Translated material
Like a person
"The Trial" at the Oleg Tabakov Theater-Studio
“The Trial” in “Tabakerka” was directed by Konstantin Bogomolov, a director who last season made two excellent performances in two different theaters in Moscow. At the Gogol Theater - "Theatrical Romance", on Malaya Bronnaya - "Much Ado About Nothing", and at each of them the audience laughed unusually well - not in a sold-out manner and not in a Kaveen style, it was clear that the impulse of laughter comes from the head, and not from anywhere else. Now Bogomolov has taken on Franz Kafka - the author is not at all funny; but there was still laughter in the hall, and it became finally clear that a new director had come to the capital’s stage, expressing a new time.Chusova’s star took off and burned to the ground along with the wild and cheerful clothing markets that faded into history; Serebrennikov, with the mass of his hasty productions, reflected the beginning of the 2000s with their business energy and the custom of intellectuals working five jobs at once, exhausting themselves critically, but, hopefully, not completely. Bogomolov comes to a new era - freezing, with a reappearing smile on his lips. And he talks about this era.
"Process"? "Process". There is a black pavilion built on the Tabakerka stage, the dark walls are mirrored, and the audience can see their own vague reflection on the back wall. In this black space (in the corner there is also a twisted metal staircase going into the sky), the guards arresting him come to the sleeping Josef K. (the main role went to Ivan Shibanov), where he communicates with the investigator, with the lawyer and finally with the priest. The last chapter - the execution - is transformed from the stupid murder of the hero by the sluggish servants of the “law” into the direct destruction of him by fate (his heart is pierced by an organ pipe flying out from under the grate). And this is fundamental.
Bogomolov's story of Joseph K. is not the story of a victim. The twentieth century, rich in various stories of victims, is examined by the director carefully and put aside. The ending - with the phrase “Like a dog” - has nothing to do with this hero. The story of this Joseph K. is certainly the story of a man. Defending himself and his dignity long enough.
When this Josef K., awakened by the invasion of his apartment by guards who are both chavni-dangerous and pitifully funny, talks to them with a sense of entitlement and rightness, the names of proud entrepreneurs who tried to communicate too freely with the authorities slip through the hall. In Kafka, the hero works in a bank, it is mentioned that he occupies a rather important position there, but from the very beginning in the novel the hero is afraid of the guards and is internally prepared for the fact that they can do anything to him. In the play, Joseph K. is perplexed, irritated, angry, but does not recognize any power over himself for unwanted visitors. This man in a well-tailored suit (absolutely all the other characters are dressed absolutely monstrously, and their suits are torn on their backs - the artist Larisa Lomakina created the most accurate image of “the world is not in order”, because clothes primarily reflect the format of reality) is clearly accustomed to existence according to certain laws. He is ready to negotiate, but he expects the negotiations to follow certain rules. It won't wait.
This whole process is a story of growing bewilderment. So, in fact, it was the same with Kafka, but there horror grew along with bewilderment, here fatigue grew. The reality behind the walls of the bank, which turn out to be glass (and some kind of eavesdropping silhouette looms at every slightly open door), is full of grotesque and monstrous characters. The viewer is offered a series of almost circus, almost clown scenes. Here is the artist Titorelli (Igor Wernik), teaching Josef K. the basics of interacting with the judicial system, endowed with broad manners, a Caucasian accent and a sweet smile familiar to anyone who has ever watched one of the founders of our monumental sculpture, at least on television. Instead of a portrait of the hero, the artist creates a hybrid of Michelangelo’s “David” with an anatomical atlas. Here is the fussy worker Laundress (Jana Sexte) busily satisfying all the men - a portrait of a creature in which there is nothing human left, only a comic set of animal instincts. And even the hero’s uncle (Boris Plotnikov), his only relative shown, is just a combination of an senile, significant voice, provincial prejudices and a basket of apples dragged into the city.
The hero, perplexed and resisting, trying to interact with a world that is unreasonable and incorrect according to the rules of reason, comes to the end tired and disarmed. After an organ arrow has pierced him, he walks up the stairs from the darkness of the stage up to the light - and this ending would be too pathetic if he did not suddenly remember the very beginning of the performance. There, among the guards who came to arrest the hero, there was an investigator with large black wings on his back, that is, everything that was happening no longer had anything to do with earthly affairs. All of Joseph K.'s ordeals, in all likelihood, took place in purgatory, where he passed the path from heretical pride to humility. And this rejection of the obviously possible sociality of the “Trial” and at the same time a malicious, slightly sad and defensively detached look at the existing world is an obvious sign of today’s sad day. Which Bogomolov talks about quite cheerfully.