Konstantin Bogomolov’s ambitious project “Voices of the Country” has started

There were a lot of people at VDNKh in the building of the Soviet cultural center with columns – everyone who was lucky enough to register came. Here they present the first of twelve one-man performances created based on the stories of real people who simply live, simply work and try to make every day – theirs or someone else’s – brighter. The first one is called beautifully – “School of Etiquette”. He represents an elderly woman who understands better than many others what is completely unclaimed today – etiquette, Anna Ernstovna Wall from St. Petersburg. She came from the Northern capital to see how the actress of the Moscow Art Theater named after. Chekhov Alexandra The child presents her on stage. Anna Ernstovna is fragile, short, in a dark blue dress with a white collar, gray hair neatly styled, round glasses through which smart, lively eyes look at you, not without a spark of curiosity. Now she’s worried. For whom more – herself, the actress portraying her, or etiquette, of which she is a staunch apologist? So, let’s see.

On the stage there is a table under a white tablecloth, on it there are three glasses, some plates, a couple of chairs, the backs of which are in cross slats. The actress, dressed in a formal suit of a pleasant light brown color, takes the microphone, as if she is about to give a lecture on etiquette to the audience.

– Etiquette… Who cares about this today? My heroine Anna Ernstovna Wall lives in St. Petersburg, she is 69 years old, and she is engaged in… However, it will be better if she tells everything about herself. Although I’m sure she would have started differently.

Actress Child moves to the right portal. Stands in profile towards the audience. A slight tilt of the head with blond hair styled in a bun. Pause. She turned around, and now she was no longer an actress, but Anna Ernstovna Wall in person. Although she hasn’t changed either her voice, her figure, or even her makeup.

During the hour that the action takes place, the mise-en-scène is practically the same: the etiquette specialist is near the table at different points, which she slowly changes, maybe sits down a couple of times. But there is no feeling of stagnant water, on the contrary, Anna Ernstovna’s life seems to fly by, carrying her with her internal energy into her own past (she was born in Karaganda, she yearns for it), the present (she lives in St. Petersburg, travels by metro, loves shawarma, which St. Petersburg style is called shawarma), immersing you in the little-known art of etiquette, and as a result – in your own life, in which everything has happened: from the comic to the hopelessly tragic.

“But the word heals,” Anna Ernstovna tells us, calmly, like a psychotherapist. “That’s why in the clinic where I work, I talk not only with doctors, but also with patients. Late evening. We look out the window: the patient says: “Snow is falling.” And I say: “Have you noticed that snow can fall or fall, but it only rains?” And we start talking. “The rain cannot lie, but the snow lies.” And the patient smiles. And by the end of the day, the patient and I are in a good mood – this is very important for recovery.

And again about etiquette. Many people think that it is for the rich who have lunch and dinner in a restaurant. Why does the poor need etiquette? – she asks and answers with Van Gogh’s painting “The Potato Eaters”. The picture is slightly animated.

Playwright Valery Pecheykin, like all the project participants, specially went to visit his heroine in St. Petersburg and talked with her more than once. He was clearly lucky with a counterpart for whom he didn’t need to invent anything – she was so interesting. But he managed to translate her life and occupation, which, apparently, are philosophically inseparable, into a monologue that is deep, but subtle and humorous. And so, in turn, director Talgat Batalov read the dramatic material, managing to create the illusion of the absence of boundaries between life and theater. Alexandra Rebenok, who grew into a great actress, elegantly and simply embodied this illusion.

In fact, you quickly forget about the age difference between the actress and the real person; you don’t care about their external dissimilarity. Theatrical techniques and unobtrusive design in the form of documentary photographs or hand-drawn pictures are obvious. Even the image of Anna Ernstovna generated by artificial intelligence is not confusing. The actress talks to him about humor.

“Hello everyone, whom I don’t see,” said the blind man, entering the bar,” the AI ​​“product” jokes in a not very lively voice. To which the stage Anna Ernstovna responds with a pleasant lively intonation with her anecdote: “When Mozart died and appeared before the Creator, he said: “I am pleased with you, Mozart, I appoint you the main composer of heaven.” Mozart was embarrassed: “I thank you, but it seems to me that Bach is better suited for this position.” – “And Bach is me.”

The lightness, wit, and subtle remarks that accompany the etiquette specialist’s monologue at the most unexpected moment, closer to the end, suddenly stumble and freeze during a short story about lost children. The only episode of the entire performance when the camera is turned on and the actress’s image is duplicated on the screen.

And yet, whoever attended this amazing performance will take with them the five rules of etiquette that they have learned. First: the main thing at the table is posture. Second: know how to interact with any glass that contains a drink. Third: thank and know how to apologize even where it would seem that you did nothing. Rule four: etiquette is caring for others. A person of etiquette may not know how to use a fork, but we see him in his interactions not with cutlery, but with people. And finally, fifth and last: know how to give a compliment, be generous.

If the rest of the solo performances, in which Alexander Semchev, Igor Mirkurbanov, Ivan Agapov, Alexey Vertkov, Natalya Shchukina, Alexandra Ursulyak will participate, continue like this, then, of course, it can be argued that the project about light and the best in Russian reality is not formal, laboratory character. In any case, “School of Etiquette” can already be considered as a full-fledged performance that will decorate the poster of any large hall.

After long applause, already leaving the hall, Anna Ernstovna, flushed with excitement, admitted to me that she was shocked by what she saw: “I understood a lot. And above all to myself.”