"Drama should be dangerous"

On June 14, at the IX Moscow International Open Book Festival (MMOKF) in the Central House of the Artist, together with the creative association “Cultoproject ” and the Theater “Fried Bird”, COLTA.RU will present the project “Dangerous Plays” - the shows of two plays from among the hazardous newspaper Culture: at 15:00 the main director of the theater of puppets named after S.V. Obraztsova, Laureate of the Golden Mask Boris Konstantinov will present his version of the play “The Soul of the Pillows” of Olzhas Zhanaidarov, at 17:00 the chief director of the Puppet Theater of the Republic of Karelia and the nominee of the Golden Mask Prize, Natalya Pakhomova, will show Maxim Kurochkin “herbivores”.

Elena Kovalskaya, theater critic, art director of the Meyerhold Center

A few years ago, the Ministry of Culture - it was then inclined to asphalt paths, which people trodden on their own - established three grants: to support the modern play, young directing and innovation in contemporary art. Together, they supported the young people who are especially difficult to enter into a profession in our system, where, figuratively expressed, a public resource (building, financing, personnel) was privatized by a group of aging figures. So the initiative of the Ministry of Culture was sound and timely. After all, what, for example, is happening with a modern play? The best playwright for the theater today is a dead playwright, since he does not need to pay copyright. Grant made it possible for those theaters who nevertheless accepted the modern play for the production, to pay the author a fee; It remained for the production.

I was invited by the Ministry of Culture to the Expert Council three years ago. Apparently, they called me, because I already read the plays in tons-as an art director of the festival of young drama "Lyubimovka" and the selector of the competition "Actors". The plays that were sent to the Ministry of Culture contest were well known to me in half the cases. At first, the plays were nothing - the theaters did not learn about this grant, so we supported almost everything that came. Every year there were more and more plays, and there was already something to choose from. About a third of the plays are sent by national theaters. There are plays for children. And a lot of new drama is the bread of young directing.

This year, we, experts, sent the plays, appointed the day of the meeting of the Expert Council, we read these plays, prepared for the meeting. And suddenly I find out, and from Facebook that the group of experts was removed - this is Pavel Rudnev, I, Elena Gremin, Roman Dolzhansky. We will conditionally call us supporters of the new drama - a young and angry play.

How much you need to be a crazy person in order to be able to see in the friendship of the child and pillows a hint of propaganda of same -sex love.

The Demarch of the Ministry of Culture was discussed quite noisily, they remembered 1937, when the repression began with the case of theatrical critics. In addition, the whole spring we listened with amazement Dmitry Kiselev, who spent ten minutes in the “Vesti of the Week” for firing volleys about the Moscow Art Theater, Gogol Center and the performance of the Open Scene project. On the screen, the curator of contemporary art pointed a hand of sugar: “Here, during the performance, a girl was lying ... All this meant ...” And Kiselev commented angrily - they say, they saw what the taxpayer’s money was going to? Sugar on the floor, when the country is full of starving. Kiselev came to the premiere of Bogomolov “Karamazov” along with the delegation of the Ministry of Culture. The newspaper Nikita Mikhalkov under the name "Culture" was activated. She doesn’t even take her for sale, and then everyone began to read the notes of Elena Yampolskaya. From this newspaper - not from the official Rossiyskaya Gazeta, not from the Ministry of Culture - we received information which experts we had withdrawn from the council and who we were introduced. In addition, “Culture” made a review of plays and projects that were supported by the Ministry of Culture in previous years, proving the main thesis: modern art is dangerous, all the troubles of modern Russia - from experts of the Ministry of Culture. And in the finale, as if walking, it was said that it was time to deal with the Ministry of Culture itself.

Soon in the Duma a passionate, full of slander and error, the speech of deputy Fedorov with an appeal to the Minister of Medinsky so that he would put things in order in his department. And in the Ministry of Culture, meanwhile, the project “Fundamentals of the State Cultural Policy” was created, which was published, as far as I know, was not and leaked to the media in the form of theses: “Russia is not Europe”, “Russian means Russian” and other wonderful slogans. In a word, the Ministry of Culture compromised himself. Or he was compromised, I do not undertake to say. It became obvious that the campaign was deployed against Medinsky and his team. Or, wider, - the same “change of cultural elites”, which has long been mentioned, is performed. Everyone began to seriously see Medinsky’s peace and predict that the next minister will be the man Nikita Mikhalkov. What the devil does not joke - maybe, and Yampolskaya. They began to regret Medinsky and recall him with a kind word-because it was with him that progressive grants appeared, with him, a culture in the national republics, where financing began, began to improve, and the touring policy began to improve. Well, different things.

For me, so God with them, with the elites. Change the elites, officials, experts - from rotation more benefit than harm. But the old ones supported the variety in culture. And new ones are looking for uniformity and come with prohibitions. It can be predicted that whole directions in art will be ditch. For example, a new drama. Her clan line is a critical attitude to reality. “They form the image of Russia as a country in which you do not want to live,” writes Culture. Sorry, but we have no other playwrights for you. So, they are denied the right to exist? New bloodthirsty says: "Do what you want, but with your own money." A pretty business: over the years, we have not had a legislative basis for non -state culture. There are no tax benefits, preferential lease for cultural institutions. We do not even have a law on philanthropy! This bothers me much more than the coming elites in culture. In the end, there are no artists behind them, there is nothing but banners. If we were, we would know them. The question is what to do to whom they do not leave a chance in the public sector.

In April, a new, more adequate project “Fundamentals” appeared. It was written by a group under the Presidential Council for Culture. Now public discussions of the project "Fundamentals" have been announced. Apparently, by September a new edition will appear. In parallel, work is underway on new culture legislation. I think this is the moment when we can create - or at least try to create - a new public agreement on culture and art. It is necessary to take into account the interests of both culture and artists. And to distinguish these two concepts. After all, this is not the same thing. The culture accumulates and stores the achievements of the past and the present. And the artist’s generic property is to undermine culture, transgress. Culture is borders. And the artist by his nature is a violator of borders. So today, not only artists are taken by prohibitive measures, which, for a minute, is guaranteed by the Constitution of the Russian Federation. The viewer is also taken freedom of choice. What will be these “foundations” and what the new legislation will be will also depend on us. Therefore, it is necessary to arrange his discussions in workshops and guilds, form a request, make proposals. In short, you need to work. Among those who enter the working group, there are several adequate, more than sane people. For example, Vladimir Tolstoy and Valery Fokin.

How to act in the upcoming circumstances of the lack of freedom of creativity? Someone will partisan. Someone, like Elena Gremina and her non-state, private “Theater. doc ", does not intend to rewrite the plays; The theater will defend its rights in the Constitutional Court. In the center of Meyerhold, where I am an art director, a public discussion of the project “Fundamentals” is organized; We will be Vladimir Tolstoy, one of the authors of this document. And Kolt with a “fried bird” will be shown two “dangerous plays” so that people can appreciate - which is more dangerous, the “soul of a pillow” or the newspaper “Culture”.

For “fried bird” this is the first project. This partisan theater itself has become a reaction to what is happening in culture. In fact, this is a group of people - directors, artists, producers of the Puppet Theater, who work in different other projects together and similarly assess the situation in culture. They proceed from the idea that the Puppet Theater is not a flawed theater for small ones, but a theater without borders and a theater for everyone. This company is Natalya Pakhomova, one of the best Russian directors, and Boris Konstantinov is Superstar, the Glavrezh Obraztsov Theater.

It will be interesting to see how Pakhomova will make “herbivores”: Kurochkin’s plays are completely dizzying, but they are more interesting to read with their eyes than to see on stage. They are too tough for people. Maybe the dolls will succeed in what people cannot succeed.

Olzhas Zhanidarov, playwright

As far as I remember, the “culture” accused me of promoting homosexuality in my play. Such a conclusion was made from the fact that the protagonist, pillows, male name - my hero, if you remember, meets the boy, and friendship is tied between them. I admit honestly: for the first time I was faced with such an interpretation of the “soul of a pillow” - and such an interpretation, of course, cannot but amaze. Maybe people today have become more spoiled and in friendship between two people (or children) of the same sex see some secret meaning, but in fact there is a stable tradition of children's works about the friendship of two girls, two boys or, say, about male friendship. And if in every such work to see only what the editor -in -chief of “Culture” examined in the “Pillow Soul” ... This is pure distortion, moreover, in the spirit of Soviet times, in the spirit of the newspaper Pravda - compare the language that wrote the crushing editorials of Stalin's times, and the article in “Culture”. I really wonder: did the author sincerely wrote this article and believed that she writes, drawing his conclusions from a pure heart?

Boris Konstantinov, director

I was offered to take part in “Dangerous plays” by colleagues from the creative association “Cultproekt”: at their request, I read the play from among those that put on a shelf, the so -called “culture” of texts prohibited by the newspaper. It turned out that there is nothing in the “pillow soul” of which her author is accused of - they simply pulled out phrases out of context. How much you need to be a crazy person in order to be able to see in the friendship of the child and pillows a hint of propaganda of same -sex love. This is a fairy tale, there is no word about love in a fairy tale, in fairy tales, everything is just lying. Olzhas Zhanidarov wrote a play about how two loneliness met: an animated pillow, suffering from that it is not stuffed with fluff and pen, like everything around, but buckwheat, and a boy who cannot sleep on a pillow, because he has an allergy to the fluff. Maybe an adult “the soul of a pillow” will seem difficult, but the children are smarter than we think of them. Children are so smart, so deep, capable of so amazingly fantasize - they only need to give decoy.

The fact that this play was in the list of works dangerous for the health of the works is at least strange: this can be made to the point that the “baby and Karlson” can be propagated for the propaganda of Zoofilia - for the phrase of Carlson “You love the dog more than me”. Yes, and some “foreman” can be prohibited for the same zoophilia ... My setting of the “soul pillow” is not so much a protest as a response word: it seems to me very important to show that there is nothing wrong with this play. Although I am not afraid of the words “protest” - we all have something to protest: it is necessary to deal with the very fact and the existence of lists of “dangerous plays” - the situation currently currently creates a dangerous precedent: if some commissions begin to determine which plays can be shown to the child or the viewer at all, and which will not be, to put it mildly, extremely strange. Although, in fact, strictly speaking, the project “Dangerous plays” is not about protest, but about protection. About protection against injustice, from an unfair accusation. I would like to stop this process - at least for a minute: we can forever deprive modern authors of the desire to compose plays for children. In recent years, texts have appeared, talking to the viewer without any suscoming!

Sonya Durova, program director of the Creative Association "Cultproekt"

The idea of ​​conducting readers “forbidden” by the newspaper “Culture” by the forces of the puppeteers is very good: the techniques of the theater of dolls give a certain degree of detachment, exacerbate the inherent theatrical art as a whole by convention - say, when the toy is stripped to the palm of the hand, this cannot be considered an public demonstration of the genitals, because there are no genitals, but there is only the actor’s hand. We were pleased to respond to the initiative of COLTA.RU: the support of the Puppet Theater and modern drama - two priority areas of the work of the “cultproekt”, besides, we were extremely painfully reacted to the list of “dangerous” texts and the performances staged by them: their creators are mostly our friends and colleagues, with whom we worked and are going to work further, despite everything.

Maxim Kurochkin, playwright

I would well have lived my life without events, I am not looking for them. But the longing for adventures in the subconscious lives. Getting into the “dangerous” list of “culture” is already a little like an adventure, it will not be a shame to write into a biography. This does not happen every year, at least some kind of movement. Of course, this is a symptom of vile times, this is sad information about society, about culture, about the newspaper “Culture”, about what awaits us ahead, about what we have gone in the past. But it cannot be said that I was somehow very upset. Although, on the other hand, it would be unpleasant if I had not been there next to my comrades and people who made wonderful performances and wrote wonderful plays. I know several people offended that I were not in the list of "culture". Indeed, honorable: this is a flattering reaction of dumbass to our work. And then: I read the book the other day, three volumes dedicated to the arts of the Chekists, so against this background the lists of “culture” are not very scary. But the symptom is bad.

It is dangerous when the plays are not read, when they do not try to figure out what it is said there. It is dangerous what is happening on the TV every day, what is poured into the ears and eyes of the simpletons. This is a real danger. And prohibitions, a game in the danger of certain words and some texts-this is a wiring in its pure form. Drama should be dangerous. Danger implies a certain development. Plays are written so that a person goes beyond his everyday existence and could experience that he does not receive his usual routes. To test emotions that are dangerous for his idea of ​​the world are dangerous for his peace, are dangerous for his complacency, his model of existence. In this sense, the word “dangerous” is accurate, so you do not need to reject it. The society has developed skills to ignore any information leading to a violation of its peace. There is nothing new in this, the short -sighted power is interested in not citizens, and citizens are those who can think and ask unpleasant questions, demand a report from it, actively disagree, criticize. The first duty of a citizen is not to love power, to control it, not to allow me to rise. This is a word in defense of modern drama, and not in defense of the mat. As soon as they cope with obscenities, they will remove any word of truth, this is the main goal.

The most offensive in this whole story is that we have already passed this and all this is a repetition of the past. This eats a time when we can talk about something really difficult and analyze a person who is not yet understood and incomprehensible how to live in this world. Instead, we will again describe a person forced to live in the Middle Ages. How to live in the Middle Ages-of course, there are already some skills, this is all described in a heap of smart books, which will also have to be removed from libraries soon, if this goes on. Someone is very afraid to live in the 21st century, because it is really incomprehensible there how to compete, how to develop, how not to be a fool or how to at least hide that you are a fool. But they decided not to hide, but to be the first guys in a medieval village.