Historical February 1991 article. Dates, prices, services and contacts describe the source period; current availability has not been established.
“Lifting the Veil: Views of Contemporary Soviet Theater,” will be the focus of a week-long symposium Feb. 15-23 at Washington University.
The Moscow Studio Theatre, coming to St. Louis on its first U.S. tour, is the highlighted event in the symposium.
The English-language premiere of a Russian comedy, a round-table discussion featuring some of the most influential figures in Soviet drama today, and a lecture by an eminent American scholar of Russian theatre will complete the planned events for the week.
The Moscow Studio Theatre, presented as part of Edison Theatre’s “Ovations!” series, will perform “My Big Land” by Alexander Galich at 8 p.m. Feb. 22 and “The Teacher of Russian” by Alexander Buraysky at 8 p.m. Feb. 23.
The actors will perform both plays in Russian with simultaneous English translations.
The university’s Performing Arts Department will present the Englishlanguage premiere of “The Passion According to Varvara” at 8 p.m. Feb. 15-17, Feb. 22 and 23, and at 2 p.m. Feb. 24 in the Mallinckrodt Center Drama Studio, Room 205. Director Ann Marie Costa, artist-in-residence in the Performing Arts Department, describes the play as a “comedy in the Chekovian tradition.” Moscow Studio Theatre founder and artistic director Oleg Tabakov will participate in a round-table discussion from 4-6 p.m. Feb. 21 in the Drama Studio. Tabakov, who is considered one of the leading experts of Soviet theatre and film, has been awarded the title “People’s Artist” and the Soviet Union’s State Prize in recognition of his work. Joining the Russian director at the round-table will be Olga PavlovaKuchkina, author of “Passion According to Varvara:’ and Alma Law, co-director of the Institute for Contemporary Soviet and East European Drama and Theatre at the City University of New York and translator of “Passion.” Law, a nationally prominent authority on Soviet theatre from Chekhov to the present, also will open the symposium with a keynote address titled “Revolutionary Russian Theatre” at 11 a.m., Feb. 20 in Edison Theatre.
The lecture, which is part of the university’s Assembly Series, will feature rare film footage of early Russian theatre by Chekhov and Stanislavski. Law’s talk is co-sponsored by the Performing Arts Department, the Department of Russian, the Russian Club and Student Union.
The three plays represent a range of themes and styles in Soviet theatre. “My Big Land,” which was banned in 1929 because of its Jewish characters and its political content, follows the lives of a father and son from their tiny village of Tulchin to the Moscow Conservatory of Music and examines the devastation suffered by the Soviets in World War II.
The message of the play, says director Tabakov, is “not that you can’t go home again, rather it is that you must.” “The Teacher of Russian:’ a black comedy with adult themes and partial nudity, concerns modern corruption in the Soviet Union.
A scheming doctor runs a hospital in a popular resort town and rents patients’ rooms to tourists to make extra money. Hearing of an investigation of the hospital’s files, the doctor falsifies records for the tourists.
When the doctor learns that an official will visit the hospital, he attempts to legitimize the medical records, which in one case requires him to break a young man’s legs. “The Passion According to Varvara” is a comedy that addresses some of the difficulties in Russian life.
The black market—in which everyone must participate to survive—the high rates of divorce and alcoholism, and the lack of housing, medicine, and creative outlets for welleducated people, all are aspects of Soviet life integrated into the play. Tickets for the Moscow Studio Theatre performances are $18 for the general public; $14 for senior citizens and Washington University faculty and staff; and $9 for students. Tickets for “Passion” are $7 for the general public and $5 for senior citizens, students and Washington University faculty and staff.
All other events in the symposium are free and open to the public.
For more information, call 889-6543.
Originally published in The Times of Skinker-DeBaliviere, February 1991.
Read this article in the original newspaper issue.
Archival transcription note: Source dates My Big Land ban 1929; not independently verified. Printed historical description retained.
Original source: SD_Times1991_02.pdf, printed page(s) 6; PDF page(s) 6.
