Two days of Vladimir Ilyich – Weekend

45 years ago, at the end of 1978, the play “Blue Horses on Red Grass” was staged at the Lenkom Theater in Moscow, directed by Mark Zakharov; three years later, at the end of 1981, at the Moscow Art Theater, staged by Oleg Efremov, the play “So We Will Win!” Both performances went down in the history of the theater and the history of the country. Olga Fedyanina reminds us of the last political demarche of the Soviet theater.

Today all this already needs explanation – not only for those born later, but also for those who saw everything with their own eyes. If not the event itself, then its “wrong side,” its subconscious, turns pale and loses its outline. What could be so surprising in performances about Lenin and why did the memory of this surprise turn out to be so lasting?

The initiative to select the material in both cases belonged to the theaters themselves, and they chose something similar. Both plays, which would be more correctly called literary and dramatic compositions, were written by Mikhail Shatrov, the main character of both is Vladimir Ilyich Lenin. They are written in the genre of “one day in the life of a leader” – the action of “Blue Horses” takes place on October 2, 1920, the action “So we will win!” – October 18, 1923. Chronological accuracy matters; Shatrov is not only a playwright, but also a historian; the plot and dialogues are based on archival documents.

True, behind a similar choice, most likely, there were different tasks. Mark Zakharov, who in his early years constantly got into cruel troubles with censorship and eventually became a virtuoso of witty, ambiguous and always spectacular theater, could simply be tempted by the idea of ​​​​turning Ilyich into a box office hit.

Oleg Efremov, not prone to irony, with a very sharp and genuine civil, political temperament, repeated his own demarche of the late 1960s in a new round of history. Then, Sovremennik celebrated the 50th anniversary of the revolution with the trilogy “Decembrists”, “People’s Volunteers”, “Bolsheviks”: the history of the country, from the riot to the revolution, looked defiantly unpretentious and had difficulty getting through censorship. True, in those “Bolsheviks”, also written by Mikhail Shatrov, there was no Lenin, just as there was no Pushkin in Bulgakov’s “The Last Days” – they talked about him, but did not show him.

What is important, however, is that, despite all their differences, these two directors had the same starting impulse. Both Zakharov and Efremov took the anniversary matter seriously. Seriously – like artists. This was a sensation, a violation of the convention. In the theater of the times of developed stagnation, real creative ambitions were not spent on the so-called Leniniana.

Ideology required compliance with formalities and rituals – no less, but no more – as in all other sectors of the national economy that produced intellectual and artistic content. Any scientific work, be it in the field of agronomy or in the field of ancient languages, began with quotes from the classics of Marxism-Leninism, but neither those who “sculpted” these quotes, nor those who made sure that they were correctly pasted, invested in These are neither thoughts nor feelings.

The formality was observed indifferently. Leniniana appeared on stage for the anniversaries of Lenin himself and the revolution. The director was chosen according to the principle – a well-deserved one, but one whom it would not be a pity to send to a thankless job. If he was not there, the name of the director-in-chief was on the poster, and the practical part was carried out by assistants. The district (city, republican – depending on the status of the theater) authorities came to the premiere; for all subsequent shows, tickets were distributed “in addition” to something truly scarce – for example, to the premiere of a translated vaudeville. Everything went on as usual for decades.

The attempt to spice up the routine amounted to deliberate provocation. Moreover, the provocation was double – it was a simultaneous attack on both the official granite pathos and the carefully cultivated and protected absenteeism of the advanced public.

Do you really think that we will listen to dialogues about the terms of the Brest-Litovsk Treaty and the food policy of the 1920s?

You will, you will.

Lenin in the USSR was played by dozens of actors, among whom there were outstanding ones – but this was always not so much a role as a responsible party task; it (he) was not played, but carried out. The performer was covered with portrait makeup and had to have the title of “People’s Artist,” or received “People’s Artist” shortly after the performance. (In return, however, Lenin could have a bad influence on the actor’s career, closing his path to comic, character and negative roles.)

In the play “Lenkom” the leader was played by Oleg Yankovsky, in the Moscow Art Theater – Alexander Kalyagin.

Yankovsky was 34 years old and at a very high point in his acting fame. With all his being, he was the hero of today. He played Lenin without makeup, in a well-fitting gray suit – he played with all the melancholic, complex “Hamlet” charm and absolutely with the same technical grace with which a year later he would play the Wizard in “An Ordinary Miracle”, and two years later – Munchausen.

Kalyagin, who was nevertheless carefully made up as a portrait, was a very dramatic Lenin, impetuous, cocky. He interrupted himself, plunged into unclear memories, painfully searched for words, broke down, fell into despair. Like Yankovsky, Kalyagin overcame the historical distance literally effortlessly. In his temperamental patter, even the “theses” and “points” of party discussions and battles came to life, humanized – and began to sound relevant, sharp, seditious.

Of course, there was a lot of purely theatrical slyness here – in fact, both Yankovsky and Kalyagin demonstrated a magic trick with recitation of the notorious “telephone book”. But in this case it was a very powerful trick. For the sake of Ilyich, they generously spent their skills, the star charm of the people’s favorites, and, strange as it may sound, their acting reputation. This was an exotic case of a kind of “reverse legitimation” – the actor’s popularity worked for a hero who had long been disgusted by everyone.

(A small digression. If we talk about the Moscow Art Theater and Efremov, then this “reverse legitimation” was the difference between “So We Will Win!” and the aforementioned trilogy of the late 60s. Then, at the end of the thaw, the still young actors of “Sovremennik” made their way to historical matter, mastered it in front of the audience. Now the masters, adored by the public, used their power over the audience to force it to seriously listen to Lenin’s words.)

Of course, both Zakharov and Efremov addressed not only ordinary viewers.

In Gogol’s aphorism “The theater is a department from which you can say a lot of good to the world,” hammered into the memory of every graduate of a Soviet theater university, it was directly implied that such a department could be installed directly opposite the central box, which under socialism was officially called the director’s box, and unofficially – in the old royal way.

The main recipients of both directorial provocations were all those big and very big bosses, party and government functionaries, who, due to their positions, were supposed to spend the prescribed two or three hours in these boxes on the corresponding anniversary dates. It must have become very boring for them. For them, this food crisis, bureaucratic problems, party sectarianism, lack of communication with the people should have sounded like a pressing agenda. This showed them that the Bolsheviks could make mistakes, lose their presence of mind and control over the situation. It was they who shouted about the destruction of Pharisaism.

In hindsight, it seems quite obvious—and rather naive—that the theater was making its civic gesture at the threshold of time, calling for a “revival of Leninist norms” on the eve of a new historical stage. But in 1978 and 1981, neither the hall nor the royal box saw any threshold even in dreams (or nightmares). The inevitable Secretary General Brezhnev also came to greet Lenin-Kalyagin, in whose presence the border between the world of reality and illusion, living, half-dead and dead persons became completely permeable. Only in a few years will political rhetoric come to life not only on stage, but also on the streets, in private apartments, and on television screens. And the theater will temporarily believe in its power, in the fact that it turned out to be the very “pulpit from which …”

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