FLASH
Shkruar nga Pamfleti
Margarita Xhepa was still young when the Soviet director Bortko entrusted her with playing Ophelia in one of William Shakespeare's "most famous tragedies," as Albanian writer Fan Noli writes about "Hamlet." He calls Ophelia "the most spiritual and angelic girl." And since we're on the subject of Ophelia, Fan Noli writes: "Years ago I remembered the lame Ophelia when I saw the elderly Sara Benhart give a brilliant performance with her voice and expression, when she could barely stand. This means that voice and expression are as important to an actor as legs."
Margarita Xhepa, in the early 60s, when she played Ofelia, “the most spiritual and angelic girl,” was neither old nor lame. She was at the peak of her youth and at the peak of her beauty. Not only that. The God of the talented Margarita, in addition to beauty, had given her what Noli writes “the voice and expression.” The great actress’s Ophelia came to the stage of the Albanian theater, both angelic and spiritual. I find it difficult to analyze Ofelia-Margarita or the brilliant duo Naim Frashëri-Margarita Xhepa.
I want to bring to the many readers of the newspaper "Panorama" a fact that she told me: We were at the peak of the work on the staging of Hamlet. Ophelia had become part of my being. She followed me everywhere, not only during rehearsals, but also on the street, at home, or when I put my head on the pillow. When I couldn't sleep or even when I was just dozing off, she would come to me in a beautiful dream, delicate and fragile like the morning dew... I felt that during the rehearsals, especially in the scenes where she is crazy, something was wrong. I had never seen a crazy girl or woman until that age. It was in the morning when I called Prof. Ylvi Vehbiu, with whom I had family acquaintances. Prof. Ylvi Vehbiu was one of the well-known psychiatrists of the time. I told the professor that I wanted to come to the psychiatric hospital to see a sick young girl up close. He told me that I could come immediately. I will never forget the moment when I saw the crazy girl in a hallway of a psychiatric hospital. She was 17 years old.
Beautiful. Very beautiful. She made some strange movements, as if in a void or in an empty space. Then she would stand, looking left and right or up. And she would sing, in a sweet voice, as if she were on stage. Oh, the poor girl! The poor girl! Suddenly she raised her hands up, moved again and after a few seconds, she burst into tears. I stuck all this in my head and on stage, I made her part of my Ophelia. The Soviet director could not contain his enthusiasm. He came closer to me and hugged me, saying in Russian the words "Ah my dove! What a difference from the previous days. I was the crazy Ophelia. I moved on stage like the crazy woman I had seen in the psychiatric hospital, whose emotional state changed from song to song, from laughter to tears that would tear your soul apart. I, Margarita-Ophelia, sang too: White as snow was the shroud/With flowers adorned/The young and old wept with tears/With a sorrowful heart."
This story of Margarita Xhepa remained in my mind for a long time. And I regretted not having seen Naim Frashëri's Hamlet and Margarita Xhepa's Ophelia, on the former stage of the People's Theater. I was still a child in those years. I returned to these days of rereading Shakespeare's "Hamlet". I read it twice, as Fan Noli recommends in his excellent preface: " To properly understand this work, as well as any other Shakespearean work, one must remember that it was written primarily to be played on stage. It must be sung, therefore with notes twice, and then it must be seen and interpreted in the theater by actors who have entered into its spirit."
Margarita Xhepa's Ophelia, over sixty years ago, came to the stage of Albanian theater, as Fan Noli describes her: "Ophelia, Hamlet's unfortunate lover, is one of the most tragic and pathetic faces of Shakespearean theater. Both Hamlet and Ophelia have had their world turned upside down." Our great actress was lucky enough to have Hamlet interpreted by one of the inimitable talents of Albanian stage and film, Naim Frashëri, his thunderous and gurgling voice, speaking to all times and the world, especially to Albanians of our time : "This world has become depraved! O back, O devil/That I was born to set you straight"!
April 2nd is the birthday of Margarita Xhepa, but also of the dozens of roles that she has masterfully interpreted on the stages of Albanian and Balkan theaters. And of the dozens and dozens of other figures that she has brought to Albanian films. April 2nd is also of Margarita Xhepa's Ophelia.
Margarita Xhepa is and will be, if I were to paraphrase Laertes: "May rose! Dear girl! Sweet Ophelia..." / Panorama
Lini një Përgjigje