Premiere of Soviet Play and Photo Exhibit Will Be Part of San Diego Arts Festival

The Museum of Photographic Arts will present an exhibition of 39 contemporary Soviet photographers and the San Diego Repertory Theatre will stage the U.S. premiere of a contemporary Soviet play as part of the San Diego Arts Festival “Treasures of the Soviet Union,” officials announced Tuesday.

Parisian gallery director Marie-Francoise George was curator of the exhibit of 120 photographs, titled “An Insight into Contemporary Soviet Photography.” It includes a catalogue. Museum of Photographic Arts director Arthur Ollman chose the exhibit after seeing it in France.

George “spent many, many months in Russia, contacting hundreds of photographers and culling works,” Ollman said. “We were terrifically lucky to find a show that existed. Even if I had been able to go on one of the two festival trips, I wouldn’t have been able to do the encyclopedic work she did.”

The director of the Comptoir de la Photographie gallery in Paris, George selected a variety of styles from fine-art photographs to portraiture and photojournalism, all made in the past 20 years.

The works are primarily black-and-white images, since color film is hard to find in the Soveit Union, Ollman said.

The producer of the festival also confirmed that the Rep will stage a Soviet play in English, subject to approval of the festival’s board of directors.

“We’re looking for a contemporary piece that speaks to issues and life in the Soviet Union today,” said Rep managing director Adrian W. Stewart. “Ideally it will be a world premiere by a Soviet playwright.”

Stewart said he is virtually certain that the stage director will be Romanov Vitchuk, whom theater officials spoke with while in the Soviet Union in April.

“He’s one of the leading Soviet directors,” Stewart said. “He’s one of the most innovative directors in the Soviet Union. We saw his production of Jean Genet’s ‘The Maids’ at the Satirikon Theatre in Moscow. It was remarkable.”

Vitchuk, who was in rehearsals for nine different productions, has postponed a directing engagement in Sweden to come here. He will hold master classes in directing while in San Diego, Stewart said.

The Soviet arts festival, which includes a number of arts, crafts, musical exhibits and performances, will also mark the U.S. premiere of the Soviet play “Brothers and Sisters.” Leningrad’s Maly Drama Theatre will perform the play at the Old Globe Theatre, in Russian with simultaneous English translation.

The festival is scheduled for Oct. 21-Nov. 11.