Russian hallucinations

It turned 10 years since the death of Alexander Litvinenko. The image of a rebel from Russia inspires European artists. In Holland, the Dégrad é Theater duet performs with the play Polonium 210 with a psychedelic performance without the protagonist and plot, from which each viewer makes his idea of Russia and its radioactivity.

Probably, this will be the symbiosis of augmented reality and theatrical art of the future, when for a strong associative experience no narcotic drugs are needed, and it is enough to only immerse consciousness into a certain figurative-sound series.

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Dégradé duet talks about the play Polonium 210

Without a plot. Without characters. Let the viewer himself and his associative memory be in the center, and a feverish carousel from the Moscow subway, flashes of safety instructions in the event of a nuclear strike, fragments of ominous scientific experiments, police caps, gymnasts, dancers, boxers, balloons, balloons that decorate the woman, like a Christmas tree as a Christmas tree, and hopelessness before. The eyes of violence, after the Chernobyl Gorbachev and Putin, and finally perishing Litvinenko. Meltdown comes. Where are we? What distorted world did we get into? How many microsyivers or micro Borentgen have already received? Says a participant in the Dégradé duo, actor and sound engineer Karl Böukman:

Sounds church singing that passes into the composition of Pussy Riot

Karl Böukman: Once on vacation in the Ardennes, I saw the inscription Route d é grad é , that is, “Road in the emergency state”. At that time, we just went badly with constant work, so this association was born. By the way, if you score this word in Google, you will see continuous photos of female haircuts. Perhaps that is why we have a lot of subscribers on Instagram, but among them there are many strange ones - for example, collectors of naked female breast. When preparing a performance, we are guided by intuition. First we collect a huge layer of materials, and then we try everything in a row on the stage. It was not interesting for us to tell the story, to explain how it was. Rather, we want to convey the sensations, the atmosphere around a particular story. If once during the preparation of the performance to tell a story, then this very atmosphere remains to hang, so it must be grabbed, to work with it. And the story lives inside it, like a child in the womb of his mother.

To the question about the figure of Litvinenko, the second half of the duet, the Flemish actor and director David Hysen:

David Haysen: When I read a book about Berezovsky, the image of Litvinenko as a victim arose in front of me. Of course, he was a former KGB officer, an exposer, but when we talked about their plans for several Dutch correspondents working in Russia, they did round eyes: “What are you going to talk about Litvinenko? This is not at all interesting! The only thing he is is interesting is that he was poisoned with radioactive polonium!” In other words, there is an opinion that the murder and the iconographic dying portrait of Litvinenko made him a much larger figure than he was during his lifetime.

- I absolutely disagree. Litvinenko, not only one of the first to say that the Kremlin could stand behind the explosions of houses in September 1999 and the murder of Anna Politkovskaya, but also seriously helped Mi 6 with the investigation of the Kremlin’s connections with the Russian-Spanish Mafia. All this is very serious and important. The tragedy of his conflict with the Russian "autocrat" and a painful death, cruel and simultaneously designed for a multimillion -dollar viewer, the poisoning transfers him to the category of Shakespearean characters.

David Haysen: For us, Litvinenko is a symbol. Everyone asks us: "Your performance is about Litvinenko?" No, our performance is far from only about him.

We decided to seize only the atmosphere - pressure, fear and at the same time openness and freedom of perestroika, freedom that Russia did not endure

Karl Böukman: We had no idea to present Russia in a certain light. We recently returned from Russia and brought, including many positive impressions, despite the fact that we, of course, know how actively propaganda works there. The Dutch viewer perceives the performance as a negatively painted, but we think that this is the influence of the subconscious of the viewer himself, who watches through the filter of his own ideas about Russia. We don’t say anything bad, we let the atmosphere feel, but the viewer himself already fills it with meanings, connotations. We do not give assessments, something is good or bad.

David Haysen: Moreover, we call for sympathy. Show sympathy for people who live in other parts of the world.

Karl Böukman: The old Sympathy song performed by Family Dogg, which we use in the production, initially about how we are well-fed and dressed in our cozy dwellings while people are starving somewhere-in a new context, and in the context of relations between Russia and Europe and the West in general. Given the fact that Russia has become a third world country.

- Russia rolls deeper into the pit of obscurantism, the Middle Ages - especially in terms of using the image of the church. For you, probably, the aggravating theatricality of Russian public rituals should be interesting.

David Haysen: In our performance there are no characters as in a dramatic play, but all the figures mean something. When we sat in Moscow on the terrace of the Strelka fashionable bar, someone said that this place is the crossroads of everything that symbolizes modern Russia: the youth on the terrace drinks Chardone, opposite-the cathedral that was destroyed by Stalin became a city basin, and then again restored and gilded by Yeltsin for the money of the oligarchs, and in which Pussy performed with his performance Pussy Riot, and on the left - the Kremlin, power.

Russia is relevant, we are afraid of Russia

Karl Böukman: The performance first sounds church singing, which passes into the Pussy Riot composition, which we ourselves perform in a rude version, under the bass gitar (otherwise Pussy Riot, since they became famous and had money, the sound has become more commercial), Putin’s voice emerges from this composition, and the effect of polonium on human organism. Then the sound passes almost over the line of possible perception, and Litvinenko dies. Was it a dissident? Or a good policeman married to a ballroom dance performer?

-In Amsterdam, Polonium 210 was shown at the original Oostblok theater platform , in Antwerp-on the 19th floor of the CCTower office giant . The architectural landscape is an important element of psychedelic experience.

Karl Böukman: When we went to Russia, we had already partially advertised the project, and it was somehow scary to go. What turned out to be stupid, of course, because such a small idea for such a small number of spectators does not care about anyone in Moscow. This was said in us by our inner fear, especially in me, because I grew older during the Cold War. I was already in Russia before, and when I first stood on Red Square, I thought how long I scared me! It was a strong experience for me.

- Now scare again!

David Haysen: This was the case with us in the play: the first part is the Stalin time and the Soviet one, the second part is perestroika and Yeltsin, the third part is Putin, in which it was as if there was a repeat of the first part.

Karl Böukman: All this goes more as part of the sound background, without unnecessary explanations.

- But these sound layers can be completely incomprehensible to the Dutch viewer. I immediately have an associative series: Litvinenko - radiation - Chernobyl, and in an ordinary viewer?

Karl Böukman: No, the Dutch hear something else. Putin’s voice, however, find out, he has a special voice. But what he says is not clear to them.

- And you don't want to give a translation?

David Haysen: No, there is no translation. But at the same time, in Dutch there is a text about how polonium affects the body. The whole New Year's speech of Yeltsin is going on in Dutch, when he suddenly presented the successor three months before the election, so something is clear to the Dutch viewer. After all, we have an “extreme visual-sound theater”, a picture and a sound series for us are more important than the script and text. We tried to convey the sensations from Russia, not the facts about it.

- And why did Russia interest you?

We only then realized that exactly ten years passed. It was a curious coincidence

Karl Böukman: Our previous production was the performance of Motel Detroit about the sunset of the American dream. David really wanted to do something about Stalin. You still put such a monologue, right? Even in the theater school? Well, we decided that it was trifling. Let's do it about Russia at all. We did about America, let's now about Russia. They began to collect the material. Of course, this turned out to be an overwhelming task - to do about Russia in general. Russia in general in life will never fit in an hour and 15 minutes of the performance. Then we decided to seize only the atmosphere - pressure, fear and at the same time openness and freedom of perestroika, freedom that Russia did not bear.

- And you have chosen the name of the Polonium 210 performance because your performance was timed to the decade from the day of death of Litvinenko?

Karl Böukman: No, at first it simply seemed to us a beautiful name and a beautiful metaphor - like a poison that is put in a drop in the blood throughout the society. We only then realized that exactly ten years passed. It was a curious coincidence.

David Haysen: Not a day in our newspapers, so that they do not write about Putin. Russia is relevant, we are afraid of Russia. But in Russia, in my opinion, people are not very busy with thoughts about Europe.

- As far as I understand, you wanted to cause the audience a feeling of akin to a narcotic trip.

Spectators who have worse with associative thinking have hard for the first half hour

David Haysen: This is generally our style. They also wrote about our production about America that it looks like David Lynch, all built on the images that there is no storyline. Some spectators who are worse with associative thinking have to have hard for the first half hour. They all analyze who are the characters? But this is not Chekhov. We always change the images, the whole performance is playing the four - our duet and two more actresses. At the same time, Karl plays all the music live.

Karl BEOUKMAN: We create an atmosphere in which everyone has their own experiences and associations, and you, like Russian, will be completely different than, say, some Mintye of Schevengeningen, which has gathered all its ideas from the TV. On the other hand, there are people who know a lot about something, they will have their own experiences. This is the power of this kind of theater. Everyone comes with his backpack of associations.