Where the Stress Falls (35 page)
Read Where the Stress Falls Online
Authors: Susan Sontag
Yes, of course they got along.
WHAT SUCH QUESTIONS
show is that the questioner has bought into the propaganda of the aggressors: that this war is caused by age-old hatreds; that it is a civil war or a war of secession, with Milosevi
trying to save the union; that in crushing the Bosnians, whom Serb propaganda often refers to as the Turks, the Serbs are saving Europe from Muslim fundamentalism. Perhaps I should not have been surprised to be asked if I saw many women in Sarajevo who are veiled, or who wear the chador; one can’t underestimate the extent to which the prevailing stereotypes about Muslims have shaped “Western” reactions to the Serb aggression in Bosnia.
show is that the questioner has bought into the propaganda of the aggressors: that this war is caused by age-old hatreds; that it is a civil war or a war of secession, with Milosevi
trying to save the union; that in crushing the Bosnians, whom Serb propaganda often refers to as the Turks, the Serbs are saving Europe from Muslim fundamentalism. Perhaps I should not have been surprised to be asked if I saw many women in Sarajevo who are veiled, or who wear the chador; one can’t underestimate the extent to which the prevailing stereotypes about Muslims have shaped “Western” reactions to the Serb aggression in Bosnia.To invoke these stereotypes is also to explain—this is another question I’m often asked—why other foreign artists and writers who regard themselves as politically engaged haven’t volunteered to do something for Sarajevo. The danger can’t be the only reason, though that’s what most people say is their reason for not considering a visit; surely it was as dangerous to go to Barcelona in 1937 as it is to go to Sarajevo in 1993. I suspect that the ultimate reason is a failure of identification—enforced by the buzzword “Muslim.” Even quite well informed people in the United States and in Europe seem genuinely surprised when I mention that, until the siege began, a middle-class Sarajevan was far more likely to go to Vienna to the opera than to go down the street to a mosque. I make this point not to suggest that the lives of nonreligious urban Europeans are intrinsically more valuable than the lives
of the devout of Tehran or Baghdad or Damascus—every human life has an absolute value—but because I wish it were better understood that it is precisely because Sarajevo represents the secular, anti-tribal ideal that it has been targeted for destruction.
of the devout of Tehran or Baghdad or Damascus—every human life has an absolute value—but because I wish it were better understood that it is precisely because Sarajevo represents the secular, anti-tribal ideal that it has been targeted for destruction.
In fact, the proportion of religiously observant people in Sarajevo is about the same as it is among the native-born in London or Paris or Berlin or Venice. In the prewar city, it was no odder for a secular Muslim to marry a Serb or a Croat than for someone from New York to marry someone from Massachusetts or California. In the year before the Serb attack, sixty percent of the marriages in Sarajevo took place between people from different religious backgrounds—the surest index of secularism.
Zdravko Grebo, Haris Pašovi
, Mirsad Purivatra, Izeta Gradevi
, Amela Simi
, Hasan Gluhi
, Ademir Kenovi
, Zehra Kreho, Ferida Durakovi
, and other friends of mine there of Muslim origin are as much Muslim as I am Jewish—which is to say, hardly at all. Indeed, it would be correct to say that I’m more Jewish than they are Muslim. My family has been entirely secular for three generations, but I am, as far as I can know, the descendant of an unbroken line of people under the same religious discipline for at least two millennia, and have a complexion and cast of features which identify me as the descendant of a branch of European (probably originally Sephardic) Jewry, while the Sarajevans of Muslim origin come from families that have been Muslim for at most five centuries (when Bosnia became a province of the Ottoman Empire), and are physiologically identical with their southern Slav neighbors, spouses, and compatriots, since they are in fact the descendants of Christian southern Slavs.
, Mirsad Purivatra, Izeta Gradevi, Amela Simi, Hasan Gluhi, Ademir Kenovi, Zehra Kreho, Ferida Durakovi, and other friends of mine there of Muslim origin are as much Muslim as I am Jewish—which is to say, hardly at all. Indeed, it would be correct to say that I’m more Jewish than they are Muslim. My family has been entirely secular for three generations, but I am, as far as I can know, the descendant of an unbroken line of people under the same religious discipline for at least two millennia, and have a complexion and cast of features which identify me as the descendant of a branch of European (probably originally Sephardic) Jewry, while the Sarajevans of Muslim origin come from families that have been Muslim for at most five centuries (when Bosnia became a province of the Ottoman Empire), and are physiologically identical with their southern Slav neighbors, spouses, and compatriots, since they are in fact the descendants of Christian southern Slavs.What Muslim adherence had existed throughout this century was already a diluted version of the moderate, Sunni faith brought by the Turks, with nothing of what is now called fundamentalism. When I asked friends who in their families are or were religiously observant, they invariably said: my grandparents. If they were under thirty-five, they usually said: my great-grandparents. Of the nine actors in
Godot
, the only one with religious leanings was Nada, who is the disciple of an Indian guru; as her farewell present she gave me a copy of the Penguin edition of
The Teachings
of
Shina.
Godot
, the only one with religious leanings was Nada, who is the disciple of an Indian guru; as her farewell present she gave me a copy of the Penguin edition of
The Teachings
of
Shina.
POZZO: There is no denying it is still day.
(
They all look up at the sky
.)
They all look up at the sky
.)
Good.
(
They stop looking at the sky
.)
They stop looking at the sky
.)
OF COURSE
there were obstacles. Not ethnic ones. Real ones.
there were obstacles. Not ethnic ones. Real ones.
To start with, we rehearsed in the dark. The bare proscenium stage was lit usually by only three or four candles, supplemented by the four flashlights I’d brought with me. When I asked for additional candles, I was told there weren’t any. Later I was told that they were being saved for our performances. In fact, I never learned who doled out the candles; they were simply in place on the floor when I arrived each morning at the theatre, having walked through alleys and courtyards to reach the stage door, the only usable entrance, at the rear of the freestanding modern building. The theatre’s façade, lobby, cloakroom, and bar had been wrecked by shelling more than a year earlier and the debris still had not been cleared away.
Actors in Sarajevo, Pašovi
had explained to me with comradely regret, expect to work only four hours a day. “We have many bad habits here left over from the old socialist days.” But that was not my experience. After a bumpy start—during the first week everyone seemed preoccupied with other performances and rehearsals, or obligations at home—I could not have asked for actors more zealous, more eager. The main obstacle, apart from the siege lighting, was the fatigue of the malnourished actors, many of whom, before they arrived for rehearsal at ten, had for several hours been queuing for water and then lugging heavy plastic containers up eight or ten flights of stairs. Some of them had to walk two hours to get to the theatre, and, of course, would have to follow the same dangerous route at the end of the day.
had explained to me with comradely regret, expect to work only four hours a day. “We have many bad habits here left over from the old socialist days.” But that was not my experience. After a bumpy start—during the first week everyone seemed preoccupied with other performances and rehearsals, or obligations at home—I could not have asked for actors more zealous, more eager. The main obstacle, apart from the siege lighting, was the fatigue of the malnourished actors, many of whom, before they arrived for rehearsal at ten, had for several hours been queuing for water and then lugging heavy plastic containers up eight or ten flights of stairs. Some of them had to walk two hours to get to the theatre, and, of course, would have to follow the same dangerous route at the end of the day.The only actor who seemed to have normal stamina was the oldest member of the cast, Ines Fan
ovi
, who is sixty-eight. Still large, she had lost more than sixty pounds since the beginning of the siege, which may have accounted for her remarkable energy. The other actors were
visibly underweight and tired easily. Beckett’s Lucky must stand motionless through most of his long scene without ever setting down the heavy bag he carries. Atko, who now weighs no more than one hundred pounds, asked me to excuse him if he occasionally rested his empty suitcase on the floor. Whenever I halted the run-through for a few minutes to change a movement or a line reading, all the actors, with the exception of Ines, would instantly lie down on the stage.
ovi, who is sixty-eight. Still large, she had lost more than sixty pounds since the beginning of the siege, which may have accounted for her remarkable energy. The other actors werevisibly underweight and tired easily. Beckett’s Lucky must stand motionless through most of his long scene without ever setting down the heavy bag he carries. Atko, who now weighs no more than one hundred pounds, asked me to excuse him if he occasionally rested his empty suitcase on the floor. Whenever I halted the run-through for a few minutes to change a movement or a line reading, all the actors, with the exception of Ines, would instantly lie down on the stage.
Another symptom of fatigue: they were slower to memorize their lines than any actors I have ever worked with. Ten days before the opening they still needed to consult their scripts, and were not wordperfect until the day before the dress rehearsal. This might have been less of a problem had it not been too dark for them to read the scripts they held in their hands. An actor crossing the stage while saying a line, who then forgot the next line, was obliged to make a detour to the nearest candle and peer at his or her script. (A script was loose pages, since binders and paper clips are virtually unobtainable in Sarajevo. The play had been typed in Pašovi
’s office on a little manual typewriter whose ribbon had been in use since the beginning of the siege. I was given the original and the actors carbon copies, most of which would have been hard to read in any light.)
’s office on a little manual typewriter whose ribbon had been in use since the beginning of the siege. I was given the original and the actors carbon copies, most of which would have been hard to read in any light.)Not only could they not read their scripts; unless standing face-to-face, they could barely see one another. Lacking the normal peripheral vision that anybody has in daylight or when there is electric light, they could not do something as simple as put on or take off their bowler hats in unison. And they appeared to me for a long time, to my despair, mostly as silhouettes. At the moment early in Act I when Vladimir “smiles suddenly from ear to ear, keeps smiling, ceases as suddenly”—in my version, three Vladimirs—I couldn’t see a single one of those false smiles from my stool some ten feet in front of them, my flashlight lying across my scripts. Gradually, my night vision improved.
OF COURSE
, it was not just fatigue that made the actors slower to learn their lines and their movements and to be often inattentive and forgetful. It was distraction, and fear. Each time we heard the noise of a shell exploding, there was relief that the theatre had not been hit, but
the actors had to be wondering where it had landed. Only the youngest in my cast, Velibor, and the oldest, Ines, lived alone. The others left wives and husbands, parents and children at home when they came to the theatre each day, and several of them lived very close to the front lines, near Grbavica, a part of the city taken by the Serbs last year, or in Alipašino Polje, near the Serb-held airport.
, it was not just fatigue that made the actors slower to learn their lines and their movements and to be often inattentive and forgetful. It was distraction, and fear. Each time we heard the noise of a shell exploding, there was relief that the theatre had not been hit, but
the actors had to be wondering where it had landed. Only the youngest in my cast, Velibor, and the oldest, Ines, lived alone. The others left wives and husbands, parents and children at home when they came to the theatre each day, and several of them lived very close to the front lines, near Grbavica, a part of the city taken by the Serbs last year, or in Alipašino Polje, near the Serb-held airport.
On July 30, at two o’clock in the afternoon, Nada, who was often late during the first two weeks of rehearsal, arrived with the news that at eleven that morning Zlajko Sparavolo, a well-known older actor who specialized in Shakespearean roles, had been killed, along with two neighbors, when a shell landed outside his front door. The actors left the stage and went silently to an adjacent room. I followed them, and the first to speak told me that this news was particularly upsetting to everyone because, up till then, no actor had been killed. (I had heard earlier about two actors who had each lost a leg in the shelling; and knew Nermin Tuli
, the actor who lost both legs at the hip in the first months of the siege and was now the administrative director of the Youth Theatre.) When I asked the actors if they felt up to continuing the rehearsal, all but one, Izo, said yes. But after working for another hour, some of the actors found they couldn’t continue. That was the only day that rehearsals stopped early.
, the actor who lost both legs at the hip in the first months of the siege and was now the administrative director of the Youth Theatre.) When I asked the actors if they felt up to continuing the rehearsal, all but one, Izo, said yes. But after working for another hour, some of the actors found they couldn’t continue. That was the only day that rehearsals stopped early.THE SET
I had designed—as minimally furnished, I thought, as Beckett himself could have desired—had two levels. Pozzo and Lucky entered, acted on, and exited from a rickety platform eight feet deep and four feet high, running the whole length of upstage, with the tree toward the left; the front of the platform was covered with the translucent polyurethane sheeting that UNHCR brought in last winter to seal the shattered windows of Sarajevo. The three couples stayed mostly on the stage floor, though sometimes one or more of the Vladimirs and Estragons went to the upper stage. It took several weeks of rehearsal to arrive at three distinct identities for them. The central Vladimir and Estragon (Izo and Velibor) were the classic buddy pair. After several false starts, the two women (Nada and Milijana) turned into another kind of couple in which affection and dependence are mixed with exasperation
and resentment: mother in her early forties and grown daughter. And Sejo and Irena, who were also the oldest couple, played a quarrelsome, cranky husband and wife, modeled on homeless people I’d seen in downtown Manhattan. But when Lucky and Pozzo were onstage, the Vladimirs and Estragons could stand together, becoming something of a Greek chorus as well as an audience to the show put on by the terrifying master and slave.
I had designed—as minimally furnished, I thought, as Beckett himself could have desired—had two levels. Pozzo and Lucky entered, acted on, and exited from a rickety platform eight feet deep and four feet high, running the whole length of upstage, with the tree toward the left; the front of the platform was covered with the translucent polyurethane sheeting that UNHCR brought in last winter to seal the shattered windows of Sarajevo. The three couples stayed mostly on the stage floor, though sometimes one or more of the Vladimirs and Estragons went to the upper stage. It took several weeks of rehearsal to arrive at three distinct identities for them. The central Vladimir and Estragon (Izo and Velibor) were the classic buddy pair. After several false starts, the two women (Nada and Milijana) turned into another kind of couple in which affection and dependence are mixed with exasperation
and resentment: mother in her early forties and grown daughter. And Sejo and Irena, who were also the oldest couple, played a quarrelsome, cranky husband and wife, modeled on homeless people I’d seen in downtown Manhattan. But when Lucky and Pozzo were onstage, the Vladimirs and Estragons could stand together, becoming something of a Greek chorus as well as an audience to the show put on by the terrifying master and slave.
Tripling the parts of Vladimir and Estragon, which entailed new stage business, more intricate silences, had the result of making the play a good deal longer than it usually is. I soon realized that Act I would run at least ninety minutes. Act II would be shorter, for my idea was to use only Izo and Velibor as Vladimir and Estragon. But even with a stripped-down and speeded-up Act II, the play would be two and a half hours long. And I could not envisage asking people to watch the play from the Youth Theatre’s auditorium, whose nine small chandeliers could come crashing down if the building suffered a direct hit from a shell, or even if an adjacent building were hit. Further, there was no way three hundred people in the auditorium could see what was taking place on a deep proscenium stage lit only by a few candles. But as many as a hundred people could be seated close to the actors, at the front of the stage, on a tier of six rows of seats made from wood planks. They would be hot, since it was high summer, and they would be squeezed together; I knew that many more people would be lining up outside the stage door for each performance than could be seated (tickets are free). How could I ask the audience, which would have no lobby, bathroom, or water, to sit so uncomfortably, without moving, for two and a half hours?
I concluded that I could not do all of
Waiting for Godot
. But the very choices I had made about the staging which made Act I as long as it was also meant that the staging could represent the whole of Waiting for Godot, while using only the words of Act I. For this may be the only work in dramatic literature in which Act I is itself a complete play. The place and time of Act I are: “A country road. A tree. Evening.” (For Act II: “Next day. Same time. Same place.”) Although the time is “Evening,” both acts show a complete day, the day beginning with Vladimir and Estragon meeting again (though in every sense except the
sexual one a couple, they separate each evening), and with Vladimir (the dominant one, the reasoner and information-gatherer, who is better at fending off despair) inquiring where Estragon has spent the night. They talk about waiting for Godot (whoever he may be), straining to pass the time. Pozzo and Lucky arrive, stay for a while and perform their “routines,” for which Vladimir and Estragon are the audience, then depart. After this there is a time of deflation and relief: they are waiting again. Then the messenger arrives to tell them that they have waited once more in vain.
Waiting for Godot
. But the very choices I had made about the staging which made Act I as long as it was also meant that the staging could represent the whole of Waiting for Godot, while using only the words of Act I. For this may be the only work in dramatic literature in which Act I is itself a complete play. The place and time of Act I are: “A country road. A tree. Evening.” (For Act II: “Next day. Same time. Same place.”) Although the time is “Evening,” both acts show a complete day, the day beginning with Vladimir and Estragon meeting again (though in every sense except the
sexual one a couple, they separate each evening), and with Vladimir (the dominant one, the reasoner and information-gatherer, who is better at fending off despair) inquiring where Estragon has spent the night. They talk about waiting for Godot (whoever he may be), straining to pass the time. Pozzo and Lucky arrive, stay for a while and perform their “routines,” for which Vladimir and Estragon are the audience, then depart. After this there is a time of deflation and relief: they are waiting again. Then the messenger arrives to tell them that they have waited once more in vain.
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