Kole Čašule: Absurdist and/or Antiutopist

/, Theatre/Film, Blesok no. 19/Kole Čašule: Absurdist and/or Antiutopist

Kole Čašule: Absurdist and/or Antiutopist

Someone might say: “That is Orwell, but not Čašule – In “Whirlpool”, the Prisoner does not become a traitor, he endures until the end and moral victory is his, thus not all are traitors – there are heroes as well”. But unfortunately, the truth is somewhat different. In “Whirlpool” the depersonalisation does not happen in the play, but after its end. The Prisoner becomes the traitor post festum, long after the curtain has fallen – he becomes the traitor in “Musical Score for a Myron”… Čašule personally poses the question: “What happens after the prisoner and investigator change roles?”, and explains that this is how the play “Musical Score for a Myron” was created. Ever since “Whirlpool” he poses this question, as a question that the investigator repeatedly asks the prisoner: “What will he be like if he becomes an investigator?”. The answer is more than transparent; he will be worse and crueller than him. Each regime, each government, with all the evil it carries, makes way for the next one – the worse one. Each previous evil has evil as a consequence, and makes the human bitterer, more wicked, more evil – it deforms and depersonalises. Frank Herbert in his cult novel, “Dune”, writes: “Cruelty as such is recognized equally by the victim and the victimizer, also all who will experience it in some situation. There is no justification for cruelty or any relieving aspect. Cruelty never equilibrates or sets scores for past mistakes. Cruelty only charges the future for more cruelty. It is a self-driving – barbaric type of incest. The one that performs a cruelty, performs the other future cruelties that come from his”.
These words of Frank Herbert give a complete illustration of Čašule’s idea: he speaks of this kind of incestual behaviour – that is the creator of more perverse and deformed evils and cruelties.
Concerning depersonalisation and losing identity, that, as we explained, in “Whirlpool” happens post festum, there are however some clues, even a whole sub-text can be sensed in the play itself. This was discussed at the beginning of this presentation, when the concept of duality was mentioned, the double or the doppelganger in Čašule’s plays. This concept, on duality of the human – which includes that each person carries evil within, hidden – is inescapably connected with the concept of evil as self-driving, incestuous and multiplying. Each human carries this evil, a remainder of all previous evils, it is a seal, a mark, an eternal pain; it multiplies, grows, destroys… Each person is a split personality, what it wants to do and what evil makes of it.
“Musical Score for a Myron” is the play in which depersonalisation takes on force. It is anti-utopia, it is an epopee of absurd, a chronicle of the downfall of human beings… On one side, “Musical Score for a Myron”, resembles Beckett’s plays: its setting, its characters, its form; on the other hand, it possesses the whole fear and loathing of Zamyatin (as an extreme anti-utopian). As Zamyatins main feature is to underline the most horrific, the most worst that humans can do, it is the same what Čašule does in “Musical Score for a Myron”. It is not an anti-utopia, but better yet, a chronicle of horror, as a more exact description of what Chasule represents (this definition could be given for Zamyatin as well).
Horror – that is what Čašule speaks about in “Musical Score for a Myron”. But the most horrifying discovery in this play, what Čašule clearly says is – that is in fact the terrible, unbearable truth! – every human is Myron. Each human is less or too human – and that is why the human is Myron. Each person carries within the stupidity and pain of its essence.
As we said, when we discussed about “Whirlpool”, that everyone is a traitor, talking about Myron we can also say that everyone is Myron. Myron is the human tomorrow, the product of yesterday’s human and the human today, the product of incest and after incest – a complete deformity of what was once human. Myron is a projection – a prediction or a temptation of the future.
In “Musical Score for a Myron”, everything is gloomy, black and scary. Everything is completely conducted, set, prepared… The heroes are traitors, the traitors – heroes. The portraits are taken down and replaced with new ones that have always been there it seems (same as the paroles on the walls change the contents over night, newspapers are destroyed and replaced with new ones)… Orwell wrote that one morning the text on the wall was different; it said: all animals are equal, but some are more equal than others. Myron (or Čašule) says: “And… and “our proved, state practice has proved, once again and undoubtedly, that… that the natural right of the Leaders is – to have a change of opinion”. I finish the quote. Ibidem”.
Or: “… truth becomes true only when it is spoken by the Leaders. Only coming from the Leaders mouth, the truth is immune: a) lack of structure; b) criticism; c) lack of principle… In all other situations… the truth is suspicious, dangerous…”.
And all this happens within a frame from which there is no exit and no escape – out from it.
Darkness.
Everything is impossible to see through. Great silence .
Later, one by one, they start to be lit, in no special order and sense and based on various plans, platforms and heights – over dimensioned portraits.
One, two, three… are they uncountable?
The portraits are actually frames, by one module, luxurious to boredom, and instead of personalities, in them, crucified and locked inside – darkness.
At first, the portraits are lit up chaotically, even an atmosphere of total chaos is created, but soon the existence of a stricter organization and even stricter hierarchy is evident.

Only now is the backstage lit up. We see that it is also – including the whole scene – is in a portrait frame, perfectly similar to all other portrait frames. It gives an impression that the whole action is happening in this frame.
We have already spoken on the concept of escape that Čašule’s characters desperately desire (and by the way, of all anti-utopias), but it is necessary to give it some more space here. Speaking of “Darkness”, we mentioned Ivan and Neda as characters imprisoned in a sealed, enchanted circle from which there is no escape. Their desire to escape from everything surrounding them is just a silent scream when faced with hopelessness, absurd and darkness. Ivan, in one section of the play, says:
“You think I don’t have eyes to see what’s happening, and where we are? And that I’m not fed up with this whole herd of wolves howling around us? No, my dear. I’m only waiting for our time to calm down and go to America, where I won’t ever want to know anything about Lukov, or his screeching yell we sell as the battle for Macedonia. You must endure, honey. Just a little bit more. We must even trust the impossible – to lack ears or thought for everything and to come out of this tempest alive. Don’t look at me like that, please. There’s too much blood on my conscience to be able to get away from them right this moment. They’d kill me without hesitating. Believe me”.
Although even he, doesn’t believe in his escape plans, Ivan desperately tries to deceive himself, at least for a moment. This hope of escape is met, for the last time, in “Darkness” (as mentioned, “Darkness” still offers compromise). Later, it totally fades out.
In the play “Fellow Countrymen”, the entire hope for exit and escape is lost. Escape simply doesn’t exist. It is evident also from the dialogue between He and She.
She: … Come on, let’s escape.
He: Is it possible?
She: To escape?
He: Yes.
She: Yes. It’s worth it. Even when it’s not possible.
He: There is no escape.
These words are only confirmation of a dialogue, somewhat earlier in play, a dialogue that says much more:
HE: (after a long pause) Mike, escape?
MIKE: (Stares for a long time at HE) To escape?
HE: Yes.
MIKE: Where?
HE: Anywhere.

MIKE: … There is no escape! No escape! There where we escape these, those will trap you! Or someone third, of which we are going to come to learn who they are and that they are worse. There is no escape, brother, no escape! That thought should be slain, to be slain in ourselves, once and for all. However it may hurt. With it, brother, we are dead, without it, alive! Alive! There is only one truth for me: To be alive! Yes, yes, to live!…
… Yes. I was also thinking of fleeing. How I thought. For days, weeks, months! To escape even as far as Noranda, in Maine. In some Canadian, forgotten, god forsaken hole, where nobody knows you, has no wish to get to know you, where no one has even the desire to look at you, heaven forbid, ask about you…
HE: And?
MIKE: No, more Noranda, brother, nowadays. They are, brother, there! There as well!
HE: Who – they?
MIKE: They! They are all around. Everywhere!
This dialogue clearly shows the fear and hopelessness that the play’s characters have fallen into, as in all Čašule’s plays. “No escape” and “They”, the Shadows, the Darkness, they are always here. They are present ever since “A Twig in the Wind”, but only as some vague notions, they are later developed in “Zitolub”, “Darkness” and “Judgment”, take on force in “Whirlpool”, to finally triumph in “Musical Score for a Myron”, “Divertissement for a Strez”, “Fellow Countrymen” and in “Trio Funebre”. But, their strength and full presence in “Musical Score for a Myron” is, actually, the consuming thought in the play. The frame in which the whole scene is set is itself illustration enough of that confinement. In “Musical Score for a Myron” it is no longer about escape. Hope of escape is dead, long dead. What is alive is the hope for death.
The Hope for Death – that is the last component that gets Čašule’s attention, the last component in his system. His heroes, trapped in their darkness, unable to escape the circle or the frame that is their confinement, the only salvation is sought in death. Death is the way, the escape, it comes as salvation or blessing, but only under one condition – if they are able to die even.
In many of his plays Čašule mentions the inability to die, as the worst fine or destiny. It is the greatest absurd facing the characters of Chasule’s plays. They are a lot alike Beckett’s, Vladimir and Estragon, Ham and Clov, Winnie and Willy – left with the sole alternative, to wait for death, if death even considers taking them. As mentioned earlier, both in “A Twig in the Wind” and in “Darkness”, death is seen as upon a kind of salvation, salvation from horror and darkness. In “Whirlpool” and “Musical Score for Myron”, it is now a privilege. But, what scares Čašule’s characters most is the dilemma if it will arrive at all.

In “Markuch in a Quartet”, the greatest curse of Markuch’s father is that he is unable to die, that he is to eternally wander the shattered spaces, having no rest, a restless soul, an authentic Vagabond des Limbes (Vagabond of the Limbo). In “A Dream and Another Dream After It”, Victor’s father, and all the other dead, cannot find peace and float somewhere in between life and death. In “Fellow Countrymen”, death is seen upon as a blessing, a privilege, in the words of SHE: “Murdered souls, that’s what we are. Souls that have been deprived of death. And were murdered in that manner. That is why … you and me… are in a limbo search after our dying. … We gnaw on each other, believing that the one in front of us has our pitiful death. We offer ourselves, at any cost, to everyone that stands before us, even with a handful of power. Or money. And it, death, is nowhere to be found. Gone… Guess it got left behind there. Home.”
Absurd, Darkness, the Shadows, the Horror are an integral part of Kole Čašules’s plays, as anti-utopias, as chronicles of horror.
“Don’t ask. Never ask anybody what you just asked me. That is the only way we – can survive. And, anyway, who can answer that question? All of us – both terrorists and that whole miserable bulk of politicians, “patriots”, dealers and ordinary people, like you – we’re all powerless before that which is called – the destiny of Macedonia. That’s why we shouldn’t ask. To shut your eyes and tear away the last bit of obedience in you, to… After all, we’re not the only ones rolling in this horrid darkness ahead of us in place of our future. It’s the whole world. Nothing that seemed sacred, holy ideals to us – has come out pure, uncorrupted…”. (“Darkness”)
Each anti-utopia is a result of what happens around the creator, a result of a spoiled, bad, twisted society, result of the shattering of some ideals, result of the world’s hypocrisy. The intention of anti-utopia is not to undermine with pessimism the little good, beautiful and pure that still exists in the world, but to warn on the consequences of evil, of their enormous power. To write, to create, means to search for answers. And the anti-utopias are after answers, especially after one: How to preserve the human in us?

Translated by: Rodna Ruskovska

AuthorBiljana Crvenkovska
2018-08-21T17:23:48+00:00 February 1st, 2001|Categories: Reviews, Theatre/Film, Blesok no. 19|0 Comments