Are there reasons to stage the tragedies of Nikos Kazantzakis´s today [PDF]

1 §STOCKHOLM UNIVERSITY The Institution for Classical Languages

”Are there reasons to stage the tragedies of Nikos Kazantzakis´s today?” A dramaturgical analysis of ”Kapodistrias”, ”Buddha” and ”Sodom and Gomorrah”.

Jan Gemvik

Essay for the postgraduate course in Modern Greek Spring semester 1999 Supervisor: Eva Hedin

Translation from the Swedish original by the author October 2013

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Contents Foreword

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1. Introduction 2. Kazantzakis as a dramatist. 3. Stagings 4. Reception 4.1 ”Kapodistrias” 4.1.1. The affair 4.1.2 The drama 4.2 ”Buddha” 4.3 ”Sodom and Gomorrah” 5. An analysis of the three tragedies 5.1 Content 5.1.1 General 5.1.2 ”Kapodistrias” 5.1.2.1 Action 5.1.3.2 Availability 5.1.3 ”Buddha” 5.1.3.1 Action 5.1.3.2 Availability 5.1.4 ”Sodom and Gomorrah” 5.1.4.1 Plot 5.1.4.2 Availability 5.2 Dramatic form 5.2.1 Cue length and repetitive technique in ”Buddha” 5.2.2 Physical action 5.2.3 The lack of development and the lack of individualization 5.2.4 ”Sodom and Gomorrah”- best as radio drama? 6. Summary Sources Appendix I

4 6 7 8 8 8 9 10 10 11 11 11 12 12 12 13 13 13 14 14 16 17 17 19 19 21 22 24 28

3 FOREWORD A decade ago our family decided to finally get off to Greece, even though we really could not afford it. But by then the adults had been dreaming for twenty years about such a trip to the myths, the manifold retold history, the now barren mountains, the temples, the Sun, the olives and the savoury Mediterranean beaches. We found the sea to be saltier and the feeling of life stronger. And this was only the beginning of a study, which since then is just moving on. After first returning home I sat down to read Kazantzakis. Many of his novels had been translated already in the 1950´s by Swedish author Börje Knös. Soon I had read most of what the municipal library was able to procure. In a kiosk in Athens I later bought an English language volume of “Report to Greco”; in a souvenir shop on jet set island Mykonos I got hold of “The Fratricides” in a (somewhat misprinted) Faber edition. Eventually I realized that he had written many plays, but literary critics seemed not to hold the texts in high esteem. They seemed not even to have been translated from Greek into Swedish. The impression was that they at least nowadays were unplayable. Yet a curiosity remained with me. A step forward was Kimon Friar’s translation of Kazantzakis´s “The Odyssey. A Modern Sequel “, purchased in mint condition in a small bookstore in Cecil Court in London for £ 20 after a week of searching for it. I admit, I didn't read all the 33,000 verse lines in Kazantzakis´s continuation of the travels and tribulations of ancient Odysseus. For Kazantzakis´s Odysseus is not merely settling to roost on Ithaca with his faithful Penelope after the reconciliation with the fathers of the suitors slain by Odysseus and his son, Telemachos. He will be out in the world again examining its spirit and matter, not unlike Nikos Kazantzakis himself, indeed. The reading is a lengthy philosophical wrestling, carried out in epic style. In the same way as the hero of “Captain Michalis” () tightens his black, Cretan headscarf, the hero Odysseus summons his physical and mental forces for yet another set-to with the world. In this work - as in so many others – house philosopher Bergson seems to have laid the foundations for a method that generates intuitive insights, where science alone cannot explain what Bergson presents with similes as the life-force essence or elán vital. Concluding my university studies in Modern Greek for 60 points with this study, for which I have read (among others) the play ”Buddha” in the original, I have reached a personal milestone. To predict that working on the analysis and assessment of the playability for Kazantzakis´s tragedies would open new prospects with attractive directions that go further in, was not difficult. Vinsta 8 December 1998, translated into English October 17, 2013 Jan Gemvik

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1. Introduction My interest in drama and my activities as a teacher of drama certainly explains the essay I now begin. With the German-speaking Kazantzakis scholar Birgit Igla, who wrote on Kazantzakis´s tragedies and their small spread, I would like to see if there is a sufficient dramatic pulse and a reasonably wide engaging content in his stage plays to motivate staging them today... or if they were strongly dependent of their time, if they were designated political posts that no longer would serve a purpose. My intention was to get a first, brief idea of the theatrical possibilities in Kazantzakis´s dramatical works. Are there reasons to play Nikos Kazantzakis´s tragedies today? I wanted to make an initial assessment of the dramatic quality of a small selection of Kazantzakis´s plays and potential opportunities for future stagings, even outside Greece. The ideal set-up would have been to be able to do performance analysis, where sightings of the play's impact and adaptation to its unique and temporary audience can be registered and processed and be assessed in the wider setting of the social, political, religious, philosophical, general cultural or specific theater aesthetical and other aspects. As for performances with inadequate documentation - reviews, audio/visual recordings, memories, working diaries and so on - it may be impossible to carry out such analyses. In this case, I have mostly been working a study of original texts, narrative texts, memories and reviews. For this essay I have read three of his tragedies, ”Kapodistrias”, ”Sodom and Gomorrah” and ”Buddha”. I have also read the abstracts of all of Kazantzakis´s tragedies in Birgit Iglas´s monograph. The tragedies can be divided into three groups: dramas with ancient themes, with Byzantine themes and with mixed themes. Those I have studied belong to the latter group. As for what I have been able to ascertain, none of Kazantzakis´s tragedies were staged more than four times. Two of the works I have chosen, ”Kapodistrias” and ”Sodom and Gomorrah”, belong to those which have been played the most times and should probably be the most interesting to study, since the theater managers, producers and directors focused precisely on these. In the third piece, ”Buddha”, according to Peter Bien the drama the author loved the most; Kazantzakis declared 1922 that he wished he could express his every thought, and said then that it would be the last temptation art would lead him to. 1) Here design problems have arisen and here - under subsequent reworking – experiences from later plays are likely to have been added. Why have these experiences not affected the play to become more attractive to put on stage? ”Kapodistrias” has been set up on four occasions within the Greek cultural area, three times in Greece and once in Cyprus, and is the only one of his tragedies with a factual, documentary background and an immediate, political application to the time when the work was written. ”Sodom and Gomorrah” has been staged at least three times, including two in the United States, and one on German soil, in Mannheim, but at no occasion in Greece. What has attracted the outside world, but not the homeland Greeks?

________________________________________________________ 1) Solomos, Alexis, Ο θεατρικός Καζαντζάκης. Η λέξη, 139, Αθήνα Μαγίου - Ιουνίου 1997, s. 261.

In 1957, the year Kazantzakis died, the work ”Buddha” had become his ”Swan Song”, according to the author. 2) Then it had followed him in different versions for almost all of his writing life. It

5 has only been shown once. In Kazantzakis`s epic work the ”Odysseia”, we see a parallel case with recast after recast. My study of these three tragedies in the original has been juxtaposed to commenting texts of different strokes: biographical and/or literary studies of the renowned Kazantzakis scholar Peter Bien, professor at Dartmouth College, United States; the Greek author Lili Zografou and the German-speaking literature researcher Birgit Igla; reminiscences by Kazantzakis´s friend and director Alexis Solomos of the National Theater in Athens; an overview of the music composed for Kazantzakis´s original works or adaptations of his prose, epic or lyric poetry, compiled by Giorgos Anemogiannis; reviews of individual dramatic works of Bien and Byron M. Raizis and daily reviews in Nea Estia by Solon Makris, etc. In a letter from Professor Peter Bien, arriving Tomteboda 1998-11-13, he sent me extremely helpful facts about the drama ”Sodom and Gomorrah” in two different productions: 1) in November 1963 at the Jan Hus Playhouse in New York in a translation by Kimon Friar under the title ”Burn Me to Ashes”; 2) in November 1965 at the Wollman Auditorium, Columbia University titled ”Sodom and Gomorrah”. In addition to these a review by Walter Kerr in the New York Herald Tribune of 20 November 1963, with a program from the performance. Furthermore, the text of the prologue to the 1965 production, translated by Angelo Skalafuris, published in the Saturday Review 28 August 1965 with an accompanying notice of poet John Ciardi. It has not been easy to reach a more comprehensive material in Sweden. The research on Kazantzakis´s plays seems so far also relatively modest, perhaps even internationally. In scientific theater encyclopedias he is sparingly - if at all - represented. A swing in his favor is possibly about to happen in our days. Two remarks: 1. for technical reasons (my computer) I consistently use the monotonic orthography from the beginning of the 1980s, even for quotations in Greek with older ortography. 2. Translations from English, German and Modern Greek have been made by me, unless otherwise specified.

_______________________________________________________ 2) Solomos, op. cit., p. 262

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2. Kazantzakis as a dramatist. Early Kazantzakis won attention and even monetary award for his drama, but even then there were objections to his dramatic flair. He would simply not be a dramatic poet. One of his biographers, Lili Zografou, citing strong negative reactions on the author's first dramatic work ”The dawn” (”Ξημερώνει”, 1907), for which the prize board did not dare to hand out a monetary sum, because it was considered ”unethical.” In this work there were neither stories nor an actual message, but philosophizing and poetic reveries, one critic wrote. It was altogether a lyric poem, considered another. 3) According to Kazantzakis scholar Peter Bien, drama to Nikos Kazantzakis was the most important literary genre. ”He regarded the novel a second form”, said Professor Bien after a lecture at Stockholm University on the issue of why Kazantzakis remained a playwright, despite his rejection (see preface and below) of theatrical productions of his plays. For Kazantzakis the novel was a secondary branch. 4) Lili Zografou drew the same conclusion in her study from 1959, where she uses a psychological-biographical method of analyzing to examine and explain and at least for her own part - free herself from Kazantzakis´s works and influence. She quotes a non-published foreword in which the author writes about the sudden urge in the middle of work to feast - with the result that he began writing novels. Afterwards, after the feast, he lit the great fires again and turned his face to gravity, towards the abyss that was part of his life and to his work with the tragedies. 5) Kazantzakis verse drama ”The master builder” (”Ο προτομάστορας”, 1910), based on the medieval folk poem ”The bridge at Arta”, which has been set to music and produced for the stage several times by Manolis Kalomiris, 6) as well as his other, shorter drama ”Ξημερώνει”,” Έως πότε”,”Κωμωδία”and”Φάσγα”several of which are beginning to be regarded positively, are not seen by researchers – among them Birgit Igla - as tragedies according to the classic cut. In these the existential questions of Man should dominate, independent of time. 7) But already from 1915 there were likely drafts of the first three of what would eventually become more than a dozen tragedies; fourteen, if you count the parts of the ”Prometheus” trilogy separately. 8) They have not reached particularly wide audiences over the years, neither in the writer's homeland nor in other parts of the world. His own first instruction for the early works”Χριστός”(1921), ”Οδυσσέας” (1922) and ”Νικηφόρος Φωκάς” (1927 ) 9) was this: ’’Το έργο τούτο δέν γράφτηκε καθόλου γιά το θέατρο’’ 10) Later the reservation was taken away, most likely after requests from his admirers. And why prevent someone from trying a staging? The young, aspiring film director Alexis Solomos, who then had just been accepted to a dramatic high school, talks about his last meeting with Kazantzakis in London before the Second World War, in which the author confided to him the 3) Zografou, Lili, Νίκος Καζαντζάκης. ΄Ενας τραγικός. 5η έκδοση, Γαβριηλίδης, Αθήνα 1989, p. 47 - 48, cites Κατσίμπαλη, ‘ Ο Άγνωστος Καζαντζάκης ‘, Νέα Εστία 1958. 4) Bien, Peter m I, Nikos Kazantzakis´s Treatment of the History (Legend?) of Nikiforos Fokas, May 12, 1998, Speech at the University of Stockholm. 5) Zografou , op. cit. p. 274 - 5 6) Kalamaras, Vassilis K., Εργογραφία Νίκου Καζαντζάκη. Διαβάζω, Τεύχος 190, Αθήνα 27 Απριλίου 1988, p. 101. See the list in appendix 2. Works number 28-31 relating to the same text in somewhat differing revisions during the years 1916-1917, 1930 (2) and 1939. 7) Igla, Birgit, Die Tragödien des Nikos Kazantzakis. Thematik, gemeinsame Züge, philosophische Ausrichtung. Bochümer Studien zur Neugriechisen und Byzantinischen Philologie, Ed. I. Rosenthal - Kamarinea, Band V, 1984,Verlag Adolf M. Hakkert - Amsterdam.p. 2 8) Bien, Peter, Kazantzakis. Politics of the spirit, 1989, Princeton University Press, p. xviii 9) Dating of creation of works by Igla, cit. Prevelakis, Pandelis, Νίκος Καζαντζάκης - Συμβολή στη χρονογραφία του Βίου του, Νέα Εστία, New Year 1958, p. 2-30. According to Kalamaras, appendix 2, Χριστός was published in 1928 and Οδυσσέας in 1927. 10) Igla, op. cit. p. 2, cit Αιμ. Χουρμούσιος, Νίκος Καζαντζάκης / Κριτικά Κείμενα, Athen 1977, p. 162 ff. My transl.: ”This work was not written for the theater at all”.

7 script of “Melissa” ( ”Μέλισσα”, 1937, published 1939) with the proposition to make the changes he wanted. When Solomos staged the drama fifteen years later with the National theater of Herodion, he did it without any modification, ”Δίχως καμίαν αλαγγή. Αυτό δά μας έλειπε!” 11)

3. Stagings Solomos in his memorial article goes against the blinkered and repeated pronunciations that Kazantzakis was not a dramatic author, but the actual stagings of Kazantzakis´s tragedies are according to scholars 12) not very many. ”Kapodistrias” (”O Καποδίστριας”) was released in 1946 and was played in 1946, 1976 and 1982. It was also produced in Leukosia in Cyprus in 1978 directed by Nikos Siafkalis. 13) ”Sodom and Gomorrah” (”Σόδομα και Γόμορρα”) was written in 1948, published in ' Νέα Εστία, published in a 1949 collection's volume in 1956 and premiered in 1954 in Mannheim in Germany with electronically produced ”eco art” and according to a disgruntled Kazantzakis portrayed as ballet. In the United States the drama was premiered in New York in 1963 under the name ”Burn Me to Ashes” in a translation by Kimon Friar. 1965 the drama was also produced at the Wallman Auditorium in California. 14). First staging in Greece took place at the Herodion theater in Athens as late as 1983. 15) The voluminous drama ”Buddha” (”Βούδας”), according to Bien the drama that most fully words Kazantzakis´s matured attitude towards life and death, aesthetics and politics 16) was published in the master volume in 1956 and played in 1978. ”Julianos Paravatis”(“”) was played in Paris just once, in 1948, 17) and in Athens in 1958 on the indoor stage of the National Theater 18). ”Melissa” was played in a Romanian translation in Bucharest, (probably) the same year as Solomos put up the tragedy in Athens (1964). That leaves the first performance of ”Kouros”( “”)in Crete in 1977, and a later set on Cyprus, a guest appearance in Athens of the Cretan set 1984 19) as well as three sets of ”Christopher Colombus”(“): in Tucuman in 1965, in Piraeus in 1975, directed by Solomos and with music by Mikis Theodorakis, as well as by a theatre group from Serres (Macedonia) in 1992. 20) On the other hand, examples of how the novels ”Freedom or death” (“Ο καπετάν Μιχάλης ”) and ”Play for me, Zorba” transferred to spoken-word and ______________________________________________________________ 11) Solomos, Alexis, Ο θεατρικός Καζαντζάκης. Η λέξη, 139, Αθήνα Μαγίου-Ιουνίου 1997, 258-265, p. 259. Translation.: ”Without any change. That at least was spared us! ” 12) Igla, op. cit. p.1 13) Anemogiannis, Giorgios, Μουσική στα έργα του Καζαντζάκη. Η λέξη, 139, Αθήνα Μαγίου-Ιουνίου 1997, 276283, p. 277. The annual designation in 1982 I have from Eva Georgousspoulou at the Hellenic Centre for Theatrical Research in Athens by e-mail in 1997-10-21. Just like Alexis Solomos she indicates the year 1945 for its first public performance, which does not seem to match the information quoted in Bien, Kazantzakis´ Kapodistrias, a (Rejected) Offering to Divided Greece, 1944-1946, Byzantine and modern Greek studies 3 (1979), pp. 141-173, Oxford, Blackwell, p. 164 (f) and with the review in Nea Estia by Solon Makris below. 14) Ibid., p. 277. In a letter from Professor Bien to me, arrived Tomteboda 1998-11-13, there´s a slightly different indication of the name of the gambling venue: ”Wollman Auditorium, Columbia University”. Four performances were given from 11 to 14 November, translated by Angelo Skalafuris and directed by Anthony Abeson. A very negative review by Jesse Berman appeared in the Columbia Daily Spectator on 12 November 1965. The translation by Kimon Friar, however, later received much praise from M. Byron Raizis in his review ”Nikos Kazantzakis. Two Plays, ´ Sodom and Gomorrah´ and Comedy: A Tragedy in One Act. ” in Comparative Drama, Kalamazoo, Mich. Comparative 1967-, No 17 (1983-84), pp. 387-390, concluding that “ for all their shortcomings as specimens of modern drama, /.../ (they) remain two bold, pioneering and honest testimonies to their author´s, and to man´s, existential Angst at the meaninglessness, at the absurdity, of mankind´s long and passive dependence on Something that does not exist; or at least of Something that is not what it has traditionally been supposed to be. ” p. 390 15) Solomos, op. cit. p. 262 16) Bien, Buddha, Kazantzakis´ Most Ambitious and Most Neglected Play, Comparative drama 11(1977), pp. 252 - 272, Kalamazoo, Mitch Comparative 1967 -, p. 270 17) Bien 1989, p. xxii 18) Solomos, op.cit. p. 265 19) Ibid., p. 264 20) Anemogiannis, op. cit. p. 281 f.

8 music theater many times, 21) and who does not remember the film ”Zorba the Greek” starring Anthony Quinn?

4. Reception Why have Kazantzakis´s tragedies in their original form not attracted larger audiences in his homeland? Which can the explanations be? Have the subject matters been lacking in importance - or been too controversial? Or is the cause of all the alleged deficiencies in the dramatic form? Regardless of the individual qualities of the drama, various factors of the framework - as the contemporary social, political, religious, broadly cultural and specifically theatrical aesthetic aspects - in varying degrees affect the staging of a play. Professor Bien on his visit to Stockholm declared that there was a shortage of theatre culture in Greece. 22) This we might find reasons for if we restrict ourselves to view theatre culture from a Western European perspective. During the Turkish occupation, relations with the Western European theatre had been cut off and a normative institution such as a national theatre was not established until 1930. 23) But in the case of ”Kapodistrias” the heated reception in 1946 was actually primarily for political reasons.

4.1 ”Kapodistrias” 4.1.1. The affair Of ”Kapodistrias”, which was shut down a month after the premiere because of the furious attacks in the right-wing press and even a threat of a right-wing nationalist to burn down the theater, Bien interprets it to be a (rejected) contribution to unification in a politically highly polarized situation. When the German occupation then just had been lifted, Greece was ravaged by war and on the brink of being torn apart by internal strife, which soon would lead to civil war. The future was highly uncertain, and the question of national identity and what it meant to be Greek had been debated intensively by prominent Greek intellectuals during the German occupation of 1941-44. How should one relate to history? Should one break completely with the past, or was there something positive to build on? Was there an opportunity to create a synthesis of the whole cultural history, from ancient times onwards? 24) Kazantzakis´s drama offered a positive solution and a perspective on the historical figure Kapodistrias which neither the political Right nor Left could accept. 25) The Right saw the first Greek head of State after the liberation from the Turkish rule as a guiltless martyr where the Left saw a tyrant. 26) Kazantzakis´s proposal was a broad consensual solution, the solution the Kapodistrias of the drama and in reality did not reach, and had been sorely needed since Antiquity with the political divisions in and between the city states. But already in June 1945, nine months before the play ”Kapodistrias” was given its premiere, Kazantzakis had gotten himself a ________________________________________________________________________________________ 21) Anemogiannis, op. cit., p. 280 (f). the most recent adaptation of the novel is the French choreographer L. Massine´s, who with the Greek National Ballet would give three performances of Theodorakis's music from the movie at the Herodion Theater according to Mary Sinanidis´s article ”The National Ballet presents ´Zorbas´ ” in Athens News 1998-06-19. The composer has traveled around the world with this music the last ten years, and ”wondered when the time would come, when (he) could do the same thing in Greece”. Massine means that the work is about hope, and that it is always equally relevant in its description of the spirit of Greece. 22) Bien m II, letter to me 1998-11-13. 23) Kindermann, Hans, Theatergeschichte Europas. X. Band. Naturalismus und Impressionismus. Teil. Griechenland, 1974, Otto Müller Verlag, Salzburg. p. 604, p. 589 24) Bien 1979, p. 153 f. On Kazantzakis on artistic and political objectives, see p. 141 f 25) Ibid., pp. 165 ff 26) Bien 1979, p. 158

9 bad mark with right-wing monarchists by publicly taking a stand for democracy after their campaign against the National Theater, designed as disturbances during performances and where several actors at one point came under fire and were wounded. This was also nine months ahead of the elections on 31 March 1946. 27) The attacks prompted Interior Minister Tsatsos to issue accusations at both political extremist groups for trying to hamper efforts to create peace; the Right through organized attacks and the Left by presenting ”propaganda works”. Since the attacks occurred against performances by Shakespeare dramas such as ”The merchant of Venice”, Mr Tsatsos´s accusations forced a protest from intellectuals, professors, academicians and others, and a call to intervene to protect the people's freedom of thought and democratic rights. As Honorary Chairman and Chairman of the Association of Greek authors, Angelos Sikelianos and Nikos Kazantzakis signed as the first in the whole group and stood thereby on the side of the National Theater as targets for future attacks, especially as it announced that Kazantzakis´s drama would be followed by Sikelianos´s tragedy ”Sibyl” (Σιβύλλα, 1940). In this work, which was written and performed before the fascist invasion, Sikelianos urges the Greek people to defend their country and their freedom. 28) Challenging enough for conservatives and monarchists, the premiere of ”Kapodistrias” had been shifted to the Independence Day on March 25, six days before the elections. After a month of political attacks on Kazantzakis and Sikelianos, at which the latter was scolded by the Right to be a mean supporter of the Communist National Liberation Front, EAM, and both had been branded communists and traitors, the Board of Directors of the National Theatre took the decision to put down Kazantzakis´s piece and to shelve Sikelianos´s drama on economic grounds. Soon the entire National Theater was forced to close for a time. 29)

4.1.2 The drama The short run of ”Kapodistrias” was clearly more the result of a political than aesthetic response. In the newspaper Ta Nea (Τα νέα) of 26 April 1946, the drama was praised and the ”systematic attacks” on all these works, as well as the violent political emotions, were deplored. 30) Since then, the tragedy, as mentioned earlier, was put on stage a mere two times, one of them under the biennial celebration of Governor Kapodistrias´s birth in 1776. However, critic Solon Makris was not very positive in his review in Nea Estia of New Year 1977. This would be the weakest of Kazantzakis´s tragedies, but credit should befall the director (Solomos), the set designer, the composer and actor (Mikis Theodorakis), even if the drama's ”pregnant, vivid and immediate language” was its biggest asset, ”though often pulled all the way to phrase based artificiality” (φραστηκή εκζήτηση). 31)

________________________________________________________________ 27) Bien 1979, op. cit., s. 168, Ριζοσπάστης, 21 June 1945: Το πνεύμα σε διωγμό, Ελεύθερα γράμματα, 30 June 1945, p. 1 f 28) Kalodikis, Periklis, Η νεοελληνική λογοτεχνία. Άγγελος Σικελιανός (1884 - 1951).Gutenberg, Αθήνα 197? s. 171 29) Bien 1979, op. cit., p. 168 ff 30) Ibid., p. 170 31 Makris), Solon, ΄Εθνικο θέατρο: ”Καποδίστριας” του Νίκου Καζαντζάκη. Σκηνοθ. Άλ. Σολομού. Νέα Εστία, τόμος 101, τεύχη 1188 1199, Αθήναι, Ιανουάριος - Ιουνίος 1977, p. 64-65, p. 65 f

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4.2 “Buddha” “Buddha” got an overwhelmingly negative review from Solon Makris in Nea Estia after its first public performance in 1978. Kazantzakis lacked “το sense of humour”, “the twin soul”, i.e. the “complete” consciousness of the outside world (η «πλήρης» συνείδηση του κόσμου), in which the tragic inextricably intertwines with the comic, and therefore there is no satire at all in his works. The “pompous and intellectual poetic text (ο πομπώδης και εγκεφαλικός ποιητικός λόγος) does not merge with the spectacle” (τη φαντασμαγορία). It all becomes an indescribable mix, according to the critic, who found 'πολύ λίγο 'θέατρο', “very little theater”, in “Buddha“ and in all Kazantzakis´s tragedies, “unless with theater you mean the secluded (αποκομμένη) scenic image, without the motivated joining together of pictures to make a tight unity”. As for the idea content one could say, Makris continues, that Buddha is a symbol, that Kazantzakis takes a denial attitude to life to remaster its positive goals. As regards Kazantzakis´s religious-philosophical conception of life, partly rooted in Buddhism, Makris dismisses both the Buddhist doctrine and Kazantzakis´s own variant of it by stating that Buddhism alone “is so distant and alien, that we do not need review and comparison with another!” 32)

4.3 “Sodom and Gomorrah” How “Sodom and Gomorrah” was received in Greece, I have not yet been able to ascertain. For the rest of Europe, we have the previously mentioned (cf. page 4) adverse reaction of the author on the study in Mannheim, which led to the production being taken down after only a few performances at his own request. In the United States the premiere took place in New York (previously mentioned on page 4) at the Jan Hus Playhouse in November 1963, translated by Kimon Friar and directed by Anthony Michales. Walter Kerr's review in the New York Herald Tribune of November 20 is predominantly negative. He argues that “the effort to see all myths as essentially one, is not a play; it is a research project “. He knows the author's individual strengths; “and we wish he had been able to channel it through people”. Nor did the cast escape criticism. The frugally effective translation by Kimon Friar is not executed with full authority by the immature cast, which feels the need to be “busy and breathless” on the sloping stage. 33)

________________________________________________________________ 32) Makris, Solon, Βούδας. Νέα Εστία, τόμος 104, τεύχος 1225, Αθήναι 15 Ιουλίου 1978, p. 954 f 33) Kerr, Walter: Kerr Review: ‘Burn Me to Ashes!’ New York Herald Tribune, Nov. 20, 1963

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5. An analysis of the three tragedies 5.1 Content 5.1.1 General Let us now turn to the actual texts and examine the dramatic structure, for instance in terms of content and form, and try to assess audience accessibility. The contents of the tragedies are existential and philosophical on a basic level, which should make them independent of time and be of interest to a spiritual seeker audience, provided in particular that it can handle (I was about to write: ”condone”) the representation of women. The woman can be portrayed as good, supportive and self-sacrificing as the women's collective in ”Kapodistrias” or blindly enjoying what her senses can experience as Lot's daughters in ”Sodom and Gomorrah” - or in some instance active and burning for higher ideals as the Prince's daughter Mei Ling in ”Buddha”, but never with the same weight and in the same focus as the male hero. The same is true for servants, other military or civilian leaders or officials and members of the grass-root collective. According to Igla, both the external differences between individuals and groups and the contradictions within the main characters themselves are driving the plot forward. They are mostly insoluble and can only lead to a tragic end. But the impossibility of solutions in external conflicts does not lie exclusively in objectively incompatible interests, but rather in the personality structure of the bearer of the conflict, the main character. The internal contradictions - e.g. between intuition and intellect, mind and body – are stimulated and strengthened by the external conflicts with repercussions on these and become a major factor in how the external conflicts are dealt with. 34) Even the hero's personality and movement towards the end of life, which means individual liberation from fear but also from hope, is similar in all of Kazantzakis´s tragedies, according to Iglas´s monograph. The heroes are characterized by their pride, their arrogance and pretentiousness, in equal measure the prerequisite and the consequence of their elevated selfesteem (”/.../Voraussetzungen und seine Konsequenzen gleichermaßen überhöhten Selbstwertgefühle”). They are exceptional people, independent of support from others. Their pride prohibits them to accept help from God or other individuals, even if the situation is hopeless. Courage, absence of fear and contempt of death are obvious characteristics and shows that only those who attempt to exceed the limits of what is possible are able to fight for unreachable goals without being discouraged, without hesitation. To such heroes there is no unbridgeable gulf between God and man. The heroes are not only the hub of the action, Igla claims, but also the development of the various thoughts. Initially external objectives are set, which are in tune with the hero's values and which must be pursued in conflict with unfavorable factors. These objectives are subject to numerous changes and has finally been transformed into symbols for values such as freedom and self-realization. The impossibility of achieving the first objectives leads to a zero point, from which no development takes place, rather a stagnation, a precursor to a spiritual level of the physical death. 35) Then opposing concepts like ”good” and ”evil”, ”virtue” and ”sin” appear as part of a unit and as consistent generate no development any longer. 36)

________________________________________________________________ 34) Igla, op. cit. p. 69 35) Ibid., p. 8 ff 36) Ibid., p. 69

12 After the reversal in the author's negative attitude towards his fellow citizens caused by the successful resistance against the Italian forces on the Albanian front and the subsequent defeat by the superior German war machine, where the gleaming victories in one battle lost all practical significance, the hero's path in Kazantzakis´s tragedies is paved with a specific political meaning. It is the hero´s death for national unity, ομόνια, as in ”Kapodistrias”, where this is clear for the first time, or in ”Constantine Palaeologus” with his desperate struggle to unify the Greek social groups with their obstruction and debilitating vested interests in a Constantinople on its way to finally fall into the hands of the Turkish conquerors. Even in ”Buddha” and ”Paravatis” there are appeals for ομόνια, albeit as a secondary motif. 37)

5.1.2 ”Kapodistrias” 5.1.2.1 Action In his quest to unite the conflicting groups among his people in the final phase of the war of liberation against the Turks, who have long occupied the motherland, the very first modern political leader, Ioannis Kapodistrias, has had a powerful clan leader, Petrobej Mauromichalis, imprisoned. Now someone has sent him a written warning that people are after his life. It is probably Petrobej´s relatives who threaten his life. The President prays to his God, that he may find time to carry out his work and on his birthday tries, with a large number of people outside the residence, in a speech to clans and groups of the still divided people, to show the way and his own willingness of sacrifice. A chorus of women pays tribute to his struggle for unity and peace. A blind itinerant poet sings about a future without oppression under the enemy´s sign. But Petrobej´s relatives meet Kapodistrias with aversion. Against the protests of his advisors, in national reconciliation Kapodistrias issues the release of Petrobej. When Kapodistrias later walks to church, he is stopped by a mute girl, wanting to save him, but he has her removed and continues to the church, where the brothers Mauromichalis kill him outside the church door with a pistol shot and two knife stabs. The President's last words are ”unity”, ”ομόνια”.

5.1.3.2 Availability In a unique historical and political perspective ”Kapodistrias” is inextricably linked with Greek, national experiences and with fears and hopes about what the future might bring. Can this plan be understandable, important and useful for another than a Greek audience? Perhaps with adjustments to make the hero more of a symbol than a historic personality. The association on a mythical-religious level with the passion of Christ to the death of Julius Caesar should however be accessible and touching even for a non-Greek audience. The roles are (over?) clearly chiseled and the use of mythical and historical figures and dramatic structures are striking. The main character, Ioannis Kapodistrias is a Christ-figure and stands, with some little hesitation, over common desires and weaknesses in his mission. His path towards death is for example similar to the main character in Shakespeare's drama ”Julius Caesar”, where during his penultimate and final walk to the Senate, the first time is stymied by a seer who in Act I, scene 2 warns him of ”the ides of March”, i.e. the following day, and the next day (Act III, scene 1) gets a letter by Artemidorus, which just as the dumb girl in ”Kapodistrias” might prevent the tragedy. This might or might not work as a double-exposure for an audience, knowing their Shakespeare. ________________________________________________________________ 37) Igla, op. cit., p. 89

13 Kapodistrias is a thought and pen man, belligerent and visionary. The legacy he leaves behind, is the hope that others, such as Makrigiannis, will bring the idea of unity further, when it is no longer burdened by Kapodistrias´s own person. Bien has pointed out Kazantzakis's own claims behind the mask of the role name. 38) The author himself thought to play a role in a political unification of Greece, which needed unity and cooperation instead of division and mutual acts of violence. The women's choir could easily be retrieved from ancient Greek drama with comment, appeal, prophesying and honoring activities. It may no longer be an Olympic god that the choir sometimes invokes. It is instead a θεάνθρωπος, a kazantzakian ”man-god”, Kapodistrias.

5.1.3 ”Buddha” 5.1.3.1 Action

”Buddha” is located in an interwar China, a distancing effect in both the applied technique of a commenting play master who is in rapport with the audience and the selection of an exotic, Asian atmosphere that makes it reminiscent of Bertolt Brechts´ epic drama ”The Caucasian Chalk Circle”. This so-called “parable” was first produced in English 1948. 39) But already in 1936 Brecht used the term “Verfremdungseffekt” in an essay on ”Alienation Effects in Chinese Acting”. 39b) After a prologue by the Poet, who wants to give spirit and shape to the many voices that cry within him, he hands over to the Magician to be Play Master. He presents the different characters and paints a hierarchical kingdom, threatened by the Yang -Tse River, which floods the neighboring cities, killing humans and livestock in its path. The son of the late warlord Tsang wants to seize power and clear out the old customs by digging up ancestral bones at the burial-place to burn them and sprinkle them as a fertilizer over the fields. Terrified soldiers from his forces report how the army dispersed when Buddha suddenly flew up from the soil and cut off noses, ears and hands on the blasphemer´s forces. The Prince's daughter is as eager to embrace the new era. She is using Western technology in a large artificial attempt to tame the Yang -Tse with concrete and steel, but is barely back to the palace when the sentinels arrive with the message that the last dam has burst and that the river is approaching at breakneck speed. Until then, the people/crowd in three tableaux has been able to follow Buddha's trials and their amounting to nothing, and we have been told by the Magician how with the help of the arts one can escape the treacherous diversity of the world, namely changing one´s vision, when you can't change the world (pp. 494-5). Old Tsang kills her son after what he believes is the ancestral commandment to deflect the catastrophy. His daughter sacrifices herself for the same reasons - and the old man realizes that he was wrong. His insight, that he can no longer entertain hope or feel fear, becomes a relief and rescue, which gives him the strength to call on the people to face the river and death with serenity. In the final cues the Yang-Tse is equaled to Buddha.

5.1.3.2 Availability The verfremdung which Kazantzakis creates with a pronounced theatrical setting, in which the Play Master is an important factor, should (paradoxically) make the drama more widely

_ _________________________________

__ 38) Bien 1979, p.158 f 39) The New Encyclopedia Britannica, Micropaedia, Vol 493. 39b ) Brecht, Bertolt.”On Chinese Acting”, translated by Eric Bentley. The Tulane Drama Review 6.1 (1961): pp. 130–136. Post added Sept 2013.

14 accessible, and the catastrophic perspective that the Yang-Tse River might drown us all should be easy to applicate to other perceived or imminent disasters, or on a symbolic, existential level come to signify that we will all reach the end of our lives. Then we can face death with dignity, if we have gone through the same trial and exerted ourselves to the utmost of our intellectual and emotional resources like Old Tsang, in that battle which in a hopeless situation has revealed the truth to the protagonist - and brought relief. On a level of recent history, it is easy to interpret the waiting from 21 April 1941 of the Greek forces located in Crete to face the German troops, superior in numbers and equipment, soon launched from air and sea, as the Magician asks the historian Mandarin what month and day it is and gets the answer ”April 23”. The Magician asks the Mandarin to write, not as a preface but on the very last page, that at the feast of Buddha on April 23 ”when the Moon was full, when the heavens opened up and joined (έσμιξαν) with Earth and it rained, it rained, it rained for forty days and forty nights; the world went down! ”(pp. 498-9) Here we see how Kazantzakis makes use of both the ancient Greek story of creation of how Gaia and Uranus generated Earth and the biblical myth of the flood in a partially contrasting context. Creation and destruction in the same powerful image. Today, almost sixty years after the attack, the historical reference would have lost most of its stimulus, but a good staging can naturally give it a new life. The critique of civilization in the drama would be just as applicable today as in the 30´s and 40´s of Kazantzakis´s time. It takes the form of a conflict between the old and the new in the form of on the one hand, the old man Tsang, who, like his son's wife and also the people are responsible for the hitherto binding traditions, which are failing, and on the other hand of the Prince's children, who stand for a materialist modernity, emanating from the Country of the White Devils, i.e. the West, which betrays it. We are forced to see the shortcomings of both and to embrace the whole of reality, to see what old man Tsang finally saw, and (most probably) Kazantzakis himself, after the ordeal he has exposed us to in dramatic form. And which medium for this test is more appropriate than the staged drama, which works on so many of the viewer's senses?

5.1.5 ”Sodom and Gomorrah” 5.1.4.1 Plot In ”Sodom and Gomorrah” the author has ripped asunder the tapestries of the ancient myths we know (so well), to weave a single one from the threads. Here is an incarnation by sin; the murder of a child and a father murdering the King, both in retaliation and to give way to a new king instead of the old man become powerless; followed by his son's takeover of the mother as his own wife; the arrival of a Messiah, and with him a resistance to the God, which the protagonist Lot all the more clear realizes not to be righteous, all-good and all-powerful, but only omnipotent. The drama begins with a prologue for two voices, as to shape highly similar to Vicentios Kornaros´s dramatic works Η θυσία του Aβραάμ (see also page 18 below). In Kornaros an Angel of God raises Abraham with his message of the need to sacrifice his son Isaac. In Kazantzakis a wrathful God's voice speaks from the heavens to Abraham about his desire to punish the people

15 with destruction, by fire. The faithful shepherd Abraham begs at least for his brother's son Lot to be saved. In the first act God´s winged messenger Redhair (Πυρομάλλης) falls away from God, tempted to become human by Lot´s daughters who offer the strapping young man wine, a wine with all of Life´s fragrancies and stenches. It´s been cultivated in the blood-stained palace garden, where Lot twelwe years ago on the command of his drinking companion the King, strangled and buried the King´s own son, since the royal augurs had warned that the child´s flamelike, red hair spoke of the downfall of the kingdom. When the newly arrived has tasted the wine, one of “the daughters of Eve” as Lot call them in complain, shows him the apples of Paradise: her young breasts, which Redhair touches in silence. Into Lot´s red tent, where we in the beginning of Act one have seen Lot wake up after a night of debauchery with his own daughters, the man and woman now disappear. And Lot is struck by the insight that God is a trap and that he is shoving Redhair and Lot towards the Abyss; without shame, without mourning, without revering the struggle of man. God is a trap “and we went into it!” (pp. 374-5)Here the first act ends, ingeniously enough. In Act two Lot sees in Redhair a saviour, a Messiah, which is now reeling between his mission to scorch the Earth and the desire to live an earthly life (page 392). The hesitant and repentant Redhair hears two internal voices. One says ”Burn the Earth!” and the other ”save the Earth!” Lot would get Redhair to harbor within his soul both God and the evil spirit, (page 389) similar to the Kazantzakis of reality with his life-long attempts in practical, political activities and in his authorship to fuse conflicting concepts, the ugly and the beautiful, the evil and the good, as the necessary poles in a fathomizing man's perception of life and reality. 40) The salvation Lot discerns in this phase of the drama, is the fire (page 393). The Queen now meets Redhair, and the red mark around his neck and his speech strongly evoke the image of her murdered son. The omens of nature and the just occurred weakness of her husband the King, makes her command Redhair to kill the one who killed her son. In her Chaldea the last of the three steps that will make any man, is the act of killing a lion. Lot eggs on: more intoxicating than wine and sweeter than the woman is power. He continues: /To put you on the throne, to say a word and that word to become flesh: as if you were God! Listen to the words of the Queen, Redhair! (p. 404) “To rebel against God”, Lot has said in the past, “breaking his commandment, is His will and even mine!” Redhair kills his father and King, proclaims himself the new King and goes to fight on the walls against an invisible and dangerous enemy, God, to defend the towns. Next to him stands the Queen, who is now both the new King's mother and wife, a motif clearly from the myth and tragedy of Oedipus. Rescue does not exist and the war against the enemy is lost from the beginning, but to the human soul (νούς) Redhair puts their hope. A greater victory than to have a great fall, Man cannot expect, he says.(page 423) Even Lot, who has hesitated, then stays in the Sodom and Gomorrah where he has spent his entire life challenging God by his sinful debauchery at night - which he believes he should have been burning in hell for! and his 40) IgIgla, op. cit, points out in Chapter 4.4, p. 50, that the origins of Kazantzakis´s image of God and ideas about a common identity or unity of God and the human being must be sought in Indian philosophy. This is the only access to the essence of Man himself. For Kazantzakis´s tragedies, it means that the hero allows the Exterior stepping back for the Interior. To ”rescue God” means to save oneself. Igla demonstrates Kazantzakis´s deviation from Buddhism in that Kazantzakis´s heroes do not refrain from action in order to achieve liberation. On p. 52 Igla mentions how all visibly opposite concepts are inherent in the principle ”God” and to what extent Kazantzakis in these recalls Heraclitus. On page 76, she sums up her impressions that it seems undeniable that Kazantzakis has Heraclitus, as well as Nietzsche, as models at many points in his philosophical deliberations. .

16 preaching punishment to the people of days. Neither Abraham nor Lot´s daughters can make him escape with them, despite the fact that Abraham has a promise from God, that a new society will be built. But to what avail? Lot replies. The new society will also burn ... and those communities that follow ...What is the point of such a battle? His daughters, ”the sacred prostitutes”, with their wombs full of fertilized eggs, have got his blessing and his condemnation to populate Earth with slaves. He'll escape the Wheel of Life himself (pp. 443). Lot has realized that God gives people both the responsibility and the right to decide for themselves. God is both Virtue and Sin, and Sin is perhaps the most faithful servant of God. God has told Abraham the reason why he wants to rescue Lot, is that he blasphemes, but he's a fighter, that he moves upwards and that even Lot´s sin is a great fighter. God would keep Lot as seeds, as yeast, ”μαγιά” (p. 435), but Lot refuses. He sees Redhair and the Queen and the two cities turn into ashes, but God can no longer fool him. He stops. To God he cries: ”I, Earth's little Scorpion, lift the stinger with that horrible poison, Lord, that will devour you! ” Abraham asks what poison he means. Lot responds: My ”No!” (Το ΄Οχι!) To Abraham he says: ”Let him kill me: I pay Freedom dearly, but it is worth it!” (all three quotations page 441) This ”no” of course has a huge political symbolic charge in Greece since its determined resistance against Italy in 1940-1, when the leaders of the nation refused to submit to an occupation. In ”Buddha” the date April 23, the day after the battle of Crete started in 1941, is used as we have seen (pp. 498-9).

5.1.4.2 Availability Alexis Solomos, holds Lot to be the most ”live” of Kazantzakis´s heroes 41), and it is easy to agree. It's always gratifying to play a cross rebel! In this drama, he also does not stand alone as the heroical clearer-of- way. Redhair, the Messenger/Angel who became human, showed him the way to his character's true, final action. Here, Kazantzakis has woven into the drama the myth of Prometheus, the hero who stole the fire (and therefore the light, my note) to give to the people. In Abraham´s memory he is called Lucifer, the Light bearer, who already by the Christian church fathers was interpreted to have been the king of Babylon 42) and in the same way as Redhair equated himself with God and was toppled and fell like a star from the sky. In Isaiah 14: 12 in the Swedish Bible translation of 1917 43) so the Prophet's words fall: ”How have you not fallen from heaven, you radiant morning star! How have you not been convicted to Earth, you destroyer of people!” After a series of totalitarian regimes of the 20th century, we should easily be able to make an interpretation of Redhair´s part that hits mercilessly at all self-styled world reformers. But it seems Kazantzakis has only used some aspects of the myth. We will return to this below. Even the Queen is a worthy opponent, saying of herself that she, behind all her outer grandeur, just _____________________________________________________________

41) Solomos, op. cit. p. 262 42) Nordisk familjebok, fourteenth vol, p. 43, Publishing House Nordic AB, Malmö, Sweden, 1953. Dictionary Words ”Lucifer”. 43) Isaiah 14: 12, in the Bible or the Holy Scripture. The old and New Testaments. The canonical books. Ratified by the King in 1917. Swedish Church's Diakonia Board book publishers, Stockholm 1969.

17 like Lot, is a flame, and that she will fight against the enemies with her incantations that have saved the cities. The Queen is strong, unsentimental and without shame in her craving for the strongest males nearby, persuasive and insistently enticing. Here the author gives scenic form to a Darwinian driving policy which at the same time is a challenge and a nightmare for men who traditionally would be the dominant part. The idea content of the tragedy and, not least, the many links to Kazantzakis´s own physical and psychological experiences (until the final version of 1945?), is clearly comprehensive and demanding (and therefore challenging and exciting!) to stage or produce for radio. I suspect that the living persons who mainly have been the models for Redhair and the Queen are former friends or enemies, who were consumed in the Russian revolution. In ”Buddha” Kazantzakis uses an authentic nickname for one of these: ”Mudita,” (Μουντίτα, page 538). 44) In Redhair I primarily see the Greek-Romanian writer Panaϊt Istrati, who during several joint trips in the Soviet Union with Kazantzakis first came to a dedicated support of the developing new state and then to attacking it in its infuriating shortcomings. 45) I think it´s clear that Lot expounds the ideas that Kazantzakis kept to through the years about the need for new values after the table has been swept clean from the old and bankrupt, and even his Buddhist notion. In the drama Lot´s and the others´ rebellion fails, but Solomos sees the hope of a future creation of a perfect God (τη μελλοντική δημιουργία του Θεού ιδανικού). 46)

5.2 Dramatic form After my study of the texts mentioned above, I mean that the dramatic design can create obstacles in the way of stage productions. The concentration of giving the hero psychological depth and multi-dimensionality, as Igla points out in her study, where the hero is the actual development, should mean that the effect of the adversary´ s play is greatly weakened. Of course, a director may chose to go against the author's text and intentions e.g., by strongly highlighting the opponents´ sceneries (movement) during long cues, but feasibility must be proven in practical work on stage, first together with an ensemble, and finally in interaction with an audience. Any pruning (or supplements) of cues as well. Such treatment of modern authors usually also entail the need of permission from whoever manages the rights of the literary work. But I venture to guess that it is more the rule than the exception in the theater world that before or during the production of a text, there are more or less extensive adaptations made of the original manuscript.

5.2.1 Cue length and repetitive technique in ”Buddha” The cues in “Buddha” are in many cases very long, which can have negative effects on tempo and rhythm, and thus the viewer's attention, when the interaction between the characters is weak. Here also certain repetitive patterns in the dialogue and/or physical action can reduce the dramatic tension from lack of variety and surprising development. An example of this is found in the preamble, in which the Magician with many words and brief rejoinders presents all of the characters he calls into play in this drama about living and dieing. Another example is the three listings with the gods Brahma, Shiva and Vishnu (pp.720-7); It becomes a uniform liturgy with ________________________________________________________________ 44) Bien 1989, op.cit., p. xviii, 117, 139, 197, 261 n 15, 263 n. 25. Her name was Elli Lambridi, Greek intellectual and philosopher by profession. 45) Ibid., index, p. 314. See in particular p. xx and p. 271 n 61 of Istratis´s attack upon the failure of the revolution, and p. 155 of Kazantzakis´s softened stance after the schism of 1928 with his former friend and comrade-in-arms, until Istratis´s untimely death in 1933. 46) Solomos, op. cit., p. 264

18 the people three times commenting the repeated course of events that the gods fall silent after the Buddha's response to their prayer to save them: to stuff a lump of earth between their lips. Here I lack a rise in tempo. Kazantzakis´s outspoken fascination with the triplication gives many more marks in the text. It is made into an element of form. Other numbers than three are given symbolic significance, as is the case with Buddha's statue that has ”four chins, four stomachs and four open ports in their main stronghold, for the four winds that blow ”(p. 455), or the five Prostitutes, with a play of words called ”the five welcoming Holy Gates” by the Magician (p. 467). But it is only the triplication which is used to the extent that it serves as a formative element of both the action on stage and of the structure of the spoken cue. In the Poet's introduction he promises the people who come out of his ten fingers, and to him as a father shout and ask about getting bodies, name and gender and to get rid of his cage, constantly dark, to raise a fleeting tale (παραμύθη αλαφροστοίχειωτο), a yellow, silken banner to wage war against the pain, ugliness and death with a three times raised field cry ”Buddha!”. The poet looks toward the North, South, East and West and again emits this call three times. ”Another consolation there is not throughout this whole world!” So follows the call for the children to tear the fence of need (της ανάγκης) and the explanation that everything is a dream, that pain, ugliness and death do not exist, that life is a game, a play - ”so let us play a little!” He strikes a gong thrice to bring forth the big bird Fantasy, perched above the abyss of his mind and cries out: ”Come ...Come ...Come ... ” He strikes once again three times at the gong and hears steps. The Poet tells the audience three times that ”he will come”. (p. 450-2) The three masks of the arrived Magician's, his story about how people in the past had need of him, when they saw the truth that hid behind the tales and then called him ”Help ... Help ... Help” (page 454), his confirmation of the young Kvang`s description of his ability to know everything about the past, the present and the future through his three heads and three hearts, to which the Magician adds his three skeins of yarn of different color, his three paper dragons and three large Thoughts - symbols for Life, Love and Death (page 458); all are examples of the triplication as a forming element. Even the three (of course!) Musicians ' emotional reactions before they begin to play on their instruments, are based mostly on the triple repetition (see e.g. p. 509). Of course the technique of repetition used in drama is not new. It is found in Antiquity`s oldest surviving tragedy, ”The Persians” by Aeschylus in 472 BC. 47) How long are the long lines in ”Buddha” in comparison with other dramatical works, often played? If we multiply the rows by the number of spaces for typographical types or white space between words, we see that the Magician´s initial presentation in ”Buddha” of the game and of the characters on pages 461 to 469 occupy no less than 232 rows by 44 spaces, i.e. 9,372 spaces. This long cue is not interrupted by other cues, even if other characters do exit or enter in the meantime. We can make a comparison with Shakespeare's ”Hamlet” in an edition with the row width 57 rows by 33 spaces. This I believe is Hamlet's longest cue, a monologue, when Guildenstern and Rosenkranz have left him and he desperately derides himself for not acting, even if his chance to reveal the killer, his uncle - is to continue playing crazy and hope for the spectacle he intends to treat the court to. The cue amounts to 3,036 spaces. The well-known suicide monologue of “to be or not to be” just before in the drama occupies 1,881 spaces.

47) Linnér, Sture, Lans och båge. Aischylos' Perserna [ interpreted by Emil Zilliacus], Stockholm, Norstedt 1992, p. 103 f

19 “Buddha” shows more examples of long, uninterrupted lines, for example from page 526 to 532, with Mogalanos on his Lord Buddha's command to describe to the people how Buddha is coming to save them, in 8,052 spaces. In the introduction to the second Act on page 584 to 591, The Old Man, or Prince Tsang, fights a spiritual battle with the ancestors about the sacrifice of his own son as they require of him, in a cue that includes 7,348 spaces, prior to his subordination. In the ancient tragedy ”Oedipus” by Sophocles the longest cue is 3,300 spaces. 48) Here Oedipus pronounces a condemnation of the offender to the murder of the King he once succeeded, not knowing that he is talking about himself. His lament at the end of the drama, when he has realized his guilt and dazzled himself, is confined to 2,585 spaces. 49) Aeschylus´s “The Persians” instead of a prologue begins directly with a long choral part called parodos totalling 43 spaces by 169 rows, a total of 7,653 spaces, in which the choir represents anxious Persian council members awaiting the end of Xerxes´s campaign against the Greeks. But here, firstly, the choir leader himself has got two cues, in the beginning and at the end, and secondly there is a dialogical division of the choir's collective efforts in strophes and counterstrophes, perhaps executed in swift, juxtaposted cues by the choir, dancing and singing in varying rhythms according to verse. (pp. 125-131) Reasonably the choir's collective has in this respect greater dramatic possibilities than a lonely Magician, carrying a long and continuous cue. Why these overly long cues in ”Buddha”? ”Buddha” was a project that Kazantzakis already in 1922 in an incomplete version tore into pieces, before he started with a new one. 50) If this was the opus, which most authentically and most clearly encapsulates the posture of the matured Kazantzakis, as Bien argues above, one can imagine that all subsequent experience would be accommodated in this tragedy. And so there are the evocative, depicting and incantatory characters of the romantic Poet, the Magician and Mogalanos. The Magician's task, which is imposed on him by the Poet in the beginning of the drama, is to lead the play and communicate with us in the audience. It may seem to require a certain space in words and lines.

5.2.2 Physical action As well as the verbal actions, the cues, the physical actions are represented by a few characters at a time - at least according to the author's stage directions. This could possibly be in imitation of ancient design, and both in the drama ”Buddha” and ”Kapodistrias” text is intended for an actively commenting and co-acting choir which can balance this. The dramaturgical approach we have seen above, with roots in ancient poetry of epic and tragedy, is of course deliberated, performed by a man who together with I.T. Kakridis translated Homer's ”Odyssey” from ancient Greek and wrote his own trilogy of Prometheus. 51)

5.2.3. The lack of development and the lack of individualization In ”Kapodistrias” the shortcomings are partly of another kind than in ”Buddha”. The protagonist undergoes no qualitative development, but shows what resources he can muster in his plight. I don't see major internal conflicts of conscience. Kapodistrias here is a so-called 48) Sofokles, p. 22 ff 49) Sofokles, p. 52 f 50) Bien 1979, p. xix 51) Kalamaras, Vassilis K., appendix 2, p. 103, opus nr. 61. Ομήρου Οδύσσεια. Μετάφραση Ν. Καζαντζακη - Ι.Θ. Κακρηδή. Αθήνα, 1965.

20 ”positive hero”- which needs must make the role difficult to portray. It becomes superhuman. And in a similar uniform way the enemies, mainly men from Mani, the brothers and the old Mauromichalis and their ecclesiastical ally, all become as thoroughly black and unsympathetic as Kapodistrias's aide and warrior Makrigiannis is faithful, as faithful as Kapodistrias's howling dog, announcing misfortune from the first scene. Bien refers to N. Vrettakos which demonstrated that the verse often is ”flabby”, which ”is forcing drama into a uniformity in rhythm and diction that blurs the distinctions between the various characters”. 52) People of different backgrounds and training - or lack thereof – are not individualized by using language. Kapodistrias, the military leaders Makrigiannis and Kolokotronis, the rebellious and revengeful Giorgiakis Mauromichalis from Mani and the islander Gikas speak in the same manner, in the same tone. Now perhaps this was not an important factor to Kazantzakis. It is too bold, on the contrary, to speculate in a deliberate uniformity, whereby Kazantzakis with linguistic uniformity wanted to express a universal subtext of the character ”See, we're talking the same way - why can we not agree?” But if you can determine that the uniformity is just as evident in ”Buddha” with regard to the level of style and structure of the phrases, in this case I would guess at the author's willingness to view (and convince us of) the entity of the world that is outwardly showing such a great diversity. In Kazantzakis world everything was The Onlyness - and this Onlyness was the No, το Τίποτα. This the author puts forward in the early religious - philosophical treaty ”Askitiki”. 53) In ”Buddha” the coach or play master, The Magician, ostentatiously enough places his magic words in the mouths of some of the female characters, as when he says to one of the prostitutes, ”Fruit-bearing Lemon Tree”: ”Courage, Fruit-Bearing Lemon Trees, speak not, says I, I speak with your mouth, don't be afraid! (p. 472) ”Lemon tree” repeats his introductory statement exactly and continues the reply to its end. It is also a condemnation of the Young Tsang, the rebel who set fire to the monastery at the ancestral burial ground (pp. 473). A general point of view on the lack of individualization in Kazantzakis dialogue: If we assume that Kazantzakis wrote in a great tradition from antiquity, like his friend Sikelianos and so many others, Greeks and non-Greeks, and that he wanted to give his audience what Aeschylus had tried to give his contemporaries, he may have assessed the individualization of language as nondistinctive or even not desirable for the great tragic roles. When we consider his works, we make it from other vantage points, from the expectations of the level of realism and individualization we have achieved as an audience experiencing more dramatic productions that anyone has previously been able to do, according to Martin Esslin, through radio, audio tapes, film, video and theater. 54) I would add: interactive computer programs of the adventure game type with integrated video sections. ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 52) Bien 1979, s. 172, cit. N.Vrettakos, Νίκος Κζαντζάκης, η αγωνία του και το έργο του, Athens, n.d. [ 1957 ], p. 589 - 9 53) Kazantzakis, N., Nikos Kazantzakis’ filosofiska testamente ( Ασκητική ). Ett urval. Övers. G. Grünewald. Paul Åströms förlag, Göteborg 1988. See for instance the introduction by Peter Bien, p. 23, Kimon Friar´s introduction p. 58 f and Kazntzakis´s text pp. 92 and 206. 54) Esslin, Martin, The field of drama. How the signs of drama create meaning on stage & screen. Metheuen Drama, Random House UK Limited. Paperback 1988, p. 13 ff.

21 Other weaknesses in ”Kapodistrias” which Bien brings up, is that among other things, the issue of land reform which is so searing in the first part of the drama, has completely been forgotten at the end. And Bien argues further that no new elements are added to increase the tension by having the President's fate be uncertain until the end. The hero has accepted his death, 55) the deaf girl who runs out on his way to church, where the assassins are waiting, to warn the great man, is only a short-lived distractor.

5.2.4 ”Sodom and Gomorrah”- best as radio drama? The tragedy ”Sodom and Gomorrah”, must both for content and form be inspired by a famous work by another Cretan writer from the literary golden age in the 17th century, Vicentios Kornaros and his dramatic and hard-to-classify-work “The sacrifice of Abraham “ (Η θυσία του Άβραάμ, written in 1635, first edition probably 1696, then in several reprints). 56) The choice of model is also an ironic comment: Kornaros´s work ends in a thanksgiving over the grace of God; Kazantzakis tragedy shows a God in the absence of goodness and righteousness. Here he is just almighty. The difficulty in both works is to dramatically portray God. In Kazantzakis´s drama, the stage directions state that you only hear his voice, in Kornaros´s work an angel speaks for God. In this regard, but also generally, Kazantzakis´s play seems to me more suitable for radio theater than the stage. The fact that the production in Mannheim at the première in 1954 was using some kind of ”echo-images” of God's voice, I think underpins my opinion. But new technologies, or new applications of existing technology in the performing arts, might well prove me wrong. Also in “Sodom and Gomorrah” the characters are few, but using a smaller, more intimate stage, in spite of the impulse to use the great space and the awesome scenic elements as the magnificent stuff might trigger, should not be a disadvantage. The cues are often short and charged with Kazantzakis marrowful, passionate language, an excellent combination in a context that requires a higher style. And there are glimpses of a strident humor. When God's messenger Redhair falls away from his master and becomes more and more human and, consequently, is starting to lose his wings, the King asks if he has begun to moult (page 412). And when Abraham in the beginning marvels at God's threats to destroy everything, God asks rhetorically, if he is not omnipotent (prologue, page 294). Even the Queen has a sharp remark on Lot, who formerly wallowed in debauchery with the King, but ”since then suddenly turned a saint on us” (p. 404).

________________________________________________________________ 55) Bien 1979, p. 173 f 56) Politis, Linos, Ποιτηκή ανθολγία. Βιβλίο τρίτο, Κρητική ποίηση, Δεύτερη έκδοση, Εκδόσεις ”Λωλώνη”, Αθήνα 1989 p. 211 f

22

6. Summary In “Buddha” we see shortcomings as the overly long cues, which deplete the dialogical interaction, and a certain monotony through a repetitive technique. Then one should consider the genre affinity for ”Buddha”, even after a possible shortening. Genre boundaries burst from the tragic drama into a kind of oratorio, just as sometimes Aeschylus´s tragedy “The Persians”, according to Sture Linnér, is signified an oratorio with its numerous (and quite long) choral parts. If “The Persians” is an oratorio, the designation should a fortiori be valid for “Buddha”. It has the voice and phrasing. I see this work as mainly an oratorio, a dramatic and epic-lyrical work, usually set to music for solo voices, choir and orchestra, and generally not intended for theatrical performance. Positive traits I see in a strong woman's portrait in the ancient War Lord's daughter, set in contrast to a daughter-in-law of low self-esteem, enslaved by the traditions, as well as the good language, attested by both Makris and Bien. To retain that quality in the productions outside Greece, of course good translations are pivotal. In “Sodom and Gomorrah”, I find several positive factors: in addition to the spicy language here we have the more equal co-acting and the harsh humour. A given requirement for productions outside Greece is access to translations with a similarly pithy language. A questionable factor is the amount of mythical stuff. 1963 Walter Kerr found the author's deliberate tension excessive, ”an overreach”. Will not the amount of more or less known mythical matter, versed in Kazantzakis philosophical, existential construction, rather be confusing to the viewer than healthily reshaping him? Finally, ”Kapodistrias”, which is weighed down (a contemporary audience might feel) by the non-individualized language, the waning tension and the fact that the play is primarily a Greek historical-political affair, though, on reflection, many of us non-Greeks are affected by this evil: the heartbreaking, ill-fated and repeated disruption. If I were to choose among those three, I find that an attempt to produce ”Sodom and Gomorrah” for primarily radio theater possibly could be considered. Vis-à-vis the tendency (among others) of the vague and uncritical religiosity we encounter since a decade back, the drama perhaps would be a much needed salt, an assessment which, of course, should be extended to any production. And in every case I have one reservation: For all three tragedies the previously mentioned attitude to the woman is valid. One could linger at the undertone of sexual fascination, which often comes close to disgust and horror and which concerns much, perhaps all, of what Kazantzakis wrote, but here a general reference to studies of others I hope will suffice. In a scene section in ”Buddha” a small opening exists towards equality between the sexes, when the prostitutes claim to have heard the ancestors´ cautionary cry out from below the Earth. The Magician dismisses this with that the ancestors are just talking to men. When they stand up, he invites them to sing, laugh and tinkle with their bracelets, so as not to hear their voices. He continues: ”The men are listening and responding, poor world If women would start to answer! ” (page 488)

23 Then the Magician commands his favorite prostitute, whom he shortly before has lain with, to wash his feet and to bring fragrances, because when meeting with the spirits that night he should not reek of human sweat. Then they will not approach. She complies and he declares in appreciation, that woman just needs one word: “obey!” Unfortunately the next reply, from one of the prostitutes, torpedoes Kazantzakis´s possible purpose by his letting her ask the Magician how he knows so much about the feminine mystique ... In ”Sodom and Gomorrah” the attitude echoes what we can deduce about the perception of women in authentic texts from antiquity, and this might be the key to deal with a contemporary staging, where the women in the audience either have achieved or are strong enough to be able to demand a fairer position and a progressive representation in whatever dramatic medium is chosen.

JG

24

Sources Fiction Aeschylus The Persians, in Sture Linnér, Lans och båge. Aeschylus´ Perserna [interpreted by Emil Zilliacus], Stockholm, James Franco, 1992. 177 pages. Isaiah Isaiah 14: 12, in the Bible or the Holy Scripture. Old and New Testament. The canonical books. Translation liked and confirmed by the King in 1917. Swedish Church's Diakonia Board book publishers, Stockholm 1969. Kazantzakis, Nikos The tragedies dealt with in this paper: a) “Kapodistrias”. O Καποδιστρίας. b) “Buddha”. Βούδας. c) “Sodom and Gomorrah”. Σόδομα και Γόμορρα. All in: Δίφρος, 1956. Αθήνα. By the same author: Nikos Kazantzakis philosophical Testament. A selection. Translation by Gottfried Grünewald. In cooperation with Stig Rudberg and Christos Tsiparis. Paul Åström's publishers. Gothenburg 1988. 207pages. Kornaros, Vicentios Κορνάρος, Βισέντιος, Η θυσία του Άβρααμ, in excerpts in Πολίτης, Λίνος, Ποιτηκή ανθολγία. Βιβλίο τρίτο, ποίηση, Δεύτερη, Κρητική έκδοση Εκδόσεις ”Λωλώνη”, Αθήνα 1989 Sture Linnér Lans och båge. Aischylos' Perserna [interpretetation by Emil Zilliacus], Stockholm, Norstedt 1992. 177 pages. Politis, Linos Πολίτης, Λίνος, Ποιτηκή ανθολγία. Βιβλίο τρίτο, ποίηση, Δεύτερη, Κρητική έκδοση Εκδόσεις ”Λωλώνη”, Αθήνα 1989 Shakespeare, William Hamlet, edited by A.W. Verity, The Pitt Press Shakespeare for Schools, Cambridge University Press, 1961 Julius Caesar, edited by A.W. Verity, The Pitt Press Shakespeare for Schools, Cambridge University Press, 1966

25 Sofokles Konung Oidipus. Translation and explanations by Erik Staaff. Publications by Modersmålslärarnas förbund, N:r 5, Almqvist & Wiksell, Uppsala 1956

Referential works Anemogiannis, Giorgios Ανεμογιάννης, Γιώργος, Μουσική στα έργα του Καζαντζάκη. Η λέξη, 139, Αθήνα Μαγίου - Ιουνίου 1997, 276 - 283. Bien, Peter Buddha, Kazantzakis´ Most Ambitious and Most Neglected Play, Comparative drama 11(1977), 252 - 272, Kalamazoo, Mich Comparative 1967 Kazantzakis´ Kapodistrias, a (Rejected) Offering to Divided Greece, 1944 -1946, Byzantine and Modern Greek studies 3 (1979), 141-173, Oxford Blackwell Kazantzakis. Politics of the spirit, 1989, Princeton University Press. 318 pages. Brecht, Bertolt ”On Chinese Acting”, translated by Eric Bentley. The Tulane Drama Review 6.1 (1961): pp. 130–136. Igla, Birgit Die Tragödien des Nikos Kazantzakis. Thematik, gemeinsame Züge, philosophische Ausrichtung. Bochumer Studien zur Neugriechisen und Byzantinischen Philologie, Ed. Isidora Rosenthal - Kamarinea, Band V, 1984,Verlag Adolf M. Hakkert Amsterdam. 126 pages. Kerr, Walter Kerr Review: ´Burn Me to Ashes!` New York Herald Tribune, Nov. 20, 1963 Makris, Solon Μακρής, Σόλων. ΄Εθνικο θέατρο: ”Καποδίστριας” του Νίκου Καζαντζάκη. Σκηνοθ. Άλ. Σολομού. Νέα Εστία, τόμος 101, τεύχη 1188 - 1199, Αθήναι Ιανουάριος Ιουνίος 1977, pp. 64 - 65 Μακρής, Σόλων. Βούδας. Νέα Εστία, τόμος 104, τεύχος 1225, Αθήναι 15 Ιουλίου 1978, pp. 953 - 955

26 Plakas, Dimitris Πλάκας, Δημήτρης, Χρονολόγιο Νίκου Καζαντζάκη (1883 - 1957). Διαβάζω, Τεύχος 190, Αθήνα 27 Απριλίου 1988, pp. 26-33. Raizis, M. Byron Nikos Kazantzakis. Two Plays, Sodom and Gomorrah II I and II Comedy: A Tragedy in One Act. II Translated from the Greek by Kimon Friar. P. 124. Review in Comparative Drama, 17 (183-84): 387-390, Kalamazoo, Mich Comparative 1967Solomos, Alexis Σολομός, Αλέξης, Ο θεατρικός Καζαντζάκης. Η λέξη, 139, Αθήνα Μαγίου - Ιουνίου 1997, 258-265 Sinanidis, Mary “The National Ballet presents Zorbas II II”, Athens News, Sunday 19 July 1998, centerfold pp. 13-14 Lili Zografou, Ζωγράφου, Λίλη, Νίκος Καζαντζάκης. ΄Ενας τραγικός. 5η έκδοση, Γαβριηλίδης, Αθήνα 1989. (1. ed 1959) 314 pages.

Secondary referential works The New Encyclopedia Britannica, Micropaedia, Volume 2, 15th edition, USA 1986 Esslin, Martin The field of drama. How the signs of drama create meaning on stage & screen. Metheuen Drama, Random House UK Limited. First published in paperback 1988. Kindermann, Heinz Theatergeschichte Europas. X. Band. Naturalismus und Impressionismus. III. Teil. Griechenland. 1974, Otto Müller Verlag, Salzburg. Kalodikis, Periklis Καλοδικής, Πέρικλης Ν., Η νεοελληνική λογοτεχνία. Άγγελος Σικελιανός (1884 1951).Gutenberg, Αθήνα 197? Nordisk Familjebok, vol. 14, p. 43, Förlagshuset Norden AB, Malmö 1953. Searched word ”Lucifer”.

27 Internet sources Georgoussopoulou, Eva Hellenic Centre for Theatrical Research Theatre Museum htttp://www.istos.net.gr/theatro/museum/indexe.htm e-mail address: Theatre Museum (SMTP:[email protected])

Oral sources Bien, Peter m I Nikos Kazantzakis´s Treatment of the History (Legend?) of Nikiforos Fokas, May 12, 1998 Bien, Peter m II Peter Bien, Dartmouth College, Department of English, 6032 Sanborn House Hanover, New Hampshire 03755-3533, USA e-mail: [email protected]

28 Appendix I Tragedies by Nikos Kazantzakis: (according to Kalamaras, Vassilis K.) Καλαμαράς, Βασίλης Κ.Εργογραφία Νίκου Καζαντζάκη. Διαβάζω, Τεύχος 190, Αθήνα 27 Απριλίου 1988, 99-105. /…/

Γ. Θέατρο

Πέτρος Ψηλορείτης. Ο προτομάστορας. Τραγωδία. Αθήνα, έκδοσις ‘Παναθηναίων ’, 1910. Σελ. 47. 17. Νικηφόρος Φωκάς. Εξέδωκε ‘ Στοχαστής ’. Αθήνα, 1927. Σελ. 111. 18. Χριστός. Εξέδωκε ‘ Στοχαστής ’. Αθήνα, 1928. Σελ. 105. 19. Οδυσσέας. Εξέδωκε ‘ Στοχαστής ’. Αθήνα, 1928. Σελ. 104. 20. Νικηφόρος Φωκάς. ‘ Πύρσος ’ Α.Ε. Εκδόσεων και γραφικών τεχνών, 1939. Σελ. 135. 21. Μέλισσα. Δράμα τρίπρακτο. Ανατύπωση από τη ‘ Νέα Εστία ’. Αθήνα, 1939. Σελ. 149. 22. Ιουλιανός. Εκδότης ο ‘ Πιγκουίνος ’. Αθήνα, . Σελ. 111. 23. Ο Καποδιστρίας. Τραγωδία. Εκδότικος οίκος Νικ. Αλικιώτη. Αριστείδου 6Αθήνα [1946]. Σελ. 103. 24. Σόδομα και Γόμορρα. Αθήνα, ανάτυπο από τη ‘ Νέα Εστία ’, 1 Μαρτίου 1949. 25. Θέατρο. Τραγωδίες με αρχαία θέματα. Προμηθέας, Κούρος, Οδυσσέας, Μέλισσα. Δίφρος, 1955. Σελ. 655. 25α. Δεύτερη έκδοση. Εκδ. Ελ. Καζαντζάκη. Αθήνα, 1964. Σελ. 671. 26. Θέατρο. Τραγωδίες με βυζαντινά θέματα. Χριστός, Ιουλιανός ο Παραβάτης, Νικηφόρος Φωκάς, Κωνσταντίνος ο Παλαιολόγος. Δίφρος, 1956. Αθήνα. Σελ. 582. 27. Θέατρο. Τραγωδίες με διάφορα θέματα. Καποδιστρίας, Χριστόφορος Κολόμβος, Σόδομα και Γόμορρα, Βούδας. Δίφρος, 1956. Αθήνα. Σελ. 767. 27α. Δεύτερη έκδοση. Εκδ.Ελ. Καζαντζάκη, 1971. Αθήνα. Σελ. 767. 16.

Δ. Διασκεύες θεατρικών έργων

28. Μανώλη Καλομοίρη. Ο προτομαστόρας. Μουσική τραγωδία σε τρία μέρη

και

ιντερμέδιο. Διασκευή από την ομώνυμη τραγωδία του Πέτρου Ψηλορείτη. Έργα Αθήνα, Εκδοτική Εταιρεία τα Έργα. Επιμελητής Ν. Ποριώτης, 1916. Σελ. 56. /…/