The Eugene Lang College student production of Operetta, the play's first staging in the United States since 1976, is part of the college's 20th anniversary celebration. Witold Gombrowicz, one of Poland's most prized and controversial playwrights, penned Operetta, his last play, in Paris in 1966.
Gombrowicz accepted an invitation to a cruise to Argentina in 1939, where he was forced to stay because of the onset of World War II. He remained there for 25 years. A Ford Foundation Grant in 1963 permitted Gombrowicz to leave Argentina and spend a year in Berlin. Suffering from asthma, he moved to Vence in the south of France, where he lived for the five remaining years of his life. He never saw Argentina or his native country again. In 1975 he received the acclaimed International Award for Literature for his novel, Cosmos. His voice rings out as one of honest questioning and righteous discontent with the state of the world.
With biting wit, in Operetta he parodies the traditional operetta form. He said of the play, "The opposition clothing-nakedness is the underlying motif of Operetta. A dream about the nakedness of man imprisoned in the most bizarre, the most atrocious clothing..." Through themes of fashion and nudity the play explores individualism in capitalist and communist societies, and raises questions about the validity of both beliefs.
The theme of Eugene Lang's 20th anniversary is politically engaged art. This production echoes that theme by featuring, along with student performers, the legendary Living Theatre actors Judith Malina and Hanon Reznikov, known for their use of "on-fiction acting" as a tool for social change. Malina is the German-born protégée of world-renowned director, Erwin Piscator, who taught a theater workshop at the New School in the 1940s. Malina herself was a student at the New School in a class with other legends such as Marlon Brando and Jerry Stiller. Since Malina co-founded The Living Theatre in 1947, she and Reznikov have continually pushed boundaries and striven for a "beautiful non-violent revolution".
