Ndrek Luca
The stage was her life
I first saw her acting in the play "The Deep Roots" where she manifested deep roots of her talent- she was later on to create perfect figures from the national and international drama. By that time she acted so beautifully the part of Fatime the soothsayer, cunning and cynical woman in the play "Halili and Hajria". But the role which gave her the real fame was Loke, first acted by Marie in 1954. Marie was very young, 34, but acted out a grandmother with such credibility and veritable play, that everybody was amazed. Her voice, pondering on a tragic sound, seemed to cover up the great pain, like telling other mothers to remain proud and assembled against such shocks. I acted Leka in the same staging and I was hearing Loke's squeal while I was backstage. With the shock it gave me, I entered at stage to embrace grandmother Loke,
and this moved the public very much. The Marie-Loke passed immediately from one situation to another, giving to drama a certain wave of optimism. That role of Loke defines typically the Albanian mother, and it is far right that it is considered as one of her major roles.
I am apt to recall some happening concerning this part of hers. We were on tour and a mother, after the performance, approached us saying :"Could you find the Loke for me, I want to speak with her?"-"That's me" Marie says.-"You are!!" said the farmer old woman in wonder. -"Yes", answered Marie smiling, "or you think I don't fit for it?" Marie was not dressed in her role's attire. The old woman observed her carefully and turned towards her : -"Don't laugh with an old woman, I want to see the one I saw in
the stage, but you seem to be a young lady. Could you please tell me where she is, I want to say her a few words". Marie says to her with tenderness : -"What do you like to say to her?". And the old woman goes : -"I want to embrace her... to say her that she suffered but the joyous days came at last... Loke's house did not fall to pieces, she had a son left with , but I had none". Marie embraced her, tears in her eyes, and sat talking with her, while we others left away.
Later, when Marie acted the part of Bernarda Alba they said it seem like Lorca had written this part just for her. She manifested so powerfully the despotism through her eyes, her voice and plastics of mimic, transporting such an atmosphere from the stage to the audience. Or to mention her attitude while acting Tringa in the play "The seven knights", as she was parting with her only son, the latter going towards a sure death. Her acting of Gertrude in "Hamlet" and Ledi in "Love and Intrigue", both characters with an immense spiritual world, was of powerful deliverance.
Gjela, the character of "The great flood" was her last role ; she incarnated her complete artistic maturity. This role rejuveniled Marie, giving her potential for her other performances to come. But it remained her very last role.
Her sensible and optimistic temperament, which was revealed through her swift gestures, her photogenic portrait, expressive eyes, were a great help to the establishment of her talent. She had an astonishing quality of shifting from one situation to another doing it all in a natural way. She had, both in life and stage, a full sincerity, which helped her during her artistic career. She communicated with her partners on stage and was never egoistic. She was an excellent partner, highly sensible, providing an extraordinary intuition in grasping the
character. This helped her to embrace the roles thoroughly and than to perform them as a professional.
Marie, like all talented actors, understood that actors should become aware of the creative work, not to be satisfied only with the talent, but to be keep on continues practising.
She read a lot literary works and the folk literature of the country in order to widen her spiritual and mental possibilities. She used to sit and lace the yarns of her roles. During any new performance she tried to offer something new, acting a character as for the first time. Every new character was a new turbulence to her, her second plan was the same good, the way she used the silence, she spoke it in the manner that it could have been spoiled if offered by words. In the end of 1987 she was invited in the party organized by the National Theatre. It was cold and she did not feel quite well, but she did go all the same . She was interviewed that evening. When the next day I asked her impressions from the party she said : -"I was many a time touched and swallowed my tears. I saw a lot of young actors which pleased me, but my eyes could not find rest while searching Loro and Mihal, Sander and Prokop, Naim, Besim, Pjeter and Andrea and Bexhet and Tefta.... many friends that passed away". After a moving pause Pjerin, her son, said: -"I always ask Mom to tape her memoirs but she always postpones it." -"I will do it, Marie says, - but I have to get cured properly first." We talked a lot of staging during her last days. She recalled the parts she had acted and those she could not manage to play. We talked about some programs to be aired by the national
TV broadcast. She forgot her sickness during those talks and you could see her eyes sparkling again while she spoke with passion. She had interviews with any young actors that aspired to enter the stage. She listened them carefully and gave them her best help. She used to say that such engagements made her forget her sickness and that she felt like interpreting her parts again. Once, a senior drama student met her to get some advice concerning the staging of "The deep roots". The student was surprised: Marie remembered the part of Alisa by heart, that she had acted 40 years ago. She said him that she was always exercising her memory, that during the insomniac night hours she repeated the line to herself till she would fall asleep. Today, when Marie Logoreci is not among us any more, the art lovers remember her unforgettable roles on stage. The stage was her life.
Marie acting mothers
Marie was such an actress who knew to observe the expressivity; she was able to spread " the artist’s magic" on stage. Acting in "The lass of the mountains" she chose to "pry", an internal prying, using it as the only element in order to give the idea of the blind person, and to cope, simultaneously, with the lass' world.
When we talk about great actors we feel that their being gets dissolved in front of the audience and goes deep into the character's world ; there it is expanded in the time, in the magic of the part they (artists) are playing, entering anybody 's sentiment. This is valuable for Marie Logoreci, too : her life was dissolved as she was seeking the life of the character she was acting. She has created three different mothers in three plays, "Our land", "The lass of the mountains" and Lorca's "The house of Bernarda Alba". A friend of mine, a poet, has defined better the greatness of the artist Logoreci : "She breaks the role to pieces, like a precious stone breaking the sunrays, and although they are sanrays, they are not the same with one anther".
The figure of Loke, in its radiation, remains complex, and may provide several analytic plans psychologically. In "Our land" she offers three kind of emotions, while representing the old woman who had been wandering for seventeen years seeking justice, and with a face showing the love for her son Leka and her hatred for Tuc Maku, the evil person in the play. Marie once mentioned that she has "always acted a character older than I was or am; but I can say I found a great spiritual world in acting mothers roles".
Her "magic" as an actor was relevant in Lorca's "The house of Bernarda Alba". Marie seem to have studied the author's notes on describing the environment of the play, constructed an opposite circumstance to help her construct the role. She made use of Lorca's contrast given to "the facade lustre" (given to furnishings, white and clean etc.) and that lustre of the situation in the family. The soul of Bernarda Alba’s blacknes, human sensations are destined to bleach and shrivel. Bernarda - Marie knows how to despise her daughters' love and youth sentiments, a great symbol in Lorca's text, an incarnation of the virtues on the Spanish renaissance. Marie knows how to behave on stage, excercising tyranic power in an atmosphere full of prejudgements. Let's follow the text: Bernarda Alba says about her eighty years-old mother: (to the maid) - Send her out in the courtyard, let her scream freely". Then she goes: Go and see her, she might bent near the well. And when the maid says to her that the old woman has no intentions to drown, Bernarda says: I don't intend that... The well is near the garden fence and the neighbours might see her from their windows. This last moment is recited with a terrible calmness, as many critics did observed, devoid of many human sensibility. And so Marie provides three situations in three sentences.
>Marie always said, during several talks, that the actor should find the detail in the spirit of the character the actor is acting. That's why this spirit is, in the roles she acted, almost imperceptible. Marie did not honored episodic parts that much; she was always given a leading part and Marie always thumbed in the book of her character's lives. She was a master of the stage, multydimensional and there remain a lot of her acting skills to be examined yet.
Marie created several distingushed roles like Gertrude in "Hamlet", Ledi Millford in "Intrigue and Love", Tringa in "The seven Knights" etc. Her acting made her to be unified with characters she played. But her real character - nickname remains Loke.
Kolė Jakova
Remembering Marie Logoreci
Those who knew Marie Logoreci, especially those quite related with to her play on the stage feel a proud pain now that she is no longer with us. As time passes by, her figure as an actress increases, and the more her greatest roles will be remembered.
I was appointed director of the first National Theatre, after the World War II . The theatre started its work with amateur actors but there was much love around for art and the stage. Some of them actors had had previous experiences.
In that time Marie appeared.
- You should get with the theatre, I said her.
- But I like to sing, she answered.
- All right, you will sing from time to time. Behije Ēela and Liza Vorfi joined us here, and they used to sing for the National Radio.
-I will think it over, she said.
So Marie joined our ensamble. The directors, Pandi Stillu and Sokrat Mio, who tested her, had both good words for her. The stage was not new to Marie. She was given the leading part in the play, acting next to Naim Frashėri. They were both a great success. Marie made a great job with that role and it was confirmed as a skillfull actress.
As far as my knowledge goes she did not get back to singing again.
Later she had roles, and was distinguishly acting. I have in mind her acting Fatime, the magician - woman in the play "Halili and Hajrie". Her acting with Naim Frashėri was really something rare. Her laughter and that of actor Loro Kovaci's, their behaviour during the play was outraging even to the actors in the studio, so much more to the audience.
Marie had distinguished parts in Shakespeare's plays, in acting Spanish dramas etc.
I had Marie in mind all the time I was writing the play "Our land". I foresaw her with the main role of the play, the Loke's part. The director Pandi Stillu accepted my opinion and Marie decided to take it, with great delight. Apart from the rehearsals she was doing at the studio, she worked also at home, late at night.
Some days later she told me :
- You are driving me insane. I can't pull off Loke from my mind. I try to avoid it, but I can't... I have come to fully embrace it.
The premiere of that play marked a great event. Loke, a loving, honest and honour-seeking mother, delighted the audience...
How painful and noble was her cry as she was told about the murdered son (in the play) reciting : "Nobody dares to weep in this house of mine tonight!". But the spectators were moved.
The line : "Thanks, o Murrash, for all you have done for our honour, for your mother, your sister and brothers, and for our farmers, your friends!", recited on stage, are deeply rooted in my mind. It's true what they say to me : "You Kolė wrote down a Loke, Marie acted one":
That character entered the golden achievements of our theatre as one of the summits of stage acting.
Marie was a distinguished actress of great potential also in Loni Papa's play "The Lass of the mountains" performing the lass' mother, the blind old Prenda. The blind old woman speaks and shocks you. Marie knew the spirit of the people very well. But the lass' mother in not Loke; Marie knew how to be not repetitious and knew how to distinguish one character from the other. This part is also an highlander mother, but it is a different one.
A part also to be remembered is mother Gjela in the play "The great flood". She spoke with her gestures, even when not reciting. She talked whithout speaking. She amazed us even with her silent performance. As she entered the stage, at the beginning of the play, with her stick, dressed up in that national folk costume, typical of the mountains of Kurbin, above that hillside, she resembled an woman coming from the distant, long time ago Illiria, stooping so at midstage as a monument.
A great performance did Marie while acting the characters of the world playwrights such as Shakespeare, Schiller, Lorca and so on.
Marie left behind a whole gallery of roles and dramatic personae, often performed in a genuine acting. Her acting is a great school for our young actors, they will be highly inspired by her way performance.
Gjon Karma
Her eyes and voice were grasping
I remember when still a kid, a girl, somehow younger than me, about seven or eight years old, whose name was Tush. Tush was a plump, beautiful and very sociable child. Although she was her parents’ only kid, she was not pampered or stubborn. I lived in the same street, my gate was just a few meters away from hers. We used to play at each others garden every day with our mates. We asked her to sing and she could start singing without any childish hesitation, and our neighbours would appear in their window panes to listen to her. Her father, Palok Ēurēia, a very honest man and patriot, was a shoemaker and her mother, Roza, was a housewife, very simple, with easy manners and very caring.
-Tush, her mother called her, come quick home.
-Coming, Mom.
Later on, Tush entered the girls college in Shkoder. There the pupils could learn but also sing, recite, played kids theater etc. Tush was the very best at singing and was also involved in some small dramatic pieces. She was now seen less and less into the city streets. During the quiet summer evening the neighhbours could still hear her singing the folk songs of Shkodra area.
Tush left Shkoder when she married Kolė Logoreci, the son of the patriot Mati Logoreci. Although her parents and relatives did not give up the name Tush, it was in Tirana she began to be recognized with her real name: Marie Logoreci.
At first, she sang for Tirana Radio Broadcast and was very well accepted by the public. There she happened to know distinguished artists like Kristaq Antoniu, whom, after inquiring the expression in her eyes and her brave behaviour, advised her to join the theater. Marie had never thought about it. She made a rehearsal and was accepted. That was in 1947. As soon as she was accepted she was given a leading role in a foreign author play, acting next to Naim Frashėri as his partner. I remember the piece very well because I was also in it, and so was Liza Vorfi. Jessie, was Marie’s first part. Excellently performed, it left the audience and her collegues with very good impressions. Than Marie went on playing a variety of characters with the troupe of the National Theater, which brought her fame. She was a double for Elvira in Tartouffe. While acting the part of Alisa in "The deep roots" she was quite unique.
The artist Marie Logoreci brought forth on stage with dignity many characters from classic and contemporary theater, such as: Ledi Milford in Schiller’s "Love and Intrigue", Zabelina in "The Kremlin Clocks", Gertrude in "Hamlet", in Gogol’s "Enemies", in Chekhov’s "Uncle Vania". But she was best in Lorca’s "The house of Bernarda Alba" when she made the audience and her partners tremble on stage by her dominant piercing voice. She acted powerfully and grasped you with her eyes and voice.
June 1998
Besa Imami
Her passion derived from her immense soul
I have known Marie, beautiful as she was with very dark brown eyes, a lively and pleasant women. Her expressive eyes were gentle in tenderness and sharp in cruelty. We have been face to face on stage, as a mother and daughter, as a mother-in-law with her daughter-in-law, as friends, as enemies. She was a serious partner, with a great fantasy. She loved flowers!
We have played togather since long times past till her last part. We have shared almost always the same dressing-room. Once, while we were working on to choosing the masks for the play "The morals of Mrs Dulska", she was anxious because something was lacking in her character. I asked her:
-What’s the matter, Marie?
-I can’t find what is lacking to this make-up, she answered, and than she screamed, I found it! A mole! It’s a mole on the face I have to add; this will make my face cruel but also beautiful, like Mrs Dulska’s.
When we were rehearsing on "Halili and Hajria", I said her:
-Why are you dragging your shoes on?
-Ah, she said, Fatima the soothsayer, who has the difficult task to make Hajrie talk, ought to appear as the master of the house, someone that should make even the rats in the attic tremble.
Our beloved Marie! She used to get up at five o’clock in the morning, watered the flowers in the garden, fed her many doves, then would sit and work on her parts. My memoirs about her are so many!
While we were rehearsing the play "The Pėrkolgjinajs", Marie was doing Mara, a leading role that I think is as good performed as Loke’s; and Marie said:
-I am confused, I lack a relation between me and Mara’s troubles, I am chilly...
Then I saw her hurrying towards some stage objects, grabing an handkerchief. The voice of director Pirro Mani suggested to rehearse it over again. Marie’s Mara sounded quite different, the handkerchief gave her an inner liberation and harmony of the character. Her voice changed, the eyes were glittering, she was phrasing the words precisely, emotions and logic were reaching a perfect exactitude.
There have been many cases when we happened "to die" on stage and the audience applause seemed to command our resurrection. When the audiences applause that means each of us artists has conjured a warm nest in their minds. And this seems to be the case with many of the good artists; they are resurrected countinously, till you never imagine them dying away from the world.