Hot Ice: Shakespeare in Moscow-A Director's Diary

Ian C. Nelson is Assistant Director of Libraries, University of
Saskatchewan; and Director, Saskatoon Gateway Plays, Regina Summer
Stage, and La Troupe du Jour.

Sprung’s diary of his experience of directing A Midsummer Night’s
Dream at the Pushkin Theatre in Moscow announces in its title a polarity
of impressions that is borne out on every page of the text itself.
Appropriately, the director found the key both to his production and to
this record of it in Shakespeare’s text, which offers an observation
on which he often reflected during his three periods (the parallel of
hockey divisions and theatrical acts is not lost) in Russia: “How
shall we find the concord of this discord?” (Theseus, Act V, scene i).

The tribulations he suffered in the course of this diary are many, and
the “intermissions” are anything but a relief from the action, for
during this journalistic time Sprung found himself wrenched in an
untimely fashion from his position as Producing Artistic Director of the
Canadian Stage Company. This account thus allows him the opportunity to
give eloquent voice to his perspective on the problems of our domestic
theatre structures (built increasingly on corporate
manufacturing/financing models), while at the same time fully
articulating his frustrations with the Russian state models (which were
already into the turmoil of Eastern reform): “[the] disorganization of
[Russia] turns the slightest difficulty into an ordeal.”

His observations are everywhere acute and detailed (he even notes
following the Canada-Russia hockey game televised from Switzerland) and
are, not surprisingly, acerbic concerning the relationships between
artistic directors, general managers, and boards of directors. The
attitudes of entrenched and fully employed (though underpaid) Russian
artists also come in for a lambasting; he is frequently forced to
question their commitment to his project, and startles himself and the
reader by wondering at one juncture whether the Russians might have
“no sense of participatory creativity.”

If Sprung’s production (credits, photos, and designs are included in
the book) played for modern parallels in the Soviet Union, this journal
encourages close re-examination of the Canadian artistic
situation—which, he warns, is “a disaster looking to happen.” Just
find the Rude Mechanicals in this scenario!

Sprung has a knack for finding an arresting image or a pungent
reflection that ranks with the very best of Canada’s well-reputed
journalists. His vigorous writing balances a strength of vision with a
healthy perspective, as evidenced by his “prayer” to Tairov, founder
of the Pushkin: “I realize that walking around with a Canadian
passport and ticket home in my pocket makes my understanding of Russia
paper-thin, and that my motives are suspect and possibly trivial at
times, but I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t think, deep down as an
artist, that I have a strong and valid reason for doing what I am
doing.”