Anton
P. Chehov: The Bear - A ten-scene jest for a jazz quartet and an actor During
the first scene of the performance, it is the musical instruments that define
the characters - saxophone as Elena Ivanova Popova and bass guitar as the servant
Luca - , and they start a dialogue based of Chehov's text. Every instrument takes
on the integral text of its respective character, transforming it into music with
which it communicates. Elena Ivanova Popova is a widow "who has buries herself
within the walls of her house, who has been mourning her husband for four months,
while her servant - old man Luca - keeps telling her to take off her mourning
clothes 'since beauty does not last forever and she is young and beautiful, blood
and milk' ". Someone is at the door and Luca, the bass guitar, leaves. In
the second scene Elena, the saxophone, stays alone and speaks - plays - a monologue
of her loneliness, sorrow and her husband's infidelity. The third scene shows
Luca returning and telling her "that a cursing forest spirit demands to see
her ", but Elena declines. In the fourth scene, an actor as Gregory S. Smirnoff
comes on stage, bringing in the elements of theatre. The actor has a dialogue
with his imaginary acting partners, Chechov's characters, actually played by the
saxophone and the bass guitar.
Smirnoff comes to collect the money that "Elena's
deceased husband owed for the oat he purchased form him" and which he urgently
needed.
Elena is "not able to pay him the money owed, because the bookkeeper
is not at home" and leaves, insulted by Smirnoff's rudeness. In the fifth,
sixth and seventh scene, Smirnoff "angry, and even uneasy" remains alone
in the room while waiting to receive his money and a violin plays a melody, symbolic
of the emerging romantic feelings between him and Elena. The final three scenes
show the conflict developing between Smirnoff and Elena, which comes to a happy
ending, while the sound of the drums comments on the situation, the personalities
of the two characters and their relationship. In this manner the musical instruments
play the roles of Chechov's characters with music and become actors, while the
actors become instruments with their acting.
By intertwining and merging of
these two kinds of artistic expression - music and acting, the theatrical illusion
gains an audacious, peculiar and unusually interesting dimension. It is a continuation
of the quest for new artistic dimensions...
: : Zijah A. Sokolovic Grigorie
Stepanovich Smirnoff - cast: Zijah A. Sokolovic
Elena Ivanova Popova - Saxophone:
Primoz Simoncic
Servant Luca - bass guitar: Iztok Vladimir
Violin - Jelena
Zdrale
Drums - Marjan Stancic
Director - Zijah A. Sokolovic |
