Theater formulas

From March 14 to 21, in the program of the FORMA Lab theater laboratory, the play “Individuals and Atomic Proposals” will be shown by the leader of the Russian theatrical avant-garde, founder of the independent association “ Transformer ” Vsevolod Lisovsky. In one short text below about why the theater turned to the ideas of Bertrand Russell, and why it is interesting.

What are “Individuals and Atomic Propositions”? Lisovsky, who has earned the reputation of a radical who decisively reconsiders the very concept, the very essence of theater (the performances “Silence on a Given Topic”, “Feast”, “Implicit Influences” in the theater.Doc), threw an idea into the public space: it would be interesting to work with a play written by mathematical formulas. And the play appeared - it was written by a “techie” from Moscow, financial analyst and programmer Andrei Kiselev. The performance itself is a set of formulas and a preface from the British philosopher and mathematician Bertrand Russell, who in his works sought to synthesize formal and sensory ways of describing the world. The director does not set such a task, but demonstrates the limitations of both paths.

By placing the mathematical premise of the individual and the atomic sentence in the field of the theater, the author of the play arrives at a rhyme: the sentence is the form, the role, and the individual is the actor, the person, the content. Thus, like ancient thinkers who found the harmony of the world in the close relationship of science and art, the natural, speculative and humanitarian, Lisovsky draws funds from mathematics and philosophy to focus on the problems that provoke the most heated debates in the theatrical environment. For example, who is the actor, is the role possible today, what is more interesting to the viewer - written or witnessed, experience or fantasy. And in the end, who is this most modern viewer, and what is his role?

There are two streams in the performance: the first is mathematical calculations recorded on a voice recorder, the second is the speech of the actors in real time. The viewer has a player, he can choose what is more interesting to him or mix it. The actors stand motionless against the wall and talk. This is not a play, it is a mixture of personal statements on various topics, memories and idle thoughts. The sound engineer randomly outputs one or the other to the speakers. Who's listening to whom now? Not clear. The viewer's reaction is unpredictable, and everything, both the hall and the stage, is in the territory of chance. Yes, viewers control something - they switch buttons on the player, they can put on red glasses to see not functions, but people. But, in fact, they don’t know what they will miss and what they won’t, what they will hear and what they will remember.

A modern performance is what happens in the viewer’s head. And “Individuals and Atomic Propositions” is the best illustration of this. Describing the world through your personal experience is fragmentary, a set of particulars. A description by a formula is, ultimately, also a convention, and its possibilities are finite. The play is about the fact that the whole is inaccessible, the Universe is infinite, laws are conditional, private experience is priceless, reality is multifaceted and bottomless.

The director staged the play at the Ugol creative laboratory in Kazan, one of those fashionable venues that, unlike large, stationary theaters, are sensitive to the rapidly changing times and focused on modern art forms. Here, in this small basement space, there are performances by Dmitry Volkostrelov, Semyon Serzin, and plays by one of today's most radical formalist authors, Pavel Pryazhko. Modern theater tends not to wait for the viewer on its territory, but to move towards it, changing the forms and landscapes of familiar city life. It seems all the more no coincidence that Lisovsky’s play appeared in the program of the new theater laboratory launched by the creators of the Forma festival of contemporary art. For the past eight years, a community of fellow curators has been showing viewers art “inside out,” young, bold, synthetic and interdisciplinary, “uncleaned” by critics’ comments, audience assessments, and commercial goals. Likewise, the new theater laboratory continues the theme of researching new forms, but in the space of modern theater, which has recently become the main platform for the synthesis of various areas of art.