THE RETURN OF KADRI ROSH

By Dr. Progress Kabo written on the occasion of the 90th anniversary of his birth. The echo of the invitation went to him on the air, he was rehearsing to interpret a historical figure in his old age. The beard was the same, white and grown so long that it stretched over the chubby chest. But the voice was the same, deep, ringing. And the light of the eyes so bright, That came from the wells of goodness and human enigma. He had to appear at the National Theater because a "big project needed him". The invitation was strange. Without the name of the one who invited him, but he presented the formula that he had as an anthem of dignity: "Keep your heads up guys, who hasn't died yet!". Oh, Kadri Roshi had said to himself, what Arturo Ui is asking me for, we broke up with him early, were those his words? Maybe they want to stage it again on the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the liberation of the homeland and I can give them some advice?! – How nice it would be, he said to himself! Meditation had convinced him, saying go! And he took a few hours' leave from Hades just as that warrior at Troy asked for three hours' leave after he had fallen on the battlefield, to see what was going on outside. He walked down the street with his coat collar up and looked at the city. It had remained the same, but it had also lost much of its identity, with noise and fast-food, with advertisements of ugly naked women, with small bookstores selling magazines and few books, with unwashed buses and luxury cars , with wretched beggars and policemen with bloated bellies, with garbage cans on the side of the road and with northern bells, playing tambourines and tambourines on the streets without motive…! Eh sighed Kadri Roshi, what a mess this nest of ours was left, why the hell like this? How did we not agree once to make our destiny as it should be. When will these my dear people, the white-hearted Albanians, go on a pilgrimage to the Theater more than to rallies and parties. Hey, my Tirana, I longed for you. Even though it's a mess, there's something about you that attracts me. Here is Mount Dajtit, yes, majestic, silent. How many memories I have here in this city, in these streets and alleys! – Eh Kadri, you and Tirana can talk about each other endlessly. I know him and he knows me, or rather he knew me, because now nobody on the street turns his head to say good morning to me. How much have I changed?! Even Tirana is different, almost bewildered, but I strongly feel that it is the city that was born from a dream! – Well damn, he said to himself, why so early, the year he started, 2014. Do they want to surprise me?! As far as I remember, I was born in 1924 and in arithmetic it turns out to be 90 years old today, January 4th. And the invitation said so, on the 4th of January we are waiting. Yes, yes right. I have 83 years on earth and 7 years underground. Hell, it seems like I've been caught in a trap"?! The ceremony, the applause, the speeches, the mingling with friends and comrades, the actors in line, the decorations, the leadership coming to show the deep sublime love, then my word of the occasion. Journalists and televisions. Young actors and art students. Kadri Roshi was meditating, as he left Durrës street and through 'Skënderbe' square, approached the National Theatre. He felt his knees buckle. He was holding his breath. He paused for a moment and turned it on. Only smoking calmed him down. As he dug into his pockets to find the lighter, he came across a hook. It was left from that day, February 6, 2007 – when he left this world. Eh smiled bitterly and nodded as if to give herself approval. De Rada had a coin in his pocket when he left this world, but he did a lot for our beautiful Albanian language. Yes, I did quite a bit on stage and on screen, and I still have the hook in my pocket. With it I can fish for dreams and fortunes, and new roles…! On the day he left this world, it was raining and the sky was gray. He breathed his last by the side of his wife, Drita Tahos, the artist, who had made him a bride 60 years ago, when he was a 23-year-old young man. The pious woman from Gjakova, noble with aunts and virtues, who gave him two children, a daughter and a son, both of whom were taken by art. The whole family as a bunch of prophets of art. – Kadriu said to the orphan, he doesn't laugh. His mother, Sabria, left him at the age of two and his father, the prominent lawyer Maksuti, at the age of 12, a man of justice who knew how to win cases in the courts with dignity and professionalism. – Shouldn't I have gone from the family first, he asked himself? Then from "my home of soul and passion", here from the Theater, where the wanderer once, the orphan who wandered in Vlora and Durrës, in Kavajë and Tirana, in Gjirokastër where he did not set foot, arrived one day after working as a porter in the port , and had cut the tickets at the door of the "Republika" cinema. – Oh, that cinema! He turned his head to that side and saw a tall building. What is she asked herself? The cough took his breath away and his chest rose and fell. – Without seeing, he said, and a cross in that direction, a cathedral. – Eh Kadri, Kadri said to himself, don't get confused, man, isn't this your city?! – Yes, there is the Clock Tower, and the Et'hem Bey Mosque is there. I'm on the right track, give your feet old man! People are waiting for you, you can't be late, you've never been late to the Theater! Arrived promptly at 9 o'clock at the iron gate of the Theater! His eyes opened and his soul lit up and became sky, the air was different here. It happened to him that he heard voices from inside the building, which spoke to him, "Come master! Oh, what a longing! Come on stage come! We are waiting for you with burning desire!". At the gate, a policeman beckoned, one of these privates who had his mouth full being raped. – Hey uncle, who are you looking for? He turned to the Master, that the tear had betrayed him. On the slippery page he had made a shining mark. This gap at the gate instantly overturned everything he had envisioned. – The manager is not here, he doesn't have the car, the policeman told him, I don't know if he comes or not. They say that they have removed him and will bring a new one from abroad. You can find the others at the cafe outside, at the Gallery, here at the turn. – Yes, son, yes, I see, sighed the Master, I see that everything has been destroyed. Eh, Kadri Roshi, and you were expecting a ceremony for his 90th birthday?! Eh mora desolate naive?! Hey, who remembers you anymore?! Who knows where the minister or the ministry is?! Maybe he takes a winter vacation in some alpine country and does skiing. The actors are scattered as if without a shepherd, and under his breath he repeated the words of Elder Mere in the movie "The Man with the Ball": "Run, run away, run away, and the cuckoo will sing over this house, O Allah, shake once from the foundations, the world is depraved ". – And who are you, sir, asked the policeman? Where have I seen you? Aren't you that actor, Anastas Kristofori, who sometimes comes here? – That's how I look, replied the master, like Anastas, not like Kadri?! – Eat, you poor thing, eat what you have in your mouth so you don't drown, oh man! – Shall I interrupt work to go see the theater for a while because I'm longing? – Yes, come in, but if you have a couple of thousand lek for the "lali", will you do well? – Yes, I will give you 10,000 when I get out, Kadriu said, and 20,000 if you wanted, because I don't need the money anymore. The iron gate opened and he went straight to the fir forest and saw that Esma Agolli had also escaped from the living, Roland Trebicka, Drita Pelinku, Fatos Sela. With his white hands he removed some weeds and decorated the wet soil with his fingers. Oh forest that cries and laughs like on stage! Oh, you trees of goodness, that you used to sing art and magic words! You just grow under the power of silence, which shows that the forest on the scene is thinning. Oh, where is Agim Qirjaqi! Oh Agim, oh son, oh miracle of the scene, oh son of Kadri, why so soon oh son! What about there at "Poppies on the Wall", you teacher and I the guardian, did we do something or not?! People liked it. How could I say: "Mr. Director, Mr. Director, you know how they treated me, you yourself had commissioned me to investigate"… oh how nice it was to work with master Anagnosti, he was the rule itself. I had tried that art man early. I was Safa Ymeri there at "Mountains with covered purchase". They ruined my wedding and I couldn't bear that shame, so I gave a good one to my son, who left the table and went with the partisans. My hand and soul hurt, but those eyes of my son (Mevlan Shanaj) remained in my mind, they shone like stars, oh the freedom of the homeland! He kissed the trunks one by one and hugged them fondly. In an instant, Roland said to Trebicka: – Without you, son, the stage doesn't know how to laugh anymore. It will take time for another one like you to come to these shores. Your laughter had philosophy, so inside it made you cry! The policeman who was watching him from afar, thought that this stupid dog was going to give me that 2,000 Lek at least. With light steps he entered the theater. Silence. The acrid air came from the stage, so mixed with the aroma of the performances and the warmth of the applause. This is a different type of air, quite special, that brings theater closer to you instead of oxygen! If oxygen keeps your breath alive, theater art keeps your soul alive, feeds your mind and makes your heart beat for the motherland, for freedom, for human dignity, for pure love, for good. It is for these reasons that Sophocles, Aeschylus and Euripides, Shakespeare and Schiller, Gogol and Chekhov, Besim Levonja and Kol Jakova, Ndrek Luca and Fadil Paçrami, Spiro Çomora and Vedat Kokona, Ruzhdi Pulaha and Fadil Kraja wrote. As soon as he entered the hall, he read on a metal plate, "Kadri Roshi Hall". You can't believe your eyes. I also have a room here? And he laughed under his breath, when he remembered what he often said to himself in the dilemma of modesty: – "Didn't I show you arrogance? Well, I'm stupid and small-minded, I don't have to show myself". Dear Kadri Roshi, the former Minister of Culture, Bujar Leskaj, did that civil and civilized act, naming the hall of the National Theater after you, Kadri Roshi. It was those stormy nights when you filled the hall to the brim. It was the applause that did not stop, the ovations with bravos that could not be extinguished. You had left your spirit and your art on that stage and this nomination was too little to appreciate your work. Nothing could be heard, only silence. As if he didn't understand, he started talking, looking at those big pictures from the shows hanging on the walls. "Silence is terrible, (started the artist's monologue) terrible"! And that's how he ended up on stage. There the filikas, without spotlights, with a dim light coming from outside. "Silence kills memory". It pierces human sight and the world is blind. Further we do not know where we are going, we do not know where we come from, we do not know who we are! "Oh no! Don't, Albanian blood, don't poison yourself by abandoning history! Do not give in to the modern pleasures of a lying world! Without theater we will be crowds of indulgents of cybernetics times, beggars at the doors of the offices, lairs of political orgies! Stop the hand with the glass of poison that will put us in the back sleep! Wake up Albanian and get out of the river of oblivion, where everything remains to be remembered no more! O dhogs of this scene, gabble as then, burst forth into speaking groans, and proclaim the call. "People, if you go to the theater, society is not blinded"! This is the temple that unites us by loving each other without distinctions!". He finished this monologue and fell to his knees, weeping bitterly. – Why did Kadri Roshi come, he said to himself, why?! See the crap. He had this word left from the movie "General Gramophone". "Uncle Parandili as little as a candle". And now that the candle of the theater was running out. – How is it possible that there are no rehearsals on stage, he said to himself?! How did I not see a poster for the shows of the week?! How did the sailors of the art of the human spirit, the theater, leave the ship and run away?! O heaven that has given me shelter, help me to say what I need, because now I feel like I'm dying. If the theater died, we are all finished. Meanwhile, the muezzin's voice came from the mosque. The master covered his ears with his hands! – No – the voice said to him, – no please, I respect you and I love you too, but you have no business here, you have your own temple. This is the main temple. There is another voice, this is the voice that created humanity and gave it inexhaustible knowledge. We are earlier. And God comes to the stage of the theater as a character! He started caressing the boards of the stage and sat down and kissed them one by one. A hop was made for him to hear that he was clapping his hands, as lightly as with the palm of shadows, that more resembled the wings of pigeons. He stood up and asked in a ringing voice. – Who are you there? Speak, O blessed one, because I got three hours of leave and I still haven't gone to meet my family members, children, nephews and nieces. The shadows approached him. They were dressed for the theater stage and film sets. In one voice they said: "We are your roles, the Great Kadri Roshi, to remember you on your 90th birthday, because your life is also our life. Without you, we would never exist in this Albanian reality. – Oh my roles he sighed – and his voice was longing for Kadri the Great. – Well, tell me who you are? I am Podgoliseni in Gogoli's 'Marriage', that role that convinced you that you were a born actor, after being rejected twice by the jury, as untalented. – Well, I remember, Naim Frashër was also disqualified the first time. We translated that part ourselves from French and staged it. The endless applause told the jury 'this is Kadri Roshi for this scene'. How upset I was then when I was rejected twice. I wandered the street in tears. The primary school teacher, the one who was touched when I recited Naim Frashëri, the poet, and Migjeni, arranged with Zihni Sako that I was introduced to the Theater as a prompter. It was fixed to those of the commission that I was a thuthuq. I was speechless. No, I had a family next door who had 11 kids who kept their mouths shut and I imitated them all. I did this job so much that it became like a syndrome. Eh, they cut him short, 'you can't run away, you're untalented'. – And who are you, the one who bowed to the ground out of respect? I'm Osip, your first role in Gogol's play 'Revizori'. Do you remember me? – Oh Osip, how did I not remember you. Even when I returned from my studies in Prague, the first role I played was you. – How much was said about you then? You started in Croatia and when we broke up with the Yugoslavians you went to Czechoslovakia, but you came with Odlicno-brilliant, that's how you got your degree. – Yes, Osip. I want to hug you and if we could exchange this coat that I have on my shoulders for your outfit. I want to go to the sky in this show costume. Osip was silent for a moment. – Dear staff, – he said, – I think that those clothes that have accompanied you in your roles should remain here, because they are the history of the theater. They are national culture and in a theater museum they would have a lot of value. – You are right Osip, I was in a hurry. Let them stay here, but on one condition, that they are not lost and thrown away without respect. – Well, who are the rest of you who are so many? – Yes, we are your 215 roles in the theater and in the cinema, the characters of his artistic life answered in unison. We invited you to wish you a happy 90th birthday. To us you are not dead. – Well, introduce me one by one. I'm the miller in 'Bloody Earth', I'm Mark Porovina in 'Cutting Threads'. – Eh, Mark, I love you, but it wasn't a movie, it was propaganda, they took me unkindly in that movie. – I am old man Mere. I am Xha Hyseni, in the movie 'Liberty or Death'. – Ah, our Albania! Beautiful, sweet, wise, generous, as old as life itself, the language that sang in its Albanianism, but that brought so beautifully everything that world literature created for the theater. – Uncle Hysen, the artist told you, don't trust today's times, because even these can spoil our mother's language. The Albanian language is dying, brother Hysen, there are no more Albanians and Albania. – I am Belul Ghëmëmadhi in the movie "Face to Face". – Come closer, Belul, let's take it once. 'O beautiful Vlora in the pit-the first pier in Europe'. How is Vlora Belul? Uh, Beluli scratched his voice, how to say. – Tell me Belul how Vlora is because I know her since I was a child and I used to walk barefoot for a living. If Vlora is not good, Albania is not good, brother Belul, so you separated my 'alum from sugar'. – Here is Kadriu i Madh, there are many constructions and they are encroaching on the sea. – Ah, they are in vain with the sea, Poseidon's anger flattens you. How is the 'Petro Marko' Theatre?! Is there a show, work? The artists of Vlora have been with nam. – Yes, you work as a master, you also work. – I understand, Belul, we are not feeling well. – Who are the rest of you? And the characters are pushed to introduce themselves and meet their human-artistic soul and body. – Avashni, congratulations, Avashni, I will meet everyone. – I am Ademi, Kadri the artist, Ademi from "I teti en bronz", you remember, "Zamet e ke Sali e efendi so that I can remember him in the next world, come kiss me once on the butt". He met them all, Lefter in the first Albanian feature film "Tana" directed by Kristaq Dhamon, where Tinka Kurti loved Stefani (Naim Frashëri). He met the miner in "The warm wind of the depths", the postman in "Mission beyond the sea", Uncle Zenunin in "The small siege", the shepherd in "Colonel Bunkeri", Demosthenes in "Apassionata". He stopped there and said. – We behaved badly with that girl, Mira, Demosthenes. That son of ours didn't become either a painter or an engineer, he was a spoiled brat who wanted what he didn't deserve, he remained needy. He ended up playing with movie characters, including roles in "Furtuna", "Skënderbeu", "The Fall of the Idols" (the character Murr Përkeqi loved that role very much), "The Confrontation" (the Nazi who said: Dig o Tare dig the dead dog there, take it, take it) all in turn. Kadri Roshi began to meet the characters of the Theater. Hamlet remained silent and said: "To be or not to be, that is the question" master! To be is simple Hamlet, but that life has its end, honor and shame is the work of man and you taught me this with your story, Prince of Denmark in Shakespeare's pen. The watchmaker of "Kremlin Clocks" bowed respectfully and said: "Recluse craftsman. The lioness really makes a cub, but if you make a lion, I will adjust the clocks of the Kremlin". – We fixed clocks with a good craftsman, but those clocks with communism inside did not bring freedom and prosperity to man. – I am a master, do you remember me? – Eh Iago, without you there is no Othello! How can I not remember you, because the director gave me the role and then took it away from me. He tried with others and got stuck, the show wasn't working for him because the intrigue was a lie and a trap of Jago and he came and said to me: come on Kadri, it can't be done without you. – That's right, Jagopersonazhi replied, I understood that others couldn't do it, I was close with them, it wasn't me, so much so that one day I said to the director: oh bring me Kadri Roshi, oh leave this job. Abdyl Frashëri shows you at his feet in "Epoka before the Judgment". Kadri kissed his hands and he kissed her forehead. – Abdyl bey, since the Congress of Berlin and the League of Prizren, we have not found the language with Europe. It approaches and leaves as if unnoticed, we don't understand why. – Ah Kadri, son, the shadow of the east is heavier than the mountain, it takes time for us to realize that it is not outside, but inside us. If humanity doesn't read books, doesn't come to the Theater, if "Epoka before the Judgment" isn't brought back on stage, what happens? It happened that the 105th anniversary of the "Monastery Congress", which made us use the Latin alphabet, was not remembered and thus the national history is forgotten. – They have become people like in "Shadows of the Night" Abdyl Bey, they know where to hide the money. O homeland, O wealth, this is where the Albanian is separated from the merchant. – You are right Kadri ylli, – Abdyli i Frashëllinje interrupted! – Aesop had stood as if frozen. He hugged the master, the unique stage artist, and addressed him with these words. – The fox still says that the grapes are not ripe. But the Brazilian author Figueiredo, just like almost 45 years ago, remained of the opinion that: "I have seen him in many countries of the world, but the Aesop that I thought and wrote, I found only in this theater!". At the end of the line of characters were Arturo Ui and Commissioner Memo. The first one who raised his interpretation to the top, but also pierced it in the OAN as punishment and re-education. And the second one that brought it back to the stage with a group of amateurs of the company and where the theater almost collapsed because you had twice as many spectators inside. Kadri Roshi's Arthur Ui frightened the dictatorship and the dictator. In complete analogy, people were told that they were not living in freedom, that the clique destroyed everything, even close friends, that life was not worth it, because the society of the poor was a "cauliflower trust". While Koha e Komissarë disappointed the fallen on the battlefield, but that propaganda wanted spectacle with the betrayed ideal. When the meeting ritual was over, the master of the stage, the 'People's Artist', the 'Honour of the Nation', Kadri Roshi said these words: "Here I wanted to be born, here I wanted to die, here I wanted to be resurrected, because the Theater has been everything to me , life, dream, passion, work, dedication, ideal, spirit and love for man. Spectators have been and remain my best friends. Therefore, I invite you to applaud for those who dedicated themselves to the theater, the creators and the spectators. Applause lasted with ovations, very long, without end…! In the name of his artistic creations, the character of Arturo Uis was assigned to ask the question: "Unikali Kadri Roshi, how did you create us?". And Kadri Roshi twitching his chin answered: "You are not just people for me, you are characters and you should be known in depth, with the precondition that the artist should love the role. To know it deeply, to understand it, to analyze it in the circumstances with oneself, with the world with society, with the dream, with beauty, with love, with death, with intrigue, with the background, with the trap, with the waves of life and with those of the soul, those that do not appear outside, but that turn the world upside down, ultimately with its absurdity and paradox. Thus, I knew your thoughts, emotions and transmitted them to the audience. The art of the scene is the person who is remade, who has life alive, so much so that the border between the artistic and the human is not distinguished. The theater is life on stage, as long as life is our theater of fate, everyone who lives with the concern of how the homeland is, where the person goes, why the world still groans, since Prometheus gave fire to humanity and went to the rock for retribution! Theater is the philosophy of anthropological art, which travels with the generations on a pilgrimage. Other arts have become industries, theater remains human, it is a spirit! At one point, the artist saw a man. – But who are you, more man? – I am the sailor who took you on the boat when we were fishing in Divjaka. I'm waiting, let's go throw the hooks. I dreamed that he would come. Every January 4th, I come here with the belief that one day you will return, like Jesus who, after being resurrected, before fleeing to heaven with the oath that he would return, once again filled the baskets with fish for his disciples. And I believed you would come back. Now let's fill the crates with fish. – Go, son, before I come, go, I'm going to leave the house to talk to my daughter and son, kiss my nephews and nieces, and I came. Go, go, because your boat is Charon's boat and with it I will go back from where I came. I will leave a kacidhe for that policeman at the gate and I have also kept the "ovule" in my pocket for the tax of the spirit world. They expect me there that I am preparing to play Priam in a tragedy about Troy and Ecuba is the Pelinka Light! Go son go, I will come! Meanwhile, he began to repeat a fragment from the text of the tragedy 'Troy': "Brave Trojans, your name comes from the word Troy, land, homeland." This war will have to be remembered not simply for the love and betrayal of Helen, nor for the horse and the trees, nor for the Achilles heel of Dodona. All these are tricks for history to be distorted, hidden, undone, and rewritten differently in the centuries to come. Don't forget who we are. We are Pelasgians, the first citizens of these spaces, before those who will be called Hellenes came down here. It is we who created the Pelasgian mythology and with our language the gods spoke. People, my brave people, we forgot who we are, the whole history will be for us an evil fate. And in millennia we will remain orphans!". It was as if the voice came from heaven and the master was lost in a blinding light!

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It was January 4, 2014! The institutions were asleep! By Dr. Progress Kabo written on the occasion of the 90th anniversary of his birth. Photo illustration from "Albanian Cinema"

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