FROM TASHKENT WITH LOVE, SORROW AND ACCOMPLISHMENT
REVIEWS GATE
London: WHITE WHITE BLACK STORK. To 10 June.
Posted by : TimothyRamsden on Jun 07, 2006 - 11:36 AM London
WHITE WHITE BLACK STORK
by Yolkin Tuichiev from stories by Abdullah Kadyri
Barbican (Pit) To June 2006
Mon-Sat 7.45pm
Runs 1hr 35min No interval
TICKETS: 0845 120 7554
www.barbican.org.uk (reduced booking fee online)
Review: Timothy Ramsden 6 June
FROM TASHKENT WITH LOVE, SORROW AND ACCOMPLISHMENT
I recall an hilarious 1950s account of an attempt to introduce Macbeth to an African village. The listeners understood everything in terms of their own culture, re-inventing Shakespeare wildly. I might be doing the same for this piece, based on stories a century old from Tashkent. Mention of Islam, Sharia’a law and the Russian Empire might import all kinds of misunderstandings through ignorance or from other connections.
Yet it seems that the frustration of love and the demands of orthodoxy in destroying young lives here could come from any tight, authority-bound community. The bones of the story and characters might have been written by Thomas Hardy about rural Wessex only a few years before Abdullah Kadyri’s action is set.
Despite the piece starting with births, the titular storks seem more to do with emotional longing. Yet the story, set round a revolving tree with swings attached (one broke at Tuesday’s performance, possibly inhibiting their later use), shows recognisable circumstances. Young Makhzum is undertaking spiritual learning in the Madraseh where his mild-mannered father Okhund teaches.
Makhzum’s attachment to impoverished pupil Karim leads to allegations of homosexuality. Karim’s expelled while Okhund tries to stifle rumours about his son through a hasty marriage. Prospective father-in-law is the forceful Said, who bargains hard for his daughter then uses the law, both village justice and the Russian District Court, when he believes she’s been dishonoured.
She meanwhile dreams of a young cloth-seller who dashes in and out, a magical creature like the storks. He, like Karim, is rarely seen and their romantic impact on the young villagers contrasts the trouble and inability to help they respectively bring.
The heart of this piece, seen under unremitting white light, is the suffering of Makhzum and his forced bride Makhichekhra; the tragedy is, when not forced on each other, they are mutually sympathetic. Around them lie the hard-bargaining and anger of parents who look out for themselves or fear loss of honour, plus the inevitable chirruping gossips.
The acting is lithe and clearly-characterised, only the thundering musical interpolations interrupting an action which has its own intensity and focus.
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