NEWSN01ES on

SoviET o~d EAsT EuROPEAN DRAMA Ond THEATRE

Volume 5, Number 2 June, 1985

FROM THE EDITOR

We Hre agi:IJJI irt the position of accer.~ ting material for publication in uur

forthcoming issues. In fact, the previous restriction of the maximum length of an article, eight double-spaced pages, will be increased to twelve pages, plus notes, i.e., a total of 14 pages. We h~:~ve grown way past the normal length of a newsle tter, and 1 think it is time to start thinking of a thin journal format. Therefore do not be surprised if there is a change in appearance of the next issue. Of course, please continue to submit book and performance reviews, announcements, and anything else of interest to our discipline. I do have one important request, however, and that is, that you proofread your material and that you send it to me in high quality shape requiring only superficial, cosmetic surgery on my part. Many thanks.

NEWSNOTES is a publication of the Institute for Contemporary Eastern European Drama and Theatre under the auspices of the Center for Advanced Study in Theatre Arts, Graduate Center, City University of New York with support from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Graduate School and the Department of Forei~n Languages and Literatures of George Mason University. The Institute Office is Room 801, City University Graduate Center, 33 West 42nd Street, New York, NY 10036. All subscription requests and submissions should be addressed to the Editor of NEWSNOTES: Leo Hecht, Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures, George Mason Universitv, Fairfax, VA 22030. (Proofreading Editor: Prof. Rhonc'a Blair, Hampshir<' College Theatre, Amherst, MA 01002.)

BlBIJOGRAPHY

Alma H. Law. "Soviet Theatre in Transition: The Politics of Theatre in the 1980s." Occasional Paper No. 195, Kennan Institute for Advanced Russian Studies, Smithsonian Institution Building, Washington, D.C. 20560. Copies of this excellent paper will be obtained free of charge from the above address.

Alma H. Law. "The Trouble with Liubimov." American Theatre, April, 1985.

"Yuri Lyubimov, Director in Exile." The Washington Post, March 12, 1985.

Vladimir Nobokov. The Man from the U.S.S.R. and Other Plays. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1985. In addition to the title play, the volume contains three other plays: The Event; The Pole; and The Grand-dad. They were translated into English by the author's son, Dmitri.

Laurence Senelick. "King of Jesters but not Jesters to Kings: The Durovs before the Revolution." THEATRE (New Haven), Spring, 1985. This article is a survey of the careers of the Durov brothers as promoters of political satire in a popular arena in the late Tsarist period.

Laurence Senelick. Anton Chekhov. A volume in the Macmillan Modern Dramatists series brought out by Macmillan in England and by Grove Press in the United States. It considers Chekhov the dramatist in the light of the theatre of his time, and the stage history of his plays.

lurii Alianskii. Teatr v kvadrate obstrela. Leningrad: lskusstvo, 1985.

M. Bilinskaia. Shevchenko v muzvke. Kiev: Muzichna Ul<raina, 1984 .

Iu. Dmitriev. Akademicheskii Malvi Teatr-1917-1941. Moscow: lskusstvo, 1 ~84. (Describes the developmental history of the Malyi during the first 25 years after the Revolution.)

R. Mironova and A. Menaker (eds.) V svoem repertuare. Moscow: lskusstvo, 1984. (The major vaudeville artists talk about their careers and genre) .

A. Cherniakov. Televidenie vchera, segodnia, zavtra. Moscow: lskusstvo, 1984.

Vladimir Ashkenazy. Beyond Frontiers. New York: Atheneum, 1985. The autobiographical book is primarily concerned with the pianist's problems with the KGB in the 1950s and 60s.

Galina Vishnevskaya. Galina. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1984. This is also an autobiographical work which traces the career of the sim;er and that of Mstislav Rostropovich, her husband.

ANNOUNCEMENTS

There will be panel on ''Stanislavsky and the Moscow Art Theatre" at the National Convention of the American Association of Teachers of Slavic and East European Languages (AA TSEEL) in Chica~:;o, December 27-30. We are still in need of one good paper on any phase, personality or time period connected with the title of the panel. In case you would like to give a paper -there (of course, it would require that you join AATSEEL), please let me (Leo Hecht) know IMMEDIATELY.

Isaak Dostis, Director, is again putting together a six-week ''Stanislavski Residence" which combines formal study and actually staging a performance. Classes include the following subjects: Observation and Awareness; Physical Actions; Inner Monologue and

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Images; Given Circumstances; Tempo Rhythm; Concentration and Relaxation; Sense Memory; Truth and Belief/The Magic If; Adaptation; Communion; Physical Apparatus. In case you are interested in additional information, please contact Isaac Dostis, Post Office Box 162, Leonia, NJ 07605, or call him (201) 944-3546.

A short article in Pravda on April 17, contained the translation of a note from a Bucherest newspaper concerning Romanian theatre. It is interesting that Pravda considered it important enough to publish: "In analyzing the work of the nation's theatres, the Rumanian paper remarks that the majority of today's spectators are young people. Nevertheless, the theatrical repertoire on the stages, with rare exceptions, shows only weak substance. This was revealed during a recent competition of plays conducted by the Council for Culture and Socialist Education. Playwrights were called upon to show the spectators the positive facets of their young contemporaries, the active and conscious participants in socialist creation, and the active and uncompromising fighters against inadequacies and developments which are harmful to society. The Central Com mit tee of the Rumanian Communist Part is addressing the necessitv of paying more frequent heed to the life-prolems of the generation which is in the process of maturing into adult citizens.

Pravda, on April 6, 1985, allocated considerable space to prooagation of the film Nehru. This is a very recently released combined product, a semi-documentary made at MOSFILM and Indian film studios and co-directed by a Russian and an Indian. This is something Pravda does only rarely. The intent is, of course, political. It is the intent of the USSR to continue the close ties between the two countries. As previouslv reported, there were some problems with the film's release. It is pure propaganrla which stresses the great friendship and help by the Soviets to their poorer friend from the time of Lenin to the death of Nehru. Nevertheless, the Indians insisted on inserting lengthy segments on Khrushchev which the Soviets wanted to edit out. This de laverl the release of the film. Finally, a compromise was made which reduC'ed Khrushchev's appearances to a minimum in the version to be released in the USSR, but left the clips in full-length in the Indian version.

Victorv Over the Sun has been accepted for showing in San Antonio's HEMISFIL M fest ival and Los Angeles' prestigious FILMEX. The producers are also close to a sale to PBS. This outstanding futurist performance is available on film-running time 55 minutes. The 16mm color film may be rented for $200 or purchased for $900. It may also be purchased on 3/4" videotapes ($265), VHS tape ($250), and BETA videotape ($250).

The video production "Russian Literary Theater" which includes cassettes of Master and Margarita, Ten Days that Shook the World, The Exchange, Three Sisters, Mother, Crime and Punishment, Pugachev, Wooden Horses, Five Stories bv Babel, and other Taganka productions, are available from NJR Video, 10 Three Village Lane, Setauket, NY 11733. Telephone: (516) 751-0680.

The University of Virginia at Charlottesville is in the process of installing equipment which will enable students and faculty to see live Soviet television broadcasts. The only other such system at an American universitv was installed at Columbia last year.

In a recent issue, the Soviet trade union newspaper Trud accused young Russians of having forgotten old dances such as the waltz and foxtrot, and for being unable to dance modern dances such as disco. Couples are traditionally embarrassed when they heve to dance a traditional bridal waltz at weddings. When the music changes to upbeat modern hits the dancing is scarcely better. The newspaper recom menned that professional troupes of dancers give displays at the beginning of each disco night at local recreation clubs.

The film A Love in Germanv, directed by Andrzej Wajda, screenplay by Wajda, Boleslaw Michalek and Agnieszka Holltmd, has received mixed reviews. NEWSNOTES would welcome a review by one of our readers. Also, belatedly, we would welcome reviews of the following films: Andrzej Wajda's Danton and Tsukerman's Liquid Sky.

Shooting appears to have been completed on the NBC film Peter the Great in Suzdal. The ten-hour mini-series stars Venessa Redgrave, Omar Sharif, Laurence Oliver, Lilli Palmer and Maximilian Schell who portrays the adult Peter. The film is based on Robert Massie's biography and is particularly concerned with the relationship between Peter and his son Alexis, portrayed by the Soviet actor Boris Plotnikov. It is directed by Marvin Chomsky and will cost at least $28 million. It will most probably be released in December, 1985.

Films now available for rental throu~;h lFEX, 201 West 52nd Street, New York, NY 10019, Tel: (212) 582-4318, include the following: The Hung-arians, Hungarofilm Production directed by Zoltan Fabri (it is about four peasant families and two sing-le men who leave their homeland in 1942 to take a one-year labor contract on a German farm where they must witness the tragedies of war); and The Apple Game, directed by Vera Chytilova, Czechoslovakia (it is comedy about a doctor in a Prag-ue hospital who is the prototypical womanizer and gets in and out of severe trouble).

Sergei Yutkevich died in Moscow on April 23. He was one of the most respected film directors and worked primarily for MOSFlLM. He became active ouite early ann, in fact, received two Stalin prizes. He is best remembered for his two Cannes Film Festival Prizes, for Othello and Skanderbeg-. He was 80 years old. His death notice was signed by the entire Politburo who termed his death "a grievous loss to Soviet culture."

My Friend Ivan Lapshin

Moi drug Ivan Lapshin was completed in 1983 under the direction of Aleksei German. Like many films, its distribution was held up for other than artistic reasons. In this case, the reason is not quite as obvious as in most other instances. In fact, it is not concerned with contemporary affairs, but rather with life in the ealy 1930s. This is the key to the problem. The period of the Revolution and the Civil War, and that of World War II has been pretty well beaten to death by a plethora of Soviet films. However, there have been virtually no films on the highly significant period which immediately followed the New Economic Policy-certainly none which were not purely political tripe, for example, those which depict a happy Soviet population actively engaged in the building of communism. Even in the history books this period of painful "collectivization" in which some six million citizens lost their lives has been meticulouslv avoided. This, then, is the first non-propagandistic film on the subject to the recol­lection of the Soviet filmgoer, which is the reason why he has flocked to the theatre to see it during these past two months. This is particularly interesting-, since the release was not openly announced and since the authorities would have preferred to keep silent about it. There have been some allegations that the film does not quite fit in with the attempts, during the past several years, to rehabilitate Stalin.

At any rate, this film is today the most talked about event in the performing- arts among the population of the major Soviet cities. Actually, the film is quite boring. It has no unified plot and moves very slowly. It is a collection of cameos and unconnected events which use the framing device of Lapshin, a young and reckless policeman, relating some of his experiences. Lapshin is in charge of a small police unit charged with rounding up an assortment of thieves, black-mareteers, smugglers and other criminals. His unit is also joined by a news reporter on assignment. Lapshin is a man M•ithout

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mercy. We see him interrogating an old man in a rather rough fashion and then leading a raid on a small hut where criminals are said to be hiding from the police. In frustration, another old man stabs and wounds the journalist. In his fury, although the perpetrator gives up and raises his hands above his head, Lapshin kills him in cold blood.

Other segments of the film describe the lives of local theatre people since many of Lapshin's friends are performers there. It contrasts their lives with those of the local population. Nevertheless, although one can see numerous posters and portraits including those of Stalin, there is absolutely no propaganda injected into the plot or the characters. Nothing is said about the elimination of the kulaks with fire and sword, there are no idealized workers or Party functionaries combatting other enemies of the people, and no hydro-electric plants or highways are being constructed. Rather the opposite is true. The film constantly depicts the abject poverty, the lack of food, the unbelievably poor housing conditions, and the inhuman prisons which existed during this period.

Soviet film critics have said very little about this film since its release. Thev mav be waiting for a hint from the Party, or may be hoping that it wil1 go awav if it continues to be ignored. However, the film theatres continue to be jammed.

L.H.

"THE WORKING MAN ON THE SCREEN"

The following is a translation of a lead editorial which appeared on the front pag-e of Pravda on February 10, 1985. It is the last major editorial on film which appeared immediately before the Gorbachev era and has some historical sig-nificance. Despite its glorification of the work ethic and the call for increasing didacticism in Soviet film, it is not the usual example of the political pap which had appeared for the two years past. It even contains the significant concession that conflict and a collision of ethical opinions "is demanded by the nature and the laws of art." No additional guidelines on film have appeared during the first three months of the Gorbachev regime:

In the workshops of the giants of ener~ production, on the collective farm fields, in the mine shafts under the ground, in vehicles in the cosmos, in the quiet academic laboratories, on the thundering- Trans..Siberian highways, in the cabins of construction cranes and at the open-hearth furnaces, all these are the working places of our contemp­oraries-the creators of everything of which the Soviet land is justifiably proud.

Having opened new historical horizons, the Communist Party sets before the people increasingly more difficult tasks, orienting itself towards the hig-hest, most demanding concepts of socialism which have been worked out according to scientific theory. To help our contemporary to achieve his elevated work goal, to enable him to attain long­range educational g-oals in order to raise the conception of personal achievement in socialist labor, is the high mission of the Soviet masters of the arts, including those in (ilm making, who affect an audience of many millions.

The working man, and the man at work, has always been one of the central figures in our films. Having been born as the art of a new societv, and having glorified in storming and the world in the days of the first Russian Revolution and in the days of the Great October, the Soviet film has just as passionately depicted the participants in the work ethic-the enthusiasts of the first Five Year Plans and the first brigadiers of the kolkhoz cornfields. In the days of the Great Fatherland War, our screen depicted our valiant fighting men who fell upon and destroyed the fascist order, and beside them, to their right flank, the working home front. The relay team of the heroes of our film is a J living chronicle . of the formation of Soviet society, a dynamic panorama of their ] · --· 1

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Freedom of work in the socialist collective is filled with a special meaning in our days, and signifies a new quality. Specifically in the area of labor, in the words of comrade K. Chernenko, "there is a daily turmoil of creative activity of the Soviet people which exposes and expresses their personal qualities, formulates their social interests and their norms of behavior. The character of their personal contacts in the workshops, on the farms and in institutions, the essence of their relationship to one another and to their work, this, in the final result, defines the tenor and quality of our lives."

Films which were issued during various periods, e.g., The Chairman, Nine Davs of One Year, Your Contemporarv, Bv the Lake, The Prize, and others, acquainted the audience with the heroes of our times for whom creative labor signified the first essence of life and the measuring stick of the moral life of mankind. The creators of these films, in approaching social, production-technical and scientific problems, uncoveren them and-as demanded by the nature and laws of art-portrayed the conflict of characters, the collision of different opinions, and the disagreement between ethical positions.

During the last few years this fruitful tendency was continued in the films The Taste of Bread, Your Son, Earth, The Train Stopped, Hope and Supoort, Main Hi!!hW8v, and others. There were created a number of memorable films for the cinema and tele­vision, also including documentary and scientific-educational films, in which the central position was occupied by the man of labor as depicted by both documentarv films and the popular science films. Among those were a series of films about the construction of BAM (Baikal-Amur Highway), the television film Egor lvanvch which received the gov­ernment prize for 1984, and a series of films on scientists and cosmonauts.

However such films are still rather rare. They, by far, do not encompass the entire circle of socio-moral problems connected with the sphere of labor. Also, many of the works written for the screen are deprived of deep, contemporary meaning, do not pene­trate the superficial, and do not expose the complicated dialectics of facts and characters. It is only natural that such films cannot attract the curious attention of the audience.

The recent resolution of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the USSR and the Council of Ministers of the USSR, entitled "Concerning the measures for the further raising of the ideological and artistic level of motion picture films and the strengthening of the material and technological base of cinematographv," effectively helped the many thousands of Soviet artists of the screen and created new, more favor­able working conditions for them. The times themselves are promoting the masters of the cinema with themes, subjects and forms of vital importance. Is it reallv necessary to reiterate how, in our times, there is an inseparable bond between economics and psv­chology, ethics, planning and conscience, the successes of the high-teet'! revolution and the honor of labor? The attention of artists must be directed towarrls the reform of general education curricula and the teaching of youngsters so that they react correctly towards labor.

To assist the artists in their search along this path, to supoort their projects opportunely, to create all the circumstances conducive to their realization, is the oailv mission of all-Union and Republican GOSKlNOs (Governmental Cinema Authoritif's), studios, and creative collectives. A good tradition is the reviewing of films about the working class and the toilers in agriculture, and the awarding of prizes for the best scenarios depicting our contemporaries. An anditional source of acquaintance with the new economic, social and moral processes and with their real participants, are regular meetings of the masters of film with farm workers from Nechernozemia, oil drillers from the Tiumen oil fields, producers of raw materials in Siberia, land reclamation workers,

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construction and maintenance workers on BAM and other new projects under the Five Year Plan.

Of course, the interest of the viewer in one or another film rests most of all on the ideological and artistic qualities of the film. But even the best films need good propa­ganda and popularization. Experience shows that films which should have been successful and should have attracted wide attention, at times have failed to impress the viewers. The blame for such occurrences is poor advertising. The films which most often fall into this category are documentaries and films on popular science themes. In order to propa­gandize these films, it is necessary to ask television for a much greater particioatorv role in this endeavor. Incidentally, one should not forget a role in this for the directors of trade union establishments, many of whom have their own motion oicture theatres.

To show the hero of today-the man of work, the man at work, to show this increasingly completely and clearly and thereby call forth a full echo from millions of hearts-is the honorable duty and the inspiring creative labor of the Soviet cinematographer.

Leo Hecht (trans)

THE WRITER AND HIS AUDIENCE: RECENT PLAYS BY SLAWOMlR MROZEK

During the last twenty years, Sfawomir Mrozek, the leading Polish plavwright, satirist, and short story writer, has resided in the West, first in Italy and now in France. Unlike the writings of ·the great majority of Eastern European authors living in the West, Mrozek's plays are regularl1 staged and his prose is systematically published abroad as well as in the home country. The unrestricted access to both the Western and the Polish public allowed Mrozek to attempt a rare dual role of a supra-national and a home-bound author, one who designs his plays and defines his literary persons by different means depending on his intended audience.

Mrozek's early writing up to and including his best known play Tango (1984) grew out of a narrow setting for which he became an emblematic writer. His literary debut in the early fifties was seen as one of the first signs of the cultural Thaw in Poland; his satirical texts were written for student theaters and popular journals. Much of his writing was inspired, in the words of a cri~ic, by "a distance between the informational and the pragmatic side of the newspapers," as they existed in Poland. Satirical activity led Mrozek to his first short stories, many of them narrated in the first person. The clear and consistent literary persona which appeared behind this work found enormous resonance among the local audience, making Mrozek into a popular cultural personalitv, one which effectively reflected the predicaments and the cultural patterns of his contemporaries.

The author-narrator in Mrozek's early work presented himself as a naive, old­fashioned believer in logic, convention, honor, and humanist standards. His mannerisms were c~armingly provincial and antiquated in what a critic calls "the Austro-Hungarian style." The traditional value system held by the narrator inevitably proved inadequate in a confrontation with a peculiar new world which the narrator politely but hopelessly tried to understand. As a rule, the narrator's sense of decorum and value was humiliated by the setting which functioned according to the new, seemingly incongruous stereotypes.

At the time when Mrozek wrote his early stories and plays, this clash of codes had - 1

an ultimately political meaning. His writing confirmed the breakdown of the sanctity of u..,. .. -~ artificial patterns and superimposed values associated with Socialist Realism. The ~ ·.,.. ..... & ~ . ""'·• _, . .

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parabolic structures of his plays invited interpretation in political categories; clean model strucures of his dramas set in motion the reception mechanism which was part of the traditional functioning of theater in Poland. Beyond the text, they invited the search for the subtext which had always been important in the Polish theater and which had disappeared in the immediate post-war period. Although at the time Mrozek's plays lacked any concrete references to the geo-political setting, his literarv persona echoed the mood of the generation raised on the old local traditions and often conflictinf! new socialist values. In this mood, Mrozek parodied national myths and at the same time showed certain longing for the time when they appeared to have han reality.

Since Mrozek's early dramas were created for a specific, local kind of theater, it appeared clear that by moving abroad his plays would lose their subtext and Mrozek, in turn, would lose his identity as a playwright. Indeed, his initial popularity in the West was based on his somewhat false reputation of an anti-system satirist from Eastern Europe. Beyond politics, his plays superficially fit the poetics of Theater of the Absuro. As a result of their clean, logical and abs!{act design, Mrozek's local parables began to function in the West as existentialist plays.

With this reinterpretation, Mrozek's distinctly drawn literary personality that derived its functioning power from a very specific cultural context ceased to correspond to the actual dra rna as it was staged in the West. From the beginning of his stav abroad, Mrozek quite reasonably tried to separate himself from the non-functioning image of a political, tradition-oriented, local writer and appeared as a professional dramaturgist whose primary inter~st was in creating drama effective in purely esthetic terms. In the interviews given to the Western press, Mrozek described himself as an entirely nonpolitical individual, whose plays appeared to have political dimension only insofar as this dimension was inavoidable in the modern world. He repeatedly stressed his individuality as man ~nd writer and a uniqueness of his perception insofar as every man's perception is unique. In trying to reshape his literary persons, Mrozek separated himself from the particulars of his original setting and insisted that while writing he had no particular audience in mind.

His transition to a pan-European writer did not, however, proceed entirely smoothly. When he attempted to apply his old method of a satirical parable to the cultural-political developments in the West, as he did in the plav Szczesliwe wvdarzenie ~~~ Event, 1971) which satirized the New Left, Western critics found fault with the .. ; plicity of his grotesque approach. His open structure plays, Krawiec (TAilor, 1965),

Wacl'aw (Vatzlaff, 1971) and Garbus (Hunchback, 1975), which moved in the svmbolic direction without the underpinning of a subtext, were met only with a polite applause. Garbus and especially Rzeznia (Slaug-hterhouse, 1973) proved difficult to decipher, difficult to classify according to a literary model which would open it to interpretation. Foreign performances of these plays written in the new abstract a?;d open manner failed to match the earlier success of clean parables and model situations.

The audience in Poland found it similarly difficult to interpret these plays intended for theater in general. Misconceptions went so far that Mrozek finally admitted the inadequacy of his new technique. He came to the conclusion that his attempt to write outside a particular cultural tradition ended in a communication failure and noted: "Perhaps only national literature and rational art has any sense; a society generates an artist and an artist refers to that society ••• If he (the writer, HS) is alone, then he talks esse9tially to himself and should not complain that art if perhaps not that, not that at all." ·

Still, during some ten years of attempting to function as a professional writer with a universal appeal, Mrozek noticed that he had indeed disconnected himself from specific geographic situations and political moods. This orientation appeared to him as a result of his age rather than the separation from his home setting. Gradually he developed a new psychological perspective which enabled him to function effectivelv in the Pol\fh theater and was also transferrable, with some loss of meaning, to the audience outside.

At the same time, although the perspective in his writings may have changed, Mrozek returned to his old technique of making explicit the literary persona which stands behind and gives direction to the interpretation of his work. Despite the fact that in the seventies Mrozek began to write also for radio, film and television, this literary persona assures that "the unity of Mroiek's

9world is stronger than theaters and borders, costumes

and genres, censors and audiences." ·

At this time he projects himself on two levels, but his literarv persona is accessible mainly to the home audience. For the Western public Mrozek appears as a polite but reclusive professional writer concerned primarily with the technical skills of constructing­interesting and amusing theatrical performances, as a writer who generates artistic impulses entirely out of himself. The audience in Poland, on the other hand, has a very direct access to the writer's own insights on his personality, on his own writing, on the value of art and the psychology of human interactions. Since 1973 until a few years ago, Mrozek communicated directly with his home audience in monthly "letters" published in a drama journal, Dialog. His "Mate listy" ("Little Letters"), as the column was titled, allowed the readers, who had a sense of his biographical and artistic past, to gain insight into the current private perspective of the writer. Mrozek revealed himself as a deeply introverted individual, free of systems and conventions, resigned, nostalgic and insistent at the same time. The illusive problem of the authenticity of existence, his own authenticity and his function as an artist showed as leit-motifs in his musings. Authenticity, or truth beyond all conventions, appeared as the highest ethical and esthetic value, wit~~ut which "we lose the contact with reality, the ability to act ••• the ability to develop."

In voicing this demand, Mrozek essentially revived the persona which he created in the fifties, the persona of the old-fashioned humanist who is confronted with the brutality and irrationality of life. This time, however, his demand for authenticitv is not limited to political categories, but the search for authenticitv is seen in psvcholog-ical terms, while the truth itself remains inevitablv illusive. In separating this demand from the concrete socio-political circumstances, Mro:!ek now assumes the image of writer­moralist, one who serves as the conscience of his Polish audience.

At the same time, however, Mrozek has not given up his objective of writing universally applicable plays, plays for any audience. He now tends to use the oarabolic style associated originally with Theater of the Absurd in the plavs addressed to the Western audience, while his psychological-philosophical persona developed in "Little Letters" and some of his short stories addresses itself to the local audience in Poland. Two plays can serve as manifestations of these two identities of the playwright and ws corresponding techniques: Letni dzien (Summer Day, 1983) and Pieszo (On Foot, 1980).

Summer Day is obviously designated for the so-called universal audience with the right to the first performance given to the Royal Swedish Theater. The highly stylized three act play is written for three characters: Ud, Nieud, and the Lady. The dialogue is i almost exclusively conducted between Ud and Nieud, with the Lady playing a role only as • ~ • an object of attention fo the two male characters. The two men are antithetical already 1 1·;.:..t~re~! in their names: "Ud"-probably from the Polish verb udac sie (to succeed)-is the one • · . "· r • . .... • ._,4

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who succeeds, the one for whom things always work out; "Nieud"-from nie u<iac sie-is the one who always fails, one who moves through life completely unnoticed. These names have also a possible association with the verb udawac (to pretend), making Ud to "the one who pretends" and Nieud to "the one who does not pretend." The characters are also antithetically costumed: the refined white suit and the cane worn by Ud contrasts with Nieud's nondescript old clothes.

This opposition, however, has little to do with class structures and other sociological realities. The dialogue is designed as an exploration of two thinking patterns. Ud is a personification of success; without desiring anvthing in particular, he seems to have made his mark in all areas considered worthy of pursuit. Understated and emotionally inaccessible, he is a thorough rationalist who, despite his wealth and power, failed to find meaning to life. Nieud represents failure; he is consistently ignored by women and seems even incapable of learning to swim. At the same time, he is a simple, emotional man, who seeks love and warmth of human relationships. His openess and readiness to invest himself in love and friendship make him also very vulnerable.

The two characters meet at the moment when they both plan suicide. Ud is obsessed with the idea that ultimately life is without meaning: "When you have achieved it all, the question arises what for." Nieud seeks a simple release from his failures, deeply convinced that a success would have given him happiness. At this point the appearance of the Lady changes the dynamics of the situation. Nieud falls in love. Ud pretends to be disinterested in the Lady, but at the same time channels the excitement and the abundance of feelings which the Lady evokes in his antagonist into an attempt at swimming, which Nieud has never been able to do. Predictably, Nieud disappears in the water, while the nonchalant and bored Ud takes off with the Lady.

Obviously, Summer Day is based on a simple anecdotal structure. The play demonstrates two different schemes of perceiving oneself and the world, together with the behavioral patterns which correspond to these perceptions. The message confirms the old truism: our view of ourselves generates our reality; there is no escape from failure or from success. Those that fail, however, can console themselves with the hooe that a success could have given them happiness. Those who succeed are without such hope.

Summer Dav offers a parable in the style of earlv Mrozek, but witt-) one major difference: while previously Mrozek's characters fell victim to cultural patterns which were manipulated by outside forces, now they are entrapped in their own osychological schemes. Since a psychological-philosophical play such as Summer dav is culturallv unmarked, it realizes Mrozek's objective of writing for .!!!:!Y audience. Certain marking is apparent, however, in the time of the action. The scarce props and styliz.ed costumes suggest the time in the early part of the century, when the world appeared to have clear values and definite codes of behavior. It is this world dominated by conventions, the world of stable values and relationships to which Mrozek's narrator always attempts to return. Unlike Mrozek's early writing, this world is now shown in its complexity of psychological antagonisms which are just as destructive as the political and cultural antagonisms which Mrozek had shown earlier.

In comparison to the open structure plays which Mrozek presented in his transitional period between the national and the European theater, Summer Dav is very theatrical thanks to its tight, logical and traditional construction. As in Mrozek's earlier plays, its primary meaning is universally obvious, but it can also generate a variety of subtexts appropriate for particular audiences.

ominous play of the violin. Clearly Chekhovian is also the treatment of the theme of hope: the train for which the characters are waiting will never come and they will have to continue "on foot," with father giving his worn out shoes to the growing son.

Obsessive and yet distilled authenticity of the play, combined with the representative quality of the characters and a mood conveyed through familiar sounds and popular songs, makes On Foot into a national mysterium. Authentic details are raised to the rank of symbols; the final message is moralistic. Mrozek ends the plav as the provincial father, confronted with the crumbling world full of homeless people and clashing standards, tries to teach his son the most important thing in life. In his naive simplicity, he insists that "a man must be honest and that's - it," honest without qualifiers. His son seems to understand this demand and joins him in plodding through the mud into an unknown future.

On Foot remarkably successfully appeals to the Polish collective memory. It illustrates the dissolution of a society, its passing culture with its behavioral codes, its songs and its idiosyncrasies. The war appears in its essence without the sight of the enemy. The loose structure of the play imposes no logic on the events, creates no protagonists and no antagonists. The message contains no absolutes beyond a pathetic cry for honesty.

Such a play, based on specific cultural configurations and emotional associations, obviously does not function well outside the immediate context which generated it. Nostalgic and autobiographical in its treatment of history, On Foot is national in its appeal. Compared to Summer Dav, it reveals a more mature side of Mrozek's art. Its dramatic effectiveness and its emotional appeal seems to prove Mrozek's assumption, that-in spite of all his efforts-a C<>f2tact with his original cultural tradition is central to the effective workings of his drama.

NOTES 1 Although Mrozek left Poland in 1963, he never regarded himself as an emigrant,

but as an individual who happens to reside outside of his home countrv. With the exception of the period between 1968 and 1973, when he encountered political difficulties, Polish officials concurred in this view.

2Jan Bonski, "Mrozka droga do komedii," Tekstv, 1(1979), 48.

3Jan Bonski, Romans z tekstem (Krakow: Wydawnictwo Literackie, 1981 ), p. 247. 4 Martin Esslin, Jenseits des Absurden. Aufsatze zum modernen Drama (Vienna:

Europaverlag, 1972), pp. 160-68. 5 Among Mrozek's many statements to this point, his position is best described in

the speech he held as a laureate of the Great Austrian State Award for European Literature. Sl'awomir Mro~ek, "Dankrede," Literature und Kritik, 71(1973), 7-8 .

6 Among some Western reviews criticizing Mrozek's new plays see: Klaus Wagner, "Wer rettet Watzlaff," Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, April 20, 1970; Francois Bondy, "Der Fluchtling," Suddeutsche Zeitung, February 13, 1970; ebs., "Slawomir Mrozek: 'Watzlafr," Die Tat, February 14, 1970. Jurgen Schmidt, "Sieben Personen ohne Ausweg. Gottingen Erstauffuhrung von Mrozeks 'Buckel'," Stuttgarter Zeitung, November 2, 1977; Roland H. Wiegestein, ''Sommerfrische, absurd," Frankfurter Rundschau, April 13, 1977. Ulrich Schreiber, ''lm Wildwuchs der Metaphorik. Slawomir Mroze~ 1Schlachthor auf dem Theater," Frankfurter Rundschau, October 20, 1981; Reinhard Kill, "Der Kunstler als Metzger," Rheinische Post, October 19, 1981.

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text is culturally marked to such an extent that it become larg-elv non-functional outside 1l,.. 4

the immediate audience which shares the same memories with the author, outside the audience to which Mrozek addressed his "Little Letters." While Summer Dav presented a philosophical dialogue conducted with minimal indications of time and olace, On Foot is historically and geographically defined as no other plav bv Mrozek.10

The time is the end of the Second World War; the location is a provincial train station in Poland. The drama itself has no obvious plot. It depicts an assorted g-roup of characters displaced by the war, who come together at the station in the hooe of g-etting­away, of finding a semblence of normal life. The group represents a cut throug-h the Polish society of the time: a provincial boy with his father who is searching- for his lost wife; a peasant woman with a pregnant daughter who has been raped by a variety of passing soldiers; an officer from the Polish army, accompanied by a suspicious thug-, who is making his way abroad in order to start "a new life"; a teacher, who is a disoriented failure seeking status and power; and an aristocratic avant-garde artist with his female companion, who wants to escape the war as well as life in general. In their disjointed conversations these characters are accompanied by a blind violin player, a figure traditionally associated with death. The war continues entirely off stage, but provides an accompaniment to the entire text through the noise of the moving tanks, through the death cries of a man who is being tortured, through the sound of the train that takes Jews to a concentration camp.

On Foot represents Mrozek's first attempt to give his own version of the most written about topic in recent Polish literature. In an innovative wav, he shows the war off stage, without pathos, without heroism, from a "pedestrian" perspective which is most authentic. The audience can also assume that the play is vaguelv autobiograph­ical. In his "Little Letters" Mrozek singled out nostaij;;ia as the strongest of all feelings; correspondingly, in his recent works he began to use a figure of a teenage hero who bears a resemblance to the author. In the film scriots Wvsoa Ro7. (The Island of Roses, 1976) and Amor (1976) appears a teenage bov upon whom the first societal duties and roles are cast, duties which make him into a carrier of tradition. The same figure aopears in On Foot as a teenage son of the provincial father, a boy whose ag-e and status during the war matches Mrozek's own. This boy sees the inadequacy of old traditions, but obedientlv and politely accepts them. These traditions offer an inadequate preparation for dealing with the patterns of the emerging new society which are being- prepared in the olav. The bov will have to confront the questionable "new life" in the old shoes which his father has handed down to him. MroZek's spiritual biography also has its echo in the hrief encounter which the boy has with the extravagant avant-gardist Superiusz. Both characters sense mutual sympathy and Superiusz begins to act as the boy's mentor hefore he abandons the boy by killing himself. A parallel can easily be drawn between this relationship and Mrozek's own sympathy for the Polish avant-garde playwright Witkacv (Staniitw Ignacy Witkiewicz, 1885-1939), who-like Superiusz in the play-committed suicide while fleeing the war.

In this play, as in most of his dramas, Mrozek consciously echoes the conventions of the traditional theater. Here he connects his story about the passing away of the old order to another play on the same theme, Chekhov's Cherrv Orchard. Reminiscent of Chekhov's technique is Mrozek's construction of the scenes in which the characters carry their own leitmotifs, trying to piece their own realities from the ruins which surround them. The accidental coming together of several representative characters shows the displacement of the people and the end of the old society. All these encounters have a distinct sound background in the noise of the war, singing of popular songs, and the

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(Amb~ssador, 1981). Bonski, Romans z tekstem, p. 199.

10srawomir Mrozek, "Gupstwo i kamstwo," in S. M., Mae listv (Krakow: Wydawnictwo Literackie, 1982), p. 38. This book contains the letters originally published in Diaf~·

Pieszo was first published in Dialog, 8 (1980), 5-23, and was first staged in Teatr im. Aleksandra Wegierki in Bia.fystok on December 20, 1980 under the direction of Jerzy Zegalski. Letni dzian was printed in Dialog, 6(1983), 5-23, and was first staged bv Kungl. Dramatiska Teater in Stockholm on March 17, 1984 under the direction of Gunnel Lindbt~m.

Mrozek's most recent play, Alpha (1984), again develops local themes. It offers the playwright's interpretation of the events which took place in Poland in summer 1982 after the inauguration of the martial law. The story centers on the figure of a worker­leader, who is interned away from his comrades and forced into long conversations with the representatives of the government. The characters are easily recognizable as the real persons involved in the Solidarity movement and as their opponents from the Party. Artistically, the play fails to match the quality of Pieszo. Alpha has not yet appeared in print, but it was staged by La Mama Theater in New York in October 1984 under the directorship of John Beary.

Halina Stephan, University of Southern California

THE MOSCOW NEWS: WHAT'S HAPPENING ON THE SOVIET STAGE!

This article is based on reports, observations, opinions from Moscow sources involved in theatre and related fields. It does not pretend to be an exhaustive or scholarly ar;slysis of the state of Soviet theatr-:·; ratl-)er it is intenrled as n journalistic piece that will afford the reader a broad view of the current repertoire and a commentary on how this repertoire is shaped by official directives, public demand, anrl to a lesser degree directors' decisions.

There are two major trends in Soviet theatre tonav-the official and the commercial-and a minor one (not in substance but in volume), "serious" engage theatre. The most popular by far, and the most financially successful, is the commercial trend. This is understandable given the alternatives: the official repertoire offers the same old ideological soup that has been cooked over for more than fifty years, and the "serious" theatre being subject to strict control and limitations cannot become a theatre for the masses and remains within the reach of a restricted elite. However, it is not onlv a lack of alternative that brings the masses to the theatre of entertainment. Actually, ·theatre managers forced by financial considerations have to cater to the public's taste. Those managers find themselves in a dilemma: official requirements demand that they include in the repertoire a certain number of ideological plays, which are in general shunned by the public and do not produce any return (especially in the provinces, while in Moscow and Leningrad some people may be attracted by famous actors), and yet they have to fulfill the financial plan established by the Ministry of Culture. They are therefore forced to stage commercial plays that meet the demand of the general public in order to balance their books.

A quick look at the official repertoire is sufficient to realize that one cannot blame the spectator for its failure. One can still find archetypes of Socialist Realism under a

the figure of the oositive hero, usually a worker or a kolkhoznik . Some foreign themes are also part of this repertoire, such as the decadent Western world and the struggle of revolutionaries against South-American dictators. But more often the official theatre resorts to themes of well proven worth: the Revolution, World War 11, and apocyrphal legends, or "vitae," of Soviet "saints." Genrikh Borovik, chief editor of the journal Theatre, seems to be the main supplier of this kind of plays. Needless to sav, it is practically impossible to mention any playwrights of note within this trend, with the possible exception of Mikhail Shatrov. This author managed to secure for himself the monopoly on the theme of Lenin, which earlier belonged to Nikolay Pogodin (a classic of the Stalin era, author of Man with a Rifle Chelovek s ruzh 'em , The Kremlin's Chimes Kremlevskie kurantv et al.). Shatrov for some unknown reason is allowed to write non­standard plays on this theme. The latest one, Blue Steeds on Red Grass (Sinie koni na krasnoi trave) has recently been staged at the Moscow Art Theatre by Efremov, and the role of Lenin was played by a comic actor with a plump figure (Kaliagin) who did not look much like Lenin, except that he was also bald and short. In other words, not a flattering representation of the venerable forefather.

More interesting, if from nothing else but a sociological point of view, is the commercial trend. It consists practically of two basic genres (and occasional combinations of the two): 1) the traditional comedy of manners with some elements of the melodrama, and 2) the musical. As for the latter, over the past 150 years Russian theatre proceeded from imitations of the French vaudeville to imitations of the Broadway musical.

Among the authors of traditional comedies the most popular is the couple Ratser and Konstantinov, operating in Leningrad. They have been called by one insider "pen bandits" and "boulevard drama dealers." Since the beginning of the 60 's thev have filled practically all the stages of the Soviet Union with their plays. The tremendous success these plays enjoy with the public is probably due to their extremely uncomplicated structure, sentimental theme, contemporary socia1 environment, ancl optimistic solutions. I will cite Misalliance (neravnyi brak) as an example. In this plav the two protagonists, a graduate student of folklore and a country girl, inevitablv fall in love and want to get married. The culture gap betwen them and the inequality in social position are elements that in the ''bourgeois" comedy of manners (a Ia Moliere, let's sav) hinder the plans of the two lovers and serve as the motivation for the intrigue. In the end, if they were to be successful it would be in spite of society and prevailing morals. Misalliance, however, presents an updated Soviet version of this old theme, and totally reverses the message. Everything turns out well for the two lovers because the very concept of social inequality has beeri eradicated from the people's consciousness already a long time ago. One may note in passing that this play follows in the steps of the Stalin era movie comedies, which are still being shown successfully in the provinces.

However, there are authors that produce comedies of much better quality. They work on a higher level of sophistication, and in a satirical vein. Among them one can mention Riazanov (better known, probably, as a movie director; his latest success was the film Garage) and Braginskii. These two playwrights deal primarily with the middle class and treat themes of women's emancipation, loneliness, frustration, a need for new relationships, with humor and a keen eye for paradoxical situations (it is no wonder Tootsie was so well received in the Soviet Union-the public could relate to that comedy genre and the issues it raised). ·

Another playwright that enjoys an enormous popularity is Alexandr Galin. Although Galin is an author capable of producing intellectual and rather esoteric works, as his plav The Eastern Tribune (Vostochnaia tribuna) shows, fame did not come to him from this

genre, rather from his highly popular comedies of manners. Accordine- to a poll bv the journal Theatre, Galin's play Retro was rated No. 1 for the season 1983-84 in all the three categories considered: number of theatres, number of shows, number of spectators. Our readers are probablv already familiar with the plot of this play, that · reminds us of a parody of Gogel's Marriage. An old man has become a burden to his family, and the children decide to marry him off. Consequentlv, they invite over three old ladies hoping that he would choose himself a bride.

Part of the play's popularity is undoubtedly due to the fact that this "gerontological" comedy touches on a problem deeply felt in the society at large. In Western societies where the population's median age is steadily rising, issues concerning the elderly are also getting more and more attention. However, if in the Western world one can get rid of an elderly parent with relative ease and, at most, some pangs of conscience, in the Soviet Union the problem is compounded by a chronic housing shortage. Often families are forced to share the same crammed apartment until the elderly die, or, as it happens in Retro, they have to resort to cunning and intrigue which lead to grotesque solutions. But there is also an intrinsic and more important reason for the success of this play. By and large, what the masses expect from the theatre (and literature, for that matter) is a stir of the emotions and a "truthful" representation of contemporary life. However, the concept of "truth" here is a peculiar one. The ~;eneral public would perceive any dissident play or novel, if they were exposed to it, as a slanderous piece of fiction concocted by a sick mind. Conditioned hy a life time of propaganda and official press reports, the average audience is unahle not only to recognize the "truth," but to bear it. As it happens, they can take "truth" onlv in Vf>rv small doses, just a little bit at a time. And yet thev long for these crumbs of "truth." This is why the authors who perform even the slightest deviations of the cliches are held in great esteem and respect, and truly loved.

The other genre exploited for commercial reasons is the musical, Rnd its most recent offsp.-ing, the rock opera. This genre caters mainly to the youth. Amon~; the authors of musical comedies we find again the couple Ratser and Konstantinov that is gradually conquering this field as well. Very popular is their musical Penelope, with music by Zhurbin. Mark Zakharov, as a director of rocl< operas, has by now made historv with his two most successful productions, The Star and the Death of Joaouin Muretti (Zvezda i smert' Khoakina Mur'etti, after a poem by Pablo Neruda, libretto by P. Grushko, music by Rybnikov) and Juno and Avos (lunona i Avos', libretto by A. Voznesenskii, music by Rybnikov). Both operas deal with exotic settings and historical times (end of 18th century), display political pathos, and rely on a form of rock that sophisticated Western spectators have described as a cheap and tardy imitation of Jesus Christ Superstar, but that young Soviet audiences welcomed with great enthusiasm. Juno and Avos is still enjoying a great deal of popularity among the Moscow vouth, after its premiere three years ago.

However, a new phenomenon in the area of musical productions has recently emerged in Vilnius. The man behind this latest fad is E. Nekroshus, a brilliant professional stage director who organized the Youth Dramatic Theatre and started producing musicals with an eye to full house performances. As mentioned above, the musical genre as a rule appeals mostly to young people, and this kind of audience does not constitute a large percentage of the spectators as a whole. But Nekroshus' productions are an exception. His shows generate mass hysteria: people stand in line all night to get a ticket, the theatre is besieged by angry crowds, horse-mounted police, pandemonium inside, etc. etc. And what's the reason for all this excitement? Nekroshus has developed a punk style kind of musical that has not been heard or seen before in the

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Soviet Union. One of his productions treats the familiar theme of Romeo and Juliet, but the scene is filled with actors in dirty torn bloodstained sackcloth, fights, profanities, and hard rock-all this is called Love and Death in Verona (Liubov' i smert' v Verene). Obviously such kind of spectacle would not be allowed in Moscow or Leningrad, but in Vilnius it is tolerated. The interesting thing is that people from Moscow go expressly to Vilnius to see these shows! For them this is the West ••• Europe. When Nekroshus' colleagues (and possibly Party activists) complain to him that with his talent he should devote himself to "higher" genres, he allegedly answers: "We need good box-office returns, therefore we have to conquer the street." And he conquered it.

In the middle, between the official and the commercial theatres the situation is rather bleak. "Serious" theatre in the past two years has suffered a sharp downturn. Efremov has tried for the past two seasons to stage at the Moscow Art Theatre Roshchin's Mother-of-Pearl Zinaida (Perlamutrovaia Zinaida) and Gel'man's The Little Bench (Skameika). So far he has not succeeded, notwithstanding the fact that both Roshchin and Gel'man enjoy a great deal of respectability within the official theatrical establishment. The same happened with Anatolii Vasilev who has been working for a long time on the production of Slavkin's Hoopla (Serso) at the Taganka Theatre. In view of the latest events connected with that theatre this project must have been definitively shelved.

There are no signs that this situation is going to improve. On the contrarv. Verv recently, all plays by Liudmila Petrushevskaia have been barred from the stage, although they had previously received the official imprimatur of the censorship bureau and some of them had been shown both in Moscow and Leningrart. The same fate befell Liudmila Razumovskaia's play Dear Elena Sergeevna (Dorogaia Elena Sergeevna), that had been successfully staged by the Lenin Komsomol Theatre in Leningrad, and several other theatres. This play presents an unusual and rather shocking- portrait of Soviet teenagers. A group of high-school students decide to blackmail their teacher, Elena Sergeevna, to force her to change their failing grades. According to a t\!J oscov· source the play ends up with the students raping a girl from their class in front of the teacher, and with the teacher committing suicide. However, it is not clear whether this ending had been dropped from the script when the play was staged. Be it as it mav, the permission to stage it has been recently revoked by a special circular from the Ministry of Culture to all the theatres of the USSR. Given the subject matter of the play this late decision is not surprising. Surprising was the fact that the play was allowed in the first place!

However, these sorts of "mistakes" do occur. A few other plays dealing with sensitive social problems have also been allowed and are still showing. For example, The Little Carriage (Vagonchik) by N. Pavlova, staged by K. Ginkis at the Little Stage of the Moscow Art Theatre. This play deals with a fifteen year old girl who is brutally assaulted and battered by four other girls of the same age. The story is based on a real life occurrence, the subject matter being taken from the law suit records concerning a criminal case. This play has little merit either from a literarv or dramatic point of view. Its appeal lies elsewhere, namely in the fact that it is a bold and outspoken piece thHt analyzes the causes of juvenile delinquency among voung women, a phenomenon that is definitely on the rise (although it cannot be confirmed because statistics in this area are not released).

By and large, the professional theatres try to fill the intellectual void bv staging national classics and foreign plays. Anatolii Efros made his debut this season as the new chief director of the Taganka Theatre with Gorkii's The Lower Depths (Na dne; there seems to be a bitter irony in this title if referred to the theHtre itself!). Edward Albee's

Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf premiered at the end of January at the Contemporary Theatre, with Valerii Fokin as director. Fokin has recently produced for television a series on the work of the KGB in foreign countries by the title TASS is Authorized to Announce (TASS upolnomochen zaiavit'). Some rumors have it that the merits Fokin acquired for this work have allowed him a relatively free hand in theatrical productions. The Virginia Woolf Moscow premiere turned out to be one of the highlights of the season. One cannot but welcome such an interest in American theatre, however it is rather sad that Soviet directors must resort to "novelities" more than twenty years old."*

The "studio-theatres" that have mushroomed in Moscow over the past three years are still the best alternative, but here too the situation is not rosy. The "studios" are faced with increasing difficulties. After Petrushevskaia's plays were forbidden, the selection of works in an absurdist vein (which have become the hallmark of the "studio­theatres") has shrunk considerably. The repertoire seems to be limited to Vampilov, Slavkin, and Arro. New brilliant plays in that vein, such as Nikolay Klimontovich's Awav with the Hero (Ot'ezd geroia) do not have many chances to be seen in the near future.**

In conclusion, one can say that over the past three decades the last three years have been the most difficult for the Soviet theatre. It is encouraging, however, to notice that within the generally gloomy picture there are vital signs: enterprising directors in the provinces, some "mistakes" on the part of the censorship, the activities of the "studio theatres," and indomitable inventiveness and resourcefulness that in some instances can save low-quality and/or ideologically tendentious works. As for censorship, it has not changed since Stalin's time, it is as fierce as it ever was. What makes a difference, however, is the fact that today there is much less fear and much more information and contacts with the Western World.

Anna Lawton, Purdue University

-.:: *About Soviet productions of American plays, see Alma Law's article in NEWSNOTES, Vol. 3, No.2 (June 1983).

**Nikolay Klimontovich's Awav with the Hero, reviewed in NEWSNOTES, vol. 4, No. 2 (June 1984), has been translated into English. All those interested in considering the script for staging should contact the author of this article.