NEWSNOTES SoviET EAsT EuROPEAN DRAMA THEATRE

on
and
and

Volume 2, Number 3 A HUMBLE REQUEST

November, 1982

As you are all aware, funding for academic/cultural publications such as ours is becoming increasingly scarce, while expenses are continually rising. In addition, the subventors, understandably, wish to be made cr..vare of the degree of real interest generated by any given publication before they commit themselves to its continued subvention. I am therefore requesting that those of you who find this publication helpful and worth-while express this sentiment by voluntarily contributing the cost of mailing and handling, a total of $1.50 for all the issues of academic year 1982/83. No contribution is solicited for the major expenses of putting together, word processing and reproducing the many hundreds of copies which are printed. This will still be covered by the grants. I must hasten to add that you will continue to receive NEWSNOTES even if you decide not to contribute. I would request, however, that those of you who are not interested in remaining on the mailing Jist would let me know, so that we might save some money. Please use the form on the last page of this issue to let us know what your pleasure is, and to transmit the nominal contribution requested of you. Many thanks. Leo Hecht, Editor NEWSNOlES 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 80 I, City University Graduate Center 33 West 42nd Street, New York, NY 10036. All subscription requests and submissions should be addressed to the Editor of NEWSNOlES: Leo Hecht, Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA 22030.

FROM THE EDITOR

With the highly successful completion of the second NEH Institute this past summer and the increasing fascination with Soviet and Eastern European theatre and drama, it is high time to publish a list of directors, coordinators, core faculty and participants in both Institutes. As you can see, the list contains representatives from all parts of the United States and from a variety of disciplines. All have in common a burning interest and expertise in our subject area. These should be your contact persons to be used for dialogue, crossfertilization and common projects in our field. If this is well exploited, it can contribute significantly to the growth of interest, staging and scholarship in the area of Soviet and Eastern European theatre and drama. You should feel free to contact any of the persons listed. But now, to the lists themselves:

DIRECTORY OF STAFF AND PARTICIPANTS FOR FIRST NEH INSTITUTE ON CONTEMPORARY EASTERN EUROPEAN DRAMA AND THEATRE: POLAND AND THE SOVIET UNION

STAFF: Co-Directors Dan iel C. Gerould Professor of Theatre and Comparative Literature, Ph.D. Program in Theatre, Graduate Center, City University of New York, 33 W. 42nd St., New York, NY 10036 (212)790-4209 Alma H. Law Humanities Institute, Room 801, Graduate Center, City University of New York, 33 W. 42nd St., New York, NY I0036 (212) 790-4249 or 4464; (914) 723-5410 Coordinator Stanley A. Waren Provost and Vice President; Professor of Theatre; Director, Center for Advanced Study in Theatre Arts, Graduate Center, City University of New York, 33 W 42nd St., New York, NY I0036 (212) 790-4464 CORE FACULTY: Louis lribarne Associate Professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures, University of Toronto, 21 Sussex Ave., Toronto MSS I AI, Ontario, Canada (416) 978-3419 William Kuhlke Professor, Speach and Drama/Slavic and Soviet Area, Theatre Department, University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS 66045 (913) 864-3534 or 3981 Zygmunt Hubner Managing and Artistic Director, Powszechny Theatre, Warsaw, Poland.
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PARTICIPANTS Addison Bross Associate Professor, Dept. of English, LeHigh University, Bethlemhem, PA 180 IS (215) 861-3331 David Cook Assistant Professor of Theatre, Dept. of Theatre, The University of Tulsa, 600 South College Ave., Tulsa, OK 74107 (918) 592-6000 ext. 2566 Samuel Elkind Professor of Theatre, Theatre Arts, San Francisco State University, 1600 Holloway Ave., San Francisco, CA 94132 (415) 459-1431 Wasil Fiedorow Associate Professor, Dept. of Modern Languages, Knox College, Box 18, Galesburg, IL 6140 I Robert Findlay Professor of Theatre, University of Theatre, The University of Kansas, Lawrence, KA 66045 (913) 864-4110 Jeffrey Goldfarb Assistant Professor of Sociology, The Graduate Faculty, Dept. of Sociology, New School for Social Research, 65 Fifth Ave., New York, NY 10011 (212) 741-5737 Stephen Grecco Associate Professor of English, Dept. of English, The Pennsylvania State University, 117 Burrowes Building, University Park, PA 16802 (814) 865-6381 Leo Hecht Professor/Chairman of Russian Studies, Dept. of Foreign Languages & Literatures, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA 22030 (703) 323-2241 Michael Heim Associate Professor, Dept. of Slavic Languages and Literatures, University of California, Los Angeles, CA 90024 (213) 825-2676 Philip Hill Associate Professor of Drama, Dept. of Drama, Furman University, Greenville, sc 29613 (803) 294-2051 Thomas Jones Assistant Professor, Speech-Theatre Dept., University of South Carolina Coastal Carolina College, Conway, SC 29526 (803) 347-3161, ext. 132 Bela Kiralyfalvi Chairman, Dept. of Speech Communication, Associate Professor of Speech and Theatre, Wichita State University, Wichita, KA 67208 (316) 689-3185

Alan Kreizenbeck Assistant Professor of Theatre, Miami University Theatre Department, Center for Performing Arts, Oxford, OH 45056 (5 13) 529-3052 Raymond Milowski Professor of English, Dept. of English, Bemidji State University, Bemidji, MN 56601 Glenn Q. Pierce Professor of Theatre, Theatre Department, Central Missouri State University, Warrensburg, MO 64093 (816) 429-4020 Jay Raphael c/o Vidol, 37 W. 26th St., Apt. 1204, New York, NY 10017 (212) 683-7817, 2468484 Andre Sedriks Assistant Professor of Theatre, Speech and Theatre Dept., Trinity University, San Antonio, TX 78284 (5 12) 736-85 II Alan Smith Assistant Professor of Russian, Dept. of Russian, Middlebury College, Middlebury, VT 05753 Laszlo Tikos Professor of Russian, Dept. of Slavic Languages and Literatures, University of Massachusetts, Herter Hall 438, Amherst, MA 0 I003 (413) 545-2052 Joseph Troncale Assistant Professor of Russian Studies, Dept. of Modern Foreign Languages, University of Richmond, Richmond, VA 23173 (804) 285-6335
DIRECTORY OF STAFF AND PARTICIPANTS FOR SECOND NEH INSTITUTE ON CONTEMPORARY EASTERN EUROPEAN DRAMA AND THEATRE: POLAND AND THE SOVIET UNION

STAFF: Institute Director: Alma H. Law Humanities Institute, Room 80 I, Graduate Center, City University of New York, 33 W. 42nd St., New York, NY I0036 (212) 790-4249 or 4464; (9 14) 723-541 0 Coordinator: Stanley A. Waren Provost and Vice President; Professor of Theatre; Director, Center for Advanced Study in Theatre Arts, Graduate Center, City University of New York, 33 W. 42nd St., New York, NY I0036 (212) 790-4464 Graduate Assistant: Maria Mollinado Humanities Institute, Room 801, Graduate Center, City University of New York, 33 W. 42nd St., New York, NY I0036 (212) 790-4249 or 4464; (212) 988-6523 4

CORE FACULTY: William Kuhlke Professor, Speech and Drama/Slavic and Soviet Area, Theatre Department, University of Kansas, Lawrence, KA 66045 (913) 864-3534 or 3981 Boleslaw Taborski 66 Esmond Road, London WR IJF, England Kazimierz Braun Artistic Director and General Manager, Teatr Wspolczesny, Wroclaw, Poland PARTICIPANTS: Christine Y. Bethin Asst. Professor, Dept. of Germanic and Slavic Languages, SUNY at Stony Brook Stony Brook, NY I 1794 (516) 246-6837 Rhonda Blair Asst. Professor of Theatre, Theatre Dept., University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY 40506 (606) 257-3297 Timothy D. Connors Asst. Professor of Theatre, Speech Communication Dept., Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, AZ 86011 (602) 523-2062 Thomas P. Cooke Professor, Dept. of Speech and Theatre, 207 McClung Tower, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN 37916 (615) 974-4419 or 60 II (Mary) Julia Curtis Professor of Dramatic Arts1 Dept. of Dramatic Arts, University of Nebraska at Omaha, Omaha, NE 68182 ~402) 554-2406 Laszlo Dienes Asst. Professor, Dept. of Slavic Lang. & Lit., University of Massachusetts, Herter 438, Amherst, MA 0 I003 (413) 545- 0894 or 2025 Ronald G. Engle Professor, Theatre Arts Dept. (Box 8182), University of North Dakota, Grand Forks, ND 58202 (70 I) 777-3446 Spence Golub Asst. Professor of Drama, Dept. of Drama, Culbreth Road, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA 22903 (804) 924-3326 Steven E. Hart Asst. Professor, Program in Educational Theatre/SEHNAP, 733 Shimkin Hall, New York University, New York, NY 10003 (212) 598-3232

Nancy Kindelan Asst. Professor of Drama, Drama Dept., Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH 03755 (603) 646-2759 or 3104 Maio A. Kipp Instructor, Dept. of German, Russian and East Asian Languages, 60 Irvin Hall, Miami University, Oxford, OH 45056 (513) 529-2526 Felicia Londre Assoc. Professor of Theatre, Dept. of Theatre, University of Missouri-Kansas City, 5100 Rockhill Rd., Kansas City, MO 64110 (816) 363-4300 ext. 213 Michael Mclain Asst. Professor, Dept. of Theatre Arts, University of California, Los Angeles, 405 Hilgard Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90024 (213) 206-6850 or 825-5761 Robert Pevitts Professor/Chairperson, Dept. of Communications and Fine Arts, Kentucky Wesleyan College, Owensboro, KY 4230 I (502) 926-3111 Jerrold A. Phillips Assoc. Professor of Theatre, Dept. of Drama, Northeastern University, Boston, MA 02115 (617) 437-2244 Nicholas Rzhevsky Asst. Professor, Slavic Dept., FLB, 707 South Mathews, University of Illinois, Urbana, IL 6180 I (217) 333-0680 or 3343 Joseph Slowik Professor of Acting and Directing, Goodman School of Drama, De Paul University, 804 West Belden, Chicago, IL 60614 (312) 321-8375 Melissa Smith Instructor, Dept. of German and Russian, Williams College, Williamstown, MA, 01267, (413) 597-2187 Wanda Sorgente Asst. Professor, Dept. of Slavic Lang. & Lit., University of Illinois at Chicago Circle, Box 4348, Chicago, IL 60680 (312) 996-5465 or 4412 Andrea Castle Southard Asst. Professor, Theatre, 86 Main St., University of Maine, Farmington, ME 04938 (207) 778-350 I , ext. 432

ANNOUNCEMENTS
The ACME Theatre Company in Atlanta, Georgia, is preparing to produce Slawomir Mrozek's Vatzlav. James W. Dorsey, Jr., the dramaturg for this production, would welcome the opportunity to correspond with those of us who have worked with Polish drama productions in general and with Mrozek's plays in particular, and also with scholars and graduate students who are doing thesis work 6

and other projects in this area. ACME also intends to produce works by Witkiewicz and Gombrowicz in future seasons. Please write to Mr. Dorsey at 99 Peachtree Battle Ave. N.W., Atlanta, GA 30305. Arthur Cantor, Inc. reminds us that they distribute the film version of Jerzy Grotowski's magnificent Acropolis, with an introduction by the English director Peter Brook. The length of the black and white film is 60 minutes. Sale: $900; Rental: $130. Contact Arthur Cantor, Inc., 33 West 60th Street, Penthouse, New York, NY I0023. The company has also kindly agreed to hold a screening for someone who will write a substantial review of the film for NEWSNOTES. Please let me know if you are interested, feel qual ified and would definitely commit yourself to writing the review, and I shall make arrangements for a screening. Should you prefer to contact the company directly, please call Tom Siracuse, (212) 664-1298. (Hecht) W. Averell Harriman, former governor of New York and Ambassador to the USSR during the Roosevelt administration, and his family, have donated over eleven million dollars to the Russian Institute of Columbia University to further the dwindling American study of the Soviet Union. The Russian study center will be renamed the W. Averell Harriman Institute for the Advanced Study of the Soviet Union. The Smithsonian Resident Associates showed a fourth series of Soviet films from October I0-17, 1982. Just as with previous showings, it was completely sold out. The films shown were: The Marriage; Several Interviews ~ Personal Matters; The Red Snowball Tree; and The Steppe. Some of these films were also shown at the Carnegie Hall Cinema in New York as part of a two-week festival of Soviet films which opened on October IS with a showing of Valentina. In addition, Film Forum I in New York is planning an eight-week retrospective of Russian films, inc luding Ballad of a Soldier, An Unfinished Piece for Player Piano and Andrei Rublev to begin November 18. For more information write or call Film Forum, 57 Watts St., New York, NY 10013, (212) 431-1592. Not to be missed at Film Forum 2 (same address) is an animated film from Russia, Tale of Tales, to be shown from Dec. 29-Jan. II, as part of the program, "International Animation." This extraordinary film by artist Yuri Norstein and playwrite Lyudmila Petrushevskaya, who created the scenario, "defies conventional notions of the level at which animation may explore psychological and emotional depths." It was the grand prize winner at both the Zagreb and Lille Short Film Festivals in 1980. A Polish film, Tango, is also included in the program. The exhibition of 100 Soviet and Polish Theatre Posters which was shown at the Graduate Center in New York this summer in conjunction with the second NEH Humanities Institute on Polish and Soviet Drama and Theatre, is now travelling. It will next be at the Chicago Gallery, University of Illino is, Chicago Circle Center, 750 South Halstad St., where it opens on November 15. The Polish posters will be on display from Nov. IS thru Nov. 26, and the Soviet posters from Nov. 29 thru Dec. I0. Gallery hours are: Mon.-Fri. 9:00-5:00. The Gallery will also be open on Nov. 13 and 20 from I0:00-4:00. The exhibition is being held in
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conjunction with the production at the university of Witkiewicz's Mr. Price or Tropical Madness and is co-sponsored by the Departments of Communications and Theatre, Fine Arts, and Slavic Languages and Literatures. Also in conjunction with the production, Professor Daniel Gerould of the CUNY Graduate Center will lecture on "Witkiewicz and the Modern Polish Theatre," in Room 605 of the Chicago Circle Center, November 12, at 3:00 p.m. The lecture is open to the public. David Cook will be directing a production of Mrozek's Tango at the University of Tulsa, November 12-14 and 16-20. The Drama Bookshop has moved to 723 Seventh Ave. (corner 48th Street), New York, NY. Tel: (212) 944-0595. In May, Tufts University presented a new adaptation of Gogel's DEAD SOULS, written and directed by Laurence Senelick. The novelty of this dramatization consisted in the use of Gogel as a major character, creating the action as it proceeded and entering into it as various background figures himself. This enabled the production to take advantage of the narrative voice which is one of the important features of the novel. There were over a hundred characters, played by twenty-eight characters in quickchange and caricatured makeup, including the horses for the various carriages and the animals in Korobochka's yard. Only Part One of the novel was utilized, but virtually every major moment or famous passage appeared on stage. Anyone interested in reading or staging this dramatization can get a copy by writing to Prof. Laurence Senelick, Drama Department, Tufts University, Medford, Mass. 02155. A symposium on the theme "Crosscurrents: The Arts of the Theatre" will take place March 18-20, 1983 in Iowa City under the auspices of the Third Annual Theatre History Symposium of the Mid- America Theatre Conference. One of the panels, "The Arts of the Russian Theatre" will be chaired by William Kuhlke, Department of Theatre, The University of . Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas 66045. Proposals, outlines, abstracts or manuscripts must be sent by December 3, 1982, to the Symposium Coordinator: Felicia Hardison Londre, Department of Theatre, University of Missouri-Kansas City, Kansas City, MO 64110. A schedule of other MATC events and conference fees ($25; $17.50 for students and senior citizens) will be published in the MA TC Newsletter or may be obtained from the Symposium Coordinator. Papers presented at the Symposium will be considered for publication in Theatre History Studies. Barrie Stavis informs us that three of his plays were published by Progress Publishers, Moscow, in an edition of 50,000 copies. The volume contains: Laml at Midnight (Galilee); Harpers Ferry (John Brown); and The Man Who Never Died Joe Hill}. The book also contains photographs of productions of the play and a long essay by Georgii Zlobin who is also the translator of Lamp at Midnight. A conference on "The Avant-Garde in Russia: The Arts, Culture, and Society in Revolution, 1911-1930" will be held at the Indianapolis Museum of Art (Indianapolis, Indiana), November 5-7, 1982. The conference will coincide with the Museum's exhibition of the George Costakis art collection and is co-sponsored by IMA and the Russian and East European Institute at Indiana University. For further information contact: REEl, Ballantine Hall 565, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN 47405 (812-335-7309). 8

SPECIAL NOTES Warren J. Mac Isaak requests our help in tracking down a play he needs to locate. He recently read about its production as a new play in Belgrade. It presented a dramatization of the "brain washing" of Tito's Stalinist enemies on an Adriatic island off the coast of Yugoslavia. According to reports, the play was a controversial success. Should you have any knowledge about this play, please contact Professor Mac Isaak directly at the Drama Department, Catholic University of America, Washington, DC 20064. We have received two issues of the journal Artful Dodge which contain two plays by the Polish playwright Stanislaw Srokowski, entitled The Wall and Dziadek. Srokowski is a central figur~ in Wroclaw literary circles and is aneditor for Kultura Dolnoslanska (Lower-Silesian Culture). His dramatic writing has won several awards. In one review it was pointed out that his writing, "deeply imbued with the realities of the Polish village takes on universal dimensions to become an existential tract of the human condition." According to the editor of the journal, this constitutes the first English language appearance of this playwright. On previous occasions the journal has presented the first English translations of a number of other contemporary East European writers, among them Danuta Kostewicz, Jerzy Harasymowicz and Tymoteusz Karpowicz. Artful Dodge is a quarterly which may be subscribed to by writing P.O. Box 1473, Bloomington, Indiana 47402. Cost of subscriptions: Six dollars for four issues. The Germanic and Slavic Languages Department of the State University of New York at Stony Brook has begun publication of their new feature journal, Slavic and East European Arts. The journal will be published at least twice yearly and will consist of 200 or more pages. The first issue is devoted to Yugoslav poetry. The next two issues will be devoted to drama: An Anthology of Slavic and East European Drama, including plays by Grochowiak, Hristic, Rozewicz, Sorescu, Priwieziencew, Popovic and Blok. A yearly subscription is $15.00. For further information write to professor E. J. Czerwinski, Editor, Professor of Slavic and Germanic Languages and Literatures, State University of New York at Stony Brook, Stony Brook, NY I 1794. As a reflection of the growing interest in Russian and East European drama and theatre, there will be no less than four panels devoted to the subject at the AATSEEL annual meeting in Chicago, December 28-30, at the American Congress Hotel: Dec. 29, I :00-3:00 p.m. Contemporary Soviet Stage: Myths and Realities Chairperson: Wanda Sorgente, Univ. of Illinois "Edvard Radzinsky's Conversations with History and Legend," Spencer Golub, Univ. of Cal., Los Angeles. "Trifonov's Exchange at Liubimov's Taganka," Michael McLain, Univ. of Cal., Los Angeles. "Aitmatov's and Mukhamedzhanov's the Ascent of Mount Fugi, Jerrold A. Phi Ilips, Northeastern Un iv ., Boston. "In Cinzano Veritas: The Plays of Liudmila Petrushevskaya," Melissa Smith, Williams College, MA. Discussant: Harold Swayze, Univ. of Washington
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Dec. 29, 7:00-9:00 p.m. Post-World War II Slavic and East European Drama Chairperson: Biruta Cap, Allentown College, PA Secretary: Alan Smith, Middlebury College, VT "Post-World War II Byelorussian Drama," Thomas E. Bird, Queens College, CUNY "The Theatre of Tadeusz Rosewicz," Halina Filipowicz, Univ. of Wisconsin. "Elements of Seeming Stasis: Character and setting in Four Plays by Rosewicz," Theodosia S. Robertson, Indiana Univ. Dec. 30, I0:45-12:30 p.m. Russian Drama: Past and Present Chairperson: Dorothy H. Brown, Loyola Univ. of New Orleans "The Dragon by Evgenij Svarc as a Pattern of Aesopian Satire on the Soviet Stage," Lev Loseff, Dartmouth College, NH "Katerina lvanovna: Andreev's Pan-Psychic Heroine," Anne Netick, College of William and Mary, VA "Russian Drama: On Stage Today," Zinaida A. Breschinsky, Purdue Univ. Dec. 30, I:000-2:30 p.m. Pushkin and the Lyric Sta1} Chairman: Anthony Lola, Loyola Univ., New rleans "Boris Godunov: Pushkin, Mussorgsky, et alii," Renata Bialy, Lou isiana State
~~
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"PiMue Dame: A Process of Artistic Transformation," Barbara !;well, Univ. of ississippi.

BIBLIOGRAPHIC NOTES
The following books have recently appeared in the Soviet Union in the Russian language: Bashinzhagian, N. Conversations on the Theatre of Socialist Countries. Moscow: Znanie, 1980. -Chichkov, v., ed. Soviet Dramaturgy. Moscow: lskusstvo, No. I, 1982. This is the first issue of a "thick journal" which contains the texts of nine previously unpublished plays including Afinogenov's 1933 play The Lie, Radzinsky's latest play, Theatre in the Time of Nero and Seneca, andThe Host, a one act play by Victor Rozov; and seven critical articles. It is an excellent publication and is to be highly recommended to those interested in keeping current on contemporary Soviet drama. Grashchenkova, I.N. Soviet Film Directing. Moscow: Znanie, .1982. Vilenkin, V. Remembrances with Commentary. Moscow: lskusstvo, 1982. Fascinating recollections of Stanislavsky, Nemirovich-Danchenko, Moskvin, Leonardovna, Kachalov, Bulgakov and Akhmatova, and their connection with the Moscow Art Theatre. By request, I am also listing the six-volume set which, in Russian, covers Soviet theatre from 1917 through 1967. Although it commits quite a number of sins of omission, it is nevertheless the best history published in the USSR. Each volume has its own editorial staff composed of the most knowledgeable theatre historians of the period. 10

The Histo~ of the Soviet Dramatic Theatre. A. Anastas'ev, et. al., eds. Moscow: i\!Ouka, 196 .:1]. Anyone interested in news about the Polish theatre since the imposition of martial law last December, will want to read the article by Jarka Burian, "Poland's Theatre in Crisis," in the November issue of Theatre Communications. The issue can be ordered by sending a check for $2.50 to Theatre Communications Group, Inc., 355 Lexington Ave., New York, NY I00 17.
REVIEWS

A new film by the Rumanian director Radu Gabrea, Don't Be Afraid, Jacob!, is presently being shown in Western Europe. Its theme is anti-Semitism and the persecution of Jews in various geographic and cultural locales. It starts with the Russian pogroms of the early twentieth century and ends with more recent times "somewhere in Europe." Gabrea stresses the continuity of fear which is exacerbated by irrational xenophobia and which may well reveal itself in the simple act of a child throwing a rock through someone's window. It ends with bloody lynching scenes, dehumanization and utmost brutality. The constantly growing fear of the victims and the increasing bestiality of the persecutors seem to start as a composition of counterpoints which melt into a single theme. Despite its horror, the film has its important lyrical moments. A similar theme is to be found in a recent, albeit pre-Jaruzelski, Polish film by the director Stanislaw Jedryka. Green Years concerns itself with the relationships of children of different nationalities . and religions. The three children on whom the plot is based are the son of a Polish worker, a Polish-Jewish boy and the daughter of a German pharmacist. In September 1939, when Hitler's invasion of Poland commences, Woytek, Abramek and Erna are playing together and are observing the mobilization of Poland with fascinated interest, without understanding its significance for their future lives. The arrival of the German troops brings fundamental changes into their everyday existence but does not change their deep feelings of friendship for each other. Despite the horrors portrayed, the film ends on a note of optimism for the world. LH

THREE BALLETS
Personal Impressions and Lessons Learned In 1976 had the opportunity to see Swan Lake at the StanislavskyNemirovich Danchenko Musical Theatre in MosCOW: The performance was the best that I had ever seen of this particular ballet. The dancers and choreography were superb, the costumes magnificent, and the staging, with the help of a new console which could even cause the entire stage to undulate with rubber waves was, to say the least, spectacular. It was a marvellous evening which I duplicated at my first opportunity in 1979. The second time the performance was just as excellent as the first time. Again, in 1982, I rushed to see it again and enjoyed it, but not as much as previously. I asked myself why the pleasure had been lessened, despite the fact that nothing had changed. Then it occurred to me that this, II

precisely, was the problem: Nothing had changed! Every costume, every movement of the hand, every single element of staging was exactly the same as it had been both times previously. It then struck me that this was an excellent illustration of the very reason why the Baryshnikovs, Nureyevs, Protopopovs and hosts of other performing artists defect to the west: the restrictions on innovation or even deviation in art forms. A performing artist simply does not wish to hold his wrist in precisely the same position at precisely the same moment year in year out. He does not want stagnation, but artistic growth. This is certainly true of the theatre. For the past ten years one has been able to see the same repertoire performed in exactly the same manner at the original Moscow Art Theatre, (e.g., "Three Sisters," "Days of the Turbins," "The Lower Depths," "Goya," etc.). Conformity destroys art. This is an apolitical or only remotely political conviction among artists, and not only performing artists, in the Soviet Union. Painters, scultors, architects, poets, playwrights and directors must also be included. In the summer of 1982 I also saw a number of ballet performances by the Novosibirsk Academic Opera and Ballet Theatre in the 6,000-seat Palace of Congresses in the Moscow Kremlin. This is alledgedly one of the finest artistic ensembles in the Soviet Union. Most of what they performed was stock-in-trade, e.g.: Tchaikovsky's Sleeping Beauty, Khachaturian's Spartakus, Minkus's Don Quixote. The dancers, with some exceptions, were very young and quite spir ited, though, again with some exceptions, not particularly talented. They did, however, perform some more daring pieces such as Shchedrin's ballet adaptation of Carmen, most of which was a semi-erotic pas de deux consisting of a great deal of rolling around on the floor with relatively little artistry. Nevertheless, they were at least trying to break the mold and should be given credit for this. Just two weeks later I was pr ivileged to have an on-stage loge seat, just ten feet from the area used by the artists, for a guest performance of the Leningrad Ballet in the 2,500-seat Moscow Central Concert Hall. It was, of course, packed. The luxurious ZIL automobiles parked at the entrance gave witness to the fact that quite a number of top-echelon VIP's were in attendance. The program consisted of two parts. One part was a ballet version of Rossini's Barber of Seville, an amusing, excellently performed ballet to the music and story line of the most frequently performed opera in the USSR. The audience was greatly appreciative, but there was nothing new and particularly exciting about the performance. The other half of the evening, however, was electrifying. It was a tetralogy adapted to the music of Vivaldi (Concert for Two Violins and Orchestra); a composition by Albinoni; Alfred Schnitke (Concerto Grosso); and Beethover (Seventh Symphony). The performance consisted of several pas de deux and pas de quatre with the simplest costuming (in fact sack-cloth was used for the Schitke selection). The choreography was highly innovative, personal and subl imely sensuous. All four selections, collectively entitled Autographs, were to depict the growth of an artist, the many conflicts within him, periods of elation and depression, a psychological analysis of his relationship to the opposite sex, his striving and struggles to perfect his art on an emotional level- all in all, not quite the stuff "Socialist Realism" is made of. This ensemble is, without a doubt, the finest in the Soviet Union. Many of the artists, if they can keep out of trouble, will definitely become as well-known world wide as they are in the USSR, for example, Mikhailovsky, Fokin, Matveev and Galdikas. A special mention must be made of the young genius who is one of the finest choreographers in the Soviet 12

Union and who responsible for this performance - Boris Eifman. Incidently, the next and last two performances of this guest series eliminated the innovative section of the initial program and substituted frequently performed, standard pieces. The reason for this can only be conjectured, especially since at the performance which I attended, the troupe received thunderous standing ovations (something quite rare) after most of the selections. LH

SPECIAL REVIEW ESSAY

Yunona and Avos' This essay was written by Joseph Troncale, University of Richmond, right after he returned from an all-summer IREX exchange with the Soviet Union. We are grateful for his excellent review. Long before its premiere in Moscow last November, rumors of a forthcoming daring production of Andrei Voznesensky's Yunona and Avos' were abundant. In the States, while partying at Jackie Kennedy's on his last visit, the author told Susan Sontag that he was working on a play that he doubted would ever open. In the USSR, youth as far south as Sevastopol anxiously awaited the arrival of Russia's first rock opera in which their idol Aleksandr Abdulov was to play a significant role. The play opened at the Lenin Komsomol Theatre and was a smash hit. The sound track has been made and the record pressed for export (someday); however, according to people who had a hand in the recording, it will probably never be released for domestic distribution. (One of the songs does appear on a recent release of Voznesensky's verse set to music by Aleksei Rybnikov, Aleksandr Grodsky, and others. It is available in Beryozkas everywhere and, occasionally, on the streets of Moscow.) I was fortunate enough to see the play twice this summer, once as a guest of the poet and once as a guest of the administrator of the Lenin Komsomol Theatre. In mid-July and mid-August, the short run of Yunona and Avos' at the tailend of Moscow's theatre season was a welcome breath of fresh air in the sluggish wake of such"plays as Leonov's Untilovsk and Arbuzov's Cruel Games. The play opens with the appearance of the storyteller who ceremoniously releases a visually and audibly striking reserve of powerfully sensual creative energy. The intensity of this energy signals entry into a world of romantic fantasy that completely pervades the theatre atmosphere and possesses the audience until the final resonant notes of the music are sounded. From the performance's first moment, the audience is beckoned and pressed to enter actively into the world of Nikolai Petrovich Rezanov and the bittersweet tale of his love affair with Conchitta. Journeying through the maze of the play's now linear, now associative logic, the audience follows Rezanov, an official of the Russian American Trade Company to California in 1806. His mission is to set up trade with the Spanish provincial government of San Francisco. Once introduced to the provincial governor's daughter, Conchitta, Rezanov falls in love with her, seduces her, then abandons her to return to Russia. A strange combination of romantic and cold opportunist, Rezanov
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accomplishes his task and ignoring her pleas to marry her, he leaves the pregnant Conchitta to return to Russia. The "opera" is a romance from start to finish. All of the stock devices are present: a hero of humble origin, a journey to an exotic land, the seduction of an innocent lady, a duel to avenge the maiden's "stained honor," and a final tearful separation of the two lovers. The playbill describes the performance as a contemporary opera in two parts with words from Andrei Voznesensky's poem "Avos" and music by Aleksei Rybnikov. This description absolves the author for the romantic cliches used throughout the production. However, the work could be more accurately described as a rock opera strongly reminiscent in form of Jesus Christ Superstar, even to the point of the rock star poses taken by each central character while singing. M. A. Zaxarov's production is a successfully rousing spectacle and tour de force of well-integrated lighting, sound, chor.eography, and stage design, not to mention the true rock sound achieved by Rybnikov's music, a major breakthrough in itself for the Russians. (The music is performed by a talented and versatile group called "Rock-Atelier" under the direction of Kris Kel'mi.) The elevated set is raked to maintain the image of a ship's deck throughout the play. It is divided by a corridor that ostensibly leads below deck. A ship's hull hangs above the set for use in the arrival and departure scenes of Rezanov and his crew. Every inch of the set is used to give full play to the exuberance of all the performers. However, one does feel concern at times that the whole crew may soon fall through the plastic floor. Beneath the translucent floor, lights of various colors are positioned to accomodate the play's broad emotional spectrum. To transport his audience to the level of creative energy generated by the players, director Nikolai Karachentsov, calls upon a wide range of lighting techniques and visual effects that include strobe lights, smoke machines, mild explosives, and a wildly choreographed fire dance which, given the Soviet obsession with fire regulations in public buildings, is nothing short of miraculous. Although the general Soviet penchant for overamplification and excessive volume troubles Yunona and Avos' in places, Rybnikov's music, pervaded as it is by the romantic tone of the play, is nonetheless uplifting and even scintillating. So much so that one almost forgets where the play is being staged until one is greeted during the intermission by a painting opposite the amphitheatre entrance of Lenin addressing the Komsomol. After so many failed attempts in Soviet musical circles to create a genuine modern rock sound, Rybnikov's music is a welcome heart-warming assurance that, though by and large still deprived of the musical interaction necessary, the Russians can do it! The variety of the play's musical texture is also noteworthy. Rybnikov does not merely bombard his audience with rock, which, however, is by no means a hard dr iving rock sound; rather, he varies the fare with a fine mixture of music representing both the orthodox and the western religious traditions. The supple blend of degrees of rock music with religious overtones is surprisingly appealing and it effectively complements the various levels of Voznesensky's poetry which includes Orthodox prayers in Old Church Slavic as well as Catholic prayers in Latin. As a matter of fact, the combination in places of the cleverly staged religious music, prayers, and recurrent iconographic images of the madonna and child adds a rich, distinctly mystical quality to the play.

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The play also sparkles with a series of well choreographed scenes for individual characters as well as for the cast as an ensemble. Most notable among these scenes are the sailors' departure dance, the love scene between Rezanov and Conchitta, the duel between Rezanov and Fernando Lopez, Conchitta's former suitor, and the fire dance of the heretic. Particularly striking in its beauty is the love scene between Rezanov and Conchitta, the sudden simultaneous gyrations of the hull of Rezanov's ship notwithstanding. The two characters generate a warm erotic glow that captivates the audience and prepares it for the chill of the lovers' painful separation at the play's conclusion. After all is said, there remains one final observation that I feel compelled to make, hopefully without negating the generally positive tone of my comments. Russia remains virtually lost in a time gap. Yunona and Avos', though a marvelous play, does not escape the effects of this phenomenon completely unscathed. Its theme, a hopeful, naive trust in the power of love to bring the United States and the Soviet Union back together, is largely a throwback to the "love-in" productions popular in American theatres in the late sixties and early seventies. Sitting together on the edge of the raked set, the cast even joins hands at the end of the performance to sing a kind of "Age of Aquarius" finale. Although such ideals have not lost their appeal in the States, the hard realities obstructing their realization have relegated such unbounded idealism to a muted expression in our cultural life. The post-Vietnam era is rife with introspection and reflection upon our involvement in Vietnam and nuclear arms with no little sense of guilt and fear. And for Voznesensky to put on such a show while his country rides shotgun over martial law in Poland and undauntedly marauds through Afganistan while touting its "peace loving politics", one doubts the sincerity of the poet's final refrain, "AIIiluya to love, alliluya to love, alliluya!" A curious coincidence with the party line!

EDITOR'S NOTE
I find it necessary to contribute my "two cents" to the discussion of this production since I also had the good fortune of seeing it last summer. It may be puzzling to the readers that this review is fundamentally opposite the review of the same production printed in the last issue of NEWSNOTES. Yet, both reviews were written by highly respected and knowledgeable critics of Russian performing arts. Of course, some of this is attributable to the simple fact that tastes do differ. But there are other explanations also. I first discussed this production with an important personage who is deeply involved with theatre in Moscow. He strongly attacked the production as trash and worth seeing. I then found out that this person had himself not seen the production and had no intention of doing so. After a number of additional discussion with others it became clear to me that the Moscow theatre population was divided into two camps: those who liked the production, i.e., the "clods;" and those who hated it, i.e. those with refined tastes and high aesthetic sensibilities. (Incidentally, I admit to being one of the "clods.") As one Soviet playwright explained to me, the middle-aged and older Soviet population have been brought up on the notion that all art forms must be didactic and must bear some deep, philosophical message which must somehow conform with eternal truths. Any production which bases most of its emphasis on sensory perception cannot be worthy of acclaim. Of course, most of the younger Soviet generation does not accept these values, in fact protests against them, and
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therefore thirsts for the visual and aural effects of productions such as Yunona and Avos'. Incidently, I am convinced that this production would be extremely successful if it were staged in the United States. LH

BRINGING DEAD SOULS TO LIFE

The following are program notes written by Professor Laurence Senelik, Department of Drama, Tufts University to introduce his production of the dramatization of Nikolai Gogol's novel Dead Souls. There is nothing new about dramatizing fiction. Shakespeare and his colleagues regularly pillaged the novellas of Italian storytellers for plots and love intrigues; and no sooner had the novel become an establish literary genre, than hacks began to co-opt the characters of Scott, Ainsworth, and Bulwer as their own property, to do with as they pleased. Dickens, in particular, was laid claim to; throughout his career he protested in vain against the distortions his creations had to undergo. Dramatists seldom waited for his serial installments to come to an end, but took the most colorful scenes from what was already available and slapped on their own rough-and-ready finales. At one such performance of a botched Oliver Twist, an agonized Dickens fell to the floor of his theater box and refused to get up again until the curtain descended. Adapting a novel full of incident and personages, whose action is spread over a wide panorama of time and space, and whose narrator voices the unarticulated thought of the characters, to fit a couple of hours' traffic on the stage can be a Procrustean exercise. It is, in Lewis Carroll's words, madly to squeeze a right-hand foot into a left-hand shoe. The very elements that make a novel outstanding have to be lopped off, obliterated, transmuted, to suit the exigencies of performance and audience receptivity. This was especially true when novels were tailored to the tight act-and-scene divisions of the well-made play: Helen Jerome's 1930's adaptations of Jane Austen and Trollope are good examples of that practice. A subtle study of social nuance becomes a costume pageant with manners merely- stage business to dress out a love story. More recently, directors, turning to prose fiction for inspiration, have sought to preserve more of the essence of the novel by experimental means. In its adaptations of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, the Moscow Art Theatre leaned heavily on a narrator to tie together the disjointed episodes, presented as tableaux vivants; Erwin Piscator, on the other hand, reduced War and Peace to a handful of representative characters and played out the battle of Borodino with wooden soldiers on a groundcloth map. Barrault turned Rabelais' Gargantua into a pretext for theater games and anarchic high-jinks. The Glasgow Citizens' Theatre used a cast of forty and a kaleidoscopic technique to capture the essence of Proust in an adaptation wittily called A Waste of Time. And Dickens has, of course, been newly mined: the Royal ShakespeareCompany's Nicholas Nickleby was a stunning popularization of Brechtian techniques, with actors changing character before the audience's eyes and settings merely suggested. The greater perceptual sophistication of the modern audience, its apprehension of structural subtleties trained by film-going, allows these "theatrical" devices to encapsulate the bulk of a massive novel over the course of two evenings. Even more interesting is the
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Theatre du Soleil David Copperfield, in which the doubling and tripling of characters, the interlacing o themes by cross-cutting, and the telescoping of whole sequences in a telling line of action, constitute a penetrating critique of the book, as insightful as anything to be read in the PMLA and a good deal more entertaining. Gogol, because of his vivid character-drawing and funny dialogue, has also been a resource for playwrights. But his major work, the novel Dead Souls, remains elusive and slippery. The Moscow Art Theatre version, prepared under duress by Mikhail Bulgakov in 1932 and recently Americanized by Tom Cole for the Milwaukee Rep, stuck to the dialogue passages, shuffling the scenes in a new order, and tacked on an ending out of keeping with Gogol's intentions. The French dramatization by Arthur Adamov, staged by Roger Planchon in 1958, followed the same course, but, by using animated filmstrips and placing emphasis on the peasants, turned it into a social protest cartoon, more Daumier than Gogol. What these earlier dramatizations omit is an important component of the novel, the author-as-performer. Gogo! intended Dead Souls to be the first part of a trilogy, the Inferno of a Divine Comedy, in which the ghastliness and squalor of the Russian soul would be presented, to be redeemed and reclaimed to human worth and dignity in the later sections. He never completed his Purgatorio and Paradiso; but in the extant novel he, as narrator, signals this potential development. His asides, reflections, second thoughts alert the reader to the deeper significance of the comic details. Gogol's so-called "lyrical digressions" and extended metaphors present an idealized world of conventional sentiment and childlike innocence, to contrast with the sordid banality of the world in which his hero Chichikov moves. Without Gogol, the novel's action loses much of its resonance and meaning. With Gogo!, another dimension is added to the satiric caricatures. For Dead Souls is neither a socially responsible attack on serfdom nor a realistic portrayal of Russian life; it is a virtuoso display of creativity by a master of improvisation. Gogol imbues his characters with his own ability to create, enabling them to interrupt him, tell their own anecdotes, and impute identities to other characters. The work is a verbal construct, and when the details and linguistic trickery are pared away, the magician's sleeve is shown to be empty. Chichikov is a great blank, who takes on the coloration of his interlocutors. In the present dramatization we have tried to preserve the sense of "performance," of the author inventing before your very eyes characters and situations which may be vivid, but which possess only as much substantiality as the imagination can bestow on them. --Laurence Sene Iick

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