The Art of Imitation and Combination: Chekhov and Nostalgia in Contemporary Theatre
The article examines phenomenon of nostalgia in multicultural milieu. Several types of nostalgia as Yugonostalgia and Ostalgia spread after the decay of USSR. These nostalgias converge and diverge. Longing is a common emotion that unites them but every time it is experienced in its own way. Nostalgia can be divisive, puts Svetlana Boym. As “pain” makes longing an individual feeling, analysis of reasons of “algia” brings along the building of cross-cultural communication in the post-Soviet space. The powerful media that visualises the object of nostalgia is theatre. The latter creates an illusion that transforms the spectator’s experience gained through different means of communication into personal one. Ultimately theatre overcomes the trauma of dissociation and disruption. Post-Soviet nostalgia does not necessarily assume sentimental relationship exclusively to the Soviet realm and texts. It can be any old form that expresses new content (S. Oushakine). Nostalgia is explicitly represented by the prominent value of Chekhov’s drama. Contemporary plays based of Chekhov’s texts feature the recycling of cultural tradition, including Soviet one. We particularly focus on the reception of Chekhov’s plays in Poland. The article tends to analyze the plays of early 2000s when nostalgic projects reached a peak of popularity. We refer to “Russian Jam” (Ludmila Ulitskaya, 2003), “My Little Cherry Orchard” (Alexey Slapovsky, 2004 edition) and “The Fourth Sister” (Janusz Glowacki, 2002). These dramas adapted Chekhov’s theatrical tradition and revealed several strategies of nostalgia effect - a dream of an idyllic life, a pastiche of elements from mass culture and pointing out at some absurdities of reality. The comic sense of the plays does not exclude its focus on a global problem of person’s place in the irreversibly changing universe.