The love story of Marlene Dietrich and Erich Maria Remarque, shown in the staged concert “Remarque and Dietrich: Say You Love Me” at the House of Music on 20 February, is not simply an account of the relations between two particular people. It is the story of a collision between types of human being, reflecting the struggle of supra-personal forces that govern people. Marlene Dietrich, to my mind, represents — in a supremely attractive female guise — the demonic power of temptation, whose call such great figures as Jean Gabin, Josef von Sternberg, Gary Cooper, Frank Sinatra and, of course, Erich Maria Remarque were unable to withstand. Why “of course”? Because Remarque possessed the most tender of souls and the most tender of literary voices, one that let him convey to the reader every turn and condition of that soul. One cannot say that Remarque was an angel, but for all his brutal exterior he undoubtedly had something angelic in his attitude to life. The collision of Marlene’s demonic force with Erich’s angelic weakness is a canonical conflict of archetypes. Remarque came out of it with a broken heart; Dietrich ended it with unconquerable power.
The actors E. Tsyganov and D. Moroz convey the characters and conduct of their subjects precisely. The verbal weave of Remarque’s letters to Dietrich betrays not only the writer’s introversion and the density of his inner life, but also his vulnerability and, perhaps, his refusal of the surrounding world with its aggression, its pain, its meaninglessness. The extravert Dietrich brings into that world an “energy of seizure”, the conquering passion of a hunting puma. The excess of Darya Moroz’s temperament is balanced by a certain hermetic quality in Yevgeny Tsyganov.
But! Tsyganov’s heartfelt performance of “Lili Marleen” at the close removes every imbalance. We leave the hall with our souls lightened. Thank you to those who made this evening.
