Saturday, December 31, 2011

The Theatre of Genius: Examining the Life and Work of Elchin Efendiyev

A Talk by David Parry sponsored by The European Azerbaijan Society and delivered at Pushkin House, London, on 21st November 2011

1. Thanking Mr. Julian Gallant.
2. Equally thanking The European Azerbaijan Society as sponsors for this talk.
3. Opening comments on Gruntlers and Elchin’s work.
Perhaps Gruntlers is best described as an experimental arts group holding regular events across London. Each month we celebrate poetry, drama, music and film with an internationalist flavour. We are committed to the promotion of groundbreaking symbolist performance as a means to attract new audiences to radical High Arts. Gruntlers also embrace the mind-opening aesthetics of Traditionalist consciousness. New talents are encouraged and established talents showcased. Our belief is in Beauty, Truth and Freedom.

4. Introduction:
There is nothing more serious than fun. According to Friedrich Schiller play, in all of its manifestations, is as vital to a full expression of the human spirit, as are reason and sense. Perhaps this is why theatricals across the world live in various states of agitation. They seem to struggle with a form of consciousness both afflicted and perfecting in order to empower their humanity. There are occasionally unfortunate repercussions to this deeply metaphysical process, however. Some humourless performers, for example, effect a dour attitude towards their audiences in the mistaken belief that they have discovered the “virtue” of sobriety. Others, having sensed the absurdity behind this (usually Christian) mask, simply become offensive in the hope of distancing themselves from their neighbour’s merriment. There are even those who disassemble their mirth to uphold a dramatic gravitas towards the general public. Yet, none of these religious weaklings will ever really achieve true strength, since such gifts are only found through joy. Once this perspective is achieved, our muscular English irony becomes observably akin to sturdy French pasquinade and wiry Azerbaijani satire. Suggesting, in creative terms, that each of these poetic traditions embraced the grim realities of – specific - human inadequacies, as well as their comedic consequences. Every indiscretion, shedding a revealing light on the possibilities of personal Meaning. Facts well known to both wandering troubadours in ages past, as well as unveiled Ashik singers, to this day.

5. Judging Covers:
Existential reflections of this kind also show us limitations within the Academy itself. A realisation first made by the exponents of DADA in the last Century, when these revolutionaries sliced into the substance of revered cultural structures. Indeed, as mental terrorists, they delighted in reminding us Europeans that the greatest insights our world can offer occur outside the confines of a Common Room. This is why DADA placed comedic routines on the same level as Roman vomitoria and advanced mathematics, while admitting the latter lacked in genuine burlesque. Sarcasm aside, such views joked at the expense of a rampant hubris increasingly embodied by present day patricians. A merchant caste proving on a yearly basis their bewildering belief that they, in themselves, form living social tapestries with implicit value. To the extent that ironic confession has now become a mode of self-justification for the educated West. Perhaps this is why DADAISM, from its exquisite inception as a counter-cultural movement in Switzerland, around 1916, proved so difficult to categorise. After all, our European middle classes continually legitimise their reflexive self-assessments by frequenting venues involved in the production of Art. No matter how uncomfortable the habitat. Posturings like these, of course, merely propelled exponents of DADA to reject prevailing aesthetic standards more rapidly. Usual responses, on their part, ranging from open ridicule towards our modern technologically obsessed society to a deliberate cultivation of the ridiculous. Hence, DADAISM held tiny, but influential, political demonstrations, musical gatherings and theatrical performances to promote its deconstructive activities. At the same time publishing a plethora of small-scale, hyper-lucid, literary journals. In other words, direct multi-media attacks on what they felt to be a redundant Classicism. As Hans Arp noted: “revolted by the slaughter of World War 1, we devoted ourselves, in Zurich, to the Fine Arts. Well far away, there was artillery thunder, we sang, painted, glued together and wrote poems to our hearts content”. What is more, DADA’s critique of so-called spiritual development in the West held the hidden message that deeper modalities of experience can only be obscured for a short while longer. Evidentially, most Baby-Boomers haven’t written the one (theoretical) book within them, and even the worst vulgarian in their ranks knows that random satisfactions, abetted by disordered desires, simply blaspheme the name of Art. At the end of the day, creativity is neither undertaken as an optional element of a pilgrimage into the Absolute, nor as the War Cry of a tepid few, who have already shown their inability to take decisive action when the occasion demanded.

There was, nonetheless, one visible chink in the armour of these robust researchers. Adepts of DADA tended to assume that natural allies could never to be found amongst the socially niched. A prejudice, probably originating from an inherited European sense of class position. Kurt Schwitters, as an obvious case, was rejected from certain Brotherhoods because he had a “bourgeois face”. However, as the saying goes, one should “never judge a book by its cover” - and in the case of Elchin this proves to be consummately true. Neither public persona nor chosen profession narrate his entire story and Elchin’s literary corpus proves, beyond doubt, that rebels come in all sizes; from innumerable social backgrounds, with differing sartorial tastes and in various psycho-physical shapes. In which case, it is a real honour to find a previously unsuspected colleague, not to mention an intriguing new friend, in the person of Professor Elchin Ilyas Oglu Efendiyev; a writer little known in English speaking countries, although a talented and prolific author of global stature. Of course, the reason for this shocking omission is to be found in the sphere of recent international politics, whereby the “Iron Curtain” drawn between the Soviet sphere and Western powers proved to be an almost impenetrable block to cutting edge artistic exchange.

6. Vocational paths:
As the author of “Shakespeare” (a comedy in ten scenes both serious and tragic) to be staged at The Horse Hospital this coming December, Gruntlers Theatre has the privilege of introducing Elchin to the London Stage. Thus, a few biographical facts may help to set the scene, as well as familiarise British raconteurs, with his prodigious literary outpourings. Elchin was born on May 13th 1943 in Baku, the Capital City of Azerbaijan, into the family of Ilyas Efendiyev, an author of immense literary renown. From early childhood, therefore, Elchin junior found himself immersed in a world of books. Local folklore, with its strangely symbolic and extremely suggestive tale telling clearly becoming an integral part of his intellectual formation; along with the masterpieces of World Literature. By the age of 16 he had published his first story in the “Azerbaijani Youth Magazine”. Unsurprisingly then, Elchin easily completed his secondary education in 1960 and went on to study at Baku State University. Once there, rumour has it that he took to his studies with a gusto and graduated with a degree in philology in 1965. This period pointing to Elchin’s personal interest in the scientific side of language production. A fascination fully vindicated in 1968, when Elchin completed his post-graduate studies at the Nizami Institute of the Azerbaijan National Academy of Sciences, with the writing of a gigantic 500-page dissertation. Having said that, biographical milestones of this sort only frame the story of such a remarkable writer.

As Elchin matured, a steady stream of novels, stories and critical essays began to flow from his pen, leading scholars and pundits alike to agree that Elchin’s oeuvre was highly significant as a contribution to the entire field of contemporary Azerbaijani literature. Astonishingly, the decades have witnessed the composition of more or less a 100 books; the majority of which have been translated into a huge number of languages including: Mandarin, German, English, Turkish, Spanish, Bulgarian, French, Persian, Polish, Georgian, Serbian, Uzbek, Lithuanian, Kazakh and Tajik. Indeed, Elchin’s works have sold about 5 million copies World Wide. One of the attractions being that Elchin’s unsettling type of storytelling captivated his readers attention through its innovative sense of Realism, coupled with avant-garde sensibilities, imaginative courage and a strikingly elative quality. In this respect, Elchin towered above his contemporaries and embodied many of the revolutionary aims of the 60’s generation; albeit often unrecognised at the time. In terms of Elchin’s theatre work, the playwright has constantly demonstrated his ability to delight audiences across large parts of the globe; in huge amount because of an experimental form of stagecraft known as “Elchin Theatre”. A subtle methodology, blending both recognisable national traits with a broader sense of the human condition.

7. Comedic Cavaliers:
Unswervingly then, in a similar way to our Viking, Cavalier and DADA ancestors, Elchin’s theatre proclaims a healthy absence of absence. Along with them, he appears to feel a compulsion to burn down lazy assumptions and pull apart bloated, pre-conceived, certainties. The strength of his characters shouting at each audience member that the rainbow flames licking such ruins will light the darkness into a Golden Sunrise. Unquestionably, his skills as a playwright have equally allowed the topography of plot to speak with the tongue of Wrestlers, Theologians and Heraldic Notaries. Maybe specifically when it comes to any analysis concerning the lascivious lives and contradictory careers of “authority figures”. On the level of fellow theatrical, it is clear to see that Elchin repudiates these tedious Roundhead tyrants because of their tacit inability to comprehend uniquely existing Subjects. For Elchin, they ride roughshod over the uncommon. Furthermore, he presents this loose group of petty thugs as slaves to a reification of the material; their constant proclamation, he implies, nothing more than a defiant allegiance to allegedly “objective” truths. To their own contrary, people who merely pave the way into dysfunctional perspectives. Lessons first taught by Henrik Ibsen in his building of meticulous and minimalist stage divisions: between emergent barriers; between the sphere of material objects (as described by the various geometries) and an infinitely transcendent human interiority expressed through relationships; between inanimate things and a necessary essence. Undeniably therefore Elchin Theatre takes Ibsenian recommendations as a means by which dramaturgical procedures may start unfolding, or begin designing, the very meaning of Meaning.

A stance like this is more than comfortable on the English boards, since dissenting poetry is as old as this nation. Far from being a Postmodern phenomenon, theatrical dissent began with the enactment of oral poetry in pre-literate periods. Nearly by definition, these performances were bequeathed through the spoken word from player to player and constructed using devices such as repetition, alliteration, rhyme and kennings to facilitate recall. In a sense, the player "composed" the performance from memory, using the version he had learned as a kind of mental template; a technique allowing actors to add their own interpretation to the material and a method still used by directors like Mike Leigh to develop a script.

What happens to European ideas like these when they leave the inherited, as well as practical parameters, of our territories has never ceased to concern me; primarily because libertarian themes give rise to political tendencies similar to narcotic dependence. Indisputably, revolutionary freedoms, deprived of context, become far too strong for unprepared pallets. Put in other phrases, in-built checks and ethical balances are loudly missing. This is mainly why I have started to recognise that the political quibbles of playwrights such as James David Rudkin and Peter Shaffer cannot be understood outside the context of Anglo-Saxon Individualism, and that their literary insights can only make complete sense within the world of Nordic letters. How else may we interpret these lines in Rudkin’s play “Penda’s Fen” when the central character Stephen says to his classmates:
"No, no ... I am nothing pure ... my race is mixed, my sex is mixed, I am woman and man, light with darkness, nothing pure ... I am mud and flame".
So stated, these thoughts are strongly reminiscent of the character Slash 13, in Elchin’s “Shakespeare” when this other misfit says:
“Once again, it’s impossible because it’s impossible. Get out of this straightjacket of absolutism! .. Why don’t you liberate your thinking, your hopes, imagination and fantasies? Why do you build this rigid mould and squash your dreams into it, turning them into nothing? Why construct this meaningless boarder between (possible) and (impossible), condemning yourselves to eternal suffering? Can’t you live without suffering and sorrow? Why? What’s the reason?”
If we Englishmen, thenceforth, are looking for previously unsuspected cousins of theatrical Soul, we have found them in the land of lyrical fire.

8. Concluding Comments
Like most poets and players, William Shakespeare, the man, seems to have preferred speaking through his characters. Unnerving perhaps to contemporary audiences, this is, nevertheless, one of the explanations as to why he chose the melancholy Jaques in his play As You Like It to mouth the immortal words: “All the world’s a stage” 2/7: an opinion which should never be taken on a surface level. Theatre, when all said and done, is a qualitative and creative kind of calculation. To write and perform poetry, or explained differently, to examine our aesthetic faculty from the inside, is measure-taking in the strictest sense of the phrase, but with potentially unending parameters. It is that joyful science by which a performer first intuits the dimensions of personal self-worth and eventually recognises the shared humanity of all those in his or her audience. Ever mindful as they are that to some extent we are all players of varying degree. This is why, for Schiller, play provided such a solid foundation for our understanding of the Beautiful, True and Good. Fun, he continually mused, literally mediates between conflicting impulses in human nature and raises our consciousness to unexpected glories. A noble thought. Without this elative tenet to Schiller’s argument, moreover, the truly magical potencies of performance as an active literary Form run the risk of being hopelessly confused, or reduced to undemanding entertainment. And there’s the rub! Our forthcoming DADA interpretation of Elchin’s “Shakespeare” is not only a way to introduce an ingenious Azeri playwright to British audiences, but also a missile fired against entire industries determined to sacrifice poetry to ideological redundancy; a substantive sin blurring metaphysical categories and eventually denuding our imaginative powers.

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