|
|
|
| Current Issue |
|
|
| Resources |
|
|
|
The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Humanist: Russia's Cerceau
| Article
# : |
19021 |
|
|
Section : |
THE ARTS
|
| Issue
Date : |
1 / 1991 |
1,990 Words |
| Author
: |
Richard Grenier
Richard Grenier's latest book is Capturing the Culture. |
It would be a mistake to take as purely ideological statements the whole generation of recent plays and films to come out of what Moscow intellectuals now freely call "Russia" (not the Soviet Union). Perhaps the most appealing thing about them--after a long period in which "building socialism" was the imposed, obligatory purpose of all art--is that these new works have little ideology, sometimes almost none at all. They plainly come from a Soviet-style socialist society, and there is a clear tone of dissatisfaction with the collectivist way of organizing the world, sometimes unequivocal disdain, but the purpose of these works is not polemical.
Bred by Socialism
The dissatisfactions bred by Socialism are almost taken for granted. The true subject of the new works, in fact, is the dissatisfactions bred by life, the human condition. And they give unmistakable signs that the art and literature of Russia (of Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan I know not) are rejoining the European humanist tradition. It has been a long march.
The English-language premiere of Viktor Slavkin's Cerceau at the Arena Stage in Washington, D.C., has been acclaimed by American critics as symbolizing the new glasnost, the critical mood of Moscow's new generation. Originally seen by the West when Moscow's Taganka Theatre took it to the London International Theater Festival in 1987, and directed in Washington by Romania's highly touted Liviu Ciulei, the play actually picks up the Russian theater about where it was at the death of Anton Chekov, of whom Viktor Slavkin is an obvious disciple.
The drama's title is the name of an eighteenth-century court game in which ladies and gentlemen airily flipped light hoops into the air with wooden swords to be caught, or missed, by another member of the nobility with another wooden sword. A kind of aristocratic Frisbee game, but more graceful and prettier to watch (as many institutions associated with the ancien regime tend to be viewed in these harsh times in Moscow), cerceau is the play's symbol of life. One casts one's little hoops into the air. Sometimes they are caught. Sometimes not. One makes contact with another person, but the contact is airborne, ephemeral. Sometimes, sadly, no contact is made at all. A person's life, thus, is filled with little attempts, little successes, little failures. The individual casts about with no well-defined purpose. The world is large and overpowering. Life is disappointing and sad.
...
Read Full Article
Look for this article in Ask.com
|
|
