“Taras Bulba” in the “Kolyada Theater” was dedicated to Galina Volchek

While in Ukraine they destroy and demolish monuments to Pushkin (already 24) and other symbols reminiscent of Russia, in Moscow they play Gogol, they dance hopak, they even speak Ukrainian. What is tolerance? Which side is the truth on? The Kolyada Theatre, which has been showing old and new performances at the Center on Strastnoy for the past week, played one of its last premieres, Taras Bulba. An important clarification: the playwright and director turned to Gogol’s story even before the start of the SVO, and the special operation did not stop him. With details from the theatrical Zaporizhzhya Sich deployed in the Russian capital, the MK columnist.

Kolyada takes the stage, as he does all the days of the tour, only he pronounces a different text on a specific occasion. This time he is quoting the great Ukrainian actor Bogdan Stupka, who just played with Kolyada in his Russian production of Old World Landowners.

– Bogdan Silvestrovich said: “What is needed for happiness? Gogol and Kolyada. (Laughter, applause.) The main thing I want to say is that Taras Bulba appeared thanks to the person who played almost the main role in my life, Galina Borisovna Volchek. When in 2021, in November, I staged The Cherry Orchard in Poland, at the theater in Zakopane, I dreamed about it. On the table she had a volume of Gogol, the story “Taras Bulba”. I realized that I had to put it on. Therefore, we dedicate the performance to Volchek. (Applause.)

On the stage, striking in the eyes of variegation and colorfulness. The backdrop with three high yellow doors, an indispensable scenographic element of all the performances of the Yekaterinburg troupe, is thickly hung with colored rags / ribbons descending like vines somewhere in the south. On the left is a large icon of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker, and opposite is a black wall, all hung with … ladles, there are at least a dozen of them here. Yes, yes, it is this piece of kitchen utensils that will manifest itself in various and active ways in many scenes of the performance, lyrical and combat – it doesn’t matter.

Director Kolyada generally loves to elevate the real, and everyday, trifle to the rank of the image of the performance. In The Cherry Orchard, for example, white plastic cups work for him as this very garden. In “Richard III” teabags sleeping (!!!) on strings personify death, and in “Anna Karenina” – circles of saw cuts in the hands of artists, either like love letters, bills, then the surprised eyes of characters and God knows what, what a normal director and will not come to mind. But Kolyada, he is outside the norm, he has everything in his own way, in Kolyadov’s way – bright, fantasy, bizarre, conditional, at the same time naive, simple and real. “Taras Bulba” was no exception, but this particular production can be considered exceptional in the context of the events of the last year of his life. Not only Russia and Ukraine – the world.

“Turn around, sons!” What are these priestly cassocks on you? Is that how everyone goes to the academy? – with these words old Bulba (Anton Makushin) meets his sons who studied in the Kyiv bursa. Strongly built, with a naked torso, he, as if drunk, approaches the angular, embarrassed caricature Ostap and Andriy (Nikita Rybkin, Bogdan Smolyanitsky). – Look, what priestly cassocks you have on.

True, the appearance of cassocks has nothing to do with the clothes of the bursaks – they are of an absurd color and look like a sweatshirt made of fur, of course, not natural. In Kolyada, the text is usually deliberately in conflict with the external series. Bulba himself, in his image, is pure authority in law, he communicates harshly with his wife, sons, and comrades. This is where he has them – in a strong fist: a little something … His brutality is energetically supported by collective dances, and it is difficult to say what is more in them, energy or aggression. The classical elements of the national dance alternate with the rigidly rhythmic movements of the Cossacks, accompanied by militant “uh” yes “eh”. And so far they have not guns and sabers in their hands, but ladles, from which they seem to drink, playing with the name of the protagonist: “bul-bul-ba, bul-bul-ba”.

Everything here is exactly according to Gogol – “Taras Bulba” in the finale of the first act is supplemented with a quote from “Terrible Revenge”, decorated with an excerpt from “Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka” (“Wonderful Dnieper in calm weather”). A trip to the Sich, an ancient parable about two brothers and wonderful descriptions of the Ukrainian steppe, which is more beautiful than anything in the world, and tears of mothers. And also the seductive and insidious Pannochka, Andriy’s love for whom is like a hassle. Betrayal as a consequence of it … The denouement as an inevitability.

The second act will be in obvious conflict with the first, as if it were a different play. Colors will fade, women will change their bright outfits to black ones, and everything will become quiet and scary. Especially in the finale, when the brutal Bulba becomes a father, whose feelings are so subtly conveyed that the silence in the hall seems to only aggravate the anxiety about what is happening outside the theater.

– I gave birth to you, I gave birth to you and … – old Bulba is quiet, slow. In the intonations of Anton Makushin, incredibly organic, free, no accusation, no forgiveness. You project what you see onto what is happening, in which everything is complicated, there are many incoming and lies, shifters and madness. All this is not in the words – it stands behind the words, like an executioner waiting in the wings.

The girl sings in the finale, and her song is eerily simple: if there is a war, she will never give birth. She will not have children if the war goes on. Someone is crying, not embarrassed by tears, not only for the heroes of Gogol. And he applauds the artists, jumping up from their seats, who know how to be so free on the stage, as if they are not playing at all. To the naive theater of Kolyada, which does not pretend to be cliches of modern theater. And the wisdom of Kolyada, who showed and explained today with the classics better than political scientists, experts and other smart people combined.