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"Yes!" is the categorical answer of Zygmund Bauman, the world-renowned Polish philosopher and sociologist whose writings inspired the creative team of Wroclaw's biannual 'Dialog' theatre festival of likewise fame to choose the topic of their 6th edition (7th to 15th October 2011): The Uncommon. In his brilliant essay on the function of culture in times of liquid modernity Bauman concludes that the superficial tolerance of otherness, so prevalent today, "is not enough"..., that it becomes a tool that makes it easier for us to hide our sense of superiority, our aversion to the other eagerly concealed under the cloak of political correctness" - writes Krystyna Meissner, the Festival Director, in her opening address. "Bauman warns - she continues, - that indifference to diversity and elimination of the subject of otherness from the public discourse - a phenomenon increasingly visible among intellectuals, artists and politicians - means that our culture loses what should matter most to it: interest in and sensitivity to uncommonness. Tolerance ossifies stereotypes, uncommonness incapacitates them."
Rarely have theatre forums of such scale been so profoundly influenced by philosophy and sociology; their impact being usually "reserved" territory for singular theatre-makers and companies. Dialog was not only inspired by Prof. Bauman, but was also literally kick-started by a passionate lecture of his on the many vices of our constantly logged-on and haste-obsessed time. "The life of the young today - he said - passes in a state of emergency... And to be under pressure is the biggest ailment. It causes more losses than anything else... The network between people is being eroded; relations are getting shallow, temporary, transient... Situations lose their third dimension. Offline world is becoming difficult." Slowing down - that is, to him, the two-word answer to all possible questions and respectively problems. For, very obviously, only then we would have time for profound thinking and contemplation.
Other famous Polish thinkers (philosophers, writers, journalists, professors) took the torch from Prof. Bauman during the 8 day discussions for which the 15 shows in the program were grouped topically. Their very titles being really telling: from On (Not) Seeing and On (Not) Saying to On (Not) Being Able, Free and Accessible.
The intertwining of lectures, philosophy and theatre turned out to be also the underlying creative method for one of the best Polish shows: THE BROTHERS KARAMAZOV of Provizorium Theatre (Lublin). For a whole year Prof. Cezary Wodzinski - a specialist of Russia and Dostoyevsky, author of Russia or on Philosophizing with an Axe and participant in the aforementioned discussions - lectured the cast and participated in the readings of parts of the novel especially translated by him. The result: "Our interpretation of the main motifs has been influenced by his understanding of Russia," according to Janusz Oprynski, director of the show and author of the adaptation.
This show was, actually, a good example of how the hastened speed of our life doesn't necessarily rule out contemplation on the biggest philosophical issues, when time and choice (how to spend it) are well organized - what directing is, to a great extent, all about. Not by chance, in 2010, Oprynski won an award of the Minister of Culture for uncommon (!) services to Polish culture.
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 | THE BROTHERS KARAMAZOV
Compressed, yet philosophy-rich
Yes, in the beginning this show looks like a compressed file. Literally! Inside a cube-like space, made out of fine, black and transparent net - approximately the height of a standard room, the width of a large door and narrow less than a meter - are all the characters and objects. Only Aliosha roams the otherwise empty stage, while a whispered "I love you!" fills in the air. The music following it (by Marek Dyjak) is of those theatre soundtracks which we want to hear again and again: dynamic, heavy of mysterious past and full of premonition of a dramatic future. It accompanies the frenetic unfolding of the life compressed inside the cube. Again, literally, at first: the net sides fall aside and, on a small turn-around stage floor, form a space with a center and 8 "premises" in-between 9 transparent "walls". It's there where the main characters arrange in the same, as if spurring them, rhythm the objects into the "sets" of their life. And when everything is ready, it looks like it has been by mere magic that all these people and things have been able to fit inside that cube! Then, again as if by magic, the past and the present take turns, happen simultaneously, life racing head over heels ahead - all this being made possible technically by the transparent walls, so that events could be retold by a character in one premise, while in the next one they, or parts of them, transpire in real time. And these "illustrations" are not cumbersome because they, as everything else on stage, are not fully naturalistic and are the result of a very precise selection done by the director for his montage of the novel.
Also, the frenetic rhythm of what happens with the characters' bodies and their everyday life is skillfully balanced with the events taking place in, or between, their souls. Because the main chunk of Dostoyevsky's philosophy is in this show and, when the characters speak it out loud, their bodies may still be running - for instance, the actors themselves may, at the same time, be moving the round platform at the background of a speeding old-train's roar and at one point the speed is so breathtaking that they are nearly flying off on a fast cadence - yet, when these words are pronounced, it's as if time stops and the eternal questions about God, good and evil, love and violence resound and reverberate deep within us. This is a result of the director's (and his whole team's, of course) flair for finding the right counterpoint, his (their) skill for finding the best way to offset things, i.e. to chose not only the right scenes out of which to create the montage but also the best tempo for doing it.
It's not always that the rhythm of the material world (bodies and objects) is faster than the current of thoughts which we hear. It could be vice versa. Or they could coincide, like in the scene between Aljiosha and Grushenka, when it's the soul rather than the body that turns out to be seduced. Or the thoughts could be already uttered and then the bodies follow them on slow motion, like in the love scene between Dmitrii and Grushenka, reminiscent a lot of the nearly text-less, long and color-offset scenes of Nekrosius: she, clad in red, throws herself into his embrace, running to and from him, jumping on him, like a child, and then again and again.
So, while we turn the pages of this Polish Brothers Karamazov (and the show is really a page-turner!), one is not exhausted, despite the 160 minutes length without an interval, but rather enriched and reminded of the big Invisible, outside and within us, of which Dostoyevsky wanted to make us think. "It's a real phenomenon - writes Oprynski - that the questions posed by the Russians at the time ... the most famous metaphysical dialogues in today's world ... became questions of successive generations of intellectuals all over the world. In a way, we'd like to wake up the Brothers Karamazov, so that they would force us to discover our spirituality." And this show really does manage to do so.
Again not based on plays were the two other favorite Festival shows of mine, both coming from the Balkan region. Both of mixed origin - Romanian-Hungarian and Slovenian-Croatian - they had a lot more in common. Created by directors of the same age (born in mid 1970s) and a team of actors, who have together come up with the final texts, based on true testimonies and stories about personal and historical events, these shows at first sight didn't talk directly about the same Dostoyevsky issues; yet, they both deal exactly with them, only without the privilege of the long time distance and of the history being filtrated through, and into, one single personal story. This made the shows have the impact of a very topical political theatre; naturally, the one coming from the ex-Yugoslavian countries being more overt, even shocking sample of that type of theatre.
20/20
or Glimpses at the (Never) Ending Love-Hate Balkan Story
Although the show has a concrete event as its premise and spring-board - the ethnic riots that broke on March 19th and 20th 1990, in the half-Romanian, half-Hungarian town of Targu-Mares - its main focus is rather the general feeling of fear from "thy neighbors", when they happen to be other than us, an issue still so painfully topical in the 21st century. The first scene is an encapsulation of fear itself. The 10 actors and actresses are literally trapped in a square space around 2 meters under the level of the audience. And the feeling of even further depth comes from the 4 screens that rise behind each side of audience seats. The actors, sitting in the beginning on chairs in a near circle, start timidly to cast glances up at us, then, still sitting there, they turn apprehensively around, their worried eyes quickly scanning us, while their bodies bend down, like animals who have seen the hunters surround them; then they get up and slowly form a circle, back to back, like the last way to shelter themselves from the imminent menace. And they start in whisper and in haste to agree on what they'd say and do in case the dangerous attackers they are to come across speak Romanian or Hungarian.
110 minutes later the show finishes with a scene charged with the opposite feeling: a hilariously funny survival guide (visual and linguistic) for visiting areas inhabited by hostile people. One of the options being offered is to speak foreign languages, for instance French, particularly efficient for women, since they could add a seductive tone to it.
And this is not the only funny point. Many times in-between these two scenes, the show provokes explosions of laughter, even when characters are very serious or still apprehensive. And this is one of its achievements: to make us feel how preposterous our behavior could be in situations, when we fear other human beings only because they are different.
The show is in fact a collage of scenes based on documentary texts (interviews and stories) which are either retold, replayed or enacted by 5 Romanian and 5 Hungarian actors who themselves gathered them. The final text is signed by the director Gianina Carbunariu, who invited them to work on the project at the Studio Yorick Theatre. According to the program, the actors in turn "invited the whole city to join them in the creative process and they met and talked with over 50 individuals who shared memories of those days."
Both the impeccable acting and the very fine and precise directing and editing of the text are imbued with one unifying and important quality: down-to-earth and very genuine human warmth. Therefore, although fully declaration-free, 20/20 exudes an immensely compelling love for the ordinary human being.
No less compelling of the same matter but far more memorable as a final result is the production of the Slovenian Youth Theatre, directed by the Croatian star director Oliver Frljic
DAMNED BY THE TRAITOR OF HIS HOMELAND!
Or Occupy Theatre!
It's one of these increasingly rarer shows which make critics forgive and forget weeks of going to faceless theatre. It's reminiscent of other great works of art, yet it's undoubtedly original and unique.
The show starts with a scene as if taken out of the Golden Palm-winning film Underground: the stage floor is strewn with dead bodies with brass-band musical instruments in their hands. Shortly afterwards the air in the instruments start moving and not before long we understand that it's not the wind blowing in them. The sounds get stronger and stronger, they intertwine in a melody and with the soaring music the dead too rise up. Throughout the show these same people will be repeatedly killed and would rise up again and again. And this is not merely a part of the patch-work type of a plot or an excellent exploitation of the conditional nature of theatre in principle; nor is it only a display of the vintage Balkan vitality known from all works of the same Kosturitsa-Bregovich team and so well summed up in the line "Even in the dead car we are alive!" (Arizona Dream).
The show does brim with the same vitality, despite its first-glance subject matter, but these multiple resurrections are primarily a statement: concrete and very topical about today's special ease of killing people en mass, about the disposability of human beings, about hatred towards the others. The essence of this statement is brought forward not only indirectly through this hyperbolic grotesque, but also in a very direct way several times during the show. Because it's also a straight-forward political theatre, reminiscent of Arpad Schilling's Black Land and his determination to shake us out of our complacency - or mind-blindness! - be it at the expense of shocking us via improper language, frontal nudity or simply by saying the inconveniently naked truth.
Here are two scenes, exemplary of that style. The actors, fully or partially undressed, stand in a line en face of us and fulminate against all types of different people (nationality, race, gender, sex orientation wise, including the audience itself). Then the decibels of the vulgar curses all of a sudden turn down to a whisper, the whisper gradually gathers momentum and, to our surprise, becomes a menace-charged recital in one voice, like coming out of soldiers ranks: "Istria is ours!" (Istria obviously being Slovenia) turns out to be what they say. The other scene is figuratively and literally show-stopping: one of the actors rises up from the newly killed dead and, in the same matter-of-factly manner, informs us that at this moment he's supposed to start insulting the Slovenian audience; since, though, it'd be irrelevant now - we are in another country, after all - he'd skip it; then, all of a sudden, he makes a U-turn and ferociously turns on at the local audience: "You want traditional theatre, a fable? No, fucking pussies! You'll stay here for 4 hours and no one's leaving until you start thinking!" And, yes, despite its only 70 minutes duration, this show does make us think. It, so to speak, manages to jump over the ramp and occupy the theatre and makes us too, along with its creative team, profoundly indignant.
However, again, it's not simply a piece of political-cabaret like theatre. It's much more than that. Because it dares to have a palpably poetical touch too, it's courageous enough to enter into the deep waters of throat-grabbing emotions. In this regard, there's something in its mood and its depth that's reminiscent of another great film, the Oscar-winning No Man's Land. The same type of heart-rending authentic Balkan folk music resounds and manages to transport the show into another genre - that of real human drama - giving it a special third dimension. And this third dimension is reaffirmed and deepened by the personal touch of the text spoken by the actors, when they don't swear. Especially moving is the final scene, which starts with a song ("I won't go against my brother"), sang by a tearful actress - by the end of the song the audience is riveted to the chairs. Yet, it turns out that the actress may have cried because she has been reluctant to sing the song, due to a Serbian connection in its history, and has actually wanted to leave the show. What follows is a passionate discussion on responsibility - artistic and human, on a small and big scale.
The show ends abruptly - the feeling is that the discussion hasn't finished - but this is its only shortcoming. Otherwise, there's a startlingly sharp tempo in it - things happen with the immediacy of a net chat - and the montage of the scenes is perfect. In brief, the show definitely speaks the language of modern days. But in this very language it talks about eternal matters, like life and death and basic human relations. This rare combination is achieved due to the perfect ensemble work of the cast and the unique talent of Oliver Frljic. He knows both how to shock you to the point that you jump back in your seat and move you to tears - both for the sake of humanity at that! And he demands that we start doing something for that very sake. Urgently! He knows how to strip issues to their essence and makes no bones about showing the direct connection between seemingly negligible politics and human drama and even tragedy. That's exactly why he manages to put grotesque hyperbole and true-to-life dramatic reality in one bowl, and make it not fall apart. Or maybe we ourselves have turned our lives into this impossible mixture - or have allowed them to be turned into it - and Frljic wants to scream this in our face and make us change that preposterous status-quo?!
The Festival featured also some famous names, like Alan Platel, Krystian Lupa, Ivo van Hove, Romeo Castellucci, some of whose uncommon theatre has become already quite common and even predictable. There were also several quite meaningless shows, alas, in the very literal sense that one couldn't find the answer of why they have been made in the first place, let alone selected for the event. They provoked informal discussions on whether the festival idea on the whole, around the world, is in an impasse. But then again, when you have even one show like that of Frljic's, it makes 9 days of going to the theatre fully worth it. And in this case there were certainly more than one such show, all of which good enough to start a dialogue within ourselves and between us, i.e. to make us slow down. For, as Bauman says, "dialogue is the opposite of haste."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=WIBUSzfo6kc
*Dr. Kalina Stefanova is a theatre critic and scholar residing in Sofia, Bulgaria. She has authored and edited various books on theatre and her articles have been published in 22 languages. She has been a Fulbright Visiting Scholar at New York University and Visiting Scholar at the University of Cape Town, and has delivered lectures and led seminars in 12 countries. For two mandates she served as Vice President of the International Association of Theatre Critics (IATC). Currently she is Associate Professor at the National Academy of Theatre and Film Arts in Sofia, Bulgaria. Her first fiction book is Ann's Dwarves and has been published in Macedonia and South Korea.
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