Dina Goder. Richard III and black PR

Richard III and black PR
Dina Goder

Publication date: March 1, 2004

Few people remember “ Richard III ” so well that they can immediately quote anything other than: “A horse! Half a kingdom for a horse!” Therefore, when we hear from the stage of “ Satyricon ” a Shakespearean text that sounds unexpectedly topical, we even shudder: was it really there? And how did we not notice before? The theater crossed two little-known translations - a new one by George Ben and an old one by Alexander Druzhinin, changed them a little and turned them into a play that seems to be a response to domestic events in recent years.

Forty-two-year-old Yuri Butusov, a director who is still generally considered to be part of the younger generation of St. Petersburg directing (although he received the Golden Mask five years ago and revealed the trinity to the world: Trukhin-Khabensky-Porechenkov), staged his second performance at Satyricon. The first was Ionesco's " Macbett " - a satiric-like spectacle, bright and swift. By the second performance, Butusov managed to bring the style of "Satyricon" to its apogee: "Richard III" is twice as energetic, three times faster and ten times more saturated with effective theatrical metaphors than "Macbett".

Here, villains and victims rush about to catchy rhythms, murderers perform a dance step, and the Queen Mother with knee-length red curls (Agrippina Steklova) and the Queen Grandmother, grotesquely played by a tall actor (Maxim Averin), mourn the murdered children, throwing up their legs in the cancan. Here, for each murder, a new image is invented, more expressive than the previous one. So the murderers come to Clarence in the Tower - they splash glasses of red wine into him, pouring more and more into their bottles. The wine knocks him off his feet, spreading red stains across his white shirt until the Duke falls silent. Here they cut off the head of Lord Hastings: the young man, huddled in horror in the corner of the throne, is carefully covered with newspapers, as in a hospital, then they wrap his head in newspapers, wrapping it with tape many times. This huge newspaper ball is then brought out to Richard as evidence of the murder. Here they are killing children: the boys are fighting with each other with pillows, at this time the floor of crumpled canvas begins to swell under them with huge bubbles - killers emerge from these waves and, as if joining the game, beat the children to death with the same pillows. In the finale, Richard himself will die at the hands of children with pillows, his body will be rolled into a huge canvas rug, and the boys will jump, trampling this pile of rags, as if trying to crush a bug.

Alexander Shishkin, an artist who worked with Butusov and on Ionesco, placed Richard in a world of clumsy black-and-white graphics, filled with plywood figures of lopsided crows and wolves, giant mice and ugly little men in coats and hats. Here there are disproportionately huge doors drawn crookedly in ink and a table with a chair taller than a man. Shakespeare's scurrying characters in their black and white coats and hats seem next to this furniture like small animals, household pests devouring each other. So from the first minutes they announce to us that we will see “Richard III” on a reduced scale: instead of the gloomy tragedy of atrocities, there is a grotesque fuss around the throne, called a tragic farce in the program.

This has already happened: the main Soviet Richard - Mikhail Ulyanov - was also a funny and disgusting villain, devoid of any greatness and, like a crippled monkey, also climbed onto an exorbitantly large throne. But the current Richard - Konstantin Raikin - is not disgusting and funny, even when he puts on a jester's cap, but is incredibly charming, active and talented. Withered, hunchbacked, lame, Richard hobbles around the stage awkwardly, sideways, but very quickly. He blurts out the first monologue about his unfortunate deformities with a toothbrush in his mouth, washing his face and doing gymnastics. He habitually falls to the ground and rolls around like a dog to scratch his hump, which he cannot reach with his hand. He can't sit still, like there's a spring in him. With sparkling eyes, he tells the audience how he is about to deceive everyone, weaving an intrigue, he gets fired up, hypes himself up and, it seems, already believes in what he is saying, but as soon as the deed is done, he turns to us, sticking out his tongue in delight : I did it!

It’s not about the desire for the throne itself, it’s about the excitement of overcoming obstacles, the desire to manipulate people, which in itself creates an intoxicating feeling of limitless power over them. Teasing us with modern language, Shakespeare's play twisted itself and presented itself as a plot about the triumph of political technologies. It must be said that in the current era of black PR, there is nothing more recognizable than the instructions that the future King Richard - a brilliant orator and professional demagogue with instant reaction - gives to Buckingham (Denis Sukhanov) so that he will present him in the best light to the townspeople and denigrate his opponents. It is also recognizable how the Duke thanked the silent crowd, from which a couple of Buckingham’s assistants liquidly shouted glory to Richard, “for popular support.” And King Richard’s speech to the people: “I appeal to you, my friends...”

Almost each of the actors here plays several roles: Natalya Vdovina turns out to be both Lady Anna and the mad Queen Margarita, Maxim Averin - both King Edward, and his brother Clarence, and their mother the Duchess of York, Timofey Tribuntsev - both Elizabeth's brother and her son , and a murderer, and a monk, a gravedigger, and so on. But even if the audience at some point gets confused about who is who, they don’t worry. In essence, it doesn’t matter, all the characters here are just objects of manipulation, like plywood figures that are carried off the stage under the armpit.

Actually, Butusov had another idea that seemed important to him in this performance. This way and that, he explains to us that poor Richard was very unhappy as a child and was not loved by anyone. That his desire for power is only a replacement for the desire for love, which he cannot count on because of his ugliness. At the end, the tyrant even has a heartbreaking dream about how he, small, standing on a chair, like a poem, tells his first monologue about ugliness. And, listening to him, all those who have already been killed and humiliated by him joyfully applaud, give flowers and dance around him, his mother takes him in his arms, and his nephew lets him roll the wheel.

But all this looks somehow unconvincing. Why feel sorry for someone who is so smart and talented, so winningly charming and successful? Why feel sorry for a man who can get anything from anyone? Why feel sorry for this irresistible cannibal, who devoured so many completely inexpressive and unworthy of his little children? We just love him and are ready for him to become our king.