Two Great Performances. А Theatre Experience

An examination of the Warsaw Theatre Meetings Festival’s history in 1975 makes it possible to evaluate the conceptual understanding of the plays by Shakespeare and Goldoni based on a modern integral view of the performances of the great directors — Ingmar Bergman and Giorgio Strehler — on the edge of changing eras in art. The end of the rebellious 60s with the dream of revolutionism and the fashion for the art of the early 20th century marks another direction in theatre directing searches — an immersion in the nature of the author's text, which is staged with many carefully found details. The performances of these directors with different styles are united by a mature interest for traditional forms of theatre and a deep psychologism in the creation of each role and mise-en-scene. The moments of silence on the stage acquire special significance. The realism of the stage decisions of both Bergman and Strehler, the rejection of the elements of excessive masquerade and avant-garde antitheses reflect a transition from carnival aesthetic to psychological intimacy in their directing evolution, which was the trait of this time. Bergman's interpretation of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night was mainly the result of an open (Smiles of a Summer Night) and inner dialogue between the director and the poetics of the great British playwright. Strehler's Campiello made it possible to understand the genetic connection between the search for neorealism and the heritage of the Italian drama. And, at the same time, to capture features of the golden age in the simplicity of outgoing post-war aesthetics, giving way to post-industrial rationalism. What the directors were looking for in the experiences of modern dramaturgy from the 1950s and 1960s, they could now find in the classics — answers to the questions about overcoming the crisis of loneliness and feeling oneself back in time through a dialogue with the other.