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June, 1, 28 - Premiere: «The Oresteia» by Aeschylus

Mark WEIL, Art Director
An Address of the Producer – A TRAVEL THAT MIGHT NOT HAVE HAPPENED

Whatever I could write about «Oresteia»  – nothing might be more surprising than the very  Aeschylus text that let elicit a great number of meanings, energy of action and all conceivable and inconceivable associations while composing a performance. In its verbose translation, wandering and dodging here and there, this text is difficult to master. And, no doubt, not everyone can master it…

The theatre pays attention to the play not so often. Is it merely by chance that ILKHOM’s performance is the second within the recent decades on the stage in the post-Soviet space? And whether only within the recent ones? There are lots of reasons for that.
The trilogy we inherited 2.5 thousand years ago got close to us not so easy. Was I illumed with a faint light realising that I was putting on stage classics of classics, the play of the plays…? If I was, anyway not from the first steps… Besides, the idea of the performance was brought into the life not by myself and not in ILKHOM. It was born by D-r Reinhard Krumm who - until now - was the Director of The Central Asian Bureau of Ebert’s Fund and who had never been a theatrical producer before.
The case happened to be extraordinary both for the Fund (whose business was particularly development of political culture in the society) and for me who was used to generating my own ideas and who hadn’t planned to turn my attention to Aeschylus...
The proposal suddenly evoked my response. I don’t want to say about the Voice of Destiny in the spirit of ancient tragedies, I don’t want to say that such significant works are impossible to be performed without real sponsors and producers that reflects the essence of the present time. One way or another, something was brought together and we started working.  
During our first meeting Mr D-r Reinhard Krumm said that he was inspired by the lessons of high classics and the political aspects of Aeschylus tragedy (almost an example of the first steps of democracy) reflecting a crisis in the history of Ancient Greece that bursted out changing laws and views in that society.
He remembered his fervent welcome he showed to the Moscow performance during the time of the collapse of the USSR. It was one by Pieter Stain who transferred onto Russian land his formerly famous in Germany performance…
Then I said about my impressions from that imported performance – there worked well-known Moscow actors, Its duration was more than 7 hours with two intervals… and… I didn’t remember anything special that could cause any splash of ideas and emotions… Perhaps, it happens so if you are shown any other, not your life or if people share with you their dreams that can not say to you anything personally interesting…

I should say that it is the second address to ancient Greeks in ILKHOM. The first one was in 2002 in the performance of a well-known German producer Hansgunter Haime for the European festival in Reklinghausen  in cooperation with the famous Swiss Theatre Vidу–Lausanne E.T. There was shown «Alkesta»  preceding ILKHOM’s «Medeya».
According to Haime’s decision,  «Medey» was performed as a story about a stranger, an example of a minority rejected by the monolithic society. A vaccination of the European, to be exact, the German theatre – which, no doubt, the most often addresses to the antic theatre – brought our success in Germany and lots of meditation at home about the fact that we perform a «strange» show marked with clean lines and a minimalist solution, special humour as well as spirit of tragedy that we do not read out directly…

During a meeting with Mr Krumm I dropped a word that ancient Greeks «work» better in Europe – especially in our Eurasian space that mixed (in people’s mind) atheism, paganism, Christianity and Islam in an unknown proportion. But is it true?
Anyway, I and Krumm understood that I would put the performance on stage as I feel it. I didn’t promise to express «a classic example of first steps of democracy»…
We should give our partners their due – we didn’t feel any interference into our plans… I believe that our producer also understood that it was us who had to come into the river named «Oresteia»  by ourselves and if we could swim in its waters we would be able to show somehow the polisemy of the plot … And one could never swim twice in the same water (Wasn’t it a fault of Pieter Stain who transferred his German performance into the post-perestroika Moscow that indifferently accepted that «imported good»?)

The work was not standard. We would have liked to understand somehow the way nowadays people would react to the idea of putting «Oresteia»  on stage. On the one hand actors started to «soften» characters and situations – to make a typical for ILKHOM way towards them through improvisation (we keep a video archive with hundreds of sketches). Parallelly, we gathered a group of people representing a section of ILKHOM’s audience: from students and professional historians up to theatre-lovers of various ages.
We asked them to read the same scenes from «Oresteia»   from different translations. Upon comparing the impressions we chose a little known translation of Solomon Apt... I guess, we didn’t make a mistake. It happened to be the most transparent and clear for nowadays ears that cannot hear scenic words well…
We met the selected people a number of times, we talked about the plot of the trilogy and about the life, about their personal associations caused by the story, we tried to understand how Aeschylus text touched them… and if it did.

The reactions were various. Some people read Aeschylus as a collection of familiar (or absolutely unfamiliar) myths. Somebody read the text from the point of view of  Clytemnestra who killed her husband, a hero of war, and had lost her daughter Ifegeniy, a sacrifice of military ambitions of  Agamemnon. The stumbling-block happened to become the justification of Orestes by Athena’s court, Orestes who punished his mother with death for the death of his father…
Almost everybody is prone to think that «the justification of the murder» is the most contradictory conflict of the trilogy and it will never be accepted by the audience of our Euro-Asian space where Mother (perhaps, especially in Uzbekistan) is a cult of the family…, that the people are educated with «The Crime and the Punishment» by Dostoevski and the justification of Orestes may cause confusions in minds, discords, and may prevent any meditations about changes in the life for that price.
I was silent and listened to the people that spoke about the play that used to be played in huge places and gathered crowds we may compare now only with crowds at world Olympics or performances of famous rock and pop stars…
Whereas the shadows of Furies’s  with their hollow inflamed eyes wishing to punish Orestes, with faces of Dostoevski’s characters, images of Orestes and Apollo, Agamemnon, Clytemnestra and Electra, the unhappy and miserable Aegisthus who outlived his killed brothers with their frantic family stories started to appear in actors’ improvisations, to penetrate into me more often and began to get much closer… I began to understand Aeschylus’s captiousness in his search of causes in another way…
 
I clearly understood that the Trojan war in spite of the participation of gods and heroes is not a great myth but only a precursor of forecoming  routine senseless wars that started and would start because of false ambitions (either political or personal), designed ideological doctrines, money, seizes of natural deposits, unreasonable national animosity or just somebody’s faithlessness…

Helen – the wife of the youngest Atridus, Menelaus - fell in love with a Trojan man, the most  simplest Paris in our performance. Menelaus, abandoned by her, «broke down» as a glamorous hero may «break down» in a sudden and out-of-control situation. The eldest brother, King Agamemnon, didn’t forgive it and started a war against Troy…  Nothing could stop him, even the necessity to sacrifice his daughter - Ifigeney... He did it… For 10 year lasted the war!
10 years...Thousands of urns with ashes… Finally – the Victory! And on the very first peaceful day the younger brother Menelau sank in the deep coming back from his trip … In the very first night the elder brother Agamemnon - upon his return - sank in the bath in his own blood from the knife wounds delivered by his wife and her lover…The gods decided that the most frightening thing (the trip to Troy) had already happened, distracted their attention and didn’t save the Hero… Nothing stopped anybody… the same way  nothing had been able to stop Atrey, the father of the heroes from his monstrous crime… Struggling for power he fed his brother Fiestus with meet of his own children. By chance he left Aegisthus alive. He grew up in exile and at the right time grew his dream about a place in Clytemnestra’s bed...

Thus there in ILKHOM was born a multi-voice space of human life… Aeschylus’s «Oresteia»  became one of the biggest (I mean the company), the most sophisticated and the most expensive (I mean technology) performance of the theatre. All that wasn’t the goal. It became necessary during the work on the text. We strove to simplicity, we could not help playing the game with the multiples of meanings…
We put together the text, the play, the chorus in the style of classic rock-n-roll of the 70-80s, total multimedia. A part of the texts of the Chorus was given to impassive and aggressive TV-announcers commenting the events in Russian, English and Uzbek. «Live video cameras» created in the theatre an atmosphere of an «unreal reality-show» destroying the frontiers between the stage and the house, running in an enormously bigger space, virtually bigger than ancient Greek amphitheatres. All murders and happen not in such stadiums but in an unlimited media space where nowadays people live.
 
The solution of the performance was born during the numerous improvisations and rehearsals. «Oresteia»  –  The Theatre of the Theatres – was worth any investments to enchant the audience whose attention is formed (or deformed) by TV and Internet.
These very media turned our planet into a huge media theatre that – in minutes – gathers enormous crowds around huge shows and murderous crimes... Alas, nothing else can attract millions of people… Whether somebody can forget live news about passenger planes tearing into skyscrapers in New York or siege of a school with children in Beslan mixed with «trivial pursuits» and other shows that contrast human tragedies and human stupidity?
We play with the audience easy-understandable games saving ‘multi-measurablity’ of Aeschylus’s space on the crossroad with our reality – probably, a dimmer time in comparison with that of Ancient Greeks on the days of humans’ youth…
What shall we leave for further generations? Global market economy that turned everything into wares? Although, who are «we»? I hardly dare say about all people living presently… All our lives are connected with the histories of our countries, our own histories and the histories of our families.
Whether it isn’t a life space comparable with the space of  «Орестея’s  events? What are we? Who are we? Have we become «smaller» than Ellins? More primitive? Should we envy the cradle of human culture? Should we envy Greeks living in the neighbourhood of their gods and contacting with them as equal people, disputing their Law, in defiance of their destiny independently taking important decisions in their lives.
Is it possible today to make something equal to ancient myths and make the world better? There is always a place for an exploit in our lives – this way the children used to be taught (and –  are they thought now?). But what an exploit and for what price? We didn’t use to ask it recently.

The philosophical centre of the performance anyway is Orestes – the last Atrid. We ask him all those questions, he himself asks them. In our performance he is almost a boy and he is instructed both by gods and people. Gods are recognisable in our performance – they make actions of «supermen» or men who think that they are «supermen»… Only upon the murder (expected by EVERYBODY) Orestes began to grow up and see everything clearly...
Everybody is a part of History. It is hard to recognize ourselves in the stream of routine life. But something is possible to understand re-reading ancient myths. This is how beautiful and deep they are.
And something else – we are characters of the same old stories. Whether we have «got higher» and avoided absurdity  and repeating of the past?
Although, «got higher» is not linked with our performance… Teaching somebody is difficult… We remain just a theatre.
Blessed be The Theatre that brings audience to Myths. Though, its life is tragic in the part of The Oracle  or  Cassandra from «Oresteia»  who didn’t please the powerful Apollo and who were doomed to both prophesy and solitude... as there are few people who can hear and understand words of Foretellers and Prophets... We do not know what will reach the audience from the played and the uttered… But… if a person feels something it is not little.
Orestes destiny (he is the last in the history of ups and downs of Atridus’s) in our performance is appointed not only by Athena’s Court but also by the audience… but I believe it is not appropriate to reveal all secrets…
We hope that ILKHOM’s performance may somehow bring the audience to them…
... Just when we were finishing the rehearsals, when doubts appeared with every step and the unseen result was hanging like a fatal «sward of Damocles» over the creators, I could definitely say that it was a good idea to put  «Oresteia»  on ILKHOM’s stage.

The Ilkhom Theater began preparation of the project of 2007 - the trilogy «The Oresteia» by Aeschylus. The Ebert Fund, the Ilkhom Theater with participation of the German Embassy in Uzbekistan are the initiators of the project.
During the first discussion of the project with the Head of the Regional Representative Office of the Ebert Fund in Central Asia, Mr. Reinhard Krumm, it was decided to create an initiative group, a council, consists of the representatives of Tashkent and international intelligentsia, people of different professions for the selection and adaptations of a rich layer of the Ancient Greek tragedy ideas to the present reality.
The 2nd stage of the project preparation will take place on November 2006.
The 3rd stage of the project preparation will take place on May-June 2007.

The Oresteia
«Agamemnon», «The Libation Bearers», «The Eumenides»
Tragedy

Production Mark Weil
Producer Igor Ratanov
Stage designer Vasiliy Yuriev
Music Artem Kim & “Xaoma” group
Costume designer Maria Soshina
Video director Talgat Khasanzyanov
Cameraman Rifkat Ibragimov
Computer design Mikhail Tsvetkov
Editing Nikolay Leonov, Talgat Khasanzyanov
Video artistic director Ivan Pravotorov, Timur Karpov
Assistant Director Vladimir Yudin

«The Oresteia» in the Ilkhom is passion, love, and rock-n-roll chorus. All these components are today’s attitude to life, death, God. 
2 463 years passed since the times of Aeschylus.
When he was young, he was a soldier and defended his Motherland in the most known wars of that time – battles of Marathon, Salamis, and Plataea. He really appreciated victories in those wars, much more than he appreciated his own victories in contests of dramatists later, which were not less than 13!
Totally he wrote 70 tragedies, but we know only 7 of them. He lived a long life for his times. Some 70 years…The writer, as many of his compatriots of his time and, later, many representatives of humanity in different centuries, was disturbed first of all by the problem of harmony… 
What is allowed to a man? What is happening to him when he oversteps the mark? What is sin? What retribution should be like? Is revenge inevitable? Is forgiveness possible?
Murder, revenge and possibility of forgiveness – «The Oresteia» consists of these collisions.
There were not murders, tortures or shedding anyone’s blood in front of the Greek theater audience’s eyes. There was nothing similar to what we got used to now seeing lots of thrillers, horrors, etc… But there were lots of tears, heart pain and sufferings. Especially, in Aeschylus’ works. Especially, in the most perfect tragedy – «The Oresteia» trilogy, where human relations were taken a particular and first place and deity was on the second, where almost each character every time tried to resist fate predetermined by heaven.
Indeed, all characters in «The Oresteia» manipulate each other one way or another, but for the first time in the history the author-dramatist gives the right to his characters to make decisions from which their fates and fates of people near to them depend on. If pride wins in Agamemnon when he makes himself even to the God or when he chooses between paternal love and imperatorial glory and death of his daughter – it is his choice.     
A plot of the tragedy is a condition for a modern interpretation.
The plot is the following: after the Trojan War began because of a beautiful woman – Helen – the King Agamemnon returns. He is met by his wife, who has not seen her husband ten years. She has a lover and an old detestation to her husband due to his murder of one of their daughters. She kills the husband, but their son, Orestes, avenges of his farther.
Later, he is also being hunted. All these peripeteias are managed by dispassionate Rulers – Gods. They also want to know – who will win? Whose protégé will be stronger?
«The Oresteia» in the Ilkhom is practically a story of our life, where we are being manipulated, we manipulate, but who will win – nobody knows till the end. Nobody knows as well who is right, who is wrong.
In the story, presented by the Ilkhom Theater, a spectator himself will become a judge of all murders and a juror for all murders.

Dramatis Personae and Performers
(in order of appearance in every part)

Part One. The Agamemnon.
Agamemnon Boris Gafurov, Iliya Dudochkin
Clytemnestra Honoured actress of Uzbekistan Olga Volodina
Aegisthus Farukh Khaldjigitov
Apollo Anton Pakhomov
Hermes Rustam Esanov
Cassandra Nargis Abdullaeva
Satyrs Anton Pakhomov, Vyacheslav Tszyu
Paris Iliya Dudochkin, Pavel Lukashenko
Menelaus, Officer Nikolay Leonov
Helen, Citizen Evelina Yusupova
Senior Citizen Honoured actress of Uzbekistan Marina Turpisheva
Old Citizen Vyacheslav Tszyu
Prophet Calchas Vsevolod Suchkov
Casualty Soldier Vladimir Yudin
Watchman, Soldier Pavel Lukashenko
Watchman, Contused Soldier Gleb Kosikhin
Watchman, Blind Soldier Student of the Ilkhom Theatre School of Drama Georgy Kobylin
Commentator Tyler Polumsky
Commentator, Citizen Alyona Lustina
Commentator, Citizen Raykhon Ulasenova
Commentator, Citizen Vassa Dergalyova
City’s musicians – Tyler Polumsky, Sukhrob Nazimov, Marat Khusnitdinov, Sergey Anukhin,  Student of the Ilkhom Theatre School of Drama Yan Dobrynin, Vitaly Aminov
Cameramen – Talgat Khasanzyanov, Timur Karpov

Part Two.  The Libation Bearers.
Orestes – Said Khudaibergenov, Student of the Ilkhom Theatre School of Drama Denis Boyko
Electra - Students of the Ilkhom Theatre School of Drama Alina Alimova, Khristina Belousova
Pylades – Vladimir Yudin
Senior Citizen Honoured actress of Uzbekistan Marina Turpisheva
Cilissa, wet-nurse – Vassa Dergalyova

Part Three. The Eumenides.
Athena – Alyona Lustina
Ghost of Clytemnestra – Honoured actress of Uzbekistan Olga Volodina
Furies – Vyachelsav Tszyu, Farukh Khaldjigitov, Nargis Abdullaeva, Marina Turpisheva, Iliya Dudochkin, Georgy Kobylin, Gleb Kosikhin, Nikolay Leonov, Vsevolod Suchkov, Pavel Lukashenko, Evelina Yusupova

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