At 55 Exhibition Road... a theatre world coup
ON a 15ft. stage, before an audience of 150 seated on tubular chairs and old benches, an important piece of theatrical history was made in London last night. The first performance of a banned play by rebel Russian novelist Alexander Solzhenitsyn took place at the tiny theatre on the second floor of No. 55, Exhibition Road, Kensington.
The play, Candle in the Wind, was performed by a group of part-time Polish actors. And there was less fuss than at the opening night of a local drama production.
Solzhenitsyn wrote the play, which is partly autobiographical, after his release from a Siberian labour camp.
It was to have been put on at the Palace of Culture in Moscow, but the Soviet authorities moved in, broke up the props, burned the script and banned the play.
It was smuggled out of Russia, only recently printed in Germany and finally translated by Polish exiles in London.
Directions
Nobel prizewinner Solzhenitsyn, now living in exile in Switzerland has sent directions for the play. He regards "Candle in the Wind" as among his finest work, says the play group.
Solzhenitsyn, author of "Cancer Ward" and "Gulag Archipelago", has indicated he may fly to England next week to attend the play.
It is performed in Polish, but the group is planning an English version.
Said 23-year-old Viola Hola, leading lady at the Polish Hearth Club theatre: 'The play is about a man who comes out of a labour camp to find his niece is working in a laboratory where they are perfecting an electronic technique that will keep people docile and do what they are told.'
Among the actors playing to last nights 50p-a-seat audience there was an awareness of their 'scoop' and an intensity not often seen.
Producer Dr Leopold Kielanowski said : 'We are a humble little troop of actors, but we feel very proud to be the first anywhere to put on such an important work by such an influential writer.
'I am sure it is the sort of play that the Royal Court or the National Theatre would love to have. We have had to work very hard to put it on.'
'The moral of the play is you must never give up.'
One of the stage props was personally suggested by Solzhenitsyn - a six-foot card-board cut-out of Botticelli's martyred Sebastian, his body full of arrows.
The mouth had been gagged with a rolled-up copy of Pravda, the Russian newspaper whose title means truth.
