| Anatoly Vasiliev staged Canto XXIII of the Iliad The distant past tends to be flattened in the thoughts of descendants: a century more, a century less, what difference does it make? In the philistine consciousness, the image of Homer is something like this: a gray-haired blind man, sitting under a marble portico somewhere near the Parthenon, melodiously recites: “Wrath, goddess, sing to Achilles, son of Peleus...”, while enlightened Athenians crowd around. This is absurd, if only because Homer and marble have little in common. The Parthenon was built in the age of Pericles (5th century BC), and the Iliad appeared three hundred years earlier. Sitting Homer under the Parthenon is about the same as sitting Peter I at a computer.
You cannot write about the performance of the “School of Dramatic Art” - or, as it is written in the program, a collective work of the School (public) theater - without discussing an important thing. The viewer needs to forget that the Iliad is a classic. The viewer must firmly understand: “The Iliad” is archaic. With all the ensuing consequences: a special, for us impossible, attitude towards a word, an object, a human personality - if such a concept can be applied to the heroes of the Iliad at all. The Age of Homer (let’s believe that Homer is not a group of nameless storytellers, but one genius; it’s more fun that way) is an amazing, unique time when humanity is just beginning the transition from the space of myth to the space of history and, accordingly, begins to be interested in by yourself, by your deeds, by the details of these deeds. Therefore, Homer is verbose in his descriptions: these were the clothes and utensils of Achilles’ warriors; this is how the body of Patroclus was laid on the funeral pyre; This is how the competitions in honor of this burial took place - all with many details, even the most comical (famous lines XXIII, 774-784: an anecdote about how the fleet-footed Ajax slipped on bull dung). This primary truth of life has little to do with what we call realism today, especially psychological realism, where things and cases necessarily explain something and characterize someone in some way. In the Iliad they simply take place. Today's reader may find Homer's meticulousness boring; the Greeks enjoyed it.
As I understand it, one of the tasks of the Vasiliev Theater was to see behind the hexameters of the Iliad what preceded them: the reality of the myth. However, at first, it seems, there were no conceptual tasks at all: “The Twenty-Third Song (The Burial of Patroclus. Games)” is a performance that was born from the training exercises of the “School of Dramatic Art”, from the daily work of the actors. The art of pronouncing animated words, which Vasiliev has considered most important since the 90s, was supplemented by lessons in the martial art of wushu, which Ilya Paramonov, a wonderful actor and a wonderful person, of blessed memory, was the first to give to his comrades at the “School”.
The lessons, I must say, were useful not only in creativity. Ten years ago, there was such a thing, Paramonov and three other actors of “School” (Anurov, Lavrov, Yatsko) on Arbat were seriously accosted by punks: about twelve of them. We had to carry out educational work - probably almost all twelve have now recovered.
The idea of combining hexameters with oriental martial arts seems extravagant only at first glance: these things correspond remarkably well to each other. The point is not even that these are the very first, ancient ways of a person working on himself; the important thing is that in both cases, at first the goal is only victory. Beauty arises incidentally, in between. He who has won by hand or by word, after the battle gives beauty a new, independent meaning: my dead comrade - how beautifully he fought! A fair battle (which almost never happens these days) and crying over the dead are the mother and father of aesthetics. At least this is how things are understood in Vasiliev’s theater, which explores and demonstrates the power of the word. The sound of hexameters in the “School of Dramatic Art” bears as little resemblance to recitation as an explosion resembles murmurs. Here every word is a lunge, a throw, a blow. The word rushes with stunning and menacing clarity, piercing into the listener: “Rejoice, brave Patroclus! and in the house of Hades, rejoice!” - there is not a single emphasis here that would be less important than the others. The fate of the whole statement (attitude to what is happening, intentions for the future) will develop by itself - it cannot but develop when powerful, majestic words meet each other.
Ideally, each of the participants in the performance should work with words in this way (the closest to correct work, in my opinion, are Igor Yatsko and Maria Zaikova), in reality, of course, not everyone is capable of this. In the same way, some of the actors really master martial art, while for others wushu remains an exotic rhythmic gymnastics. There's nothing you can do about it. Around all significant directors, in addition to gifted people, those who make up for the lack of talent with other qualities - say, personal devotion - have always gathered and will continue to gather. Probably, the theater also needs such people, because the appendix exists for something in the human body. It is only important that there are not too many of them and that they do not come to the fore. Can we say that everything is fine with this at the School of Dramatic Art now? - I'm not sure. However, it’s not for me to judge this; my concern is the artistic quality of the performance.
To speak more or less responsibly about “Song Twenty-Three,” you need to have some knowledge. For example, you need to know that the spoken and sung words (Vladimir Martynov’s choirs are solemn and magnificent as always) have one plot, but the actors’ gestures and in general everything that we see with our eyes have a different one, and the program specifically talks about it. You need to know that the beating of infants that takes place on stage (I apologize for the reservation, of course there is no stage, I should have said “in the space of the hall”) has nothing to do with the Iliad: here the future intrudes into the ancient myth, which will begin in Bethlehem. You need to know that shouts of “Yo! -- ABOUT!" or “Yah! “A” – these are not the battle cries of the Myrmidons, but the initial exercises of verbal training developed at the “School”. You need to know that weapons... however, that's enough: you need to know a lot of all sorts of things, most of which are unknown to me just like you.
A natural question arises: why can’t you just come to a performance and enjoy it without knowing anything about it? Can. And I can only envy those who succeed.
Two directors whom I sincerely consider to be geniuses, Vasiliev and Nyakroshyus, love to build performances from semi-intelligible (more precisely, keeping some kind of secret to themselves) episodes. Looking at the scene, I very often do not understand what is happening now; why it happens this way, but I don’t even rack my brains. I see that everything is happening correctly, wisely and intoxicatingly beautiful; I've had enough of this consciousness. If you manage to understand something, it’s nice (it turns out I’m also smart), but understanding is by no means necessary.
By what laws did the choristers rearrange themselves this way and that in “Lamentations of Jeremiah”? What exactly did Vasilyevsky’s Salieri do while conjuring at a glass table, what ritual did he perform? - I don’t know, and it doesn’t matter to me. To admire the art of a calligrapher, you don’t need to know the meaning of the hieroglyph.
I’ll say more: when in the performances of Vasiliev and Nyakroshus the viewer can’t bear to get to the bottom of “what exactly did it mean?”, this is a sure sign: something went wrong. World harmony trembled, the calligrapher planted a blot. Sometimes failures occur in the viewer’s perception itself: tired, came in the wrong mood, distracted, “didn’t get in” - anything can happen. But failure in theatrical work is also possible. In “Song Twenty-Third,” in my opinion, there are glitches: this performance too often allows the viewer to be distracted and to interrupt the connection. Vasiliev probably knows this: the program addresses the viewer with the request: “During the entire action, DO NOT LEAVE the auditorium” (it is printed like that, in capital letters, so it looks more like a prohibition than a request). Of course, this ban was given primarily for the sake of the actors. The wooden amphitheater of the Manege was almost completely dismantled, carpets were laid instead of benches; a person who gets up from the carpet and heads towards the exit is an obstacle to the action. But it is also given in the interests of the audience. There are amazing, majestic moments in the play; a bored person should endure his boredom and wait for them: really, there is something to endure for the sake of it.
The Anatoly Vasiliev Theater has been working on the XXIII song of the Iliad for more than ten years. Can we assume that this work is finished with the release of the play? Hardly. Alexander SOKOLYANSKY |
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