Translated material
In the area of obsession
Plays for a colony of minors
In the area of obsession. “The price of love”, “punished deception”, “luntik on the moon” - these plays were written by prisoners of the Mozhaisk colony for minors. Quite civilian directors and playwrights are trying to teach them to be creative and from them to get a charge of inspiration - as part of the project “Cool Drama”. Why are people of the theater followed - learned The New Times 
Prillic wire, shepherds and iron doors with magnetic locks do not allow even a second to imagine that there is a pioneer camp around. Although the neat lawn, flowers, alleys and every five steps are posters with quotes of great Russian and Soviet commanders - from Field Marshal Kutuzov to Marshal Zhukov - could well have met there. But the correctional colony stubbornly reminds of itself: you need to hand over a mobile phone, money, medicines, cameras on the checkpoint. Then the search in a separate room. Only after that, accompanied by two employees, they lead to the gym.
The New Times correspondent came to the colony with the director of theater.doc Mikhail Ugarov, the dramaturgy Elena Gremina and Maxim Kurochkin, theatrical critic Elena Kovalskaya. The director was first on the other side of the lattice. “I did not expect that it would take it right away,” Ugarov admitted to the New Times correspondent.
Parental day
The gym is full. In the forefront, along with the pupils of the colony, dressed in the same black robes, their mothers, sisters, brothers are sitting. In the back rows, the rest of the pupils who were unlucky and who did not come to their relatives: shaved heads, pale, almost green faces. Inhibited and gloomy. A little at a distance colony officers. Everyone is waiting for the beginning of the performance. The names of the plays are written on the large schoolboard - their reading will begin from minute to minute.
In front of the audience, twelve boys in white shirts and black trousers sit in a semicircle. Next to them are three girls and two young people. These are directors and playwrights from Moscow. They spent a whole week in Mozhaisk: every day they came to the colony to study with the guys, taught them to come up with and write plays.
Love and potatoes
“Fedor and Pavel are sitting in an expensive restaurant, have breakfast,” the author of the play “September 3” Ivan Moiseev reads in a loud voice.
“Fedor: Look, Pasha, what a letter came to me. Read aloud. "
The other boy, a little lower in tall, Pavel (reads): “Hello, dear Fedya. I thought and realized that my whole life was wrong. And therefore I want to ask you for forgiveness for the long -standing years that you suffered, and rewrite the whole earth with the house in the will. If you read this letter, I am no longer alive. Sincerely yours, father. "
Pavel: Fedya, it's cool! Is there a lot of land there? And the house is big?
Fedya (viciously): Why is it cool? When I was 15 years old, my father beat me strongly, morally destroyed me. I ran away from home and left for Moscow. There he bomzhazed, lived at the station, constantly hungry. Once I got into trouble and just decided to contact my father for help. But when I heard from him that I was no longer a son, I realized that I need to achieve everything myself ... Now I am a businessman, I have everything. In general, I don’t need a house with the ground, I will sell it. ”
In the next scene, Fedor comes to his native village, meets a girl whom he once loved. For it, the curator of the project "Cool Drama" Maria Krupnik reads.
“I am an ordinary village woman ... Do you think that if you have a lot of money, then you can buy the whole world ... Why didn’t you come to the father?”
Fedya breaks down, rude to her, then in the next scene, again drinking with a friend Pavel in a Moscow restaurant, decides to return to his former lover. In the finale, he comes to her with a bouquet of flowers and a toy pig.
Toward the end of the play, the author Ivan Moiseev diverges, reads expressively: “Kat, forgive me. I never loved anyone. Marry me. ”
Maria Krupnik-Katya: “Oh, Fedka. As he was a fool, he remained. Okay, go into the house, I will give you potatoes.
Katya and Fedor enter the house. End".
Applause. Employees of the colony also clap, and it seems quite sincere. 
Love and death
Ruslan Kara, the author of another play, “The price of love”, is almost 18 years old. He has been in prison for five months, the year remains. Convicted of apartment theft. “I wrote the play for the first time in my life, wrote for three days, I did not expect from myself that it would work out. I wanted to show that love must be achieved on my own, not deception. Due to deception, nothing good will work, ”says Ruslan.
The action of his play takes place in the XV century in the Kingdom of Keningsburg. Prince William from the neighboring kingdom comes to the ball to find the future queen. He liked the girl, but it soon turns out that she is not free and she has a king husband. Then the visiting prince turns to the sorcerer to bewitch the queen. The wizard gives him poison, and the prince pushes him to his opponent - the king. Queen Elizabeth, bewitched by the wizard, forgets the dead spouse and marries Prince William. But after three years, the wizard reveals her terrible truth. And then she decides to execute the prince.
Final ...
“When I’ll go free, I’ll try to become a cook or photographer,” says Ruslan. He likes to write, but so far he has to sew sheets and observe the rules of the routine - otherwise it can be translated for poor behavior to an adult colony. And there are playwrights and directors will not come.
Alien life
For a week, twelve pupils of the Mozhaisk colony wrote eight plays in different genres: from modern dramas, historical tragedies to science fiction and fairy tales.
“The project“ Cool Drama ”and, in particular, the project of work in the Mozhaisk colony is the result of my campaign to President Medvedev in the spring of 2011. There was a meeting with his participation, where the directors and figures of the theater gathered, and we talked about the state support of the theater + society, ”Elena Gremina, head of theater.doc, told The New Times. - Independent theaters work with hard hearing, are engaged in the rehabilitation of alcoholics and drug addicts, put performances with disabled people. And also - with prisoners. We wanted the state to support the independent theater, giving money for social work * * the project partner in the Mozhaisk colony - the Center for Promoting the Reform of Criminal Justice, whose employees regularly go there, bring artists, writers, are engaged in the social rehabilitation of “youngsters” after their liberation ..
The audience in the hall vividly reacted to the reading of the plays: they laughed, applauded. When the performance ended, the audience returned to their huts, and relatives left home, a discussion began. “Agreeing to this project, we wanted to show that the children live in a slightly different world,” said Natalya Fedorova, the head of the educational department of the colony. - Through the plays, through art, boys live what they did while free. This is another step towards restoration, to correction. Thank you for working with our children and let them believe them. ”
Everyone was interested in why most of the plays were not taking place in Russia - in Spain, in fairy -tale kingdoms, even in Arizona. The prisoner Igor Tumanov, who composed the play “My Way”, explained: “What I wrote is the story of my life. Only in the play of the hero was taken into the army, and they put me in prison. Having written my story, I specially transferred the events to Arizona, so that it would be as if it were offered traces. ”
Igor is almost 18 years old, a civil wife and child are waiting for him at home. He has served for a year now, and sitting two more and a half. "
In the zone there is real life, and not the daily grinding of theatrical gossip, a discussion of opposition shares and momentary problems. I want to understand how the guys live and how you can help them
“I understand why the guys transfer the action of their plays to other countries. It is clear why they write about princesses and animals. They are closed with reality,” the playwright Maxim Kurochkin announced the New Times. “I still can’t write about something serious. But I know that someday I have to do this, I will have to overcome fear.”
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"We will not leave them"
“We have ninety people in the colony now,” Natalya Fedorova, head of the educational department, told The New Times. - Most sits for robbery, causing serious bodily harm, for theft. The guys are very happy when they come to them and deal with them. They came to us from the film school, also there was an interesting project. But the main thing is that these guys cannot be thrown. If you have already begun to deal with them, then you need to continue. ”
Directors and playwrights from theater.doc do not want to throw the Mozhaisk colony. They have already issued a collection of plays, presented it to the authors and are going to put these mini-pies in the theater with professional artists. Most likely, the pupils of the Mozhaisk colony will not be able to come to the performance: they will be shown his recording on the video.
“We will go to them about once a month,” promises director Zhenya Berkovich. - Of course, we have no task to make playwrights of these guys. But we will try to establish human relationships with them and force them to create. Otherwise, it turns out that they are simply an “object of charity”. And we do not want to just bring sweets to them, we want to “give them a fishing rod”, teach something. Understanding that they don’t have much time-all the time all the time, work on Schweik-we came up with a simple task: to describe one day in the colony, as if “one day of Ivan Denisovich”, with the smallest details. Let's hope that they will write something like that, and then we will discuss. ”
Zhenya Berkovich says that communication with prisoners gave a lot to herself.
“What did we see when the first time we got into the colony? She argues. - A lot of people in the same situation and in the same clothes. But this is a real life, and not the daily grinding of theatrical gossip, a discussion of the actions of the opposition and momentary problems. I would like to understand how one person differs from another, to understand how these guys live and how to help them. ”
“If you work for a couple of people, then this is already a result,” says Natalya Fedorova. She knows what he was talking about.
According to human rights defenders, relaxation of adolescence is about 20-30%. And more.
“Madness and obsession,” says one of the young playwrights, “ordinary people have already lost this. And these should somehow be saved, treated, protect ... Creativity is the best antidepressant. ”