Bible

“Let there be light! And there was light.” We hear Joseph Haydn’s Die Vorstellung des Chaos. Birth, creation. Then begins the reading of an ancient text – the Bible. It unfolds in front of the audience’s very eyes, in a musical‑theatrical and visual‑artistic performance.

As part of Aréna Theatre’s so‑called civic cycle, director Rastislav Ballek and dramaturge Saša Sarvašová have chosen fragments from the Old and New Testament, the narratives of the creation of the world and man, the binding of Isaac, the Exodus of Jews from Egypt, the Gospel of Christ and many others.

One of the production team’s fundamental decisions was not to stage the Bible ‘traditionally’ (and so to eliminate a potential element of preaching) but instead to read it. The act of reading the Bible as dramaturgical intention, freed of illustrating the dramatic principles behind each individual parable, offers the audience a freer space for reflection on life in accordance with the intentions of Biblical prescriptions and metaphors. A desire to read and listen to stories is somewhat of an archetypal activity for us. The Bible portrays life through moral values with which the audience can come face to face. How has the human situation changed in view f the vast technological advancements and changes in socio‑ethical systems? Where do we stand in front of the Bible today? What is the literary and symbolic form of the Bible in our temporal and spatial context? The fates of Biblical heroes used to be seen as reflections of one’s own problems, guided by the will of God. What is the present‑day individual’s Bible? What sort of stories does he seek and listen to in order to confirm his values? Is contemporary man less cruel and uncompromising in contrast to the heroes of the Old Testament?

The Slovak Chamber Orchestra, led by Edwald Danel, complement the individual meditative or emotive atmospheres, performing the music of Johann Sebastian Bach, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Ivan Acher and others. Action painting divides between separate scenes.

Toned‑down emotional gestures and movement are minimalised and transferred onto canvas, where they explode. However, the live show does not aim toward visual abstraction; to the contrary, it escalates to the very concrete act of crucifying oneself/god. Colour, shadow, light as mark and symbol, blots, blurry structures, white spots compose fragile reflections on weakness and strength, the wax and wane of man in his daily struggles with god/himself. Layering paint on canvas equally directs the audience’s attention to (the) man’s irreversible actions – his deeds. The ritual act adds dynamics to the reading and, together with all the other elements on stage, results in an unusual spectatorial experience.

Juraj Kukura dressed in a white suit as the performer brings his own life experience into play as an inseparable aspect of his performative interpretation. He is above all (a) man reading the Bible. In the creator’s view, The Bible portrays “… parables of the modern individual confounded by a loss of faith, which is nowadays substituted by consumerism. The trials of the current age are no different from those of the Old Testament; betrayal and the struggle with oneself are the same as in the New.”

As director Ballek says: “I think anyone who watches it and takes the risk, because he will imagine the ‘Bible’ in theatre, before he sees the scenic reading, as something that he either has no interest in as a theatre fan or something that outrages him as a believer and regular church attendee then he will have to find his own name or the format. Though it is a reading, essentially a play in terms of stage time, we needed a dramatic arc. And Holy Scripture, the Old Testament and the New Testament, contains a dramatic arc of sorts, begin­ning with creation, continuing through God’s promises to his chosen people and ending, for us Christians, with the sacrifice of Jesus on the Cross and his resurrection. This was the storyline we tried to follow.”

Júlia Rázusová