Vakhtangov’s Jumping Girl: Lessons in Love and Adultery

At the Theatre. Vakhtangov – the premiere of Aidar Zabbarov’s performance “The Jumper”.

Anton Pavlovich Chekhov is one of the most sought after authors in the theatre. His text sounded on the stage of the Theater. Vakhtangov repeatedly. Immediately after the opening of the theater, Evgeny Vakhtangov offered the public attention nothing more than Chekhov’s plays “Jubilee”, “The Wedding” and the story “Thieves”, combined into a single performance.

The Golden Mask nominee Aidar Zabbarov also began his collaboration with the Vakhtangov Theater by turning to Chekhov’s prose.

The main character of the play “The Jumper” Olga Ivanovna (actress Evgenia Ivashova) is a young married woman who gravitates towards the bohemian world. Fashionable artists, musicians, poets, singers, artists – in short, “promising celebrities” gather at her house on Wednesdays. Olga also tries herself in painting, music, theater. Her guests, as if by agreement, praise the mind and delicate taste of the mistress of the house, unanimously assuring that Olga Ivanovna is a bright talent. Well, how not to be sure? After all, every evening at a certain hour, Olga Ivanovna’s husband, doctor Osip Dymov, appears in the living room and asks the guests “to welcome a drink and a snack.”

Osip Stepanovich Dymov (artist Yan Gakharmanov) lives in a completely different world than his wife, the world of rigorous science and medical practice. The frivolous Olga Ivanovna does not see the significance of her husband in this world: all her time is taken up by trips to the dressmaker and creative parties.

It is clear that people with such different passions and lifestyles as Dymov and his wife cannot stay in a serene marriage for a long time: Olga falls in love with the fashionable artist Ryabovsky. Artist Yuri Polyak makes his hero arrogant and narcissistic: Olga’s enthusiastic looks and words amuse Ryabovsky’s pride, but the fan quickly gets bored. The young woman begins to arrange scenes of jealousy, demand attention, bringing the remnants of the relationship to naught. Ryabovsky becomes frankly rude: and now Olga is not a promising “young talent”, but a mediocre creature, from whom nothing worthwhile in the field of painting will come of it.

But what about Dymov? Dymov perfectly sees what is happening with his wife, but shows delicacy, despite the pain that is caused to him. The sudden illness and death of her husband makes the heroine feel lonely and understand who exactly was next to her. Moreover, the statements of Dymov’s colleagues are eye-opening: Olga’s husband was a great scientist, for the world of science his departure is an irreparable loss.

The new play by Aidar Zabbarov has a lot of interesting directorial, scenographic and other finds. Despite the fact that the heroine considers herself a sophisticated creature, she perceives the world rather flatly, and this unambiguity is emphasized by the color scheme of the costumes. White shirts, black clothes and red wine in glasses – this is the color scheme of the performance by costume designer and set designer Bulat Ibragimov.

In terms of scenography, the story unfolds mainly on a metal podium – an island that breaks at some point, as if a crack had passed through the very foundation of the characters’ lives. Life breaks up into separate islands that turn into dissecting tables before our eyes. Easels, picture frames in the back of the stage stick out untidy in the doorway, looking out as if from a dusty closet, which in fact represents the bohemian life of Olga’s party goers.

Ryabovsky’s landscapes are broadcast on the walls with the help of a video projector. With such a bold decision, the richness of colors is lost and the image is distorted, giving rise to the idea that these are “those still canvases”. And a bright lamp in the back of the stage and an X-ray machine hint: the doctor Dymov sees through all this bohemia, with all its giblets and prodigal thoughts. And Dymov is silent solely out of love for Olga, next to whom he is so lonely that even on the day of the successful defense of his dissertation he cannot share his joy with his wife: she does not see or hear him.

Extremely impressive in the performance is the appearance of Ryabovsky’s new mistress, slowly floating through the hall onto the stage in a red dress with an incredibly long train. The train drags like a snake’s tail along the aisle between the seats. The mistress does not utter a word, but her eloquent appearance and strange attire are more expressive than any remarks: she walked through the fate of Olga Ivanovna like a red-hot lightning.

No less impressive is the director’s decision of the final, when Olga tries to break through to her sick husband, but she is not allowed into the hospital – quarantine. But doctors, Dymov’s colleagues, flock there in an endless stream, throwing and burying Olga under a pile of their black coats. Confused, she stands under an unbearable burden, realizing for the first time how many people were interested in the life and healing of her husband, whom she did not notice at all.

The words of Dymov’s friends beat Olga Ivanovna backhand: “A kind, pure, loving soul is not a person, but glass! Served science and died from science. And he worked like an ox, day and night, no one spared him … he had to look for a practice for himself and do translations at night in order to pay for these … vile rags!

“How inattentively we live” – this thought runs like a red thread through the entire production of Aidar Zabbarov, giving the play “The Jumper” relevance and leaving the audience a wide space for further reflection.

Elena Bulova.

Photos provided by the PR service of the Theater. Vakhtangov