Russian classics in the theater: comparing apples and cherries

No Eisenstein retrospective in the cinema, no Bulgakov in the bookstores, no star Russian soprano in the opera. And no more Russian classics on the theater stages. After the start of the Ukraine war in 2022, the calls of those who would have been only too happy to see the economic sanctions against Russia, with their modest effect, supplemented by an anti-Russian (and anti-Soviet) cultural cleansing, were clearly heard. But don’t worry, the wishes of the leisure censors were hardly met. And she also knows the theater, its classics.

In keeping with the spirit of the stage, one no longer plays the canon up and down, but rather “overwrites” the old, new pieces. So you offer the audience something old and new at the same time, rely on universal messages from another time and transplant them into a contemporary context, use the classic drama as a proven “brand” and boast, so to speak, of the premiere of a new piece.

Last weekend, “Uncle Wanja” celebrated its premiere at the Magdeburg Theater, which must be called “Uncle Werner.” On Wednesday there was a premiere evening at the Berlin Sophiensælen, where Gorki’s “Summer Guests” were called “Datscha”. But – do the old classics still speak to us in their rewritings?

The author and director Jan Friedrich has read his Anton Chekhov. Unfortunately he then put it aside in order to provide a contemporary history “according to Chekhov”. The ambivalent drama hero Wanja becomes a disappointed East German man in a midlife crisis who goes by the name Werner. Disappointed by politics, without a partner, without professional prospects. It is the psychogram of the AfDler from the day before yesterday, which is presented on stage here, not without a lot of fanfare. His brother-in-law, the art professor, becomes a woman in a lesbian relationship who, as a politician, has disappointed all the left-wing hopes of her homeland. The character transfers seem rather arbitrary. The shift to the right cannot be tracked down analytically. More than annoying, as this topic deserves serious discussion. It may be that Chekhov’s plot, with its distance from the reality of our lives, could have told us more about social upheavals than this inaccurate depiction of our environment.

The director and actress Isabelle Redfern, who brought Golda Barton’s “summer guests” rewrite “Datcha” to the stage, which is only very loosely based on Gorky’s play, takes a different approach. The dacha is here in Brandenburg and is visited by five Berlin women. The women, almost all of them with a migrant background, have made good West German matches with their men and are now showing what that means: neglect of wealth.

Only one man is on stage, an exotic figure as part of the working population, and is surrounded by women. It’s about female dependencies, about opportunities for advancement for a (post-)migrant milieu, about generational conflicts and, last but not least, about contempt – for those down there and for the provincials in the east. But “Datscha” can no more build on current discourse than “Uncle Werner.” Here the conflicts that should have been exposed as wounds are laughed at. A somewhat strange naturalism in the style of play doesn’t help. Gorky’s “Summer Guests” were the prologue to the Russian Revolution of 1905, “Datcha” seems more like an endless interlude in the overly long drama of late capitalism.

Linking to literary tradition, updating and rewriting well-known material is not a contemporary phenomenon; In the history of literature and theater, these practices themselves have produced many new classics, which in turn can become the starting point for future works. But the danger of false analogy remains, as does that of superficiality, of updating for the sake of updating that is blind to art.

On October 11th, “Der Kirschgarten” will premiere at the Thalia Theater in Hamburg, of course with a new title. The title is – didn’t imagination once rule the theater? – »The Apple Orchard«. Does it do justice to old Chekhov? Or at least has something to say about the exaggerated conditions of the present? Let’s see.

Next performances of “Uncle Werner”: September 29th, October 5th and 2.11.

www.theater-magdeburg.de
Next performances of “Datscha”: September 28th, October 12th and 13th.

www.sophiensaele.com