NEWSNOTES SoviET EAsT EuROPEAN DRAMA THEATRE

on
ard e nd

Volume 4, Number I

March, 1984

DEAR READERS
This issue commences our fourth year of publication. Looking back, we have grown from a four-page mimeographed flier to, what the readership tells me, is a respectable publication which has actually transcended its initial format of a short Newsletter and has developed into something resembling a short periodical journal. I hope that we can continue to grow. We continue to look for items of interest for publication. Of course we shall always publish news about performances, bibliographical data, announcements of conferences, etc. But we would also like to expand our section containing short articles. If you have written one of reasonably short length, or if you have presented a paper which you think worthy of publication, please do send it to me. L.H.

f\EWSNOTES 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 Foreign 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 I'EWSNOTES: Leo Hecht, Department of Fore ign Languages and Literatures, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA 22030. Proofreading Editor: Prof. Rhonda Blair, University of Kentucky.

ANNOUNCEMENTS The Southeastern Theatre Conference (SETC), the largest conference of its kind in the United States, will hold its annual convention in the Washington, DC area, at the Crystal City Hyatt-Regency, 7-11 March, 1984. One of the panels to be chaired by Thomas Jones will be held on March 10, and will be entitled "Constantin Stanislavsky and the Moscow Art Theatre." The Southern Conference on Slavic Studies will hold its annual conference in Richmond, Virginia, from October 11-13, 1984. One panel, to be chaired by Leo Hecht, will be on "East European Drama and Theatre." Should you wish to participate, please send your proposal to me as soon as possible. The next Annual Convention of the American Association of Teachers of Slavic and East European Languages (AATSEEL) will be held at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, DC. December 27-30, 1984. Leo Hecht will be chairing a panel on "Stanislavsky and the Moscow Art Theatre." Anyone interested in participating, please send your proposal to me AS SOON AS POSSIBLE since the program for this major convention has to be established rather early. In this connection, let me call your attention to an UPPORTUNITY TO PUBLISH: The AA TSEEL Conventions of 1983 and 1984, and the SETC Convention of 1984 will all have had panels on Stanislavsky and the Moscow Art Theatre. I intend to compile the best papers into an anthology, with a strong introduction, and a number of other articles previously not presented as papers. Although I can give no assurances, I am quite optimistic that I can have it published. Therefore, if you have given a paper, are about to give a paper, or are in the process of writing an article on this subject which you would like to submit for consideration, by all means do it. (MLA style; end notes). Please send it directly to me (Leo Hecht). Prof. Timothy Connors at Northern Arizona University would like to share the following experiences with us: "You might be interested to know that in November 1983, I directed a production of Aleksandr Vampilov's LAST SUMMER IN CHULIMSK at Northern Arizona University. The production was well received, but a number of people in the audience commented on how 'unusual' the play wasthey were (for lack of a better word) 'upset' by the ending of the play which they perceived as inconclusive. I think they wanted a clearer statement from the play regarding the future lives of the characters, especially Shamanov and Valentina. Also, in October of 1983 I delivered a paper on the plays of Aleksandr Vampilov at the European Studies Conference in Omaha (also presenting material at the conference were Bill Kuhlke, Rhonda Blair and Ron Engle)." The University of Connecticut will be conducting a Polish Language and Culture study program at the Jagiellonian University in Cracow from July 9 to August 17, 1984. Topics to be covered in instruction include Polish Contemporary Theatre and Film and Polish Modern Music. For further information and application forms please contact Professor Borys Bi lokur, The University of Connecticut, U-57, Storrs, CT 06268 or call (203) 486-2144. In late December, 1983, a modified version of Fiddler on the Roof opened in Moscow. It contains new lines, a new name, three additional musical numbers
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and a modified ending (the characters ascend a staircase to a symbolic promised land rather than to the United States). Many references to Jewish culture, including religious life, were retained. Some of the prayers are even pronounced in Hebrew. The director, lurii Sherling, is a former dancer of the Bolshoi ballet company. He intends to take the musical on tour to other Soviet c ities if permitted. "Theater in the Soviet Union," a tour for theatre professionals, will take place March 19 to April 2, 1984. The program is arranged by the Citizen Exchange Council of New York which is a nonpolitical, nonpartisan and nonprofit organization, according to its brochure, which seeks to foster mutual learning and communication between American and Soviet citizens. For further information please contact Elena Prischepenko, 26 St. Marks Place, /14RE, New York, NY 10003, (212) 254-8123, or write to Citizen Exchange Council, 18 E. 41st Street, New York, NY 10017. On 24-26 May, 1984, the Ohio State University Theatre History Conference will take place. The topic will be "The Stanislavsky Heritage." Featured speakers will include Sonia Moore, President of the American Center for Stanislavski Theatre Art, and Laurence Senelick of Tufts University. Those interested in participating or attending, please contact Alan Woods, Director, Theatre Studies, Ohio State University, I 089 Drake Union, Columbus, Ohio 43210-1266. Thanks to support from the U.S. Department of Education, the Russian and East European Center, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1208 West California Avenue, Urbana, IL 6180 I, will again offer its Summer Research Laboratory on Russia and Eastern Europe. Associateships will be available for periods of one to eight weeks. For further information and application forms, write to the Center directly. The Association information Languages, 43210. Ninth Annual Meeting of the American-Hungarian Educators' will take place in Columbus, Ohio May 3- 6, 1984. For further please contact Martha Pereszlenyi Pinter, Department of Romance 248 Dieter Cunz Hall, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio

BIBLIOGRAPHY

The Annotated Bibliography of Polish in Translation includes all modern Polish plays written since World War II which are available in translation--plus the dramas of Witkiewicz, Gombrowicz, and Szaniawski. In addition to providing a plot summary for each of the more than one hundred plays, and information as to the number of characters, settings, date and place of production and publication, the Bibliography lists all translations available, both published and unpublished. It also contains a selected bibliography of articles and books on Polish drama and theatre for the period covered. The Bibliography can be obtained by mail for $3.50 ($4.50 outside the U.S.) to cover the cost of handling and mailing. Send check or money order to Annotated Bibliography, CASTA lnstitutue, Rm. 80 I, Graduate Center, 33 West 42nd Street, New York, New York 10036.

I would also like to remind you that the companion volume, the Annotated Biblio ra h of Soviet Pia s in Translation, is still available from the CASTA Institute for a charge of '4.00. Both Bibliographies are a vital research source for anyone seriously interested in Polish and Soviet theatre and drama. Russian Satiric Comedy, ed. and trans. with an introduction by Laurence Senelick. (New York: Performing Arts Journal Press, 1983). This anthology includes The ivHIIiner's Shop (Modnaya lavka) by Ivan Krylov; The Headstrong Turk (Oprometchivy turka) by "Kozma Prutkov"; The Fourth Wall [Chertverta a stena) by Nikolay Evreinov; Sundown (Zakat) by Isaak Babel; The Power of Love Silnoe chuvstvo) by llf & Petrov; and Ivan Vasilievich by Mikhail Bulgakov. Serf Actor: The Life and Art of Mikhail Shchepkin by Laurence Senelick (Westport, Conn: Greenwood Press, 1984). This is the first fu 11-length biography in any language other than Russian (and the most compendious biography in any language) of the "father of Russian realistic acting." It sheds light on his relations with Gogo!, Belinsky, Turgenev and other major figures in Russian culture, and serves as a history of the Russian theatre in the first half of the 19th century. The Poetic Avant=garde in Poland, 1918-39, by Bogdana Carpenter, has just been published. (University of Washington Press, Box 85569, Seattle, WA 98145). It contains a lengthy discussin of Polish Futurism and the Cracow Avantgarde.
POLISH FILM POLITICS

A SHORT REVIEW
The Polish filmmakers' association has been forced into a compromise that some directors feel leaves them open for future repression. "Our future looks black, judging by what the authorities are proposing," says one documentary filmmaker whose last four movies have ended up "on the shelf," banned from public showings by the state distribution monopoly. The association is one of the few creative guilds not dissolved by the communist government after the military crackdown against the independent Solidarity labor federation three years ago. Waldemar Swirgon, the Communist Party secretary dealing with culture, declined to detail the authorities' plans for the film industry. The filmmakers recently held their first congress since the martial law crackdown of 1981 and now they expect the government to follow up with a "reform" of the industry that they believe will give the authorities even greater power to censor scripts and block distribution of films. As part of the agreement to preserve the association, which offers filmmakers some protection and such social benefits as food ration cards, the authorities insisted that the internationally known director Andrzej Wajda resign as president of the I,300member union, association sources say. In early May, the government dissolved Wajda's "Studio X," one of the I0 Polish film groups. During the Solidarity era, the studios were relatively free in preparing scripts and producing films, but severe limitations were introduced under martial law and are expected to continue after the film industry is reorganized. Wajda has strongly defended filmmakers whose works have been 4

shelved by the censor. One of his films, Man of Iron, which portrays the rise of Solidarity in August 1980, has also been shelved, and Wajda has concentrated his directing talents on theatre productions and movies made abroad in cooperation with non-Polish studios. Five hundred association members, meeting Dec. I 1-12, blocked the election of the Communist Party candidate, Jerzy Hoffman, and instead named as president Janusz Majewski, a respected but outspoken director of comedies. "Wajda was known around the world, and traveled widely, speaking out everywhere in our defense," says one Warsaw filmmaker who has been banned from making further movies. "What will happen now is that the misfortunes of Polish filmmakers will become a purely local problem," said the flimmaker, who asked not to be identified. In the weeks leading up to the congress, Deputy Culture Minister Jerzy Bajdor announced relaxation of "criterias for allowing films to be screened" after the lifting of martial law last July 22. He released 23 of 30 films the authorities said were shelved under martial law. Militant filmmakers claim that the number of banned films is as high as 60, and say that many of those reportedly taken from the shelf are shown only once or twice at limited-attendance film festivals, or severely cut before screening. IMPORTANT NOTICE As I have informed you before, the $2.00 annual contribution to NEWSNOTES, which I have asked you to send, is to cover postage and handling only. My university has been generously paying the major expense of word processing and printing. I must, however, justify this expense by showing the degree of interest generated by the publication. The only way I can do this is by listing those who find the periodical sufficiently informative to contribute a nominal mailing fee of $2.00 a year. I wish to thank those of you who have expressed their continued interest in this manner. There have, however, been many who have not. Therefore, one-third of the non-contributors have been eliminated from the mailing list of this issue. An additional one-third will be eliminated from the June issue. By the time of the October issue, we will be sending NEWSNOTES only to those who have actively expressed their interest. Leo Hecht THE THREE SISTERS --"AT THE ARENA In a previous review I have stated my conviction that the Arena Stage in Washington, D.C. is a national treasure. I know of no ensemble theatre which can surpass it. Other Russian and East European plays in the repertoire, including those by Gorkii, Erdman, Vampilov, Orkeny, Mrozek and others, were consistently superb productions. The Three Sisters, performed on the Arena Stage January through February, 1984, certainly continues this tradition of excellence. What
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many consider to be Chekhov's best play was directed by Zelda Fichandler, the Producing Director of the Arena Stage, using Randall Jarrell's translation. She shows her fine, sensitive hand indeed. Although the play is rather long, it was consistently captivating. The director certainly adheres to the playwright's intent of a strong sub-text and non-dramatic action. She also shows the mighty impact of the Stanislavskii conception of a true ensemble theatre. There is no star in this production. The major figures are all equally significant. They are played off against each other like instruments in a fugue. Natasha is fully as important as Masha, although the latter was conceived to be performed by Chekhov's wife, Olga Knipper. Vershinin and Chebutykin, Olga and Irina, Tuzenbach and Solenyi, all have leading roles which do not overshadow one another. The Arena ensemble showed its great versatility in casting for these roles. Ms. Fichandler not only displayed an understanding and appreciation for the personalities portrayed by the cast, but also did the research which was fundamental to Stanislavskii's selfimposed rules. For example, although this would escape most American audiences, the actor portraying Solenyi is made up so that he strikingly resembles the poet Lermontov, and adopts the latter's pose as a Russian "Childe Harold." An additional area of the production which merits discussion are the settings. This was accomplished by invisibly dividing the (arena) stage into an indoor area where the table scenes take place, an outdoor lounging area, and even a river with a small dock and rowboats. The settings were by Alexander Okun, certainly no stranger to those who have frequented performances in Moscow. Mr. ukun was the art director of the Moscow Art Theatre and a senior lecturer on stage design at its drama school. He also worked as art director at Moscow's Ermolova Theatre, for television and for the Moscow Circus. In 1981 he emigrated to the United States and was appointed an Associate Professor of Scenic Design for the School of Theatre Arts of Boston University. Since then he has been designing settings at Boston University, Harvard, and for theatres in Chicago and New York City. He is now working on set designs for The Cherry Orchard. The costumes, designed by Ann Hould-Ward who has done most of her work for the Guthrie Theatre, were period-authentic, simple, and therefore highly effective. L.H. SOVIET THEATRE - A POLICY STATEMENT In the past several numbers of NEWSNOTES there were three short items which discussed what the future of Soviet theatre is expected to be under Andropov. Initially there were some highly optimistic voices which forecast another "Thaw." By May, 1983, many of these voices were stilled since there were constant rumors of the impending reimposition of severely restrictive measures and a return to the narrowest interpretation of Socialist Realism. By popular request I have translated a policy article which appeared on the front page of Pravda on September 10, 1983, and filled the entire left double column. Ubviously it concerns itself not only with drama and theatre, but with all the arts, and has resulted in abject pessimism which affected most courageous and innovative artists. Let us hope that this is only a temporary setback and that the Soviet authorities will soon realize that such a stifling artistic atmosphere is detrimental to their own best interests. (My italics) L.H.

"The Repertory of the Theatre" Just our acquaintance with the repertory playbill - this "visiting card" of the theatre - may tell us a great deal about the creative aspirations of the collective, about its genre and stylistic predilections, about the level of professionalism and its ability to perform. Particularly the repertory, with its distinct aspects, reflects the individuality of creative features of the theatre and of its position in society. Therefore the problem of the repertory is the key to the functioning of every stage collective. The Leninist Party, which has placed at the top of its activities the education of the new man, has always allocated great importance to the ideological direction of theatre arts, and to the correct formulation of the repertory. Not by coincidence was so much serious attention directed toward these matters at the June 1983 Plenum of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, which incisively posed the questions about the responsibility of the artist, about the necessity for the exploitation by the arts of socially meaningful themes, and about the Party approach to the comprehension of the fundamental trends of the contemporary world. "The Party," as comrade Iu. V. Andropov declared from the rostrum of the Plenum of the Central Committee, "supports everything which enriches science and culture, and helps to educate the workers in the spirit of the norms and principles of developing socialism. The Party protectively and respectfully concerns itself with the talent and with the creative search of the artist, without interfering with the form and style of his work. But the Party cannot be indifferent to the ideological contents of art. The Party will always guide the development of art so that it may serve the interests of the people." The past years brought to the boards of our stages much which was fresh and interesting. It is gratifying that, as before, the foremost position was occupied by Soviet plays. There was a successful continuation of the c ultivation of Leninist, historico-revolutionary themes, and themes of the exploit of the Soviet people against Hitlerite fascism. There was a revival of research into the publicistic play based on materials concerning life abroad. The interest of theatres and playwrights in moral-ethical problems, in investigating the spiritual world of our contemporaries, has not abated. On the repertory playbills, together with acknowledged masters, the names of gifted authors who just yesterday were unknown or little known to the general public are becoming established. In the best works of these young writers there is a noticeable striving towards the interpretation of new facets of our reality. Nevertheless, the present conditions in theatre affairs and the current repertory of stage collectives in no way give cause for complacency and placidity. Pravda has already written that by far not all theatres, even including some in the capital, are operating full strength, are fulfilling their planned repertory, or are achieving high quality in new productions. There are sti II many collectives which have been unable to find a true path to the audience. Thus, in Azerbaidzhan, Turkmenia and Tadzhikistan, not even half of the theatre seats were occupied. The viewer has a right to expect from the masters of the stage and the playwrights, including the younger ones, a deeper, artistically fuller reflection of

the major positive elements which define the progressive movements of our society, and which attest to the advantages of the Soviet way of life and the power of our collective morality. Rather, the main idea of many productions is to present all forms of disorders in life, and the spectator's attention is directed towards characters who falsely depict spiritual misery, who are unnerved, in pain, and unable to find their place in life. The noble mission of the theatre arts is to mold and elevate the spiritual requirements of man and actively to influence the idealistic, political and moral cast of his ersonalit From this we rec nize the vital necessit to create the tmage o a posttive, socially active hero, capable of captivating the spectator with his example of how to live correctly. Proper supervision of the creative authority of the theatre, the concordance of interest between dialog and spectator, the greater satisfaction of his aesthetic questions, entails guaranteeing the diversity of theme and genre in the repertory, and the harmonic combination within it of the production of both classics and the works of contemporary authors. We must strive to make certain that . the playbill reflects the multinational character of Soviet dramaturgy and makes prov isions not only for the adult spectator, but also for stages of children and youths. The organic characteristics of the theatre, born with t he October Revolution, personify the living receptivity for the best in world-wide dramatic literature. Many foreign classical plays are presented on our stages today. Every year a considerable number of new works by foreign authors, including those from capitalist countries, are translated. Unfortunately, many such plays which are produced and widely distr ibuted obviously do not deserve such attention. Not at all by chance was there a demand from the rostrum of the June Plenum to approach the selection of foreign philosophical products more carefully and to bar access to our legitimate and variety stages to those works which are characterized by lack of ideology, banality and lack of artistic soundness. Here our primary method of approach must be a political, not a commercial one. Under the present circumstances of extreme intensification of ideological conflicts, it is totally forbidden to forget this. Life bears witness that, as a rule, things are going well for those theatres where the tone for everything is set by commun ists and where questions of repertory and the activities of the artistic council are reviewed at Party meetings and at sessions of the Party Buro. (At the present the reporting process by, and the election of primary Party organizations are under way.) For the communists in the theatres, this is a good opportunity to discuss how well the plays being staged today meet the demands of the times, and to analyze exactingly the planned repertory for the future. It is incumbent upon every collective to draw practical conclusions from the Resolution of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, "Concerning the Work of the Party Organization of the Belorussian Government Academic Theatre Named After I. Kupala." The search for effective organ izational methods to strengthen the cooperation between theatres and playwrights, the long-range perfection of a system for distribution of new plays, the formulation of repertory--all this must

become the vital concern of the organs of culture, creative union organizations, and theatrical societies. One after another, stages are disseminating notices concern ing the opening of the new theatre season. It is a matter of honor for all collectives and for each theatre worker not to betray the expectations and hopes of the spectator, and clearly to express in the language of art the uniqueness of our times, the present problems of social development, the great progess of the Soviet people.

AATSEEL PANELS
At the national convention of the American Association of Teachers of Slavic and East European Languages (AATSEEL) which took place in New York 2830 December 1983, there were five panels on the performing arts. They were as follows:

Russian Drama: Past and Present

Chairperson: Dorothy H. Brown, Loyola Univ., New Orleans "He Who Gets Slapped: Andreyev's Search for Ethical Truths" -Anthony Lola, Loyola Univ., New Orleans "Of Time and the River: Lorca's House of Bernardo Alba and Chekho\{1S. The. Three Sisters" . -NIIclietle Cevy, Xav1er Un1v., New Orleans "Tragedy as Ideology: D.S. Merezhkovsky's Paul I" -C. Harold Bedford, Univ. of Toronto, Canada "Nikolai Yevreinov's The Chief Thing" -Spencer Golub, Univ. of Virginia, Charlottesville Post-World War II Slavic &

East European Drama

Chairperson: Alan Smith, San Antonio, TX Secretary: Theodosia S. Robertson, Indiana Univ. "Boleslaw Lesmian's Newly Discovered Pantomime Plays and the Stylized Drama by Aleksandr Blok: A Comparison" -Rochelle H. Stone, Univ. of CA at Los Angeles "The Drama of Harijs Gulbis: Reflections of Change" -Biruta Cap, Allentown College, PA "Cynicism, Faith and Disillusionment in Two Dramas of Aleksandr Vampilov" -Bela Kiralyfalvi, Wichita State Univ., TX

Soviet and East European Cinema

Chairperson: Nancy Condee, Wheaton College "Film as Inner Speech: The Theory of Boris Eikhenbaum" -F.W. Galan, Univ. of Texas "Dovzhenko's Earth and Soviet Collectivization" -Vance Kepley, Univ. of Wisconsin
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"Ideology and Censorship in Soviet Cinema" -Ronald levaco, San Francisco State College "Masters of Soviet Cinema: Cripplied, Creative Biographies (Pudovkin, Vertov, Eisenstein, Dovzhenko)" -Herbert Marshall, Center for Soviet Studies, Southern IL Univ.
Contemporary Polish Drama: From the Page to the Stage

Chairperson: Rhonda Blair, Univ. of Kentucky Secretary: Robert Pevitts, Kentucky Wesleyan "The Hunger Artist Deports: A Comparison of Kafka and Rozewicz" -Jerrold Phillips, Northeastern Univ., MA "After Hamlet: Two Perspectives" -Mihail Kobialka, Graduate Center, CUNY "The Pr ivate Theatre of Biolyszewski" -James Roney, Univ. of Kentucky Discussant: -Daniel Gerould, Center for Advanced Study in Theatre Arts, Graduate Center, CUNY
Stanislovsky and the Moscow Art Theater (Fifth Ave. Suite)

Chairperson: Leo Hecht, George Mason Univ. "Stamslavsky's Return: 'Novel Theatre' or a Theatrical Romance with Narrative" -Martha Hickey, Harvard Univ., MA "Stonislavsky Revisited, or What Did He Say His Method Was?" -Thomas E. Jones, Univ. of South Carolina "The Curious Publication History of Stanislavsky's Books" "NemJrov1cn-uancnenK.o . -Sharon. M. Car,l)ickeuCftlumbio, m no ywooa Univ., NY -Michael Heim, Univ. of California, Los Angeles Please feel free to establish your own dialogue with any of the choirs and panelists.
RUSSIAN SYMBOLIST DRAMA AND THE VISUAL ARTS

This excellent paper by Daniel Gerould was presented in a section of the AATSEEL Convention not included in those listed earlier. Dr. Gerould has kindly permitted us to reproduce it in NEWSNOTES: Like their Western European counterparts, the Russian symbolists considered music the highest art to which all others should aspire. "Music creates the world," Alexander Blok maintained, "In the beginning was music." As pure movement, Andre Bely argued, music is the art furthest removed from reality and closest to the secret of being. Unlike music and poetry, theatre and painting, which are visual and tangible, cannot ovoid appearances and ore therefore lower
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forms, less favorable to symbolism. For these reasons the Russian symbol ists voiced doubts about the desirability of performance in the theatre and had an ambivalent attitude toward the stage. "The theatre kills the dream," Blok stated. It is clear that for the symbolists theatre and painting are closely re lated. Symbolist drama is pictorial in conception; it consists of autonomous visual images to be judged for their own sake, and not simply on the basis of their fidelity to reality. Because of symbolism, the stage picture became an independent composit ion made up of shapes and colors. Furthermore, symbolism quite literally brought painting to the stage. As a European movement, it had as one of its aims to create a new scenic art and to involve painters in the theatre. As a result, visual artists became interested in the theatre, designed settings and costumes, and took subjects for their own works from the stage. The most active period of symbolist drama in Russia--from 1905 to 191 a-coincided with the period in which the pa inter-stage designer played the greatest role. I propose to explore relationships between drama and the visual arts in the case of Russian symbolism. My purpose is to discover shared approaches and to locate dramaturgical equivalents of pictorial concepts (symbolist painting antedated symbolist drama by a few years). Since I am more concerned with affinities and correspondences between the two arts than with d irect influence or transmission, my examples from the visual arts will be drawn primar ily from Western European symbolist painters, as well as from Russian artists. Before turning to these general affinities and correspondences, let me briefly establish supportive historical evidence; Russian symbolist playwrights and d irectors did in fact often model their work directly on painting. That "most p ictorial of playwrights" Maurice Maeterlinck provided a precedent, drawing on Rossetti's Morte d'Arthur for Pelleas and Melisande and specifying that the costumes used in the first production (at the Theatre de !'Oeuvre) should be based on Hans Memling's painting of Saint Ursula. In a similar spirit, for his production of Maeterlinck's The Death of Tintagiles Meyerhold went to the art of II Perugino, and for his staging of the Belgian playwright's Sister Beatrice he modelled poses and complete groupings on reproductions of works by Memling, Botticelli, and the Pre-Raphaelite painters. Leonid Andreyev found pictorial inspiration for The Life of Man in woodcuts by Albrecht Durer which he saw in Germany (perhaps the cycle The Life of Maria). I should say parenthetically that although Andreyev was not accepted by the Russian symbolists as one of their own and although he did not consider himself a symbolist, The Life of Man was admired by Blok and Bely and was given two symbolist productions in 1907, one by Stanislavsky at the Moscow Art Theatre, the other by Meyerhold at the Kommissarszhevskaya Theatre in Saint Petersburg. It can be called a quasi-symbolist work, illustrating in a more popular form the pictorial techniques of Russian symbolism. For The Life of Man Andreyev also drew upon Russian folk art, using the figure of Petrushka as depicted in Rovinsky's Russkiye narodnye kartinki, and he called the five sections of the play, not acts, but "pictures." A third visual source was the graphic work of Goya, and in his production of The Life of Man Meyerhold created Goyaesque chiaroscuro effects on stage.

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So much for the general pictorial orientation of Russian symbolist drama; I now wish to turn to five techniques characteristic of symbolist painting and graphics that we also can find in the dramatic art of Sologub, Blok, Bely, Briusov, and Andreyev. These are I) flatness, 2) dominant color, 3) immobility, 4) duplication, and 5) spatial indeterminancy. These visual effects are important aspects of the symbolist pictorialization of drama. I) Flatness By leaving out an element of reality--depth and roundness--the symbolist painters created a single unifying plane and focused on a flat pictorial surface and its organization. The omission of a dimension moved symbolist art towards stylized simplification and abstraction. Through shallow relief, Puvis de Chovannes recreates the ornamental flatness of primitive wall decorations. Gustav Klimt flattens out forms in the interest of mosaic design; his arabesque backgrounds are based on mural patterns of early Greece and the early Middle Ages. Maurice Denis declared: "A picture before being an anecdotal subject is essentially a flat surface covered with colors arranged in a certain order." Commenting on Byzantine painting, which for many symbolists was an ideal, Mikhail Vrubel' observed: "Its whole essence lies in the ornamental arrangement of form which emphasizes the flatness of the wall." The aim of this subtractive method was to filter out accidental particularity-"to eradicate every ephemeral and superfluous element," in Meyerhold's words, in order to arrive at the universal and eternal. Twodimensionality evokes the permanent, the immanent, the numinous. Contraction of perspective and flattening out of represented space resulted in stress on rhythmic line, frontilization of image, and suppression of detail. Flatness led to Byzantine incorporeality and decorativeness; characters were freed of fleshy solidity and commonplace manifestations of sex and personality. Lack of spatial recession imparted timelessness to the picture. Striking instances of Byzantine flatness in Russian symbolist drama and theatre con be found in Meyerhold and Sologub. In Meyerhold's staging of Maeterlinck's Sister Beatrice, the figures were grouped as in a bas-relief. According to znosko-Borovsky, "All dressed as one, with completely identical gestures, with slow restrained movements and following one another precisely, they moved the whole time in profile in order to maintain the repose of a basrelief; they passed before you like a wonderful design on the grey stone of an ancient cathedral." In The Triumph of Death, Fyodor Sologub makes original dramaturgical use of pictorial flatness. The title itself comes from medieval art, the "triumph of death" being a subsidiary category of the dance of death. In a characteristic symbolist inversion, Sologub shows that it is not death to be feared, but rather life in all its banality, meanness, and stupidity that is the true death of the spirit-paradoxically, in death there is life. At the conclusion of the drama, Malgista tells her beautiful daughter Algista (who has returned to life after being beaten to death and thrown to the dogs) to consign the insensitive King Khlodoveg to the petrified realm of soullessness that is the true image of his kingdom: "Bewitch him with terrible words, consecrate him to eternal immobility." Algista (who realizes that "In this terrible hour only the dead are alive") addresses Khlodoveg

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and says, "Turn to stone, King." In s striking coup de theatre, the characters on stage become sculpted figures in a wall frieze. A dispassionate choral voice declares: "Behold--they stand like statues hewn out of stone. Behold--a spectacle of life turned to stone has become a flat picture." In his theoretical essay, The Theatre of One Will, Sologub advances his view that drama should be two-dimensional and the actors should resemble sculpture. "The stage should be arranged in one plane," Sologub states. "The spectacle should resemble a painting, so that the spectator would not be able to look behind an actor, into some other realm where something externally-concealed may be discovered. The spectator must look for that which is clearly seen: through what is being acted, willed and contemplated before his eyes." In symbolist painting, flatness emphasized the essential nature of the twodimensional medium and called attention to painting as painting, rather than as an imitation of reality. In the drama and theatre, flatness made a three-dimens ional medium appear to be two-dimensional; it made dramatic art take on characteristics of an allied art, painting, and opened up unexpected possibilities for abstraction and compositional design. 2) Dominant color Symbolist artists explored the expressive power of colors. A dominant color could be used to permeate an entire composition, define its mood, and convey a dreamlike quality. Blue plays an important role in symbolist aesthetics; it was the modernist color par excellence. Goethe had said of blue that it "arouses anxiety and nostalgia." For the symbolists it was the color of art and artists, of dreams and dreamers. Blue was used evocatively and emotionally not only by Picasso in the early years of the 20th century, but also by Puvis de Chavannes, Munch, Jean Delville, and Vrubel'. Alexander Blok makes similar use of color in his play The Stranger, wh ich is composed and unified through different tonalities of azure and blue set against the darkness of the night. One of the personae of the poet-hero is named Goluboi (Azure), the Stranger herself is, in Blok's words, "a diabolic fusion of blue and lilac," not unlike Vrubel's demon. Another of her manifestations is as a figure from an icon. Blue is the traditional color of the Madonna; in the Russian folk theatre the Virgin wears blue. The falling snow is blue. But the surrounding universe is enshrouded in darkness, except for the light given off by the Stranger, a star who has fallen to earth-- fiery and radiant--in the encroaching black night. Somber tonalities of black were used by the symbolists to represent spiritual states of mind. Speaking of his compositions done in charcoal, which he called his "noirs," Odilon Redon said, "Black must be respected. Nothing adulterates it. It does not give pleasure to the eyes and awakens no sensuality. It is an agent of the mind far more than the fine color of the palette or prism." Symbolist artists like the Belgian William Degouve de Nuncques (in his Angels in the Night and Peacocks) compose nocturnes in which they explore what Maeterlinck called "those meanings inhabiting darkness." Night is magical, mystery-laden, promising revelations. It is a time for dreaming and hallucination. Blok called the three nocturnal scenes of The Stranger "Visions." 13

"Night looks in through the windows" in Andreyev's Life of Man; the entire play is plunged in "profound darkness," "gloomy blackness," "deep and fearsome endlessness." For the production at the Moscow Art Theatre in 1907, Stanislavsky created a black velvet background "which, like a piece of black paper, could give the stage the appearance of having only two dimensions, width and height." "The third dimension would disappear entirely, and the velvet would pour itself into one plane." "On such a tremendous black sheet one could draw in various paints and People would "appear lights all that the human mind could conceive." unexpectedly on the forestage and disappear in the endless space of the darkness in the background." In this fashion, night became a compositional element in the drama. For symbolists committed to nighttime associations and dream logic, responses to the sun and light of day are mixed or ambivalent. Puvis de Chavannes writes, "The sun fatigues my sight and troubles my soul." In Villier de l'lsle-Adam's proto-symbolist drama, Axel, the hero, preparing to commit double suicide with his betrothed, tells her to shut out the light of day: "Drop those hangings, Sara: I have seen enough of the sun." As the source of those shadowy appearances amongst which humanity is condemned to live in the phenomenal world, the life-giving sun is a threat to the eternal world of the spirit. Russian symbolist plays in the apocalyptic mode are dramas of darkness and radiance. In Bely's fragment of a mystery, The Jaws of Night, battle is engaged between forces of darkness (the work Mrak is often capitalized) engulfing the world and feeble strivings towards spiritual illumination. A sect of primitive Christians, cut off from the rest of the world and posed above the abyss, is lost in perpetual cosmic night. They await the coming of the Saviour, but fear the ubiquitous presence of the Anti-Christ. The play abounds in strange optical effects, pulsating intensities of light, reduplicated luminous images of the Prophet, Christian women radiant with inner light. The tonal harmonies and correspondences among the white-robed figures, the cliffs, the cypresses, and the dark, gloomy sky recall Arnold Bocklin's Isle of the Dead (which Bely himself wrote about). Valerii Briusov's The Earth is an apocalyptic drama about the last days of mankind, which takes place in an enclosed city of the future cut off from all contact with the light of day and the world of nature; even the air is artificial. As the water supply dwindles, one group seeks to disclose the sun, for many generations shut out by a huge dome, hoping to discover in its rays the source of rebirth and vitality; others worship Death as the deliverer, opposing inner light to the gross rays of the sun. Scenes take place in partial or total darkness. The dark rays of Death are an eternal frame for the petty radiance of the sun. When the dome is finally swung open and sunlight floods the hall, the inhabitants are at first blinded, then killed by the total absence of any atmosphere in the void outside. Briusov's stage directions create a pictorial image of the Last Judgment: "The entire hall, now silenced, turns into a cemetery of motionless wizened bodies upon which there shines through the open dome the deep sky and, like an angel, blowing a golden trumpet, the blazing sun." The Italian symbolist artist Alberto Martini did an engraving, The Destruction of the Earth, as an illustration for the final scene of Briusov's play.

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3) lmmobi Iity The turning to stone of all the characters in Sologub's The Triumph of Death and the transformation of the city of the future into motionless bodies in Briusov's The Earth brings us to a third technique of symbolist art: the immobilization of life. The symbolists show a preference for frozen gesture, arrested motion, statuesque poses, expressionless masks, and suspended action at moments of highest drama or passion. Instead of an ever accelerated pace (as is the case with drama of external action), symbolist theatre slows down and reaches a point of excruciatingly intense and motionless stillness. At crises movement becomes minimal. In Puvis de Chavannes, bodily action and facial expression are eliminated. In Gustave Moreau's Apparition, Salome is mesmerized by the vision of John the Baptist's head, a mosaic encircling his face. The rigid dancer stands suspended in mid-air, in Huysmans's words, "nailed to the spot, balanced on the tips of her toes." Speaking of Michelangelo's figures, Moreau praises the "Beauty of Inertia" and says that they "seem to be frozen in gestures of an ideal somnambulism." In Fernand Khnopff's Portrait of His Sister, the door behind the figure is closed on an unknown world, a secret sanctuary of the self; she is enclosed within herself, frozen in a mantic stance, lost in a dream, embracing her own image. Another of Khnopff's evocations of silence and stillness is titled, "I Lock My Door Upon Myself" (a title taken from a poem by Christina Rossetti). By a process of retardation-or ritardando to use the musical term-the symbolist artist creates maximum tension as outer action and movement approach stasis, while the inner drama is enacted behind the placid mask, the closed door. We might call this somnambulistics: the aesthetics of sleep-walking, the trance, congealment and petrifaction. The sleeper does not awaken, but becomes possessed by the dream. "I see myself as an onlooker taking pleasure in silence," wrote Khnopff. As chronological time slows down to an eternal present, dimensions of the daydream unfold. Interiority, the glance turned inward, the deepest contemplation of the self are achieved in the pauses and silences, in the interstices between moments of action, as in Vrubel's Muse and Redon's Silence, William Butler Yeats saw in the drama of immobility "the intensity of trance/' "life trembling into stillness and silence," and "the celebration of waiting." Instead of the confrontational and histrionic, symbolists prized moments of ecstatic expectancy and hushed waiting--most often for something that never comes. One of the innovative discoveries of the symbolists was the dramatic power of waiting. Of the Russian symbolist dramatists, Blok most fully illustrates the aesthetics of sleepwalking and the immobilization of life. It has been said that Blok did not live his lives and loves, but dreamed them. In The Stranger the verb dremat'-to drowse-serves as a refrain. The silent ships in the river drowse; Azure dozes in the pale light, then half falls asleep covered from head to foot with falling snow, finally disappearing in immobility. The Stranger grows congealed (zastyvat' is the verb here) by the railing of the bridge. "Like a statue, she waits and waits." Turning into a statue, the contemplator with hieratic gesture enters into the private worlds of the self.

IS

4) Duplication The splitting of the contemplated self or alter ego into parts results in doubling and duplication-another striking effect of symbolist art and drama. "The sense of mystery," wrote Odilon Redon, "lies in always being in the equivocal, in double and triple aspects." In The Three Young Women on the Seashore by Puvis de Chavannes, we perceive three aspects of the same woman at three different moments of her being. By flattening out time spatially, the artist creates an impression of eternity. Another example of such dupl icat ion much favored by the symbolists is The Three Stages of Woman by Edvard Munch. The double may also recur in different works by the same artist. Throughout Khnopff's work, there are two opposing yet strangely similar female types, both based on his sister Marguerite: the demonic sphinx and the angelmuse. Symbolist woman has a dual nature, benign and malevolent. These doubles --sisters, demons, angels-are all projections of the self: the wandering soul in quest of its twin. In Khnopfrs Memories, partitions within the self are carried to the higher power of the magic number seven. Seemingly a picture of seven young English sports women, racquets in hand, the figures are identical despite different clothes and varied attitudes. Multiplied by the power of dreaming, living in solitude and memory, outside of temporality, the errant self is apart from its other selves. The private worlds are incommunicable. Each figure exists within its own psychological and physical space, withdrawn into contemplation of the world with in and totally oblivious of everything external. Once again, Alexander Blok is a self-proclaimed exemplar of the doubler idden Russian symbolist poets and playwrights. Doppelgangers haunt his life and work. Perception of doubles in Blok's case apparently ran in the family. His mother wrote to her sister: "In me there are five persons, and perhaps more." The first entry in Blok's diary reads: "I have divided in two." Starting in 1902, Blok began to project doubles on to archetypal figures such as Pierret and Harlequin, the rich man and Lazarus, the Blessed Virgin and the Anti-Christ. The poet himself declared: "In each person there are several people, and they are all fighting among themselves." In Blok's drama, doubling takes place both from one work to another and also within a single work. In the preface to his three Lyrical Dramas, Blok explains that the three heroes are "different sides of the soul of one man"-referring to Pierret in Balaganchik, the poet in The King in the Square, and the poet in The Stranger. Their longings are the same. "They all seek a beautiful, free, bright life, which alone can relieve them of their doubts and selfcontradictions and drive away importunate doubles." Each of the individual lyrical dramas is a monodrama in which the characters are themselves projections of doubles. In Balaganchik, innocent, pensive, child-like Pierret and his anti-face, the joyous, sceptical, audacious Harlequin are different experiences of the same soul. Colombine is likewise double. She is Pierret's betrothed or death. Given the linguistic double meaning of koca in Russian, her braid is also a scythe. The pictorial inspiration for the depiction of death as a woman with long hair and a scythe may come from the
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Italian Triumph of Death at Pisa (the fresco of Campo Santo) which shows such a figure; in the traditional Russian folk theatre, death is an emaciated old woman on an equally emaciated old horse, as can be seen in Aleksei Remizov's The Devil Show (Besovskoye Deistro). In The Stranger, not only are the principal characters doubled, but the entire play abounds in duplicated dialogue, structure, and detail. The first and third visions, in the low-life tavern and in the fashionable literary salon, are inverted mirror-images of each other. Forever splitting in two, the Stranger herself is double, half star, half woman she is the Eternal Feminine, the ideal of the Madonna, and a common harlot, the ideal of Sodom. Forever divided, the figure of the Stranger calls forth ambivalent responses of faith and disbelief, adoration and blasphemy. In such a dualistic universe, ultimate reality is defined by antithetical pairs of polar opposites. Coincidentia oppositorum or the unity of opposites is the mystical method by which the symbolists maintain in a state of unresolved tension conflicting realities. The Poet in The Stranqer is doubled by Azure, his far-off spiritual self, and by the Astrologer, an earthly materialist and his anti-face; and all three find an antipodal double in the Gentleman in the Derby-a cynical man of the world and the double of Harlequin in Balaganchik. Out of such dualistic encounters The Stranger and all of Blok's dramas are composed. 5) Spatial indeterminacy Finally and most briefly, a word about the new stage space envisioned by the Russian symbolist dramatists. It is a visionary landscape that opens out onto infinity and eternity. This magical space is not an imitation of the external world of reality, but invented space belonging to the subjective vision. It is the projection of states of mind and of what Odilon Redon called "the world of the indeterminate." This capacious arena is expressive both of the boundless expanse of the universe and of the human consciousness which is its mirror and counterpart. Compositions and sonatas of the Lithuanian artist Mikolai Ciurlionis can serve to illustrate the pictorial equivalent of the infinite and inward space of the symbolist stage. The Russian symbolist dramatists carried on the general program of symbolist artists everywhere-it was truly an international movement. They opened up the drama and stage to a new pictorial concept, a theatre of images, in which shape, color, pattern, and design play an almost abstract role-an ideal which has only started to be realized in our own day. Daniel Gerould

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NOTES ON THE SOVIET THEATRE

The past year and a half has seen a marked change in the cultural climate in the Soviet Union. In an effort to shed some light on how this change has affected the theatre, I'd like to go back and outline briefly some of the events that have taken place during the period following the death of Leonid Brezhnev in l'\jovember 1982. In reviewing the 1982-83 season, one Moscow critic put it very well when he said that the season seemed to break down at midpoint, losing momentum like some automobile that can't quite make it to the top of the hill. It was a season which in ivloscow, at least, was marked by the absence any new work by many of the major playwrights, directors and actors. Clearly it was also a season characterized by uncertainty and false starts as the change in leadership and the Party directives that followed forced the dropp ing of some productions and a reevaluation of many others. As it turned out, what happened to Vladimir Arro's Look Who's Come at the Mayakovsky Theatre in late November 1982 proved to be symptomatic of much that was to follow. In this update of The Cherry Orchard a famous writer's widow dec ides to sell the dacha which had belonged to her husband and is now occupied by his relatives. Completely humiliated by the trio of nouveaux riches (a hairdresser, bartender and bathhouse attendant) intent on buying it, one of the relatives, a scientific worker, commits suicide. This, at least, is how the play ends as published (Sovremennaia dramaturgiia, No. 2, 1980), and as first staged. In the revised version now being performed, the suicide (never an acceptable solution for a Soviet hero) has been replaced by a phone call from the widow informing the family that she has no intention of selling the dacha and that they should have nothing to do with such riff-raff. As Viktor Rozov notes in a recent article, this ending "turns a serious subject into a farce," and leaves the audience wondering, "what all the fuss was about?" Other signs of a chill in the cultural climate soon followed, including the refusal (still in effect) to allow Yurii Liubimov's production of Boris Godunov to premiere, and the withdrawal of a number other productions already on the boards-some temporarily to make adjustments, and others to be relegated to more permanent oblivion. The appearance in early February 1983 of an editorial in Pravda entitled "The Theatre and its Repertoire" gave the first concrete signal of the ideological crackdown that was to follow. While praising the appearance of a large number of new playwrights, it at the same time criticized many of them for creating more colorful and interesting "antiheroes" than positive ones, frequently leading to the "seeming triumph" in theatrical productions "of injustice and dishonesty over justice and law." The editorial also criticized the practice of plays being staged simultaneously at more than one theatre in a city, calling attention in particular to the three productions of The Cherry Orchard at the Malaia Bronnaia, "Contemporary" and Taganka Theatres, "all of them far from perfect." And why, it asked, with the wealth of foreign plays available, should there be five productions ofT ennessee Williams in Moscow?

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A Central Committee directive in February 1983 "un the work of the Yanko Kupala Belorussian State Academic Theatre" gave the first official signal of the new leadership's position vis-a-vis the arts, and the theatre in particular. Although the directive was aimed at a specific theatre, its message was clearly intended as a program of action for theatres throughout the Soviet Union. What gave the directive major significance was the fact that it not only exhorted the theatre's Party organization to play a more active role in the moral political education of the theatre's troupe, but also to "exert greater influence on the creative process, the activities of the artistic committee, the organization of the theatre troupe and the diligence of the actors, on the selection of plays and their ideational-artistic realization on the stage." In terms reminiscent of the heyday of Socialist Realism, the directive also called for a return to more theatrical productions "in which are reflected clearly and truthfully the basic Leninist principles of Party spirit (partinost') and national character (narodnost')." In theory, the functions outlined in the directive have always been the prerogative of the Party organization in each theatre. However, in recent years, particularly in those theatres with a strong-willed Chief Director, and Yurii Liubimov is the prime example, there has been considerable flexibility as to just how much of a direct voice the Party would have in artistic affairs. In those cases where the Party activists have taken over control of a theatre, as happened with the Leningrad Theatre of Comedy in the mid-seventies, the results have been fatal, not only in terms of a general decline in the quality of theatrical productions, but also in the loss of talented actors and directors. The theatre repertory itself came under renewed attack in April in a speech by Pyotr Demichev, the Minister of Culture (Sovetskaia kul'tura, April 16) in which he stated: There are on the stages of our theatres still many mediocre and colorless productions which are shallow and engrossed in the details of everyday life. Theatres are staging too many foreign plays, while some key problems of our social development are not being reflected on our stage. There are not enough plays about the problems of the scientific-technological revolution, few gripping productions about the intelligentsia, its concerns, its objectives. The industrial theme is not being developed and broadened. Demichev's message was further developed in an article published in Literaturnaia gazeta entitled "Come Uut from Behind the Draperies." In a slap at what he called "the new realism" the author, Vladimir Bondarenko stated that these plays depict "too many people who consciously stand on the sidelines of life." He also complained that in plays such as Viktor Slavkin's The Grown-Up Daughter, this new reality is depicted without revealing the playwright's attitude toward it. "There must not only be a concrete picture of life," he pointed out, "but also a lofty social-ethical ideal." Other articles soon followed also calling for a return of the positive hero to the Soviet stage who, when confronted with a crisis, fights back rather than retreating behind the draperies. Too many of the new plays are turned inward, these writers pointed out. It's not simply that the action takes place in a domestic 19

setting, whether an apartment or a dacha, but that it never breaks out of that setting. Finally, in his speech at the plenary session of the Communist Party Central Committee in June, Konstantin Chernenko left little room for doubt that the Party was indeed taking a considerably tougher attitude toward the arts than it had in 1981 . Reaffirming the artist's responsibility for "actively influencing the ideological, political and moral make of the indiv idual," Chernenko criticized those writers who "give prominence only to unhappy lives, to life's troubles and to effete and whining characters." He went on to state that people, especially the younger ones, need heroes "who embody the nobleness of life's goals, ideological conviction, love of work and courage. Acknowledging that political considerations must also take priority in the selection of foreign films, plays, publicat ions and music, Chernenko also called for greater vigilance against those imports "characterized by a lack of ideological content, vulgarity and artistic bankruptcy." Typical of the plays that came under public attack for being shallow and non-committal were Simon Zlotnikov's A Man Came to a Woman at the Pushkin Theatre and The Tearn at the "Contemporary" Theatre. The latter play, about six members of a girl's handball team and their coach, was specifically singled out in an article in lsvestia (May 24, 1983) for its failure to condemn the spiritual emptiness of people who sacrifice everything in pursuit of athletic success. The writer of the article, G. Dobysh, also called the theatre to task for its lack of judgement in deeming the play stageworthy. Turning to the current season, it is still too early to tell how it will shape up overall, especially in view of yet another change in leadership. If the 1982-83 season was characterized by its large number of contemporary plays, this season, thus far, seems to be concentrating on the classics or historical themes. Some of the product ions worthy of note at midpoint include a new staging of Gogel's The Inspector General at the "Contemporary" Theatre which has evoked some strong responses both pro and con. For the theatre's first encounter with Gogo I, director Valerii Fokin has combined his comedy with the playwright's "Un Leaving the Theatre after the Performance of a New Comedy" and the rarely performed monolog "The Denouement of The Inspector General." The production stars Valentin Gaft as the Mayor, Vasilii Mishenko as Khlestakov, and Galina Volchek as Maria Antonovna, the chief director's first major role in sixteen years. At the Lenin Komsomol in Moscow, a new production of Vishnevsky's The Uptimistic Tragedy has also made its debut. Directed by Mark Zakharov, it diverges in a number of ways from the traditional approach to this 1933 attempt to create a new genre of Soviet tragedy. In a refreshing departure from Vadim Ryndin's much-imitated spiral stage design for the original production, Zakharov makes use of enormous moveable screens which shift about to create the barracks and the deck of the ship. The Commissar sent to tame an anarchistic batallion of sailors is played by lnna Churikova. The complete antithesis of Aliso Konen's leather-jacketed "iron lady" in the original production, Churikova arrives on board ship wearing a white dress and large hat, and carrying a parasol. The production sees her subtle transformation from a graceful and defenseless innocent to a forceful leader who is able to establish her authority over the anarchistic batallion
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of sailors. As usual, Zakharov has assembled an outstanding cast including Evgenii Leonov as the wily Leader and Oleg Yankovsky as Bering. Roshchin's adaptation of Tolstoy's Anna Karenina, finally premiered in the fall at the Vakhtangov Theatre directed by Roman Viktiuk. And Mark Rozovsky's staging of Amadeus has opened at the Moscow Art Theatre with Oleg Tabakov as Salieri. At the Malaya Bronnaya, Anatoly Efros had directed a production of the Austrian playwright Ferdinand Bruckner's 1936 play Napoleon I with Mikhail Yulianov from the Vakhtangov Theatre in the leading role. In Leningrad, the Gorky Theatre has premiered a musical based on Sukhovo-Kobylin's The Death of T arelkin directed by Georgii Tovstonogov and featuring Valerii lvchenko, an actor new to that theatre, as Tarelkin. Lev Dodin's much-awaited interpretation of Saltykov-Shchedrin's Judas Golovyev at the Moscow Art Theatre is about to, or has already had its premiere with lnokenty Smoktunovsky in the role of the greedy hypocrite, Judas. And after a long absence, Ibsen's Hedda Gabler can again be seen on the Moscow stage at the fv'1ossoviet Theatre in a production directed by Kama Ginkas with Nina Teniakova as Hedda and Sergei Yursky as Tesman. At the Mayakovsky Theatre's Little Stage, Mark Rozovsky's play Mayakovsky Begins has finally premiered, directed by Genrykh Cherniakhovsky, although apparently in a somewhat different form than its original conception. In it ially entitled The Tall One {Vysokii), it was to have included, in addition to iv\ayakovsky's own poetry, excerpts from the works of Shakespeare, Cervantes and Dostoevsky. According to Rozovsky, the objective wasn't merely to illustrate the poet's verses, but to recreate the poet himself, by combining elements from his biography with his feelings and ideas, all brought to life through the introduction of literary characters such as Hamlet, Raskolnikov and Don Quixote. In an effort to bring the production more in line with the Party call for depicting more "men of action" on the stage, these famous literary f igures have apparently been dropped. This season theatres seem to have been especially responsive to the call for a change in the kind of foreign plays being performed, many of which have recently been characterized as frivolous and lacking in philosophical content. The Mossoviet Theatre, for example, has just premiered The Trial of the Judges, a somewhat free adaptation of Stanley Kramer's film Judgement at Nuremberg. And as a further sign of the times, the Maly Theatre is currently rehearsing an anti- war "documentary" written by G. Shakhhazarov and Rachiia Kaplanian, Chief Director of the Erevan Dramatic Theatre, who is also directing the production. Tentatively entitled The Bomb, it is about the development of the atomic bomb. Among the characters in the play are Albert Einstein, Robert Oppenheimer, Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman. Turning to contemporary works, the picture seems much less clear. A number of productions that premiered last season continue to be highly praised for their portrayal of positive heroes of action. Among them are The Stove on Wheels at the Mossoviet's Little Theatre and Chervinsky's My Happiness ... at the Soviet Army Theatre. (It is also at the Stanislavsky Theatre under the title The PaTer Record Player.) Other productions have fared less well, among them Galin's he Garden whose main protagonists one critic characterized as "indulging in starry-

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eyed philosophizing," and Gurkin's Love and Doves whose characters are "petty, uninteresting people." Among productions still "in the works" are the Lenin Komsomol Theatre's staging of Petrushevskoyo's Three Girls in Blue, Roshchin's Mother of Pearl Zinaida at the Moscow Art Theatre and Edvard Radzinsky's Theatre in the Time of Nero and Seneca at the Moyokovsky Theatre where it is now in its third season of preparation. The current season still has several months to run before it closes in June. It will be interesting to watch what additional productions premiere and what effect the current change in leadership has, if any, on shaping the season's outcome. Alma H. Law LIUBIMOV Video recordings of Yuri Liubimov's major Moscow productions ore available for showing to interested scholars in theater and literature. They are: THREE SISTERS (Chekhov) MASTER AND MARGARITA (Bulgakov) PUGACHEV (Esenin) THE EXCHANGE (Trifonov) CRIME AND PUNISHMENT THE DAWNS ARE QUIET HERE MOTHER (Gorky) FIVE STORIES BY BABEL LISTEN! (Moyokovsky) TEN DAYS THAT SHOOK THE WORLD (John Reed) WOODEN HORSES (Abramov) The recordings are a variant of VHS journalism and do not represent a professional television production. The recordings were filmed under trying conditions and they are unedited. The topes ore only for academic use and cannot be shown for paid admission. A rental fee of $100.00 per tape 1 per week should accompany each request to the following address: NJR VIDEO I 0 Skylark Lane Stony Brook, NY I 1790 Newsflosh: Liubimov has been discharged from his position as director of the T ogonko Theatre.

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Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures George Hason University Fairfax , Virginia 22030

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