FEATURE

New Russian drama often startles foreigners who grew up on “Uncle Vanya” and images of a historical landscape that has few points of contact with daily life in the modern-day Russian Federation. A new generation of Russian playwrights and directors, however, bases its work if not on an outright rejection of classics, then on a tacit understanding that new drama needs its own space and its own specific brand of oxygen to flourish.

Marat Gatsalov, co-director of “Life Is Grand” and recent Golden Mask laureate, recently told a gathering at the Playwright and Director Centre that he has “no motivation to direct classics”. If one looks at “Life Is Grand” – an obscenity-laden paean to life and love by Pavel Pryazhko, which won co-directors Gatsalov and Mikhail Ugarov the special drama jury prize at this year’s Golden Mask awards – Gatsalov’s longing for fresh material appears perfectly justified. “Life Is Grand” is an indecorous play about indecorous people, and although it does not possess a gram of gratuitousness, the present climate in Russian theatre means that productions like this cannot simply co-exist alongside classical material, but must fight extra hard for survival.

“Of course, a director has to choose between new drama and classics at this time,” Gatsalov’s co-director, Mikhail Ugarov, told The Moscow News. “That’s because not all is right with new drama. Until there is an even split between how many productions concern themselves with classics, and how many productions concern themselves with new drama, we have to keep the two separate.”

Profanities uttered on stage may have little to do with the international image of Russian drama as a whole, but that perception is being challenged. A modern playwright’s chosen style, no matter how rough, has the chance to be accepted as “authentic” – on a par with the works of Chekhov or Ostrovsky.

“I didn’t hear any stupid questions from Americans,” playwright Maksym Kurochkin said in an interview, referring to his recent trip to the United States. He expressed his general irritation with the constant questioning of strong language in new drama. Kurochkin, however, was not entirely sure about how widely accepted new drama is today. “My American colleagues and I were united in our shared uncertainty in whether or not we were being understood,” he said.

“Philip Arnoult, who came up with a whole series of trips and seminars with the participation of Russian and Ukrainian authors, is yearning for a time when the theatre woke you up, when it provoked you, offended you, forced you to change,” said Kurochkin of his trip, lamenting what he sees as the theatre’s general desire to “service” the audience.

“Most of today’s theatre-goers are doing it as a mere cultural gesture,” Ugarov said when asked about Russian audiences in particular, echoing Kurochkin’s frustration.
“How do most people talk about drama? ‘We were at the theatre yesterday, we liked it very much.’ It’s a touchstone, a means to appear intelligent, that’s all.”
In such an environment, choosing new drama means more than choosing modern material, it also means reaching out to a certain kind of audience.

“I don’t want to direct plays for older women – who at least go to the theatre as opposed to most older men – and people on business trips who are killing time in the capital,” said director Alexei Zhiryakov, who premiered in Moscow with a production of Vyacheslav Durnenkov’s “Exhibits”. “I want a play that uses living language – that is to say modern language. And I want an audience that wants to listen.”

One of the reasons why new drama specifically rejects the classics has to do with what new drama adherents see as the complacency of most classical productions. “You want to direct, you go for the classics, because practically everyone goes for the classics,” Zhiryakov said. “It’s very convenient, because you’re not doing anything new.”

“Directors need to actively learn to put on new drama,” Ugarov said. “Both for themselves and for the audiences. We need to start bringing young people back to the theatre. Right now, they can hardly relate to it, because hardly anyone there cares about them.”
At the outset, new drama may appear inaccessible – both for audiences in general, and for foreign audiences in particular – but that isn’t actually the case.

“These plays are being translated and finding newer and newer audiences,” said Kristina Matvienko, a theatre critic. “If you want to get into new Russian drama, start with reading Ivan Vyrypaev’s ‘Oxygen’ and Vassily Sigarev’s ‘Plasticine’. These plays will clue you in. And like most of these plays – with Pryazhko’s work perhaps being a notable exception – they are not as tied to the specifics of the Russian language as to be out of reach for foreigners.” 

Five to read

If you want to take a crack at new Russian drama, here are five potential places to start

“Oxygen” by Ivan Vyrypaev

Loosely based on the Ten Commandments, Vyrypaev’s episodic tour de force tackles a wide spectrum of issues, from drug use to murder, but the one thing it cannot be described as is “gritty”. “Oxygen” is as poetic as it is frank.

“Plasticine” by Vassily Sigarev

A contemporary tragedy, “Plasticine” can, on the surface, serve as mere confirmation of the most tenacious stereotypes of Russian culture – violence, alcoholism, etc. Yet true to its title, which references a moldable claylike material popular with children, this play can work wonders on a mind that allows itself to be pliant and dares to trust the author and the troubling story of its teenage protagonists.

“Natasha’s Dream” by Yaroslava Pulinovich

A darkly funny play, presented entirely in monologue, “Natasha’s Dream” is shocking for several reasons, not the least of which is its author’s absurdly young age (she’s 21). A newcomer to the new drama scene, Pulinovich deftly pulls off the biting inner voice of a young resident of a provincial orphanage.

“Vodka, Fucking and Television” by Maksym Kurochkin

It’s hard to know just where to begin when it comes to the work of Kurochkin, who is both a prolific and versatile dramatist. “Vodka, Fucking & Television” is a conundrum – a play that is tremendously accessible and yet ultimately mysterious in a way that nags at you after you’re done with it, a good-naturedly agonising portrayal of a writer who must decide just which one of his favourite vices must get the proverbial axe if he is to survive.

“The Grain Store” by Natalya Vorozhbit

“The Grain Store” can be described as both a Ukrainian and Russian play. Set in a Ukrainian village at the time of Stalin’s terror and famine, the story relates the grave wrongs committed by the Soviet government while also transcending obvious politics in the way it captures the sad banality of the horrors of the 1930s.