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Staged Anarchy: Moscow Theater Mirrors the Chaos
| Article
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11107 |
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Section : |
THE ARTS
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| Issue
Date : |
10 / 1993 |
1,508 Words |
| Author
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Claudia Woolgar
Claudia Woolgar is a free-lance theater critic and arts
journalist based in London. |
"I cannot forecast to you the action of Russia. It is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma."
Winston Churchill spoke these words in 1939. They are as true now as they were then. Russia is a huge muddle of political wrangling, entrepreneurial opportunism, immense mineral wealth, appalling food lines, vodka and songs, despair and determination. It is a noble, proud, and beautiful country. And it is a land of utter confusion.
The theater in Russia reflects this confusion with dauntingly eclectic success. Not an intentional dramatic reflection, but piercingly tangible nevertheless. The Moscow theater scene is one without direction and without artistic confines. Anything goes, and the result is an artistic mosaic full of bright and brooding colors. A tapestry in which the lost Soviet Union is woven alongside nationalism, the anarchy and trepidation of youth, and the swirling waters of the reluctant Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). It is both rewarding and disorienting to watch.
'Experimental Voice'
In search of the experimental voice of the Moscow stage, I was led to Petre Mamonov, a rock star whose band, the Sound of Moo, has a huge leather-jacketed following. In one of the city's main theaters Mamonov, a figure of anarchy and revolution who had been at the forefront of bringing Western pop music into the Soviet Union in the sixties, was confronted by the audience's intense faces and engrossed attention. Anarchy is serious business for the youth of Moscow today.
The play The Bald Brunette, by Daniel Gink, was written with Mamonov in mind, and he gives a performance of the most controlled imbalance and physical abandon. The text is a tale that deals with The Man (Mamonov) and his threefold struggle to communicate--with women, life, and the means of communication itself.
In The Bald Brunette nothing is what it seems to be, despite the guiding (or more appropriately, misguiding) presence of a character called Prophet (Denis Porgazlenev). He is like a sidekick to The Man, urging him on but never actually helping. There is nothing reassuring about his presence, and when he prompts a discussion about love, The Man responds with "There is one law of nature--man will die. The nightmare of being buried alive. Imagine the darkness."
Having been led
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