Director Pankov staged a mystery based on Leskov

Thus, Vladimir Pankov’s Center for Drama and Directing opened last weekend the stage at 20, Povarskaya St., once opened by great director Anatoly Vasiliev. The leader of SOUNDRAMA tested this old/new space with an almost mystical performance “Skomorokh Pamphalon”, based on the novel by Nikolai Leskov, often called the most Russian writer. From the premiere – the columnist “MK”.

On Povarskaya, in the cloakroom, everyone is given white shoe covers, as if we did not come to the theater, but to the clinic. To my question: “Why?” – a polite young cloakroom attendant (here, in general, everyone is extremely kind) replied: “So that on the stage, on which the artists will wallow and fall, do not leave dirt.” Although there is no stage in the usual sense of the word – a rather narrow strip in front of three rows of thirty seats each. In general, Leskov with his “Buffoon Pamphalon” was driven into a pencil case. But what! Three-color high ceilings with restored stucco, where only birds can fly (by the way, doves flew at Vasiliev’s), four balconies, the largest of which is already occupied by a string ensemble. Well, Pankov, as you know, is not looking for easy ways in the theater.

And here he is, without shoes and with a short word: “You know that from modern drama we are moving into archaism, to ritual theater. Today we play Leskov. With God”.

Igor Yasulovich, the oldest artist, sitting down on a stool against the wall and opening a worn-out book on his knees, slowly begins: “Weakness is great, strength is negligible. When a man is born, he is weak and flexible; when he dies, he is strong and callous. When a tree grows, it is soft and tender, and when it is dry and hard, it dies. Callousness and strength are the companions of death. Flexibility and weakness express the freshness of being. Therefore, what has hardened will not win. Lao Tzu”. And unhurried Chinese wisdom, like a steep wave, will immediately be covered by music – the most diverse, miraculously sewn into a single canvas.

A multilingual crowd will immediately appear: priests in black cassocks, singing the Psalm of David, on the one hand, and on the other, participants in a talk show with a quickly thrashing text host on the vices of modern theater. The youth pressed against the wall, horrified by the sinful world. Women in black with their hands raised to the sky and a carnival procession in masks and feathers in the company of presumptuous men in office suits. Phew! Babylonian pandemonium from past and present, recognizable images and symbols of what is happening here and now. In this way, the plot story about the righteous and sinners, hermits and wealthy citizens in the sinful city of Damascus will be told in an unusual way. Or maybe Moscow or some other metropolis.

Leskov has 29 chapters in the story, which he now and then calls a story. Pankov packed them into (don’t be scared!) four acts with three intermissions, and each subsequent act is shorter than the previous one. Can it be sustained? Quietly, because it is not at all like everything that is now on the stage in the capital. Pankov, always far from any kind of artistic, social and political conjuncture, is building his own theater, which he now declares as a ritual one.

And what does it look like? Volumetric, powerful, where polyphony from different music, sounds, languages, mirroring – visual and verbal – reigns. The plot of the life of the saint seems to float in such a harmonious structure, becoming a parable. Two main characters: one is a former nobleman of the emperor Theodosius the Great of Constantinople, who renounced power and wealth, gave away all his property and became a hermit and stylist Hermias on a rock, renouncing everything worldly, and for this “all the other nobles began to joke and laugh at him” ; they said to him: “It’s true that you want everyone to become beggars and stand naked and throw each other’s shirt over. This is not possible in the state.” He answered: “I’m not talking about the state, but only about how to live according to the teachings of Christ, which you all call divine.” And they answered: “You never know what is good, but impossible!”

And the second hero is a buffoon who hid his natural face under paint and entertains the rich with their mistresses at night. And the completely unrighteous buffoon said to the righteous: “Believe me, venerable old man, that the living always remains alive, and a beautiful heart often beats in the chest of heterosexuals. And it is sad for us to be at the feasts of rich gentlemen. That’s where bad people often meet… There they demand what human nature is ashamed of… And in the morning they go to pray for show. Written 140 years ago about distant Damascus, but how recognizable everything is. In general, Leskov has a lot of things as about today: both about liberal fascism (“Whoever is not with us is a scoundrel”), and about wealthy citizens that “they are proud, arrogant and want fun, but they don’t tolerate free laughter and jokes.”

In “Skomorokh”, Pankov’s favorite principle of specularity seems to have been elevated to an absolute. Most of the characters here have doubles: old Ermia (Igor Yasulovich) has a young hermit next to him, he is an Angel, to whom the Devil whispers something. The presence of the Rassomahin twins, Daniil and Pavel, in the troupe only enhances this reflective effect. And the linguistic reflection… In the second half of the performance, with the appearance of Magna, Arabic speech will be heard, translated into Russian. Then I find out that the actress Regina Azgamova learned the text of Leskov’s story by heart (!!!) in Arabic. The spice of the Middle East is in the sounds of ethnic instruments. Only the buffoon (Pavel Akimkin) has a Russian whistle in his hands – the progenitor of the violin with a muffled sound. Arabic flute sounds from the balconies.

A choir with spiritual hymns, a ballet group, quotations from Shakespeare’s plays (“Blow, wind, blow …” and so on) – after all, the buffoon is at the center of life, and it moves in the performance like a tightrope, which, of course, is not there, trying to worldly fuss to find peace of mind. Which today neither the theater nor our society lacks. And from all this, according to Leskov, the performance in its image is similar to a pulsating heart: a huge polyphonic wave, after it comes silence, which is stitched with a gentle stitch by a cappella female singing, picked up by male strict znamenny chant. Not stylized, but genuine, inexpressibly slender, which, perhaps, will lead the sinful buffoon to the desired balance, and through it the whole world.

After the performance, we talk with Vladimir Pankov.

– Volodya, there are so many musical intersections in the performance: the music of Artem Kim and ancient sacred music, the so-called Znamenny chants, which were recorded not even with notes, but with hooks. Which musician reads this now?

– We took something by ear from the records – for example, the Psalms of David are sung by the Vaalam monks. And my teacher Elena Alekseevna Krasnopevtseva specially came to our rehearsals. Vitya Maminov, who plays in the play, worked with the guys. There were rehearsals when the artists taught only spiritual verses or one spiritual singing. The 33rd Psalm is from beginning to end, although not all of it was included in the play. It was difficult for everyone – we are insanely fussy, but also joyful.

– It seems to me that such a performance cannot be played as an ordinary one – a comedy or a drama. After such material, literary and musical, do actors undergo personal changes? Noticed?

Yes, I caught myself thinking that we have the right association. Not sectarian, which devalues ​​the individual, but in which artists come and serve. Everyone was together at rehearsals, regardless of whether they were busy in the scenes. The humility of ambition, regardless of whether you have the main role or you are in the choir. Changes in artists occur at a subconscious level. And one more thing: the performance turned out thanks to this space. Behind the scenes, people walk on tiptoe, not on cell phones. If you saw how a drumstick is passed from hand to hand, this is a separate performance. And now we have finished playing, and the performance is still ringing inside, the work does not stop. And after the first show, we have already agreed that by the next day we will gather and dive.

– Turning to spiritual material, saturating the performance with spiritual music, didn’t you have a fear that the audience, accustomed to the “short meter” of perception in literally everything, would not understand you, would not hear your message?

– I thought about it … My teacher once asked me: “When will you make a performance for God?” I thought, maybe I’ve started doing it. In the first act there is a long rearrangement with elements of the scenery, I could stop it, shorten it, but then I realized that I would not do this, because this is not a place where they just entertain. We serve here in the good sense of the word, and Orthodox chants or the music of Artem Kim are the language of this performance, this space. It is important for me that a portrait of Anatoly Vasiliev and his artist, co-author Igor Popov hang here.

Was Anatoly Aleksandrovich at the performance?

– I invited him. He said that “I will never enter this space,” but added: “I bless you, and have a good performance.” Allowed me to hang my portrait. For me, this connection was important – the theater has a great history, and not just that we just got some kind of room. Here everyone will take off their shoes, as it was done before us. From the combination of different languages ​​and cultures, a universal language is born. All you need to do is connect them equally and carefully. So the creak of the gate and the sound of the wind gives an image. And the highest and greatest image is given by icon painting.

What is your main message with this performance?

— Balance and service in the world. Leskov has his own message in each chapter, but in a global sense, of course, this is a balance – not to go to extremes. Let’s take our theatrical circle – a sharp distortion. And let’s take spirituality – here the roll is in the other direction. In Russian culture, balance has always been the most important thing. And the history of our theater is also about finding a balance. Any extreme is death.

FROM THE DOSIER “MK”

The legend of the buffoon Pamphalon, published in 1887 in the journal Historical Bulletin, is part of a series of works by Leskov about the righteous of early Christianity, which takes place in Egypt and the countries of the Middle East. The writer borrowed plots from the Prologue, a collection of the lives of saints and edifying stories compiled in Byzantium in the 10th-11th centuries, adapting Russian reality to them, for which he was criticized by contemporary writers.