In April 1963, shortly after its foundation, the Bucharest Comedy Theater marked an important stage in the process of re-theatrization of the theater by showing the play Shadow Evgeny Schwartz, directed by David Esrig. Shadow it was what has been called the controversial show it would be a year later As you like it from Bulandra. A kind of battle between the classics and the modern, but without the intensity of Chiulei’s show. Perhaps because, no matter what they say, Schwartz is not Shakespeare. Either way, David Esrig’s production has undoubtedly remained a standard performance. To which all subsequent versions of the play on our stages referred. Unfortunately, not very much.

Not so many productions took part in the Romanian theater and dragon. The version performed by Victor-Ioan Frunze at the Youth Theater in Piatra-Niamka has acquired standard demonstrative value. Rarely has a graduation performance caused such a stir, motivated, of course, by the fact that a young director has a relatively constant number of years attached to it. first job. Interestingly, Frunze never returned to the text. It would be interesting if he did, especially since in his case the return is never even the slightest Copy Pastehatred.

One gets the impression that the process of text development Dragon it was long enough. According to some bibliographic sources, Schwartz began working on the work as early as 1940, that is, even before the attack of Hitler’s Germany on the USSR. To the complete surprise of the “great strategist” I.V. Stalin. In 1943, the work was finally ready. Schwartz presented it as a fairy tale. He took care to christen the two characters with famous names from French literature of the Middle Ages. The first, a mature person, relatively humble, until a certain moment reconciled with fate, with history and, above all, with the dictatorship, called him Charlemagne. Only this Charlemagne is by no means great. It is not represented at all à la barbe fleurie¸ He is more than two hundred years old, like the models from French sign songs, she is even more than four hundred years old. He is an archivist by profession, knows and has seen a lot. Has the status of a witness. He has at his fingertips all the orders the Dragon has given and broken in the four hundred years since he established himself and demanded to be seen as a savior in a city whose inhabitants behave like the people turned into rhinoceroses in an Ionesco play.

I do not know if Ionesco knew the works of Eugenius Schwartz, but I am more than sure that Lancelot, resurrected from the Celtic novels, from the adventures of the Knights of the Round Table (Lancelot ou le chevalier à la charrette), a few years later will find its equivalent in Beranger. However, Lancelot in Schwartz’s play does not remain at the declared, verbal level of totalitarian struggle. For him, struggle means action. And heroism and sacrifice. Lancelot challenges the Dragon to battle, defeats him, but, being seriously wounded, dies, and with his victory, the Mayor is born, who will act as the new Dragon. Thus confirming the caveat of the first. What exactly did he find? About the cowardice and memorylessness of contemporaries. On the good knowledge of the way of existence of the people whom he terrorizes, sometimes creating the illusion that he is doing them good, on the ease and cowardice with which they adapt to dictatorship, to slavery.

Schwartz also presented his works as anti-Hitler, hoping that this would make it easier for him to get representation. However, after two performances (in our country in 1972 Inspector Pintilier was three), show p dragon was forbidden. Soviet censorship believed that the works of Yevgeny Schwartz were not only anti-Hitler, but also anti-totalitarian. As they will be Rhinoceros to Ionesco.

Although in the program book of the play staged in the German Theater in Timisoara, the director Yuriy Kordonsky talks about the fascist dictator, his production is something more than Hitlerism. She is clearly anti-totalitarian. In the highest meaning of the text. Lancelot (Harald Weisz) arrives in town and is well received at the home of Charlemagne’s archivist (Robert Bogdanov-Shane), a man without trappings who accepts the status of savior of the Dragon (Ioana Jacob) until he learns that his next victim will be his own daughter ( Isa Berger). The atmosphere in the city is cold. We seem to be somewhere in the Bohemia where Camus will unfold the action Misunderstanding. Charlemagne cannot but remind you of the servant from Camus’s play. All gray, clothes, space (scenery and costumes: Ioana Popescu, light design: Cosmin Anania, video design: Cristian Yencu), all absorbed by the sound of military drums (music: Sorina Savii and Lucas Kohl). The only sign of an authentic life is the presence of a motan (Alma Deacon).

The dragon learns of the stranger’s arrival. And so, a surprise. It’s not as he imagined, he appears from somewhere in the hall (could this indicate that each of us could become a Dragon, as we each have something from Richard’s cripple?), he has what how can you not be more humane. He seems to be aware of his own vulnerability, and he gives countless signs that he anticipates his defeat. He is afraid. His fear is purely human. He resorts to all sorts of tricks, is ready to violate his own laws and decrees.

It is interesting that in the performance of the German State Theater in Timisoara, it is not the Dragon that is the most disgusting, the most ridiculous. Joanna Jakob gives a wonderful cautionary soliloquy, beautifully complemented by a moment of skeptical embrace between the Dragon and Lancelot – both destined to die, one victorious, the other vanquished, though the victor will also be a moral failure, and that’s because of the cowardice of the one for whom he sacrifices himself. But the mayor (Alexander Mihaescu) and Henry (Mark Ilyich). When he comes to power, when he becomes the new Dragon, the mayor will behave like Hitler (as the Führer makes hysterical speeches), Heinrich will become a kind of Goebbels. How shocking is the attitude of the majority of the population that comes to fight as if it were a party or a match. Very nice costumes in this series. The scene of the rebellion of Charlemagne and Elsa is also noteworthy.

Yuriy Kordonsky chooses the return of Lancelot and a relatively optimistic ending. But humanity still has a chance. Provided that he does not withdraw, he does not rent his own conscience for anything.

Two more things should be revealed. First, the emergence of a new center of interest in Kordonskyi’s directorial concerns. Concern for political theater. dragon being a continuation of the trend that appeared quite recently on the occasion of the show p Zinc boys from Bulandra. There were already signs for the Second, with three notable exceptions – Ioana Jakob, Harald Weiss and Isa Berger – no other actor among those present on the poster Dragon he was not part of the cast of the two big plays staged by the director in Timisoara. Of course, a significant part of those I admired Gullor in Erendira, they left the Theater in those years when it was almost on the verge of losing its purpose. Newbies now get a chance. In my opinion, they had both the science and the wisdom to see it through. It’s good. – Read the entire article and comment on Contributors.ro