- Shakespeare in
the Soviet Union

By LEONID VIVYEN

LENINGRAD

[ would be difficult to find a
theatre in the Soviet Union
which has not at some time or
other staged Shakespeare’s plays.
With the advance in the general
cultural level of the population
the popularity of Shakespeare

. has inmereased. His works have

been translated into many lan-
guages of the peoples inhabiting
the USSR and can be found in
the most distant corners. of our
vast land.

In large cities, such as Lenin-
grad, a Shakespeare play is con-
stantly on the boards.

I have been associated with
the Pushkin Drama Theatre in
Leningrad for more than 40
years, and during that time I
have taken part, both as actor
and producer, in many Shake-
speare productions. From each
of them I derived enormous
pleasure. This is only natural,
for Shakespeare, a writer of lofty
feelings and aspirations, creator
of titanic personalities having
universal significance, is very
dear to Soviet people. We great-

ly appreciate in him his humane ~.

views and his inexhaustible op-
timism, expressed even in his
tragedies.

’

Soviet theatre people do not
regard Shakespeare’s plays as
museum pieces to be viewed by
the public with a cold and de-
tached veneration. We would
plumb the artistic depths of the
Shakespeare heritage, and re-
store to Shakespeare’s works
their true style and character,
freeing them from the false in-
terpretation of esthetes.

We seek the true key to inter-
pretation in Shakespeare him-
self, and in his unexampled ob-
servations on theatre art.

Hamlet says of actors: “They
are the abstracts and _ brief
chronicles of the time...’

And again: “For anything so
overdone is from the purpose of
playing, whose end, both at the
first and now, was and is, to
hold, as *twere, the mirror up
to nature; to show virtue her
own image, and the very age
and body of the time his fo
and pressure.” ;

Shakespeare’s “mirror”  re-
flected the motive forces of his
own day, especially those operat-
ing in England, for, as Engels
wrote, “wherever the action of
his plays takes place, be it in
Italy, France, of Navarra, we al-
ways find ourselves in merry
England, the birthplace of his
eccentric countryfolk, his pedan-
tie schoolmasters, his strange and
charming women: in every case
it is clear that the action could
have taken place only under Eng-
lish skies.”

At the same’ time Heine was
no less right in saying that in
Shakespeare we find the three
unities: unity of place — the
whole world; unity of time —
eternity; unity of action — the
whole of mankind.

Thus William Shakespeare,
this worthy son of the English
people, stands before us in truly
gigantic stature as a poet, play-
wright, historian, and real friend
of progressive humanity.

P er haps no Shakespearean
play is such a favorite with So-
viet audiences as Othello. I first
staged this tragedy several years
ago. I shall never forget the en-
thusiasm with which our troupe

undertook the production.

We found it necessary to re-
ject. the traditional interpreta-
tion of Othello as a _ tragedy
showing how an exotic African
kills a beloved wife and himself
in a fit of jealous rage. Such an
interpretation is false. By delv-
ing into the finest works of
world Shakespeare studies, the
Soviet theatre has succeeded in
revealing the human appeal in
this tragedy, in which Shakes-
peare treats the problem of be-
trayed confidence.

The conflict between Othello
and Iago is the conflict between
two opposite worlds—the world
of Othello, a great man of ex-
ceptional talent, profoundly hon-
est and sincere; and the world of
Iago, who is common, mediocre,
vulgar.

In killing Desdemona, Othello
kills his finest hopes, and his

complete unity of plan.

The modern public can hardly
be expected to find this play in-
teresting if it is interpreted as
a mere struggle for the throne,
without revealing its deep-lying
philosophical and social signifi-
cance.

Macbeth, who at the beginning
of the play is shown as a worthy
ruler, a talented chieftain and
loving husband, later kills his
king and patron and becomes a
bloodthirsty monster.

“Bither I am very much mis-
taken or a poet can reveal noth-
ing more stupendous than this
change of feeling in the human
heart, which enlightens the
mind as it stirs the emotions,”
Stendhal wrote in his work, Ra-
cine and Shakespeare.

According to him, Macbeth
drives the spurs of his ambition
into the flanks of his resolution,

In 1943, when he played in the Theatre Guild‘’s production of
Othello on Broadway, New York critics hailed Paul Robeson (above)
as “the greatest Othello of the 20th century; probably the greatest

ever.”
Shakespearian production.

faith in man. When he: learns
of his mistake, the knowledge of
the irreparable wrong he has
done leads him to take his own
life. His death is a catharsis.

This play embodies one more
idea of great. moment—namely,
that this dark-skinned Moor is
far superior morally to the Eu-
ropeans by whom he is sur-
rounded.

It was on these ideas that we
based our staging of the play.

e@

At another time I had the
pleasure of staging Macbeth at
the Pushkin Drama Theatre.

In every respect this is one of
the greatest of tragedies. Its
dramatic and technical aspects
are unrivalled. Scenes such as
the witches on the heath, Mac-
beth before the murder of Dun-
can, and the scene when Lady
Macbeth goes out of her mind,
stand out like flaming images
in the memories of all who be-
hold them. No other work by the
great playwright is built up with
such stern and simple logic, and
no other is distinguished by such

The play shattered every U.S. attendance record for a

knowing full well that this re-
solution will take too desperate
a leap, yet unable to bridle his
passion.

The tragedy of Macbeth is the
tragedy of, a man consumed by
ambition, by the longing to at-
tain power at any cost. This am-
bition turned him, a rich and
gifted personality, into a petty
traitor and murderer; it isolated
him from the people and brought
him in the end-to utter loneli-
ness.

Can such a theme have lost its
appeal today?

Again and again our theatre
turns to the inexhaustible fount
Shakespeare has left us. Soviet
people, like progressive people
the world over, have nothing but
admiration for the great English
realistic dramatist. The spirit of
Shakespeare, the great humanist,
lives today; it lives on among
those who are fighting against
war, fascism and reaction to ach-
ieve a brighter future for man-
kind.

The people
had a rhyme
for it

BY ARTHUR CLEGG

OWHERE are republican
and democratic traditions
more securely embedded than
in the nursery rhymes we tell
our children.

These products of village
Miltons and wage - earning
Shelleys are full of satire and
mockery and contempt of
kings and queens, of lords and
ladies.

Handed down from genera-
tion to generation they keep
alive the spirit of peasant re-
volts and the tumult of the
London streets.

Yet, oftimes, their meaning
is clouded. Kings and queens
had a habit of slitting the
tongues of their subjects and
cutting off their ears. Many
of the rhymes had to be a
little symbolical to escape this
savage censorship.

Many of these verses, there-
fore, require a word of explan-
ation before their meaning
can be appreciated.

Some, of course, are clear
enough.

Everyone knows of the
Duke of York, son of George
IM, who was hated by every
proper Briton because of his
efforts to introduce Prussian
militarism into the army. His
military blunders are mocked
in The Grand Old Duke of
York.

“The grand old Duke of
York,

He had ten thousand men,

He marched them up to the
top of the hill,

And he marched them down
again.”

The Duke, commander-in-
chief of the British Army,
was dismissed when it was
discovered that his mistress
had organized a regular trade
in army commissions.

He had landed an army in
Holland at the Helder.

The expedition had no point
at all and ended in a ridicu-
lous withdrawal.

“And when they were up,
they were up,

And when they were down,
they were down,

And when they were only

halfway up,
They were neither up nor
down.”

Since the highest hill near
the Helder is about ten feet
about the surrounding plain,
the points is very plain.

x,

Some of the rhymes give
rise to guessing games.

Of which of our sovereigns
do you think this was writ-
ten?

“A cat may look at a King,
And sure ! may look at an
ugly thing.”

Cats came into the satires
of royalty and courtiers a lot,
as, for instance:

“Pussy cat, pussy cat, where
have you been?

I’ve: been to London to see
the Queen.

Pussy cat, pussy cat, what
did you there?

| caught a little mouse un-
der her chair.”

There are plenty of cats in

London this year looking for-

tasty mice under the guise of
looking at a queen. Mice, you
have been warned.

Some of these rhymes play-
ed quite a part in British his-
tory. Take the best satire 1
the English language on Hen-
ry VII—Sing a song of six-
pence.

All one needs to know t0
understand it is that a “black-
bird” in Tudor lawyer’s slang
is a title to land, especially to
Church land.

"Sing a song of sixpence, 4
pocket full of rye,
Four-and-twenty blackbirds
baked in a pie. 3
When the pie was opened
the birds began to sing-
Wasn‘t that a dainty dish fo
set before the King?”

Well, who wouldn’t think it
rather a dainty dish to get a
landed estates all in one ple:

To the English peasant and —

farm laborers, hit by Henry's
debasement of the currency
and driven off their land bY
the enclosures which led them
a few years later to rebellion
in Norfolk, the song was 4%
attack on the king’s greed.

“The King was in his count

ing house counting out his

money,

The queen was in her par-
lor eating bread an
honey.”

*

Rockabye Baby played ®
still greater role in Britis
history. It helped to rock
down a throne. Less than 300
years ago it was the most POP"
ular song in London.

The brutal -and pigoted
James IL was on the throne

ruling with the aid of the.

hangman Judge Jeffries.

On his succession some had
argued that he should be &%
dured as he would die child-
less. After all, as his brothet
had said, his mistresses Wer?
inflicted on him as penne?
by his priest.

But then he had a son and
all England knew that unless
they overthrew another kt
none of their liberties woul
be safe. The apprentices °
London sang: :

“Rockabye baby, on the tre 7

top,
When the wind blow
cradle will rock.

; the

When the bough breaks the
cradle will wall,
Down will come baPY!
cradle and all.”
out

The song spread through¢
the land and soon the W#
did blow, and it blew Jame
and the Old Pretender out °
the land for ever.

rf
These rhymes should neve

be forgotten, nor the cit
stances out of which t
arose.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE — AUGUST 14, 1953 — pag