A duel of love and hate
A look at Autumn Sonata
Autumn Sonata is a performance full of pure techniques of directing, acting, lighting and stage design, which have created a suitable work according to the style and context of the text. All these techniques are used to show a kind of love and hate duel between mother and daughter. This duel is designed in the dual elements of stage, light and performance in such a way that the audience, knowingly or unknowingly, faces a seemingly calm story, but inside of that calm story is full of subtle and complex confrontations.
The stage accessories are summarized in a pair of wooden tables and chairs on two sides, a suitcase and a velvet cloth spread on the stage floor. The special design of the tables allows them to evoke different objects such as a piano and a bed at different times. The projectors, in pairs, on both sides of the stage facing each other and with a low height, cover the length of the stage, which in addition to evoking the distance and the cold relationship between mother and daughter, reminisces of the cinema by using the lights in a way that reminds us of over shoulder shots; specially since cinema is the origin of this piece.
Actors use a certain method of talking and body language to convey the combination of love and hate more than anything. The distance between them on the stage, their stammering and silent tone when expressing their feelings towards each other, their occasional passing by each other - which is sometimes accompanied by temporary and dramatic contacts - help the audience to understand the subtext of the dialogue in addition to the text. Feel the penetration and tense relationship between mother and daughter.
The striking expression of the actors who play the role of the narrator fades away, and this point involves the spacing technique in the work; A technique that appears from time to time in Jalal Tehrani's other works, including The Tank and Around the World in Eighty Days. The duel between secular and religious or physical and metaphysical worldviews is the main core of the confrontations that are displayed through the text and the acting of the actors.
The mother represents the secular worldview; A worldview that has been manifested in his lifestyle and his choices regarding past events. She, as a famous pianist, lives a hedonistic life with her fans and lovers and faces the death of her husband, the death of her grandson, the disability of her little daughter ("Why can't she die?!") And the emotional suffering of the girl. Her elder has reacted coldly and in Eva's opinion, incorrect, and now, on the verge of old age and after the death of her friend, she strongly feels the holes in this worldview; Being exposed to Eva's judgment and confronting her worldview (which at least has an opening of hope on her secular worldview) has also fueled this crisis.
On the other hand, Eva represents the religious or metaphysical worldview; A worldview that breaks boundaries with the law of love, according to her own words; With the help of this attitude, Eva has been able to cope with the trauma of her child's drowning in the face of her husband's and mother's cold views. She thinks her child is not dead and still lives with her. On the other hand, her husband and mother, with their cold worldview, see this painful event as a sign of something else ("If God existed, he wouldn't have let our child drown") and Eva's disbelief in her child's death is simply a defense mechanism.
Mothers look to refuse to accept bitter realities ("My daughter thinks her baby is still alive; if this belief is useful for her, then what's wrong with it?!"). With the longitudinal design of the stage and the way the actors are placed on the two ends of the scene, the audience is forced to constantly turn their heads to see the reaction of the other side whenever Eva or Charlotte release a dueling dialogue from the bow to the opponent.
Nevertheless, although the writer and the director advance this duel to the point where, at the climax of the drama, the broken and desperate mother wraps herself in a velvet cloth and begs the daughter for love out of despair ("I was as helpless as You. Be kind to me"), ultimately the winner of this story is the other side of this relationship; love.
After her mother leaves, Eva tries to apologize by writing a leather and in that letter, she hopes that the chance of loving one another isn’t lost. In Bergman’s works the distance between generations is as long as the distance between their worldviews (“your words are only good for explaining the facts in your own view and my words are only good for explaining the facts in my own view”) and in her philosophy love is the only thing that can fill this gap; this theme is also seen in Bergman’s other works such as Wild Strawberries and “just like a picture inside a mirror”.
By removing the two personages of Victor (husband of Eva) and Helena (the disabled daughter of Charlot and the daughter of Eva) Jalal Tehrani has given this play a taste of minimalism and therefore has made it more suitable for theater; since the two personages share some character traits with Eva and Charlotte (the worldview of Victor is kind of the same with Charlotte and Helena just like her sister is the product of her mother’s lack of love and affection) not only this removal doesn’t damage the script but instead makes the audience view the confrontation of mother and daughter in more details. This play just like other pieces done by Tehrani, for example The Tank and Cinderella revolves around formal elements among the text, acting, decor and lighting and is a great example of his unique taste in directing and acting.
Morteza Noori