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Records and Images of the Art of
the Performer in Czechoslovakia
Dana Sliukova
(Bratislava)
Documentation et Art de
l'Acteur
Records and Images of the Art of the Performer
18ème Congrès
International, Stockholm 3-7 septembre 1990 / 18th
International Congress, Stockholm 3-7 September 1990
Editor: Barbro Stribolt (Drottningholms Teatermuseum).
Stockholm : 1992, p. 99-101
On entering the SIBMAS,
Czechoslovakia opened another gate towards the world and
vice versa. Therefore I would like to give a brief survey
to the honourable Congress participants of our efforts to
chart out our theatre art and of our possible
contribution to the documentation and investigation of
the European and world theatre art, past and present.
Czechoslovak National Centre SIBMAS consists of four
organizations: Prague National Museum (the Theatre
Department), the Theatre Institute in Prague, the
Institute of Artistic Criticism and Theatre Documentation
and the Institute of Art at the Slovak Academy of
Sciences in Bratislava.
The year 1924 witnessed the establishment of a Theatre
Department in the National Museum. From the very
beginning valuable manuscripts, theatre posters, texts,
photographs, as well as scenography were collected. At
present there are about 700,000 objects in deposit. Those
funds and their significance puts Prague on a par with
the best theatre museums in the world. The main purpose
of the institution today is to collect documents on Czech
theatre from its establishment up to the present time.
The collection includes about 100,000 items of drama
texts, librettos, theatre literature and production
material in addition to a rich collection of 30,000 art
pieces: scene and costume designs, costumes, plastics,
puppets, and even complete family puppet theatres.
The Prague Theatre Institute you may know mainly as an
organizer of the international scenographic event The
Prague Quadrennial. For over 30 years, though, the
Theatre Institute has been engaged in building up its
considerable collection of books and documents. Its
library includes 100,000 volumes of theatre literature
and drama texts. The department of documentation deals
with the activities of Czech professional theatres since
1945 and thus follows the archive tradition of the
National Museum Theatre Department.
The collection of stagings, which includes 20,000 files
of drama texts (programmes, reviews, invitation forms,
etc.) is the most popular of the documentation
department. We find the register of theatre artists who
have signed contracts with professional Czech stages
since 1945 the most significant. Besides basic
bibliographic data it also includes cuttings and
photographic material which document the artistic
activity of individuals.
The department of audio-visual documentation includes
6,500 staging photodocuments, with documentation of stage
designs and costumes, in all about 12 000 photographs and
2 000 slides. The film archive consists of about 260
films and about 200 sixty-minute videocassettes recording
theatre performances, interviews with famous theatre
personalities, exhibitions and various other theatre
events.
The Theatre Institute in Bratislava (in Slovakia) was
founded in 1958 as a branch of the Theatre Institute in
Prague, and is now part of the Institute of Artistic
Criticism and Theatre Documentation including the
secretariat of the Czechoslovak centre of SIBMAS. The
collection here includes texts and pictures with which
professional theatre activity in Slovakia since 1920 can
be reconstructed. The specialized library contains 16 000
books - theatre research literature, drama texts - as
well as a film library, video library (250 recordings at
present) and audiorecordings. The coverage of
productions, (photographs, newspaper cuttings etc.)
enabling us to revive specific productions, represent a
significant part of the documentation. The staff of the
Theatre Department, which observes all theatre premières
in Slovakia, does a great job in collecting relevant
contemporary documents. Here too we store documents on
scenography (photographs, slides, costume designs,
maquettes and posters).
The Institute of Art of the Slovak Academy of Sciences is
a specialized institution where theatre research workers
and historians work on various projects in the field of
drama. The institute has its specialized library and a
video library.
Let me speak about the work of these four institutions
which offer basic requirements for the research and
recording of theatre art - especially that of the actor.
Everything that man has lived through, thought of and
dreamed of can be visualized in the theatre by the
performer's activity. In a limited space, defined by
theatre convention, the actor can succeed in grasping the
infinite. But how to capture those glimpses of an actor's
creativity in flight, stop them, and rendering their
faces immortal?
Documentation of an actor's activity resembles catching
shadows. Acting is of the present tense only. It is
taking place and is unrepeatable. We are attempting the
impossible and that is a challenge. Everybody who writes
about theatre knows how difficult it is to record the
work of an actor, to describe the gesture, the mime, the
extent of style, the way in which he interprets the
character. Perception is very subjective and each critic
and historian or explorer can catch only flashes of the
actor's activity.
Therefore it is very important to reconstruct the actor's
"output", i.e. the description of his role,
with as many recordings available as possible. In this we
are usually successful as regards large stagings and with
great actors. The rest is, as often as not, gone with the
wind. Where I work - in the theatre department of the
Institute of Artistic Criticism in Bratislava as well as
in our documentation department - we are lucky to deal
with a relatively small region.
In Slovakia there are ten professional theatres (some
consist of several ensembles) and therefore our experts
can observe the entire regional production, i.e. about
200 stagings in a season. This is obviously not possible
for the whole of Czechoslovakia because in Bohemia there
are more theatres, but the Theatre Institute in Prague
tries to observe as many plays as possible in order to
capture recordings.
We have in my institute succeeded in watching certain
remarkable productions two or three times. On the basis
of this, and the use of cuttings from other sources
relative to that particular performance, we can compose
an actor's portrait. I admit that due to lack of time one
can hardly do now what once the famous Russian critic
Belinskij did - he observed Mocalov, the actor, in nine
nights of Shakespeare's Hamlet which enabled him
to record the changes of the character and the various
stages of the actor's creative work within the role.
We can not fully document an actor's interpretation of a
character by photographs which depict the atmosphere of
the staging, but these photographs do preserve glimpses
of the creation. Although the theatres submit ten
black-and-white photographs from each première, we still
lack those which would make us "feel" the
theatre. The photographs that we actually have at least
document the costumes, scene and masks. It would be ideal
to have a photographer who could take pictures from a
series of performances as a visual testimony.
We are successful in recording the work of all actors of
the above mentioned ten Slovakian theatres. We have
recorded all lists of their characters since the 50's and
their audio recordings since the 60's - which do help to
recall even the visual memory - and in the 60's and 70's
a lot was done for the preservation of theatre art by
means of filming. Our cooperation with directors of the
given plays has resulted in one-hour surveys of some
interesting stagings which by the help of the directors'
involvement manifest the tension of actors' creation.
Film records are available on for example Goethe's Clavigo
(1975), Tchekov's Cherry Orchard (1979) and
Lorca's Bernarda Alba's House (1979).
As recently as two years ago we were able to start our
work on video recordings, so now the money, previously
used for filming, is better spent. For the cost of two
films we can now get 30 video recordings per year. In
addition, we have made all our films into video
recordings, as well as TV programmes based on drama text
and direct recordings of the theatre performances. In
that way our documentation, as well as the possibility to
investigate and make documents on the actors' activities,
has improved.
An interesting study has been done recently by the Art
Institute of the Slovak Academy of Sciences using
recordings of the rehearsal of Tchekov's Three Sisters
in the Slovak National Theatre. In such way appeared an
interesting and unique documentation material well
purposed for studies on a majority of actor creations of
Tchekov's immortal characters.
"To make serious theatre these days is like fighting
with wind mills. It means - to fight with them in the
storm of our time on the basis of our artistic
ideals" Max Reinhardt said in 1943. One is
constantly convinced, however, that such a quixotship is
useful for mankind. It is our duty to preserve the
efforts of those who strive to this end. It is the actor
who in the history of theatre remains its only
everlasting representative, the base and axis of dramatic
art.
18th Congress
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