Marie Logoreci

Marie Logoreci was born in Shkoder on September 23, 1920. Her father Palok Curcija was a craftsman and her mother, Roza, was a housewife. Marie was very early introduced to home financial difficulties and to social dramas of the time also reflected in her family as well. Since her childhood Marie was called with the nickname Tush. She was a good child, chubby and very friendly with her peers. Tush was growing up and soon was enrolled at Stigmatine Sisters, a girls school where religious classes were part of the school program. Later on Tush joined the gymnasium. She was good at drawing; she sang and later started accompanying herself with a mandolin or a guitar. Song and drawing were her passion of that age. Lucky enough almost 20 drawings have survived; they give witness of a mild and delicate spirit, they show a fine capture of the object; the sense of love in those drawings, the sharp and observant eye, the harmony in colors and precision revolves one's thought of her as quite talented. There was singing everywhere Tush was: in her house, at the neighbors, on feast days among relatives. She was doing well at school also. Within a short time she learned Italian and Montenegrin. But what traced her soul deeply were the popular narration and costumes and legends and epic songs of the Northern Albania which she heard from various people visiting her father. Her knowledge which she broadened later in life: the Albanian folklore and ethnography was soon to be her new passion. When Maria was 17 she moved permanently in Tirana because of her passion, and married Kol Logoreci, a laureate in economic studies who then just came back from Vienna. There he also had attended, for almost five years with the Friends of Music, lessons on violin. Kol was a very smart economist and for years he made a career as the Chief of State Budget Department. He was e recipient of the high title of Knight of Scanderbeg Order. Kol was the son of Mati Logoreci himself a very distinguished teacher and linguist, a man of social reputation at his time. He was a descendant of Logoreci family, whose name dates from the years 1300 with the name Logoreseos. Marie's artistic life began as a singer in Tirana National Radio Broadcast in 1945 where she sang solo. She sang folk songs of Shkoder and of Middle Albania, partisan tunes as well. Meanwhile she attended a one year study of canto at Tirana artistic lice under the guidance of Mrs. Jorgjie Truja (recipient of People's Artist Order). Marie also made her appearance in various concerts in Tirana. In 1947 she was a leading singer with the National Chorus giving tour concerts in Albania and abroad. After this confirmation of hers as a talented singer she was offered the chance to act in the National Theatre. Marie faced some initial difficulties with this new performance. So on November 1947 she made became a real stage actress with the National Theatre. Her new career needed a lot of efforts but it brought Marie also joy, renewed passion and success. All of a sudden this was cut short because of family problems and the death of her husband Kole. Now she was facing a human task, that of preventing the character of her only son be effected by the early disappearance of his father. Marie was very systematic at work; she had a tight schedule bur always finding some time to relax in gardening, feeding pigeons, cooking or listening music. She never complained. She was very energetic and hectic, and besides she was gifted with an excellent memory, she could read by heart a number of lines from legends and folk songs, pages from Iliad and Odyssey. Marie Logoreci survives in other people's memories as a candid, simple and sincere human being, very lively, a woman of a range knowledge, some one to hold a talk with or to get an advice from. As an actress she's filled a vast gallery of unforgettable characters as in the way she acted them out masterly, the way she expressed and manifested them. The range of her leading roles is wide enough to comprise characters of quite opponent with one another in mould and psychology. Her professional performing reached emotional borders swinging from bright sides of human psyche to the darkest features of it. We might just recall her part as Alisa Lengton, the whimsical conservative and racist bourgeois lady in the play Deep Roots. Or Gertrude, the suicidal queen in Hamlet. Or Fatime, the woman experienced in court intrigues, servile and arrogant, in Halili and Hajria. Or Bernarda Alba, the dark cold lady in the same title drama. And it is said that hardly anyone that watched Our Land could help weeping at her role of Loke. All her performances of Shakespeare's, of Moliere's, of Lorca's, or Gorki's dramas, as well as them of the Albanian authors - Kol Jakova, Ndrek Luca etc. - demonstrated her particular artistic abilities, and all outlined her portrait as an artist of individuality, of an reflects harmony between her acting and her external plastics. She had managed to have a clear knowledge of the acoustics; she'd achieved such a virtuosity in her actions bridging the distance between her and the audience. Her dynamics and her temperament had marked her voice with a high key of intonation which was suggestive in her stage performances. Marie's long career as an actress brought her the interest to try directing. As a stage director she has made a modest contribution, not really flowering. It did signify though her keen courage to other experiences and her restless vivacity. Marie was also one of the pioneers of the Albanian film. She had a role in the very first Albanian movie, a short feature of about 12 minutes long, produced by the Albanian Film Studio and Albanian Television. Her first film acting is at large within the features of stage performing. Film production in the country was very latent at the time and there were major theatrical hints in it as most of the actors came form theatre schools. All the same Marie's roles in films manifest their particularity and have their value in the history of our cinematography. Marie remained a great stage actress. She shaped her art. She observed life carefully, the life of her people, and accumulated enough experience so she could input it later in her performances. In front of the spectators she created in stage the human soul, pain, protest, revolt, hate, cynicism, hypocrisy, cunning; she offered them the magic of the play, what the real art can invoke. Her artistic lingo was expressive and gaudy; her stage gestures demanded and were applied with masterly affection, and Marie gave life to all those performances signing up her individuality and personal stature in art. Her most successful roles are: Xhes in "The Russian Affair", Alisa Lengton in "Deep Roots", Christina Padera in "The Plot of the Condemned", Fatima in "Halili and Hajria", Alyona Patrovna in "Six Lovers", Loke in "Our Land", Lady Milford in "Intrigue and Love", Triga in "Seven Knights", Gertrude in "Hamlet", Bernarda Alba in "The House of Bernarda Alba", Tadrahova in "The Moral of Madame Dulska", Mother Jun in "The Great Wall", Mara in "The Perkolgjinajs", the old woman in "Everybody's Roof", Prenda in "The Lass of the Mountains", Gjela in "The Big Drown" etc.