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Marina Davydova: Some Thoughts on Russian Theatre at the Turn of the Century

January 2008

White dresses. “Our productions are absolutely safe.”

The Russian theatre of the past decade has Throughout the nineties the Russian theatre been largely drawn into the orbit of the theatre existed in a distinctive kind of ghetto, making of Europe. Or it is rather the other way around – no attempts to digest aesthetically the rapidly European drama has turned out of the blue to changing reality: we are here all by ourselves, occupy the Russian theatre space to the effect all dressed in white, while the reality stinks of considerably changing the local theatrical and has nothing to do with us. Paradoxical as landscape. In terms of major theatrical forums it may sound, in the post-perestroika period Moscow has lately left far behind all the capi- we could claim to have Europe’s most asocial tals and mega cities of the world: the Chekhov public and theatre. In the Soviet times theatre Festival, the Territory, the NET, the Stanislavsky managed to substitute, no matter how clum- Season to mention just a few. In the context sily, for the civil society. But it clearly failed to of the current guest tour hullabaloo even the become an integral component of this spring- Golden Mask that is by definition (“national the- ing up new society that was offering a wider atre award and festival”) prescribed to cultivate range of freedoms. predominantly the national stage has scaled up The social and political affectation somehow to acquire the European dimension by bringing ran dry as the long-standing rules of play- along the productions of overseas dignitaries. ing cat-and-mouse game with the authorities became invalid. Furthermore, in the nineties All this has perceptibly contributed to getting the Russian theatre as a curious mixture of over Russia’s traditional isolationism to the ef- sacred traditions and commercial bagatelle fect that the new theatre generation has been (the so called “savage capitalism” exerted a evolving in a radically new context. It is there- very strong influence to bear upon theatre) fore small wonder that this generation has in stayed unaware of the new rhythms and ac- a large measure happened to be in opposition cents and was unable to see the new visual to what may be called the mainstream of the environment we all happened to be in. Now Russian theatre thought of as a quiet preserve in the late 1990-s a new generation came out vigilantly fenced off from the problems of the on stage with the intention to translate these modern world and current aesthetic trends, rhythms and accents, this visual and audio where the great traditions of the past are held environment into the language of theatre. sacred. These people attempted to modernize the 02

Russian theatre and make it concordant with intellectual art, watching art house movies or, the new times. having no better choice, stay home and read the latest publications of intellectual literature. Apparently one of the first attempts to help Today’s theatre-goers are visitors, ladies over the national stage cope with the modern real- forty with girlfriends and a chance public per- ity and enter the European context was made forming Ritualistic Cultural Act.” by the new drama movement. Its emergence was almost directly provoked by missionaries With all his polemical cockiness Ugarov is from London’s Royal Court Theatre. But the right. Indeed, an average production of the seeds they sowed would have hardly come up Russian theatre today exemplifies an amaz- unless they hadn’t fallen on the here and there ing aesthetic anachronism. It seems to have well-dunged soil. been staged not nowadays but some 15 (20, In 2004 The Art of Cinematography quarterly 30) years ago. And the only thing that can be carried an article by Mikhail Ugarov, one of done is to perform the Ritualistic Cultural Act. the founders of the underground Theatre.doc, a melancholic intellectual with predilection for If a person suffers from anemia he is pre- playing dramaturgical games with the Russian scribed a particular medicine. The new drama history and Russian classics. In actual fact has become precisely that bitter pill to be he has proved to be all but the most ardent swallowed by the Russian stage as was pre- proponent of the new theatre religion. Ugarov scribed by those practitioners who had timely wrote (never mind that this is going to be a become aware of the threat. Theatre.doc long quotation): “Our (i.e. Russian) produc- and later the Practica Theatre, established tions are absolutely safe. They will tell you by Edward Boyakov, started to come up with nothing about what is currently happening relevant and topical productions. Suffice it to the country and to us all… As a result of to mention the titles: The Play about Money, these performances none of the villains will Democracy.doc, The War of Moldavians over shudder, no Claudius will leave, covering his the Cardboard Box (about the life of “Gastar- face. And there is no Stanislavsky to exclaim: beiters”), Manager, The Celestials (about ‘I don’t believe!’ at seeing the big lie of our oligarchs). celebration of theatre. And the prospects are no comfort at all. The disease is progressing. The artistic qualities of these stagings are a Young people don’t go to theatre. Fashion- separate and all too often a rather sensitive able tabloids and radio stations carry no question. But doubtlessly they have restored theatre reviews. the balance that was in a large measure disrupted in the Russian theatre. In particular, TV channels show no programs about theatre they endeavored to bring theatre back to the for the ratings are bound to be very low. One “bosom” of the civic society out of which it has to admit that they are right: people have seemed to have irreparably fallen. no need of theatre… Those with a good taste for entertainment are frequenting the places In the meantime a lone and forbidding rock that seem more suitable in terms of high-tech has risen over the violent and silted aesthetic and quality of product. And those aspiring for current known as “new drama” – an Irkutsk- something else are attending the exhibition of born playwright Ivan Vyrypayev.

Some Oxygen in the blood Ivan Vyrypayev

At various times and in various interviews the modern life. Meanwhile, in contrast with most author of the famous The Oxygen maintained of the representatives of “the new writing” he in fully keeping with the new drama postulates seems to be least concerned with recording that writers are called to reflect the realities of the course of this life. 03

Not only is he a “lone ranger” in this current, The most important notions of human life that he is standing up against the trend of which are in the opening scenes of July written in he is invariably considered to be a member. lower-case letters should have been en- The action of his more significant works is grossed toward the finale. The more terrifying set in some cosmic vistas where the demonic is the set-out, the more elevating should be characters are roaming without rudder or the ending. sails, trying to find faith in faithlessness and The sons of the hero, mentioned in passing, love in the absence of love. live in the city of Archangelsk. Just lend an attentive ear to this name. As pronounced With rare exceptions all modern arts are by the amazing actress of Peter Fomenko’s striving to disparage whatever is tradition- Workshop Polina Agureyeva, the monologue ally viewed as sublime, to knock heroes off of the cannibal is subjected to yet another their pedestals, eliminate all kinds of affecta- kind of sublimation, this time sublimation tion assuming that these days affectation is through theatre. It has certainly been a long always false. Vyrypayev rises on the pedestal time since an actress of such reckless bold- and from the top of it addresses God and the ness and such flawless technique was last world. seen on the national stage.

It is not the modernity he is settling the ac- Vyrypayev masterfully conveys the distinctive counts with but the Creator. He is acutely stylistic properties of the “out-of-joint” mod- aware of the ripple soil he is standing on and ern consciousness, unable to find peace in of the flowers of evil that are blossoming on faith or faithlessness. The romanticism with its this soil. He inhales the intoxicating aroma of Manfredian revolt, Dostoyevsky with his men the exotic plants, bunches them up into weird from the underground, Jean Genet with his bouquets and goes out of his way to discern keen interest in the seamy side of human soul the seeds of good among the seeds of evil… – all these and many other things are found in July in the form of flickering literary reminis- The hero of Patrick Zuskind’s Parfumeur cences. comes to believe that an essence, or rather a quintessence, can be distilled not only out of At times his “dressing” of the text and its po- combinations of flowers, but of human beauty etic structure make one even recall Faulkner’s as such. Sound and Fury with its brilliant rendering of weak-headed Benjamin’s stream of con- Vyrypayev is trying to experiment with real- sciousness. But what really matters is the ity in much the same manner as Grenouille process of converting words into the rhythm, experimented with women, namely to distill physiology into emotion, depreciated vocabu- the quintessence. In the production of his lary into poetry. Essentially this conversion play July that was started to be staged at is the theme and story of this remarkable Practica and in the end of the day was staged production. In fact it is the theme of all the by Varypayev’s faithful “companion-in-arms” works of Vyrypayev as an emblematic repre- Viktor Ryzhakov (he also staged The Oxygen sentative of the new drama who is not afraid and Existence No. 2) aesthetic pleasure is to raise the accursed questions of existence derived from the very process of sublimation. and seeks no compromise in this matter. Abounding in obscenities and horrifying phys- iological details the story of a cannibal maniac who killed a neighbor for nothing, strangled and ate up a mangy dog, cut to pieces and devoured his savior Misha, gobbled up a nurse is little by little transformed into a story of a human soul’s wanderings in the vale of life and of the all-consuming devilish love in the literal sense of the word. 04

Playing with plastiline Kirill Serebrennikov

In the beginning closely associated with the general his performances resemble a mod- new drama was one of the most brilliant ern dance performed not to the music but to directors of the new generation Kirill Sere- the text of a play, which seems only logical brennikov. He literally fought his way into considering that both in modern dance and in Moscow’s theatrical scene by staging Vasiliy modern drama the protagonist is always the Sigarev Plasticine at the Center for Playwrit- crowd. ing and Directing. Until that time the Rostov- In both cases the characters are so-and- on-Don-born director assayed his aptitudes sos having nothing notable about them and outside Moscow. And he did it “in one stroke” presenting interest only in their totality. What in theatre, film and television and was even Serebrennikov did was to boldly implement honored with the prestigious TAFI TV award. the technology of interbreeding modern text His second production in Moscow was Mark and modern dance. This didn’t turn shal- Ravenhill’s Some Explicit Polaroids at the low water into an ocean but Serebrennikov subsidiary stage of the Pushkin Theatre. deserves going down in theatre history for having been the first in Russia to find a new “Such plays are not a material but an oc- and, more importantly, an adequate scenic casion for staging, - he used to explain to language for the modern drama. me. – After we cut all the stage directions in Plasticine, all that was left were “shit”, “fuck”, The knack of creating spectacular theatrical “suck”… Such a text is more difficult to work shows is by itself a rare occurrence. But what with than Hamlet. Understand?” Serebrennikov distinctly stands out for is not Yes, I do. Swimming in shallow water is less just that, but first and foremost his ability to comfortable than in an ocean. Serebrennikov combine this knack of his with the bringing up swims and swims and does it well. He is on of acute social issues. Paradoxically enough, the whole a showy director, or rather is quite this ability became especially perceptible after fond of scenic effects and doesn’t shun at he somewhat stepped away from the new scandalous escapades. His productions al- drama and turned to the classics. This abil- ways abound in music, reckless and vibrantly ity appeared as large as life in Ostrovsky’s mischievous acting, reprises, ingenious The Forest, not quite as large in Anthony and (although not always unforced) gaiety. He Cleopatra and later in Figaro. In its treatments is often reproached for lack of chiaroscuro, of the classics the Russian theatre rarely al- profundity, thoughtful silence, but this is not lowed itself to make straightforward social a flaw but the nature of his flair. He is not so statements. much an explorer as a smart show-maker, And when it did, it happened within the consciously staking on billboard luster. It is cramped space of the new drama, like The- unwise to complain that a pink doesn’t smell atre.doc or Praktika Theatre. But the pro- like a rose. It certainly doesn’t but it surely has ductions of these companies were short of many other virtues. spectacle or effect for the simple reason of being small and having no space for a direc- For the “shallow water” drama Serebrennikov tor to really launch out. Meanwhile Serebren- invented a new and in many ways an oppo- nikov needs a lot of space. He knows how to sitional to Stanislavsky “method of physical work with big-timers on a big stage (which is actions.” also rare nowadays). He knows how to turn his compositions into the events of high life. His actors wouldn’t say a word just for the In the meantime he is not indifferent to the sake of it. They would necessarily jump, lie quests of the Western theatre and time and down or perform an acrobatic trick. Physical again he borrows something from it to try and actions don’t induce a desired condition (if adapt them to the Russian soil. you want tension in pronouncing a mono- logue, take a bottle and try to uncork it), This directorial style, socially relevant in dec- but illustrate it in a rather ironical manner. In larations but commercial in form, oriented on 05

the Western art house but rooted in the Rus- makes it related to Zakharov’s works of the sian tradition of benefit performances seems Soviet period becomes especially evident – to be the exclusive product of the present the theme of the lone hero, an idealist among day. However it has analogues in the Soviet- hypocrite go-getters, a romantic in the world Russian past and these analogues are the of pragmatics. productions by Mark Zakharov, the founder of the former Soviet Union’s most popular Zhadov in the legendary Plum Job and Ostap Lenkom Theatre. With all the differences be- Bender, Rezanov and Baron Munchausen – tween these two figures a number of common almost all Zakharov’s characters in the Soviet features are easily detectable. For Zakharov is period fit within this pattern. So in Figaro also a show-maker, staking on effects and to this pattern manifested itself quite clearly. In a degree on the pop component of theatre. It this production the obstinate and thoughtful is not accidental that most of his productions Figaro (Eugeni Mironov) bears more resem- abound in music, including live music. blance to Griboedov’s Chatsky than to the nimble and resilient servant in Beaumarchais’ He also always worked with big-timers and play. Put into his mouth is the monologue that allowed them to have reasonably big time on castigates all the social vices of the modern stage. Much like Serebrennikov he was by world. All the reprises in this production, all its and large accused of trying to pose a com- funny double-dealings are merely a patterned mercial product off for the genuine work of frame for this central motif. The fact that the art. Finally, he is probably the only Russian formally commercial theatre brought up one of practitioner of theatre who tried to combine the central issues of the “stagnation period” the striking, almost Broadway-like theatrical- probably for the first time provided theatrical ity with the raising of acute social issues. The evidence to the effect that the replete decay constants of the Lenkom style can be seen continues to holds sway outside the theatre. with unaided eye in Serebrennikov’s latest Time took a detour to return to the swampy productions. And in Figaro one thing that backwater of the old days…

Postmodern / Postmortem Andrey Moguchy

For the Russian theatre Kirill Serebrennikov The program for his production of Hamlet- became a westernizer with a very Russian machine by Müller - Sorokin abounded in the face. The Western orientation of Andrei Mo- words that frightened off the conservative guchi from St. Petersburg is 100% proof. It public. Hamletmachine is not a play but an took a while before he managed to become interactive performance. Instead of sets there adjusted to the Russian theatre practices. are installations, instead of soundtrack – the He graduated from the Leningrad Institute of sound tricks of a popular DJ. This clamorous Culture but was shaped as an artist during a and blazing opus was quite illustrative of both probation period in Germany and Poland (with Moguchy’s directorial style and of the desti- Krystian Lupa) . He loved (and loves) experi- nies of avant-garde in Russia. While Europe mentation in general and experimentation with was blazing with youth unrest, we were redis- space in particular. Perhaps he was the first covering Brecht and considered Rozov and practitioner in Russia who went in for the so Arbuzov to be precursors of the new aesthet- called “street theatre”. One of his best known ics of theatre. Paradoxical as it may sound, works Orlando Furioso was performed as the the prime objective of the Russian theatre situation required – on stage, in the square, during the thaw period was not to subvert the in a fortress and so forth. Even the name of tradition but to go back to it, back to Stanis- his company – the Formal Theatre – doesn’t lavsky’s maxima and Meyerhold’s directorial sound quite Russian. He was also among the principles. The zeal for overthrow was not first in this country to have staged Heiner Mül- particularly appealing to us on account of the ler and Vladimir Sorokin. specificity of our history. What was appealing 06

was the zeal for reviving whatever had been as a result of reading the novel. The story forgotten, blotted out, primed. We passed of love and death is unwillingly and painfully by the counterculture without taking much born out of stratification and blending of these notice of it. The director from St. Petersburg images. One may or may not check himself undertook to repair the omission. His produc- against this story (Russian Carmen Orina and tion is an anthology of the avant-garde of the her adorers). This will not make the produc- 60’s and a guide to all the ins and outs of the tion better or worse, for it appeals not to the post-modernist aesthetics. Here one finds intellect but to the properties of the memory. happening and the total theatre (nothing can Thus with time the Russian out-of-the-way be more total than this encounter with the scene is transformed in one’s consciousness art that cannot be escaped or ignored) and into a dense and elegiac mystical civiliza- the contortions of the countercultural unrest. tion, the realm of never-ending ice and wind, In other words, Moguchy is not so much an represented by a huge, stage-wide piece of innovator as a compiler of the newest theatre polyethylene. But above all there are objects, encyclopedia for this country that was for myriads of them. They cover all the lowered decades fenced off against all the rebellious battens. Moguchy & Co seem to have rum- crazes of the West. maged around all the second-hand goods markets and rubbish dumps in search of However that was only the beginning of his authenticity with that off-the-map back of journey, for Andrei Moguchy is the kind of beyond, fictitious and at the same time abso- director whose every new opus is dissimilar to lutely real as portrayed by Sokolov. There are the previous one. By the Russian standards no ordinary people here – just cripples and he is not so much a theatre director as a tire- godly tramps, destitute dustmen and freaks. less deviser. A master and a very handy one. Life doesn’t follow a natural pattern and An amusing joker (prestidigitator) of top level consists of free-and-easy jollity that gives way proficiency. A conjurer skillfully manipulat- to lingering depression. The imagery of this ing with visual images, literary quotations, production unmistakably betrays the influence stage props and meanings... His two produc- of Bruegel (in this Moguchy is by no means tions based on Nabokov are two poles apart. unique: the genius of the northern Renais- The first – the BITEF Grand Prix winning The sance is the first artist to come to mind when School for Fools – is a lyrical performance reading the novel). But the visual overture to with a touch of irony in the style of Yevgeny this show, projected on the curtain, is not bu- Grishkovetz. The second – Between Dog and colic Bruegel but refined Jan van Eyk with his Wolf – is almost an epic. Sasha Sokolov’s masterpiece Portrait of the Arnolfini Couple. prose, oozy as a swamp and tart as the smell The serene tranquility of this painting that is of silt, rather modernistic than post-modern, in the production smoothed over by a touch seems to be of little use for stage, which of irony (husband is slightly shaking his head holds true for both “jacket” productions (ac- and wife is stroking her stomach) and the tors speak their lines and embody the charac- blatant and grotesque world of Bruegel are ters) and the neo-avant-garde ones (uproar, the two poles between which Moguchi placed clank, crackle, nobody moves!, everybody his scenic opus. The export version of the chickens out!). Moguchy with his seemingly production contains everything that should apparent predilection for radical methods delight an overseas audience – the snow, the of impinging on public found in Sokolov’s skating rink, the ballerina, Pushkin as charac- novels a rather unusual source of inspiration. ter of popular jokes… In the meantime there is He learned how to hear and visualize this not a grain of matrioshka platitude. This coun- prose. For the novel Between a Dog and a try is seen through the eyes of man, no matter Wolf leaves one not with a memory, but with how much West-oriented, who loves this land a feeling, a kind of a blurry blot that is very and has no other place to go. pleasant and fascinating to look at later on. Moguchy managed to convey this feeling. The novel is loquacious whereas the performance is almost silent. And like Sokolov is fighting with the language (this fight probably being the central motif of this work), Moguchy is fighting with the images that swept over him 07

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy Mindaugas Karbauskis

The only director of the new generation who elderly men and woman, but just a family doesn’t seem to be concerned with the juxta- couple living in harmony with the world. In the position of modern-outmoded (or Russian-Eu- opening scene Pulcheria Ivanovna is pour- ropean) is Mindaugas Karbauskis. Graduate ing water on her husband’s flower-patterned of the Department of Directing (Peter Fomen- waistcoat and he droops delightfully as ko’s workshop) he at once caught sight of the though these are real flowers growing out sharp-eyed artistic director of the Moscow Art of his body. If there is an opposition to the Theatre Oleg Tabakov. Karbauskis is no hero “sweet couple” in this play, it is represented for our times. He is not enticed by the role not by the distant relative (“horrible reformer”) of the cult figure of the sophisticated youth who after the death of the personages put an rave-up. Actually he seems to despise it. His end to their “old world” but their own ser- interests are focused not on modern life, but vants. on life as such and death as such. Significant- ly death is the subject of his special interest. In Long Christmas Dinner, death, mowing Three out of Karbauskis’s five productions down the multiple characters, is represented on the professional stage (Thornton Wildler’s by a maid who lays the table and, which was Long Christmas Dinner, Nikolay Gogol’s Old especially impressing, nursing the children. World Landlords, William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying) actually make a trilogy about death. In the beginning there is nothing particu- Considering that philosophizing always begins larly sinister in the conduct of the old world with contemplation of death, Karabauskis can domestics. In Karbauskis’s production house be tagged as the most philosophy-minded maids and the room boy are performing out director of the new generation. interludes (including the classical dell’Arte lazzi with a fly), acting out the geese, men- The most successful production of Karbaus- tioned in the text, stealing, fooling around – in kis’s trilogy, The Old World Landlords, was a word epitomizing the joy of life. performed at the New Stage of the Moscow Art Theatre. The premiere at the MAT was But they also happen to be the heartless veiled in the same quiet and hopeless melan- grave diggers who bury their mistress after choly that prevailed in the staging of Wild- she dies and begin to boss around. They are ler’s play. Only the entourage was different. not terrified by the abyss of death for they Provincial America changed into the Russian are unaware of the meaning of full life. Their out-of-the way village, and the endlessly attitudes are ultimately functional – if you’re propagating and multiplying personages of hungry we’ll feed you, if you die, we’ll put you Long Christmas Dinner were transformed in the ground. into childless Pulcheria Ivanovna and Afanasij By single touch Pulcheria Ivanovna and Ivanovitch. Afanasij Ivanovitch animate objects around No extraordinary events occur in either of the them – all these jars with jam and marinated two plays, except the one and only occur- mushrooms, old portraits, cupboards and rence – death. In Wildler’s play this occur- pantries that by magic of just one word of rence becomes a formal story. In the case of theirs grow out on stage like from under- Gogol it is different. The author is terrified not ground. On the contrary the domestics treat by death per se, but by disappearance of the a human being as an inanimate object. Time ingenuous and blessed world with all its mor- and again the maids would wipe off dust als, affections and modes of life. from Pulcheria Ivanovna’s death-frozen face or use her face as a prop. And housekeeper Karbauskis changes the accents. In his Yavdoha (Julia Polynskaya) is feeding the production Polina Medvedeva and Alexan- landlord with crackers throwing them into his der Semchev are playing not the out-of-time mouth like nuts in the mouth of Nutcracker. 08

The earthly Eden that used to be the elderly bedside table is sliding down that black wet couple’s abode is turned into a regular life. floor, as though trying to join his wife is sailing In the final scene Pulcheria Ivanovna, walk- across the Styx. And suddenly one becomes ing on points and in every respect unearthly, acutely aware that Karbauskis miraculously comes for her husband and takes him with blended together Fomenko’s school of good- her. Where to? To another Eden? Or just into natured acting and the metaphoric tradition the dark abyss that the cynical and buoyant of the Lithuanian theatre. Unconventional as it servants don’t even want to think about? In was, this symbiosis was rather liked by Rus- keeping with the principles of the Lithuanian sian audiences and critics. Karbauskis is little theatre Karbauskis is striving to impart sym- known or appreciated in the West. In Russia bolic dimension to everything. After the death he is one of the chief theatrical newsmak- of Pulcheria Ivanovna, servants are washing ers, shunning unruly innovation and therefore the floor and Afanasij Ivanovitch, sitting on a particularly loved here.

Sine loco-a view from above AXE Engineering Theatre / St. Petrsburg and Dmitry Krymov / Moscow

One of the most notable developments on the The companies performing in this style were present-day European stage is the impetu- few and far between, the most well-known of ous bloom of the visual theatre. This bloom them no doubt being AXE Engineering The- calls up that moment in the evolution of visual atre. Essentially AXE consists of two artists arts when figurative painting gave way to the (who are also directors, actors, authors of non-figurative one. When the artist became plays) – Maxim Isayev and Pavel Semchenko. focused not on interpretation of a well-known The main characters of their shows are usu- subject, not on penetrating into the psychol- ally most ordinary objects that every one of us ogy of the person being portrayed, not even comes across in our everyday lives. on mastership, with which a painter depicts The makers of the Engineering Theatre are a drop of water frozen on the surface of an animating them before our eyes. The alchemic apple, but on the correlation of colors and nature of this theatre is a bit akin to the story shapes. In theatre these were supplement by of “black magician” doctor Faustus who once sounds and bodies. In the visual theatre the became a personage of the Isayev-Semchen- lights, the mise-en-scene, the change of the ko play. And it became crystal-clear at once backdrop color from blue to sky-blue carry no that this story is an ideal literary material for less meaning than a significant turn of the sto- the Engineering Theatre. ryline where the word is assigned the key role. The treatment of the original source (if there Suffice it to mention the scene with four is any such source) is very free. It is a kind imposing folios out of which in turns water is of theatrical footnotes to all too well-known pouring, fire is bursting, earth is waking up stories. More often than not these produc- and dust from the books is soaring in the air. tions have no original literary sources. Neither But in all their other stagings, having nothing are there rigidly contoured characters or a to do with Faustus, Semchenko and Isayev legible storyline. The productions take shape invariably engage in materializing spirits, in the course of rehearsals, or are composed searching for the philosophers’ stone and while rehearsing. In Russia with its traditional extracting mystical knowledge as a result of logo-centrism such crossbreed opuses, made scientific experimentation. Their best compo- on the on the borderline between theatre and sitions, like the widely acclaimed Sine Loco visual arts, theatre and modern dance, theatre are visual alliterations on the motif of life and and circus were long reluctant to blossom death. In these works the theatrical alchemists wildly. turn performance into a mystery that one as- pires to clue, but it always remains a mystery. 09

For quite a while AXE were perhaps the only to comfort her by tying up to her head, stick- players in the field of the visual theatre. How- ing out of the snow womb, now a tutu (dance ever in the past three years the logo-centrist baby!), then a fiddle and fiddlestick (play my Russia was brought low once and for all as dear!), and next a tub with blue water (take a a result of the onslaught of this theatre. This swim, silly lassie!). theatre now exists not only in St. Petersburg, renowned for its underground traditions, but Finally here are the luminaries of the Russian also in Moscow and, what seems especially classical literature. Lev Tolstoy climbs out of important, at Anatoli Vasiliev’s School of Dra- the freshly drawn Yasnaya Polyana and heads matic Art. Its author is Dimitri Krymov whose straight for the Astapovo railway station. Huge name not so long ago was invariably provided black Gogol with sad face is burning the sec- with specification – “the son of outstanding ond volume of The Dead Souls. A Cossack fur Russian director Anatoli Efros”. Now specifi- cap and felt coat with ammo pouches made cations are quite irrelevant. Krymov is Krymov of soft-tip pens are attached to the portrait and probably one of the most notable figures of Mikhail Lermontov. Nobody and nothing in the space of the modern Russian theatre. seems to be missing. The view from above is just perfect. In his productions everything drawn can come to life and living people slightly resemble pup- There is certainly something demonic in this pets. In them the reality is as changeable as overwhelming impulse to fly up. Like there is in animated cartoons. Something of this kind something devilish in the very act of artistic used to be done by Tadeuz Cantor, but his creation, as well as in the desire to challenge scenic pieces were born out of the recollec- Creator with one’s demiurgic urge. tions of childhood. In Krymov’s case they are born out of the yearning for the world culture. And yet I am asking myself: is it with Demon’s This culture, however, is transfigured by the eyes that we see this entire heavenly beauti- fantasy that is not unlike the fantasy of a child. ful world with sunflowers, snowflakes, Piro- It is symptomatic that the title of one of his re- smanian feasts and Chagal’s flying lovers? cent productions, Donkey Hot by Sir Vantes, It seems that these are the eyes of another sounds like childish distortions of odd words. flying creature. For Lermontov’s world is often seen from the above and not necessarily with In one of Krymov’s best productions, Demon the eyes of the Demon. – View from Above, the world culture, as well “At midnight an angel was crossing as our sinful earth with its landscapes, moun- the sky, tains and seas, our no less sinful lives with And quietly he sang; their sorrows and joys are bird’s-eye-views. The moon and the stars and the concourse The audience seated in the balconies around of clouds the arena are offered to view the world with Paid heed to his heavenly song…” the eyes of “the free son of the air” who trav- els in time and space without a helm or sails. These early verses of the sixteen-years-old The interchanging views from above call up genius seem to be more befitting to the pro- multiple associations. Here are the sunflowers duction of Demon than the lines of the like- violently turning yellow as they were seen in named poem. Van Gogh’s sickly imagination: like everything in this play they are born before our eyes out The world in Krymov’s opus is seen from of materials at hand – vanilla plates, yellow above, but is not looked down at. And Demon gloves, graceful lines of stem painted black always looks down at people and things. The on the white. Hey Vincent, is it you buddy? cold and contemptuous alienation is present in him even when he is in love. The view of the Here is the entire solar system with paper- Angel is different. It reflects acceptance rather made space bodies, fixed to metal “fishing than tearing away of being. And it seems that rods”. In an instant the space objects turn into this view is closer to Krymov. snowflakes and this beautiful earth of ours becomes the foundation of a snowman who gives birth to a whimsical girl. The kids with snowballs once again turn into artists and try 10

Like many practitioners of the visual theatre about in relation to the modern arts is after he places earthly impressions into the un- all not all-powerful. The playful postmodern- earthly spaces, thereby making for the theatre ist games with the classics ventured by some to retrieve the metaphysical dimension that makers of the visual theatre reflects the love was in a large measure lost by it. for God’s world, once lost in the European culture and nowadays re-emerging in all its His frantic experimentation with forms calls magnitude. up the ontological scale of the last century’s avant-garde that was until recently lost without a trace by visual arts and that at the new turn of cultural history has showed itself in a transfigured shape. And this makes one hopeful that the entropy being so much talked