political economy

ANGELS OF DEATH
IN FANTASIES ON THE THEMES OF LOVE

Everything in the work of the Voronezh Opera and Ballet Theater is unusual, starting with the program, which after the standard name of the group says “Office of the Federal Service for Drug Control” and ending with the musical design of the performance, which incorporates songs by Viktor Tsoi and melodies of modern rock bands.

The name of this spectacle is also far from classical - “Angels of Death”. And the subtitle says “modern ballet in 2 acts” to techno music. I immediately remember the advanced youth swirling in the underground of megacities.

However, then - as the music in the "techno" style begins to produce the required decibels and the corps de ballet takes an incredible rhythm from the runway - you understand that no modern ballet is offered to the audience from the stage.

There is no smell of either Picard or Eifman on stage, as they say.

We just have before us a good choreographic fantasy on a topical topic.

On the topic of the harm of drugs.

St. Petersburg maestro Oleg Ignatiev came up with a play about modern Romeo and Juliet, who die not from hostility towards each other, but from their own weakness - the poor fellows succumbed to the corrupting influence of a bad potion. Moreover, where there is love, there is always a place for deceit. And so, in order to defeat his opponent, the seducer stupefies him. And so on...

Ballet and opera performances are a zone of special convention. Who will take seriously the stories told in La Sylphide, The Nutcracker, Swan Lake, Giselle, Iolanta, The Sleeping Beauty, Aida, Rigoletto?

In "Angels of Death" the stated characters Straw, Hemp, Anasha, Marijuana, Heroin, Morphine, Deadly Virus are just cardboard horror stories.

The main character of the performance shown by the theater is Rhythm. Crazy, temperamental, captivating, subjugating.

There were two - they became a crowd. Part of the crowd.

One hour and forty minutes are devoted to the endless Rhythm, which determines the plasticity of the dance, its energy, its mood. To a large extent, this rhythm is set by The Seducer, excellently performed by A. Letyagin. Other solo performers (S. Noskova and D. Kaganer, in particular) still have work to do to make the images invented by the choreographer “work.”

But a lot has already been done - the corps de ballet works great in crowd scenes (praise to teachers and tutors Lyudmila Maslennikova and Pyotr Popov), seemingly simple choreography, combined with modern rhythms, helps to create a dynamic image of the human mass, energetic, sometimes not thinking, living according to its own laws.

One can view the "Angels of Death" as cheap propaganda promoting a so-called healthy lifestyle. Or it can be an experiment that allows you to look at the high art of choreography through the eyes of the younger generation.

And also - as a performance - a reminder of the formidable power of the crowd and its vulnerability: the crowd absorbs the individual, destroying the originality of each of us.

But all this is from the realm of socio-psychological assumptions, and passions are raging on the stage of the Opera and Ballet Theater, forcing the audience to applaud the young performers Dina Bolotova, Ekaterina Lyubykh and other “stars” who have flared up on our ballet stage in recent years.

And - finally.

The performance is performed without the stated intermission, which is understandable: it is very important for the creators of the performance to maintain the rhythm of the entire performance. But at the same time, lengths, repetitions, and random episodes are easily detected.

Is there a need for a “horror story” in “Angels of Death” with the appearance of riot police at a youth disco? Doesn’t the dying farewell of a Girl and a Boy, depicting parting with life with energetic movements of their limbs, look parody? Viktor Tsoi's voice sounds six times - isn't that abundant?

I ask questions that invite thought. The performance is good - it will open the way to the theater for a young viewer (I would like to believe that after "Angels..." the same audience will want to see "Swan Lake" and "La Sylphide", "Giselle" and "The Nutcracker"). He brought the young generation of Voronezh ballet onto the stage, and once again it was confirmed: a ballet school is working fruitfully in our city.

Lev KROYCHIK

MOTH UNDER THE TANK TRACKS

About how the absurdity of life gave birth to the theater of the absurd

Here are two stories.

Story one.

Two soldiers fled from an elite unit near Moscow - two twin brothers, who had not been seen in anything bad in their previous lives. They killed two police officers, took five hostages, and returned fire. As a result of the shootout, one of the fugitives was killed. According to the official version, he shot himself. The hostages were not injured.

The second story.

In an ordinary military unit, lost among the vast expanses of our Motherland, an emergency occurred: a young soldier, solely by the power of his own will, turns himself into a girl. Kolya Lebedushkin becomes Natasha Lebedushkina. Kolya (Natasha) is isolated in the honor club. But when the time comes for exercises, they mercilessly attack. In which he (she) dies.

The first story is from the November newspapers.

The second is from the play “The Moth” of our Youth Theater, based on the play by Pyotr Gladilin.

The absurdity of life gives birth to the theater of the absurd.

In the West, as they say, this has already happened: Ionesco, Beckett, Pinter...

Now the domestic dramaturgy of the “new wave” has taken its toll.

Pyotr Gladilin is a famous playwright: “The Stove in the Flesh”, “Love as Militarism”, “Athenian Evenings” (the latter, by the way, are shown in the enterprise of the House of Actors). Twice - in 1997 and 1998 he was included in the Anti-Booker shortlist.

In the Youth Theater program, “The Moth” is listed as a “fantasy episode.” In such a genre voice, the tragic motives of what is happening turn out to be unclaimed. What could be the demand for a fantasy episode?

But in reality, the country is afraid of its defenders. A camouflage uniform today is a sign of trouble for others.

Camouflage, if you remember, is a method of camouflage that distorts the appearance and contours of an object.

The Russian army distorts ideas about what military service should be like.

So Kolya Lebedushkin strives to free himself from her in such an incredible way. A performance of high tragic origins could take place in the Youth Theater.

It didn't work out.

Why?

Because the relevance of the problem embedded in the text of the play, in its “straightened” form, is not a subject of art.

The stage needs characters.

The playwright considered this requirement unnecessary.

But for some reason the theater (producing director Mikhail Polyakov) did not argue with the playwright.

I write “for some reason” because I remember Gogol’s “Players”, staged by Mikhail Polyakov on the stage of the Youth Theater.

And here is the dull set design (of course, one could take its dullness as a symbolic image of the dullness of army life, but then one should look for some details that emphasize this symbolism), the straightforwardness of the collision between Colonel Kinchin (Yuri Ovchinnikov) and Captain Bagaev (Alexander Novikov), each of whom has his own view of the soldier’s fate of Kolya Lebedushkin (Anna Grebenshchikova and Kira are occupied in this role Kovalev).

In general, it is not difficult to act out the incredible thing that happened in a distant garrison: the boots are three numbers larger; a belt slipping off the stomach; baggy overcoat; non-combatant step - please, here is a portrait of the soldier Lebedushkina.

A bottle of vodka, a hoarse voice, a tired look of a well-worn man - the appearance of the unit commander is obvious.

Metal in the voice, inner smartness - what is not a combatant - a captain.

But "The Moth" is not a story about the relationship between three people within the strict limits of military regulations.

This play is about extra-statutory relationships, paradoxical as it may sound.

The charter kills human feelings. Extra-statutory relations degenerate them.

This could be the case in the play.

If only we were told the tragic story of a moth crushed by a “tank caterpillar” (“The death of a person during training is a common thing,” Captain Bagaev explains casually), a fragile creature who risked not obeying the inhuman laws of life, who risked creating his own world.

If only we were told the tragically cut short story of the failed rebirth of the soul of Andrei Isaevich Kinchin, who, coming in the evenings to the club where Kolya-Natasha temporarily lives, over an aluminum soldier’s mug of coffee, begins to gradually thaw.

And then - everything breaks off. Because the life of the barracks is not Baudelaire, not a theater, not a game of an imaginary life, but a harsh necessity to obey the irrevocable demands of feeling

If Yuri Ovchinnikov and his stage colleagues played this eternal struggle between humanity and necessity, it would turn out to be a good performance.

But the dialogue, barely outlined, broke off.

Throughout the entire performance I was constantly intimidated by the army. But I would like them to affirm the value of life. In its significance.

I kept waiting for someone to tell me the story of how Colonel Andrei Isaevich Kinchin came to the regimental club, which became the refuge of the incredible soldier Kolya-Natasha, for something long lost, lost, forgotten. How, warming up in the simple-minded fantasies of recruits, he suddenly realizes the great power of a normal life.

And returns to himself, the original one. But then the engines roared, and life lost its meaning.

Death conquers life.

However, this phrase can be read differently:

Life conquers death.

It's all about intonation.