Patrick Herrera

The story of how two lonely Russian émigrés met in Paris in the mid-1930s – a white general and a young female waitress, also one of the former – is included in the collection of short stories “Dark Alleys”. Krymov staged the entire cycle this winter at his Laboratory – and left only this short story for Baryshnikov. And Baryshnikov created the character, recalling not the Russian émigrés he had met many of during his first Paris tour, but his father, a career officer in the Soviet army.

The general in the play speaks Russian and French, the stage circle spins, showing the inside of the scenery, the whole action is accompanied by actors-musicians, a light breath is felt in everything. Krymov's signature style is recognizable - the deliberate childishness of the game, gentle irony, a non-linear plot that is revealed not in words, but in artistic associations. And many wonderful inventions that do not move the plot forward in any way, but make it alive, fill it with air. What are the invasions of wind-up toys or the drives in cars around the stage circle worth - a giant postcard drawn on cardboard, where the characters enter, playing with the naive exaggeration of silent film actors.

The performance was greeted coldly at the premiere. The fact is that it was presented as part of the dance festival Les étés de la danse, the audience here is secular, "old-fashioned" and purely ballet. They expected a divertissement "under the star", but got Krymov. And Baryshnikov turned out to be a dramatic actor.

His classical dancer's bearing, which approached the bearing of a professional military man, his personal aura, which coincided with the aura of Bunin's hero, and, finally, his very expressive relationship with space turned out to be close to Krymov's style. The entire pattern of the role is built as a hidden choreography in space. To the drawn-out Russian song "Ah, Vanka" Baryshnikov slowly shaves and puts on his best clothes, but he does it in such a way that every movement, even everyday, is filled with a kind of premonition of dance, in which the entire character and all the inner, unostentatious passion of the hero are expressed.

In Olga's case, the same thing happens to the sweet twittering of Carmen, and the sweet fuss with a cheap dress, which the heroine tries to adapt this way and that way to be an evening dress, matches it, so that in the end she jumps out in just playful underwear, charming in her naivety. Anna Sinyakina is a wonderful actress, but playing the young lady in a Parisian context strongly reminds one of a grisette and does not fit well with the tragic fate of Bunin's heroine, who, although young, is by no means a child, but a woman who has experienced too much and therefore knows the true value of a moment of happiness. The moment of death coincides with Krymov's night of love - this is understandable, this is a very Bunin theme, love as a premonition of death and eternity. I would like to end here.

But the public ultimately expected pure dance. And they got it. After all, Misha, as Paris calls him, was given a solo, and from Alexei Ratmansky. The general's death was equated with the death of a bullfighter, and the role of the muleta was played by the general's greatcoat with its bloody lining. He performed everything with grace, a great dancer, but to what end?

The tragedy of the heroes takes place in Paris in the era that is usually called beautiful, belle époque. And they suffer. There is pain and almost mystical love for lost Russia, everything that makes Bunin's lyrical prose existential. But this dimension is missing in Dmitry Krymov's sweet, interestingly conceived production.

Mikhail Baryshnikov plays a white general - "In Paris"