Guillemolepage

A play about a transvestite spy was shown in Berlin

The dance festival Spielzeit Europa, which will last until December and present to the residents of the German capital the works of Sasha Waltz, Michael Clarke and the debut as a choreographer of the Berlin Ballet prima Nadya Saidakova, opened with the performance “Eonnagata”. This is a joint project of director Robert Lepage, choreographer Russell Malifan and ballerina Sylvie Guillem: they all composed together and are side by side on stage.

The name is made up of two words, in principle familiar to Russian residents - however, perhaps only to those who are seriously interested in their native history and foreign (in this case Japanese) culture. The first word is the surname: the main character of the play was the Chevalier de Eon. The Frenchman, who in the middle of the 18th century served his native country, first at the Russian and then at the English court, is a completely historical figure. There really was such a person in the world who wore either a man's or a woman's dress - in Russia he was considered a woman, in France - a man, in England newspapers organized a discussion on the topic “boy or girl”. De Eon fought duels, once managed to prove in court that he was a woman, and in the end the issue was definitely closed only by forensic doctors (excuse the pun) during the autopsy - it turned out that biologically he was definitely a man. Valentin Pikul at one time made him the hero of the novel “Pen and Sword”; not so long ago a series related to it was shown on TV. The second word - “onnagata” - is from the dictionary of Japanese theater: this is how on the distant islands they call men who play female roles in the theater (in traditional Japanese theater, as you know, women do not work). So together we get “Eonnagata”, the lifelong acting of the Chevalier de Eon.

The performance, which lasts an hour and a half and uses a variety of music, from Bach to Japanese drums, consists of three dozen fragments associated with various episodes of the Chevalier’s life. His story is represented by three people: Sylvie Guillem with her ballet outline, as if carved from a frozen flame, and a willful shock of hair whipping over her shoulder blades, is responsible for the female half of de Eon’s soul; the brutally built and bald-shaven Russell Malifan is responsible for the male half. The plump Lepage, whose tights emphasize his tummy, plump shoulders and hips (going on stage next to ballet dancers is suicide even for that actor who does not forget about visiting the “rocking chair”), with his disheveled hair, embodies the horror of that old age in which even sexual characteristics - it is precisely this old age at the end of the performance that will pin down both man and woman with a cane, like butterflies. (De Eon lived to be 82; he died, like many people who shook their lives, in poverty and oblivion.) Thus, the director (and it is clear that when it comes to constructing a story, the main one in this trinity is Lepage) simplifies his task : It’s easier to take a hero apart into his components than to offer a version of how all this could be combined in one person.

It doesn’t fit in any way in the performance. In the first scene, Lepage performs Japanese military exercises - a plump man marks time, pokes his sword around and gets a lot of pleasure from it. (Immediately I remember Ilya Ilf: “After watching the film “Spartacus,” the Roman legate ordered the film factory to be burned; like a true Roman, he could not stand hack-work”; oh, what Miyamoto Musashi would say.) Then Guillem comes on stage, stands still and talks about -English, who was de Eon? From time to time she fiddles with the edge of her camisole - either the ballerina has nowhere to put her hands, or this is the director’s way of indicating excitement. Then Malifan disentangles himself from the giant doll in the kimono - from somewhere in the “stomach”, well, okay, let’s say he’s born. Then all three line up in a row and simultaneously juggle sticks - Guillem's every second pose is like an engraving, Malifan has the energy and severity of a warrior, Lepage again looks like a pensioner in sweatpants going out for exercise.

The key moments of de Eon's biography - a trip to Russia, then to England - are indicated by letters from the French king heard over the broadcast. The letter that the Chevalier writes to his mother sounds the same way (stop paying attention to gossipers, mind your own business). What, in fact, is happening in these countries is not revealed in any way: the story is told not about a successful spy, not about a soldier (he served in the dragoons), not about a diplomat - only about a bisexual (perceiving himself as such, playing himself as such) creature. That is, de Eon’s story was approached exactly from the point of view that was hateful to him: get off your sexual issues, he shouted to the whole world when the English pamphleteers got to him, let’s talk about business - about war, about peace, about kings and dynasties - let's talk.

But even this is not sad, although de Eon would hardly have liked all this. It’s sad that the performance, staged for the first ballerina in the world, for a ballerina who is quite capable (well, she’s still almost half a century away from 82), uses this ballerina’s capabilities to a minimum. Well, that is, it is clear that there is no getting around the class: here are three actors simultaneously sitting on three large tables and riding along them on their butts, so Lepage is fussing around, Malifan, with the precision of a soldier who does not ask why something needs to be done, carries out the task, Guillam flies over the table. When de Eon-Guillem writes letters, she wears a kimono-like white cape. The ballerina gesticulates, argues with invisible opponents, rushes into battle - her arms and legs cut the air, and the fabric, freezing for a second in space, imprints a white decisive hieroglyph into the retina of the viewer's eye. And when the characters sit at cards, Guillem uses not only his upper limbs - don’t sit down to play with ballerinas, they can kick the cards off the table. Even when she just runs across the stage, the people in the hall are already freezing - the quality of movement is the quality of movement. Well, at least she could run more, but even such banal mise-en-scenes as running and disappearing behind a piece of fabric (from behind this piece Malifan appears) are catastrophically few.

Robert Lepage, so beloved by many, once again confirmed what was clear before: he works on banalities. His fame is akin to the fame of Paulo Coelho: the children of a tired time gladly seize the simple solutions to complex issues he sells. (And don’t tell me about Lepage’s metaphors: shortly before the finale, release a couple of carpet-benders, sorting things out with the help of a stick and a ring and meaningfully threading the stick through the ring - that’s called a metaphor, right?) A year later he will stage this story in Moscow, and Evgeny Mironov is promised to star in the leading role. Will he offer the same elementary scheme to one of our best, complex, intelligent actors or will he jump over his head and really tell the story of one de Eon in two persons - well, we’ll see.

Anna GORDEEVA