Benjamin Fundoianu and Theatre: Notes on the Romanian Period

Jan Sawka: Theatre of Image and Metaphor

The purpose of the article is to analyze theatrical activity as a creative activity aimed at creating objects of intellectual property. Methodology. In the process of scientific research the following scientific methods have been used: dialectical – to identify the basic laws and peculiarities of legal relations that arise in the field of theatrical art; comparative – for comparison of domestic and foreign legislation on theatrical activity; analysis – for the study of legal norms governing relations in the field of theatrical art. The scientific novelty of the work is to determine the peculiarities of the implementation of creative theatrical activity, aimed at the emergence of intellectual property in the theater and the creative personnel of the theater. It was proved the irrationality of the legislative approach, in which the right of the theater to a commercial name arises only if the theater operates as an entrepreneurial entity. The necessity of legislative changes is substantiated, according to which professional creative personnel of theaters has the right to protect intellectual property rights on the results of their creative work in the theatrical art sphere. Conclusions. It is established that during the realization of theatrical activity the objects of copyright (scenarios, musical works, drawings, scenery, etc.) and objects of related rights (performing dances, performing performances, using phonograms, etc.) are used the most often. It is determined that the scenario on the basis of which the performance takes place may be either a new product or a derivative work (in case another dramatic work is processed for a specific stage production). It is proved that the complexity of the delineation of author contributions of certain subjects of theatrical creativity is due to the commonality of their creative work, which is aimed at making one creative result – theatrical production. It is substantiated that the work of the professional creative theater personnel is reduced not only to the fulfillment of a certain labor function, but also leads to the creation of intellectual property objects (objects of copyright and/or related rights).

The purpose of the article is to study the activities of theaters in Kuwait in general and the interpretation of their contemporary Arabic drama on their scenes in particular against the backdrop of political events in the Middle East in the second half of the twentieth century. The author focuses on the creative work of Sa’ada al-Faraj, a famous actor, theatrical figure, playwright, and public figure in Kuwait. The researcher focuses on political circumstances that have brought about the actualization of individual topics that affect Sa’ad al-Faraj’s plays, analyzes how the confrontation between Israel and the Arab world, the policies of Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser influenced the speculations of the creative intelligentsia of Kuwait. Essential for the author of the article is the problem of political censorship in modern Kuwait, which caused the short-lived scenic life of a number of plays Saad al-Faraj. Much of the intelligence is devoted to the peculiarities of poetry in drama Sad al-Faraj. In the time of his creative establishment, the artist was under the significant influence of European innovative movements in the twentieth century, and this greatly influenced the artistic image of his texts. In the center of the researcher’s attention is a play by Sa’ad al-Faraj “Tradition is another nature”, which clearly show the receptions of the epic theater Bertolt Brecht. The methodology of the research is to apply political science in order to expedite the full disclosure of the public context in the activities of Kuwait theaters and the works of playwright Sa’ad al-Faraj. Introducing the work of the Kuwaiti playwright in the world context, the author relies on system-structural and comparative methods. Essential in considering a particular dramatic work was the use of theatrical-critical analysis. The novelty of the work. For the first time, comprehensively and using political methodology and drawing on an art-study analysis, the activities of theaters in Kuwait in the second half of the twentieth century have been explored. The scientific circle introduces important information about the creative work of Sa’ad al-Faraj, which is carried out an art-study analysis of his play “Tradition is another nature”. Conclusions. Summarizing the above mentioned in Kuwait, all the major theatres were under the supervision of the governmental censor, which, according to al-Faraj, found it desirable to use the theatre only to disseminate culture ‘by presenting random and irrelevant examples from the repertoire of world theatre’.

The article is dedicated to discussions in old and new media about the state of modern Russian theater criticism and reveals the mechanism and consequences of dividing its authors into professionals and “amateurs” who write about the same performances, but with different degrees of responsibility and on different platforms – in special publications not for a mass audience and in amateur blogs that are easily accessible to everyone. A whole layer of scientific literature on theater criticism and theater journalism existing today in the conditions of digitalization of the media space and reflecting the phenomena of digitalization of the theater itself was studied. The theater critic has always not only assessed the phenomena of art, but also described them, trying to preserve living emotional impressions, recreating the appearance of disappeared performances, recording unique moments of acting, measuring the “temperature” of the auditorium; analyzed the changing styles and artistic trends, preferences, tastes and moods of the public. It would seem that the tasks of a professional theater critic remain the same. In fact, much has changed not only in its status, goals, functions, tools, and the content it creates, but also in the situation around it. Today we are witnessing the emergence of a new generation of young theater critics, who do not always have a special theater education, have never worked in professional media, call themselves bloggers, but are just as active as professionals in judging the theater. The topic of this study seems relevant since the discrepancies between the points of view expressed by the designated parties on modern theater are becoming more and more obvious. Therefore, the aim of our research is to study Russian theater criticism through the prism of the discussions going on around and within it. The study used the method of observing the practice of modern theater criticism, analyzed joint discussions published over the past ten years in the Russian media and the Internet, individual interviews and articles by professional representatives of the theater critical workshop and “amateur” bloggers about the purpose of criticism and the meanings it defends and the tools used. As a result, differences in the work of professional theater critics and representatives of amateur theater blogging, on the one hand, and, paradoxically, a tendency towards their convergence, on the other, were revealed. The described situation differs from the relationship in the environment of professional and blogger journalism, which is not related to such a specific field as theater. The most advanced “amateur” theater critics understand that they still cannot exist without knowledge of its fundamentals and deep mastery of the profession, and specialists feel a natural urge to move to the blogosphere, which they consider as an attractive platform for reaching the audience in conditions of a shortage of traditional print media.

This chapter offers a detailed reconstruction of the performance of a piece of avant-garde drama to highlights the prominent role of women in theatrical culture at the time, as both dramatists and actresses, and the professional opportunities that were then opening for them. It also shows the importance of a growing celebrity culture, and the complexity of the interactions between theatre, politics, religion, gender and theatrical production. It shows that even avant-garde theatre, concerned with such archetypal fin-de-siècle concerns as the occult and mysticism, were still deeply implicated in, and made possible by, a growing leisure industry.

“Who will deliver us from Ibsen and Tolstoy?”bemoaned the theatre critic Leo Clare tie in 1895. “They [modernist directors] have brought us the Russians, the Flemish, the Germans, the Swedes, the Norwegians,”he wrote.1 Theatre criticism was inflected with nationalist rhetoric in the 1890s. As the decade progressed, the nationalist language became increasingly defensive often explicitly exalting French cultural productions as it disparaged plays by foreigners. The critics’ intensified nationalist discourse arose during a period of economic dislocation in which the Third Republic renounced free trade and adopted protective tariffs and a policy of economic nationalism. In this crucial decade modernist theatre became more confrontational and French society became politically polarized. By the last years of the nineteenth century political issues from anarchism to the Dreyfus Affair competed with the aesthetic dimension of French modernist theatre. In this environment a consensus among theatre directors and critics secured Ibsen’s centrality to modern theatre.

Reviewed by: Mama Dada: Gertrude Stein’s Avant-Garde Theatre Jim Fitzmorris Mama Dada: Gertrude Stein’s Avant-Garde Theatre. Sarah Bay-Cheng. New York: Routledge, 2005. xii+207 pp. $26.95 (paper). Sarah Bay-Cheng’s Mama Dada: Gertrude Stein’s Avant-Garde Theatre begins again the ongoing debate about the simultaneously praised and derided American writer/theorist’s place in the dramatic canon. The success of Bay-Cheng’s project of reclaiming Gertrude Stein’s dramatic work rises and falls on the writer’s conclusion that Stein’s plays are not only innovative with dramatic form but ultimately worthy of the stage, rather than simply chamber pieces that are better read than seen. In other words, Bay-Cheng asks and attempts to answer the question, “Do the plays play?” This “stageability” (20) then serves to forcibly allow the plays to address the relevant political, social, and aesthetic questions of the avant-garde not only for Stein’s own time but also in the contemporary stage work of theatre artists such as Susan Lori-Parks, Richard Foreman, and Robert Wilson. Mama Dada is a necessary and engaging view into Stein’s always-emerging, forever-receding shadow on the landscape of contemporary nontraditional playwriting; however, Bay-Cheng’s study can also be an occasionally infuriating series of absences for the reader more interested in the stagecraft or actual performance reconstruction surrounding Stein’s work. After beginning with Stein’s fixture within and emergence from the early movements of the avant-garde, experimental cinema, and the germination of what would become queer theory, Bay-Cheng spends the majority of Mama Dada in the critical analysis of and the engagement with Stein’s dramatic texts and theatrical productions as they were realized and received in her lifetime. These analyses include two of Stein’s most celebrated works, “Four Saints in Three Acts” and “Doctor Faustus Lights the Lights,” along with her monumental dramatic coda “The Mother of Us All.” Mama Dada concludes with an overview of Stein’s widespread but still underappreciated influence on the American avant-garde of the present day. The book’s structure fixes Stein in a continuum; Bay-Cheng playfully refers to it as a “continuous present” throughout the text, where Stein is always a presence but not always seen, even in her own lifetime. Chapter 5, “Atom and Eve: Doctor Faustus Lights the Lights,” illuminates what is both rewarding and lacking in Mama Dada. Bay-Cheng traces Stein’s modern retelling of the Faust legend from its incubation within the novel that would become Ida, A Novel (1941) into a fully realized stage production. Using both the photos from the program and Stein’s journal notes from her viewing of Mozart’s [End Page 172] Don Giovanni in 1938, Bay-Cheng shows Stein’s inspiration for bringing the Faustus story to the stage: “Thus, it is not difficult, based on the conclusion of Don Giovanni—in which the title character descends into hell—and the program’s references to previous productions of Faustian operas, to see how Stein began combining the elements that would eventually become Doctor Faustus Lights the Lights” (76). The ingenious use of the primary documents shows a clear demonstration of Stein’s understanding of the necessity for theatrically realizing her rumination on the classic tale of a soul sold for enlightenment. Bay-Cheng’s analysis of Stein’s journal notes and Don Giovanni’s program then sets the stage for her in-depth examination of Doctor Faustus Lights the Lights as a text with no past or future but only a present contained in a technological nightmare that is debilitating in its blinding brilliance. However, the insight of the analysis of Doctor Faustus Lights the Lights ends before arriving into its actual production. For all the time Mama Dada spends deconstructing theatrical texts, it does not give anywhere near equal weight to the reconstruction of the plays as actual theatrical events. Stein’s work, as Bay-Cheng rightfully asserts, calls attention to the “continuous present” of existence where nothing is as it previously was or will be. Of all the arts, theatre, with its inherent ephemerality, makes more visible the impossibility of actual...

Reviewed by: Cortigiana Michael Lettieri (bio) Pietro Aretino. Cortigiana. Translated by J. Douglas Campbell and Leonard G. Sbrocchi Carleton Renaissance Plays in Translation. Dovehouse. 158. $10.00 Pietro Aretino (1492-1556) wrote in a large variety of literary genres: the short story, the epic, familiar letters, the ascetic tale, lyric poetry, satire, comedy, and tragedy. Although much of his production is not lacking in aesthetic value, it has been for many years the object of unfavourable criticism, stemming mainly from the author's questionable reputation, which has haunted him over the centuries. The 'divine' Aretino, as he was called by Ludovico Ariosto, was subjected to a systematic attack on his person and was judged exclusively from a moral standpoint. For centuries, literary critics have judged his works without always having read them, copying from one another and basing their opinions mainly on the general moralistic opinion held of Aretino by various defamers, who derived it from his libellous diatribes and sonnets, most of which are attributable to Aretino's former friends. In the last forty years, however, Aretino scholarship, in Italy and abroad, has been successful in shedding new light on Aretino's literary production by avoiding extremes and attempting to offer a more accurate and more carefully thought out exegesis of it. But it is his dramatic works that have received most of the favourable criticism. Of his plays, one to which Aretino probably dedicated much of his artistic energy was the comedy Cortigiana (La cortigiana), which, written in 1525 (a revision was printed nine years later, in 1534), has been described as one of the most remarkable plays of the century. The Cortigiana, as we read on the back cover of the translation by J. Douglas Campbell and Leonard G. Sbrocchi, 'focuses on the aspirations, affectations, and delusions of two foolish gentlemen, who, to achieve their desires, place themselves in the hands of unscrupulous servants - with predictably disastrous consequences. Combining elements of New Comedy, commedia erudita, and improvisational street comedy, La cortigiana also draws on Castiglione's then unpublished Cortegiano to create a telling dissection of Roman courtiers and a vivid portrait of a worldly Roman society.' Campbell and Sbrocchi's English translation of Cortigiana is an especially welcome and important addition to the excellent Carleton Renaissance Plays in Translation series. Interest and research in the area of Italian Renaissance comedy (but this is true for any other literary genre) can be fostered only if we have at our disposal works edited with the utmost critical accuracy and in dependable translations. It is within the ongoing re-evaluation of the comedy of the Cinquecento that this translation of Cortigiana finds its justification. Cortigiana is one of the most significant [End Page 397] comedies of the Italian Renaissance, and yet it had to wait almost five hundred years to be translated into English. The volume contains a select bibliography (of primary sources and secondary studies) and a rich and insightful critical introduction by Raymond B. Waddington with notes on a great number of relevant issues such as Aretino's life and theatrical production, the two Cortigiana texts, the title and language of the play La cortigiana and the commedia erudita, Rome and Italy from 1517 to 1527, the New Golden Age of Leo X's Rome, Castiglione's Book of the Courtier and La cortigiana, and on Pasquino (Aretino's alter ego in the mid-twenties) and pasquinades. Finally, in his last introductory note (entitled Holding the Mirror Up to Nature), Waddington demonstrates how 'in the multiple reflections of the mirror that is La cortigiana, the audience sees themselves, Rome, and, not least, a portrait of Pietro Aretino' (43). The text of Cortigiana (consisting of a prologue and five acts, each divided into scenes) is followed by useful textual annotations. The translation is based on the 1525 single manuscript of Cortigiana. The translators are to be commended for translating the text directly from the editio princeps, since it is the only authorative text of Cortigiana. Campbell and Sbrocchi's English translation is very clear, accurate and philologically sound; indeed, the linguistic subtleties are sensitively preserved. This book will definitely be of great help to English-speaking scholars interested in...

The aim of the article is to analyse the genesis of Don Juan’s image and substantiate the imagology of the legendary character in the context of Ukrainian gender issues at the time Lesya Ukrainka wrote The Stone Master. Results. The article presents the basic principles of imagology as a comprehensive direction of cultural research and defines the meaning of using its tools in contemporary theatre studies. Attention is also paid to the gender studies of Ukrainian scholars, which are at the intersection with imagological issues. The study focuses on the image of Don Juan from the dramatic poem The Stone Master. The genesis of the character is traced from the 17th to the 19th century in order to demonstrate that his imagology is studied at the intersection of the stereotype concept and cultural iconography provisions. The Ukrainian poetess deliberately did not violate the canonical image of the seducer of Seville that was formed over three centuries. However, the obvious Byronic inspirations of the artistic ideology of the dramatic poem and the polemic with Hoffmannism and Nietzscheism, as well as gender issues, caused the transformation of the image, influenced the formation of the literary model, in a certain sense alien to the entire world context of the legend of Don Juan. Scientific novelty. For the first time in Ukrainian theatre studies, an attempt has been made to analyse the imagology of the legendary image created by Lesya Ukrainka in the context of Ukrainian gender issues at the beginning of the last century. Conclusions. The Stone Master, as well as a number of other dramatic poems by Lesya Ukrainka, provides rich factual material for research in the categories of imagology. They are facilitated by the transitive nature of the Ukrainian poetess’s dramatic works. Therefore, we consider the study of the images of foreign countries and peoples in a broad historical and cultural context based on Lesya Ukrainka’s dramatic poems to be one of the most promising directions of contemporary interdisciplinary research at the intersection of historical literature and theatre studies.

The purpose of the research is to find out the role of scenery in theatrical productions, their types and features of their creation by a production designer. The research methodology is based on the complex use of methods of modern art history, which are aimed at the theoretical and artistic-practical understanding of scenery in theatrical productions; the method of art-historical analysis is used, which makes it possible to investigate the trends of the cultural development of theatre technologies; empirical material is studied in a combination of art studies, theatre studies, cultural studies, and historical approaches; the method of formal and stylistic analysis allows revealing the artistic features of scenographic solutions. The scientific novelty lies in the fact that the article is one of the first analytical works in which the author tries to reveal the multifaceted role of scenery in theatrical productions by analysing the definitions of "scenery”, “theatrical and decorative art”, “scenography” that describe the artistic design of theatrical productions. Conclusions. In the process of analysing the role of scenery in theatrical productions, a completely objective impression was formed that scenery is a type of fine art related to the artistic design of a theatrical performance, the elements of which were rooted in antiquity and with minor changes have reached our days and consist of decorations, noise design, lighting, and props, actors' costumes and make-up. Each element has its own function in achieving theatrical expressiveness, which as a whole creates a single artistic whole, the purpose of which is to create the illusion of a place for a theatrical performance. Scenery in theatrical productions is created by a production designer according to the director's idea, which are closely related to the theatre itself, its development and general trends in modern art and modern theatre, the arrangement of theatre premises and the stage, lighting techniques, equipment and many other conditions. The analysis of the definitions of “scenery”, “theatrical and decorative art”, “scenography”, which are used to describe the artistic design of the stage and space in different ways in the scientific and artistic literature, makes it possible to conclude that the scenery is an important part of almost any theatrical performance, and many theatre artists are recognised as independent creators.
 Key words: scenery; decorative arts; scenography; theatre and decorative arts; theatre artist.

The purpose of the article is diagnostics of Lesya Ukrainka’s dramatic works realization prospects in conditions of performing arts visualization as a consistent trend of the national stage development. The study involves analyzing the adequacy of modern means of expressiveness to the peculiarities of the poetess’ dramaturgy. The research methodology is determined by observational, analytical as well as historical, and logical analysis of the realization prospects of Lesya Ukrainka’s dramatic poems on the Ukrainian stage in the context of the exceptional specific weight of a word for understanding the poetic and philosophical content of the poetess’ works. The indicated methodological approach allows analyzing the reasons why some performances already realized are of enormous artistic value (notably, by “Stone Master” (“Kaminny Hospodar”) as well as outlining the prospects of some contemporary theatrical models in this sense. The novelty of the research lies in expanding the conceptions about the relevance of correlation of cardinally “re-equipped” arsenal of the XX1century scenic space multimedia technologies and the system of means of expressiveness of Lesya Ukrainka’s dramas in the context of conveying the content of these works to the audience, as well as in raising the issue of a more careful approach of modern direction to the ways of conveying and revealing the word of the creator relative to the dramatic works of Lesya Ukrainka as an exceptional phenomenon in the world dramaturgy. Conclusion. Lesya Ukrainka’s dramaturgy is in tune with the present time and corresponds to the aesthetic and civil tasks facing our art today. The Ukrainian theater is in urgent need of this dramaturgy. The poetess’s dramaturgy requires a modern but specific philosophic and poetic theater. To make it sound appropriate, it is necessary to be inspired by the Ukrainian art showing piety towards Lesya’s word and having a desire not just to act but to act namely Lesya Ukrainka, and to find the truth about life in her writing. For her plays it is very important to avoid pomposity which is typical of stage directors fascinated by visualization: there should not be any divertissements, any ball scenes except for those which are required by the unraveling of the plot.

A Burglar of the Better Sort: Poems, Dramatic Works, Theoretical Writings

“Hey, asshole: you had your say”:The Performance of Theatre Criticism Oona Hatton (bio) In April 2010, Chicago Shakespeare Theater (CST) staged a production of The Taming of the Shrew with a new induction by playwright Neil LaBute. In a review for Time Out Chicago (TOC), theatre critic Caitlin Montanye Parrish lauded the production’s direction, designers, and ensemble, but was unimpressed by LaBute’s additions: “don’t look for meaning in the contemporary scaffolding,” she warns. Within hours, a writer identifying her-/himself as LaBute left a scathing response in the comments section of the online review. Calling Parrish’s piece a “sorry excuse for theatrical criticism,” “neil labute” launched a spirited exchange that grew to include over fifty comments from an estimated twenty-five participants.1 Posters expounded on the challenges of subsisting as an artist, the nature of Chicago’s theatre community, neil labute’s true identity, and, sporadically, the production in question. Throughout, the role of the critic remained labute’s central concern. Denouncing them as “freeloaders,” he writes, “critics are the one element that is of little or no use to the creative process (and one of the very few who don’t ever pay for a ticket!) even the audience lends some creative element to the experience of theater—the critic will always be reactive and parasitic.”2 Labute’s retort and the posts that follow exemplify the rapid and abundant response to which any contemporary theatre review is subject. The comments thread illustrates how the internet has transformed criticism by offering readers/consumers the chance to weigh in, immediately and visibly.3 In an era of compulsive (even compulsory) public assessment, the web is rife with similar discussions, equal parts adulation and bile, profundity and pettiness. Nevertheless, “L’Affaire LaBute Parrish” is a unique and fertile case study among them.4 There is, first of all, labute’s active participation; sixteen of the sixty posts are his (the next most frequent commenter has six). An array of stakeholders take part in the conversation, including posters who identify as theatre artists, spectators, and reviewers. References to Chicago theatre anchor the discussion in a specific time and place, making it a useful record of local history. At the same time, the thread demonstrates how theatrical criticism circulates both locally and more broadly in the era of electronic information. (The discussion spawned conversations on at least two other Chicago theatre blogs, as well as earning mention in the comments section of a review of another LaBute production in New York.)5 This essay describes a creative and scholarly project designed to explore public response to online theatre reviews, a phenomenon I term crowdsourcing theatre criticism. Briefly, the project is an adaptation of the TOC/labute comments thread into an online radio play performed by Chicago actors. The play dramatizes shifting trends in theatre reviewing, interrogating assumptions, including my own, about who is eligible to participate in theatre criticism; it is also an inquiry into the form that criticism might take. I argue that the piece contains five strata of commentary, beginning with Parrish’s review of CST’s production of Shrew; labute’s critique of that review follows. The third layer is composed of the subsequent posts, which take up the arguments made by both Parrish and labute, as well as bringing in related concerns about the production and consumption of theatre. Fourth is my mediation of the comments as director and editor of the radio play. Finally, in their performance of the text, the actors provide their perspectives on the ideas and identities presented by the posters. The resulting piece is more than the sum of its parts. Due to the interacting layers of commentary, the number of distinct voices, the range of themes, and the relative accessibility of the [End Page 103] digital recording, I argue that this “performance of criticism” offers a viable, even superior alternative to the traditional theatre review. To develop this idea, I begin with a brief discussion of current debates on theatre criticism, then turn to the play, describing the critical work accomplished (or attempted) by each round of commentators, including how she/he/they engage their predecessors in...

The paper focuses on the specific features of the ‘One’s own — Alien’ conflict in the dramatic works by Lesia Ukrainka. The majority of her dramas and dramatic poems were written on the basis of foreign cultural phenomena, including the Ancient Greek, Biblical, and other topoi and images. Foreign cultural realities are aimed at the actualization of both the entire context of Ukraine and the writer’s autobiographic discourse in a recipient’s consciousness, forming the imagological paradigms ‘One’s own — Alien,’ ‘Me — Another’. Upon involving the imagological theories, the author of the paper traces the development of dialogue between various cultural realities in Lesia Ukrainka’s dramatic works. This allowed elucidating the peculiarities in the artistic representation of the exotic topoi of different countries as the significant feature of Neoromantic and, in general, Modernist discourses, which were basic for Lesia Ukrainka’s writing. The textual analysis of Lesia Ukrainka’s dramas reveals the specific features of unfolding the ‘One’s own — Alien’ conflict, first of all, on the ethnic-mental level, epitomized in the ‘conquered — conqueror’ collision of the plays “Babylonian Captivity”, “Over the Ruins”, “Orgy” and “Boiarynia”. The other dimension is the worldview and religious level, mostly realized through the collision ‘Antiquity — Christianity’ (“In the Catacombs”, “Rufinus and Priscilla”, “Martian the Lawyer”, and others). It is proved that the ‘One’s own — Alien’ conflict deepens the problems of the works and serves as a way to reveal the essential characteristics of the heroes. The paradigm of the mentioned conflict highlights the borders of the national and personal identities, emphasizes axiological concepts and active ideas, fundamental for Lesia Ukrainka’s dramatic works, such as the tragedy of misunderstanding, the need for constructive dialogue, the necessity of choice, the search for spiritual and national freedom, the meaning of sacrifice, and the role of art.

The interaction of theatrical journalism and theatrical criticism in the modern media