[quote author=Frank link=1660808671/744#744 date=1702092951]
Chekhov’s truth shames Sydney Theatre Company actors’ stupidity
Pity poor Chekhov. It is hard to think of anything that would have appalled him more than actors ending the Sydney Theatre Company’s production of The Seagull by donning keffiyehs in protest at the “occupation” of and “genocide” in Gaza.
It is true that the stunt, which seamlessly combined the ludicrous with the repulsive, is merely agitprop’s latest triumph over art – a triumph encouraged by cultural policies that increasingly allocate public funding, including some $10m a year to the STC, on the basis of politics rather than merit.
Given the incentives those policies create, it is scarcely surprising that arts organisations, led by the STC, made such a big deal of endorsing the voice. And it is equally unsurprising that the STC’s directors and major donors, having laid out the red carpet for the politics they like, now find those they dislike entering through the stage door.There may be an element of justice in the STC reaping what it sowed; but it cannot erase the injustice to Chekhov. In effect, of all the great Russian authors of the 19th century, it was Chekhov who most firmly opposed the confusion between art and propaganda.
Writing at a time when incessant political agitation and revolutionary fanaticism had permeated Russian life, he adamantly rejected the view that writers should tell the public what to think, much less dispense public lessons in morality.
His reluctance to assume that role was strengthened by his disdain for the intelligentsia – a term coined in Russia in 1860 – and notably for its “progressive” mainstays.
Even before Chekhov burst on to the scene, the “intelligents”, as they were known, had done everything they could to impose a stifling intellectual conformity. Nikolay Dobrolyubov, a revolutionary writer greatly admired by Marx, Lenin and Stalin, was not exaggerating when he boasted that “today even those who dislike progressive ideas must pretend to like them to gain admission to decent society”.This “second censorship”, which prescribed what had to be said, was, Chekhov argued, even more oppressive than the “first censorship” imposed by tsars, which merely forbade, rather haphazardly, speech considered especially dangerous.
Dismissing the “molluscs we call the intelligentsia”, Chekhov presciently warned that should they ever seize power, “these toads and crocodiles will, under the banner of science, art and free-thinking, rule in ways not known even at the time of the inquisition in Spain”.
Henry Ergas
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/commentary/chekhovs-truth-shames-sydney-theatre-company-actors-stupidity/news-story/d77e0c9e1f461d5b13e0f2204c4db618
I wanted to see this Seagull production and was about to book tickets when these muppets donned their keffyas on preview night. No way now.
Pity. I love Chekhov but couldn't watch what these bozos are doing to his work.
The Sydney Theatre Company has announced redundancies of up to 20 of its staff – or roughly one fifth of its workforce – amid a deepening financial crisis caused by the fallout from a pro-Palestine protest in November.
An official associated with the STC said the cuts to staff were a direct result of donor withdrawals. The Australian reported in January that the STC was considering dropping some shows as a result of financial pressures, and forecasting losses in the range of $1.5m from cancelled tickets, subscriptions, and the exodus of donors.
The crisis at the STC began with the opening night performance of The Seagull, in November, during which three actors – Mabel Li, Megan Wilding and Harry Greenwood – wore keffiyeh scarves during the curtain call. Greenwood, the son of actor Hugo Weaving, who sits on the STC’s Foundation board, later shared a video on his social media account in which he said the gesture was taken “in protest against the genocide in Gaza and ongoing occupation of Palestine”.
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