The Marriage

The Alexander Dukhnovich Theatre, Prešov 1994
Author: Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol
Directed by Valentin Kozmenko-Delinde

about production

Prešov's version of The Marriage 1993? Few things could document so graphically, the sometimes revolutionary changes, this ensemble went through in the 1970's and mainly in the 1980's and the fact that we have to perceive them also on the back­ground of the metamorphosis of the whole Slovak drama theatre during this era. As a matter of fact, it was the A. Dukhnovic Theatre, which in the 1980's became the centre of the most active theatre searches and campaigns of the Eastern Slovakia's thespians.

This stage production is generational all through. Only very gradual assertion of the Kiev's University of Performing Arts graduates was accelerated by an important interaction with non-conformist personalities of the contemporary Slovak drama theatre scene – Blaho Uhlár and Miloš Karásek. Psychological realism, connected with certain emotional exaltation and often with declamatory pathos of their acting (which was in Slovak context mildly irritating) was in cooperation with the Uhlár – Karásek team apparently transformed under the influence of a theme exposition, irreplaceability of the actor's personality, expressive abbreviation, or simply by the director and visual artist Karásek and also theoretically manifested so-called „decom­ position”.

Into this intense, creative fermentation towards the end of the 1980's, entered the director Valentin Kozmenko – Delinde. He brought with him a lot of valuable stimuli from the arena, which we have once - without unnecessary political connections – called modern Soviet theatre. It could be characterized mainly, by visually exposed theme (his stage productions have exclusively his own set design), theatre picture, in which alongside with the story, appear also images, dreams, hopes, visions, crystallized inner and notional contexts. The ensemble, or generation, which has managed to absorb the Uhlár-Karásek school, then moves confidently in the space between fact and adequate dramatic expression, realism and appropriate stylization, mostly directed towards soft, minor-key grotesque.

Jan Jaborník

creators

director, stage set, costumes, music selected by: V. Kozmenko-Delinde
script editing: V. Turok
assistant director: kolektív Ženby
cast: Ľ. Lukačíková, T. Kučerenková, Mihaľovová, E. Lybezňuk, M. Hudák, J. Tkáč, I. Latta, V. Rusiňák, J. Sisáková, M. Marko, Ľ. Mindoš