Konstantin Bogomolov slapped the departed intelligentsia with “Summer Residents in Bali”

This time, the director seated the audience bi-frontally: most of them remained in the hall, the smaller part remained on the stage (apparently with expensive tickets), and between them there was a house clearly not in the Moscow region, but somewhere far away on the ocean. Narrow beams of dark wood outline a space somewhere on the shore of an endless water area – except that the sound of the waves is not heard.

But the audience took their seats, and Konstantin, having climbed onto the stage, turns to the audience with what seems to be a standard request – to turn off the sound of mobile phones. But, judging by what and how he says, one feels that he has settled down on Bronnaya and talks to the public as the owner of the theater.

“Now you’re filming me,” he turns to the lady from the third row. – You better check, check. Are you sure you turned it off? Maybe you’re wrong? Check it out – it’s not difficult, it’s not shameful, it’s not humiliating. It will be much more embarrassing when your phone rings. All the bad energies will be directed at you, your karma will be very bad. Think about it. I have very heavy energy if I’m angry.

He intimidated – and won the applause of the audience, who in a fairly short time had already become accustomed to the fact that here, at Konstantin’s, you will not get bored – neither before the performance, nor even more so during it.

Maxim Gorky wrote his “Summer Residents” in 1904, a year before the first Russian revolution, and dedicated the play to the Russian intelligentsia, to whom, due to his class affiliation, he was alien. The play is strong, but the people brought out by the future classic of Soviet literature turned out to be somewhat unsympathetic. A lawyer, an engineer, a doctor, a writer, as well as their wives and mistresses – almost all, by the way, are quite young, from 25 to 40-something.

The heroes of Bogomolov’s version of “Summer Residents” are young, but he knows the circle of the creative intelligentsia better than Alexei Maksimovich, because he grew up in this environment, and the recent circumstances of his life expanded this circle and replenished it with wealthy and status people. So he gathered them all in Bali in the house of Basov, whose professional affiliation is not entirely clear, but the fact that he is very rich, kind and not greedy is obvious.

In Bali, as they say, every creature has a pair of compatriots: the banker Suslov, who ran away with the depositors’ money, his wife, an actress and a drinker; former prostitute, and now heiress to a substantial husband’s fortune, Marya Lvovna; Basov’s sister, Karelia, is apparently a feminist who can read well her own bad poetry, written in a decadent spirit.

Who else? The guest who is expected here for the New Year is a cult figure from the rock culture of the Soviet past, Boris Shalimov, who was signed up to sing at a Balinese corporate party. There are also smaller fry – Basov’s assistant, the owner’s wife’s brother Vlas and another relative of hers not by blood, but with a diagnosis of mental disorder. And also the mother of many children, Olga, abandoned by her klutz husband.

“Var, I miss Moscow too,” Basov says in a tired voice to his wife Varvara in the first scene. – Yes, this Bali gave me a shit (this verb is used in different combinations by everyone here and for any reason). Understand?

– I understand. Only all morning you sit in your office, and I entertain them…

-Did you sniff again?

– No, you hid it.

“I didn’t hide it… You need to do something, my dear Varya.” Just smell and read.

– And you just make vulgar jokes and drink.

In this work, Bogomolov is primarily interesting as a playwright. His “Summer Residents,” where only the classic title and situation are taken from Gorky, are full of modern realities: a collective portrait of the Russian emigration, or rather, those who left – who they are, how they live.

They also mentioned figures of different calibers active in contemporary art and with different attitudes towards them (Grishkovets, Shakhnazarov, Zemfira (recognized as a foreign agent in Russia), BG). It’s just that Grebenshchikov (recognized as a foreign agent in Russia) is brought out under the name Shalimov, but is clearly recognizable. As in Konstantin Yuryevich’s previous stage fantasy “New Optimistic”, the director Kirill Serebrennikov, who goes by the name Gorlov, is recognizable.

Not to mention the mention of the military conflict in Ukraine, Zelensky, of course, the Ukrainian military and Ukrainians attacking Russians abroad. And the fears of the latter in connection with this. In general, everything that Russian reality is rich in today is here on stage, and more relevant drama today cannot be found anywhere except on Bronnaya, at Bogomolov’s. Whether you like it or cause a protest, rage is up to the beholder.

But this, as they say, is the top dramatic layer, when everything is recognizable. With Bogomolov the playwright, everything is much more subtle. Somewhere in the second or third plane, in remarks and stage directions, Chekhov’s motifs are associatively captured and the heroes of Chekhov’s plays are visible. It is no coincidence that Shalimov has the same name as Chekhov’s character – the writer Trigorin in “The Seagull” – Boris, although in Gorky this writer is Yakov Petrovich. Marya Lvovna, one of the former prostitutes, lives in Bali with Lopakhin, like Varya from the play “The Cherry Orchard” by the Ragulins. And this Lopakhin “bought land in Bali, cut it into plots and rents it out.” Suslov’s wife bores everyone with memories of how she was received in Kharkov, as if she were Arkadina, who performed a performance and was given a brooch by the students.

And Bogomolov also takes inspiration from Gorky’s “Dachnikov” when drawing his characters. “It’s hard for me to admit the existence of a person who dares to be himself,” says Basov in Gorky. And in Bogomolov’s Bali, no one has been himself for a long time.

And the very structure of the play involuntarily refers to Chekhov’s, where nothing seems to happen, and people just do what they say. Every now and then they remember Moscow (with the melancholy of Chekhov’s sisters, of course), from which they cannot tear themselves away even under the shade of palm trees. And they talk, talk, talk. Without emotions, wearily showing off to each other in their cynicism.

As the wife of the dacha owner states: “It’s a pleasure for you to spoil good and talented people, but you find kind words for the most notorious scum and mediocrity. You have them who are smart, and complex, and talented, but misunderstood, while a decent and conscientious person is certainly rubbish, a liar and a nonentity.”

Bogomolov is cruel to today’s intelligentsia, who have moved away since the beginning of the Northern Military District (but it would be more accurate to say – to people of intelligent professions), endowing them with cynical speech characteristics. “Her late husband spent his whole life pinning Castaneda and intricately connected him with Moses.” Or: “You should be allowed into overpopulated countries: you have a great ability to discourage anyone from breeding.”

Ping-pong with remarks, quite witty, in the second and third acts turns into serious dialogues (Shalimova with the daughter of Marya Lvovna, Karelia with Suslov), which seem to refer to the biblical story – marriage, do not covet someone else’s wife, revelation, possession… Unexpected plot turns will not keep you waiting.

The second act ends with a painfully familiar picture, which can be observed both in Russia and in Bali – summer residents in a noisy line are hiding from the proscenium behind the rows of spectators, from where their drunken voices can be heard – the company of the “Assy” generation following Shalimov, some into the forest, some for firewood the hit voices: “Under the blue sky there is a golden city.” And he, in turn, wishes their “golden city every prosperity,” knowing that this is not prosperity at all, but decay. Including himself, who is just as tired of all kinds of rich “dacha residents,” but most importantly, of himself.

In the third act, BG, that is, Shalimov, will become the main figure expressing the idea of ​​the playwright and director Bogomolov about the artistic failure of the creative intelligentsia of the “Assy” generation. The singer’s monologue about himself in the distant past – a pure, sincere boy who wrote poetry in the Leningrad House of Pioneers, and about the point of no return at that time, sounds like a sentence. Let me note, not only moral.

Bogomolov also added a biography of BG, moreover, with a tragic ending. His illegitimate daughter from a long-standing accidental Leningrad relationship with Marya Lvovna, when she was a prostitute, will finally escape from Bali to Moscow to unite with her lover, who is going as a volunteer to the Donbass.

The singer will leave a note containing lines from the poems of his unrecognized blood girl: “The beautiful is far away, don’t be cruel to me, don’t be cruel to me, don’t be cruel.” The uplifting theme song soars above the sad ending, accompanied by laughter from the audience – a dark comedy.

Here Bogomolov, it must be said, went further than the petrel of the revolution: if Gorky in his play signed a moral verdict on the intelligentsia, then Bogomolov signed a physical one. And all this to the sound of the Kremlin chimes, under the canopy of palm trees and the blue sky of Bali.

Director Bogomolov did not betray himself and impartially, without a shadow of a smile, acted out the play he had written. And not only on stage, but also, as he has loved to do lately, in the hall. The stylishness of the production was visually enhanced by Bronnaya’s constant collaborator Larisa Lomakina, who minimalistically depicted Bali for us. The resort setting of sun loungers and armchairs is complemented by a video on three hard scenes that outline the perimeter of Basov’s house. They show spreading palm trees swaying in the wind. The camera shows a black-and-white close-up of the summer residents in profile and full face at the moment of a monologue or dialogue. Laconicism, minimalism, expensive look.

Bogomolov’s actors (both with Bronnaya and those invited – Mirkurbanov, Rebenok, Vasilyeva) work exactly in the style of the production: a minimum of external costs with internal tension and expression, which are not allowed to be discovered even in moments of despair of the heroes. The only one who is allowed to emotionally break the boundaries of the director’s rigid drawing is the wonderful Lera Gorin in the role of Suslov. Most likely, because this cynic, unlike others, is doomed, he has nothing to lose, and he will cheerfully go.

It should be recognized that under Bogomolov, a strong acting ensemble is developing on Bronnaya, and in “Dachniki,” as in his previous productions, one can discover new names, for example, Vasilisa Perelygina, Anya Patokina.

But…even if the viewer wants to mark the one he especially liked in order to continue to follow the work and development of the artist (artist), it will not be easy for him. Because the new format of the play’s programs excluded the traditional scenario: the character is the performer, and simply included the actors’ names/surnames in a general list. Which may be stylish in a glossy b/w program, but even with quar codes it’s not entirely comfortable for the public.