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DOG WALTZ
by: Leonid Andreyev
Premiere on 6th June 2004
Running time approx. 1h 55’’
Directed by: Dejan Mijac
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 Cast and crew |
| Synopsis |
| About the author |
About the director |
| Festivals and prizes |
| Reviews |
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Cast:
HENRIH TILE Branislav Lecic
KARL TILE Nikola Djuricko
ELIZABETH Jelena Djokic/Jelena Ilić
ALEKSANDROV, called FEKLUSA Goran Susljik
LUCKY WOMAN Jasmina Rankovic-Avramovic
ANDREY ANDREYEVICH TIZENHAUZEN Marko Basovic
DMITRY IVANOVIC JERMOLAYEV Slobodan Tesic
LACKEY IVAN Nikola Simic
Translation: Novica Antic
Creative Video Team:
Leader: Boris Miljkovic
Stage Architect: Dejan Miljkovic
Director of Photography and Lights: Milan Tvrdisic
Computer Animation: Branko Citilik
Set Design: Vladislav Lalicki
Costume Design: Lana Cvijanovic
Composer: Aleksandra Anja Djordjevic
Scenic Speech: Ljiljana Mrkic Popovic
Russian Language Consultant: Danica Ilic
Dramaturge: Marina Milivojevic Madjarev
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SYNOPSIS
First published in "Sovremennye zapiski", Paris, 1922, No 10, pp. 1-66. At the same time printed as a separate edition in the USA. Never published in L.N. Andreyev's lifetime.
Andreyev started work on Dog’s Waltz in the autumn of 1913.
In his letter to V.I. Nemirovich-Danchenko of 14 September he
wrote that the drama would be finished in about two weeks, he'd
already written an act and a half (Letters - III, p. 235). In
this letter he already described the drama as "a TRULY
terrible thing"! "For staging it, and quickly, we
have perfect conditions," he wrote to Nemirovich-Danchenko
on 4 September 1916. "There are big parts, and only four
of them; for younger ones only one. For the set, very little
money is necessary, and four days to make it. Everything we
need is in theatrical art, acting, talent and the human soul.
Gloomy? - but we are not writers of comic songs. Rough, troubled,
disturbing, irritating the middle class - but we are art …
Dog’s Waltz is not an act of mischief, not a challenge,
not an attempt at piquancy - no! Dog’s Waltz is the same
example of generalization as Him. Dog’s Waltz is the most
hidden and cruel meaning of tragedy, which denies the point
and sense of human existence. Drawing a parallel between world
and people and little dogs which dance, are kept on a leash,
or shown a sugar lump may be sacrilege, but certainly is not
simple and foolish indecency.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Leonid Nikolayevich Andreyev (9/21 August 1871 - 12 September 1919) was born in the town of Orel in the family of a civil servant. After graduating from the Faculty of Law of the University of Moscow he practiced law for a while, at the same time collaborating with a number of Moscow newspapers as a court reporter as well as feuilleton writer. His feuilletons reveal the author's critical focus on the reality of the bourgeoisie and nobility. His Easter story Bargamot and Garaska attracted M. Gorki's attention. Gorki brought him into the literary group Sreda, drew him into active participation in the anthology Znanie and in that way played the key role in Andreyev's shaping as an artist. It was not so obvious while Andreyev was working in the routine of a writer depicting everyday life and writing psychological literature, adopting the experience of Chekhov (,,,,) and Dostoyevski (……) But when Andreyev's artistic orientation was chosen, the uniqueness of his way was clearer and clearer. It manifested itself, first and foremost, in the tendency to overstep the boundaries of a writer depicting events from everyday life, writing sociographic literature, and move towards raising general philosophical issues. On the other hand, the principles of generalization, introduced by symbolist literature, did not satisfy him either, since they were related to going beyond the "border", into transcendence. Andreyev was looking for appropriate, free forms in order to express the philosophy he had gradually developed. Andreyev's view of the world was the expression of a lack of faith in theories of progress. The centre of Andreyev's creative work is the problem of freedom and in this he approaches Gorki, But Andreyev's logic is different. Although he did not question the role of the social factor - that was why he had supported the revolution of 1905 and spent a month in solitary confinement for the participation in it - the experience of that revolution (and of the French revolutions, whose history he studied) drove him to scepticism. Not to a refusal to support the revolutionary movement, but to a pessimistic view of its immediate future. Thus the writer's attitude to the social and political movement of the epoch is connected with the fact that he did not recognize the theory of progress, and that was why Andreyev's problem of freedom manifested itself as a personal problem of every individual existence, which is realized through antinomy of determination and freedom of the will ...
Works:
Novellas: The Red Laugh, His Excellency the Governor, The Christians, The Seven Who Were Hanged, The Abyss
Plays: Life of Man, Savva, To the Stars, King Hunger, The Black
Maskers, Anathema, Katarina Ivanovna, Dog’s Waltz
Novel: Sashka Zhegulev
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ABOUT THE DIRECTOR
Dejan Mijac graduated from the Academy of Theatrical Art in Belgrade. He has worked as a permanent director at the National Theatre in Tuzla, and then at the Serbian National Theatre in Novi Sad. Pokondirena tikva by Jovan St. Popovic, directed by him in 1973, has become one of the milestones of the contemporary Yugoslav theatre. He has taught acting at the Drama Studio of the SNP and the Academy of Art in Novi Sad, and directing at the Faculty of Dramatic Art. Now he is directing at the Yugoslav Drama Theatre (Maxim Gorki's Vasa Zheleznova, Branislav Nusic's At Sea, Ljubomir Simovic's Sopalovic Travelling Theatre, Jovan Sterija Popovic's Patriots, Moliere's Misanthrope…). He has also directed at all relevant theatres of the former and today's Yugoslavia.
Dejan Mijac has introduced a number of innovations into the contemporary interpretation of Jovan Sterija Popobic and Branislav Nusic. He has received, more than once, the highest professional and public awards.
He lives in Belgrade, as a retired university professor and still an active director.
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Festivals and Prizes
- 50th Sterijino pozorje, Novi Sad, Serbia&Montenegro
- X Festival Iberoamericano, Bogota, Columbia
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REVIEWS
With the successful staging of the play Dog’s Waltz Leonid
Andreyev, a writer not sufficiently recognized by our theatre-going
public - the one who, working at the same time as Checkov and
Gorki, revived Russian dramatic literature, giving it the leading
role in the Europe of the time - has finally been restored to
his rightful place in our theatre. …The director combined
realistic means of expression and the language of symbolist
theatre into a living, vivid, organic whole. Words and music
united into unique, characteristically theatrical symbols, effective
solutions helping to conjure up rivers, bridges and streets
submerged in gusts of wind and showers of rain belonged to symbolism…
whereas the performance was brought closer to realism by the
acting style of an outstanding team, whose qualities functionally
supplemented each other. These were Branislav Lecic's fascinating
energy (Henrih Tile), Nikola Dzuricko's casual frivolity (Karl),
Goran Susljik's character acting (Aleksandrov), Jelena Djokic's
disturbing sensibility, and Jasmina Rankovic-Avramovic's flair
for satiric persiflage (Lucky Woman). As the main participant
in the performance at which Dog’s Waltz was enacted, Dejan
Mijac, apart from confirming himself once again as a master
of his craft, has proved that he is also a director with a flexible
sensibility, ready to adopt everything good and productive in
the dramatic theatre of today.
Tragic Grotesque, Vladimir Stamenkovic, NIN, 10 June 2004-06-29
…Branislav Lecic as Henrik Tile knowledgeably, powerfully, but also subtly plays the role of a biting, but also bitten to self-destruction wolf. In most cases, suicides are reserved for beings poetically inclined. Who would expect something like that from a bank employee? But money also has imagination and a weak spot of its own… Nikola Djuricko's Karl Tile, a person without illusions or sublime aspirations, brings a precious lightness and irony into the play, as well as the Lucky Woman played by the irresistible, deeply humorous Jasmina Rankovic-Avramovic. It seems as if all misery and irony of the man-hare, humiliated and poisoned by life, are summarized in Feklusa by Goran Susljik, the most mature accomplishment, it seems to me, in this actor's career. Jelena Djokic as the splendid, dangerous to herself and others, unworthy but unavoidable in every man's life Elizabeth, dramatic and theatrical… This is a performance of emotional richness and elegant irony, with a verse by Vladislav Petkovic Dis as its theme: This is the life where I fell too.
Wolves, Hares and Other Beasts, Muharem Pervic, Politika, 10 June 2004
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