Remarque’s famous novel staged at the Fomenko Workshop

At the Pyotr Fomenko Workshop Theater, the premiere is Twenty-Third, a performance staged by Yevgeny Kamenkovich based on Remarque’s novel The Black Obelisk. The story of what happened a hundred years ago in Germany turned out to be more than indicative today, not only for this country. From the premiere – the columnist “MK”.

Director Yevgeny Kamenkovich for his production based on Remarque preferred the simple numeral “Twenty-Three” as the title, but it meets the audience in the hall in its full form – 1923: this year is stamped in black on a light gray metal plate suspended above the stage like a signboard. It was in 1923 that events unfold in the German town of Werdenbrück, which does not actually exist (researchers of Remarque’s work believe that the writer meant his native Osnabrück).

From the very first scene, on the signboard, as on a scoreboard, other figures are already running and chirping – the changing dollar exchange rate: fifty thousand, one hundred, one million marks a hundred years ago they were given in Germany for just one American dollar. Crazy inflation! The brand depreciates before our eyes and flies into the abyss. The heroes of Remarque, the employees of the funeral home “Krol and Sons”, are watching her fall. They are fellow soldiers who miraculously survived the First World War: two brothers – Krol and Heinrich, who are responsible for the sale and purchase of coffins, crosses, tombstones, and their partner Ludwig, an accountant, he is also an artist, he is also the head of advertising. Thin, ironically sarcastic even, in a black sweater, trousers tucked into high leggings, and a cap with a wide visor over the eyes in the fashion of the 20s of the last century. Ludwig (Yuri Butorin) is the main character, and the narration is being conducted from his face, which is quietly oversound by the melodies of the time when foxtrot, shimmy and something else spicy were in vogue…

“The spring of 1923, when we relied on such dubious things as honesty, fairness, tolerance. And also to the fact that one world war is enough for this generation to come to its senses, the pretty fellow says quite to himself. And the undertaker Alfred (Alexander Morovov), with the appearance of a cocky cockerel, asserting himself in sexual victories, states: “Human grief cannot do without monuments, coffins, crosses and other funeral paraphernalia. So our business is going well!” In general, to whom the war, to whom the mother is dear.

The scenographic solution, for which Alexander Borovsky is responsible, cuts the world of a German town in layers and concretely, like a guillotine, denoting these same layers with three colors. The drop-down panel in black fabric belongs to the funeral business, which is profitable in difficult times – the heroes are wearing black suits. The red panel that replaces it opens the Red Mill nightclub, where everyone – its owner Eduard and prostitutes – are all in red. The third interchangeable panel – yellow – is a symbol of the local psychiatric hospital, where the protagonist plays the organ for a free breakfast in the morning and interacts with staff and patients dressed in yellow. Costumes of Maria Borovskaya. This tricolor has its own philosophy – death, venality and madness, which are especially aggravated at critical and turning points for humanity. In this novel, Remarque is after the First World War, to which both “All Quiet on the Western Front” and “Three Comrades” are dedicated to him.

The mocking cynicism of the heroes of all his works is like a defensive reaction to hopelessness: mortality in the town from influenza in the summer of 1923 is grief for someone, and the office is income. There are more than enough jokes about this. For priestesses of love in red, love is not a topic at all, they would like a husband with a stable income, so Gerda (Polina Airapetova) will not stay with Ludwig, but with Eduard (Pavel Yakovlev) from the Red Mill, who always acts according to circumstances, but not conscience. Maybe that’s why he is the only one of the heroes who will survive in the meat grinder of the 20th century. But about who and how will end his days, Ludwig will report at the end of the performance. For now…

While they, survivors of the First World War, young, greedy for life, gather in the Red Mill, where it is free, sweet, drunk and moderately depraved. On the contrary, everyone dances charmingly – girls in red, boys in black, and the mourning combination of colors does not bother anyone even in the context of the time. The lost generation is present at National Socialism raising its head and gaining strength with correct speeches about love for the motherland. Is anyone against it?

What, besides relevance, is the new work of the Fomenko Workshop interesting for? Yevgeny Kamenkovich invites the viewer not to look for new meanings in Remarque’s novel, but to comprehend what has already happened in history, in order to use this knowledge to come to an understanding of what is happening to humanity now, in a hundred years. Alas, it turns out that little has changed in the human race since then. And Remarque, with his pain for what he experienced and cynicism as a side effect from her, is just right here. The topic is difficult, the conversation is more than serious, it seems to be easy and simple. Like our everyday living, the true appreciation of which always comes later. That in the 20s in Germany, that in 2014 in Ukraine, that now the whole world is on the threshold. That’s just what?

The rising national socialism of Germany is shown fragmentarily in the second act: a panel that has not completely descended onto the stage from above leaves a gap in which only marching black boots are visible, and then they are in a scuffle with the civilian shoes of the heroes. So far, only street skirmishes, no Gestapo and concentration camps. There are raised voices of ideological disputes, soul-saving conversations with a pastor, a split in the minds of patients in a psychiatric hospital on personal and social grounds. Here love without tenderness is tough as life.

The director and actors managed to convey the atmosphere of Remarque’s novel and the given tone of the friendliness that is characteristic of his works, and the well-developed characters of the characters – from the main ones to the small ones. Excellent work by Yuri Butorin, Alexander Morovov, Dmitry Zakharov, Vladimir Toptsov, Veniamin Krasnyansky, Alexandra Kiselman, Daria Konyzheva, Polina Airapetova, Ekaterina Smirnova, Tagir Rakhimov, Oleg Niryan. And Ksenia Kutepova, who plays an ever-drunk cloakroom attendant in a nightclub who cheats on her respectable butcher husband, constantly leaves with applause, although this role is completely small. But, as you know, there are no small roles.

And the black obelisk, which stands still throughout the performance, towering above the colored panels, will be installed on the grave not of some worthy hero, but of a club prostitute nicknamed “Iron Horse”. And it will be paid for by little funny Fritzi, a colleague of the “Horse” in the night business, who donated all their earnings to the obelisk.