t h e   a n o n y m o u s   v e n e t i a n

“THEATRE” magazine, issue 5-6, 2004
A LOOK INTO MAN’S INTIMATE WORLD
“The Anonymous Venetian” by Giuseppe Berto,
Theatre “Vazrazhdane”
Ivon Dimitrova

The author himself says the following about his play “The Anonymous Venetian”: “When in 1966 they asked me to write a film scenario, which was later entitled “The Anonymous Venetian” I agreed without a will since I rarely work for the movies. I agreed for two reasons: First, I had just finished my novel “Antonio in Love” which is staged in the neighborhood of Venice. Secondly – I was intrigued by the idea which I was given and which I somehow felt very close to me. Yet, I considered this idea more suitable for a play than for a film scenario and for this reason I decided to write a long dialogue between two persons, keeping the right for this dialogue to remain my own property in order to convert it into a play. This is how I came to the story of a man and a woman who have been separated for many years.”

This is how Berto’s play was created.

In fact love and death, music and talent, hatred and weakness are intertwined in this play in such a way that it is impossible to separate them from one another. The plot is trivial – a husband and wife meet after they have been separated for many years. But their feelings are still alive and love is hidden behind the affected hatred and irritation. Memories, feelings and sensations are still alive. Man and his creative spirit are alive, too. In spite of the time gone by, they are not only connected through love and through their child (the physical incarnation of this love) but also through thoughts and feelings, which invisibly continue pulling the wires between them.

But death can also be seen through this love. Their meeting is not accidental. The husband has asked for this meeting because he knows that he is incurably ill and his end is imminent. Thus the knot is tightened up more strongly. At the same time he is working on a project together with his orchestra - “The Anonymous Venetian” by Alessandro Marcelo (1684 –1750). And this project – the recording of the musical work “The Anonymous Venetian” – turns into the work of his life! Knowing that his end is imminent, thinking over everything he has been through and understanding his own mistakes, He wants again to touch upon this true love that has once inspired him and made him feel happy and free. At first She does not believe his words but She gradually responds to his anguish and shakes off mistrust because She understands that this single day in Venice is their last day. Love, death and art are intertwined. Everything - betrayal in love, times gone by and vanity lose their usual dimensions on the threshold of death. Left alone after her departure, He has come to know himself in music but He has not stopped loving her. Beguiling herself with her rich second husband, She has not stopped loving her first love, where she has been most truly her own self. These two worlds, which have drifted away from each other, have not stopped existing together in spite of the separation. Each one of them has rediscovered his own self: He has rediscovered himself in his love for music and She has rediscovered herself in her love and care for her new family and children. In this way Berto suggests the idea that creative work and love are inseparable.

And what is actually “The Anonymous Venetian”? “The Anonymous Venetian” is the name of a musical composition, a concert for oboe and string orchestra by Alessandro Marcelo. Yet, Marcelo’s authorship was disputable – specialists had doubts and had to choose among the composers Benedetto, Marcelo, Albinoni, Vivaldi and Alessandro Marcelo but it was finally proved that the author was Alessandro Marcelo. His original music served as a leitmotif of the production. We can read in the playbill the following words of the producer Zdravko Mitkov:

“The basic mystery of this play is the amazing way in which death and music are combined. People have spoken for ages about the music of the spheres but hardly anyone knows what this term really means. I think that the author has found the magic formula. Same as love, which ends with a feeling of sadness, life, when it opens the door to death seems to let the divine music reach our ears”.

This complicated intertwining of love, death and creative beginning has also dawned on Zdravko Mitkov’s production. His exceptionally aesthetic production takes us inside the world of Venice without any superfluous properties or imposed ideas. The atmosphere is hinted by the sound environment (the sound of the sea, the noise of cafes and restaurants, etc.) and by the skillful entry into the action of the play of the characters of Lucia and Camilo, acted by Mila Bencheva and Ivan Grigorov, students and the National Academy for Theatre and Film Art “Kr. Sarafov”. Those are masked characters that take us into the world of Venice with its carnivals and history. In fact, in the words of the main character Venice symbolizes death and decay – a slowly and continually sinking town, same as the main character himself, who is dying slowly but continues struggling, composing music, making studio recordings, creating.

The skillful lighting of the performance does not only serve to mark down separate moments. It is actively included into the scenographic solution of Nevena Kavaldzhieva, which is functional and elegant. The scenery is designed in two basic colours – black, symbolizing death and red – a symbol of love. Many functional elements are included as well, which make easy the passing of the action from one scene into another – a port, a bar, an automobile, a restaurant, a home, a staircase, etc. The sound environment, which is chosen by the producer himself, adds to all this.

The acting (He – acted by Daniel Tsochev and She – acted by Nona Yotova) impresses us with its preciseness and contemporary feeling. Daniel Tsochev is plastic, lively, sensitive and at the same time tense due to the fate of his character. Nona Yotova is stylish, emotional and lady-like. The actors are inside their characters and inside the events. Their acting is characterized by sincerity; it has an organic and plastic quality and a lot of taste. We should not forget that the producer of the play is the aesthete Zdravko Mitkov, who always clears the superfluous intrusion. Thus reaching the moment in the plot of their inevitable separation, the characters He and She cleanse themselves of the lies, piled up with time but they also cleanse the spectators. The audience is moved and even cries – this is where the cathartic force of the good contemporary melodrama lies.

In terms of subject and style “The Anonymous Venetian” is a play, which has been expected by the Bulgarian audience. The reason for this is that our theatre and our spectators need performances of this type; they need a careful insight into the human soul. The epic and broad view performances, with which theatre responds to the latest events, have their audience. But there is also another side of the human personality, which is interested in the internal, purely personal feelings and thoughts of man and in his intimate world. And “The Anonymous Venetian” is a play, which is namely involved in this intimate world of man. This is the theatre, which we have forgotten a bit but which we need.