Dina Goder. Not quite theater at all

Not quite theater at all
Dina Goder

Publication date: March 3, 2004

It happens like this: either there is not a single premiere, or they fall one after another. In February, theater critics were inventing non-existent events, and in March they were already choking, not knowing where to run first. Yesterday, for example, I attended two performances in a row, which in February would have been enough for me to have a whole month of pleasant memories. I’ll tell you about them right away, since both are in the department of “not quite theatre,” which is now more interesting than “quite theatre.”

Writer and singer

"Mice, Boy Kai and the Snow Queen" being prepared at the Stanislavsky Theater next performance, In the morning there was a screening of Pyotr Mamonov's (the genre was listed as "ballet"). At first they explained that this was a technical rehearsal (this was clear from the crowd of technical workers bustling around on stage), but then Mamonov said that everything would remain approximately the same. So I won’t pass off my story as a review (the premiere is only scheduled for March 8th), and you’ll see for yourself what has improved in a week.

So, the content of the performance is Mamonov’s last two albums. In the first act - "Mice", and in the second - the most recent, "Greenie". Here, as Pyotr Nikolaich himself says, for the first time he has completely resigned himself to the will of the directors, he does not pretend to anything and does only the main thing: he sings and dances. But around Mamonov, the directors boldly embroider patterns with a cross. It looks like this: a girl in a tight silver jumpsuit walks back and forth across the stage on skis (“Aha,” we think, “the Snow Queen!”). Behind her is a plump, bald man in a suit and tie. A huge piece of mirror is stuck into his back, sticking out at a sharp angle from his chest (“Kai,” we laugh). And there is also a mysterious character with a huge cracked egg instead of a head (we guess that this is someone called the Egg in the program). They all perform different movements, some of them can do what: wave oars or inflatable balls, stand, sit, perform dance steps. And all this, perhaps, symbolizes something, but in my simple-minded opinion it looks completely meaningless.

The directors - the group "Svoi" (screenwriter Marina Potapova and director Sergei Loban), formerly part of the vigorous ZAIBI movement ("For Anonymous and Free Art"), are now tired of anonymity and decided to become famous. They formulate the idea of ​​their performance as follows: “The fairy tale about the Snow Queen through the eyes of Kai. The story of Kai’s futile journey somewhere to the queen, into eternity. Everyone knows what happened to the girl Gerda, with what difficulty, through what trials she went to her fortunately. But we find only fragmentary information about what happened to the boy Kai: he received shards of ice in his eyes and heart and rushed off to the castle. Then he was rescued. Here is the story of what it was like for Kai to live with the shards. How he saw the world how I lived, what I felt."

The "Svoi" group brought to the performance graduate student-doctor A. Podolsky, portraying Kai, and actor from the Theater of Facial Expression and Gesture G. Aguf, acting as the Egg. The art group "Blind", also participating in the project as a collective choreographer, provided the Snow Queen - Anna Kuznetsova, draped in silver, named without pretense: "interactive biomechanical unit "Isadora Ivanovna Kuznetsova", which is a high-tech device capable of interactive interaction with stage environment through dance." And indeed, the “unit” performs some kind of indistinct dance, but the interactive interaction with the environment, apparently, remains behind the scenes.

All these patterns around Mamonov would not be worth talking about (they are not very distracting), if Pyotr Nikolaich had not said at the press conference that he was tired of being alone and how glad he was that he had finally met good people. I hope enough has already been said about good people, and now about Mamonov.

Mamonov is equal to himself. He creaks and groans: “You sleep the whole night, and sometimes you don’t sleep...” Mutters: “It seems to me that I, too, sometimes...” Yells: “Maybe it would be better if I didn’t drink these 14 bottles beer?" Howls pitifully: “Oh, how I wish someone could watch my inner life...” Moans: “My tongue is all dry in my childish mouth...” Whimpering, writhing: “I can’t touch you on the Internet..." She squeaks and cries: "Sunny, where are you, just warm me up..." She calls out in an orderly tone: "It will be summer immediately!" And suddenly it breaks off like a dry branch - its arms are carried to one side, its legs to the other. Fascinating. And all this nonsense about the fact that Mamonov is Kai’s inner voice or that fat Kai is Mamonov’s nightmare no longer matters. “I’m such a special guy, I’ve been lying in the dust for many, many years, so there’s no need to shake me...”

Someone asked at a press conference: “Why are you wearing shorts on the play poster?” - “Because I’m so small, defenseless, green and who knows who. But I’m a man, and I can even scream!” The lyricism of this performance is of a very special quality, Mamon’s cries and cries about love and sympathy are piercing, and it itself, of course, is a real theater, without any pretentious backup dancers of Andersen’s “support group”.

And you know what would be great? “Now I have a desire to sit down, put on a tape recorder and tell stories that I’ve seen enough of in my life. Were there talking tapes before?” - Mamonov daydreamed at the press conference. If only someone would actually undertake to record an album of such tales. And this material can then turn into an excellent performance. Just, please, one-men-show, without any nonsense.

Artists

The evening performance was “Wet Wedding” by the St. Petersburg group AXE , which came for the anniversary tour of the “Golden Mask”. It’s a pity that “Mask” was never able to bring “Sine loco” from Germany - a grandiose performance that received the Novation award last year. It was played only in St. Petersburg, and there was no longer enough money or opportunity to bring the installation, which occupied the entire 50-meter length of the Lenexpo pavilion, to Moscow.

“Wet Wedding” was played four years ago at the Theater Olympics, on the street, in a narrow gap behind the Hermitage Theater, and then it was a completely different spectacle than it is now on stage. Since then, some episodes have been transferred to other performances (in “Sine loco” I recognized the “wedding” scene, where the characters dipped their faces in bright “paints”: yolk, flour, soot). Other, quiet and subtle episodes appeared only in the “theatrical” version - no one would have noticed them on the street. As the authors themselves, Maxim Isaev and Pavel Semchenko, said, street theater tends more towards destruction, because “the joy of destruction” is a basic thing (a drunk walked past a trash can and kicked it). And I want to build more in the theater.

Well, they again built a whole world on the stage of the Meyerhold Center . In essence, they showed a laboratory for the production of people, a workshop of the gods. Maxim and Pavel again acted as demiurge gods in the most picturesque form - in some incredible skirts, jackets and hats, bearded, with painted faces (Maxim even dyed his hair red). Again everything is squealing and smoking, blocks are moving again and objects are flying off on ropes, there is a large swimming pool in the middle of the stage, and bags are hung on the second floor balcony, from which, instead of a shower, a shower of sand, flour, rice and expanded clay balls will be poured over the newborn person. The workshop of the gods looks clumsy and crooked - everywhere there are home-grown ropes, boards, some kind of brooms and sticks. But this is precisely what the AKHE artists show is truly beautiful, because before us are objects that have a life history: with rusty stains, limescale, peeling paint and cracks, like wrinkles.

This time, two people played with Maxim and Pavel: Barbara Seifert (a German actress who takes part in many AHE performances) and Alexey Merkushev from the Derevo theater. They were the same couple who were transformed from some unconscious human embryos into people and united for further life.

The man is pulled out, completely naked and indifferent, from a pile of earth and pulled up on a rope, carried onto the balcony, where one of the demiurges has already prepared for him the first tests, “washing” with various bulk substances and a black suit. The breath of a cloud of fire revives him, like a soul that has been inhaled. But he is still clumsy and timid. The woman is kept until “birth” under a huge hood, like a canary that they don’t want to wake up.

To the music of Nikolai Sudnik, the demiurges lead their charges from test to test. The fire will blaze, the water will pour and everything will be covered in smoke, “Adam” will be beaten and almost drowned as punishment for his offenses, and a huge slippery salmon will be sawed off on his bare belly. Especially for the heroes, as if explaining the roles, the dolls will play out the story of the rapprochement of a man and a woman. And then, sitting on both sides of the table standing right in the middle of the pool, the new Adam and Eve silently play such a poignant love scene that I have not seen for a long time. All they have to do is pour milk and wine on the table, scatter salt and pepper in front of them and draw strange signs on them. In the finale, after the “making of people,” puddles of water, heaps of ash, cereals, sand and torn fish will remain on the stage.

Maxim and Pavel said: “I really want to make a performance where there won’t be so much destruction, and everything you need will fit in one suitcase.” Not surprisingly, there are always problems with these destructions. Just a month ago, on the way from an American festival, because of AXE, the FBI closed the New York airport for four hours - the dogs smelled the smell of gunpowder in the luggage, and sticks, knives and axes were visible in the light. And now a completely safe performance has been composed - it will be called “Mr. Carmen”, and its premiere will take place in St. Petersburg in ten days. In the meantime, AXE are playing in Moscow, in the St. Petersburg art squat on Pushkinskaya, 10, where Maxim Isaev and Pavel Semchenko live, their exhibition has begun. One of the installations is called “I’ll be there soon” - there, among the photographs, there is a huge collection of notes that artists and their friends left at the door of the studio when they left. Apparently, this time they mean returning home from Moscow.