The author of “The Man from Podolsk” believes that new names appear in modern dramaturgy almost every year, it’s just that many theaters prefer not to take risks and put on the classics. About this and Dmitry Danilov told Izvestia about the advanced system of punishments and the scandal around the play “Seryozha is very stupid” after the release of the new novel “Sasha, hello!”, Where the main character is a philologist sentenced to death, and Sasha is a heavy machine gun, ready at any time carry out the sentence.
“Pyou can leave anything. The main thing is how»
— Your plot takes place in the near future, where the penitentiary system is so “humanized” that suicide bombers live in the so-called Combine, as in a three-starin a building hotel, the jailers are very polite to them, they say “don’t be upset” and “have a nice day”. How did this idea come about and is it not a metaphor for what is happening in the world today?
— No, no, no metaphors. You know, when the author begins to spread: “I came up with this to hint, but here I wanted to emphasize the horror of what is happening,” he looks rather stupid. And the idea arose like this – I accidentally stumbled upon the famous text of Victor Hugo’s Notes of a Man Sentenced to Death. Unexpectedly, he made a very strong impression on me, an inner need arose to write something on this subject. Think about the state of a person who finds himself in such a situation, observe how he will behave, talk, be silent, sit, move.
Of course, I also had other works in mind: Leonid Andreev’s ingenious “The Tale of the Seven Hanged Men”, Nabokov’s “Invitations to Execution”, Kafka’s “Trial”, but it was Hugo who was inspired. Eventually came out pure fiction about a humanized punishment system, a politely indifferent attitude towards prisoners, cells that resemble rooms in a good hotel with comfortable orthopedic mattresses and unlimited internet. The only thing that “glooms” life is Sasha’s machine gun, which can at any moment blow a person to shreds during a walk. No one knows when it will work – now or decades later.
Photo: AST
Cover of the new novel by Dmitry Danilov “Sasha, hello!”
— What crimes in your novel are sentenced to “SK”?
— For economic and moral crimes. This is an inverted reality, where those who, from our point of view, have not done anything frightening, are sentenced to the highest measure – they asked for a bribe or slept with a student (the main character Seryozha, a quiet and law-abiding teacher of literature, was sentenced because he slept with a twenty-year-old student, by the standards of the new society, she is considered a minor, since she comes of age at 21). Meanwhile, rapists or murderers roam free, they are punished very gently – with a fine or a reprimand.
— The second layer in the novel is the motif of the “decommissioned” and “cancelled” person. For example, Serezha’s prison Instagram followers have fun and place bets, and his wife and mother carry on meaningless everyday conversations with him. Reviewers have even compared your book to an immersive production.
– Sergey has not ceased to be dear to his close people – his mother just went crazy, she could not survive all this, although his wife tries to be ironic and even sarcastic, she actually feels a huge tragedy, but subscribers behave differently: who -someone is indignant and wants to die as soon as possible, someone writes “you are cool”, few sympathize.
As for comparing the book with an immersive production, I would object. A novel cannot be immersive by definition, this term is applicable only to the theater, where the audience is involved in the action and a lot depends on them.
— It is clear that you are teaching. Many who want to learn to be a playwright? What trends are relevant in it, are there charged topics?
— There are a lot of people who want to study as a playwright, the profession is clearly becoming fashionable – hundreds of works come to any major competition like “Lubimoviki”. Every year there are new interesting names. They write about different things. Recently, there are many plays about teenagers and for teenagers, the trend is gender themes, is also a very charged topic, many want to speak on it. In general, what was relevant, around what the dramaturgy of our time was built, descendants will more accurately answer. It can only be seen from a distance.
— Why, then, is modern dramaturgy not very willingly staged, but prefer to modernize the classics?
– Modern plays are staged at the Moscow Art Theater, the Theater of Nations, Praktika, Sovremennik, but for the most part theaters prefer the classical repertoire. Think, this conservatism is connected with the fear that the audience will not understand this, classics and comedies are always more reliable. Yes, and among the directors of theaters there is a rather mossy idea that modern dramaturgy is when naked people swear on the stage.
They simply do not give themselves the trouble to think about it, to understand the material, to read the plays of modern authors. They deny everything in advance. Cultural denseness is taking its toll. Although I have nothing against the classics, as well as against naked people on stage – you can put on anything. The main thing is how.
“The directors don’t let the playwright interfere”
— They are right about risk. Quite recently, due to the production of your play “Seryozha is very dumb”, a scandal erupted at the Pskov Drama Theater – one spectator decided that the word “stupid” offends all Sergeyevs.
Yes, I laughed too! This is necessary, people seriously write to the antimonopoly committee (by the way, why exactly there?), And “all Serezhas” are offended.
Honestly, I didn’t put any offensive meaning into it, the name came up on its own in the course of writing the play – it’s funny and well remembered.
— How many theaters have staged about “stupid Seryozha”, which productions do you like, which not so much?
— I really like the production of Marina Brusnikina at the Praktika Theater – there, in one performance, two of my plays “Seryozha …” and “The Man from Podolsk” were combined at once, and the production of Alexei Kuzmin-Tarasov in the “Pyotr Fomenko Workshop”. In general, there were about two dozen productions in total – of course, I did not see them all.
— Are you a picky author or do you leave the director to do the work? I heard you had to take your name off the poster.
There were two such cases, but, fortunately, no more. Here it is important to understand that we are not talking about staging a work, but about staging a play written by a playwright. In the modern Russian theater directors, as a rule, do not allow the playwright to interfere in the creative process. That is, he wrote and stepped aside. So I only see the end result.
— Your most famous play was The Man from Podolsk. How did the production at the Theatre. doc”?
— I was lucky – “The Man from Podolsk” was staged by the outstanding director Mikhail Ugarov – this is one of the main reasons for the success of the play. His work was followed very carefully and, as a result, they paid attention to me.
— You said that many people took the policemen for goodies, “mentors” – for example, they exhort the central character: “You like Amsterdam, but your Podolsk also has something to love, something to admire.”
— Ah, yes. But I am not against such an interpretation, if people think so, then there is some truth in this. I didn’t put such a meaning into it – in my play, sinister police officers detain an innocent person, begin to interrogate him about something, and teach him about life along the way. On the one hand, this is a disgrace and completely illegal, on the other hand, they tell him a lot of sensible things.
After all, everything is ambivalent, good and evil in this world are mixed. The plot, when some irrational strangers interfere in the life of an inhabitant, is a way to create an emotionally charged, dramatic situation. Good story line.
— How important theater is today and art in general live, now, in connection with the pandemic, many people prefer to watch performances online, and even better, series on Netflix.
– And also – for whom as. For example, I don’t really understand when people start lamenting that a paper book turns into a kind of expensive artifact because it is read on a computer. I read emails and don’t see much difference whether to watch a performance live or in good quality on the screen, but I know a lot of people for whom it is fundamentally important to be in the hall, to see the stage, the actors, to feel an energetic connection with them.
#Modern #dramaturgy #limited #naked #stage