According to different rules

Theater Ad Spectatores at “New Drama 2006”

An independent theater from Wroclaw came to the festival with Russian plays: Alexander Vartanov’s verbatim “Big Zhrachka” (the Moscow premiere took place three and a half years ago at Teatr.doc) and Ivan Vyrypaev’s miniature “Dreams” (written in 1999 in Irkutsk, about the productions I don’t know anything). For our “new dramatists” such visits are sweeter than honey; they confirm the fact of international recognition: we are not born with bastards, we fully exist in the European theatrical context. Let us note in parentheses that concerns about the “European context” are, apparently, the tonic of Russian cultural consciousness (the dominant concern in this case will be concerns about “national identity”): not at all empty, but, as a rule, concerns fraught with oddities.

The Ad Spectatores performances shown at the festival are in no way similar to each other (starting from the fact that the first was pathologically vulgar, and the second was quite elegant) - nothing except for one thing: in both, the directors rethink the genre of the play in the most unexpected way. They insist on their right to take into account the playwright’s tasks only as much as they want, i.e. on the very right that is most hated by the authors of plays and theorists of the “new drama”. Alexander Vartanov wrote seemingly documentary (at least pretending to be extremely authentic) scenes about how a TV show is made. Here is the presenter cheerfully fake in front of the cameras, here is the painfully incompetent casting and hastily incompetent rehearsals, here is the smoking room overflowing with smoke and obscenities. Here are the episodes of the show: the first involves two frantic transvestites (one of them is “a woman who portrays a man who portrays a woman”), the second features a naked man, covered from head to toe with pate (it is assumed that this pate is from him will lick it off). Well, drinking, of course, and getting laid in the workplace, and melancholy, and hopelessness: everything is just like in life. It is assumed that everything should be played hyper-realistically, so that according to the precepts of Marcel Griaule, who invented the cinema verite style. However, director Anna Ilchuk is not interested in this very verite, she wants it to be funnier, that’s all: she takes “Big Zhrachka” as material for a farce.

The matter is, in general, good. Unfortunately, Ms. Ilchuk’s talent is questionable, and her taste is frankly low-grade: instead of a sparkling farce, she produces canary-colored canine-colored entertainment. The characters in the play are for the most part such that even some of the “new Russian grandmothers” (not to mention Mrs. Monika, Mr. Zyuz and other regulars of the Soviet “Zucchini of 13 Chairs”) look like heroes of a salon comedy played in the best traditions of psychological realism. The actor's falseness makes his cheekbones curl. Any laugh-squeezer would be ashamed of the comic escapades invented by the director who would stage “The Too Married Taxi Driver” in the Russian outback. New drama you say? Well, well.

The two-hour “Big Grub” turned out to be a foul-smelling side dish to the small play “Dreams”, which Agata Kucińska invented, staged and acted in. In “The Eater” she looked the least false and obscene, despite the fact that it was she who had the honor of performing an imitation of sexual intercourse on stage with a partner who was unattractive in every sense; in “Dreams” she turned out to be a good puppeteer, someone who thinks interestingly and works beautifully. Mrs. Kucińska, of course, also made the dolls that sit in the aquariums and pronounce monologues from Vyrypaev’s characters herself.

In his youth, Ivan Vyrypaev wrote a short play (the volume is about five articles like this one), where metaphysical claims in a symbolist spirit are combined with a style focused on the creativity of the Oberiuts. She has only three disadvantages. Firstly, the characters somehow don’t look very much like real people. Secondly, they are all too similar intonation to each other. Thirdly, no matter how hard the author tries, the characters fail to enter into any kind of relationship with each other (the problem of stage communication is the main problem of the authors of the “new drama”, who are increasingly drawn to monologue). By inventing her aquarium pupae, Agata Kucińska solved three problems in one elegant move. Moreover, thanks to her own acting abilities, the sound register has changed. The fact that in a play that easily gives answers to the main questions of existence (what is beauty, love, liberation, God, hell - who would know all this if not a arrogant teenager!) looked infantile, in the play it becomes very touching. A small, ugly doll sits and says sadly: “I believe that the world is ruled by a huge bird. She holds the earth in her paws, the sky in her beak, and her wings are space.”... Lovely.

The festival booklet says about the performance this way: “...The cosmic scope of Vyrypaev’s texts is placed in a very intimate space.” The scope of the texts, placed in space, and “very intimate” at that, is also touching.

Alexander SOKOLYANSKY