Catholic University,

Lublin) in association with the Polish Cultural Institute, presented Passingway (Odchodzz , based on the book by Tadeusz R6zewicz, directed by

Leszek M<1dzik at La MaMa, from February 16 to March 5.

The students at Eugene Lang College at the New School for Liberal Arts

presented Gombrowicz s Operetta, directed by Zishan Ugurlu, composed by

Stefania de Kennessy, with Judith Malina and Hanon Reznikov, at La

MaMa from March 9 to 12.

The Martin E. Segal Theatre Center, at the Graduate Center of the City

University of New York, will presen t the following:

8

Under the Sign i he Crocodile, the current project of the Double

Edge Theatre, based on the stories of the Polish artist Bruno

Schulz, on April 20.

After the Fall: Reality and the New Romanian Theatre, two evenings of

staged readings of plays by Gianina Carbunariu Bogdan

Georgescu, and Vera Iona, directed by Marcy Arlin, Kaipo

Schwab, and Daniela Varon, on July 10 and 11.

Slavic and East European Peiformance Vol. 26, No. 1



STAGE PRODUCTIONS

United States Regional

The American Repertory Theatre and the Polish Cultural Institute ofNew

York presented Chekhov s Three Sisters adapted, directed, and designed by

Krystian Lupa, at the Loeb Drama Center, Harvard University, m

Cambridge, Massachusetts, from November 26 to January 1

The Brandeis Theatre Company of Brandeis University presented The

Suicide by Nikolai Edrman, in a newly translated adaptation by Professor

David Powelstock, directed by Dmitry Troyanovsky, at the Spingold

Theatre in Waltham, Massachusetts, from February 9 to 19.

The Russian-American Kids Circus performed at the New Jersey State

Theatre in New Brunswick, New Jersey, on February 26.

Krtakor of Budapest, Hungary, presented the following productions, in

Hungarian with simultaneous English translation, at Montclair State

University in Montclair, New Jersey:

The Seagull by nton Chekhov, directed by Arpad Schilling,

translated by Geza Morcsanyi, at the L Howard Fox Studio

Theatre from February 22 to 25.

BLACK/and an original piece by the company, directed by Arpad

Schilling, dramaturgy by Barbar Ari-Nagy, at the Alexander Kasser

Theatre from March 1 to4

The University Theater at the University of Chicago presented Witold

Gombrowicz s lvona Princess o Burgundia directed by Emily Boyd, from

March 8 to 11.

STAGE PRODUCTIONS

International

At the 2006 Sydney Festival (Australia), a production from the 2005

Chekhov International Theatre Festival (Moscow), Shakespeare s Twelfth

9



Night, w s performed, in Russian with English subtitles, at the Theatre

Royal from January 7 to 14.

The Minsk-based underground Free Theatre ofBelarus staged Sarah Kane s

4:48 Psychosis, directed by Vladimir Shcherban, at the Meyerhold Center,

Moscow, on February 27 and 28.

The annual Golden Mask Festival of drama, opera, ballet, operetta and

musical theatre, contemporary dance, and puppetry takes place in Moscow

starting on March 31. The Russian Case program, that part of the festival

focusing specifically on theatre, will include the following productionsbetween April 6 and 11:

10

The Presnyakov Brothers Playing The Victim by the Moscow Art

Theatre.

Chekhov s Scenes o Country Life (Uncle Vanya by the Okolo

Theatre of Moscow.

The Boys, based on Fyodor Dostoevsky s story, by the Russian

Academy ofTheatre Arts of Moscow.

Gorky s Lower Depths by the Nebolshoi Drama Theatre of St.

Petersburg.

Ostrovsky s Forest by the Moscow Art Theatre.

Chekhov s Cherry Orchard by the Drama Theatre of Omsk.

Williams s A Streetcar Named Desire by TYuZ of Moscow.

Saltykov-Shchedrin s Golov{yovs by the Moscow Art Theatre.

An original piece entitled SEPTEMBER.doc by Verbatim and

Theatre.doc ofMoscow

The Seven Who Were Hanged, adapted from Leonid Andreev s story,

by the Tabakov Theatre ofMoscow.

Slavic and East European Performance Vol. 26, No. 1



FILM

An original piece entitled Genesis No 2 by ntonina Velikanova,

Ivan Vyrypaev, "Praktika" Theatre, and Theatre.doc of Moscow,

along with Theater der Welt of Stuttgart, Germany.

New York City

The Czech Center New York offered the following films:

Pupendo, directed byJan Hrebejk, presented February 9.

Snowboarders, directed by Kare Jank, presented January 19.

Ballets Russes, a documentary directed by Dan Geller and Dayna

Goldfine, was presented at the IFC Center October 26 to February 2.

Love, directed by Vladan Nikolic, was screened at the Pioneer

Theatre from February 16 to March 1.

The new Russian horror fantasy film, Night Watch, directed by Timur

Bekmambetov, screenplay by Sergei Lukyanenko and Bekmambetov, based

on Lukyanenko's novel, opened in New York, Los Angeles, and San

Francisco on February 17.

Old First Reformed Church presented the second part of their Dekalog Film

Series by Krzysztof Kie5lowski, screened at the church in Brooklyn, on

February 12, 19, 26, and March 5 and 12 when the last five of the hour-long,made-for-television films were shown.

Baruch College's Weissman School of Arts and Sciences presented

Shostakovich and Film at Engelman Recital Hall on March 7, 15, and 21.

Films shown included:

The New Babylon (Noviy Vavilon).

Rothschild s Violin (Le Violon de Rothschild).

King Lear (Korol L ir .



FILM

U.S. Regional

The Death ofMr. Lazarescu, directed by Romanian filmmaker Cristi Puiu, was

screened at Harvard Film Archive in Boston on January 22.

The European Studies ouncil at the Yale Center for International and Area

Studies presented Europe at the Crossroads: inema Circa 1956, a film

festival and conference at Yale University from February 9 to 11. Eastern

European films shown included:

Man on the Tracks Czlowiek na torze), directed by Andrzej Munk,

on February 10.

The Shadow Cien}, directed by Jerzy Kawalerowicz, on

February 10.

September Nights Zrijovi nocz), directed by Vojetch Jasny, on

February 11.

FILM

International

The thirty-fifth annual Rotterdam International Film Festival took place

from January 25 to February 5 and included the following Eastern European

films:

12

On the Range and I Will Never Forget This, two shorts presented s an

installation by Kazakh performance artist Almagul Menlibayeva.

Amerzga, directed by Igor Aleynikov and Gleb Aleynikov.

Excerpts from C C TV, in which a collective of amateurs working

with the ontemporary Art Centre of Vilnius, Lithuania, created

live television episodes in a reality meta-show genre.

City o he Sun, directed by Martin Sulik.

Slavicand East European Performance Vol. 26, No. 1



Dealer, directed by Benedek Fliegauf.

The Death o Mister Lazarescu, directed by Cristi Puiu.

Death Rode Out o Persia, directed by Putyi Horvath.

Esther third chapter of Crazy Prince), directed by Boris Yukhananov.

Honorable Brother, directed by Yuri Leiderman and ndrey

Silvestrov.

I m Frigid but It Doesn t Matter, directed by Igor Aleynikov and

Gleb Aleynikov.

jihad, directed by Almagul Menlibayeva.

u n ~ directed by Jan Svankmajer.

My Nikifor, directed by Krzysztof Krauze.

Nice and Big, directed by Miklos Acs

Ode to joy, directed by Anna Kazejak-Dawid, Jan Komasa, and

Maciej Migas.

Panoramas Blue Soup Group 1994- 2005), directed by Danil

Lebedev, Alex Dobrov, and Alexander Lobanov.

Rubin 2004, directed by Monika Sosnowska.

The Shepard, directed by Yusup Razykov.

Silent Coolness, directed by Serik Utepbergenov.

Ten Videoworks (1999-2005), directed by Olga Chernysheva.

A Trip to Karabakh, directed by Levan Tutberidze.

3



Vocal Parallels directed by Rustam Khamdamov.

Vo{ga-Vo{ga directed by Pavel Labazov, Andrey Silvestrov, and

Vladislav Mamyshev-Monro.

Wandering Between directed by Anatoly Lavrenishin.

What Are You Going To Do When You Get Out o Here? directed by

Saso Podgorsek.

Wrong Side Up directed by Petr Zelenka.

OTHER EVENTS: ART, CULTURE, NEWS

Polish-Ukrainian actress and open-throat singer Mariana Sadovska

(formerly of Gardzienice) presented Without Ground a song cycle with

video by Lars Jan, at Symphony Space on December 9.

Still the River Flows A Glimpse into Winter Solstice and ChristmasRituals in a Carpathian Village, an art installation by Yara Arts Group,

conceived by Virlana Tkacz and Watoku Ueno, was presented at the

Ukrainian Museum in New York (222 East Sixth St.) from December 11

to January 29.

The Polish Cultural Institute in New York and White Box presented

Zbigniew Libera in conversation with Eleanor Heartney and Raul

Zamudio, on the occasion of the exhibition Zbigniew L ibera: Work .from

1984- 2004 at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor Oanuary 13 to

February 17), at White Box on January 28.

The Polish Cultural Institute in New York and Broadway 1602 presented

Charlestone a performance project by Cezary Bodzianowski, at the

Chelsea Hotel from January 14 to February 9

The Borderland Foundation of Sejny, Poland-described as a living

experiment in cross-cultural relations -sponsored a presentation by itschairman, Krzysztof Czyzewski, about the avant-garde foundation s

intercultural activities and programs in theatre, music, poetry and

14 Slavic and East European Performance Vol. 26, No. 1



wntmg publishing and film at Location One m New York on

February 7

The Ubu Gallery in New York 416 East Fifty-Ninth St.) presents an

exhibition Stanislaw lgnacy Witkiewicz 1885- 1939): Drawings from

the 1930s, from February 6 to April 22 The exhibit features over 60 rare

works, including a number of photographs. An online catalogue can be

seen at www.ubugallery.com.

Compiled by Carly Smith

15



BOOKS RECEIVED

Bochenski, T omasz. Czarny humor w tw6rczofci Witkacego, Gombrowicza,

Schulza. Lata trzydzieste. Modernizm w Polsce val. 11. Cracow: T owarzystwo

Autor6w i Wydawc6w Prac Naukowych Universitas, 2005. 311 pages.

Includes a Bibliography, Indexes of Subjects and of Names, and a summary

in French.

Gavran, Miro. Nora in Our Time Full text of play available in English online:

http ://www.mgavran2.t com.hr/plays/complete/nora.htm. Other plays,

Gavran's biography and a bibliography of his other work also accessible atsite's homepage: http:/ /www.mgavran2.t-com.hr/ .

Kornas, T adeusz. Wlodzimierz Staniewski i Ofrodek Praktyk Teatralnych

GARDZIEN CE. Cracow: Homini, 2004. 354 pages. Includes the following

appendixes: Expeditions within Poland and abroad, Productions, Artists,

Selected Bibliography, List of Illustrations, Indexes of Names and of Works

and Productions, plus 118 photographs.

Pieni<}zek Marek. Akt tw6rczy, jako mimesis: "Dzif 54 moje urodziny"-ostatni

spektakl Tadeusza Kantora. Modernizm w Polce, vol. 10. Cracow:

Towarzystwo Autorow i Wydawcow Prac Naukowych Universitas, 2005. 514

pages. Includes an 87 page bibliography, an index of names and of subjects,

a summary in English, and 64 illustrations (manuscript pages, drawings, and

photographs).

Teatr Witolda Gombrowicza. Pami{tnik Teatralny, vol. 53, nos. 1- 4 (209-212),2004. Special issue. 832 pages. Contains five sections: Gombrowicz and

Contexts, Gombrowicz in the Theatre: Between West and East, Gombrowicz

in Poland, Interpretations, and Gombrowicz in the Media, plus a summary

in English. Includes over a hundred photographs and illustrations, many in

color.

Visegrad Drama : Weddings. Bratislava: The Theatre Institute, 2002. 341

pages. Presents plays from the Czech Republic, Poland, Slovak Republic, and

Hungary, plus a Preface and Afterword: Anna Gruskova, The Visegrad

Legend and Drama ; Alois and Vilem Mrstfk, Maryfa, translated by Barbara

Day, Jan Grossman, Interpreting Maryfa, List of Productions; Stanislaw

16 Slavic andEast European Peiformance Vol. 26, No. 1



Wyspianski, The Wedding translated by Floryan Sobieniowski and E.G.

Hesketh Pearson, Henryk Izydor Rogacki, Folk, Bohemians and Ghosts,

List of Productions; Vladimir Hurban Vladimirov, Snowdrifts translated by

Heather Trebaticka, agmar Roberts, A Portrait ofA Man Who Knocked

on the Gates, List of Productions; Ferenc Molnar, The Glass Slipper

translated by Phillip Moeller, Peter P Muller, A Hungarian Cinderella, List

of Productions; Marta Botikova, Weddings and Family Traditions in

Peasant Culture in Central Europe: Their Reflections in Drama. Includes 36

photographs of playwrights and productions.

17



HUNG RI N PLAYWRIGHT JANOS HAY

MYTHOLOGIZING REALITY

Eugene Brogyanyi

Hungarian playwright jdnos Hdy participated in the Martin E Segal Theatre

Center's Contemporary Theatre Abroad series at The City University o New York

Graduate Center on November 18, 2005. The event featured scenes (peiformed by

members o he Threshold Theater Company) from two ofHdy'splays, Geza-boy and

Frankie Herner's ld Man, translated by Eugene Brogydnyi and directed by

Pamela Billig. After the reading, the playwright discussed his work with members othe audience. The following article, based on the translator 's introductory remarks,

places Hdy 's work in the broader context ofmodern Hungarian drama.

Janos Hay belongs to the third generation of post-World-War-II

Hungarian dramatists. The first generation was late to emerge due to the

compulsory artistic norms required by Stalin and the repression that

followed the crushed Hungarian uprising of 1956. By the early 1960s,

however, Hungary's communist government sought legitimacy by relaxingits grip on literary expression. Playwrights, still constrained albeit freed from

the shackles of Socialist Realism, turned to metaphor and parable to treat the

individual and social conflicts created by lack of freedom. There developed

an extraordinary, tacit conspiracy between playwright, theatre, and audience,

the latter drawing reassurance from the coded messages it received from the

stage. Thus a kind of theatre-between-the-lines emerged, and Hungarian

playwrights, adept at veiling their comments and criticisms in historical

subjects and absurdist parables, enjoyed popular acclaim. The popularity and

influence of Istvan Orkeny, whose Catsplay and The T6th Family have played

in American theatres, made him the key figure of that period. Never before

had Hungarian theatres and audiences been so instrumental in advancing the

creation of socially conscious drama.

In the late seventies, the second post-war generation of dramatists

emerged. These playwrights rejected their predecessors' recognition of a

moral world order to be championed through dramatic depictions of its

violation. Their main motivation was disillusionment with a system they saw

as hopelessly entrenched, especially after the invasion of Czechoslovakia in1968. Their work has collectively been designated by critics as a drama of

deficiency (hidnydramaturgia), since the characters in these plays tend to

8 Slavic and East European Peiformance Vol. 26, No. 1



Playwright Janos Hay and translator Eugene Brogyanyi during the

discussion at the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center

suffer from a lack of a meaningful past, ideals, possibilities, love, personal

space, even at times a coherent personality, and because action can make no

real difference in this stagnant world. The main practitioners during this

phase were Peter Nadas, Geza Beremenyi, Mihaly Komis, and Gyorgy Spiro.The tacit conspiracy with audiences continued feeding their drama, even as

the country continued moving from hard to soft dictatorship.

ith the collapse of communism in 1989, the third generation of

post-wa r dramatists emerged. These playwrights cannot be characterized

collectively, since there is no longer a collective condition imposed on

Hungarian society. After the regime change, the threat to the community by

the political system came to an end and with it the capacity of theatre to

influence public morale. For all its ability to marshal cohesion, for all theingenious results, a theatre of coded messages also stifles the inclination of

drama to talk straight. The playwrights of the post-1989 era freed from the

19



constraints of being code-making strategists, are on a quest for authenticity,

and authenticity speaks in many voices. Never before has Hungarian drama

manifested such a variety of style, language, and genre. For example, in

contrast to previous decades, in which playwrights were almost exclusively

concerned with the intrusion of the public sphere into the private, many

plays of the 1990s and since tend to isolate the individual in a private sphere.

Janos Hay's work, on the other hand, manifests a communal awareness.

The four plays by Hay, set mostly in rural Hungary, display an

incisive, honest approach to social problems and a linguistic boldness based

on a keen sense of hearing and a keen sense of humor, all in service of a

deeper probing into the dilemmas that are at the core of modern human

existence. Hay is in the words of the critic Istvan L Sandor, an author in

search of ways of mythologizing reality.

Gtfza-boy Hay s first play, written in 2000, is about a young

man with autistic tendencies, who lives in a village at once strangled

20

A quarry scene from Giza boy directed by Istvan Pinczes,

Csokonai Theatre, Debrecen, Hungary

Slavic and East European Performance Vol. 26, No. 1



and by-passed by modernization. Geza's friends find him a simple job, the

very meaning of which he eventually questions. To boost his morale, they

play a well-intentioned prank on him, but this backfires and only drives him

deeper into his unique world. Geza's story turns symbolic s the play

becomes a meditation on the metaphysical world order. A deficient person

ponders whether God ever intervenes to correct the deficiencies of the world.

And how is Geza deficient? He is simply incapable of relying on that

network of self-deceptions- which Ibsen was first to lay bare in the drama-

from which we inhabitants of the modern world draw our survival strategies.

Geza sees the world for what it is. Thus an autistic boy becomes the seer in

an autistic world.

Hay's second play, Frankie Herner s Old Man, involves three

unemployed, alcoholic village men clearing roadside ditches s community

service. As the weeks pass, they intermittently discuss the circumstances of

two deaths, one violent, one not, and get gradually caught up in the

irresolvable dialectic between the eternal cyclicality of nature and the finite

linearity of the individual human life. The play is rife with the tragi-comic

nonsense inherent in the questioning of everyday reality. The point is not

that the characters lack sense, the point is that the world lacks sense whencalled into question in this way. Consider this sample of their dialogue:

HERDA: It's not worth turnin' on the radio.

BANDA: How come?

HERDA: 'Cause all you do is listen to it.

BANDA: Well, isn't that what you turn it on for? What're you

supposed to do, watch it?

HERDA: That's not the point, it's what they say on it.

KREKACS: What about that, Stevie, what about what they say on

it?

HERDA: Well, either I don t understand it, which gets on my

nerves, or I do.

2



KREKACS: What then, if you do?

HERDA: That gets on my nerves too.

KREKACS: Just tum the sound off, Stevie, let it talk to itself

HERDA: What self?

KREKACS: The radio.

HERDA: You got it good, Bela, a lot better than other people.

KREKACS: How come you re sayin that, Stevie, how come?

HERDA: Cause you re so stupid, you re really better off When

you die, you won t even notice. Maybe even after you die you ll

think you re alive.

BANDA: There are people like that. They live after they die, causethey don t notice they died. I heard about it on the radio.

These two plays take place today in the same unnamed village, and some of

the same characters appear in both. Hay s third play, named for its villain,

Sendk, is also set in that village, during the time of the forced collectivization

of agriculture. In a sense then, this play goes back to the origins of the

problems exposed in the first two. Hay s fourth play, Uncle Stevie s Son, takes

place partly in the village and partly in Budapest when the capital sunderground metro system was opened in 1972. The play is, among other

things, a hilarious look at the big city from an outsider s point ofview. While

fundamentally tragic, Hay s plays in general contain a great deal of humor.

This no doubt accounts for much of their popularity both in Hungary and

abroad.

His dramas have so far been translated into Polish, Russian,

Slovak, Croatian, Finnish, German, Italian, and both British and American

English. In addition to receiving multiple productions in Hungary and at

Hungarian-language theatres in the surrounding states of Slovakia,

Ukraine, and Romania, Hay s plays have been performed in full

productions or staged readings in New York, London, Warsaw, Lodi,

Slavic ndEast European Performance Vol. 26, No. 1



Community service in Frankie Herner s Old Man directed by Istvan

Pinczes, Sandor Hevesi Theatre, Zalaegerszeg, Hungary

Poznan Naples, Tampere (Finland), and at the 2005 Heidelberg Drama

Festival, where Frankie Herner s Old Man received the Audience Award. New

York readings of Giza-boy were staged in 2004 and 2005 by the Threshold

Theater Company.

Hay turned to drama relatively recently in his career. Since the

publication of his first book in 1989, he has become an increasingly

celebrated writer of poems, novels, and short stories, of which sixteen

volumes have been published so far. Hay has received numerous literary

awards, including the prestigious Attila Jozsef Award, named for the great

twentieth-century Hungarian poet, and the Best Hungarian Drama Prize in

2002 for Giza-boy. It is not unusual for a Hungarian writer to come to drama

from other literary forms. Indeed, an exclusive playwright is a rarity amongHungarian authors, and Hay continues writing poetry and fiction, even s his

contribution to contemporary Hungarian drama grows.

23



REAR GUARD VERSUS AVANT-GARDE:

A NEW FRAME FOR N OLD DEBATE IN LATVIAN THEATRE

AT S P E L M l ~ U NAKTS 2005, RIGA

JeffJohnson

Spelmaq.u Nakts ("celebration nights") is an annual showcase of

Latvian plays organized by the Latvian Theatre Union in Riga. In 2005,

November 19 - 22, eight of the plays nominated by a jury of prominent

theatre critics for best performance, best director, best actor, etc., were

performed by various major theatre ensembles, followed by a conferencefeaturing independent experts, critics, and guests from around Europe. The

experts included Annelis Kuhlmann from Denmark, Irina Rakhmanova from

Belarus, Malgorzata Semi from Poland, and Ladislava Petiskova from the

Czech Republic. Other invited guests in attendance represented Finland,

Poland, Slovakia, Russia, and Lithuania. The festivities culminated in an

awards ceremony held on November 23 to commemorate the birthday of the

famous Latvian theatre director Eduards Smi gis.

Most of the major theatres in Latvia were represented this year withan impressive array of styles-traditional, modern and post

modern- underscoring the diversity (and critical controversies) driving

Latvian theatre today. From the Stanislavskian school of psychological

realism, New Riga Theatre performed Turgenev's A Month in the Country,

directed by Mara ~ m e l e and the Valmiera Drama Theatre presented The

Filled Spring (Aizbirufais avots), based on stories by Rudolfs Blaumanis and

directed by Felikss Deics. Representing a more modern approach, Liepaja

Theatre staged a conceptual work, The Blue (Zilii), written by Gunar Priedeand directed by Martins Eihe, the Riga Russian Drama Theatre presented a

minimalist piece by Mara Zalite, llHumans Are Cats (Visi cilveri ir katz), also

directed by Deics and the Valmiera Drama Theatre presented a metaphorical

treatment of Ibsen's Hedda Gabler, directed by Olgerts Kroders. Working out

of a postrnodernist sensibility, Alvis Hermanis staged his Latvian Stories

(Latviefu stiistz) at the New Riga, and at Riga Art Theatre Dz. Di Dzilindzers

directed his bizarre Penelope and Dick Penelope un Diks), an adaptation of

Somerset Maugham's comedy Penelope. Finally, in a production impossible

to classify, director Galina Pojiscuka at the Latvian National Theatre treated

the classical verse drama Blow, Wind Put, vejini.0 by Janis Rainis

(1865- 1929), the most famous Latvian poet, as a contemporary physical




performance piece, managing to retain its traditional sense even as she recast

the historical folk customs into a modern context, using contemporary stagelanguage without ruining the uniqueness of the original play.

O f the performances, the less traditional plays were shunned by the

critics, with A Month in the Country an unapologetic exercise in strict

nineteenth-century realism, sweeping the awards, winning in every major

applicable category, including bes t play, best acting, best costumes, etc. This

privileging by the jury of realism over more metatheatrical approaches

exposes a rift within the Latvian critical community, with the established

critics supporting the tendency of the traditional repertory theatres like the

National to stage pro forma classics and young directors who prefer to

explore the possibilities and limitations of what sustains a performance,

insisting on plays that challenge the very idea of theatre.

The difficulty began after independence, when the dominance of

Stanislavskian realism was challenged and/or modified by the novelty and

pop appeal of Western influences, and now contemporary Latvian

playwrights and directors are well versed in postmodern tendencies. But the

older generation of audiences, echoed by the critics in the popular press,

continues to demand and promote the typical psychological realism thatdominates repertories at most of the major theatres. The younger audiences,

meanwhile, prefer more adventurous directors, or at least a rethinking of how

to stage classical plays, mai ntaining the uniqueness of the original but

translating the action into more contemporary theatre language.

Ga{ina Poliscuka's treatment of Blow Wind , a classic reworked

through a feminist perspective and staged in a contemporary fashion, marks

a radical departure from the National's usual, more conservative style.

Poliscuka's approach represents a determined attempt to connect thecountry's past with its present, employing contemporary sensitivities while

maintaining the eternal elements of traditional tragedy. Poliscuka eschews

anachronistic elements and uses no special effects (except for professional

lighting); the ambient noises and the music are created live by the actors, the

songs and instruments the same today as a hundred years ago. In this way

Poliscuka remains faithful to the historical aspect of the piece while

presenting the material as a modern predicament.

The performance space is a bare black floor bordered with a woodenframe like a sandbox and flanked by bleacher seating on either side. Arrayed

around the frame are various farm implements- traditional tools and baskets

along with costumes on wooden scarecrow-like manikins. The effect creates

25



The cast of Blow, Wind directed by Galina Poliscuka, presented at

Spelmagu Nakts 2005, Riga

a scene from a museum, where historical artifacts are on display. The actors

and musicians enter from the audience in normal street clothes, like students

visiting an exhibition, ut soon each one pauses before a display and beginsto undress, stripping out of their contemporary clothes and donning the

costumes of the play, allowing the audience to witness the transformation of

the actors into their characters and the creation of theatre time and place, as

if carving out a magic space of verisimilitude while acknowledging the

limitations of realism. The process also strips away the romantic notions

usually associated with Rainis's play and highlights the brutal naturalism that

distinguishes Poliscuka's production from more traditional renditions.

Another play in the showcase, Mara Zalite's ll Humans Are Cats.offers a sly comment on contemporary life in the new Latvia, while

emphasizing the timeless values that elevate her play out of mere topicality

into universal tragedy. Staged in the tiny loft-style space above the main




performance hall at the Russian Drama Theatre, the play shows the influence

of Beckett and Grotowski but achieves an intimacy and passion that setsZalite s work off as patently original, analyzing the lives of people, Herman

and Zente, who share an unpleasant past and who are now marginalized by

society.

The play resonates with meaning for Latvian audiences. On a

contemporary social level, the play exposes the distressing plight of the

elderly, whose pension programs are constantly at risk in the free market

system, whose family properties are threatened by gentrification, and whose

abandonment by members of their extended families as they seek

employment abroad have left them lonely and isolated in an unfamiliar

world that offers little sympathy for the old, the destitute, or the infirm.

The play also dredges up issues many Latvians would prefer to

ignore or forget. Herman complains that his family disappeared in a Soviet

gulag, and Zente confesses that she granted sexual favors to her superiors at

the Central Committee to advance her career; though never more than a

secretary, she enjoyed caviar and other elaborate perks while her peers had to

settle for much more modest fare Not as pervasive today as during the

Soviet era of corruption and elitist hypocrisy, means of advancement forwomen in contemporary Latvia are still exploitative in the professional

world. And the crass commercialism that comes with privatization, the

constant need for money and the ideology of measuring value by cost, not

quality, causes Herman to calculate the worth of his actions-what others

may discount as acts of compassion- in terms of an economic bottom line.

He constantly nickels-and-dimes Zente until finally he is driven to suicide,

partly (or especially) because of the government s threat to evict him and

confiscate property that has been in his family for generations. Also, his faithin his brother is based more on his brother s wealth than any genuine filial

affection. All bonds are reduced to economic exploitation, in Herman s case

the desire for a bigger apartment and a shopping spree, as if his brother were

a modern Robin ood dispensing money, not justice, compassion or

traditional family values.

Theatrically, the play appears to adhere to the tenets of naturalism,

but it also creates a kaleidoscopic world of illusions that not only comments

on the nature of the theatre but also on the tendency in contemporarysociety to forsake the actual world for a virtual reality with no real

consequences that can be switched on and offlike television. The real world

is replaced by wishful thinking, the displacement of an actual life by that of

27



an onamsttc, imaginary surrogate existence conditioned by avoidance,

denial, and, finally, pure desire, whether nostalgic or utopic, nonethelessimpossible. The danger lies in the characters' masturbatory withdrawal from

the real-as indicated by Zente's playing with her puppet cat. In this sense,

ll Humans re ats displaces metatheatrical assumptions that belie its

naturalistic structure and by its design illustrates the fragile construction of a

Latvian society confronting its identity, both as a precious illusion and a

hard reality.

A third standout, Latvian Stories continues Alvis Hermanis's

investigation into both a more reali

stic style and the dramatic potentialexpressed in ordinary lives. A performance of one of the monologues, staged

in an upstairs loft-style black box at New Riga (one of several performance

spaces surrounding an impressive courtyard) indicates Hermanis's interest in

pure acting. By stripping away the normal theatrical framing devices, he

exposes the medium for what it is, an actor becoming another person

indulging an audience in an act of empathetic identification. The impulse

driving this approach seems to suggest that all the props and scenery and

elements of dramatization directors use to enhance the presentation in

typical theatrical productions tend, instead, to falsify rather than clarify the

action. In this instance, the set consists only of a bare stage and a backdrop

collage of photographs depicting apartments in various stages of lived-in

disarray. The actor simply sits on a stool between the audience and the

photo-collage, telling the story of the character he has assumed.

Latvian Stories is composed of stories collected from interviews,

often recited verbatim. Hermanis discards theatrical presentation, opting

instead for straight delivery, an adumbration with hardly any fictional

structuring. This is theatre reduced to voice and delivery, expressed withsensitivity, exposition without dramatic effects. A traditionalist could argue

that without dramatic structure- i.e., an applied technique of metaphorical,

naturalistic or mimetic strategies of representation beyond mere recitation

the monologues, delivered, granted, with sensitivity and immediacy, might

just as well be performed as a book reading.

In this sense, Latvian Stories represents an end of theatre. The

approach implies nihilism within the genre: theatre reduced to the art of

storytelling, stripped of verisimilitude or, indeed, of any enhancement byvisual means. The argument from genre insists that the beauty and appeal of

art, per se is form. Life, after all, is contingent, art arranged. And it is in that

arrangement, the structural semblance of reality-not in its naive

28 Slavic andEast European Perfonnance Vol. 26, No. 1



presentation, which by its ordinariness is boring that the craft of the artist

imposes design on the chaos of experience. Only a dilettante wouldcomplain that theatre somehow sacrifices its value by its artifice; in reality,

theatre as a genre posits quite the opposite: beauty is form, art the skill of

shaping experience. Hermanis's collection might be engaging, but the stories

are not his, not the actors', and in the end not the real story of the clerk,

the bus driver, or the unemployed student who inspired the original piece.

But this seems to be his point: to challenge representation at all levels.

At the other end of the continuum from Hermanis's Theatre of

Exhaustionlies

Dz. Dz. Dzilindzers's Total Theatre, extravaganzas thatcelebrate and mock the very artificiality of stage effects that purists like

Hermanis distrust. Dzilindzers's disdain for psycho-realism- 1 hate it, he

says bluntly and what he derisively refers to as Latvia's actor's theatre is

seriously evident in Penelope and ick He reduces Maugham's comical but

subtle psychological study of marital infidelity and the willful deceit of the

couples involved-a staple element of stereotypical British discretion,

decorum, and the art of keeping up appearances-to an absurdist farce that

has little to do with British behavior and everything to do with Dzilindzers's

own love affair with the quirky Warholian, image-saturated landscape that

passes for normalcy in the new fangled, consumer-driven contemporary

Latvian society.

Whereas Maugham shellacs the veneer of social manners by which

the Edwardians masked their perversities and maintained their peculiar

fac ade ofnormalcy, Dzilindzer works from a prime-time soap ethos in which

vixens vie for incompetent males, sex is never an end in itself but always

merely another option in an arsenal of manipulative tools, and personal

obsessions-fitness, pornography, alcohol, religion- become interchangeablecultural commodities, nothing more than convenient lifestyles, as ephemeral

as the guts of a lava lamp.

What at first seems irreverent-Dzilindzer ridiculing a pop-art

culture he obviously adores-belies a more serious critique. Dzilindzer,

typically, prefers to hedge his moral intentions: eager to claim the mantle of

po-rno alchemist, turning trash into gold, he is less willing to acknowledge

his role as ethicist. His irony more closely resembles that of an old school

reformer like Kierkegaard than the easy cynicism of Joe Orton. Anymoralizing n the play, he says, occurs by accident. Yet he identifies his

mission as a fight against untruths. He argues that if people are living

old truths, they become lies. He says that in his version, unlike Maugham's

9



Dz Dz. Dzilindzers's Penelopeand ick at Spelma }u Nakts 2005, Riga




original, he has Dick kill Penelope because to let the couple continue living

as they have before would affirm the established values that are actually, inthe context of the play, decadent and useless. Truth, he says, is a new

thing that happens to you in a different context. Penelope's murder destroys

the old truths and forces the survivors to rethink their values. In an

existential coda, the raison d etre of his own career, he adds, You have to

recreate truth to survive life.

Another play presented in the showcase that challenges the

prevailing Latvian preference for actor-based performances is The Blue.

Although trained as an actor, director MartiQ s Eihe says his acting experience

is merely a bonus when it comes to directing; he can tell, for instance,

when an actor is cheating. In a tongue-in-cheek moment of self-deprecation,

he recalls a former teacher telling him, All bad actors are going to be

directors.

Performed in one of the three main spaces at New Riga-this one a

black box with a raised stage and dining room chair seating-The Blue

crosses minimalism with mixed media to jazz up and contemporize what is

basically straightforward Grotowskian poor theatre. The tiny stage is bare,

but from the front of the stage out, over and through the audience, a network

of chrome rails, with what appear to be subway straps attached, support a

half dozen video monitors, intended to produce the effect of the audience

traveling on a mass transit bus, while on the screens the single image of a cow

floats against a dull blue and white background.

Suddenly the monitors flash a red alert warning, the lights go down,

and a loud siren blasts. A man in a wheelchair rolls onto the set; three other

actors sit offstage facing the rear curtain. The story unfolds as each actor takes

the stage to interact both with one another and with the audience directly ina combined approach, working within a realistic frame and yet breaking the

frame by what amounts to confessions directed outside the time of the

play.

The story deals with the events leading up to a tragic automobile

wreck and the aftermath, told in what amounts to flashback dialogue

delivered in a series of visits during a day in the life of the survivor, the

temperamental, spoiled son of a wealthy family, and his mother. The son,

Juris, while driving drunk, killed his father, his grandmother, and anotherwoman in a head-on collision that also left the passengers in the other car

with debilitating injuries. His mother, Rasma, has sold everything and moved

from Riga to a house by the Black Sea in Georgia hoping to facilitate her

31



bars and monitors should also create in the audience a sense of collectively

traveling the same highway, emulating Juris's journey toward selfrecognition, a simple attempt to create a subjective verisimilitude that also

explains the staging, combining realistic interaction among the characters

interspersed with their attempts to rationalize their motives by plea

bargaining with the audience. Significantly, Juris is the only character who

does not address the audience, reinforcing the idea that the entire vision of

the play is constructed through his perspective as the audience experiences

not so much a play as the working of]uris's mind.

Traditionally, the themes coursing through Priede's Soviet-era script

deal with moral corruption engendered by envy, an indictment of the

economic inequities endemic in the cronyocracy that passed for communism

under the corrupt Soviet regime. These themes the recklessness of spoiled

youth, class envy, the desire for love and the impossibility of innocence-are

universal, and the action of the text, in this sense, transcends the particulars

of the Latvian social context. But Eihe is less interested in themes than

presentation so that the staging itself becomes an editorial on current values.

The quick scenes, the actors reciting summaries of their situations, the

brevity of the play itself-running a short hour at most-represent for Eihe thereality for a young audience demanding immediate, abbreviated shots of

information, their attention span conditioned by news flashes, high-speed

video games, MTV collages, e-mail correspondence, and fifteen-second

advertising spots. Even the use of the video monitors, providing a visual

portal into Juris's mind and signifying his fixation, was as much a practical

component for Eihe as a metaphorical one. He explains, The young

audiences today expect video, as if they might trust the play and be more

inclined to accept its theatrical truth as long as it included some aspect ofelectric media.

The Latvian theatre has become cleft by desire, the older generation

craving Stanislavskian realism, evoking a golden era of actors superbly

trained in the Russian tradition, the younger generation demanding new

forms and experimentation, driven by a disdain for tradition but aware of

their own appropriation of postmodernity without necessarily contributing

anything wholly original to the mix. Luckily, festivals such as Spelmal}U

Nakts continue to frame the issue, allowing traditional artists and the avantgarde to argue their cases in performance before an appreciative audience

actively engaged in the ongoing cultural debate.



THE ADVENTURES OF VOSKOVEC AND WERICH IN

AMERICA, 1939-1945

Jarka M. Burian

They were without a doubt the most popular theatre performers in

Czechoslovakia in the first twenty years of the Republic s life. But they were

not only theatre performers. They wrote all of their own material, except for

the music. Their productions grew from revue-type skits to full-length

productions with sustained plots, songs, and chorus dancers. Within a few

years of their first production n 1927-Vest Pocket Revue they took over their

sponsoring organization and established their own theatre: the Liberated

Theatre of Voskovec and Werich. Their chief collaborator became Jaroslav

Je:Zek a classically trained musician in love with American jazz. They made

several successful films, and their songs were best-sellers.

The enormous popularity of the Liberated Theatre ofVoskovec and

W erich was due not only to their talents as writers and comedic performers

but also to the nature of their productions, which were rollicking satires that

caught the fresh spirit of the newly independent C zechs but also echoedcurrent entertainment trends in the West, above all in American films and

popular music. Their essential roles were as clowns in the tradition of the

commedia dell arte, but they added keen wit and sophisticated, at times

absurdist, wordplay.

What gave their work lasting importance, however, were the times

and their response to them as the relatively carefree twenties gave way to the

darker days of the thirties-economic depression, increasing militarism, and

the growing threat of fascism. In addressing such challenges while retainingtheir special gift for high-powered comedic entertainment, they enriched

their art and also rallied the spirits of their audiences with their highly topical

productions.

In their final season of 1937-1938, they were at their best in two

productions likd Barbara (Heavy Barbora) and Pest na Oko (A Fist in the

Eye), which resonated with the period of increasing crisis that culminated in

Munich the capitulation to Hitler, and the loss of Czech territory bordering

Germany. Rightist Czech authorities closed their theatre in early November1938, just as they were about to open a new production. Knowing that they

were in grave danger because of their long-standing anti-fascist stance, they,

along with Jezek, decided to immigrate to America.




i i i Voskovec and an Werich arriving in New York from Cleveland 1941

35



For the next six years, until the end of World War II, they

experienced a variety of adventures in trying to make it, or at least

survive, in American show business while learning an alien language and

adjusting to a new cultural environment. High expectations and occasional

stage successes alternated with setbacks and periods of frustrating

inactivity. Werich's later reflection on their life during their American years

captures the essence of the situation in which they found themselves:

When I look through our American journal, I am astonished how

back then we swarmed, how we went from one meeting to another,

how we wrote our plays into the morning and revised our oldplays-and how it all didn t lead to anything I am surprised

that that we didn t stop trying our luck again and again, that we

didn t throw the towel in.

On the other hand, with rare exceptions, they kept their spmts high,

persevered, and ultimately achieved their goal of performing on Broadway

to favorable reviews. Almost with poetic justice, their breakthrough not

only made up for six often discouraging years in American theatre but alsoparalleled the victorious final months of the war in Europe and the

liberation of Czechoslovakia, from which they had fled in the winter of

1938-39.

Documentation of their years in wartime America is fragmentary.

Both Voskovec and Werich wrote about some of their activity, often

vividly and with insight, but with many gaps, understandably. Werich was

a masterful raconteur and anecdotist, but he is often very sketchy with

dates and other specifics, and although Voskovec was generally moredetailed in his accounts, chiefly in his letters to his relatives in

Czechoslovakia such letter writing dealing with their American activity

during the war years seems to have ended with the entry of the United

States into the war, when such communications from the United States to

Czechoslovakia were no longer possible. I have tried to pull together a

more complete story of their wartime activity devoted to theatre and film

by consulting additional sources to be found in the United States, such as

Czech-language newspapers and especially the George Voskovec archive in

the Gottlieb Library at Boston University.

They did not leave Prague together. A scant week after the death

of Karel Capek, Voskovec flew from Prague to Paris on New Year's Eve,

36 Slavic nd ast uropean Performance Vol. 26, No. 1



1938; his French wife remained behind. Similarly leaving family and loved

ones behind, W erich and J e:lek flew from Prague on January 9 and reached

Paris by way of Zurich. A few days later, after a visit with Jean Renoir and

the Fratellini brothers, the trio embarked together from Cherbourg on

January 14 aboard the liner Aquitania, which brought them to New York

Harbor eight hours behind schedule, Friday, January 20, after encountering

stormy seas.2 They were greeted by a cluster of acquaintances they knew

from Europe, including Herbert Kline, an American who had filmed a

documentary, Crisis in Czechoslovakia in 1938. The film dealt with the

tensions preceding the Munich crisis but also included a sequence of

Voskovec and Werich performing for a group of schoolchildren in thesummer of 1938. Kline was later to prove instrumental in putting them in

touch with an important regional professional theatre, but at the moment,

he persuaded them to stay at a luxury hote l, as befitted their star status.

After two days at the St. Moritz, however, they realized their limited funds

couldn t bear the burden; they had come with only one hundred dollars

each, their limit as visitors on a visa. Facing reality, they managed to find

a small, drafty, but reasonably inexpensive furnished apartment on

Riverside Drive into which all three moved.

How did they expect to survive? They weren t fools, and they

weren t utterly naive. Of course, as victims of fascist oppression, they had

the sympathy and goodwill of many people in America some of whom

helped them financially), but that was not enough to get them here or to

sustain them for very long. They had obtained their visas only through a

stratagem by William Morris, the head of the major entertainment agency

that s sti ll functioning today. What led Mr. Morris to befriend them?

Apparently it was through the efforts of Lotte Goslar, a talented German

mime and dancer who became well known in America. She had performed

in one of their prewar hits, alada z hadru (The Rag Ballad, 1935), and

persuaded Morris of their reputation and talent. Morris sent them a generic

contract and promised to try to help them once they were ready to perform

for American audiences.3 This meant, however, learning the English

language, of which they had only the sketchiest knowledge. Luckily for

them, a good Samaritan literally knocked on their door.

Tony K.raber, a neighbor in their building, had heard of them

through word of mouth. He offered to give them lessons in Englishwithout charge. Besides being a likeable and generous person, K.raber was a

sometime actor and folk singer who had worked with the celebrated Group

37



Theatre. He was to prove a valuable friend with whom they stayed in touch

long after the end of their American adventure.

To supplement their dwindling resources, and to get back on stage,they began a series of appearances for Czech audiences in the New York

metropolitan area. The performances, billed as An Evening of Cabaret,

were organized by one Max Raym, a local Czech-American who became

their manager. The first performance took place on March 9 in the T.J.

Sokol Hall on East Seventy-First Street in the heart of the Czech

neighborhood. There was considerable advance publicity, especially in the

Czech daily, ew Yorski Listy (New York Pages) . Although many Czech

Americans knew of Voskovec and W erich, especially through their films,which were shown in Czech communities, other Czechs, especially older

ones, were unaware of them. In any case, their first performance in the new

world was sold out and a complete success, largely because many in the

audience were recent emigres who had seen their work in Prague.s

The basic format of these performances was a series of semi

improvised sketches and songs from their repertoire, plus some solo piano

numbers by Jezek. I was a twelve-year-old member of the audience (with

my parents) at one of their first New York performances and still recall onesketch in which they played tourist strangers who meet on the deck of a

ship and try to communicate in several languages-before realizing they're

both Czechs. One of Jezek's crowd pleasers was asking the audience for

four musical notes and then improvising various musical forms on the

basis of those notes.

Several other performances for Czechs in the New York area took

place in the next few weeks, during which time-ironically- the Germans

completed their seizure of what was Czechoslovakia on March 15. The

performances took place in Newark (March 19), Astoria (April I), and

Yonkers. The Yonkers matinee performance, on March 26, was memorable

in that only one person bothered to come but insisted that they perform

for him. They complied, but he had enough after a few of their routines

and then offered to take them out for a beer.6 A lack of expected turnout

from Czech-American audiences came to be a fact of life during their stay.

They began to realize that many Czech-Americans were not only unaware

of them but also not used to their contemporary idiom and allusions.

Their next performance, on April 14 in the Narodni um on EastSeventy-Third Street, was billed as a Farewell Performance prior to their

touring west to other Czech-American audiences. By this time their




publicity referred to their New American Program - presumably routines

based on their experiences and observations since their arrival.

In the meantime, they had also been seeing many films and plays,occasionally meeting with William Morris and other contacts, learning

English, and working over their iikd Barbara script to make it more

accessible for American audiences, since their goal remained a Broadway

production. Equally important to their first one-hundred days in America,Werich s wife and four-year-old daughter had managed to leave

Czechoslovakia. They arrived in March, staying in New York while

Voskovec, We rich, and Jefek went on their tour west.

Having bought a used twelve-cylinder 1933 Lincoln for $240,which turned out to have been owned by gangsters, the trio toured from

mid-April to mid-May to Czech-speaking audiences in Baltimore,

Binghamton, Cleveland, and Chicago. Details of this tour have been scarce

except that it was less successful than they had hoped, even though reportsin local newspapers were often enthusiastic. Little is known about their

performances in Baltimore and Binghamton except that they had to have

occurred before April 25 when they arrived in Cleveland. Three days later,

on the evening of Friday, April 28, they performed before an audience ofsome seven hundred in Cleveland's Czech National Hall, where the

admission charge was fifty and eighty cents. The program's title w s Take

It Easy a very American idiom. A review in the local Czech-American

newspaper the next day spoke of them as:

extraordinary interpreters of healthy humor. They will be with us

for many years and will accomplish more than our newspaper

articles. They give us an essential part of life. And they are capable

of telling us everything so sharply and not only about dog muzzlesbut also about ourselves. And believe us, this is what we need most

of all. In the end, common sense wins after all , and whoever has a

brain, has more than money. The performance was great and

unique and the attendance w s excellent by our standardsJ

Equally important during their stay in Cleveland in 1939, they met with

key personnel of the Cleveland Playhouse, who most likely saw their

performance. The meeting was probably arranged by Herbert Kline, theman who included Voskovec and W erich in his film risis and who had

previously been associated with the Playhouse. The Voskovec-Werich-

39



Kline-Cleveland Playhouse connection ts indicated in a Cleveland

newspaper clipping the following year, when Voskovec and Werich

returned to Cleveland to perform at the Playhouse: Voskovec and Werichwere 'discovered' by Herbert Kline, a former Playhouse attache, who made

a name for himself by making documentary movies in Spain,

Czechoslovakia, and Poland. 8 Another clipping from 1940 refers to the

Director of the Playhouse, Frederick McConnell, meeting with Voskovec

and Werich the previous spring during the the team's Czech National Hall

appearance. At this meeting, McConnell went on reportedly to suggest

that he would be interested in one of their new plays. 9

The tour culminated in Chicago, a city which they foundunattractive and not very responsive to their efforts, despite their opposite

hopes and despite their brief reunion with Lotte Goslar, who joined them

in their performances there. Although the Cleveland paper had referred to

five performances being assured for Chicago,lO a Chicago daily paper,

ennihlasatel (Daily Herald), later reported on only two performances. The

first was in a large auditorium at Morton High School in Cicero, a suburb

of Chicago, heavily populated by Czechs, on the evening of Wednesday,

May 3, 1939. The auditorium held about a thousand seats, two thirds ofwhich were filled. The newspaper review was very favorable: Every

number on the program was echoed by explosions of honest laughter and

a storm of grateful applause. ll The review listed nineteen numbers in the

program, including three dance-mimes by Goslar, a piano improvisation by

Je:Zek and one or more selections from their plays Golem Osel a stin (An Ass

and a Shadow], Tiikd Barbora Pest na oko and Panoptikum (Funhouse). The

performance was also attended by Czech president Eduard Bend, who was

in Chicago at the time. His entrance coincided with the end of one of Lotte

Goslar's numbers. Thinking the storm of applause was for her, she kept

taking bows before realizing that the audience members had their backs

toward her as they faced Bend in the balcony.12 Werich attributed the less

than-capacity audience to Voskovec and Werich being associated with

Eduard Bend, whom many Czechs resented for his recognition of the

Soviet Union and for having capitulated to the Germans.13 The larger

reality behind the Benes issue was the many divisions among Czech

Americans, as noted by Werich: Our countrymen were divided into

groups, subgroups, tiny groups, ideological militants, submilitants, and soon. This one wouldn't speak to that one, while that one wouldn't speak to

some other. 1 Later in the year they had to deal with this antagonism

40 Slavic and East European Performance Vol. 26 No. 1



during their appearances at two Sokol organizations m Manhattan, the

members of which had no use for each other.

Nevertheless, another performance by Voskovec, Werich, and

Jeiek (and now Goslar) in Chicago received good publicity and, according

to the review, an enthusiastic audience. It occurred in a pavilion in Pilsner

Park, in a Czech section of Chicago, on Wednesday evening, May 10.

Admission was sixty cents, and about six hundred people attended.

According to the reviewer, the program was almost entirely new, and it was

even more effective than the one a week earlier:

Already the introductory number, Prague Cream of Society,captivated the audience and created a fertile ground for jokes,

anecdotes, tongue lashings, and grimaces in the rest of the

program. Voskovec and Werich achieved a maximum effect in the

fifth number called Water Lice. IS

Despite enthusiastic audiences and good reviews, they barely covered their

expenses on the tour. W erich was aware of the essence of their larger

theatre problem:

It was becoming clear that our fortune would not blossom in the

so-called Czech America. A carpenter needs to know wood; an

actor needs to know language. Until we master English enough to

try to play in a language spoken and understood by an American

audience, we can't continue with our craft16

Nevertheless, they had initiated a relationship with the ClevelandPlayhouse, which was to flower a year later. In the meantime, they returned

to New York in mid-May.

Voskovec's wife was to arrive in early June. With the aid of Tony

Kraber, they arranged an extended rental of a summer home in Point

Pleasant, Pennsylvania (some 120 kilometers from NYC), where they all

stayed until late in November, a stretch of time that of course included the

invasion of Poland and the start of World War II. During those months in

the country, with the encouragement of William Morris and some others,

they kept working over their arbara script and also a new but unnamed

play built around their talents and designed for an American public. There

is also evidence that that they had begun negotiations with the directors of

4



the Cleveland Playhouse, who at first expressed interest in another of their

works, Osel a stin. And they kept in touch with contacts in New York and

made the round trip from Pennsylvania a number of times for meetings,

which at the time seemed promising but actually had no positive results.

On one such trip, however, they met the theatre couple Howard Lindsay

and Dorothy Stickney, who were much later to become good friends of

Voskovec. It was Blanche Yurka who introduced them.J7 Lindsay was a

successful playwright, director, and actor; his Life With Father- in which he

starred with Stickney-ran for years on Broadway.

Voskovec, Werich, and Jezek's next public performance, again An

Evening of Cabaret, was on November in the D.A. Sokol Hall on EastSeventy-Second Street, even while they were still living in Pennsylvania.

The publicity stressed virtually all new material, with references to some

specific titles: Sure-Polka ftraje den taky (Tomorrow Is also a Day), and

Pisen Ndrodu (The Song of Nations). 18 The newspaper review, like the one

for their very first showing in New York, was a rave,l9 suggesting that their

talents had not diminished, even though the quantity and quality of

audiences were unpredictable.

By December of 1939, back in Manhattan, having sold theLincoln and still very short of cash, the three comrades found themselves

happy to accept three engagements for New Year's Eve, performing three

quarters of an hour at each site, including the two Sokol Halls previously

mentioned.

In the meantime, still another source of irritation was noted by

Voskovec in late December. Speaking of their ostensible patron William

Morris, Voskovec noted in a letter:

Meanwhile, our boss to hell with him, the blockhead took

our product and sent it to Hollywood to Warner Brothers to see

if they would buy it. Well, that sounds beautiful, but we wanted

him to take it to a theatre company on Broadway, which was a

more advantageous way to proceed. But nothing is guaranteed,

and again the decision was postponed till January.zo

The New Year's Eve performances culminated their first year in America,

and were characteristic of their mixed experiences, as Voskovec'scomments indicate:




The evening of three performances. The first in the Sokol Hall

on Seventy-First Street. According to the agreement we were

to perform for about three quarters of an hour for fifty dollars.

The hall was packed with countrymen of the supper class,

which is to say philistines sitting at tables, drinking beer, and

looking unu sually well fed. We started, and one dialogue more

or less went well, but then we had to shout so that at least the

first row of tables could hear us Finally about two thirds of

the hall simply ignored us, chatted, and blew their paper horns.21

They gave up after twenty-five minutes, and then were reprimanded by afunctionary for shortchanging the audience and not really being funny.

They were even given a smaller fee than promised, but eventually the

matter was resolved. The second performance was in the Sokol Hall on

Seventy-Second Street. There the people were wonderful, remarkably

quiet, and reacted beautifully. In short, they were working people We

received our agreed-upon thirty dollars immediately. They call the

members of the other Sokol Hall hooligans. 22

The third performance was in the llnickj dum (Workers'Building) on Seventy-Second Street. Voskovec's terse diary comments even

included a nod to the New Year:

A big success, even though some people there were already in high

spirits. And here ends our first year of emigration. And what to

wish for? That the second be as lucky, because actually- what have

we to complain about if we think of the people in Prague? There

could be a more positive side to our work. And politicallyspeaking, may it all hurry ahead according to all our wishes for

universal well being.23

If 1939 was a year of becoming acclimated to a foreign land and

mastering its language, seeking varied contacts, and performing only in

Czech for Czech audiences, 1940 brought them before an English-speaking

theatre public in two of their own translated plays, which also took them

away from New York for most of the year. They had been in

communication with two of the leaders of the Cleveland Playhouse for

much of 1939, discussing two of their plays for possible production in

Cleveland. Both Frederick McConnell and K Elmo Lowe had been with

43



the Playhouse for almost twenty years and made it into an outstanding

regional theatre that produced about eight to ten plays each season, each

play running serially for several weeks. The two Voskovec-and-Werich

plays under consideration were Tlikd Barbora and Osel a stin, both of whichVoskovec and Werich, with the aid of others, had translated during 1939.

In early February of 1940, Werich wrote they were short of money

and were very happy to receive a check for $100 from Amy Douglas a

wealthy Cleveland widow and associate of the Playhouse, who had most

likely met them the previous year during their several days in Cleveland

and thought they might welcome a little extra money.24 Indeed, once they

had finished their performances for Czechs on New Year's Eve, they hadno other firm prospects, despite many dealings with agents and potential

producers. In the meantime however, the communications with

McConnell and Lowe had evolved to the point that Lowe wrote to

Voskovec on February 3 saying that of the two plays under consideration

by the Playhouse, Tlikd Barbora seemed preferable to Osel a stin 25

Furthermore, a Cleveland newspaper clipping from February 14 states that

McConnell and K Elmo Lowe spent the previous week in New York

completing negotiations for the exiles' appearance in Cleveland nextmonth. 26 Coincidentally, another letter to both Voskovec and Werich was

also written on February 3. It was from Paul Kohner, an important

Hollywood film agent who introduced himself as originally from the

Teplice region of Czechoslovakia, asking them to send him their plays now

in English as well as any film scripts, and hoping that they might have

brought a copy of their film Hey RupP Kohner was to play an importantpart in Voskovec and Werich's later adventures in Hollywood, but in the

meantime, he was yet one more person with whom to keep in contact.

Other Cleveland newspaper clippings reveal that Voskovec and

Werich, but not Je:lek, arrived in Cleveland on February 15-their train

delayed by a snowstorm. (It is clear that Jezek felt wearier from the

previous year's activities and found satisfaction in his personal and

musical involvements in New York's Czech quarter. Newspaper

clippings and other items in the scrapbook of the Tlikd Barbora

production (now called eavy Barbora refer to various social events at

which Voskovec and Werich were the honored guests, to the arrival of

Werich's wife and daughter as well as Voskovec's wife in mid-March, to

a request from MGM in Hollywood for a copy of their eavy Barbora,

to the fact that Heavy Barbora would have one of the largest casts in

44 Slavic andEast European PeifOrmance Vol. 26, No. 1



Playhouse history, and to the Playhouse's admission prices, $1 and $1.25

on Saturdays.

Heavy arbara opened on Wednesday evening, March 27, 1939.

Je:Zek and other friends from New York came to the premiere. The program

reveals that Tony Kraber and Voskovec and W erich were the translators,

and K. Elmo Lowe as adaptor and co-director with Frederic McConnell. H.

Gunther Gerzso was the designer. All of]e:Zek's music was used, except for

two songs composed by Crawford Wright. All the music came from two

pianos. New lyrics for all the songs were written by various people,

including Amy Douglass. The program listed fifty people in the cast.

Heavy arbara was a genuine hit, with both the play and Voskovecand Werich as performers getting positive reviews, although the stage

artistry and clowning of Voskovec and W erich drew most of the praise.

One review stated: I found the play as refreshing as a bucketful of water

from an old spring It is the one piece of the Playhouse season you dare

not miss. 28 Voskovec referred to another reviewer William F. McDermott,

who wrote: They have the undeniably rare skill and genius of a born

clown in creating a strange, pleasantly dim world of nonsense. 29 The

production finished its run on April 28, according to Voskovec.3During the next halfyear, during which France fell, they remained

in Cleveland, savoring their success and working on many projects and

contacts with optimism. They were especially pleased by a fund foskovec

called it a corporation that was established for them by Lowe and well-to

do patrons of the theatre.31 It guaranteed them a wage for five years and

support for future productions, including the possibility of a Broadway

production in the fall, with Lowe as their agent. In the meantime, they had

been working on a new play, which turned out to be a version of theirOsel a stin now called An Ass and a Shadow which Amy Douglass had been

translating with Voskovec. Among modifications to the script was a new

scene at the beginning involving the ghosts of Napoleon and Caesar, as

well as Dionysus. Occasional trips to New York to keep up various

contacts, some lectures and peformances at regional colleges,

communications with people in Hollywood (including Paul Kohner), a

performance at the Cleveland Sokol, and relaxation at Lake Chatauqua in

New York were some of the activities that marked what was probably their

most extended, essentially agreeable, sojourn in America- even though

Cleveland as a city was never to their liking. Nevertheless, their attitude to

the people at the Playhouse was very appreciative: We had the marvelous

45



46 lavic and ast uropean Performance Vol. 26 No 1



luck of running into excellent people from Cleveland, especially K. Elmo

Lowe and our guardian angel Mrs. Amy Douglas. These excellent people

are absolutely devoted to us. 32

Although they hoped that their new play, n ss and a Shadow

might be produced direc tly on Broadway, or perhaps first in Hollywood,

circumstances finally led to its being done in Cleveland at the Playhouse,

hopefully as a showcase for eventual transfer to Broadway. The premiere

was Wednesday evening, November 6, 1940. The program lists K. Elmo

Lowe and Amy Douglas as adaptors of the script, Lowe as director, the

stage design again by H.G. Gerzso, with songs (nine are cited) by Harold J

Rome, a young American composer who had already written music forseveral Broadway productions. This time, the music was scored for two

pianos plus percussion.

The repeated essence of the critics' reviews was that the

performing ofVoskovec and Werich was perhaps even better than in Heavy

Barbara but that the play- as a play- was a failure, despite its effective

production values. One critic who had praised Heavy Barbara said of n

ss and a Shadow: I'd have thrown the play away almost any time to make

room for another vaudeville number by Voskovec and W erich. When theywere off the stage the lights figuratively went out, and there was no sense

in the nonsense. The reviewer for the celebrated national entertainment

paper, Variery was equally negative: The two Czech refugees are better

comedians than playwrights Their clowning seems refreshingly

vivid and original as long as they are slapsticking a nutty piece of horseplay

but their vehicle is about as disconnected as a vaudeville skit. 3 Broadway and Chicago producer Mike Todd came to see the production

but was frank in telling Voskovec and Werich that they didn't interesthim - they weren't American enough.35 Hopes for a Broadway production

were postponed and eventually cancelled, although both Voskovec and

Werich continued to receive payments from the fund.

The next months extending into 1941 were again a time of

rethinking their situation, making trips to New York, keeping in touch with

agents and potential producers, and writing the frame for a new musical

extravaganza (unnamed) based on many of their tried and true pieces from

the past, hoping that they might interest a New York producer. 6 Most

important among these many activities and incidents were the involvement

with the Hollywood agent, Paul Kohner, and the British Broadcasting

Company (BBC). Still living in Cleveland in early 1941, Voskovec and

47



Werich decided to put off their attempts at a breakthrough in New York

and instead go to Hollywood; it was to prove the most significant of their

adventures in 1941. Kohner liked their new script and reinforced their

decision to go west. By March of 1941, they had contracts signed with

Kohner to represent them in Hollywood. The second significant

development was that the BBC originally contacted Voskovec and Werich

in December of 1940 regarding some propaganda broadcasts to be beamed

to Czechoslovakia. They obliged with a sample recording, which pleased

the BBC. In May 1941, they asked for five more recordings, and then six

more, for which they paid 50 each. The point of the broadcasts was to

ridicule the Axis forces and support the morale of the Czechs. Thesebroadcasts proved to be a welcome source of income for Voskovec and

W erich for the next several years.

The expedition to Hollywood occurred in two stages. First, the

Werichs departed in a small, used Plymouth on May 20, accompanied by

Adolf Hoffmeister, a more recent Czech emigre who had been living withthe W erichs in Cleveland since February. Because of serious dental

procedures, Voskovec had to delay his trip, but he, his wife, and Tony

Kraber departed Cleveland weeks later in June in a new auto loaned tothem by Amy Douglas. By July 17, Voskovec, W erich, and their friends

were together in Hollywood. Since both Voskovec and W erich havewritten valuable accounts of their travel to Hollywood and their

experiences there during the next five months, I shall touch only on the

main incidents.37 Thanks to Paul Kohner, they had several interviews with

people in important positions, perhaps the most important being with Hal

Roach, who seemed interested in their possibilities as comic types but

never communicated with them after their interview. More satisfYing wastheir performance before a group of students and others at the Max

Reinhardt Studio in late July On the basis of the reactions to this

performance, they organized another presentation in the same studio

theatre on August 12, this time to a much more powerful gathering of

Hollywood producers, directors, and stars, among whom were Harold

Lloyd, Walter Wanger, Walter Huston, Frederic March, top executives

from Paramount and RKO, and Orson Welles with Dolores Del Rio. They

were a great success, especially in the eyes of then-young Orson Welles,

who had achieved a major reputation with his film itizen Kane and was inthe process of directing another. He was so taken by Voskovec and Werich

that he personally set up a special screen test for them to be directed by

48 Slavic and ast uropean Peiformance Vol. 26, No. 1



Welles himself. Voskovec's description of it captures the special tension of

their waiting for weeks for the specific appointment and then the

memorable evening itself, which lasted from ten o'clock at night to seven

or eight the next morning. Regarding the improvised, stressful quality of

the effort, Voskovec speaks of that splendid smell of total chaos, where

beneath its hysterical surface beats an exact rhythm of irrationally reliable

work. It was like in the Liberated Theatre before the premiere. 38

Everyone who saw the test thought it was splendid, but, alas, like

so many other projects that seemed so promising, the screen test led

nowhere, chiefly because a major RKO executive took offense at references

to St. Bernard dogs in the skit, thinking that Voskovec and Werich weremocking St. Bernard and his order. Already hostile to Welles, he ordered

that the test as well as other Welles material be thrown out. As far as is

known, the screen test was never seen again. Aggravating the

disappointment was the length of time that had been taken up with the

project- at least three months.

The departure ofVoskovec and Werich &om Hollywood and their

return to New York was triggered by a thorough misunderstanding. Kohner

informed them in November 1941 that the producers of a Broadwaymusical, Viva O Brien, wanted their services in New York. They flew to

New York, met with the people involved, and discovered that the show,

which opened early in October and was elaborately produced, was a fai lure

with audiences, but the producers and others did not want to close it

because it was considered important to American-Mexican relations. Why

were Voskovec and Werich brought into the picture? Because someone

came across photos of them in their 1934 Prague production of Kat a

Bldzen(The Executioner and the Fool), which was set in Mexico, andthought they might be experts on Mexican musicals . Once they saw a

performance of the musical, Voskovec and Werich realized the production

couldn' t be saved in any case, and the play closed a week later.39

Once back in New York, the two Czechs decided they really didn't

want to go back to California, so they called their families back to join

them in December. In the meantime, reinforcing their decision, the

Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor brought America into the war. Once back

in New York, Vokovec and Werich launched into additional projects in

their efforts to reach their goal of a Broadway production. One involved a

contract involving Lowe and some potential backers in New York.

Voskovec and Werich were to come up with a script in four weeks for a

9



play with a working title of Unknown from Coast to Coast, for which

they would be paid $100 a week during the four weeks, and the producers

would make all efforts to get the work produced.40 In an effort to help

them both Walter Wanger and Orson Welles wrote highly favorable

recommendations of them to the producers. Welles's letter, sent December1, is worth quoting:

I had the rare privilege of seeing them at a private performance in

Hollywood. Under the most adverse circumstances they held the

stage and got the most hard-boiled audience one could imagine s

enthusiastic about them s I have been ever since. Subsequently, Imade a screen test of them during which I w s able to observe their

unusual talent and ingenuity to a fuller extent. I hope for your sakeyou will be able to use them.41

Two other notable events occurred in the next month or two.

Most deeply affecting them w s the death ofJeiek who died on January 1,

1942 after a long period of illness, even though he kept working with local

Czech music groups almost to the end. On the positive side, they wereoffered work with the Office of War Information (OWl) that paralleled the

work they had been doing with the BBC: creating and producing fifteenminute broadcasts to be beamed to Czechoslovakia. Voskovec referred to

the offer being made in February 1942 by John Houseman, who w s

heading the special project; Houseman had been Orson Welles's closest

associate in the 1930s. The OWl work, which continued even after the end

ofWWII in 1945, supplemented the BBC income. It meant that they were

nots

pressured to find stage work, even though thatw s

still their primeobjective.

In a letter to Lowe written on February 3, 1942, Voskovec

describes a new plan in relation to the project they had been working on

since December. Not satisfied with what they had written, he and

Werich-now that Jeiek w s gone-contacted Kurt Weill with the play in

question. Weill suggested that they needed to have some major figure

rewrite it. He suggested Moss Hart, a highly successful playwright with

many Broadway hits to his credit, the latest being the 1941 Broadway

musical, ady in the Dark with a psychoanalytic theme. Hart became

enthusiastic about the project. Voskovec then goes on to say that he wishes

that Hart would take over, regardless of who gets the credit. The following

s Slavic and East European Performance Vol. 26, No. 1



passage reveals Voskovec's state ofmind after so many frustrated hopes and

plans, three years after their arrival:

We're sick of being stubborn and of trying to get our idea over. .

We still know we're right about our theatre-only you can't prove

this unless you can do it once. And you can t do it unless you can

prove it to money. Consequently, if Moss Hart keeps on being

excited, we'll let him do whatever he wants to as long as it is not

completely against our line If it could be done this way we

don t give a damn about who signs the show or whose merit it is if

we happen to be successful. If only we could hit once, that's all thatcounts. Then, maybe, we could do it our way I begin to believe

what I always refused to up to now, that there is a difference

between American and European thinking after all. Or else we got

cockeyed in our way of thinking, being out of theatre for all those

long years I feel that I m going sort of discouraged and bitter,

which is very unpleasant and silly- so I'd better leave it there and

pray for Mr. Hart's favorable psychoanalytic reactions.42

Voskovec's prayers went unanswered. Nothing came of the entire project,

and little is known ofVoskovec and Werich's professional activities for the

rest of 1942 other than that they continued their radio work for both the

BBC and the OWL Otherwise, it is clear that by June 1942, when Heydrich

was assassinated in Prague and the village of Lidice was demolished in

retaliation, the Werichs were living in Mt. Kisco, a suburb of New York,

and the Voskovecs in Jackson Heights, a section in the NYC borough of

Q leens across the river from Manhattan.

In my research I came across references to two one-performance

productions involving Voskovec and Werich in 1943, suggesting that their

broadcasting work was temporarily taking them away from their attempts

at getting one of their own plays produced. The first of these productions

was dedicated to the Lidice horror. It was a play written by Adolf

Hoffmeister, Slepcova Pfftalka aneb Lidice (The Blindman's Whistle or

Lidice), produced by the District Committee of the International Workers

Order of New York, and performed on the afternoon of March 7 at Hunter

College Theatre in Manhattan. Voskovec was the director and Werich

acted in it; the stage design was by Antonin Pelc. The only review I found

was in the German-language newspaper Aujbau which referred to the

51



performance as a successful production of the Hoffmeister's piece. 43

The other 1943 production in which Voskovec and Werich

participated was also directly related to the war effort. It was a concert of

dramatic and musical pieces titled, We Fight Back presented in the Hunter

College Concert Hall on Saturday evening, April 3. The performance

commemorated the tenth anniversary of the book burning in Berlin and

included appearances by Lotte Lenya, Josef Schildkraut, Herbert Berghof,

and others in addition to Voskovec and Werich, with texts by Stephen

Vincent Benet, Brecht, Werfel, Heinrich Mann, Kurt Weill, and Fritz von

Unruh. Voskovec and Werich appeared in their own new sketch titled

Schwejk's Spirit Lives On. The Azifbau review described it as adelicious, humorous representation of the brave Czechslovak spirit of

sabotage. A critical study of Bertolt Brecht referred to this Voskovec-and

W erich performance as motivating Brecht (who witnessed it) to pursuing

his own version of Hasek's work, Schweyk in the Second World War.45

In the fall of 1943, as a foreshadowing of Voskovec's later

difficulties in the early 1950s with accusations of being a communist,

Voskovec and Werich were similarly accused by the Constitutional

Educational League, a right-wing organization. Both Voskovec and Werichhad to sign an official document denying this and other equally lurid

charges. It would seem that the trouble blew over, only to surface years

later when Voskovec was held at Ellis Island when returning to America

from Europe.

In 1944, Voskovec and Werich continued to work for the BBC

and the OWl but also looked for opportunities to act in the plays of others.

Moreover, they did not restrict themselves to having to work together. In

March 1944, Werich was almost cast in a play that became a big hit,jakobowsky and the Colonel, written by Franz Werfel and directed by Elia

Kazan. Earlier, in February, both Voskovec and Werich had been cast in

Thank You, Svoboda but both withdrew from the cast after two rehearsals

when it became obvious that the director, H.S. Kraft, who was also the

author, did not know what he was doing.46 The play closed on March 4.

Werich referred to still another production in which he was offered the

leading role, Tucker s People (based on a novel by Ira Wolfert); the

dramatization written by the well-known playwright Elmer Rice was to be

directed by the equally established director Jed Harris. Once again, there

was much frustration, because the play never went into rehearsa1.47

Some of these aborted or miscarried opportunities were probably




compensated by a non-theatrical reality of having their broadcasting

salaries raised. Voskovec's collected papers include a personnel form dated

September 1 stating that Voskovec's salary for the OWl was then raised

from that of a script editor ($3,800 annually) to that of a writer-announcer

($4,600). It is not clear if Werich's salary was raised as well.

In early November, shortly before their fateful interview and

audition-as a team-for Shakespeare's Tempest Werich was offered a role in

another play that ultimately was a failure, Sophie an adaptation of a novel

dealing with a Czech woman in Chicago. When W erich raised some

questions about the dialogue, he was let go 48 But then came the fateful day

in late fall when Voskovec and W erich were interviewed and auditioned byCheryl Crawford and Margaret Webster, the producer and director of

Shakespeare's Tempest.

Almost thirty years later, in a letter to Cheryl Crawford dated

November 17, 1972, Voskovec recalled their meeting on a cold day in

Webster's flat in November 1944 and went on to say,

After five hard years of fruitless efforts, suddenly, we made it to

Broadway-pleasantly, with no fuss whatsoever. Two absurdclowns finally did get a break in the USA thanks to two glorious

dames and one Bard.49

In their own subsequent publications, both Crawford and Webster recalled

their experience with the two absurd clowns. In her autobiography,

Margaret Webster wrote:

We were lucky in getting an ideal Stephano-Trinculo team, two

brilliant Czechoslovakian actors, Jan Wierich [sic] and George

Voskovec They had been reared in the same ancient and

honorable tradition of clowns that Shakespeare's own men must

have followed, with the same flexibility and invention plus that

touch of fantasy that present-day comics too often lack

Voskovec and Wierich were the type of actors who can transform

your ideas instead of merely translating them, and I was verygrateful.s

Cheryl Crawford, in her own autobiography, speaks of her concern about

casting the clown roles to avoid their comedy scenes being flat and

53



boring. She goes on to say that she had heard ofVoskovec and Werich's

background, and once she met them we immediately took them on and

they fulfilled our hopes, contributing inspired improvisation, such as

Voskovec's idea for a specially prepared cloak that contributed to

wonderful comic effects in the scene involving the creation of a strange

beast formed by Caliban and Trinculo, played by Voskovec.Sl

The Tempest rehearsed through December before opening for a few

preview performances in Philadelphia, followed by a two-week pre

Broadway run in Boston on January 8 1945. Well received in both cities,

it opened on Broadway in the Alvin Theatre on January 25, received mostly

favorable reviews, and ran for a record-breaking one-hundred performancesbefore closing on April21. The wartime context of this period included the

Battle of the Bulge, the Yalta Conference, MacArthur 's landing on Luzon,

and the death of President Roosevelt. The New York reviews ofVoskovec

and W erich were gratifyingly positive, with the one by Joseph Wood

Krutch, an eminent drama scholar, being perhaps the most outstanding:

George Voskovec and Jan Werich, the Czech clowns, are sublime, and

I saw nothing to reprehend in the antics which made the Trinculo-Stephano

scenes high pointsn

the performance.S

Their success on Broadway wasevident in feature stories about them in the New York Times and the erald

Tribune shortly after the premiere.53

Almost exactly six years after their arrival in New York as Czech

speaking immigrant comedians, they finally achieved what they had hoped

for from the beginning, success on Broadway in nothing less than

Shakespeare. Undoubtedly increasing their satisfaction must have been the

conclusion of the war in Europe, capped by the liberation of Prague on

May 8, shortly after the end of The Tempest s run, events they commented

on in their radio broadcasts for the BBC and the OWl which they had

continued even while performing all that winter and spring. The total

number of their programs from 1941-1945 ran into the hundreds. Werich

and his family returned to Prague in September, 1945, Voskovec a year

later, during which time he still kept on with the broadcasts.

In retrospect, it is interesting to note that success came to them as

actors rather than playwrights (or even as actors performing their own

material) despite their many elaborate efforts and near successes. This is

understandable because acting is more readily translatable than languageor socio-cultural topics and allusions.

Undaunted, they forged ahead in 1940, but the trio became a duo




Voskovec and Werich as Trinculo and Stephano

(above seated right of stairs) in Margaret Webster's production of

he empest at the Alvin Theatre 1945

when Jefek decided to stay in New York,5 while they went on to a

residency in Cleveland, where in 1940 they did productions in English at

the Cleveland Playhouse of two of their 1930s works. ut rising hopes and

good reviews were offset by repeated letdowns and failed promises.

Highpoints of the following years were near-misses in Hollywood involving

Hal Roach, Max Reinhardt, and Orson W elles; broadcasting several

hundred radio transmissions for the BBC and the Office of War

Information back to Czechoslovakia; and, finally, making it on

Broadway when they appeared together as the two clowns, Stephano and

Trinculo, in Margaret Webster's production of Shakespeare's empest in

1945, just as the war was ending. But all those incidents are subjects for a

longer essay.



NOTES

1 Jan Werich, j n Werich vzpomind Qan Werich Remembers) (Prague: Melantrich,1982), 117.

2 Voskovec refers to their arrival on January 21 but the New York Times indicates

January 20 in their January 21 1939 edition, 31.

3 Werich, 117. See also in Voskovec, Voskovec Wachsmanni (Voskovec and the

Wachsmanns), ed. Adriena Borovickova (Prague: Lidove noviny, 1996) 126f. No

salary was involved; that would happen once they were professionally employed.

4 New Yorski Listy March 4, 1939, 3.

5 New Yorski Listy March 11, 1939, 1. The headline of the review read, "Slava

umelecke trojici Voskovec, Werich a Jezek " (Hurrah for the Artistic Trio of

Voskovec, Werich, and Jdek )

6 Werich, 112£7 Cleveland Svlt April29, 1939, 6. Informative articles about Voskovec, Werich, and

Jezek also appeared n this newspaper during the five days preceding the performance.

8 "The City, " March 13, 1940, no. 28.

9 Cleveland Plain Dealer February 14, 1940.

10 Cleveland Svlt April 13, 1939, 6

DennE hlasatel May 4, 1939, 2.2 Goslar described the incident in a manuscript in the Voskovec Collection in the

Gottlieb Archival Research Center, Boston University.

13 Werich, 113.

14 Werich, 114.

IS Dennihlasatel May 11, 1939, 6.

16 Werich, 114.7 Letter from Voskovec to Dorothy Lindsay, February 14, 1968, m Voskovec

Collection, Boston University.

18 New Yorski Listy October 31, 1939, 3.19 New Yorski Listy November 15 1939. The review was headed "Skvely Ospech

Kabaretniho Vecera" (Cabaret Evening a Splendid Success).

20 Voskovec, 141 £

21 Voskovec cited in Werich, 116.

22 Ibid.

23 Voskovec cited in Werich, 116f.

24 Werich, 118

25 Lowe's letter is in the Voskovec Collection, Boston University.

26 Cleveland Plain Dealer February 14, 1940. See also Werich, 18-19.

27 Letter in the Voskovec Collection, Boston University.

56 Slavic andEast European Performance Vol. 26, No. 1



28 Jack Warfel, 'Heavy Barbara' on 'Must-See' List, Cleveland Plain Dealer March 28,

1939.29 Cleveland Plain Dealer April 7, 1940.

30 Voskovec, 144.

31 Ibid., 148.

32 Ibid. For details of their Cleveland stay during 1940, see also Voskovec, 143-171

and Werich, 119-126.

33 Wlliam F. McDermott, Cleveland Plain Dealer November 7, 1940, 12.

34 Pullen, Variery November 13, 1940, 60.

35 Werich, 132.

36 Voskovec, 169.37 See Werich, 134-174 and Voskovec, 169, 179-192, and 281-287.

38 Voskovec, 286.

39 Werich, 174-186.

40 The contract is in the Voskovec Collection, Boston University.

41 The letter is in the Voskovec Collection at Boston University.

42 The letter is in the Voskovec Collection, Boston University.

43 F.C.W. Wieder Voskovec and Werich, Aujbau, March 12, 1943.

44 We Fight Back, Aujbau, April9 1943.

45 James K Lyon, Bertolt Brecht in America (Princeton: Princeton University Press,

1980), 113.

46 Werich, 255-256.

47 Ibid.

48 Ibid.

49 Voskovec to Cheryl Crawford, November 17, 1972, Voskovec Collection, Boston

University.

50 Margaret Webster, Don't Put Your Daughter on the Stage (New York: Knopf, 1972),

121.51 Cheryl Crawford, One Naked Individual, (New York: Bobbs-Merrill, 1977), 147f.

52 Drama, The Nation, February 10, 1945, 165.

53 See Bill Doll, Prague's Bad Boys on Broadway, New York Times February 11,

1945, II, 1; Bert McCord, Ex.its and Entrances: Czechs Unchecked, Herald Tribune,

February 11, 1945, IV, 1.

54 JeZ.ek died in New York, January 1, 1942. He married a Czech woman in New

York and had been training singing choruses in the Delnick dum.

'' *Special thanks to Veronika Tuckerova for the English translation of somequotations and titles. Jarka Burian's article first appeared in Czech, and at the

time of his death, he had not quite completed editing the English version.

57



LUN CH RSKY O REVOLUTION RY L UGHTER

Daniel Gerould

Anatoly Lunacharsky first set out his ideas on revolutionary

comedy in his essay, We Are Going to Laugh, published in early 1920

Vestnik Teatra, No. 58, 23-28 March), at the height of the civil war, just

as the tide was beginning to turn in favor of the Bolsheviks. For the

Commissar of Education laughter is the expression of the triumph of

progressive values over reactionary enemies.Thus laughter-Lunacharsky argues-is a major weapon of class

warfare in the battle of the Soviets for control of Russia, and in his view

it has always played a key role in the struggle for the liberation of

humanity from the shackles of the past. When the new world conquers a

dying old order, the laughter of victory rings out as an expression of

strength.

The sources for Lunacharsky's ideas in We Are Going To Laugh

are many and complex. The Commissar of Education had read widely in

the theory and practice of comedy, and he drew upon the classics,

medieval and Renaissance masters, enlightenment philosophers, and

nineteenth-century Russian social thinkers. While arguing for a distinctly

new Soviet form of comedy, Lunacharsky stresses continuity with earlier

humanist concepts, going back to the notion of release from constraint

found in Roman Saturnalia and in medieval and Renaissance festive

holidays. Carnival is at the heart of his theories. He offers a vigorous

defense of the Russian popular culture of festivity.

Lunacharsky argues that markedly social and satirical nature of

Russian popular culture is a legacy of the traditional Russian buffoons

skomorokhz), known for their allusive jests and pointed witticisms. The

Commissar of Education is firmly committed to the world of merriment

represented by the clown, who was always scorned by the Orthodox

church and Tsarist state, but will be acclaimed-Lunacharsky hopes-by

the new Soviet republic. His concept of victorious laughter has its roots

in traditional notions of the contest between summer and winter in the

seasonal cycles of the year, the generational battle between impetuousyoung lovers and repressive aging parents and the clash between

freedom and ritual bondage. Lunacharsky also finds inspiration in

Marxist theory, particularly the commentary on history and comedy by




Anatoly Lunacharsky, 1928

the twenty-six-year-old Karl Marx based on his reading of the Greeks:

History is thorough and goes through many phases as it conducts

an old form to the grave. The final phase of a world-historical

form is comedy. The Greek gods, already tragically and mortally

wounded in Aeschylus' Prometheus Bound had to die again

comically in Lucian's dialogues. Why this course of history? So

that mankind may part from its past happily.

Throughout the 1920s Lunacharsky in his position s ommissar of

Education spoke out in favor of Soviet satire, including the plays of

59



Mayakovsky. He encouraged festive holiday celebrations sports, games,

shows, and pageants) and mass spectacles on revolutionary anniversariesre-enacting historic events, and he actively promoted popular culture in its

many forms: circus, clowning, musical hall, cabaret, ballroom and modern

dancing, song, and film.

In 1929 during an acrimonious debate over the supposed demise

of humor and satire, the opponents of laughter- doctrinaire party hacks

supporting Stalin and the monolithic state-called for the eradication of

satire as something useless and even harmful in the new Soviet society

where there never were and never could be any vices or foibles. Although

no longer Commissar of Education, Lunacharsky came to the defense of

satire, and, at the end of 1930 under the auspices of the Academy of

Sciences, he established a Commission for the Study of the Satiric Genres,

which was to prepare monographs on individual authors and topics as well

as a general bibliography.

Stanislavsky, Lunacharsky, and Shaw, 1931

6 lavic and ast uropean Performance Vol. 26, No. 1



In January 1931, Lunarcharsky read to the Commission at the

Academy of Sciences his lecture on Laughter, in which he discussed thecomic culture of the new society and analyzed the special place of satire.

Lunacharsky's projected but never written book on the social role oflaughter

was to include the following topics: the philosophy and psychology of

laughter; the concept of the risible; the comic, its aesthetic and philosophy;

the theory of satire and humor; the history of the satirical genres in their

historical development; the problem of wit; and the problem of irony. In his lecture on Laughter, Lunacharsky includes a short section

on carnival and its importance in the history of satire as open mockery.

Mikhail Bakhtin was thinking along similar lines at the same time and may

have been encouraged by Lunacharsky's essay to make his own in-depth

study of carnival in The World q[Rabelais The Commissar would later defend

Bakhtin's book on Dostoevsky. For Lunacharsky carnival is a time of

abundance and equality for all, in which the lower classes are temporally

liberated.

Carnival is a custom that goes back to the distant times of the

history of Babylon and comes up to our own days. Carnival plays a

huge role in Roman and pre-Roman culture. In carnival there can

be found both magical disguise and also the replacement of a more

ancient custom human sacrifice-which represents a cultural

phenomenon of immense importance. t is not only a question of

replacing a precious sacrifice by a less valuable one, but it also a

question of replacing a sacrifice that formerly the aristocratic class

made by a sacrifice that the plebeians make. Moreover, carnival

served the ruling classes as a kind of safe-valve, since during carnivala certain public freedom was given to the oppressed classes. In

ordinary times the lower classes could laugh at the upper classes

only on the sly; during carnival open mockery became possible. The

organizers of carnival felt that, on the one hand, this was an outlet

for feelings of mounting class dissatisfaction, and, on the other that

this outlet was not serious)

Lunacharsky sees revolutionary laughter as a healthy and joyous reaction to alowering of tension when obstacles are overcome. It is a physiological

response of the human mechanism to dissipating pressure. Channeled in an

ideologically progressive direction, laughter purges the nightmares of the past.

61



NOTES

I Toward the Critique ofHegel's Philosophy of Law: Introduction, in Writings o

the Young arx on Philosophy and Society translated and edited by Lloyd D. Easton

and Kurt H. Guddat (Garden City, NY: Doubleday and Company, 1967), 254.

Laughter has always been an extraordinarily important part of social progress.

he role of laughter is also great in our struggle, the final struggle for humanity.

Therefore we will be happy and proud if we succeed in tracing and in analyzing in

concrete examples the historical development and thus sharpen the weapons of our

humorists and sa tirists. From 0 Smekhe, a lecture first given in 1931 and

published in 1935. Reprinted in A.V. Lunacharsky, Sobranie Sochinenii vol. 8(Moscow: Khudozhestvennaya Literatura, 1967), 538.

3 Ibid. 535.

62 Slavic andEast European Perfonnance Vol. 26, No. 1



WE ARE GOING TO LAUGH

Vestnik Teatra, 1920 No 58)1

natoly Lunacharsky

I often hear laughter. We live in a cold and hungry land, which

recently was being torn to pieces. But I often hear laughter, I see laughing

faces in the streets, I hear throngs ofworkers and Red Army men laughing

at entertaining shows or at an amusing film. I have heard booming peals

of laughter even at the front not far from where blood is being spilt.

That shows that we have a vast reserve of strength, for laughter is

a sign of strength. Laughter is no t only a sign of strength, it is strength

itself. And since we have it, we need to direct it in the right channel.

Until now, despite several attempts, we have not succeeded in

creating a satirical literary magazine. Individual caricatures in the ROSTA

window series or in the form of placards have been successful, but even

here we have not found our own style or a scale worthy of the revolu tion.

Perhaps Demian Bedny is our best laughter-crafter, but he is somewhat of

an isolated case in this respect and only gradually and in very smallmeasure is beginning to leave the half dead co lumns of the newspaper for

the living stage.

All this is nothing compared to the great task of directing the

elemental force of popular laughter into a worthy channel.

Laughter is a sign of victory. A subtle thinker says: There is

nothing more fe stive, sacred, and joyful than the first smile of a child; it

mea ns that its psyche is beginning to dominate its organism and

surroundings, it indicates the triumph of the first ray of consciousness.Spencer, Sully, Bergson, and others have maintained with

absolute certainty that laughter signifies the discharge of inner tension as

the result of a feeling of one's own superiority, as the result of a simple

solution to some sort of problem in real life.

As long as man is weak in the face of his enemy, he does not

laugh at him, he hates him; if at times a sarcastic smile full of hate appears

on his lips, it is laughter poisoned by bile, laughter that rings uneasily. But

once what was bowed down grows up straight, laughter rings out louder

and stronger. That is indignant laughter, that is irony, biting satire. In this

laughter can be heard the crack of the whip and at times the peal of the

approaching thunder of the struggle. That is how Gogol began laughing,

63



before he started drying the tears in his eyes, and that is how Saltykov

laughed, trembling with indignation.

And what comes after that?

Mter that laughter becomes more and more contemptuous as the

new feels its strengths. This contemptuous laughter-defiant, cheerful,

already sensing its victory, already signifying relaxation-is indispensable

as a very real weapon. t is the stake that is driven into the freshly killed

dark wizard ready to return from the grave, it is the hammering of strong

nails into the black coffin of the past.

When you have defeated a vile but powerful enemy, don t think

that it is final, especially if what s involved is an entire class and an entirecivilization. The enemy entangles you from all sides with a thousand toxic

threads and has flung some of those tentacles into your very brain, into

your very heart, and, like other hydras, can come back to life. Such threads

need to be torn out, need to be extirpated. It cannot be done

mechanically, it cannot be done by force, it cannot be done by an

operation, which would mean tearing the entire body of a living being to

shreds and even then nothing would be accomplished. But it can be done

chemically. There is such a substance, such a disinfectant that causes theevaporation of all that noxiousness-it is laughter, the great sanitizer. To

do something by means of the comic means to inflict a wound in the vital

nerve itself. Laughter is audacious, laughter is blasphemous, laughter kills

with the venom of poisoned arrows.

And in our time, when we have overthrown the gigantic enemy

only in Russia, when we are indeed entangled by the threads of the former

civilization, still poisoning all our air, when on all sides that same enemy

exults and awaits the moment to land a new blow-at such a time, withoutletting go of the sword in one hand, we can take in the other hand a subtle

weapon-laughter.

Will we find among us actors for the great social comedies, will

we find among us satirists who could anew shake offall the detritus of the

past? Will it be enough to revive the old laughter from Fonvizin to

Chekhov?

We shall not immediately set our sights on doing something great

and at the same time we shall not content ourselves only with foreign

works, only with our former literature-we are alive and should create; if

we are not immediately up to creating on a grandiose scale (remember: we

are creating the grandiose in another theatre-the theatre of military

6 lavic and ast uropean Performance Vol. 26, No. 1



operations and international relations, we are creating the grandiose in the

field of national economy), then we shall start on a small scale.

If we already have among us interesting, successful attempts at

parodies, vaudeville couplets satirical jabs, caustic diatribes, why wouldn't

satirical theatre simply be an extension of that?

Long live the jesters of his majesty the proletariat If even their

fool s sometimes, with a grimace, told the truth to czars, they remained

slaves all the same. The jesters of the proletariat will be the workers'

brothers, their beloved, joyful, smartly dressed, lively, talented, vigilant,

eloquent advisers.

What s to keep that from actually happening? At fairs, in thesquares of cities, at our political rallies, why shou ldn t there appear, as a

beloved figure, the figure of some kind of Russian Petrushka, some sort of

popular town crie r, who could make use of the inexhaustible treasures of

Russian facetious sayings, of the Russian and Ukrainian languages with

their truly titanic strength in the realm of humor? Why shouldn' t there

ring out such a catchy, danceable tune, such a rousing Russian humorous

song, and why shouldn t all of that run through the revolution, shaking

everything with acerbic laughter?A satire studio, a sa tire theatre is what we need. This will enable

us to begin to bring together the best of the young professionals with the

people and to begin a selection of the bes t popular amateur forces in this

guild of artists from the people, which we must organize.

Comrades, organize a brotherhood of rollicking red buffoons , a

guild of truly popular jesters, and let help be provided to you by even our

party publicists, in whose ess ays there sometimes sparkles such splendid

laughter, and our party poets, writers and proletarian poets, as well asthose of the old generation, whose hearts have already begun to beat in

unison with the thunderous heartbeats of the revolution.

Let visual artists help, by devising special costumes, special kinds

of compact, movable scenery, platforms, wagons for strolling buffoons.

Let musicians help, by creating in Russian cadences, in the Russian

manner new humorous, satirical, dance-inflected, easily memorized

couplets.

The Ru ssian church paved the way for the autocracy and hated

gudok players and rollicking buffoons . They represented ancient,

republican, pagan Rus, free of asceticism, and now it should truly go back

to that, only in a totally new form, having passed through the crucible of

65



much much civilization, possessing factories and railroads, but equally

free, communal and pagan.

The French kings and Cardinal Richelieu once trembled upon

hearing beneath the windows of their palaces the vaudevilles of olden

times, the biting tales of bards from the common people. The Italian

revolution gave birth to carnival masks like the Turinese marionette

Gianduia.

Russian revolutionary laughter wi ll have excellent precursors.

Embark boldly on this course, young artists of the stage, of the

word, of the brush. The shades of Swift and Henrich Heine bless you;

somewhere in the grass beneath the hedge, forgotten, lies the heroicwhistle of Dobroliubov [editor of the satirical journal Svistok or Whistle].

Find it, and may it em it ringing trills above the heads of the awakened

people and of their enemies who, just barely overthrown, still nourish evil

hopes.

Translated by Daniel Gerould

NOTES

Budem Smyat'sya, in A.V. Lunacharsky, Sobranie Sochinenii vo . 3 (Moscow:

Khudozhestvennaya Literatura, 1964), 76-79.

66 Slavic andEast European Performance Vol. 26, No. 1



EXPLORING NEW TERRITORIES WITH NCIENT TOOLS:GARDZIENICE'S ELEKTR IN NEW YORK

Margaret raneo

In April 2005 at La MaMa's Annex Theatre in New York, the

experimental Polish theatre company Gardzienice, headed by

director/theorist Wlodzimierz Staniewski, presented Elektra a distinctive

adaptation of Euripides' tragedy, performed in Polish, English, and

ancient Greek. The performances, offered along with an intensive two

day training workshop for actors and a film series, Territories ofGardzienice,2 provided a unique opportunity for New York audiences to

experience the many dimensions of the company's work. This month-long

occasion, which faci litated both a practical and theoretical engagement

with the aesthetics of Gardzienice, embodied, on many levels, the

powerful potential often associated with such intercultural theatre

experiences)

Gardzienice's Elektra can be understood as the continuation of a

project Staniewski began with his production of Metamorphoses or TheGolden Ass which was also presented at La MaMa in 2001.4 Both projects

are what Staniewski describes as "expeditions back to the Ancient Times,"

in which the company returns to ancient Greek and Roman culture for

both content and form of a production. With Metamorphoses Staniewski

engages the text of the Platonist Apuleius of Madaura primarily through

ancient Greek music dating from the fifth century B.C.E. to the second

century C.E. The work takes as its subject that transitional point in

Western history where the classic cultures of Greece and Rome

encountered, and subsequently succumbed to, the increasingly more

dominant traditions of Christianity. Just as the group's earlier work

involved studying and exploring traditional Polish folk music to grasp

more fully Polish culture and history, its more recent projects employ a

similar methodology applied to ancient cultures. The ancient songs used

in the artistic process of staging Metamorphoses however, did not come

from encounters with living human beings, as in earlier projects, but

instead from what Staniewski calls the "living stones" of ancients: those

artifacts from the classical period that offer contemporary artists a glimpseinto ancient aesthetic practices. Though preserved in stone, these artifacts,

for Staniewski, are very much alive. They are, as he explains, "at least as

7



alive as nature. Once these living stones are gathered together, the work

itself becomes an invitation to hear . most of all contemporary voices

singing the ancient melodic lines in the ancient keys. 5While music was clearly at the core of Gardzienice's work on

Metamorphoses the company's most recent production Elelura uses

ancient songs as only one element within a larger set of cultural tools

taken from classical Greek aesthetics. In addition to music, gesture

becomes an integral part of the Elektra project-in particular the gestural

poses affiliated with the Greek cheironomia. The cheironomia are so essential

to the Elektra project that the subtitle of the piece has been aptly named:

Cheironomia:A Theatrical Essay.Cheironomia is generally understood as a set of formalized gestures

(usually limited to the hands and arms but sometimes extended to the legs

and feet) employed by the Greek chorus in the presentation of the

tragedies. These gestures are believed to have been an integral part of the

tragic Greek chorus's expression. Any broad comprehension of the

movements, especially with regards to a larger sequence or dance, has been

highly contested due to the fragmented nature of the available evidence.

Since the gestures have been gathered from still images painted on ancientvases, many scholars believe it is impossible to determine how the gestures

flowed within a longer choreographed sequence. As the classical historian

F.G. Naerebout explains: These so-called medial moments cannot be part

of a movement at all, but must be an initial or final moment or a sustained

pose. 6 Additionally, the artists painting the vases had particular artistic

perspectives when rendering the images which add a profoundly

interpretive dimension to the discussion. Staniewski, in his use of the

cheironomia in Elektra however, seems to intrinsically understand the

fragmented nature of the material and the debate surrounding their

evidentiary status. In incorporating the gestures into the production, he is

careful not to lose the still shot nature of the forms. Instead, he is able

to present the gestures as isolated shapes presented within a broader

semiotic system.

Cheironom ia plays an important role throughout the entire

performance of Elektra. The gestures become more than just inspiration

for the actors' movement; instead, the very process of modeling the actors'

movements on the ancient cheironomia is exposed to the audience througha consciously semiotic approach. Early in the presentation, the ensemble

positions itself in a straight line downstage. Simultaneously, on an upstage




Gardzienice's Elektra at La MaMa, 2005

screen, images of classical Greek artwork (painted vases) displaying specific

gestures are projected. With each gesture, the ensemble copies the pose

and pronounces

forthe

audience its title. For instance, assuming aposition of strength, with arm muscles flexed, an actor says, in English,

Muscles. After the series of gestures are presented, the narrative of

Elektra resumes and the audience begins to see these very gestures

incorporated into the storytelling. Once the semiotic language is

presented clearly, the signs can then become more recognizable within the

play, their function more apparent. In turn, the gestures of the cheironomia

become the major tools by which the performers express their characters.

Staniewski's work with cheironomia in addition to his use of

ancient melodies and texts, should in no way suggest that the production

sought to reconstruct the tragedy of Elektra n fact, Staniewski is very

clear that his projects are not about reconstruction (an impossible task in

9



itself), but they are about modifying, or to use an appropriate musical

term here, fine-tuning material for the contemporary moment. He

explains that in his work:

Everything has been slightly adjusted, e.g. tempo, rhythm,

dynamics . . . And perhaps not adjusted,' perhaps put in

agreement with The Spirit of Time organically, because no one

can recreate the lifeline of rhythm. One can only follow one's

intuition.7

The intuition of Staniewski and the ensemble of Gardzienice definitely leadsto a stimulating and innovative theatrical place- a unique understanding of

theatrical expression, which was powerfully embodied in the production of

Elektra.

One way in which Gardzienice achieved its unique interpretation of

Euripides' play was through the nonlinear presentation of the work. Instead

of presenting the piece in accordance with the order prescribed by the

playwright's plot development, the company fragmented the work, playing

with the scene order. This disruption of the narrative, this thwarting of thetraditional Aristotelean privileging of plot, clearly marks Gardzienice's

project as distinctive, positioning the work more solidly within its own

contemporary frame. While this nonlinear approach appeared to be difficult

for some members of the audience (in particular the ew York Times reviewer

Phoebe Hoban, who characterized the disjointedness of the work as a group

grope that was virtually unrecognizable as the tale ofElektra, 8), I like may

other spectators, found the nonlinear presentation riveting-a truly visceral

theatrical experience.

While being already very familiar with the Elektra myth and

knowing the particularities of Euripides' version may have more adequately

facilitated a letting go of the need to make sense of the stage action

rationally, audience members who did not know the story could easily have

consulted the detailed program, which provided information in English on

the twenty-nine scenes presented. Once this need to rationalize was

surrendered, the audience could then begin to engage the piece on a much

more physical level, allowing the gestures, rhythms, and melodies to wash

over them in a truly Bacchanistic fashion.While Staniewski's conceptual genius and experimental process

greatly shaped this exceptional production of Elektra the Gardzienice

70 SW.vic and East European Performance Vol. 26 No. 1



Gardzienice's lektra at a MaMa, 2005

performers must also be cited for their powerful artistic contributions to the

project. Individually, and as an ensemble, the cast provided a high level of

technical talent accompanied by a palpable energy that resonated from the

stage. Since the Gardzienice approach is not marked by any Western notion

of the star, I am reluctant to call out any particular actor as more notable

than the rest, and yet my personal experience as an audience member

compels me to give special attention to Anna-Helena McClean, the actor

playing Elektra.

McLean's presence on stage was both illuminating in its grace and

harsh in the extreme physical limits that she adroitly pushed. er work in therape scene, in particular, moved me to tears during two separate

performances. As McLean's body was passed savagely among the ensemble,

7



Gardzienice s lektra at La MaMa 2005

her vocal expression in song crescendoing with the ensuing physical action,

the dialectical nature of the theatrical presentation became almost painfully

evident: dance-like fluidity accompanied by spontaneous un-choreographed

surges of primal energy.

An appreciation of McClean and the entire company s technique

was furthered by the film series and the actor-training workshop offered byLa MaMa as part of Gardzienice s short New York tour. These occasions

provided opportunities for audiences not familiar with Gardzienice s artistic

process to gain greater insight into the troupe s work. Several films, shown

over the course of two days, introduced (and perhaps re-introduced)

audiences to the history of the company and its past projects and processes.

Similarly, the performance workshops, offered through La MaMa and the

Double Edge Theatre Company, gave actors interested in Gardzienice s work

an opportunity to experience firsthand the practical elements of the group s

training. During these actor-training sessions, Staniewski and the ensemble

worked with students teaching them several of the training exercises the

7 Slavic and ast uropean Peiformance Vol. 26 No. 1



company uses at its center in Poland. Always demanding the actors work in

pairs and small groups, the company taught the required acrobatic andmusical skills while always underscoring the ethic of its work: No actor

performs alone. True artistry requires working together and community.

Gardzienice s brief stay at a MaMa offered a unique opportunity

for a truly powerful intercultural event: a contemporary Polish theatre

company engaging ancient Greek cultural artifacts before a cosmopolitan

audience in the United States. It is important to note how this collective

experience, marked by a hybrid of aesthetic principles, took place amidst a

very significant global eventof

2005, an event which had particularresonance for the Polish troupe performing. On April 2, five days before the

New York opening of Elektra Pope ohn Paul II (born KarolJ6zefWojtyla

in Poland) passed away The pontiff s funeral was held early on in

Gardzienice s run, on April 8 At the April 7 opening, before the

performance began, Staniewski walked on stage, greeted the audience, and

requested, on behalf of several members of his ensemble, for the evening s

event to be presented in honor of the late pope. He asked that in lieu of

applause at the close of the piece, the audience offer only a respectful

moment of silence. When the piece ended, none of the performers returned

to the stage. The houselights came up, and the New York audience sat in

abject silence for several moments. This abrupt silence, however, did not

seem out of place; instead, it seemed to stand in harmonious relationship to

what had just preceded it. The silence, more than just an absence of sound,

was not contingent on whether audience members revered the pope or not;

it was a communal act of respect for others whom one may or may not

always understand. This seemed the most appropriate punctuation to a work

of art gesturing across borders and through time, a work of art thatunderstands and respects the space of difference while passionately

journeying toward community.

NOTES

Gardzienice s Elek Jra was presented at La MaMa s Annex Theatre, New York, from

April 7 to 27, 2005.

It seems apparent that the title of the film series alludes to Staniewski s most recentbook, Hidden Territories which he co-authored with former company member Allison

Hodge. See: Wlodzimierz Staniewski and Allison Hodge, Hidden Territories (London:

Routledge, 2004).

73



3 Placing Gardzienice's Ekktra within the framework of intercultural performance

requires a short explanation of how I am employing the term, a clarification that Ihope will further illuminate the uniqueness of the April 2005 New York run.

Jacqueline Lo and Helen Gilbert in their essay Toward a Topography of Cross

Cultural Theatre Praxis, define intercultural theatre as a hybrid derived from an

intentional encounter between cultures and performing traditions. See Jacqueline

Lo and Helen Gilbert, Toward a Topography of Cross-Cultural Theatre Praxis,

TOR 46.3 (2002): 36. The intentional hybrid nature of Gardzienice's Ekktra its

conscious engagement with ancient Greek theatre practices, its tri-lingual

presentation (Polish, ancient Greek, English), and its efforts to cultivate an

international audience-appropriately place its work within this frame.4 See Roger Babb, An Interview with Wlodzirnierz Staniewski of Gardzienice,

SEEP 21.2 (2001): 75-83. Gardzienice recently presented both Metamorphoses and

Elektra as one evening of theatre at the Royal Shakespeare Company's Barbican

Theatre, London, from February 1 to February 11 2006.

5 See: http: www.gardzienice.art.pllen/spektakle2.html. Last accessed on

0210712006

6 F.G Naerebout, Attractive Performances as cited in Graham Ley Modern Visions

ofGreek Tragic Dancing, Theatre Journal 55 (2003): 479.

7 See: http: www.gardzienice.art.pllen/spektakle2.html. Last accessed on

02/07/2006.

8 Phoebe Hoban, New York Times 13 April2005: Section E Column 4, 7.




SACRED AND PURE LIKE FIRST LOVE

GOMBROWICZ'S MARRIAGE t STAGED BY ELMO NUGANEN

Aneta Mancewicz

There is only one country where a Pole can find a little happiness the land

of childhood years It will always remain sacred and pure like first love.

Adam Mickiewicz, Pan Tadeusz Epilogue2

n his conversations with Dominique de Roux, Witold Gombrowicz

boasts of having always written in the company of great authors.3 In the case

of his play Marriage he points to Shakespeare's Hamlet and Goethe's Faust

as models. At the same time, the Polish author readily confesses to indulging

in mockery and the grotesque when approaching the classics. This

ambivalence toward the European masters reveals the identity struggle of an

emigre author representing a minor literature. It is this problematic

association of Gombrowicz with the classics that becomes one of the main

motifs in a recent adaptation of Marriage at the Wilam Horzyca Theatre in

Toruri, Poland.The Estonian director Elmo Ni.iganen builds his production of

Marriage out of cultural allusions, the most distinctive contributions coming

from Adam Mickiewicz and Marc Chagall. The selection of artists is not

accidental: both were emigres from Eastern Europe. While in Paris, the two

expatriates lovingly reconstructed their provincial home towns and cultures,

so fragile when exposed to time and history: Mickiewicz wrote an epic in

which he described Soplicowo and Chagall, portraying characters and

landscapes from Vitebsk. By evoking these artists, Ni.iganen's productionemphasizes the notions of loss and nostalgia, destruction and restitution,

emigration and deprivation.

When Gombrowicz wrote Marriage in Argentina during the Second

World War, the Poland he left in 1939 was already gone. The loss was not

only sentimental; by the time Marriage was finished in 1946, the borders of

Poland had been moved to the West, and the whole region was deprived of

its multicultural richness as a consequence of the Holocaust, wartime

destruction, border shifts, and Stalin's policy of ethnic cleansing andpopulation resettlement, which forced cultural groups and families to move

far away from their "little homelands." The play, then, grew out of a feeling

of displacement and deprivation; Gombrowicz's experiences and

75



observations shaped the protagonist's struggle with the chaos and absurdity

that had annihilated the pre-war world.

The plot ofMarriage revolves around the theme of irrevocable loss.

In the trenches ofwartime France, Henry (Slawomir Maciejewski) dreams of

his parents and Molly, his fiancee (Maria Kierzkowska), only to realize that

a true homecoming is impossible; the house and its inhabitants became

grotesque. Hoping to re-establish the sacred character of the family, the

protagonist decides to marry his fiancee. H is noble intentions, however, fa il ;

the action leads to the degradation ofHenry's parents (Vladas Badgonas and

]olanta Teska), humiliation of his beloved, and finally, the death of his best

friend, Johnny (Tomasz Mycan). Despite his efforts, the protagonist cannotcontrol the events in his dream; instead, he falls victim to the absurdity of

his vision.

The play reflects the irrational, disordered nature of a dream,

replacing mimes is with fantasy. In Niiganen's Marriage an oppressive

atmosphere is created through the use of cultural allusions on many levels of

performance, such as language, music, costumes, the movements of

characters, and the use of props. The stage world appears to be constructed

on the basis of specific cultural models recognizable to the audience, yetdistinct from the traditional notion of verisimilitude. Since the stage is

organized according to the modes of magic and imagination rather than

physics and mimesis, the discovery ofmeanings in the play proceeds through

associations that are both cultural and individual.

Polish and probably also Lithuanian Belorussian, and Russian

audiences will likely recognize in the performance allusions to Mickiewicz

and his great epic poem Pan Tadeusz. The language and social habits in

Marriage

owe much to this oeuvre, which depicts the picturesque life of theLithuanian nobility in the wake of Napoleon's war with Russia. Mickiewicz

described Polish hopes for independence connected with this campaign, yet

he wrote the poem while in exile in Paris, not only following the failure of

the Napoleonic project but also after the defeat of the Polish forces in the

uprising of 1830. Pan Tadeusz evokes, therefore lost hope and freedom, the

lost country of childhood and of first love. When a century later

Gombrowicz undertakes these themes in Marriage he writes in the

company ofMickiewicz.

Emphasizing Mickiewicz's contribution to Marriage Niiganen not

on ly brings out references to Pan Tadeusz present in the original drama, but

he also builds new associations. The most striking mark of Eastern nostalgia

77



Elmo Niiganen s production of Gombrowicz s Marriage

at the Wilam Horzyca Theatre

in the performance is the participation of the Lithuanian actor, Bagdonas.

His behavior epitomizes the values of honor and dignity, typical of

Mickiewicz s epic world. Bagdonas confidently performs the type of paterfamilias demanding obedience and respect s a guardian of a threatened

order. He is also a tragic hero, defeated by the absurdity of the changing

reality, which becomes even more clear when the audience recalls Bagdonas s

recent stage triumph s Othello in Eimuntas Nekrosius s production (Vilnius

2000). At Kontakt, the international theatre festival in Torun Othello w s

awarded the Best Production prize, with Nekrosius s the Best Director and

Bagdonas as the Best Actor. Performing the father, Bagdonas evokes his great

Shakespearean creation to present an individual who challenges the world

and fails.

In confrontation with Bagdonas s gravity and authority,

Maciejewski s the son appears s a skeptic intellectual in search of certitude




and love. The central conflict of the play concerns these two characters-the

father and the son, who, simultaneously, represent God and Man. Bagdonas

and Maciejewski interact convincingly with the help of other actors. Teska

performs a respectable, sentimental Mother, contributing to the imagery of

an old-fashioned world in the spirit of Mickiewicz's epic. Kierzkowska as a

neurotic, melancholic Molly emphasizes the dreamy atmosphere of the play;

moreover, she builds this role similarly to her role of Ivona in Andrzej

Rozhin's Ivona Princess o Burgundia (Torun, 2001). Mycan's portrayal of

Johnny is natural and subtle; the actor situates his character at the threshold

of reality and dream.

In a performance suspended between order and chaos, Henry'sparents strive to save the old world ofvalues, distinguished by social customs

reminiscent of Pan Tadeusz. The affinity with the epic is particularly visible

in the dinner scene when the characters proceed to the table, in an orderly

fashion, dancing to Chopin s Military Polonaise in A Minor The episode

directly evokes a similar scene from the last book of Mickiewicz's epic, yet

the parallel with the happy ending of Pan Tadeusz only accentuates the sad

beginning of Henry's return home.

The reference to Mickiewicz in the dinner scene heightens theatmosphere of nostalgia and expatriation throughout the performance. It,

moreover, contributes to the oppressive nature of the play, which is

dominated by music with Felix Mendelssohn's Wedding March serving as the

leitmotif The world on stage, however, is not only melodious, but also

pictorial. The presentation of characters and objects in Ni.iganen's Marriage

evokes the poetics of Chagall's paintings.

As in the visual art of Chagall, some figures and objects in the

production lean slightly to one side, as if exempt from gravity. This posture

distinguishes individuals familiar to Henry-his parents, Molly, Johnny, and

even the Drunkard (performed by two actors, Pawel Tch6rzelski and Jaroslaw

Felczykowski)- from other characters in the play who do not belong to the

sphere of Henry's immediate experience, such as the high political and

religious officials.

Furthermore, the characters familiar to Henry wear modest

costumes in a pre-war style, which not only contrast with the fancy apparel

of the court attendants and the nobility, but also in their simple fashion

mark their affinity to the individuals portrayed by Chagall. Even when the

father as the King puts on a red cloak, his royal costume is rather plain and

does not hide his ordinary clothes, while the mother wears the same simple

79



dress throughout the performance. Molly, on the other hand, wears her

wedding dress n two variants: a ragged and an ordinary one; Johnny is

dressed either in military or in civilian clothes. It is Henry who changes his

apparel most often- he is ust clothed as a soldier, then a Hamlet-like prince,

and finally as a military dictator, revealing his extraordinary development

during the play.

The simple dress and slanting posture of the few familiar figures in

the play make them similar to individuals in Chagall s works. Among

Chagall s characters depicted in this slanting posture, the most prominent are

those of lovers identified as the painter and his wife; occasionally this mode

of painting appears in the images of local musicians or folklore characters .The slanting posture is thus a mark of familiarity and intimacy both in

Chagall s art and Niiganen s production. Moreover, in both cases, this shape

invests the characters with an imaginary existence.

The slanting figures appear as beings from the world of memories

and dreams; they seem to be dancing or flying, absorbed in their own

thoughts and feelings. In the paintings, their portrayal, suggesting past

happiness, arouses nostalgia and sadness in the viewers. In the performance,

however, these individuals call forth mostly compassion and pity, whichbecomes particularly apparent on two occasions.

One example occurs in the first act of the play when Henry s fiancee

passes slowly across the stage with the characteristic inclined movement.

Although she is wearing a ragged wedding dress, her light steps emphasize

the lyrical atmosphere of the scene, in which the protagonist in the family

circle recollects the engagement evening. As the girl moves, the lamp

hanging from the ceiling follows her steps. The physical reality is

transformed, whilethe

characters and viewers areput

under the spellof

pastbliss and tranquility. The scene promises to restore order in the family; it is

however, immediately followed by an outburst of violence and vulgarity, in

which the father and the fiancee are attacked by drunkards. The characters

and objects return to their natural position; the magic disappears.

nother striking reference to the slanting posture in the

performance appears in the third act. Henry as a tyrannous king harasses his

mother and father, who seem to be almost floating like the lovers in

Chagall s paintings. The unrealistic, sentimental appearance of the parents

contrasts with the unemotional, rigid posture of the protagonist. The

contrast, however, is misleading. As the son abuses his royal authority, the

parents are cruel in their control over the child s psyche. They accuse Molly

80 Slavic and ast European Peifi rmance Vol. 26, No. 1



Elmo Niiganen s production of Gombrowicz s arriage

at the Wilam Horzyca Theatre

of sexual encounters with ohnny and other men, destroying the memory of

the girl s chastity. The act of marriage becomes, therefore, utterly

superfluous- there can be no restoration of love and order, as even their

recollections are violated. The parents adopt the familiar postures,

reminiscent of Chagall s sentimental art, to exercise their power over the son,

poisoning his memory and love. The loss of innocence is unredeemable;

despite Henry s efforts, the play is bound to end tragically.

Like the actors, some objects in Niiganen s performance also bend

the rules of probability, as in Chagall s paintings. When Henry s father

proclaims himself king in order to defend himself against the drunkards

assault, the whole stage freezes, allowing the protagonist to analyze the

situation. At this instant, the swaying lamp is stopped halfWay through its

trajectory, visibly marking the suspension of reality. Only after Henrychooses his stance in the conflict do the actors and objects start moving

again. The stage, nevertheless, does not return to its earlier state. The

8



atmosphere dramatically shifts-the father becomes king, and the setting is

transformed into a court scene.

The Chagall-like presentation of slant or floating objects on stage

suggests, however, not only the dreamy, anti-realistic character of the

performed world, but also its profound, poetic significance. The symbolic

quality of the space and props can be illustrated by two examples. The most

striking instance of prop symbolism involves a bed, which appears in

different contexts, acquiring various meanings. Pulled by the parents with

labor and gravity, the bed signifies home; s a stage of Mary s sensual dance,

it evokes lust. When drunkards or court attendants threaten the father, the

bed becomes their vehicle s well s weapon they advance on it, ready toattack. Toward the end of the performance, the bed accumulates ll its

previous associations. Exposed on a column, the furniture seems to be

levitating, like objects in Chagall s canvasses. It then turns into a symbol of

regained purity by means of the highest sacrifice-Johnny s suicide. Another

important example concerns the presentation of the palace, in which the

royal columns re swinging in the air, challenging the l ws of physics. Their

appearance is ominous and grotesque; it indicates the insecurity of royal

power s well s the chaos in the kingdom:The presentation and choice of props also stresses ideas present in

Gombrowicz s text. The bed, for example, reminds the audience that they are

observing a dream; moreover, it evokes themes of love, sex, and marriage,

which are intricately interwoven in the drama and in the performance. The

characters behavior determine the meaning the bed acquires, which brings

out contradictory values: dignity and vulgarity, security and menace,

marriage and death. The columns, on the other hand, suggest power and

authority- the issues that affect relations between the characters, particularlybetween Henry and the father. The presentation of props, similarly to the

appearance of characters, depends, therefore, on the immediate stage context

and the cultural references that abound in the play.

Niiganen s arriage oscillates between opposite themes and

conventions, but one mode dominates throughout the production: the

grotesque, typical for Gombrowicz s work. Both Mickiewicz s epic nostalgia

and Chagall s poetic imagery are distorted to create a collage of cultural

allusions. Their presence in the play reinforces the artificiality of the stage

world, which appears s a metamorphosis rather than a mimesis of real life.

Most importantly, the cultural references strengthen the

relationship between the characters and the viewers: Henry is dreaming not




only his private memories from childhood and youth, but also universally

recognizable references from the East European cultural heritage. Both these

spheres appear strangely dislocated and disfigured, creating a sense of

estrangement and anxiety, which is accessible not only to the protagonist,

but also to the audience. The viewers participate in Henry's dream, because

they share the cultural experience it evokes. Niiganen's performance offers

the possibility of revisiting the land of childhood years, however

desacralized and impure it may be.

NOTES

1 Marriage by Witold Gombrowicz, directed by Elmo Niiganen, Wilam HorzycaTheatre, Torun, Poland, October 15, 2004.2 Translation from Anita D ~ b s k a Country o he Mind n Introduction to the oetry of

dam Mickiewicz (Warsaw: Burchard Edition, 2001), 102

3 itold Gombrowicz, Testament Rozmowy z Dominique de Roux (Cracow:

Wydawnictwo Literackie, 1996), 96.

'' *For another review ofGombrowicz's Marriage see Helena White's article about the

Lublin festival in SEEP 25.1 (2005).

83



WHrTE BUTTERFLIES, PLATTED CHAINS:

A LIVE METAMORPHOSIS

BY THEATRE-IN-A-BASKET ROM LVIV, UKRAINEl

Larissa M. L. Z. Onyshkevych

In October 2005, Theatre-in-a-Basket took part in the First International Theatre

Festival, Best i European Solo Acts,'' in Chicago. On the way home, while

stopping in New York City, the company staged the above performance at the

Shevchenko Scientific Society and a presentation i Taras Shevchenko's poem The

Dream (1844) at the LeRoy Neiman Gallery o Columbia University.

The text for this performance consisted of excerpts from five

novellas by leading Ukrainian writer Vasyl Stefanyk (1871-1936), as well as

from stories that he wrote in letters to a friend in Poland. Stefanyk

mentioned once that whatever people in a village create, they call it life,

while people outside call it poetry. Stefanyk's prose is actually poetry in

prose form, portraying the vicissitudes of rural life and the pain at the heart

of existence, as one scholar (Danylo Struk) described it.Stefanyk's stories are rendered here by a single performer, the

actress Lidia Danylchuk. She recites the texts as if living in/with them, as if

flowing from scene to scene, from one type of emotion to another. Stories

and songs. Songs and stories about women, women's lives and loves, their

small children, their lonely deaths. About the cruel fate that women often

face, with hardships forcing them down on their knees.

These texts somehow manage to undergo a metamorphosis into

melodies and choreography, into parallel folksongs and carols, into fine

tuned dance movements. The whole performance is actually a living

presentation of these metamorphosed texts, with the texts augmented by

songs, lullabies, and laments. The butterflies in the title of this

performance also hint at a metamorphosis of the spirit, of the soul; they

hint at a constant rebirth. But death is also present in the symbol of the

black butterflies mentioned in one story, as something to be avoided at all

cost.

The stage, or the floor that is to serve as the stage, is almost empty.

There are four suspended strings: two with small bells on them, one with areed pipe attached to it, and one a kalatalo a small wooden twirling

instrument used only on Good Friday and on the Saturday before Easter).




Also suspended on another string is a long, white embroidered shirt-dress

on a hanger; on the floor there is a child's small wooden rocking horse.

The actress enters, holding a basket with all her props, including the smallinstruments. The hanging shirt reminds one of its symbolic, archetypal

meaning: protection and individuality. n embroidered Ukrainian shirt has

added historic and cultural significance as well. By the end of presentation,

the shirt undergoes a metamorphosis too.

At first, we hear a gentle tune from a Jew's harp, a miniature

mouth-organ; the delicate vibrations are just like butterfly wings flapping

around the stage. This is how one can actually experience synesthesia.

Dressed in a black coat, the actress makes various circles with herarms in the air. Threatened by a black butterfly? The butterflies that she

brings to life fly around the four suspended strings with tiny bells, then

around the embroidered shirt-dress, which almost becomes a live

participant. ne starts to wonder whether there is a live person inside, and

then again, perhaps it is acting as a scarecrow? To scare away the black

butterflies? The actress stands behind the hanger and sets the background

for the story itself: white sleevesflying up and down, just like a butterfly. She takes

qffher black coat andputs it over the suspended white shirt. She rocks it like a baby,and then she floats toward each of he bells, touching them gently. They respond asi inging andhumming, as she does too, singing On Saturday morning. She sings

and loats along the stage, as i on the waves of he sea, as i n the waves of ife.

The actress recites a woman's reminiscences about her little son, about how

she loved to wash his hair . And we hear (again, we can almost feel it ) a

song, and a story about a little boy, Andriyko, and how his parents adored

and indulged him in all they could.

Then there is wintertime. The actress sits on a small toy horse,

rocking. Rocking and talking of babies and women. ne can almost

visualize how she rocks a real baby while singing an old Ukrainian carol ,

"Beyond the hill, Virgin Mary gave birth to a Son." She was another woman,

another lonely woman. Lonely women have to face life on their own. ll o life's

hard knocks. n old woman relates how she is lift alone after her husband's death-

how hard her life is and how she has finally left her husband's house with a bag to go

begging. She can fie/ how embarrassed and hurt her dead husband must be in his

grave. The actress keeps on rocking on the toy horse, facing fate as she rocks,

with her knees loudly and rhythmically hitting the floor. Hittingmercilessly, just as life does. Rocking and rocking on the horse, as life keeps

knocking and knocking her down. The actress stays low, close to the

86 Slavic and East European Peiformance Vol. 26 No. 1



ground, repeatedly knocking it with her knees. Then she leaves the stage

with a large bag slung across her shoulder.

She takes out a reed pipe, plays it, and frantically turns round and

round just like the Earth, just like life until she hits the rocking horse head

on and falls on her knees again. This is where and what life has sent her. t has

set her on the ground, kneeling and weaving. She seems to weave with her

arms we can almost see and hear the weaving movements. The invisible

woven tapestry is life, and it keeps growing and getting longer, s the

actress's hands continue to work on it. Her arms swing up and down, and

then make circular motions, around and around. Life goes on.

And then another story. We hear an Easter greeting, Christ hasrisen. And joyous folk tunes and folk dances greet spring. The words and

tunes are from ancient spring folk dances, hahilky-khorovody. One of them

is the kryvyi tanets . Just how does the actress convince us that there are so

many people dancing with her? She manages this most skillfully, ll to the

Theatre-in-a-Basket's production of White Butterflies, Plaited Chains

at the Shevchenko Scientific Society

87



music of her reed pipe. It's the magic of spring, it 's the magic of the spring

sun. The actress lifts her arms and keeps making a large circle in the air. We

are witnessing the sun getting larger and larger. Yes it is spring. And then

the actress becomes a willow, that symbolic Ukrainian willow, the lonely

woman, withstanding the wind, the events that life brings. But a willow also

represents the sun, rebirth, and renewal. Definite ly it must be spring.

Then there is a story about a young boy threatened by nature,

since they were envious of the attention he was getting. The sun, the wind,

the air, a lake, and a willow tree were trying to decide when to let spring

come down from the sky. In the meantime, a little boy caught their

attention, and they all played with him, making spring await their decision.Spring was ready to come down any minute, while Earth wanted so much

to be crowned by spring, ready for their wedding day. Because their time to

be adored was delayed, spring wanted to poison the little boy, and Earth

wanted to devour him. And so they did. Now his mother is left to grieve

for her child. And again, she is left alone, to cry for little lvanko. The

actress silently folds and rolls her whole body into a ball, and then rocks

and sobs quietly.

And another story, from another life: Old Tymchykha is leftwithout any family. She regrets the hard life she has had. The life of hard

knocks. However, there are no tears. We hear folksongs again, kolomyiky

which in four short lines can provide a story or life's wisdom appropriate to

a given situation, describing Old Tymchykha's past. The actress

accompanies her own singing with a stark rhythm, her knees beating hard

on the floor.

Baba, another old woman, is dying in her bed. Flies surround her,

crawling over her body and over her eyes, while she can barely shoo them

away with her hand. The actress hops on her knees, round and round while

we hear the fateful sentence: She was like a great sinner, suffering from the

beginning of time until the end of time. And the knees work faster and

faster, and harder. It isn't just life that is after the old Baba. Now even the

devil and his brood are making trouble for her, jumping behind her head

or in front of her, so that she can't make the sign of the cross in order to

make them disappear. The little demons are all over the old Baba, trying to

get into her mouth They have surrounded the poor Baba so we ll that they

finally pick her up and fly around with her until she hits her head on thetable. The actress increases the rhythm. The hard knocks of life are heard

not just from the hands beating on the floor, they also come from the

88 Slavic nd East European Peifonnance Vol. 26, No. 1



elbows, and the knees again. The rhythm continues: we hear her fingers

knock, then her palms, her arms and elbows, and the knees again. She

crawls on her hands and knees. But the story is merciless. After Baba dies

the flies begin to drink her blood until their wings become all red.

nd then it's winter again. A story about children sitting around a

table at a late hour. There is no food. The twirling instrument keeps

swinging round and round, and squeaking, as ifknocking on doors. n old

man comes reminiscing to his mother's house; he tries to remember how to

sing her song- but has forgotten how to. The actress makes this effort so

painfully visible. Then she puts on her black coat, ready for an exit. As the

lights dim, reminiscences come about the song Stork, Do Not Mow the

Hay. His mother tells him about his sister Maria's death. They go to visit

her grave. Peta ls of cherry blossoms cover the grave. Soon his mother dies

and is buried next to Maria. White petals from their tree near one grave

keep crisscrossing over the grave of the other woman. The actress kneels

down as if at a grave, her fingers flutter in the air: petals falling down, petals

dying too. She repeats the song Stork, Do Not Mow the Hay.

The actress embraces the embroidered shirt on a hanger, as if

dancing together with all the women she has depicted, all the lives she haslived. She holds the shirt up to her body, twirling it fast on a hanger-just

as fate twists one's life. Holding little bells in her hands now, she

flirtatiously hits the rocking horse on the forehead.

nd again, we hear the sounds of the Jew's harp producing softer

and softer music. Her story is complete. However, the shirt dress remains

suspended, holding all the stories about life and pain of the women

depicted. The stories have somehow been woven into the embroidered

shirt, which now seems to hold all of their stories, all of those lives, and allof their suffering.

Just like that shirt, the novellas by Stefanyk described above were

interwoven with folksongs, spring songs and funeral laments. All those

songs add another dose of insight into the lives lived. The most touching

depictions of the travails of the human soul, of the pain at the heart of

existence, that Stefanyk described in his stories, came to life through the

words, movements, and songs rendered by Lidia Danylchuk. They were felt,

they were experienced, and finally the tapestry of all of the lives depicted

remains reflected only in the embroidered white shirt left behind,

suspended on a string.

89



NOTES

Theatre-in-A Basket was founded in Lviv, Ukraine, in 1997 by lryna Volytska

Zubko and Lidia Danylchuk. Since 2004, Theatre-in-A Basket is now affiliated with

the Les Kurbas National Center for Dramatic Arts in Kyiv as a Creative Theatre

Workshop. Theatre-in-A Basket stages mostly performances for a single actor wi th

Lidia Danylchuk in the role), as well as works for two or three actors. The theatre

ha s won inte rnational recognition and several awards, including the 2004 Grand

Prize in Wrodaw Poland. Lidia D anylchuk has appeared on the stages of several

leading theatres in Kyiv, Odessa, Lviv, and abroad, and was awarded the Ivan

Kotliarevsky National Theatre Prize. Iryna Volytska Zubko holds a doctorate in

theatre arts. As a scholar, she is the author of two books and many studies on

Ukrainian theatre.

90 Slavic and ast uropean erformance Vol. 26, No. 1



THR OF V CL V HAVEL S PLAYS OFF-OFF BRO DW Y

Veronika Tuckerova

Vaclav Havel's three one-act plays, Audience Unveiling and Protest

were produced by the Endeavor Theater and performed at the John

Houseman Studio in New York, NY, March 23 to April2, 2005.

Vaclav Havel, the playwright and former Czech president, wrote

udience and Unveiling in 1975 and Protest in 1978. The three plays are

loosely connected by the central character of a dissident writer: called Vanek

in udience and Protest and Bedrich in Unveiling a character based on theauthor's own experiences.1The first of the three plays, Audience takes place

in a brewery and consists of a conversation between the Head Brewer and his

employee Vanek, Havel's alter ego. During the audience, the Head Brewer

asks Vanek to help him write reports on himself to the secret police. The

Head Brewer agrees to submit these reports, but he doesn't know how to go

about writing them, and so he now comes up with the idea that the

intelligent and political Vanek knows best what they want to hear. In

exchange for this help, he will move Vanek from the manual labor ofrolling beer kegs to a clerical position in the warehouse. Vanek is astounded

that he should assist in informing on himself and replies that he cannot take

part in a practice with which he disagrees. The Head Brewer explodes in an

angry speech in which he extols what Vanek sees as hypocrisy: unlike the

intelligentsia, a working man, such as himself, cannot afford to have

principles.

A similar tension between the exceptional position of a dissident

and that of an ordinary man is raised in the last of the three plays, Protest.

Here, the tension is between Vanek and Stanek, a writer who writes for

television and often has to compromise his artistic integrity. Stanek's

position, as he explains, is a difficult one: as a disappointed idealist, he

despises the opportunism around him. Stanek admires his dissident former

friend and expresses empty sycophantic praise: the moral reform of the

nation depends on a few people like Vanek. Stanek's reason for contacting

Vanek after their not having seen each other for many years is Stanek's

concern for a young musician who was arrested; he would like to have a

protest petition written and published abroad. Vanek, however, has thepetition already written and in his briefcase, and upon producing it, he

expects Stanek to sign it. But Stanek becomes evasive; in a long monologue

9



he muses about the subjective and objective sides of his signature, just as

he previously mused about how even a fairly intelligent and decent fellow

like himself could get used to the perverse idea that common decency and

morality are the exclusive domain of the dissidents, of local specialists, or

professionals in solidarity''2 When he finally decides not to sign the

petition, a phone rings and we learn that the musician has been released and

the petition is no longer necessary: this phone call presents an artificial and,

therefore, humorous resolution of Stanek's dilemma.

Unveiling is perhaps the most universal of the three plays, and was

performed by the Endeavor Theater most convincingly. The dissident writer

(called Bedrich in the text of the play) visits his two excessively fashionminded friends who have made a comfortable life for themselves within the

system; Michal has kept his job and can travel to the West. They show off

their newly redecorated apartment, which pretentiously combines a baroque

confessional with a rococo clock, a sandstone statue of an angel with a

modern sofa. The stylish Vera cooks an elaborate seafood dish and Michal

offers drinks and wants to play recordings he brought from Switzerland. Vera

and Michal show off not just their apartment, but also their life, their

marriage, child, sex life, and implore Bediich to fix his own life. The couplepresents their life as faultless and meaningful, but all this starts to fall apart

when the quiet and alienated Bediich decides to leave his patronizing hosts.

Unless seen through Bedrich's eyes, their efforts and achievements are

meaningless.

All three plays are very funny. The basic situations or premises are

absurd: an informer asking his victim to help write reports on himself; a

couple imploring a friend to change his life while their own lives need

substantial repair ; a writer asking for a petition to be written but, by

complicated political reasoning, managing to convince himself that his

own signature would be harmful. The humor of the plays is partly based on

repetition, and in that sense, they resemble Beckett's theatre. The dialogue

consists of the repetitions of everyday social situations and conventions. The

same phrases come up and are repeated again and again. For instance, the

hard drinking Head Brewer repeatedly offers to pour Vanek more beer while

the sober Vanek repeatedly declines. The Head Brewer repeatedly asks

whether Vanek is married, whether he has children, and whether he has

already taken his break. Michal and Vera repeatedly offer to light the fire andplay the records brought from Switzerland. It is humorous how often no

matter the seriousness of the topic under discussion-the characters return to

9 Slavic nd ast uropean Performance Vol. 26, No. 1



a phrase that we have already heard. The writer is shy and polite, and his lines

are curt and courteous (among his typical answers are: Mmn, yes, and

oh ); he serves as a foil for the other characters' exchanges and longmonologues.

Some of the faults of the production stem from a misunderstanding

of certain cultural norms. While it is a Czech convention of politeness to

refuse an offered drink, Vanek does so too vehemently, and it leaves the

viewer wondering why Vanek refuses a drink in Audience and Protest. A

similar confu sion occurs in Protest. In Havel's text, the guest stands in

Stanek's study in his socks, because he has taken his shoes offupon entering

the house, a typical instance of polite behavior. A little bit later, the hostnotices Vanek's socks and insists that his guest wears slippers, a polite gesture

on his part. In this production, Vanek enters the study in tall boots, which

were appropriate in the brewery setting of u ience. Stanek after a while

notices his guest's boots and starts pulling them off his legs, creating a

grotesque and confusing situation. On the other hand, the American

audience, unfamiliar with Czech good manners, could have been puzzled if

Vanek had come on stage barefoot.

The weakest point of the otherwise lively and amusing productionwas unfortunately the performance of the actor who played Vanek, Gregg

David Shore, who, as we learn from the program notes, usually performs

eccentrics: This marks the sanest role Gregg's played in some time. Shore's

expertise unfortunately seems to have carried over to Vanek. Where the role

asks for a shy and overly polite behavior (after all, we see Havel behind the

character), Shore is loud and makes excessively violent gestures. This

behavior was most disturbing in Audience which should present two

opposite types: a loud working-class man and a thoughtful, shy writer.

Shore's behavior was often exaggerated, making it hard to sympathize with

the person he portrayed. His most conspicuous gesture is that of contempt:

Shore often retorted condescendingly, in an annoyed voice, expressing

disregard for his interlocutors- showing that he was right and that he knew

that the others knew that he was-a gesture that goes against the polite and

awkward behavior ofVanek so powerfully rendered in the text of the plays.

The question remains how American audiences understand Havel's

plays. Unveiling elicited the liveliest response from the audience, and it is

indeed the most universal of the three plays: it could easily be stripped of itspolitical undertones and its target could become any style-minded, obsess ive

couple, whether fro m 1970s Prague or 2005 Manhattan. More problematic is

93



the reception of the moral and existential dilemmas of Vanek and Stanek.

an an audience without a direct experience of totalitarian society fully

understand these characters?Each play in this production was introduced by the live

performance of the rock band Devola. Although a young folk musician is

mentioned in Protest these loud performances seemed a bit out of place in

Havel's plays. They hint that Havel's plays may be understood in the

American context as an expression of an alternative subculture. One of the

musicians wore a red t-shirt with the face of Che Guevara, a Cuban

totalitarian revolutionary turned after his death into a martyr, whom we

would not quite associate with Havel's politics.

NOTES

1 In the production of Unveiling the same actor plays Vanek and Bedrich, and only

Vanek is mentioned in the playbill. These three plays became known in the West as

the Vanek plays.

All the quotations from Protest are from: Vaclav Havel, The Garden Party nd Other

Plays translated by Vera Blackwell (New York: Grove Press, 1993.)

94 Slavic nd East European Performance Vol. 6, No. 1



CONTRIBUTORS

EUGENE BROGYANYI is editor and translator of Drama Contemporary:

Hungary PAJ Publications) and Moment o i n c e r i ~ by Geza Paskandi Polis

Books), and a contributor to the Cambridge Guide to Theatre and the

forthcoming Grolier Encyclopedia o Modern Drama His translation ofStillLife

a one-act play by Ferenc Molnar, was performed at the Martin E. Segal

Theatre Center in 2002 and is published in SEEP 22.2.

JEFF JOHNSON is the author of Pervert in the Pulpit: o r a l i ~ in the Works o

DavidLynch McFarland, 2004) and William Inge and the Subversion o GenderMcFarland, 2005). He is currently writing a book on post-Soviet Baltic

theatre.

ANETA M NCEWICZ teaches English literature at Kazimierz Wielki

University in Bydgoszcz, Poland. For almost ten years she has been

performing on an amateur and professional basis; since 2004, she has been

interpreting at the International Theatre Festival Kontakt in T orun, Poland.

Her articles on theatre and translation have been published in Poland, GreatBritain, Germany, and Ukraine.

VERONIKA TUCKEROVA is a native of Prague and a graduate student in

the Department of Germanic Languages at Columbia University. She

received her M. Phil. degree in Comparative Literature at the Graduate

Center of the City University of New York. She is a regular contributor to

the Czech art and literature journal Revolver Revue

LARISSA M. L Z. ONYSHKEVYCH is a literary scholar specializing in

modern Ukrainian and comparative drama. She is the author of numerous

articles and the editor and compiler of two anthologies ofUkarainian drama.

She has taught drama at Rutgers University and Lviv University Ukraine).

95



Photo Credits

ay and r o ~ a n y iGabriella Gyorffy, gimagine.com

Giza-boy

Andras Mathe

Frankie Herner s Old Man

Umberto Pezzetta

Blow. Wind : Penelope and Dick: The Blue

Spelmal)u Nakts

V oskovec and Werich

Kultura, June 25, 2005

Lunacharsky

Natalya Lunacharskaya-Rozenel , Vospominaniya (Moscow: Iskusstvo, 1965).

Elektra

Gardzienice

Marriage

Wilam Horzyca Theatre

White Butterflies. Plaited Chains

Theatre-in a asket




MARTIN E SEGAL THEATRE CENTER PUBLICATIONS

The Arab OedipusTHE R B OEDIPUS

FOUR PL YS

Four Plays

Editor

Marvin Carlson

Translators

Marvin Carlson

Dalia Basiouny

William Maynard HutchinsPierre Cachia

Desmond O'Grady

Admer Gouryh

With Introductions By:

Marvin Carlson, Tawfiq AI-Hakim,

Dalia Basiouny

Thi s volume contains four plays based on the

Oedipus legend by four leading dramatists of the

Arab world: Tawfiq Al-Hakim's ing Oedipus AliAhmad Bakathir's The Tragedy o Oedipus Ali

Salim 's h e Comedy o Oedipus and WalidL- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Ikhlasi's Oedipus.

The volume also includes Al-Hakim's preface to his Oedipus on the subject ofArabic tragedy a

preface on translating Bakathir by Da lia Basiouny, and a general introduction by Marvin Carlson.

An awareness of the rich tradition of modem Arabic theatre has only recently begun to be felt by the

Wes tern theatre community, and we hope that this collection will contribute to that awareness.

USA 20.00 plus shipping 3.00 USA, 6.00 International

Please make payments in U.S. Dollars payable to :

Martin E. Segal Theatre Center.

Mail checks or money orders to :

Circulation Manager

Martin E. Segal Theatre Center

The CUNY Graduate Center

365 Fifth Avenue

New York, NY 10016-4309

Vi sit our web-site at: web.gc.cuny.edu/mestc/

Contact: [email protected] or 212-817-1868



MARTIN E. SEGAL THEATRE CENTER PUBLICATIONS

Witkiewicz: Seven PlaysTranslated and Edited

by Daniel Gerould

This volume contains seven of

Witkiewicz s most importantplays: The Pragmatists Tumor

Brainiowicz Gyubal Wahaza r

The Anonymous Work The

Cuttlefish Dainty Shapes and

Hairy Apes and The Beelzebub

Sonata as well as two of histheoretical essays, Th eoreticalIntroduction and A Few Words

about the Role of the Actor in the

Theatre of Pure Form.

Witkiewicz . . . takes up andcontinues the vein o dream and

grotesque fantasy exemplified by

the late Strindberg or by

Wedekind; his ideas are closely paralleled by those o the surrealists and

Anton in Artaud which culminated in the masterpeices of the dramatists of the

absurd- Becket/ Jonesco Genet Arrabal of the late nineteen forties and the

nineteen fifties. lt is high time that this major playwright should become better

known in the English-speaking world.

Martin EsslinUSA $20.00 PLUS SHIPPING $3.00 USA, $6.00 International

Please make payments in U S Dollars payable to:


Mail checks or money orders to:

Circulation Manager


The CUNY Graduate Center365 Fifth Avenue

New York, NY 10016-4309

Visit our web-site at: web.gc.cuny.edu/mestc/




MARTIN E SEGAL THEATRE CENTER PUBLICATIONS

THE HEIRS OFMOLIERE

+POUR FRENCH COMEDIES OP THE7TH AND 8TH CENTURIES

@ ~ c l T h e A b o e ~ M i o d e d l o v c r@ Deotoucb es: The ConceitedCount

@ LaO........ee:Thel'ashiouohlePrejudloe

@ La1J4:Thel'rieado tl.el..aws

TRANSI ATEO AND EDITED BY

MARV IN CARLSON

The Heirs ofMoliere

Translated and Edited by:Marvin Carlson

This volume contains four

representative French comedies of

the period from the death of Moliere

to the French Revolution: Regnard's

The Absent-Minded Lover

Destouches's The Conceited Count

La Chaussee's The Fashionable

Prejudice and Laya's The Friend o

the Laws.

Translated in a poetic form thatseeks to capture the wit and spirit of

the originals, these four plays

suggest something of the range ofthe Moliere inheritance, fromcomedy of character through thehighly popular sentimental comedyof the mid eighteenth century, to

comedy that employs the Molieretradition for more contemporarypolitical ends.

In addition to their humor, these comedies provide fascinating social documents thatshow changing ideas about such perennial social concerns as class, gender, and

politics through the turbulent century that endedin

the revolutions that gave birthto

the modern era.

USA $20.00 plus shipping $3.00 USA, $6.00 International

Please make payments in U S Dollars payable to:

Martin E Segal Theatre Center

Mail checks or money orders to:

Circulation Manager

Martin E. Segal Theatre CenterThe CUNY Graduate Center

365 Fifth Avenue

New York, NY 10016-4309Visit our web-site at: wcb.gc.cuny.edulmestc/




MARTIN E. SEGAL THEATRE CENTER PUBLICATIONS

THt DoG O MOI'HAIIGIS

TRI\NSLAT 0 ANU EUITHl Y

01\ I I G ROl LD MAMVI CARl SON

Pixerecourt

Four Melodramas

Translated and Edited by:

Daniel Gerould

&

Marvin Carlson

This volume contains four of

Pixen court's most important

melodramas: The Ruins ofBabylon

or Jafar nd Zaida The Dog of

Montatgis or The Forest ofBondy

Christopher Columbus or The

Discovery of he New World and

Alice or The Scottish Gravediggers

as well as Charles Nodier's

"Introduction" to the 1843 CollectedEdition of Pixerecourt's plays and

the two theoretical essays by the

playwright, "Melodrama," and

"Final Reflections on Melodrama."

Pixerecourt furnished the Theatre ofMarvels with its most stunning effects, and

brought the classic si tuations of fairground comedy up-to-date. He determined the

structure of a popular theatre which was to las t through the 19th century

Pixerecourt determined that scenery, music, dance, lighting and the very movementsof his actors should no longer be left to chance but made integral parts of his play."

Hannah Winter, The Theatre ofMarvels

USA $20.00 plus shipping $3.00 USA, $6.00 International

Please make payments in U.S. Dollars payable to

Martin E. Segal Theatre CenterMail checks or money orders to:

Circulation Manager

Martin E. Segal Theatre CenterThe CUNY Graduate Center

365 Fifth Avenue

New York, NY 10016-4309

Visit our web-site at: web.gc.cuny.edu/mestc/




MARTIN E SEGAL THEATRE CENT R PUBLICATIONS

ontemporary Theatre in Egyptcontains the proceedings

ofa Symposium onthis subject held at the CUNY Graduate Center in February of 1999 along with

the first English translations of three short plays by leading Egyptian play

wrights who spoke at the Symposium, Alfred Farag, Gamal Maqsoud, and

Lenin El-Ramley. It concludes with a bibliography ofEnglish translations and

secondary articles on the theatre in Egypt since 1955.

(USA $15.00 plus $3.00 shipping. Foreign $12.00 plus S .00 shipping)

Zeami and the No Theatre in the World edited by Benito Ortolani and Samuel

Leiter, contains the proceedings of the Zeami and the No Theatre in the WorldSymposium held in New York City in October 1997 in conjunction with the

Japanese Theatre in the World exhibit at the Japan Society. The book contains

an introduction and fifteen essays, organized into sections on Zeami's Theories

and Aesthetics, Zeami and Drama, Zeami and Acting, and Zeami and the

World.

(USA $15.00 plus $3.00 shipping. Foreign $15.00 plus $6.00 shipping)

our Works for the Th eatre by Hugo Claus contains translations of four plays

by the foremost contemporary writer of Dutch language theatre, poetry, and

prose. Flemish by birth and upbringing, Claus is the author of some ninety

plays, novels, and collections of poetry. The plays collected here with an intro

duction by David Willinger include The Temptation Friday Serenade and The

Hair of he Dog.

(USA $15.00 plus $3.00 shipping. Foreign $15.00 plus $6.00 shipping)

-Theatre Research Resources in New York City is the most comprehensive cata

logue of New York City research facilities available to theatre scholars, including

public and private libraries, museums, historical societies, university and college