The Hampstead Authors' Society
Zsuzsanna Ardó: The Dybbuk's Advice – a Secular Carpe Diem
In conversation with David Zoob, Director, about his
adaptation of I. B.
Singer’s short story for stage.
Sacred
And Profane in association with New End Theatre
present
the world première of
THE DEAD FIDDLER
By Isaac Bashevis Singer
Adapted and directed by David Zoob
Musical director Roderick Skeaping
ZA. What's your personal attachment/involvement with this story - why this story, why Singer, why now, why the NET?
DZ I read the story and fell in love with it. The magic, the ambiguity and the irresistible presence of a lord of misrule character at the centre. I also wanted another excuse to work with Roddy Skeaping. The new end theatre were one of several theatres interested and they simply offered the best deal. A four week run at a theatre with a large Jewish following.
ZA. Tell us about the various stages of the creative process over the three years of workshopping. Which were the highs and the lows, the particularly memorable challenging and inspirational moments?
DZ The first set of workshops took place about six years ago: over a 3 day period we read sections of the original story, discussed them and worked on ways of realising them in sound, movement, storytelling and music. We then began to combine these elements. I then wrote a series of drafts and tried one out in 2003, rehearsing a 20 minute section with a group of actor musicians. This was where we developed the idea of visible dybbuks working in synch with Liebe Yentl.
The inspirational moments invariably came from Roddy’s music and the extra dimensions it offered. Also we had wonderfulinput from Gabriel Gawin as the first (and explosive) incarnation of Getsl and from actress and movement specialist Shona Morris who showed us amazing possibilities in physical storytelling. With a longer rehearsal period (we only had 3 weeks) we could have explored these ideas much more.
ZA. To what degree was the adaptation workshopping process collaborative? How much scope was there for actors' input? What was the decision-making process like? At what stage did the musical element come into play?
DZ Highly collaborative: Roddy taught various modes and tunes and we played with their interaction with enactment, characterisation and storytelling. The piece was always conceived as a piece for actor musicians with music integrated throughout.
ZA. A vibrant play, with a down-ending coda of three deaths
within a minute or so in the wrap-up. A secular carpe diem,
subvertingthe idea of migrating souls which is ultimately a relatively
new idea (medieval) to Judaism?
DZ This ‘secular carpe diem’ as you call it comes from the
Dybbuk who teases them by saying something like ‘you’re
all doomed so enjoy life while you can’. The view is actually
not secular in that he says their fate has been ‘written up above’.
But I think he is just teasing them by imposing his world view on them.
Whether they really will be subjected to everlasting torture after death
is open to question and I always thought the Prostitute’s argument
that redemption is available through the cleansing and transmigration
of souls, is given a good airing in the play! It appeals to my optimistic
leanings and I think it is wonderful that a person who has suffered
so much in life and death could still believe that redemption is still
possible.
The down ending is Singer’s and perhaps I could have been less reverential, examining the changes (if any) that eachharacter makes to the way they lead their life once the Dybbuk left after having turned their lives upside down.
ZA. The village seems to implode from within in the play, with almost no external social impact. To what degree are you consciously aiming for a Freudian take: how the superego, the ego and the id interact, how the subconscious gets transfused into taboos and folklore. And, ultimately, how tradition and religion can't cope with human frailty, frustration and complexity?
DZ Great that you should see this implosion – there was a section
I had to cut that would have explored this a great deal more. The dybbuk
seems to be a metaphor for many of the impulses and realities that the
religious authorities would like to ignore. They represent a subversive
or anarchic impulse that is essential in any healthy society and remind
us of the dangers of fundamentalism and of unquestioning obedience to
authority. Even while operating within a folkloric framework, they expose
Kabbalistic ‘magic’ as bogus and a wholly inadequate way
to help us run our lives! Theyalsorepresent an ugly underclass that
we all would like to ignore: a world of rogues, vagabonds and prostitutes
that we have to face up to: I think the most important moment in the
play comes when Reb Sheftel risks excommunication in order to give the
dybbuks the respect they demand. So we see inadequacy of fundamentalism
and the importance of simple humanist (and Judaic) values like compassion
and respect for others.
The Freudian take was suggested to me in relation to the girl, rather than to the whole village. Someone looked at an early draft and said the Dybbuks were Freudian voices within the psyche of a powerless girl, paradoxically giving her power. So I put in the scene with the Gentiles in which one of the visitors suggests this interpretation. I found that to be true to the characters, the Dybbuks had to express their outrage that the Gentile could deny their existence by saying they were just a manifestation of a girl’s sick mind.
ZA. What were your strategies to avoid stereotyping and sentimentality, two major traps of the genre?
DZ. I have an allergy to self ity in the theatre. Weeping is best done in the audience rather than on stage and this was sometimes a battle. Actors sometimes like to play emotions for their own sake and working at a Drama School has been a salutary reminder for me that actors have to play ‘actions’ rather than ‘emotional states’. I keep asking the actors ‘what are you doing to the person you are addressing when you say that?’ I also don’t like cod accents. So our focus in rehearsals was on finding the physical and vocal weight and rhythm comes from a harsh Shtetl life. With a longer rehearsal period, we would have achieved this better. But as the run continues, they are increasingly finding a raw honesty and specificity to their characterisations.
ZA.. How did you go about interlacing the musical threads with the narrative in practical terms, to achieve the opera rather than musical-like phrasing.DZ.
DZ.Roddy and I like to work in a very practical way. Each musical phrase is derived from a leitmotif for ach character or theme. They are then arranged to suit the dramatic moments that they serve. I think it is a testimony to Roddy’s skill that such a logical process can lead to the creation of such unearthly noises!
ZA. The colours, the lighting, the use of space, the choreography of movements and emotions lend a dreamlike, surreal quality to the production. To what degree and how is your directorial work inspired by the visual arts in general, and Chagall or other artists in particular?
DZ. I am so glad you asked this: one or two of the reviews complained that the fiddle player appears on an upper level which makes him look like a Fiddler on the Roof. They saw this as a faux pas. But the play is about spirits that float over the lives of the Shtetl villagers, so it should hardly be a surprise if one of them lands on the roof! And of course, Chagall captures the notion of magic and spirituality in the Shtetl beautifully. Many of his paintings, especially The Fiddler (1912-3)were highly influential both for the designer and for us in the rehearsal room. And as I said, the point of the musical and choreographic elements of the show was to conjure the magical world of Singer’s original story. A world in which demons and dybbuks are real and in which Chassidic dances and incantations can lift people into a state of trance.
ZA: A puzzling question of detail: I realize that Jewish and Gypsy village musicians often played together, often in the same band. (A tradition that's being revived.) But why is there a reference to a Gypsy fiddler as a dybbuk in the publicity material yet in the play thefiddler clearly refers to himself always as a Jew? Is there a further identity twist here that I missed but we were supposed to get?
DZ: You are absolutely right, and the only person to have spotted this. Yes, he is not a Gypsy in the Roma Gypsy sense. We used the term in the publicity to make the character more accessible to a non-Jewish audience. He is/was a travelling player and in that sense was (loosely) a Gypsy. But quite right: he is a Klezmer and a Jew.
(c)HASNotes and Zsuzsanna Ardó 2006
The Dead Fiddler premiered 26th April 2006 at the New
End Theatre,
London, in association with Sacred and Profane.
