Editor’s Note
Welcome to the Fall 2024 issue of The Mercurian! We begin with Laurence Senelick’s translation of Russian playwright Mikhail Lermontov’s play Masquerade from 1835. Like me, many readers may only be familiar with Lermontov’s name from Chekhov’s character Solyony in Three Sisters who compares himself to Lermontov and quotes a Lermontov poem. As Senelick describes…
Masquerade
Bolshoy Dramatic Theatre, Kazan, in the 1950s Masquerade (MASKARAD, 1835) By Mikhail Lermontov Translated from Russian by Laurence Senelick “My temperament is like Lermontov’s,” declares the antisocial bully Captain Solyony in Chekhov’s Three Sisters (1901). He then quotes a familiar line from a Lermontov poem: “But he, the rebel, seeks the storm/ As if the…
OH
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
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…
Review of Plays from Contemporary Hungary: ‘Difficult Women’ and Resistant Dramatic Voices
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…
The Mercurian 