Gleb Sitkovsky. Naked Kozak

Naked Kozak
"Nudes Dress" at the Pushkin Theater

Gleb Sitkovsky

Publication date: December 1, 2000

With seven clothes, and all without fastenings. No, this is not an onion. Read riddles about onions in the “Garden and Vegetable Garden” section , if the Russian Journal ever wants to have one, but for now we are talking about the famous Italian playwright Luigi Pirandello .

In his plays, layer by layer, scene by scene, he carefully packs what is commonly called real life into a wrapper of words. The already puzzled spectators must take off their clothes. At first, perhaps, they will shed tears, but then they will discover that there is nothing under their clothes. No living life for you. However, despite the deception of the audience, it seems that there has never been a case in history where, after performances of Pirandella’s plays, the public demanded their money back.

) into theater studies It was Pirandello who introduced the term “verbal action” ( azione parlata . To speak means to do. His early play “Nudes Dress”, which attracted the attention of the famous director Roman Kozak, is also based on verbal action. One after another, the characters retell a story somewhat similar in plot to “Poor Lisa.” The girl was seduced and abandoned, after which she, of course, decides to commit suicide. Not just by drowning, but by poisoning.

We first hear fragments of this sad story from the famous novelist Ludovico Nota (played by Avangard Leontiev, specially invited from Sovremennik), who aims his typewriter at the life of a girl (Elena Novikova). Then it turns out that the poor girl’s case made it into the newspapers, and it is presented from the stage in the yellowish spirit of a newspaper story. And then some of the characters in this story come out to us, each of whom puts forward their own version of what happened. In general, the nudity in the title of the play refers to the true incident with Ersilia Drei, and everyone dresses this story in their own way.

Roman Kozak probably read somewhere that Pirandello’s style is difficult to attribute to the school of psychological realism. Therefore, the director sees his main goal in a courageous fight against damned psychologism. That is, the more false, the more pretentious the speeches and poses of the gentlemen artists, the better. “You’ve probably already heard that life is a theater? So, life is a bad theater.”

Avant-garde Leontyev shows his skills in his characteristic role - every now and then he spreads his arms wide and hospitably towards his heroine and slightly drawls out his words, as people who have recovered from stuttering usually do. Other roles were composed in an equally grotesque manner. And when actors drag out their lines like that, it seems like they just haven't decided how they want to play - good or bad. To be naked or clothed.

The director is in the same indecision. Roman Kozak has some unfortunate quality - the inability to accurately fulfill any of the tasks set for himself. He kicks over and over again, unable to direct his favorite (obviously his favorite) ball into the pocket. Nothing special, people just have a natural eye for something. Of course, if you get very tense in the audience and make adjustments every minute for the professional inability of the director, you will have an approximate idea of ​​what he is trying to achieve. But I don’t want to strain myself. Increasingly, the gaze wanders behind the backs of the actors - to where the director has placed a large clock, counting down real, not stage, time. In one hour and forty-five minutes it will all be over. You will rise to your feet with relief and think: after all, life is life, and a bad theater is a bad theater.