18 May Tragedy without a Story

By Ivan Medenica
Vreme, 20th April, 2006
Ivan Vyrypaev, Genesis No. 2
Directed by Anja Suša
Cast: Milena Pavloić, Ivan Tomić, Daniel Sič
Belgrade Drama Theatre (small stage)

As the opening note by the author Ivan Vyrypaev clearly states – “the play’s main protagonist is the text”. What it means, is that the principal attention in the play Genesis No.2 is paid to the review of – in the spirit of “post-drama theatre” (H.T. Lehmann) – the traditional drama form and its principles – the representation, the narration, etc. The basis of that dramatic self-reflection is woven into the structure of the “play within a play”: a patient of a psychiatric hospital, Antonina Velikanova, writes a play and sends it to Vyrypaev himself, who appears as a dramatic persona, so that he can add “comic couplets” and his remarks. That is how we get a framework which resembles Russian nesting dolls – outside is the textual frame of Vyrypaev himself (in couplets and comments); inside of it are “dramatic situations” and the dialogue allegedly written by Velikanova (an imaginary character, of course) while in her texts there are some quotes inserted from the Bible.

Dramatic form is additionally problematized in the concept of space and characters. Space is divided into different wholes, all of which relate to a text level. Dramatis personae are also fragmented and multiplied and, again resembling nesting dolls, include two to three interconnected aspects; for example – “actor playing God (Arkady Ilyich)” … Here, it is necessary to point out that this interlacing of various narrative streams and various aspects of characters doesn’t seem like a serious and thorough poetic principle, which would correspond to postmodern literature, but more like a cynical, reckless and frivolous – game. Therefore, if we are to indulge in pretentious formulations, we could call this text a post-dramatic disintegration of postmodern drama.

The performance in Belgrade Drama theatre shows that the directress Anja Suša was basically concerned with the problematization of dramatic form or, rather, with critical re-examining (i.e. disintegration) of the illusionist theatre concept. That intent, in collaboration with the stage designer Marija Kalabić, has been carried out mostly through the space organization by setting up numerous stage signs which expose theatre mechanism: the stage for Velikanova’s play within a play marked out in dashed border (which can be seen as a sign of the fact that her text is virtual, existing only as an insert within another text), a curtained portal, a neon sign displaying Bolshoi Theatre, a separate point for comic couplets… This couplets point is made in an imaginative and layered manner, as it comes down to a small puppet stage in a TV without a screen, on which a Barbie doll and other tacky dolls perform.

This deepens the problem of presentation extending it from the world of theatre into the world of media and mass culture. The solution with the TV set and a Barbie doll is additionally signifying because it refers to the directress’s choice to play with the elements of popular culture, which originally is not one of the characteristic of the play Genesis No.2. Problematisation of the stage illusion reaches its climax in an imaginary situation which the directress places in the theatre (the lack of an elaborate dramatic situation made it necessary for the directress to invent almost all situations): the actors are sitting facing us, acting as if they are in the audience observing a play – Daniel Sič makes an excellent detailed creation of flatness, boredom making a smacking sound while sucking on a candy – which should probably question our comfortable position of passive theatre consumers. It rounds up the act of “theatre self-reflection and demystification”, which is being built up from the very beginning of the performance when, first the directress and then also other associates from the artistic and technical sector, read out stage instructions by Vyrypaev, displayed on the video-beam; that reading was, allegedly, the author’s strict condition if he was to allow the play to be performed.

Anja Suša demanded the actors to play in a way which would reveal theatre mechanisms. That approach is mostly noticed in Milena Pavlović’s acting which, clearly, precisely and in an disillusionary manner separates her presentation of the patient Velikanova (slouching posture, gloomy smile, pleading tone, and a generally reduced expression) and the presentation of the heroine of Velikanova’s play Lot’s Wife (more realistic and more expressive acting). On the other hand, Ivan Tomić has not managed to make a clear differentiation in style when it comes to various aspects of the character he is playing, trying to, somehow, “act non-acting”. Daniel Sič exceptionally sings the “comic couplets” filling his stylized acting (in Ivan the Fool manner) with powerful emotion.

However, although Daniel Sič’s acting leaves the most striking impression, it also points out at the most debatable feature of the directing. Namely, this vocal interpretation, followed by music by Vladimir Pejaković, creates a unique effect but also relativizes the importance of the text of the couplets; the particularly conspicuous is the one which, through a lascivious story about the sex between two men, disintegrates a pious Russian rustic idyll in a witty, daring and blasphemous manner. This is an indicator of a wider problem. The directress was mainly concerned with theatre research while Genesis No.2 or, to be more precise, the “play” by Velikanova which develops the universal theme of the search for meaning through the Biblical motif of Lot’s Wife, offers a possibility for deeper psychological, ethical and religious explorations. Theatre self-reflection and these complex life questions converge in the part of the text in which Velikanova, defending herself from accusations that her novel has no story, utters the key sentence: “Is it necessary to have something going on in order to feel tragedy?”