| At the Stanislavsky Season festival, Eimuntas Nekrošius showed “Song of Songs” The Old Testament names the author of this book as King Solomon (c. 965-928 BC), the greatest of the rulers and wisest of the sages of Israel. The authorship is quite conditional: it is only intended to certify the holiness and wisdom of the book, which begins with a joyful female cry: “May he kiss me with the kiss of his lips! For your caresses are better than wine. From the fragrance of your ointments, your name is like spilled ointment...” (Synodal translation). After three thousand years, poetry will again learn this amazing boldness of comparisons, and will respond with a sensual echo: “Your name is a bird in the hand, / Your name is a piece of ice on the tongue” (M. Tsvetaeva “Poems to Blok”).
A person who reads the Song of Solomon for the first time always finds himself somewhat dumbfounded. He does not have time to understand what is happening to whom, who is speaking when and where the speaker is: in the royal palace, in a shepherd’s tent, on the night streets along which evil guards walk? Who is he/she addressing? Two people talk to each other about their love, exhausted by the inexpressiveness of ordinary words: where and why do strangers burst into the middle of their conversation with their questions: “Why is your beloved better than others?” But since they broke in, it is necessary to explain that he is really better than others. So much so that it’s even funny to compare.
In “The Seasons of Donelaitis” Eimuntas Nekrošius spoke about a world that is not at all rich in beauty, but is wise and kind to people. You just need to trust this world (if only because it was created by God), let serene peace into your life, rejoice at the alternation of springs, autumns, winters - and everything that they bring with them.
“Song of Songs” has much in common with “The Seasons”: Nyakrosius’s picture of the world changes only in details. True, simple objects: an anvil, a scythe, a pole, a rope. The naturalness of gestures and clothes (the costumes, as usual, were designed by Nadezhda Gultyaeva), the amusing inability to preen: the norms of village life calmly extend to the biblical plot (a historian could confirm the director’s correctness: it is no coincidence that in the Old Testament “Song of Songs” sheep and goats are so often mentioned herds). However, issues of world order, so important for Pastor Donelaitis, have no meaning for the heroes of the Song of Songs. For them, everything in the world is just an excuse that allows them to declare their love in a new way.
The play features eight actors, or rather, four couples: Aldona Bendoriute and Salvius Trepulis, Zemina Ashmontaite and Povilas Budrys, Diana Gantsevskaite and Kestitutis Jakstas, Ausra Pukelite and Vaidas Vilius. The main couple - those whom we can conditionally call Shulamith and Solomon - are not highlighted in any way in the program. This is probably important for the MENO FORTAS theater not for ethical reasons (“we are all equal” and other egalitarian nonsense), but for pressing aesthetic reasons. In Nyakrosius's play, the main characters only gradually and not immediately begin to stand out from the general chorus, to isolate themselves, to learn love. Of course, nothing awaits them in the future except complete personal happiness, but we don’t know what will happen: the action of the “Song of Songs” does not end, but is suddenly interrupted (which happens very rarely with Nyakrosius). This is by no means a miscalculation, rather a discovery - the book itself ends in much the same way: “Run, my beloved! Be like a chamois, or a young deer, on the balsam mountains! That's all.
"Song of Songs" is a very revealing and very significant directorial choice. Eimuntas Nyakrosius, when staging performances, has little interest in plot, cause-and-effect relationships; He cares about those internal connections that can most easily be called musical. Performances are structured according to the laws of harmony and counterpoint; This does not mean that the laws of logic are completely abolished. Nyakrosius's theater cannot be called irrational; just a question of “what is this song about?” for him it is a hundred times less important than the song itself. But for most good directors it’s five times, many times ten: that’s the whole difference.
He was able to convey his understanding of theater to Marius Nyakrosius, who became an excellent set designer. When arranging the performance space, Marius Nekrosius always works not with allegorical meanings, but with the direct properties of things: heaviness or lightness, dullness or shine, the ability to rustle or ring, etc. In “Song of Songs” he placed a dozen unnaturally sparkling gas cylinders around the stage, decorated their surface with notches, diamonds, squares, made attachments for taps: in the form of a cross, an eagle, a hollow pyramid, another cross - there is no point in pestering him with question: “What does this mean?” It is important that something heavy and shiny has become unusual from the ordinary and can resemble a colonnade. More importantly, gas cylinders sometimes explode. You have the right to immediately add: “like people” - yes, but do not forget that you added it yourself.
At the beginning of the performance, women's hands appear from behind the scenes, then faces, then a man with a file attaches himself to one of the cylinders: zhik-zhik-zhik - zhik! Zhik-zhik-zhik - zhik! He doesn't try to saw through metal, that's his music. There will be many more similar sounds, responding differently to the music of Mindaugas Urbaitis almost constantly playing from the speakers: knocking, rustling, chiming. There is no need to understand them; you just need to hear them.
Above the stage, in a small metal frame, hangs an apple (the “apple” has no less symbolic meanings than the “rose,” so it’s better to forget them all en masse): everyone on stage takes turns trying to pick it. Reaching with your hand, jumping up, prying with a pole - nothing, of course, works. Here Nyakrosius turns on his peculiar sense of humor: the funniest of the characters (a sort of plump, beefy, overgrown Carlson) comes on stage, relishingly chewing exactly the same, even more beautiful apple. It takes too long to describe how the others look at him, so we immediately jump into the denouement of the reprise: someone stern and shaven-headed approaches the strong man, carefully studies the situation - and with two fingers pulls out of the apple a whitish worm, twenty centimeters long. Having examined the prey, he throws it into a flock of women: they, of course, scream in horror. But also from joy: it means that this apple was not real after all.
Soon after this, the first words will be heard: “Come back, come back, Shulamyanka” (“Look around, look around, Shulamite” - the beginning of the 7th chapter in the synodal translation), and the main of all love stories will begin. This is where criticism should stop. Not for ethical, but again for aesthetic reasons: the intensity of stage life, the concentration of action in Nyakrosius’s performances is such that every five minutes it is necessary to describe two hours. Moreover, the density and coherence of living tissue is such that tearing out pieces is almost criminal. However, I will still tear out one piece. He seems to me to be the main character in the play.
Solomon and Shulamith are left alone again (what had happened to them before this!). He again wants to talk about love: “How beautiful you are, how attractive, beloved!..” - but can one say how beautiful you are? He again looks for words, rejoicing in everything he finds: your belly is a round cup in which the fragrant wine does not run dry; your neck is like a pillar of ivory, your eyes are like the lakes of Heshbon; your nose is the Tower of Lebanon, facing Damascus... The action returns again to the 7th chapter; I am quoting inaccurately and incompletely. The authenticity of the sensation is important: all these words are heard for the first time. No one has ever said this to anyone. Solomon himself is not satisfied with any comparison - having said something, he waves his hand in annoyance: not this, not that, you don’t fit into words. And Shulamith looks at him, quietly and selflessly melting: is this all about me?
The speaker's inability to say what he wants is redeemed by the listener's ability to understand what is left unsaid. This relates not only to the Nyakrosius Theater. Alexander SOKOLYANSKY |
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