I haven’t gotten to see much of our local college and university plays this fall - just too much going on. However, I did get to this one, which is a bit unusual, so I figured I should probably see it the one chance I get. (As much as I love Twelfth Night, I expect to see that one come around regularly.)
Witkiewicz, who went by “Witkacy,” was a polymath - he wrote in just about every genre, painted, photographed, and philosophized. His income primarily came from his portrait painting, and he was primarily known for that during his lifetime. These portraits could be ordered any style from a traditional realist look, to expressionistic, to really out there - he would take psychedelic drugs and paint under their influence, and he would then list what he was on in a code on the back.
He wrote a few novels, and about forty plays, of which only half survive.
His life was marked by tragedy. His fiancee committed suicide, and he blamed himself (although her issues were more complicated.)
He became estranged from his father after enlisting in the Russian army during World War One - at that time, Russia controlled Poland and his father was a committed anti-occupation patriot. He was seriously wounded in battle, and witnessed the Russian Revolution while recovering. Thereafter, he appears to have worked his trauma into his art, showing a fear both of foreign invasion and revolutionary movements.
Finally, when the Nazis invaded Poland, he fled to the countryside - as a former Russian soldier, he had a target on his back. When the Nazis closed in, he committed suicide rather than face capture.
In a final surrealist twist, when his supposed grave was exhumed - again, after being moved to a place of honor - the bones were discovered to belong to an unknown woman. Perhaps he would have appreciated that.
It was only after his death that his literary works rose from obscurity, largely through the efforts of other Polish artists.
Country House is one of his better known plays. Which is to say, I had never heard of it before CSUB put it on their fall schedule. I enjoyed Waiting For Godot last year at BC, so the idea of another absurdist (or at least absurdist-adjacent) play sounded interesting. And also, a play translated from another language tends to interest me, as I find different perspectives and styles to bring something new to the stage.
My wife said that this play seemed somewhat like Chekhov to her, and I have to agree. This isn’t the bizarre world of Beckett, or the true surrealism of, say, Dali. The work feels similar to realism, except, well, the whole ghost thing, and the fact that in the end, we really never can figure out the characters’ motivations.
Witkacy himself described his style as “theater of pure form,” where the tools of theater would be used without being limited by convention.
The nods to Chekhov are pretty obvious. There is the country manor, which is struggling to be profitable. There are the spoiled children. There is a gun. Well, actually, there are three guns, but only one gets fired. So, maybe a partial example of Chekhov’s Gun?
Unlike Chekhov, though, there are a lot of questions that never get answered. This is in significant part because every single character is an unreliable narrator. Including the ghost, who claims that ghosts don’t lie.
Oh, and did I mention this is a bit of a wicked comedy? Sure, it has a high body count, but the satire is hilarious too.
The central mystery that starts the play is, in the end, left to significant speculation.
Anastasia Nearly is dead. That much is fairly clear. But she has returned as a ghost, and her account of her death completely contradicts the story her husband Diaphant tells her.
According to the husband, he shot her dead when he discovered her in flagrante delicto with his cousin Jibbery Penbroke.
She denies both of these things. First, she never slept with Jibbery - she hates his poetry anyway - but she did sleep with the local bailiff, Wendell Poundwood. (In case you wondered, the names are definitely intentionally descriptive.) Diaphant can’t believe this is true, because Wendell is so cowardly and neurotic that he couldn’t even competently carry out an affair. (Also, he denies it, and when he finally “admits” it, it is at gunpoint, so the confession is, as we lawyers would say, unreliable.)
Oh, and also, she wasn’t murdered, she had terminal cancer and died from that. Although subsequent dialogue and events strongly hint that perhaps she overdosed on the laudenum she was using to treat her cancer pain.
So, did she die of cancer, of an overdose, or was she murdered? The play never resolves this, and the characters never change their minds about it.
The girls are thrilled to have their mother back (after a fashion), but we know that playing with ghosts never ends well. And it doesn’t.
That’s as much as I will say about the plot. The dialogue is often circular, and both illuminates and obscures character at the same time. The characters are essentially static, and I would say what is intended to change is the audience perception of them.
I’ll say a bit about the
production itself. This is a college play, so large budgets weren’t a
possibility. However, a certain amount of fabrication of costumes and sets was
part of the educational process. As with previous CSUB productions, this meant
having a minimalist vision, and careful work within that vision.
The main set was simply a large staircase, wide at the bottom (about one-third of the stage width), and tapering on a curve to a narrow top some 15ish feet above. It could be (and was) rotated and moved as needed. There was also a stonehenge-esque table and chair set, with components that could be assembled in various configurations. And that was about it. The usual props to make a tea, three guns, and generic costumes that were old fashioned without being (at least to my untrained eye) limited to a specific era. The lighting and sets created the mood rather well - I’ll give my thumbs up for the artistic vision.
The rest had to be done with acting.
For the most part, it was convincingly done. We saw opening night, and there were a few of the bit parts that rushed the lines just a bit - nerves are real. But over all, things were clear and competently acted. I personally enjoyed Stephanie Jean as the ghost of Anastasia, Awale Monye as Jibbery, and Gissela Zelaya as the rather sinister cook Ursula. (She may be the most villainous character in the play, and that is with competition.)
A few other observations. There were conscious references to other plays throughout this one. I suspect the author intended the Chekhov nods, but others were in the presentation. For example, I saw a bit of Blithe Spirit in one scene, and my wife noted that some of the characters were consciously modeled after ones in the TV show, The Good Place. There were probably others I missed.
Country House is a bit offbeat, but not as out there as Godot. It does undermine expectations, and raise questions about if any narrative can even be close to the truth.
Unfortunately, this only ran one weekend, and I lacked time to write about it earlier. That said, local colleges and universities often have good drama going throughout the year, and are an affordable and rewarding way to expand one’s horizons and encourage local talent.
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