Seven-flowered at a crossroads
The first international theater festival "Rainbow" is ending in St. Petersburg. The St. Petersburg Theater for Young Spectators named after Bryantsev decided to gather various children's theaters from several countries for a week, show their performances and at the same time decide what to do with the legacy of the once thriving Soviet youth theater movement.

If the festival retains its international status, the organizers should think about changing the symbolism. It is clear that the seven-flowered flower, as a symbol of childish carefreeness, should immerse one in nostalgic bliss for Soviet childhood. But with foreigners, embarrassment cannot be avoided - when they see a rainbow stripe of flowers on festival products and on the theater building, their eyes widen. For modern Europeans, such an emblem can mean one of two things: either the C&A chain of stores or a chain of gay establishments. It remains to be seen which association will do more damage to the noble mission of children's theater.
In essence, this comic misunderstanding is very indicative and fully reflects the difference in status that separates children's theaters in the former Soviet Union from similar theatrical entities in the so-called civilized countries. Russian Youth Theaters are now experiencing a severe psychological complex of isolation from real life. The fact is that in the Soviet theater hierarchy, children's theaters occupied a separate position, but did not experience artistic discrimination. Quite the contrary: it was they who often turned out to be a refuge of relative free-thinking, which somehow paradoxically coexisted with the terry pioneer ideology.
The death of the latter knocked the ground out from under the feet of what was called the Tyuzov movement. However, the theaters themselves work, and, moreover, they still feel like a single community. Many people have gotten rid of the inadequacy of the abbreviation “Youth Theater” by renaming them, the most inventive - into “theaters for children and youth”, others into “Globes”, “Free Spaces”, etc. But all of them are still torn between the inherited sense of pedagogical mission and creative ambitions. Everyone decides how to overcome this stress in their own way. Some live with their eyes closed and continue to stage something about the problems of teenagers, just as Anatoly Aleksin’s dramatizations were staged in the 70s. Others openly spit on the “children’s” status and compete in repertoire with non-children’s theaters. Still others are still engaged in the waste industry about bunnies, the product of which is usually hidden from those whose opinions they value. Examples of all these types were shown at the festival, and they all turned out to be bad in their own way. Maybe because the theaters themselves decided what to bring to St. Petersburg.
All these complexes are unfamiliar to foreigners. Their children's theaters are obviously marginal, do not participate in the games of adult theatrical life, and do not compete for prestigious awards. That is why they do not feel cut off from real life. Therefore, in turn, neither artists nor directors feel inferior. The Berlin theater "Carousel" showed an example of an uncomplicated theater: the play "Goeteschiller - the fighting union of poets" introduces the audience to the work of two poets and at the same time teaches the basics of reading stage text. The two artists just play well and explain everything simply. At the same time, it would be strange to correlate this spectacle, for example, with the general situation in the German theater.
Obviously, our children's theaters are faced with a choice. Either completely renounce all pedagogy, but then no longer expect any concessions, or, having resigned yourself, go to a children's reservation and enjoy it. This is a serious decision and not easy to make. A festival designed for more than one occasion can ease the problems of the transition period. And here the St. Petersburg Youth Theater named after Bryantsev really holds the cards, because it was the first theater for young spectators and still remains the head enterprise of the once thriving industry.

ROMAN Kommersant-Dolzhansky

Newspaper "Kommersant" No. 30 dated February 23, 2000, page 14

Authors:

Roman Dolzhansky