Return of the "banner"

For the first time in my life, a collective denunciation was written on me - a denunciation to the Minister of Culture. This was done by actors and employees of the Pskov Academic Drama Theater. A.S. Pushkin, in which, at the invitation of the now -defined artistic director Vasily Senin, I set my documentary play .

We created the play together with actors in the English technique of Verbatim, which implies the use of exclusively documentary conversational speech. Only those who wanted to participate were invited to participate. The actors collected the material and, as it seemed to me, did it with pleasure. Although the material was collected in Pskov, the play turned out to be about Russia as a whole - about how gifted people do not find their use, because now in Russian society there are no free, living, talented ones, at the level of state ideology there is a request for vigor, lies, holving and lysoe. It is very easy to blackmail a person in a provincial city - it is enough to fire him from work, and he will be in a miserable position. If you rebel, do not endure - and you died.

The play "Banner" is about this. Her main hero, an intelligent, educated person, a bright philosopher and poet, did not find any other suitable work for himself in Pskov, except in the bathhouse. And he subsequently lost it. To survive, he even had to go to jail.

The Banner's monologue about the boss reads the theater actor.doc Konstantin Kozhevnikov

The play was adopted by the Pskov Theater without a single amendment, about which an act was drawn up. But soon strange things began to happen. The operating artist and production services assigned to me began to sabotage the manufacture of scenery and costumes, although the day of the premiere was approaching. It turned out that the new head of the regional theaters Dmitry Meskhiev was caused by a strong tension, the fact that in the now subordinate team works as a director who had previously staged the performance of Berlusputin in the theater.doc. In addition, the theater administration unexpectedly realized: in the play "Banner" there are unpleasant statements about the authorities. The image of power for my banner is the image of a Samoznan dwarf, who crowned himself and, after the coronation, favorably receiving kisses from the people in the ass.

On the eve of the premiere, I was obliged to conduct a performance of the performance without costumes and scenery, which Meskhiev himself did not appear, but two artists aged - one folk, another honored, secretary of the former artist with a girlfriend and the acting director of the theater. After the run, the honored shouted: "This is an subversive work inside the theater! In this dwarf, the bright image of our president is guessed in this dwarf!" "Go to your Moscow!" - echoed the people. “Oh, why all this reality,” the secretary revealed the mouth. “I regret it so much that I found out what reality there is!”

The next day, the text of the petition of Medinsky appeared, which and. O. Tatyana Martynova, director of the theater, suggested signing to each actor - a participant in the project. Half - signed. But not a single person in the theater is still confessed to the authorship of this "work". With the full text of this wonderful letter, those interested can get acquainted here .

The next day, Minister Medinsky was in the theater. The Governor of the Pskov Region Andrei Turchak also arrived. Well, the new head of the Pskov cultural institutions of Meskhiev. The production was banned as "subversive", as usual in such cases, I was called the "fifth column." Like to speak from the stage of the Academic Theater in a tough documentary language - it is impossible to call a spade a spade - it is impossible, it is better to keep quiet about the authorities.

To come to terms with such is to surrender to the arbitrariness of officials and retrograde. Putting this performance means to resist censorship. The Moscow theater.doc immediately proposed his help to the project, expressing his readiness to accept it on its site. Pskov actors who refused to sign a denunciation of their director, in support of the performance of the performance, took part in a bath photo shoot.

Put a "banner"

Photoshoot of Dmitry Markov

In support of the performance, Moscow theater figures spoke.

Playwright, director and director of theater.doc Elena Gremina

Director-Documentist, artistic director of the "Fig.

The project is now planned to be done on the basis of the theater.doc with mandatory trips to Pskov and St. Petersburg. At the same time, it is necessary to ensure the participation in the play of the Pskov actors who remained true to themselves and their profession and spent a lot of effort on collecting material and working in the production. It is necessary to make scenery, costumes and props, writing music, rental sites. We want to break through to our viewer through censorship, the absence of which is guaranteed in the Russian Constitution.

The support of our friends and spectators is very, very important to us! You can support us here .

Barbara Faer-Theater Director-Documentist