Fedryshchenko

Director Andriy Zholdak remade the myth of Phaedrus

The play “Phaedra. The Golden Ear”, which appeared on the stage of the Theater of Nations, is extremely convenient for description and difficult to parse - like, indeed, everything that director Zholdak, a supernova (familiar to Muscovites since 2001) star of the Ukrainian stage, does. There are many reasons for this, but the main one, I think, is the insurmountable fragmentation of the director’s plots. It cannot be said that Zholdak’s “Phaedra” is incoherent, illogical, etc.: it has a clear, rather simple-minded plot. Here is a hospital for the mentally ill, here a new patient appears in it: Vera Ivanovna Pavlova (the abbreviation is easily recognized: VIP), the wife of a big boss. In an altered state of consciousness, she imagines herself, and maybe she really turns out to be Queen Phaedra: we are told about all this in the beginning with a simplicity worthy of children's matinees (the script and dialogues, assisting the director, were composed by Sergei Korobkov, artistic director of the Theater of Nations). Those around are transformed accordingly: the husband, Comrade Pavlov (Maxim Konovalov, in a different cast Vladimir Bolshov), becomes Theseus, the nameless patient Boy (Evgeny Tkachuk, in a different cast Alexey Grishin) becomes Hippolytus; the attending physician (Mikhail Yanushkevich) - the nurse Oenone. The stories develop in parallel and almost simultaneously come to a bloody ending. Theseus will kill Hippolytus, Comrade Pavlov will kill the Boy, and Phaedra/Vera Ivanovna (Maria Mironova) will kill both of her husbands at once: she will put on a black wig and a short silver dress, lure her to him under the guise of a prostitute (here the action is naturally transferred to modern Russia) , during the labor process he will gouge out his eyes and then shoot him with a pistol. I would like to consider this scene a parody of a thriller, but, alas, it is played with complete seriousness. Judging by the performances, Andriy Zholdak has no sense of humor at all.

As well as the sense of causality, i.e. understanding of life, especially life in art, as a complex connection of causes and consequences. The plot is the plot: the important thing is that Zholdak’s directorial gestures are very effective, who can argue! - do not flow from one another, do not become, excuse the italics, a plot structure. They just create a bunch of episodes and it's boring.

For fun, you could choose Phaedrus. The Golden Ear" the most obvious nonsense and present them to the reader, turning the review into a feuilleton. Let's try, however, to maintain impartiality: Zholdak is really not an empty person, even if he likes to cheat beyond all measure. When his ideas coincide with the logic of an actor’s existence, when Maria Mironova, Mikhail Yanushkevich, Olga Lapshina (the three of them, in general, are what the performance is based on) receive from the director an offer worthy of their talent, very interesting things happen.

For example: how great does Mironova sound when Phaedra/Vera moans as she hits the plexiglass partition: “Ippolit! Hippolytus!..” - nothing more is said, but the words “hurts”, “quench”, etc. - all the hot, bestial tenderness of Tsvetaev’s Phaedra’s complaint - somehow fit here.

But: when the Doctor/Enona pushes his patient/favorite face down on the floor and jerks on her for a minute and a half - like that, without explanation, for no reason at all - one becomes somewhat ashamed of the director. After all, he’s an adult, it’s time to get rid of these pimples.

But: Olga Lapshina, whose character (Isolda Vasilyevna/Chief Doctor) is obviously excluded from the space of the tragedy, suddenly, after the death of Ippolit/Boy, finds herself in this space. She, standing on the proscenium, pronounces Theramene’s monologue (Racine, Phaedra, d. V, sc. 6). In front of her is a large aquarium with a boat motor lowered into it. Pronouncing brilliant poems that retain their splendor even in translation, Lapshina gradually switches gears - the water is seething and splashing out of the aquarium. “Meanwhile, the sea was bubbling, boiling, / And then a mountain of water appeared on it. / Rushing onto the shore, the foam shaft crashed...": bravo! The technique seems to be simple, but we must take into account the organic nature and speech habits of the actress, who very precisely and unusually chose for her voice a place between tragic declamation and rustic, womanish hysteria. I dare say that this scene is the best in the play.

But: the Doctor and Vera Ivanovna are having a decorous dinner, having a heart-to-heart conversation. “How did the baby sleep? - I saw adult-super-adult dreams. -- Scary? “Like black coffee” - and the words are not spoken, but are displayed on the screen. M.b., this dialogue is a quotation unknown to me, m.b., it is Sergei Korobkov’s own composition, but when Racine’s poems flowed after it (albeit in a weak and muddy trickle) - but here I will stop and quote Nabokov: “ It was as if the voice of the violin suddenly drowned out the chatter of the patriarchal cretin” (“The Gift”, chapter three).

“Screen,” I wrote, “aquarium,” “plexiglass partition”—perhaps it’s time to place all this in space. Artist Tita Dimova (Bulgaria) divided the stage of the Theater of Nations into five approximately equal stripes (from backdrop to ramp) with plexiglass, illuminated it with fluorescent tubes, built wooden stages on the proscenium, and let water run under them to create small pools. It is in such a pool, after splashing around with the cheerful girls, that Theseus will stab the unfortunate Hippolytus with a knife. Tita Dimova also hung a screen on top, and Andriy Zholdak sent a man with a video camera (Armen Kairyan) onto the stage: he films and shows the screen.

Stop, stop. Transparent walls. Screen. Camera following the characters. Mental hospital. Parallel existence in two worlds. Mr. Zholdak, Ms. Dimova, have you seen Frank Castorf’s play “The Master and Margarita” (Berlin Volksbühne)? What a coincidence: imagine us too.

Oh, you didn't see. Well, that means they didn't see it. And just to say: ideas are in the air. In recent years, they have been rushing around like a cloud, painfully identical. Just like mosquitoes - and everyone, you know, interbreeds, interbreeds...

No, I understand everything. Hybrid mentalities, “cocktail culture” and so on. However, no cocktail culture will force me to drink any mixture. Moreover, common sense and life experience suggest that incredible nasty things can be mixed from completely benign ingredients. And no one can explain why gin and vermouth go together in the best possible way, and why vodka and port cause mental anguish and belated repentance.

I have nothing against Sergei Korobkov, Andriy Zholdak is quite interesting to me, Jean Racine admires me. In a review, it is not difficult to separate the play from the “script and dialogues”, and the episodes that hit the heart from those that were clearly unsuccessful; on stage, all this forms a rather creepy cocktail called “Fedryshchenko”. And, to put it mildly, drink it yourself.

Alexander SOKOLYANSKY