Painting Shakespeare Red: An East-European Appropriation (review)

Abstract

214Comparative Drama AlexanderShurbanovandBoikaSokolova.PaintingShakespeareRed: AnEast-EuropeanAppropriation. Newark: UniversityofDelaware Press, 2001. Pp. 308, illustrated. $47.50. Shakespeare'sefficacyasaculturalbarometeriswellestablished. Becausehisplays are the gold standard ofdramatic literature, their varying fortunes on the stage can gauge the political and social climate in which they are presented. Perhaps nowhere are the atmospheric pressure changes as dramatic as in twentieth-century Eastern Europe. By 1900 Shakespeare was already"ours"in Russian culture as much ashewas in German.With theestablishmentoftotalitarian regimes,hisworkwas not suppressed but appropriated, presented as emblematic ofthe progressive struggle ofhumankind toward the ideal communist worker-state. The partyline upholding an "antibourgeois" Shakespeare pervaded literary criticism, theater reviews, educational materials, and public-policy speeches as well as stage productions over the decades after World War II. The authors ofPainting Shakespeare Red show further how East-European Shakespeare production seems to have signaled the end ofSoviet domination even before the public could anticipate its fall. And, finally, the staging of Shakespeare in former Soviet-bloc countries reflected the confusions ofthe post-Communist decade. Surprisingly, what is most interesting about this well-documented and skillfully written study is the insiders' view of Bulgarian history and culture. The uses of Shakespeare in Bulgarian theater serve as specific examples to anchor the larger story of a people desperate to be identified as European but jerked around by the forces ofhistory. The four chapters ofpart 1, "The Context," offer a clear, engaging survey of centuries of struggle to forge a national identity, including the role oftheater in that struggle. It was onlytenyears before Bulgaria's national liberation (1878) from five centuries ofTurkish rule that a Shakespeare play was first produced there. Russia's military aid as well as a subsequent infusion of Russian amateur theatricals paved the way for a cultural symbiosis underpinned by linguistic affinities. The "heinous injustice" in the "tragic partitioning " ofthe freshly liberated land at the Berlin Congress of 1879 enabled the Bulgarian people"to empathize fullywith raciallyslighted characters like Othello and Shylock" (47). Shakespeare was integral to the formation ofthe artists who launched a national theater in Sofia in the 1890s. The Balkan Wars, the street carnage ofthe 1920s, the military coup of 1934—all can be viewed through the Shakespearean lens. Ofparticular note is the section on Bulgaria's protection of its Jewish population duringWorldWar II; the nation's pro-Semitism even as it was forced into alignment with the Nazi Axis is intriguingly tied to productions of The Merchant ofVenice. Other topics include the application ofMarxist aesthetics in Bulgarian cultural history, workers' theater, the Soviet impact on the Reviews215 arts, and the role ofBulgarian government leaders. Part 2, "The Appropriation," focuses more closely on Shakespearean staging and criticism during the six phases in Soviet politics since 1944. While the analysis of post-war Bulgarian Shakespeare production is thorough and compelling , the reading seems heavier going than in part 1. This is not the fault of the authors but ofthe very problem they ably expose: socialist realist criticism is so platitudinous, cliché-ridden, and predictable that one begins to glaze over on the quoted snippets. Indeed, a major difficultyofwriting production history dealing with the Soviet era is that published reviews offer a paucity ofobjective description ofwhat was actuallyseen onstage. Most critical verbiage was partyline interpretation of what it all meant in progressive terms. To their credit, Shurbanov and Sokolova sought out and interviewed actors, directors, and theatergoers—and drew upon their own memories—in their effort to document the artistic choices made in important Shakespeare productions. They also provide thirty production photographs of twenty-nine different productions , mostly from the Soviet era. Part 2 begins with a chapter on the critical appropriation of Shakespeare after 1946. The authors celebrate the courage ofMarco Mincoff, a professor of English who dared to express his own opinions on Shakespeare's plays and was censured as a "class enemy" (140). The set texts of the Bulgarian school curriculum , Macbeth andHamlet,became the subjects ofendless ideological analysis. Onstage, Romeo andJuliettook precedence. That play and Hamlet take focus in the chapter on productions of Shakespeare's tragedies. A chapter on the comedies covers a range ofplays. Through these surveys, one also gets a sense ofthe work ofthe outstanding Bulgarian directors: VUi...