A Discussion with András Visky

2006-02-02T09:08:00.000-08:00

ANDRÀS VISKY
[POET/PLAYWRIGHT]

“IF WE ARE SAFE IN EVERYTHING WE ARE DOING, WE DON’T
NEED GOD. THE CHRISTIAN LIFE IS NOT ABOUT BEING SAFE,
IT’S ABOUT BEING SAVED.”

Romania poet, playwright, and essayist András Visky spent his early childhood in a Communist gulag with his mother and six siblings, while his father, a minister in the Hungarian Reformed Church, was in prison elsewhere. His play Juliet has been playing in Budapest since fall of 2002 at the Thália Theatre. A Romanian adaptation opened at the Romanian National Theatre in Cluj last fall. His play Disciples is also currently playing in Cluj at the State Hungarian Theatre. His most recent play, The Unborn, is a stage adaptation of Kaddish for an Unborn Child by Imre Kertész (winner of the Nobel Prize for literature, 2002). He lives in Cluj with his wife and four children where he is the dramaturg of the State Hungarian Theatre and an associate professor in aesthetics at the University of Babeş-Bolyai.

Bob Reid is the minister of GraceChicago, a Presbyterian church located in downtown Chicago.

I. “THE CONCENTRATION CAMP IS
A LIVING SOURCE OF STORIES. I CANNOT
SEPARATE THE REALITY AND THE
VIRTUALITY OF THE STORIES”

BOB REID: András, tell us a bit about who you are, where you live, a little bit about your family, and what you do.

ANDRÁS VISKY: I live in Romania, in Cluj. It’s quite a big city. Half a million people live there during the university year. My full-time job is at the Babeş-Bolyai University in Cluj. I teach there in the College of Aesthetics in the department of theater. My half-time job is to direct the Koinónia publishing house, a publishing house founded, in part, by me. But my main job is to stay daily five or six hours in my study and to write or make notes or to not do anything (laughs), just to watch what is happening outside my window. I’m writing plays and poetry and essays. I’m the father of four children and my children, they have a mother also, and she is my wife, Saci. (laughter)

BR: You spent your early childhood in a concentration camp with your entire family. How was that whole experience formative for you as a writer, positively or negatively?

AV: The life of a writer, it’s about the source of the stories. For me, the concentration camp is a living source of the stories. I was the youngest of my family, which means that at the age of two, I was sentenced to spend five years in this concentration camp which was very far from my home. Being the youngest, it’s quite interesting for me that it’s a mixture in my memory of the images which were actually lived by me and those which were just told to me by my brothers and sisters. In other words, when my older siblings read my scripts or see my plays in the theatre, their relationship with the story is quite different. For me it’s very funny because it speaks about the authenticity. What does it mean, the authenticity of a story, of a script, of a work of art? What does it mean, the authenticity of the Gospels?

BR: Tell us more about what you mean by the authenticity of a story.

AV: The authenticity of a story means, for me, my personal relationship with this story. I cannot separate the reality and the virtuality of the stories. I can’t tell whether this story is my story or the story of Peter, one of my brothers, or the story of Feri, my oldest brother; because it’s a question of your relationship with the language, with the memories, with the images –- and practically, I don’t care. I don’t care about this, because the distinction of the authenticity, it’s beyond, in this respect, it's beyond the work of art. And maybe someone might ask me, or my children, -- they are wonderful, asking me, “Did it happened exactly like this?”

BR: You’re saying, then, something very interesting about the nature of meaning when you hear a story. You're saying that the authenticity of it may not be exactly what we think of when we think of something as having an objective meaning, right? A lot of people want to say, "I read a story, I hear a story. I want to know if there's one singular meaning to it, or if there's a plurality of meaning." How does this relate to this thing about authenticity?

AV: I don't believe that there is one single meaning. If there is one single meaning of a written story, this speaks about the power of a canon, the power to impose one meaning of the story, a power that is something outside of the story. Let's say, for example, that I have a book and I want it to be interpreted in just one way. The book can't accomplish this by itself. I need something outside of the book. I need an institution, for instance. An institution that will follow how the story is being interpreted and will persecute those who are not creating the same meaning as they read the book or apply the book to daily life. I need an institution. I need a police. (laughter) Yes, I need a police and in the history of literature, in the history of hermeneutics, we had this kind of police. We had such police in the history of European hermeneutics, watching the meaning of a book, the applications of the book.

BR: So you're saying that there is something outside of the story that can provide guidelines, which can police you in interpreting the meanings, the plurality of meanings of the story?

AV: Or, I would say that there are periods where there is a sort of consensus about the meaning. Then there would come other periods when this first consensus would disappear and another structure of consensus is created. And I consider that this is great. This is frightening but this is great because it speaks about freedom. You asked me about my experiences in the prison camp. My story is a story about the chosen people, about the Red Sea, about the wandering, and about the getting of freedom. Of being set free. Maybe because of this, my basic value as an Eastern European is freedom. Because freedom is connected, for me, in a very personal way to the process of being saved. You have no tools or possibilities to be free as a prisoner. You have to be released, to be set free. To put the question in another context.

II. “THE CHURCH IS THE
INSTITUTION WHICH PERFORMS
THE BIBLE, WHICH TRANSLATES
THE BIBLE TO ME.”

AV: For me, the meaning is to perform a text. To perform the text is the meaning. To perform the text. Which means, to create a very personal relationship with the text. To read a text means to perform the text.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Am I understanding you correctly? It's the action, the act of looking, the act of watching that in the end gives it meaning. Would that translate across the board into other realms of art?

AV: Yes. It's a process of translation. We know very well, for instance, that the Divina Commedia of Dante is translated in many ways. I represent a very small culture, but, for example, Poe's The Raven is translated into several different Hungarian versions and this [the fact that there is more than one version] is a way to interpret Poe's poem. There is a nice discussion around those translations because the translation is a very personal relationship with the original text and I don't believe in an accurate translation. You know what I mean? The accurate translation speaks always about the limitations of the translation. There is a limitation there and we have to, in the process of translating, see the limitations of the translation. I retranslated almost all of King Lear with one of my stage director friends because we had a very personal interpretation of the play, considering the play as a passion. As a passion of King Lear. This passion has a mediator, Cordelia. Because Cordelia disappears in the play and it seems that she reappears as the Fool. This decision, to have the same actress play Cordelia and the Fool, this is such an important decision in interpreting King Lear that you have to retranslate the text for yourself. If the Fool is performed by an actor and Cordelia by an actress, it is another interpretation.

A: Do you apply the same pattern to the Biblical text?

AV: I do because we are in a theatre now, not in a church. (laughter) I would apply this and I would say that, for me, the church is the institution which performs the Bible, which translates the Bible to me. It's a continuous translation, which means to me that before having or writing a sermon, before doing this, I have no meanings. I have only a hope to catch the meaning, to receive the meaning. I have a hope that the Holy Spirit will give me the meanings. Those meanings are always new and are never new, because the same person speaks to me. But because this relationship is a personal relationship in the very present tense, it is very new for me. And because it's a part of a context, and by this context I would mean the church history or I would mean the history of the interpretation. Because, you know, I can't do an interpretation outside of the history of the interpretation. I can't do this. It's not possible. Actually, I can do this, but it's not interesting. It's outside of the question. You know, the authenticity -- one of our friends -- I know that he is your friend also, Shakespeare, -- he doesn't care about the authenticity of his story. He doesn't care never, never. He just puts the time here, elsewhere, mixing everything, and he is very authentic. And there's no question about the authenticity of Hamlet.

A: If each group of people or period in history translates meaning in a different way, eastern Europe is different from the western world and Asia is different than both of them, and we see that things are interpreted differently -- how does that fit with the fact that when someone writes, they mean something very specific? Not just the Biblical text, but anything that's written. How does the author's specific intent preserved when the author means something specific and the audience, however long after it is written, interprets it?

AV: You know an author, a writer, has to be very ironic with his own writings. The best example is always the theater for this. Because, you know, you have a written play. This written play is performed in Romania, it's performed in Hungary, and it's performed in the United States. These three performances are so different. I have a play running now, performed in Romania and Hungary. It has the same director, the same set, the same actress -- it's a one man play -- and it's very different how the audience in Budapest and the audience in my hometown in Romania would relate to the same performance. And for me, it's very funny, the differences. For example, in Cluj, the play is very tragic for the audience. In Budapest, the audience is laughing five times more than in Cluj, because the relationship to the history [the play is set in 1950's Communist Romania] is a little bit more personal in Romania. Because of the tough dictatorship in Romania compared with the softer dictatorship in Hungary. For the Hungarians, the history is a little bit more distant, more ironic.

A: I am aware that your perspective changes your relationship to a text or to a performance drastically, but how is meaning maintained with all of these various translations or interpretations when the author meant something specific? When I write something, I know that I mean something specific. But each audience translates it differently. And what if one audience gets exactly what I'm saying and another audience doesn't quite -- I don't want to say they've interpreted it wrongly because it's going to happen, but maybe there is, theoretically, one audience that got exactly what I, or Saint Matthew, or Shakespeare meant -- is there a rightness of interpretation?

AV: You would have to know, for example, what Shakespeare meant. You would have to know. Do you know this? This is the question.

On the one hand. On the other hand, there are other examples also. For instance, it was a very famous court case, because a Dutch theatre company wanted to interpret Beckett's Waiting for Godot using actresses, and Beckett forbade it. In the history of theatre, this was quite interesting and this performance did not take place. But now, Beckett is no longer living and you can interpret Beckett as you like. It's very interesting, this tragedy of the author. There is a tragedy here: the author disappears. There is no other possibility, biologically speaking. The author disappears and in my opinion to say that Shakespeare would not accept a particular interpretation, from my point of view, there is no way to say this. Because you cannot verify this.

On the one hand. On the other hand, don't take the text out from the context of the whole culture, because the context of interpretation requires other institutions, like the institution of the critical approach of the interpretation. You have reviews, critiques, studies -- this is very important also. You can't take the text out from the cultural context. This context requires a consensus, a sort of consensus, which is not a strong consensus like an army. Actually, sometimes it is. In a dictatorship, it is. There is no other way to interpret the text but to follow the direction of the sweet communist party. There is no other possibility of interpreting it. But none of us would like to live in a dictatorship, even in our churches. We don't need this kind of dictatorship.

BR: It seems to me that what you're saying is that the meaning is new and it's not new at the same time and that the reason why that is, is that there's a whole complexity of things that we turn to, of realities that we turn to, to guide how far we can run with our own understanding of the text. I want to ask you about this whole idea of God being one and at the same time three because if God is just one, then there's just monotheism without plurality. But he's one and he's three at the same time. So even when we think about truth -- is truth one or is it plural? But the oneness of it keeps -- you know there are some people who read a text and say, "Well I read a text and it is what I say it is," but that's the tyranny of dictatorship, it's a solipsistic dictatorship. Turning to the text and only interpreting it in my image. And I think when some people hear you say that a text doesn't have one meaning or one meaning that we can verify, they hear you saying: "Well, then it can mean whatever I want it to mean." And that kind of solipsistic way of looking at things is, I think you would agree, a different kind of tyranny, right?

AV: Speaking about the Bible, because, you know it's another discussion speaking about the Bible and speaking about Dostoevsky. Not very different, but in a sense, different. But speaking about the Bible: the Bible has just one meaning. The Bible text. And this meaning is a person. Just one meaning. But the problem is, yes, it's just one meaning but this meaning is a person. What does this meaning require? A relationship with the person. A relationship with the tri-unity of the person. But this person, you cannot catch, you know? You can't put this person in your pocket, to be there so you can say, "Here is the chief of my interpretation." You know? You can see this tension between having one meaning and having various meanings because if the various meanings don't mean the relationship with the person, they're not interesting, throw them out. If the one meaning doesn't have the relationship with the person, it's not interesting, throw it out.

The history of the church is about this tension. Tension not with the meanings, but tension with this person. If we are not in a continuous tension with the person -- you know, a continuous tension with the person, because sometimes he is against me. Yes, sometimes, he is against me. You find this in Jeremiah when he says that God is like an enemy to us. (Jer 30:14) And he is against me and I have to accept this meaning also. I have to accept the meaning which is against me, because if I accept the meaning which is against me, I can have the grace to realize that the meaning which is against me, it is for me. The suffering of someone, it is against this person, but it's a big miracle to consider that the suffering, it is for me.

III. “I DON’T WRITE; I JUST MAKE NOTES.”

A: When you sit down to write, whether you're in front of your computer or with pen and paper, do you think about how people will translate it or the critics, and if you don't think about that kind of stuff, how do you avoid it? And if you do think about that kind of stuff, how do you cope with it? Because when I sit down to write, it's overwhelming. I'm thinking, "How will my mom, my relatives, interpret this," -- you know what I mean?

AV: Yes, because it's a very practical question of the daily writing.

The writing process is not about interpretation. The creating process is different. During the creating process you have to forget the interpretation. You have to forget your mom -- sorry, don't tell her, -- you have to forget because there's no way to process everything, no way to process your mother, grandmother, and the church session. Because this is an ideological way of writing. "I would like now to write this but I am afraid." For me, speaking now about the Bible -- because it's a good example always among those who know the Bible -- for me, the Bible is not a book of ideological interpretations of the revelation. Just to give to you an example: the three gospels [Matthew, Mark, Luke] have sometimes very big differences in interpreting the revelation, the Jesus story. That's right? If they did not have these differences, I would not believe in the gospels. Because it would be like a conspiracy. A dictatorship. It would be a conspiracy. These differences in the gospels, for me, it's wonderful. Because it speaks about something different. They didn't follow Jesus with this kind of device [holds up micro-recorder being used to record him]. Because they followed Jesus together with their doubts about him, about his person. Is he the Messiah or not? They didn't follow Jesus writing everything down. "John, please write down this sentence, it's a great sentence. Wow! Can you imagine what will be the history of this sentence together with the Vatican and the Genevan ...?" -- I don't know what! (laughter) This is the conspiracy. And there are interpretations that there is such a conspiracy, for example, Paul. Saint Paul is accused of conspiracy. There are such interpretations.

You know what I mean? It's about something different. Your personal relationship with the language, first of all, and with the images of those stories. One of the most important miracles in the process is when after a while you have to be very obedient. Your freedom is articulated in obedience to the shape, to the form. You have to follow the form. I used to say, "I don't write; I just make notes." I make notes. You have to be obedient to the shape. The language, the story, creates its own shape, always.

A: What's your writing process? How do you work? Where does your inspiration come from, your ideas, and how does it actually manifest itself as words on paper?

AV: I would like to tell you that the inspiration is not the most important thing in the writing process. In the writing process, the process in itself is the most important thing. All of us here, we have great inspiration and great messages to the world. All of us. All of us, we have the same great messages to the world. The process in itself is much more important. To begin, to throw out, to re-begin, to throw out. For instance, when I wrote this one-man play, Julia, just to give to you an example, -- the process. I had a commission from an American producer to write the play. Because he, by chance, had come across a small book of memoirs by my mother about the prison camp, and he was so moved because of this memoir that finally he found me as being a part of the story. And he asked me to write a one-man play about this. And my first reaction was no, I can't write a one-man show because I don't believe in the theatre where there is just one actor, although I know very well that in American culture, this one-man show has a big tradition.

But then I told him, okay, I will try to do it because it is interesting. It will be a great failure. This is very important, the failures, very important. Without having failures as writers or actors or whatever, -- we are not all writers or actors -- but to acknowledge the failure, -- for this reason, the Christian communities are not the best communities in which to become a writer because they are not speaking about your failure as a writer. They say, "Oh, it's nice, it's good;" and they're giving you great encouragement, but you know it could be an encouragement to say, "Don't continue. Don't continue. It's no way. Throw it out and begin again."

Okay, back to my story. Finally I decided that to write a one-man play about my mother's experience, practically, it's very easy because it is a great story. The story is the following: we were in the prison camp. She could not accept the suffering of her children. This is always the problem in the life of the universe: the suffering of the children. And she had a heart attack because of this wrestling with God and they put her in the morgue with the dead bodies. And after, I don't know how many days, let's say, three days, she came back to us. It's a great story. But how to grasp it? How to grasp this heart attack? And the American guy, he's a very, very nice guy, he gave me twelve months to write the play. And being a professional, he kept calling me, "András, how is the play?" And I always told him, "It's okay, it's in process." I had not even one line. One line! (laughter) Next month, "András?" "Oh, yes, you know Tim, I met my mother and discussed it with her, the process is ..." Yes. Not even one line! I realized then that the story -- you know, all of us have great stories in our lives, but for the story to become literature, it's something different. You have to have a language for this.

The continuation of the story is that the last week came and I still had not even one line. I tried. I had some notes. I reread ten times my mother's memoirs and it was worse and worse and worse for me. Trying to follow her story and not finding my story in her story. And then suddenly I saw something, I heard something. It's just two lines of the play, when I realized that God has to be a character in the play. He has to be there, always in the space. For it not to be a one-man play, a monologue, but a dialogue. And I got the first two lines. They are the following: "Are you there? Give me a sign." And then I realized that it was done. And there followed one week of writing for twenty hours daily and I did the play. And then Tim called me, "András, the play?" "It's done, Tim, no problem. I will send it to you." (laughter) This process is very different from other processes. For instance, it is very different to write a novel. I am working now on a novel for more than eight years and it's far from being done. I don't feel even now where it would go.

IV. “IN POST MODERNITY, THE
WORK OF ART ITSELF, THE
LIFE OF THE WORK OF ART ITSELF
IS PROBLEMATIC.”

BR: We try to encourage everyone to understand himself or herself as a divine image bearer. So everyone is creative. Like you said, everyone has stories to tell. We try to encourage folks to see themselves in a creative process, regardless of whether they are making visual art or writing. They can be a businessperson or a teacher or a parent at home. We try to encourage everyone to understand themselves in their vocation, in their calling, as being in a creative process. Say, you're a businessperson. You don't make things that are considered art but you are in a creative process. How would you encourage that person to embrace the creative process?

AV: First of all, to not worship the work of art. To not worship, to not make an idol of, the work of art. Or to not consider that someone who is a writer or whatever, that he is above a businessman. Because, you know, it's not true. It's not true. Our churches are very dry and when we have artists in our churches, sometimes we regard them as being like angels, flying above us and sometimes delivering their big messages. (laughter) It's not about that.

I have a friend, a fine artist, and he had for two or three years a group of artists who created different exhibitions in various places. They were about seven of them and three of the people were not fine artists. One was a doctor, one was a teacher of Hungarian literature, and the other one was a teacher of special ed. children. And his message to the world, to his audience, was that in the post modernity, the work of art itself, the life of the work of art itself, is problematic. And I considered this very refreshing. Very refreshing. Because the question is, does a work of art objectively exist if no one would create a relationship with that particular work of art? This is the question of post modernity, roughly. Does a painting exist if someone would not make it alive by creating its meanings? This is the question. I don't want to answer this question but it's a very refreshing question. In other words, the work of art doesn't exist without me. It's a very big encouragement. In one sense, it's a very big encouragement for a writer that it's not such a big deal. To worship a work of art, you know for me, it's a little bit funny. On the other hand, if someone is not an artist, a writer -- but there is no way not to be. There is no way not to be a creative person. The human being is about creation and creativity.

A: Paul Ricouer [contemporary French philosopher] says that it's not so much the unexamined life that is not worth living but the un-narrated life that is not worth living. So if it's important for us to narrate our lives, should we also try to copyright our lives? A copyright, you know, -- my name, this is mine, and you bring it to a culture of selling and trading.

AV: It's a big question, a big discussion about whether to copyright yourself or not to copyright yourself. You know, we are copyrighted already. The holder of our copyright, of our life, it is God. In other words, there is something, in my belief, there is something, there is an identity which I have to search for. There is not an identity which is already done, finished, completed. There is an identity which is moving in a continuous way. I have to search for this identity. In this respect, I can't see the difference between me and a theologian or between me and an engineer or between me and a minister.

A: I asked the question thinking of the history of the arts, where there are the rights of the artist with a capital A, and I put my name on it; as a juxtaposition to somebody, say, in a monastery who composed some music to be sung but their name isn't on it. So there's this identification of me with the work. I guess I'm asking, how significant should we think that to be? Should we think it's very important to have my name, the author's name, attached to the work? And given our context, you know with laws and with rights and the place that money plays into that. I was wondering if the Christian should see that as a question to be asked or if....

AV: You know, it's very important if it's very important to you. Johann Sebastian Bach did a copyright, having next to his name, Soli Deo Gloria. And so there is a copyright there in a personal way that expresses his relationship to God, to the history of music, and so on.

On the other hand, it's just by chance that we know that Rublyov created the icon of the Holy Trinity. It's just by chance because in the tradition of creating an icon, there is not a question of copyright. The copyright is something outside of the process. But we still know that Rublyov, our good friend, created this great painting. I know that there are financial reasons behind this, which are obvious. If you want to make a living through your created pieces, it's good to have this copyright but in this respect, the copyright is not a metaphysical question. It's a physical question.

V. “SOMETIMES MY LIFE IS
ABOUT GOOD FRIDAY, NOT ABOUT
THE RESURRECTION.”

BR: You answered someone earlier that in your opinion process is more important than inspiration. I know there are a lot of people who when they're in different places creatively, they get blocked. So what do you do when you're blocked? ?

AV: I would tell you that the creative process itself, it's about being blocked. Because the beginning of the creative process is to be blocked vis-à-vis everything inspirationally. I told you the story about writing my play, Julia. It's about being blocked. Writing a poem sometimes comes very easily, and it's very tricky because in the next hour you have to throw it away. The creation process is about being blocked. The beginning of the creation is a continuous searching. I have nothing in my hand. I don't feel it. I don't feel it. For me, this is very refreshing. I go in my study -- why? Because I am blocked. And the best way to handle this is the process. The process. To face yourself with this blockedness. It's very good to be blocked. Do you understand what I mean, why it is good? Because you have a very concrete obstacle and you have to go through, to go beyond, to deconstruct. Don't consider this a problem. It's a part of the process. It's okay.

A: There's a Christian radio station in Chicago and their slogan is, "Safe for the whole family," and so the language and subject matter have to meet this. But I think that sometimes in different Christian groups there is still this idea that our work has to be safe. The language or the subject matter or whatever we're covering. How do you think -- should we approach material that's maybe explicit or hard for people to deal with?

AV: I don't believe in this, to be safe. If we are safe in everything we are doing, we don't need God. It's enough to be safe. To be safe means to be comfortable. The Christian life is not about being safe, it's about being saved. It's not an insurance. The work of art speaks about the lack of this way of safety, it speaks about fragility.

In my community in Romania there are different generations. A very old and very important lady told me once, "András, András, I don't understand your writings, especially your poetry. Every time I have the chance to read them, I read them, but I don't understand them." A very nice lady. And I said to her, "You know, when you don't understand, just think that sometimes, I don't understand them either." (laughter) I don't understand. It's another way of approaching things. It's not about -- let's go back to the icon of the Holy Trinity, to Rublyov. Is this icon about his understanding of the Holy Trinity? I don't believe this. So I said to this old lady, "You know, sometimes I don't understand either." And one week later, some friends of ours visited this lady and she said very happily to them, "You know András sometimes doesn't understand." It's wonderful. Yes, I can see this pursuit of safety, that this is the way for Christianity to lose its own identity.

A: It sounds like so much of what you're saying about us being safe and us being blocked is about us getting out of the way. And about the purity of motive. We're so into arranging and manipulating and trying to evoke and determine a response. How do you get yourself out of the way?

AV: I hope that I understand the question and I would say, don't get out yourself. Don't get out of yourself. Our messages would like to be always speaking about a happy ending. To be a safe type of encouragement for our community. Or to speak always about the resurrection. But sometimes, my life is about Good Friday, not about the resurrection.

It's safe for my child if I would tell him or her, "Now, I am lost. My faith is nowhere. Come and help me." If not, I am always a power above him or her. I said to my children once, in a very dramatic way, "I don't want to be an example to be followed in your lives. I don't want to be followed. I want to have an example and for us to help each other to follow this example." It's a question of humbling myself, you know? Because I can't save myself or my children, but God can. He is more professional in doing this, according to the liturgy. (laughter)

BR: That is a great note to end on. I regret to say we are out of time. Let's thank András by applauding.

Vast and grand, monumental

A Discussion with András Visky