Europe will shortly commemorate the 40th anniversary of the victory over Nazi Germany at the end of World War II. The rebuilt economies of West and Central Europe have fostered cultural climates and support systems for the arts which have been envied far and wide. Classical theatre has been staged in successful and innovative fashion, alongside new works by the post-war generation of playwrights and directors. Recently, dramatic shifts in population and economic standards have had their effects on cultural life, resulting in not only attention to several varieties of ethnic theatre, but in new readings of standard works. The search for identity which characterizes European life at this time is shown, in different ways, by two recent productions of Jean Genet’s Les Negres (The Blacks). Genet himself was never officially honored for his work until just over a year ago, when, at the age of 72, he and 15 other artists received the prestigious Grand Prix International from France. This came only after Rainer Werner Fassbinder had adapted Querelle for the screen, and Jean-Paul Sartre touted Genet as the “apostle of evil.”
Les Negres has been staged by mostly all-white casts since it was written (for a black cast) in 1957. There are three instances of all-black casts on record: 1958 (Paris), 1961 (New York) and 1984 (the Netherlands). The Schaubühne am Lehniner Platz staging of the work was recently seen in Brussels, with one black actress (Miriam Goldschmidt, who paints herself black as well for the performance, leaving a diamond of bare skin unpainted on her forehead “to remind her who she really is”). Director Peter Stein may well have obtained special permission to assemble a white cast—but, as suggested by the Dutch theatre magazine Toneel Teatraal, the sight of whites with greasepaint donning masks as the whitey-blacks in the script may be just “too much of a good thing.” While the French-language press approved of the production in Belgium, it had earlier been dismissed by Germany’s leading theatre magazine Theater Heute as lifeless and uninspired.
The Dutch Nieuwe Comedie staging of Les Negres, under the direction of Rufus Collins and Henk Tjon, unfortunately appears to have fallen a few notches below Stein’s production. It’s a significant effort, however, in its link to the broader discussion of developing strategies for “ethnic theatre” in countries where the idea of multi-racial society has only recently begun to be recognized. In this sense, the Dutch Genet production with an all-black cast is an intriguing event in a country where the first “kinky-haired barbershop” (as advertised in the press) opened only last year.
With “ethnic” or “minority” or “migrant” theatre, Europe is reabsorbing its colonial past, reflecting the presence of representatives from other continents who are here to stay. The “new Europeans” are finding ways to leave their imprint, while the older cultural minorities (Basques, Catalonians, Corsicans, etc.) appear to be more interested in withdrawal.
But political union and paying taxes are one thing, while creating a theatre audience is another. Among the stumbling blocks which crop up in a number of countries is a certain amount of resentment on the part of many writers lumped into the minorities pool, and an edge of confusion about who should, can and wants to be in the audience. In Britian, for example, it is clear that most of the groups involved are geared to racially mixed audiences. Black theatre for whites? Can such a brew survive in the mix of London theatre? The verdict is not yet in.
In this climate of ethnic emphasis, Les Negres seems a likely candidate for restaging. It remains a story about survival—revenge of the oppressed in acting out the bad image created by the powers-that-be. The interaction of image and the real struggle to stay alive is also at the core of Ghetto, the lively and macabre musical written by Israeli Joshua Sobol. Ghetto premiered in Haifa, and made its European debut in Berlin under Peter Zadek’s direction. More than eyebrows were raised by Sobol’s direct grappling with the weighty issue of the influence of self-hatred among Jews upon the destructive forces of anti-Semitism. The story is set in Poland’s Wilna Ghetto in 1942-43, where 50,000 of the city’s 76,000 Jews were killed. The survivors must find their way, and Sobol has not hesitated in exposing the taboo theme of Jewish collaboration.
Genet may have been a white Frenchman who decided to write for blacks, but Sobol is a native Israeli. Not all of his fellow-citizens are happy that he has set scenes of the Holocaust to music-dance-hall music to boot—with the inhabitants of the Wilna Ghetto performing in response to SS commands. With such an entertainment, the problem lies in part with sweeping the audience along in the feigned gaiety—and not all spectators enjoy this kind of ride.
When the play’s central figure, Jewish ghetto police chief Jacob Gens, bargains with an SS officer to bring the number of those to be shot on a given day from 2,000 back down to 600, satisfaction is felt all around—with the exception of the ghetto librarian, who leads the ethical resistance to the dark cloud of compromise.
Beyond this, Sobol’s production offers little in the way of conclusions, but it is an analytical tool for understanding the dynamics of such extreme situations. While Israel is concerned with such legislation as the so-called “Who is a Jew” amendment (now defeated, but sure to appear again in another form), the debate around this Law of Return serves as a painful perspective on the dialogue left to Holocaust survivors. Sobol contends that the extreme right-wing view of Jewishness reflects accommodation of the anti-Semitic views which begin with exclusion and end with destruction. It will be interesting to follow the trail of future Ghetto productions—how far can it go as an example of Israel’s self-analysis?
Meanwhile, Europe herself is in the throes of self-examination, and one of the main themes is cultural unity. This idea has been tossed back and forth in some detail at conferences on a “common European cultural identity.” So the search for “Who is a European” is carried on—this generally means overlooking the differences in order to drown out the dissenters.
At present, the major threat to European culture (most noisily articulated by France’s culture minister Jack Lang) is perceived in the form of the United States. Some of Europe’s native minorities, in their push for self-expression and linguistic autonomy, also complain of discrimination and repression by the very groups (avant-garde and mainstream) who oppose the North American import.
But the problems of cultural and linguistic diversity are cheerfully tossed off by the managers of Odéon in Paris, as evident in events scheduled for the first half of 1985: for 10 days in January, Strindberg’s The Storm, in Italian, directed by Giorgio Strehler, filled the hall; the Strehler staging of Corneille’s L’Illusion was also received with loving reviews, in line with the tricentennial activities marking the death of Corneille; exiled Soviet director Yuri Lyubimov’s version of Dostoyevsky’s The Possessed opened in the second half of February. Lyubimov came to the project having earned bitter words at the Maggio Musicale in Florence—the audience disapproved of his Rigoletto, and George Armstrong wrote in The Guardian at the time: “The production could be useful if it serves as a warning to theatre managers everywhere to stop importing gimmicky directors from an alien culture for a purely homegrown opera or play.”
The cross-cultural welcome would seem to wither under this attack, but other efforts with an international flavor are hailed, such as Ingmar Bergman’s King Lear, in Swedish, which was scheduled in early March at the Odéon. Somewhat later, the season will trumpet another memorial year with the popular adaptation (now in progress, and untitled as yet) of a novel on Victor Hugo, by the French historian and television producer Alain Decaux.
Martha Hawley is a writer on the arts and cultural affairs based in Amsterdam. Her monthly English-language program “What’s On in Europe” is broadcast on Radio Netherlands. Her “Notes from Europe” column will appear in American Theatre several times a year.
