OH By Putu Wijaya Translated by from Indonesian Cobina Gillitt Putu Wijaya (b. 1944), one of Indonesia’s most celebrated and prolific playwright-directors since the early 1970s, believes the objective of theatre is “mental terror.” For him, every performance is an opportunity to jostle spectators out of their comfort zones, shifting them from a feeling of…
Infinite Banquet By Alberto Pedro Torriente Translated from Spanish by Linda S. Howe The author and context Cuba’s Special Period(1990-2000) encompasses the economic crisis caused by the abrupt disappearance of the Soviet Union and its subsidies. The Castro government was overwhelmed, triggering Cubans’ fear for their literal survival. Artists and writers zeroed in on the…
Plays from Contemporary Hungary: ‘Difficult Women’ and Resistant Dramatic Voices. Edited and translated by Szilvi Naray. Bloomsbury Methuen Drama, 2024. 257 pp. Prah by György SpiróPrime Location by György SpiróSunday Lunch by János HáyThe Dead Man by János HáyThe Bat by Krisztina Tóth Reviewed by Jozefina Komporaly This welcome addition to the Methuen Drama Play Collectionsseries…
Welcome to the Spring 2024 issue of The Mercurian! Following up on Magda Romanska’s translation of the great Polish film director Andrzej Wajda’s adaptation of Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment published in the Fall 2023 issue of The Mercurian, this issue begins with Romanska’s translation of Wajda’s adaptation of Jaroslaw Iwaszkiewicz’s stage adaptation of his novella…
Grażyna Szapołowska (Ewelina) and Aleksander Domogarow (Edmund). Press Photo. Copyright TVP June Night: Of Love and Duty (1980) By Jarosław Iwaszkiewicz Translated from Polish by Magda Romanska Polish poet, novelist, and playwright, Jarosław Iwaszkiewicz, was a complex figure with conflicted biography. Born in 1894, near Kyiv during the time of Russian Empire’s rule over the…
Drawn by Johann Christian Scholler; engraved by Zinke, c1829. Laurence Senelick Collection. By Ferdinand Raimund Translated from German by Michael McDowell and Laurence Senelick The Zauberposse or magical farce was a dramatic form peculiar to Austria and especially Vienna in the latest eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. A baroque genre that made its appeal to…
Photo by Victor Pelayo By Sergio López Vigueras Translated from Spanish by Jacqueline E. Bixler The Bullet presents the story of Lauro and Valeria, who furtively glance at and wonder about each other every morning as they ride to their respective jobs on a microbús. On this particular morning, their daily routine as well as…
Chema Ruiz and Jesús Noguero in Madrid production. Photo by Marta Vidanes. By Luis Araújo Translated from Spanish by Phyllis Zatlin Kafka In Love (Kafka enamorado) by Spanish playwright Luis Araújo is based in large part on Franz Kafka’s letters, written from 1912 to 1917. Some brief scenes also evoke moments from Kafka’s fictional works,…
Romina Paula. Fauna and Other Plays. Ed. April Sweeney and Brenda Werth. Trans. April Sweeney, Brenda Werth, and Jean Graham-Jones. Kolkata: Seagull Books, 2023. 164 pp. Reviewed by May Summer Farnsworth Fauna and Other Plays, edited by April Sweeney and Brenda Werth, offers four plays in English translation by Argentine playwright Romina Paula. The editors,…
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