“Eréndira”: Show Business As Usual

Yuri Kordonsky’s Eréndira at the German State Theatre in Timișoara is a visually gorgeous, well-acted, and imaginatively directed stage adaptation of a seedy and second-rate 1972 novella by Gabriel García Márquez. “The Incredible and Sad Tale of Innocent Eréndira and Her Heartless Grandmother” is widely hailed as one of Márquez’s finest stories, but typically because it resonates with and extends some aspects treated in his better works, notably One Hundred Years of Solitude. By comparison, “Eréndira” is rather crude and tedious and it most definitely hasn’t aged well. Perhaps because we are slightly less inclined to wax poetic about pedophilia, rape, and child prostitution. I’m surprised Kordonsky hasn’t realized this yet.

The lore goes that Márquez actually came across a grandmother prostituting in a tent her twelve-year-old niece, collecting money from grown men casually lined up and waiting their turns. Subsequently, Márquez wrote this story where he whacks you over the head maniacally and relentlessly with the monstrosity of this child’s abuse, who suffers thousands to rape her until her kidneys hurt, and who must be chained to a squalid bed like a dog so she doesn’t run away. Because a familial figure who’s supposed to protect her instead exploits her for money, and because this is condoned and treated casually by a whole society, “Eréndira” is read as Márquez’s critique of violent patriarchy, dehumanizing capitalism, and exploitative colonialism (the latter when linked to colonial paternalism revealed as a merciless rape of the land and native people). Yet this critique is obfuscated by the sentimentalism and rather trite exercises in magical realism: the desert is cosmological, animals are otherworldly, angels and mythical men get involved with Eréndira, and the grandmother is a morbidly corpulent, gaudily bejeweled fairy tale hag with green blood. Picture Jabba the Hutt in bad drag leashing the chained Princess Leia in a gold bikini. Now make Leia fourteen. Seems like Márquez felt compelled to age the child by two years in his story, perhaps to aid in her hyper-sexualization without major moral qualms. Even today, the sexualization of children is largely acceptable in Romania, the country with one of the highest rates of underage pregnancies in the European Union, the country where judges view thirteen-year-old girls as capable of consenting to sexual acts with an adult.

As the enslavement and objectification of Princess Leia led to rivers of nocturnal emissions, so is Márquez’s story meant to sexually titillate the reader. If not with the interminable descriptions of rape (but frankly, those too), at least with how Eréndira “passionately loves” Ulysses, a beautiful youth, all night long until dawn, as the projected commentary in Kordonsky’s production informs the audience. In this stage adaptation, we watch Eréndira fuck and get fucked on beds, behind beds, in tents and out of tents. By conveniently and casually forgetting that she’s a child, we join the ranks of the fictional society members who have no qualms with violence, rape, and pedophilia. I’m sure some fans of Márquez or of Kordonsky will raise the objection that I’m exaggerating, that Eréndira is a fictional character, and moreover, she’s more like a symbol of abused innocence, and even of rising above a history of violence. Sure, but I would love to see plays where the female characters are not reduced to mere symbols, but manage to represent ideas while also having their humanity recognized. Art only has to gain when we are capable of the complexity to see female characters as both human women and vehicles to talk about various themes. Moreover, the twelve-year-old prostitute that Márquez came across in a rural part of Colombia was a very real person. So are all the sexually abused children and women (whose ranks are many in Romania) who might be watching Kordonsky’s production. I wonder how these audiences feel when watching the fifteen-minute-long scene where Eréndira is raped from behind by dozens, including a contingent of soldiers, staged with the actress’ bobbing head poking from the tent, face twisted in pain with every thrust. In avoiding addressing the problematic aspects in Márquez’s story, and on the contrary, unreflectingly representing the abuses and amplifying the sexual violence, Kordonsky’s production is similar in nature to the brutal circus fair acts that appear in the show. In the story, a perpetually growing traveling troupe of entertainers joins the grandmother in the peddling of her niece from village to village. Prostitution is a lucrative business that gathers big crowds. Just like the grandmother, Kordonsky also knows that sex sells, especially the sex that is exploitative and demeaning to women. Eréndira is merely show business as usual, if your target audience is steeped in a patriarchal and misogynistic culture.

Yet I doubt that Kordonsky was drawn to Márquez’s story because of its sordidness. Rather, the punishable by law, sexual violence against a child was treated as an added bonus, as a rather incidental aspect of “Eréndira,” that, since it’s there, might as well be milked for its sensationalism and potential to interest audiences. It’s obvious that Kordonsky didn’t adapt and stage “Eréndira” for what it’s trying to say, for its thematic import, with the purpose of addressing its violence, what it says or doesn’t say about patriarchy and colonialism, how it comments on the history of Latin America. The production’s engagement with the latter is limited to decorative elements, such as playing lively Latino music through that long scene of rape. The elements in Márquez’s story linked to a historical and political critique are either omitted or minimized. For example, the presence and impact in the action of Catholic priests are reduced to a mere cameo appearance by one actor in clerical clothing. The white director allowed the white actors of the German State to play Latino, brown characters without any trace of questioning or self-awareness. Even as race is central to Márquez’s plot: Eréndira falls in love with a Dutch boy who looks to her like an angel, meaning he looks as white and blond as representations of angels in Catholicism. Beauty standards, love, and physical attraction are impacted by colonialism.

In the absence of any nods to the complexities lodged within Márquez’s narrative, Kordonsky seems drawn to “Eréndira” because it’s a convenient short story (hence easily staged within two hours) replete with Márquez’s magical realism that gives ample opportunity for inventive staging and beautiful stage pictures. Putting aside the story and what the show represents, the production is gorgeous indeed. Kordonsky never disappoints when having to figure out how to stage shifts between planes of dream and reality; how to represent all-engulfing fires, raging storms, or the so-called desert wind of misfortune; how to portray captured fallen angels, a tarantula with a woman’s head, or a wild chase through the desert. Under his direction, the stage traffic is lively, on point, and fully takes advantage of the particularities of the performance space. His meticulous work reveals itself in the production’s good rhythm without any missed beats, the seamless transitions, and the good choices made together with the actors in how to embody the characters.

As the grandmother, Ida Jarcsek-Gaza gives life to a hag, compensating for the lack of monstrous obesity with a repertoire of off-putting physical quirks, from facial expressions to the insect-like, cowered yet threatening manner of walking. The skilled actress Olga Török manages to convey Eréndira’s childishness, etherealness, and innocence even as she’s made to do it with her fully mature bare tits and ass hanging out from distressed babydoll dresses. Török’s dancer-like athleticism and physical grace fit like a glove within the magical stage world constructed by Kordonsky. Among the many secondary characters, Rareș Hontzu stands out as a captive, haunting-looking, thin and lanky, raggedy old angel. Befitting a production focused on the surface level, the actors who stand out do so through their particular physicality that fits within a particular picture. Richard Hladik, the actor playing the beautiful Dutch boy, looks the part with his long blond hair and delicate features. While I appreciate how well the actors look and move on stage, and the production’s overall stress on interesting-looking physicality, the fact that the show does not engage in any meaningful way with the themes pertaining to “Eréndira” also means that the performers don’t have much to act beyond basic states and emotions rendered stereotypically: physical pain, physical pleasure, greed, love, and hate.

The real star of this production is the scenography. Set designer Helmut Stürmer renders an enchanted and unsettling world on stage through simple yet effective means. The floor, covered in warm, brown earth (that raises dust like the desert), paired with a backdrop painted in muted, earthly colors both fill the stage with a strong environmental presence and sense of the world, as well as leave the stage empty and flexible, malleable to the quick scene changes demanded by a traveling crew. Stürmer enables seamless shifts in locale through lowering small backdrops (for the tent, for example) or wheeling in props. His attention to detail when it comes to the props is notable. The grandmother, for example, sits on a throne-like contraption assembled from an old armchair mounted on a wheeled, metal frame reminiscent of cocktail serving tables, with steps covered by a small Persian rug, and topped by a crowned chimpanzee head. The set comes to life under Botond Nosz’s light design. The production’s focus on the cosmological gives Nosz ample opportunities to play with light effects, greatly aiding in representing the power of the environment (the warmth and heat of the desert, the coldness of the storm), communicating action (showing a burning house, for example), and shifting between locations including dream realms. Ioana Popescu’s costumes harmonize with the scenography and add the final touches to creating haunting tableaux. In addition, Popescu performs live with the rest of the actors. Downstage left, just outside the playing space but in full view of the audience, Popescu hand paints in sand on a light box with a camera on top, live projecting the art against the backdrop. The extra layer of moving imagery (showing landscapes, abstract designs, and animal figures) greatly enhanced the feeling of a potent, magical desert that communicates in sand and perpetually acts out. In fact, performers routinely interact with the projected drawings, turning them into scene partners. I’m not sure if the visuals made the show or stole the show.

Kordonsky’s Eréndira will impress audiences with its fascinating visuals and well-composed stage action. Unfortunately, the production is a beautiful surface lacking depth.

This journalistic material has been realized through a grant Energie! Burse de Creație funded by the City of Timișoara, through the Center for Projects. The material does not necessarily represent the position of the Center for Projects and is not responsible for its content or the way in which it may be used.