Funeral for no return

“Eclipse” on the stage of Lenkom

Should I play Ken Kesey now? The sixties are far away, even further away are the American sixties. The beatniks, who proposed too simple solutions to complex problems (let's free a person - and quickly, and the quickest way to snatch him out of an oppressive society is with the help of LSD and magic mushrooms) is already ancient history. Even the eighties, in which there was not a person who did not watch Milos Forman’s film “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” based on the novel, are already covered with such torn, smoldering and also already covered with ash years that the Lenkom hall, whose average age is forty years, text perceives him as a stranger. And this whole story, which once sounded like a “manifesto of a generation,” about the criminal rebel McMurphy, who ended up from prison in a model psychiatric hospital and explains, using personal example, to its inhabitants, who have been bullied by an imperious nurse, what freedom is, in the play by Alexander Morfov for a long, long time (the entire first act) seems like an old “crazy” joke.

The audience, I must say, is having a lot of fun. No, really, it’s funny: in the sterile hospital world (white-tiled walls, transparent partitions, sparkling metal handrails and light folding chairs - artist David Borovsky), where everything is according to routine, where each patient has his own funny oddity, where “occupational therapy “- this is combing the fur of colored toy hares, where the doctor is a little fussy and the nurse (Elena Shanina; her heroine has an excellent “office” smile and that well-known condescension of a petty, in your situation, a very significant boss , which can make any normal person explode), a disruptor of order, an instinctive disorganizer, finds himself in this world. He entertains the sick by playing cards with pornographic pictures, smokes in the wrong place, laughs constantly (slightly obscenely) - here it must be said that Viktor Golyshev’s translation is generously supplemented with acting jokes born during rehearsals - and stirs and shakes this half-asleep world. (On the screens of three televisions hanging on the walls, even before the start of the performance, deep-sea fish swim thoughtfully; one of McMurphy’s “rebellions” will be an attempt to switch to a football match.) And even if the viewer is deceived by the kind mask of a nurse and, recalling domestic medical institutions, is able to rejoice for the well-being American sufferers, normal sympathy for a “rebel without a cause” will still work in him. After all, this is all a joke, a game, this is almost Carlson’s “smoking” of a nurse - and McMurphy’s escapades are followed by the sure laughter of the audience.

McMurphy is played by Alexander Abdulov. And he does something almost impossible to himself. As if having washed off the tawdry makeup of bad TV series and monstrous parties, he reveals his true face in this role - the face of an old and true actor. Here his hero explodes after the ban on football - and, looking at the face of a nurse that appears on the screen instead of the players, jumping up in his chair like a fan at the stadium, shouts at her as if at a player who had made a mistake, passionately, desperately and angrily. But he calms down in shock after the riot, realizing that he can be left in the establishment forever - and rushes with his little hands to collect the scattered garbage; he has the experience of losing, this McMurphy, and on the actor’s face there is the apprehension and picture-like respect of an old prisoner. Here he throws a party and watches patronizingly as the call girl he invited still manages to drag into bed the uptight and notorious virgin Billy, whose whole life was ruined by his mother with her extreme control (there is not a drop of obscenity in Abdulov’s grin; and two tons of completely unexpected kindness ). It cannot be said that the performance is a benefit performance for Abdulov, the entire ensemble of actors is very good (Sergei Stepanchenko, Andrei Leonov, Sergei Frolov, Villor Kuznetsov, Alexander Sirin, and Ivan Agapov), but the performance rests on it and will become famous for it.

In the second act, which began exactly when McMurphy realized the true danger of the situation, the audience laughs a little more. But somehow he shudders when the hero, who has clearly promised himself to be obedient, gets into a fight with a security guard; I cringe when, after being punished with an electric shock, the hero returns uncoordinated and somewhat swollen (how can you do this to your face in a couple of minutes, huh?). And - he freezes in bewildered silence when the hero is finally killed; it was too much fun, and the public, accustomed to the serial “everything will be fine,” hoped for a happy ending for too long.

But he is not there. Ken Kesey and Milos Forman have it: McMurphy is dead, but, breaking down the door, the Indian Chief, who had been in it for more than ten years, leaves the psychiatric hospital - the hero dies “for our and your freedom,” so to speak. In Morfov's performance, the Leader does not break anything - the metal fence suddenly falls on its own, and the Indian goes into the bright light - it is not clear whether he is either free, or completely out of this world. And the freedom that is so simple - watching what you want on TV, traveling wherever you want, and just drinking at any time of the day or night - turns out to be completely unattainable. Message from Lenkom and Alexander Morfov. Wake for the beatniks.

Anna GORDEEVA