| MAME
Aunt Mame in Penza, Russia 1995
Life's banquet, in its Russian premiere.
In the Russian/English dictionary the English word ‘sophisticated’
is defined in Russian as ‘perverted.' Let that stand for the
difficulties of translating Auntie
Mame into Russian, done admirably
by Lyuba Filimonovna of Samara.
What did the audience make of it?
Oh, they admired Mame, audibly cooed over her clothes and enjoyed
her indestructibility. They laughed at the stuck-up debutante and
at the overly formal banker.
It was the dowdy stenographer, Gooch, who they loved, Gooch who
was the audience’s bridge, their representative to this loud
fast very American world. She too, like them, climbing doubtfully
up the art deco stairs.
It’s small, but Penza appears twice
in Russian theatre history. It’s the birth place of the great
director Meyerhold. There’s a Meyerhold Museum in town. The
town boasts the second oldest theatre company in Russia, more
than 200 years old. The first actors were serfs.
The town is conservative. In 1995 the far-right Zhironovsky spoke
to crowds several times in Penza, and the 50th Anniversary of
the end of The Great Patriotic War was celebrated with pomp and
propaganda. A veteran audience clinked with medals as they paraded
down the street and into the hall. The scenery for Mame was perched
behind the stage battlefield.
Photos show Mame meeting her nephew, Gooch taking
dictation, Gooch dressed up and on her way to living.
|