Candle in the Wind
Solzhenltsyn's "Candle in the Wind" is his second play. It was accepted for the Vakhtangov Theatre in Moscow but hardly surprisingly the production was cancelled by higher authority. This is a pity, not so much for artistic reasons as for technical reasons, for if a production had matured Solzhenitsyn would have no doubt learnt to have presented his ideas with more dramatic artifice.
Even if "Candle in the Wind" is not a good play, it is certainly an interesting one, and this production (translated from Russian into Polish by L. Alexandrovitch and directed, somewhat sentimentally, by Leopold Kielanowski) gives a very good idea of it.
The theme is a characteristic one, that the scientist must be absolutely sure that his work will be of benefit to humanity before he sets it into operation.
Philip, the scientist of the play, has invented a technique of biocybernetics capable of the "nervous stabilisation " of neurotic characters, and the process is carried out for the first time on Alda, a charming but excessively jittery girl who is a cousin of Alex a Solzhenitsyn-type figure, lately back from labour camp. Alex's dramatic function is to act as observer and concience. The operation appears to be succesfull. Alda is exhibited at a smart party where she plays a Schubert sonata to perfection and struts around like the belle of Metropolis. Alda catches this lady making love to a coloured research assistant at the moment of passing on the tidings. She reverts at once to her former conition.
The argument is elaborated in various ways, for example by the presence of a general who wants all his army recruits treated by this magic proess. The story is in fact a good one, but Solzhenitsyn is not yet a master of dramatic technique and has difficulty in getting his characters convicingly on and of stage to play their parts.
The company, wartime offshoot of Polish National Theatre whose history is both admirable and romantic, is remarkably good, the ladies especially. Viola Hola's metamorphosis from nerve-torn girl to smart robot is adoritly done, and her sudden return to her former state is a moving moment, her society poise giving way to restless movements of hands and eyes that signal an impending breakdown. Rula Lubienska-Lenska, in charge of the biology section of the lab, also comes before the curtain, in charcter, at the start of each scene to give a resume in English of what is to follow. there is good playing by robert Oleksowicz as Phillip and Marian Gamski as alex, but the parts are not written in much depth.
Jerzi Stocki and Jan Smosarski, have devised a sequence of expressive sets based on an arrangement of rectilinear white shapes against a dark velvet curtain, a symbolic head setting the mood of the scene. Solzhenitsyn meant the setting to be not Russian but international; but as the director says, the atmosphere of Russian reality comes up to the surface time and again like subterranean water.
There are some further performances to be given, though not every night. Tickets are obtainable at the theatre, 55, Exhibition Road, SW7, and an English translation of the text is published by the Bodley Hand.
