Fringe News
Fringe News
Jennifer Capraru is directing MANDELSHTAM, a play based on Rafi Aaron’s award winning book of poetry, that recounts Stalin’s persecution of Osip Mandelshtam, one of the foremost Russian poets of the 20th century. The play will be staged at the historic Anshei Minsk Syagogue in Kennsigton Market, as part of the Toronto Fringe Festival that runs from July 1- 12.
This two-act play is directed by theatre veteran Jennifer Capraru. The cast features Omar Hady playing Osip; Nicole Wilson as Nadia, the poet’s wife; Tatjana Cornij as Anna Akhmatova, a leading poet of the day and a close friend of Mandelstams; and Bruce Beaton as Aleksandr, a satirist and friend of Mandelshtam’s, who is suspected of being an informer.
Playwright Rafi Aaron based the play on his book of prose poetry, Surviving the Censor—The Unspoken Words of Osip Mandelstam, which won the Stan and Helen Vine Canadian Jewish Book Award for poetry in 2007, and was on A.F. Moritz’s reading list at the University of Toronto. The play is a completely new piece of art retold and reinvented in form and content. Aaron noted, “This medium has allowed me to delve deeper into the human story beneath the historical narrative. In MANDELSHTAM, I have focused on the relationship between the poet and his wife Nadia, as their situation deteriorates into deeper adversity.”
In 2004 Aaron delivered the Alexander Mackenzie Memorial Lecture at the University of St. Petersburg, Russia. As a guest of the Canadian government he was granted access to places normally off limits to Russians and tourist alike, such as Pushkin House, the national literary archives. He took the opportunity to meet with some of the finest Mandelshtam scholars in the world. Information that never found its way into his book, years later became the focus of the play.
MANDELSHTAM addresses the profound importance and power of words in oppressive states and the unyielding courage it takes to preserve them. It also carries a relevant message for us today that we must be the voice that speaks up against injustice when there is silence all around us, whether it is in the workplace, the schoolyard or cyberspace.
The Anshei Minsk Synagogue, which features Byzantine Revival architecture, places MANDELSHTAM into its historical setting of Russia in the early 1930’s. The Minsk and the play share an unfathomable experience— the burning of the written word. In 2002 an arsonist burned many of the books in the synagogues repository. There is a moment in the play where the actors memorize and then burn a poem so they will not face the consequences of creating ‘treasonous work’ against a tyrannical state.
On May 13, 1934 Mandelstam was arrested for creating and reciting a poem attacking Stalin. What made his act so noteworthy was that criticizing the regime at this time was unheard of. In order to avoid doing so, artists either fell silent or became state controlled puppets. Mandelstam was arrested but miraculously was not executed. Instead Stalin decided to release the poet into internal exile so that through a process of attrition he could crush Mandelstam mentally, physically, and finally artistically before allowing him to die in a labour camp.
MANDELSHTAM will be permormed elevan times from July 1st through to the 12th. Tickets are $10, and can be purchased at www.fringetoronto.com, by calling 416-966-1062, or at the Anshei Minsk Synagogue, 10 St. Andrew St., Kensington Market, 90 minutes prior to the show.
Rafi Aaron has received grants and scholarships for his poetry from The Canada Council for the Arts, The Ontario Arts Council (OAC), The Banff Centre for the Arts (Leighton Studio Residency), The Tel Aviv Foundation, and The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Trade. He has served as a literary judge for the OAC, The League of Canadian Poets, and the University of Toronto. A documentary on Rafi’s poetic works entitled The Sound Traveller, produced by Endless Films, has aired on Bravo TV and Book Television. Rafi’s poetry has been featured in the Globe and Mail, and on CBC Radio, Vision TV, Bravo TV, and TVO. The Toronto Star has described Rafi as a poet “who allows simple, fresh, vivid words to cut individual jewels out of the material of language.”
2015-06-12
Mandelshtam