Teatr ZAR is a multinational group which has spent years collecting musical material, the core of which is a group of centuries-old polyphonic songs.Teatr ZAR attempts to demonstrate that theatre does not only pertain to the Greek ‘thea’ – seeing – but that it is something that above all should be heard. 

Here we hear from Magdalena Madra, part of the Teatre Zar company, about their show Ceasarean Section: Essays on Suicide, how it transcends language and deals with the taboo.

RR: Caesarean Section: Essays on Suicide is not just about the visual, but also about sound and movement- do you think this has helped it to be  successful in the different countries it's been performed in?

MM: The performance is build on the international language of music and movement, which works in all countries. The music is the base for the images and senses, so we make the sounds visible.

RR: The show credits the literary influence of Aglaya Veteranyi - could you tell us more about that?

MM: We have worked with texts of Veteranyi: we related to them, her words were something we had in common. We were talking to each other using the pages of her notebook, her vocabulary but we never wanted to stage her texts. It was more a game with the world of her imagination. It is from her writing that we took the structure, names of scenes and a form of poetic narration, but other than that her text does not feature in the performance - only metaphors of Aglaya are embodied.

RR: Could you also talk us through the various cultural traditions that inspired the musical score?

MM: This work is a place of tectonic fusion of two music genres: Svan harmonies from the High Caucasus and Corsican Hymns, especially Kyrie Elejson. It was a very important moment for the members of the group to sing the liturgy in Corsica whilst visiting the Tox commune. In the performance there you can find the echo of our experience from Corsica, when we aimed to bring a feminine element to the songs reserved for male voices. This was possible thanks to using techniques from Bulgaria (Pirin, Rodopy and Sofia regions). We incorporated different traditions by first meeting with communities and then interweaving them in the process of our work. 

RR: ‘Zar’ is the name of the funeral songs performed by the Svaneti tribe who inhabit the high regions of the Caucasus, in North-West Georgia- as a theatre group named after funeral songs, do you think you've always been pre-disposed to addressing dark subjects?

MM: We do not think in the same way as popular-culture and this means that referring to the experience of death is not a dark subject. It is rather a very fundamental matter. We understand that mortality is fundamental in being creative.

RR: There is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide. Judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy. [Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus]

Do you think there is still a taboo about discussing suicide, as there is about most mental health issues? Do you think it's the responsibility of the arts to raise awareness about these topics?

MM: As Camus wrote, also with our performance we do not refer to the act of committing suicide, rather to the suicidal state, which is maybe just a mind, heart or physical state. The power of suicide in us is divided into three characters in the show. Taboo is a constant issue, but very importantly it is changing. Taboo is the power of covering things up, and it doesn’t matter if the force comes from the society or from ourselves.

RR: The show was first performed in Florence in 2007- has it evolved since then?

MM: Yes, of course. The performance not only matured, but also rewrote itself, among other things through the crystallisation of the musical score. The performance has been presented more than 100 times.

RR:  What plans do Teatr Zar have for the future?

MM: With our latest project, we wish to open a window to address the history of Armenia. Armine, Sister refers to the history of the Armenian people, their deportation and extermination at the beginning of the 20th century, the history of Europe’s silence that accompanies its memory and a reflection on the act and the effect it has had on those who witnessed it. The premiere presentations of the performance run 28-30 November and 1-10 December in the Studio na Grobli of the Grotowski Institute in Wroclaw. Next year we will perform the piece in Wroclaw and abroad.

 Caesarean Section:Essays on Suicide is showing at Battersea Arts Centre from 11th-19th October, full details can be found here.