NEWSNOTES on

SoviET ond EAsT EuROPEAN DRAMA end THEATRE

Volume 2, Number l March, 1982

EDITOR'S NOTE

This issue marks the beginning of our second year of publication. It is my pleasure to report to you that we have grown to more than five hundred institutional and individual subscribers and, most assuredly, considerably more readers who share the NEWSNOTES with subscribers. It appears that we are meeting a long-neglected need in a discipline which is considerably more popular than we imagined. It is therefore doubly gratifying that the Summer Institute will be repeated in 1982 (see page 2).

I would like to thank many of our readers for their encouragingly complim_entary letters. Please do let us know what you would like to see ir. this publication. Of course this will require your contributions of material, e.g., reviews, bibliographic and instructional materials, and short articles of special interest. It is understandable that Soviet theatre and drama will continue its tendency to overshadow material from other Eastern European nations. It is therefore to be hoped that more of you will submit items of interest to our readers concerning Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Rumania and Bulgaria. We wish you a most productive year.

NEWSNOTES is a publication of the Institute for Contemporary Eastern European Drama and Theatre under the auspices of the Center for Advanced Study in Theatre Arts with support from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Graduate School and the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures of George ~ason University. The Institute Office is Room 801, City University Graduate Center 33 West 42nd Street, New York, NY 10036. All subscription requests (no charge) and submissions should be addressed to the Editor of NEWSNOTES: Leo Hecht, Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA 22030.

1 CITY UNIVERSITY GRADUATE SCHOOL ANNOUNCES 1982 HUMANITIES INSTITUTE ON CONTEMPORARY EASTERN EUROPEAN THEATRE

The Center for Advanced Study in Theat re Arts of the Graduate School and University Center of the City University of New York has received a second National Endowment for the Humanities grant to repeat its six-week Humanities Inst itute on "Contemporary Eastern European Drama and Theatre: Poland and the ," from June 13 to July 24, 1982, in New York City. Applications for participation are now being invited.

The Institute, which was held for the first time in the summer of 1980, will explore new ways of integrating the study of Polish and Soviet dramatic literature into American university curricula by developing innovative cross-disciplinary programs incorporating the teaching of foreign languages, drama and theatre.

Twenty college and university teachers of Slavic languages. and literature, comparative literature, drama or theatre arts, and area studies in the social sciences will be chosen to participate in the Institute which will be held at the City University Graduate Center, 33 West 42 Street in Manhattan. As part of the Institute's program, each participant will prepare a new course incorporating the study of Polish and/or Soviet drama and theatre to be taught at his or her own institution in 1982-83.

The success of the first Institute indicated a continued need to provide opportunities to study further the historical and cultural roots, content, structure and techniques of Eastern European and Soviet dramatic literature and theatre. Given the general inaccessibility of information from this region, knowledge about its drama and theatre tends to be severely limited and out-of-date. Efforts to study the genre on American college and university campuses have been further limited by a lack of formal training among faculties in these areas. Yet, despite these limitations, there col}tinues to be a remarkable strong--and growing-• interest in this field.

The Institute will feature morning seminars devoted to the study of contemporary Polish and Soviet drama and a comparative analysis of the two so that common features can be identified and unique problems isolated. Afternoon sessions will focus on the theatre in relation to the distinctive cultural traditions of these two countries. The program will emphasize how the dramatic text comes to life in Polish and Soviet theatres and how the practices and traditions of Ea~tern European theatre shape its dramaturgy.

Institute faculty will include: William Kuhlke, Professor of Speech and Drama/Slavic and Soviet Area, University of Kansas; Boleslaw Taborski, theatre critic, translator and a recognized authority on Polish drama; Kazimierz . Braun, Artistic Director and General Manager of Teatr Wsp&czesny, Wroclaw, Poland and Professor of Theatre at Wroclaw University and t he National School of Drama in Cracow; and Victor Rozov, playwright and Professor of Drama at the Gorky Institute of Literature, .

Deadline for applications is March 15. Candidates must have a full-time teaching appointment at a university or college in the U.S. Preference will be

2 given to those candidates who have not attended an NEH-funded Humanities Institute, Summer Seminar or Residential Seminar within the last two years. A stipend of $2,500 to cover living expenses and round trip transportation to New York will be provided.

For further information, contact Alma H. Law, Institute Director, CASTA, Room 801, City University Graduate Center, 33 West 42nd Street, New York, NY 10036. Telephone: (212) 790-4249 or 4464.

RUSSIAN CONSTRUCTIVIST THEATER AT GUGGENHEIM

In conjunction with the exhibition Art of the Avant-Garde in : Selections from the George Costakis Collection, The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum presented four performances of The Magnanimous Cuckold: An Evening of Russian Constructivist Theater, December 10-13, 1981. Selected scenes from this farce by Belgian playwright Fernand Crommelynck have been recreated from Vsevolod Meyerhold's 1922 Moscow production and were performed on the Guggenheim's reconstruction of the original Constructivist stage set designed by Liubov Popova. Directed by Alma H. Law and Mel Gordon, the program also included introductory comments about the play, a demonstration of Meyerhold's Biomechanical exercises and reminiscences by actress Stella Duff-Ogonkova, who appeared in the 1922 production.

Meyerhold's staging of the play is regarded as one of the seminal productions of 20th-century avant-garde theatre, and the Guggenheim presentation was based on his unpublished notes and prompt-book for that production. Popova's set marked a milestone in the history of Russian theatre and profoundly influenced stage design. Popova also designed the simple, loose-fitting blue "work uniforms" worn by the performers, recreated for the Guggenheim production by art historian and designer Erika Hofmann-Koenige.

The Evening of Russian Constructive Theatre will also be performed at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, on March 25-28. Information about the performances can be obtained by calling (713) 526-1361 or by writing to the museum, 1001 Bissonnet, Houston, Texas 77265.

SUMMER RESEARCH LABORATORY AT ILLINOIS

The Russian and East European Center at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign will offer in 1982 its tenth annual Summer Research Laboratory on Russia and Eastern Europe. The program is designed for scholars who wish to use the resources of the University Library. Graduate students doing dissertation research are also eligible. Associateships will be available for any period of time between June 14 and August 7. In addition to full library privileges, Associates will be offered free dormitory lodging for up to fourteen days, and are welcome to stay longer at their own expense, at a cost of about $45 per week.

In addition to carrying on independent study, Associates will have the opportunity to meet with their coJleagues for the presentation of papers and the discussion of current research.

3 Application forms and additional information are available from Dianne Merridith, Russian and East European Center, University of Illinois, 1208 West California, Urbana, Illinois 61801. REPORT

The following report was submitted by one of our subscribers, Helen McMahon. We are grateful to her for sharing her experiences with us. In addition she informed me that, during her stay in Poznan, Poland, she became friends with the cabaret group "Tey," superb and extremely popular performers of satirical drama. If anyone is interested in getting in touch with Ms. McMahon, you may contact her as 8355 Alvord Street, McLean, VA 22102.

"My year, September 1980 - June 1981, of teaching English and American drama at the English Language Institute of the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan encompassed activities beyond the classroom exercises. I had hoped to produce, through the efforts of my student drama club, an evening of theatre at the end of the semester. So, to utilize all fifteen of my interested students, mostly freshmen and sophomores who have a lighter academic load than upper• level students, I chose to work on scenes from three different plays.

"My premise for undertaking this project was based on the belief that drama affords a student of English as a Second Language a dynamic vehicle to better his command of the language. Plus, an introduction to American works and acting techniques is beneficient in itself.

"After Christmas break, lines were to be memorized and the nitty-gritty of putting the scenes together began. However, the political events taking place in Poland at that time were eventually to involve the students' world. The students held a three-day strike; their demands were very well deserved. More importantly, the formation of the student Solidarity Union took time away from the drama club. THe club disbanded, students were hard-pressed for time, with most of it being spent waiting in lines. A collection of American plays rests on the shelves of the institute's library; it is to be hoped that soon the students' Poland will be at peace and the dust on the books will be gone forever."

NEW BOOKS

Professor Larissa Onyshkevych, formerly at Rutgers, has received a grant from the Shevchenko Scientific Society of New York for completing the editing of a publication preparation for an Anthology of Modern Ukrainian Drama (in English translation). The translations were accomplished by several persons. The list of plays includes those by Lesya Ukrayinka, Mykola Kulish, Volodymyr Kolomiyets, Eaghor Kostetzky and Bohdan Boychuk. For further information, please contact Professor Onyshkevych at the Institute for Advanced Study (310 Olden), Princeton, NJ 08540. *** The University of Texas Press has just published.Russian Dramatic Theory from Pushkin t o the Symbolists, edited and translated by Laurence Senelick. This anthology includes pieces by Pushkin, Gogel, Belinsky, Sleptsov, Chekhov, Be1y,

4 Bryusov, Blok, Andreev, Ivanov, Evreinov, Meyerhold and Annensky, many of them appearing in English for the first time. There is a lengthy introduction on the history of dramatic criticism and theory in Russian, and copious annotation. *** Michigan Slavic Publications, The University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109, has published Russian Formalist Film Theory by Herbert Eagle. It contains translated articles by Eikhenbaum, Jakobsen, Kazanskii, Mikhailov, Moskvin, Piotrovskii and Tynianov. ISBN 0-930042-42-5. $7 .00. *** The Twayne Theatrical Arts Series has published Grigori Kozintsev by Barbara Learning, ISBN 0-8057-9276-7. This is the first book in English on one of the greatest directors of the Soviet cinema and additionally affords the reader an insight into the evolution of Soviet film through several decades. FILM REPORT

The Soviets have recently completed their own version of a segment of the life of John Reed. It is called Insurgent Mexico and is based on Reed's reportage of the Pancho Villa revolution of 1915. It was directed by Sergei Bondarchuk who may be remembered for his six-hour version of War and Peace. The Insurgent Mexico film is 2 1/2 hours long and is a Soviet-Mexican-Italian co-production. It is due to open in Rome in early March, 1982.

Production is also drawing to a close on another John Reed film, also directed by Bondarchuk. It is titled Ten Days That Shook the World, after Reed's book, and will be approximately three hours long. It should be quite impressive, considering that 10,000 Soviet soldiers are being used as extras.

Both films star Franco Nero as Reed, Sydne Rome as Louise Bryant and Ursula Andress as Mabel Dodge, the American heiress with whom Reed had a stormy love affair before he met Bryant. The principal language of both films in English. Once the second film is completed, Bondarchuk will edit them together into a seven- or eight-hour television mini-series called Red Bells which will be syndicated world-wide. There will even be several nude scenes which will be edited out for Soviet audiences. EVENTS IN POLAND

The following letter written by 5rawomir Mrozek appeared in the International Herald Tribune on December 18, 1981:

What It Was Not

Everyone knows what happened in Poland during the night of December 12 to 13, 1981. But not everyone seems to realize that it was neither "the declaration of a state of emergency in compliance with the Polish Constitution," as the official version put it, nor a coup d'etat or military putsch, as critics of the official version put it. What happened that night was not exceptional.

5 The notion "exceptional" implies that what went before had been normal. But nothing has been normal in Poland since 1939--from the German occupation through the Soviet imposition by force of a Communist system with the acquiescence of the Western powers. What is happening in Poland now is in perfect continuity. It is not exceptional, although it is abnormal. The current anomaly is in its 36th year.

The novelty is that what had been going on continuously under cover of lies-the lie, for example, about the existence of a parliamentary system in Poland--carries on now in naked truth. That is, as sheer violence. We are back to the point of departure, a full circle in 36 years.

It is not true that the Polish Army is a third force between the Communist Party and Solidarity. Solidarity represents the population, the society, the nation. Simply, the party became too weak to continue its dictatorship over the nation without calling in the army.

Announcing the arrests of former party leaders, long since discarded, at the same time that Solidarity leaders were arrested was a master stroke of propaganda, as well as of garbage recycling. Only if Gen. Jaruzelski arrests himself as the leader of the party will the notion that the army is a third force be credible.

S.tawomir Mrozek Paris. SOVIET FILMS

The following Soviet films are presently available for rental. Those interested should directly contact Corinth Films, 4-10 East 62nd Street, New York, NY 10021. Telephone: (212) 421-4770.

Borodin: Prince Igor (110 minutes) 1972 Anton Chekhov: An Unfinished Piece for a Mechanical Piano (100 minutes) 1977 Belated Flowers (100 minutes) 1972 The Seagull (99 minutes) 1971 The Shooting Party (105 minutes) 1977 Uncle Vanya Fyodor Dostoyevsky: Crime and Punishment (220 minutes) 1970 (154- minutes) 1972 The Idiot ( 120 minutes) 19 58 The Gambler (95 minutes) 1978 White Nights (95 minutes) 1959 Nicolai Gogol: The Overcoat (78 minutes) 1960 Khachatur ian: Pavlova in the World's Youngest BaJlet (70 minutes) 1970 Spartacus (95 minutes) 1977 Nana Mchelidze: First Swallow (80 minutes) 1976

6 Mussorgsky: Boris Godunov (105 minutes) 1954 Jamilya (78 minutes) 1970 (94 minutes) 1957 The Twelve Chairs (160 minutes) 1971 White Bird With a Black Spot (102 minutes) 1972 Ballet Films With Maya Plisetskaya: Anna Karenina (81 minutes) 1974 Plisetskaya Dances (70 minutes) 1964 Stars of the Russian Ballet (80 minutes) 1953 The Little Humpbacked Horse (85 minutes) 1961 Prokofiev: Romeo and Juliet (95 minutes) 1954 Shakespeare: King Lear (140 minutes) 1971 Andrei Tarkovsky: Andrei Rublev (185 minutes) 1966 Tchaikovsky: Eugene Onegin (106 minutes) 1958 Sleeping Beauty (92 minutes) 1964 Swan Lake (90 minutes) 1968 The ueen of S ades (102 minutes) 1960· Leo Tolstoy: Father Sergius 99 minutes) 1977 Ivan Turgenev: A Nest of Gentry (106 minutes) 1970 Asya (97 minutes) 1977 The Blackamoor of Peter the Great 1977 The Youth of Peter - Part I 041 minutes) 1981 The Youth of Peter - Part II (137 minutes) 1981 CULTURAL NEWS FROM BULGARIA

Those interested in Bulgaria may want to subscribe to the News Bulletins of the Bulgarian Telegraph Agency free of charge by writing BT A, Sofia, 49 Boulevard Lenin. The following is an article from a recent issue. The English is that of the original:

Club of the Artistic Intelligentsia

The organization of the creative activity of youth is an original Bulgarian experience. Many guests from foreign countries come here to become acquainted with this experience.

All the creative Unions in Bulgaria have youth sections attached to them. Thus, for instance, the Union of Bulgarian Writers has a Studio of the Young Writer, the Union of Bulgarian Composers - a Studio of the Young Composer, etc. Every Studio has a statute of its own. Membership of a Studio requires that one should have a work appreciated by the public and the critics. ·

These studios ensure public performances for their members. At the same time they help young people to acquire greater mastership, provide them with aid and contracts, offer them courses for improving their education, and for studying foreign languages, and ensure travel in foreign countries and holidays in special bases for them.

Besides being members of their creative unions young people can become members of the county clubs of the young artistic and creative intelligentsia. All the county centres have such dubs. They are governed by the National Club of

7 Young Artistic and Creative Intelligentsia, chaired by Mr. Ivan Slavkov, Director General of the Bulgarian Television.

The Sofia Club of the Young Artistic and Creative Intelligentsia has a membership of 3,000 working in the capital. These are representatives of all kinds and genres of art. United in the Studios attached to the Creative Unions, young people are also united through membership of the Clubs of the Young Artistic and Creative Intelligentsia. The aim is for these young people not to become confined to their artistic ambitions alone, but to become better acquainted with each other and thus enlarge the sphere of their contacts. Thus some years ago the Chamber Stage of the Young Creator came into being and has since been staging performances once every month. On this Chamber Stage the young creators recite their latest works to audiences.

The Club of the Young Artistic and Creative Intelligentsia was set up ten years ago. The age limit in it is 35 years.

The Club also helps its members financially. It arranges contracts for them and ensures proper conditions for working, living, creating and holidaying. These young creators are employed by the respective state institutions, editorial offices, the radio and the television, the cinematography, the theatres, the state orchestra and the philharmonic orchestras. There they receive salaries in addition to the remuneration for their performances. The Club is a voluntary organization. It however does not duplicate the functions of the respective trade unions.

The Club of the Young Artistic and Creative Intelligentsia has the right to recommend young talents to the state departments for inclusion in international festivals, exhibitions, concerts, etc., and for state and other awards. REVIEW

Professor Joseph Troncale, Director, Russian Area Studies, University of Richmond, has kindly sent us the following review of Wajda's new film Man of Iron:

As one might suspect, ripples from the Solidarity movement in Poland did not have to travel very long or very far to reach the hearts of Polish filmmakers who have always poignantly and with penetrating immediacy conveyed their keen sense of the spiritual, social, and political dilemmas facing the Polish people. Imprisoned under the recently imposed martial law, Andrzej Wajda, the president of the Polish Filmmakers' Association, has been unequivocal in expressing the PFA's desire and need for liberalization in its field. Backed by Solidarity, the PFA has established its own group toward that end, the Committee to Save National Cinematography. Among its chief aims are to gain control of film distribution beyond the uncensored havens of Warsaw, Gdansk, and Cracow to audiences in theaters throughout the country and to have a greater say in financial and distribution decisions as well as artisic freedom in its own self-management. Evidence of the progress made was the Eighth Festival of Polish Feature Film held in Gdansk last September under the shadow of the nearby constitutional convention of Solidarity. Low-keyed compared to Cannes, the Festival was completely dominated by a sense of the newly won freedoms of the workers' movement. There were many politically pertinent films; some authored by

8 Solidarity itself, others on the Stalinist period by filmmakers still trying to end his grasp on them once and for all. Also screened were films that had been confiscated by the censors over the last decade. But clearly towering above them all was Wajda's film, Man of Iron.

His last film before being arrested in December, the 1981 Cannes Festival Grand Prix winner, Man of Iron is Wajda's rousing and compelling docudrama about the stirring growth of the flame of freedom in Poland during the last 12 years. The timely release of the film by United Artists in America undoubtedly contributes to the films overwhelming appeal among Americans. Through the life of a fictional hero, Maciek T omcyzk, the film chronicles the development of a unified workers' effort to establish free trade unions in Poland. The period covered is from 1968 to 1980, including the recent bargaining during which the significant gains of Solidarity were achieved.

We gain access to the movement's ideals and to the characters of the film through the reluctant efforts of a T.V. journalist (Mr. Winkiel), assigned by unsavory politicos to defame the ringleader (Maciek Tomcyzk) of the strike in Gdansk thereby weakening the movement's public support. Deeply indebted to the party, Mr. Winkiel is in a painful double bind; his frustration and futile writhing clearly convey a sense of the fundamental predicament of the media in Poland that gives rise to the people's general distrust of the media. His hatchet-job carefully planned and documented by the local police, Winkiel begins interviewing Tomcyzk's acquaintances for corroboration he knows he will not find. His investigation reveals, instead, Tomcy~k's almost saint-like character which develops after the death of his father, Mateusz Birkut, the fallen worker hero of the 1970 massacre, and inspires his fiancee (Agnieszka Hulewicz), his former college roommate, and, eventually, Winkiel himself.

Total involvement in the movement and belief in its ideals have a liberating effect on Wajda's heroes. Maciek and Agnieszka fearlessly pursue that freedom which knows no bounds. For such dedication and determination, naturally, the price is high. Imprisoned, blacklisted, and subjected to frequent party recriminations for their activities, Maciek and Agnieszka are forged into suitable vessels of iron to meet the demanding standards of the movement. Given Wajda's own deep dedication to the movement, his hagiographic depiction of Maciek and Agnieszka is not surprising. Nonetheless, they both remain human beings deeply sensitive to the vicissitudes not only of their own lives but also of the lives of those all around them. For example, Agnieszka's final commitment to Maciek's struggle and their uncertain future comes only after several heartrending scenes in which she is painfully wrenched from all the familiar secure moorings of an "inoffensive" life.

Against a stark backdrop of black and white actual footage of the movement's critical moments in 1970 and 1980, Wajda depicts the development of faith in the struggle in his central characters, thus neatly juxtaposing defeat and victory and the characters' journey between these two points. Wajda's characters come alive only when they become infected by the vitality of the movement. Their relationship to the movement determines their worth and the depth of their inner qualities. The ironclad rationale of this alignment is Wadja's own ironic reversal of Stalin's unequivocal "Those who are not with us are against us". Poetic justice has never tasted so sweet.

9 In the film's opening frames, the enchanting Maya Komarowska solemnly intones the gripping portentous words to the effect that entry into the world's secret garden of hope is forbidden to the Polish people. Thus, Wadja establishes the difficulties of the quest facing his promethean hero. His men of iron rise to the challenge. In the closing frames, however, Winkiel's taskmaster reappears to dampen the victory of Solidarity by telling him not to be lulled into a false sense of security; accords signed under duress are illegal. The men of iron must be vigilant! The film closes with a song that is presumably Solidarity's battlecry. Boldly declamatory and piercingly staccato, the song with its pounding beat leaves little doubt of the relentless resolve of the movement and the endless battle it will wage to achieve and secure its ideals. REVIEW

The following is a review of Chekhov on the Lawn submitted by Professor Jerome Katsell, Department of Germanic and Slavic, SUNY Stony Brook, NY 11794:

The stage of Theatre East, an Off Broadway theatrical company located at 211 East 60th Street in New York City, is dark, enclosed in three-quarter round by some seventy-five chairs occupied by the audience. As the lights come up, there he is: long buttoned-up frock coat, brushed-back hair, high turned-back collar, loose trousers, pince-nez, moustache and scruffy goatie, slender, unassuming: Chekhov. The time is April 17, 1900. We are on the lawn of Chekhov's villa in Yalta. We, the audience of this one-man show admirably petformed by William Shust and written and directed by Elihu Winer, are, in fact, the actors and directors of the touring the Crimea and come to perform for and visit with our beloved playwright Anton Pavlovich.

Shust-Chekhov is set off by a dark backdrop and a few stage properties. The odd bench and suspended birch branch, a portable table with manuscripts upon it to which the actor refers from time to time complete the scene on Chekhov's lawn. Shust looks out into the audience, perhaps at you or me, and begins: "Gorky, stop arguing and sit down." He continues, pacing and gesturing and occasionally placing or replacing his pince nez, in the course of two forty-five minute acts, to relate incidents from Chekhov's life, retail ironic Chekhovian anecdotes based on correspondence and the writer's notebooks, and retell a series of Chekhov stories that illustrate the writer's views and sense of life.

All this is well and good, and Shust adroitly accomplishes a tour de force of Chekhovian gesture and mood. The personal reminiscences, insights, and sketches are brief, telling and keep the audience's unflagging interest. In each instance, as with the portrayal of "Oysters," "Grief," "Death of a Government Clerk," and the tender and sad Chekhovian jest "Shutochka," Shust is able to portray Chekhov recounting ~is fictional characters in a manner so convincing as to allow us to suspend our disbelief.

Yet it is clear that no attempt was made by writer-director Winer to present a full dramatic portrait of Chekhov. The stories featured in Chekhov on the Lawn all fall in the early period of his writing career. They do present Chekhov's sensitivity, compassion, comic gift and light touch. They do not, however, begin to touch on the mastery of psychological portraiture, textured

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