Читать книгу Real and Phantom Pains: An Anthology of New Russian Drama - John Freedman - Страница 3

A collection of this nature requires the efforts and commitment of many individuals and organizations. Real and Phantom Pains: An Anthology of New Russian Drama would not exist without the talents, work and generosity of a large number of friends and colleagues, whom it is my pleasure to name and thank here.

I am especially beholden to translators David M. White (Martial Arts and Panties), Stephen Nunns (One Hour, Eighteen Minutes), Graham Schmidt (Phantom Pains) and Yury Urnov (Martial Arts, Panties and One Hour, Eighteen Minutes), all of whom are accomplished theater practitioners who write, perform and direct. They know the stage and all the nuances that territory implies. Their translations exemplify one of the primary goals of this collection: not only to make contemporary Russian drama accessible to readers, but to make it compelling for performers and their future audiences. These translations are intended to be performed.

Several translations included herein were developed for the New Russian Drama: Voices in a Shifting Age program at Towson University. Running for three years (2007-2010) and including master classes, lectures, workshops, residencies, readings and productions, it was organized and conducted jointly by Towson’s Department of Theatre Arts and Philip Arnoult’s Center for International Theatre Development. Philip and CITD convened a national conference at program’s end which made it possible for 100 American journalists, scholars, directors, writers, actors, critics and interested spectators to see the best of the program over three intense days in May 2010. None of that would have happened without the prodigious efforts of Robyn Quick, Jay Herzog, Stephen Nunns, David M. White, Yury Urnov, Peter Wray, the undergraduate and graduate students in the Towson University Department of Theatre Arts. Their fingerprints very much remain on this collection. Robyn Quick built a rich, information-packed website around the program and it is still highly useful: http://www.towson.edu/theatre/russia/.

For wisdom, criticism and guidance offered when demanded, I am indebted to Timothy C. Westphalen, Bryon MacWilliams, Marc Robinson, Caryl Emerson, Blair Ruble, Beth Holmgren, Preston Whiteway and Thomas Garza.

A project like this cannot exist in a vacuum. I am surrounded by gifted, magnanimous people whose friendship, encouragement and achievements constantly inspire me. Much contained in this collection was influenced and/or supported directly or indirectly by Noah Birksted-Breen, Romana Maliti, Eva Maliti-Fraňová, John J. Hanlon, Mark Kuntz, Beth Burns, Katherine Mendeloff, Frank Hentschker, Theodore Shank, Erik Ramsey and the late Daniel Gerould. I owe a debt of gratitude to them all.

Aside from Towson University and Philip Arnoult’s Center for International Theatre Development, several organizations contributed to the development of one or more of this anthology’s texts: WordBRIDGE Playwright’s Laboratory, Generous Company, the Residential College at the University of Michigan, the Eugene O’Neill Memorial Theatre Center, the Graduate Center at SUNY, and the Trust for Mutual Understanding which provided significant support for the New Russian Drama program at Towson. I am deeply obligated to Graham Schmidt and Breaking String Theater who have repeatedly given me and others the opportunity to bring contemporary Russian drama to the American public by way of readings and full productions. The following print and net publications published early versions of several plays: TheatreForum (Flying and Angry Girl), The Mercurian (Flying), nthWORD magazine (Flying), Asymptote (three scenes from Kitchen), Theatre Journal (Natasha’s Dream and I Won).

I am deeply grateful to the Mikhail Prokhorov Foundation TRANSCRIPT Programme to Support Translations of Russian Literature for a generous publication grant.

Finally I wish to thank longtime friend and colleague Anna Lawton for her interest in this project. Without her the collection you hold would not exist.