Dashing nineties and the spirits of the North

On the Small Stage of the Moscow Art Theater named after A.P. Chekhov, the premiere of the play “Polar Disease” based on the play by Maria Malukhina took place.

Marina Brusnikina directed the story of three women from the 1990s. The play was included in the short list of the Lyubimovka Young Drama Festival, became the winner in the drama program of the International Literary Competition. M. A. Voloshin, entered the short list of the competition “Culmination”.

Marina Brusnikina: “Maria Malukhina is a very talented contemporary author. In the play “Polar Disease” there are living characters, accurately written, recognizable characters – this is a well-thought-out dramatic story. There is something to play for actresses whom I have long loved and respected: Daria Yurskaya, Olga Litvinova, Yanina Kolesnichenko, Yulia Chebakova, Alena Khovanskaya are involved in our performance. At the same time, this text really hits you with a sense of modernity, although it seems that the plot unfolds in the nineties, and Maria writes about shuttle women. But in fact, “Polar Disease” is about what is happening to us today, about a sharp demolition of reality, when people are at a loss – what will happen next? You read a play and think: yes, it was like that, and they also experienced it, and still survived. This feeling of female strength, which overcomes everything, seemed to me very necessary today.

No matter what, against all odds, women win. The play has a bright ending, there is hope – what we need.

Olga Litvinova/Daria Yurskaya, Yanina Kolesnichenko/Yulia Chebakova, Alyona Khovanskaya, Alexey Varushchenko, Valery Troshin, Armen Arushanyan, Elizaveta Orlova/Margarita Yakimova play in two teams.

At the press screening, three heroines were played by Yulia Chebakova (Valya), Olga Litvinova (Tanya) and Elizaveta Orlova (Lyuba). Two of them remember the nineties well, as Yulia Chebakova said, “this happened to me too.” But the young Liza Orlova did not find her dashing years, but how selflessly she plays the drama of a person who got into such a life bind that she was ready to go with the goods to the very North. Bras and bedding in her trunks also became participants in the action.

Experienced and uninhibited Valya acted out a performance, beckoning buyers, trying on women’s toilet items. Itself is not the first time in the north, she knows that there is especially in demand. Beaten by life, unhappy, she harnessed herself to this cart, forgetting that she was a beautiful, prominent woman, especially when three simple shuttle women in some magnificent dream are transformed into sophisticated beauties in crinolines and veils. These are the spirits of the North, the white blizzard inspired them with these dreams and fantasies.

The intelligent Tanya, a teacher in a past life, at first stands out from this company, trying to “show her learning”, but the general care and hardship, and especially her terrible story about her drunken husband, equalizes all three unfortunates. The spirits of the North appear in their restless dreams, bringing peace and grace. The worst thing happens to the “grated kalach” Valya, when her goods are burned by local competitors, and she beats in epilepsy from grief (she sold her apartment in order to buy goods), and her friends are simply horrified by this turn of events.

It turns out that there is such a “polar disease”, when a person becomes insane from the cold and white snow, which happened to poor Valya. Yulia Chebakova plays the whole performance on a bare nerve, and this scene is just like an outstanding tragic actress.

A simple story about not very successful shuttle women, and thousands of our women have gone through this, cannot leave today’s viewer indifferent. After all, our time makes such challenges …

Irina Shvedova.

Author’s photo