The premiere of a performance about women’s happiness took place at the “School of Modern Play”

The very name of the play by two authors whose professional activities are not directly related to dramaturgy (lawyer Mikhail Barshchevsky and music critic Ekaterina Kretova) is like a gift from the writing fraternity. It is universal, you can play with it indefinitely: no matter how you turn it, it will fit with any outcome: money, sex, man, love, career – yes or no, individually or together. Here the arrow for the time outside the window and updating is important. Something, but this in “Women’s Happiness” in abundance. But more on that later.

While the audience is seated on the Small Stage, you can take a closer look at the location equipped for happiness. As conceived by the artist (Maria Ivashkova), it looks like this: on the left, in front of three rows of spectators stretching along the entire wall, an office apparatus with coffee and snacks, a table with open tablets. To the right is a staircase leading to the balcony, where four musicians (electric and acoustic guitars, drums and a singer) have already settled down, trying out the sound. Six or seven screens on the wall opposite the audience and a white square glowing above them with the inscription “Quiet. Shooting in progress.” The cleaning lady, wearing a turban-like headscarf, drags a mop listlessly across the floor while the last spectator hurriedly searches for a place and makes her way to it over someone else’s legs. Late and the head of the Department of Culture Alexander Kibovsky. But the authorities, as you know, are not late, but delayed – and also want to know about happiness.

In the new performance, by the way, this concept is not abstract, such as happiness – and happiness in Africa. The play is written specifically about the happiness of a) the female and b) the modern formation – successful, tough, self-sufficient, who know their worth in the literal and figurative sense. On the stage of the ShSP, one of them is Lena, she is Lelya, she is Lala or Lyalya – as a man wants. And she is not alone.

— I worked on television. In Moscow, of course. And I myself am from Tula. Rather, not from Tula itself – from the Tula region, Bogoroditsky district. Did not hear? Big eyes, brown, slender legs, chest – everything is in place. Growth is ideal, but this is not the main thing. The main thing is brains. More precisely, a combination of bust and intellect. This is the formula for female success – my own, if anything.

This is how the heroine, played by Valeria Lanskaya, appears. Something about TV, about love, but not gentle, rather ironic, rushes from the balcony in support of the image. And Lanskaya in black-and-white light is reproduced in close-up on the screens and for some reason does not sing, as one might expect from a star of domestic musicals. Good, there is nothing to say, and the truth is, everything is with her – brown eyes, chiseled legs, elegantly braided and set at an angle …

The text of the play is built as a monologue of the heroine about herself and her female lot: from the moment of loss of innocence after school (bad experience) to the present day (in personal terms, not a fountain). And today, Lena, Lala, Lelya successfully runs a talk show on a federal channel, where she deals with deceived fathers, other people’s genetic tests and curses on social networks. She does not suspect that the dirty content cultivated under her leadership with showdowns in the studio will also affect her. But how!

The heroine’s monologue is developed by dialogues in which she enters in turn with men – unloved and loved. And around, like mice, a wordless extras scurry around, serving this love triangle. Black and white screens work in sync with the stage and give the production a cinematic feel. Only the text of the players on the screen comes with a slight delay.

With all external success, it is impossible to call a provincial happy. Even in the presence of handsome Shota (Suhrab Haylobekov) – from a decent family, with “cubes” on a beautiful, like a stripper, torso, a champion in sex. Nevertheless, with a traditional orientation – not a man. The man for her will be different – a middle-aged, charming married boss (attention!) From the foreign intelligence of the FSB (Ivan Mamonov). You really don’t know who you’ll be happy with.

And here the story of a love triangle suddenly grows with the line of the department on the Lubyanka, and, I must say, this was done with skill, not at all flat. “We were taught to recruit,” Lena’s lover will say. “It means penetrating into human psychology. Ask questions, get answers, and read what the person wanted to say. So carry on a dialogue with the interlocutor so that he does whatever you want. So that he does not notice how at some point he became soft obedient clay in your hands. And so that he loves you and can no longer do without you.

There will be no banal recruitment, but it is with this man that from now on Lena will lose her successful gloss, turn into an ordinary, not at all dominant female. She will wait, shudder at every text message, indulge herself with an illusion, even when Ivan Ivanovich shows himself in her fate by no means a combat officer. And the one with cubes on the torso will turn out to be quite decent. The performance intertwines the lines of love, life, the role of TV in the life of society. But the theme of women’s fate and happiness will still outweigh the departmental one, although thanks for trying to consider the image of his heroes.

So all the same, what is it – female happiness? The search for an answer to this question in the performance is carried out with the help of a reprise text: “who was a nobody, he slept with the wrong one” or “the first time was by accident, the second was a coincidence, and the third was the KGB.” Of course, sex: there is both in the shadow version (coition of lovers behind the screen), and in the acoustic version (hot, hasty breathing, whispering in bed behind the scenes). And also an anecdote, for example this one: Parade on Red Square. On the podium among the guests are Macedonian, Genghis Khan and Napoleon. On the area are tanks. Macedonian says: “If I had such chariots, I would have conquered all of Central Asia.” They carry medium-range missiles. Genghis Khan says: “If I had such spears, I would conquer all of Europe.” And Napoleon does not look at the square at all, he carefully reads the Soviet newspaper. He is asked: “Sir, why are you not looking? Doesn’t anything impress you?” He replies, “Yes, impressive, very impressive. If I had such a press, everyone would be sure that it was I who won the victory at Waterloo.

The unconditional success of the performance is Valeria Lanskaya: the type of modern femina is recognizable and presented by her in development, in volume. The authors of the play presented her heroine with a range of very different states, which she conveys surprisingly subtly and without tension for an hour and a half that the performance is on. And the line of transition from one to another is invisible both for a self-confident person and for a single mother who at some point fell to the bottom. This is a benefit role for an actress that changes her status – quite a nice musical actress to a serious dramatic one.

By the way, in the finale, which is not invented, but more than lifelike, Lanskaya will still sing. In French, from the repertoire of Yves Montand – about love, of course. And to the accompaniment of the 3D group (Daria Kozlovtseva, Alexander Kozlovtsev, Andrey Litvinenko, Nikolai Kladinov), which constantly so successfully accompanied Women’s Happiness and wrote author’s music, songs and covers of famous compositions for it (Neneh cherry, Zveri, CY Coleman). Not everything is so hopeless, girls.