At the Moscow Art Theatre. Chekhov was inhabited by the spirits of the North in the 90s

Shuttle girls of the 90s became polar madonnas

On the Small Stage of the Moscow Art Theatre. A.P. Chekhov, the premiere of the play “Polar Disease” based on the play by Maria Malukhina took place. Director Marina Brusnikina took a little more than an hour and a half to say everything about the 90s, our women, who are able to pull the country out in the days of any misfortune. This time, only human pain and hope was not enough for the theater. It required the intervention of higher powers and the mighty energy of the North, cut into a colorful stage.

1996 To survive, you have to trade. Shuttle women become the personification of their time, an example of humility and perseverance, polar madonnas. They are able, according to the authors, from their past to give strength to those who live in the present, having lost all hope of salvation.

Three recently unfamiliar women – teacher Tatyana (Olga Litvinova), experienced Valentina (Yulia Chebakova), still very young Lyubasha (student of Marina Brusnikina at the Moscow Art Theater School-Studio Elizaveta Orlova) – go beyond the Arctic Circle to sell goods. You can sell it for more there. A lot of people did this in the 90s. They dragged underwear, clothes, dolls to Poland, Turkey and Greece in order to buy foreign goods in return or simply earn dollars and Deutschmarks. But our North is an even greater test with a completely unknown ending.

The women are accompanied by dubious-looking men, offering to pass the time together. They are like two from a casket – unexpectedly and cheerfully jump out at the most unpredictable moment. The main thing is to keep your ears open. Wicked Valya is the loudest of the shuttle traders. She screams, yells, so that from her thundering voice you can go crazy. Valya went through fire and water, learned the main thing – not to trust anyone, to stay away from strangers, so as not to take off their shoes, not robbed. Women are scared, but there is no way out. We have to endure everything, hold on to each other so as not to fall. Each of the heroines has their own reasons for the dangerous journey.

The inconspicuous-looking heroine Olga Litvinova is very good with her quiet voice and hidden pain. The family remained at home, the husband is a military pensioner, on whom one cannot count. Lyubasha has her own wounds and a difficult fate. The theater can only be congratulated on the appearance of the extremely gifted young actress Elizaveta Orlova.

Endless expanses of snow everywhere. The heroines seem to have settled forever on the frozen platform. A strange staircase descends from the platform – like in a swimming pool. The teacher was wearing a knitted suit with bulging bumps – half the country went in such. Fellow travelers – in Turkish jumpers with ornaments, they were worn en masse by the entire male population in the 90s. This crazy procession rushes through the vastness and darkness of the homeland, flies past the stop stations with outlandish names.

Scenes of a dreary winter road are interrupted by musical numbers. Fires are lit under the grates. On the balcony, as if under a circus dome, a pop duet appears. The musical director of the performance Alena Khovanskaya and young actor Alexei Varushchenko represent the spirits of the North – Siv’min Yerv, Pe’Erv, Yakha’Erv, Yav’Erv, Tu’Erv, Pedara’Erv. In a tight-fitting snow-white bodysuit, they squirm like snakes. The beautiful otter resembles a swimmer. A young omul confidently stands on skates. With the advent of a fantastic couple, the dull life of shuttles is colored with colorful colors. A little more – and you will be kitsch. While the fragile balance somehow miraculously preserved.

Marina Brusnikina and production designer Polina Bakhtina came up with an surreal space where even the bags of shuttles resemble ice floes that can be broken. Heroines trade in wedding dresses. They dream of overseas suitors – enviable Turkish men. Everyone’s name is Natasha. The suitors are dressed not at all in Turkish, like the inhabitants of the tundra. And they whirl around like dancing dervishes. Men in all their diversity are temperamentally played throughout the performance by Valery Troshin and Armen Arushanyan – all the same two from the casket.

The play is put together like a mosaic. Every time you need to shake the glass fragments well so that life sparkles for a while with the reflected light of the recent past, filled with a bizarre pattern. If not for sophisticated moves, the whole story could be put into a short novel.

Published in the newspaper “Moskovsky Komsomolets” No. 28927 dated December 7, 2022

Newspaper headline:
Shuttle women and spirits