Coronavirus reality is not just firmly established in human minds – it divided life into “before” and “after”, elevating what is happening in the apocalyptic absolute. About how the epidemic will impact on theatrical drama, and what’s eating the author of the acclaimed plays “Man of fish” (dir. Yuri Butusov), “Mother” (dir. Vladimir Pankov), we asked one of the most popular playwrights of our time ASI Voloshin.
You often called a modern, fashionable playwright. You consider yourself “old-fashioned” person. So who’s more Asya Voloshina?
– it Happens sometimes, the fashion for vintage. Laugh, of course. In fact, I do not aspire neither to the one nor to the other pole. If there is a fashion for my plays, I don’t mind. Fashion for me — well, no, I don’t think. Just when I began to engage in drama, there was a certain format among playwrights or groups of playwrights, at competitions. Pieces in which the action takes place certainly in modern times, plays are about the characters, shall we say, far less corrupted intelligence than the authors who had written them.
I Remember at the meeting with the prominent researcher of modern drama asked the question: “how reflexive is the hero? I’m worried about him”. It was 2016. And the answer was: “what are you worried about him, Nicole, it is not.”
Plays about people who are concerned about the ridiculous anxieties of philosophical nature and not acute issues of survival, and plays about the past or about some alternate reality, or excessively symbolic history — the truth was considered pretentious and old-fashioned. Predominated noble (say that word without irony) the tendency to give in the texts the voice of those deprived of voice in life. Such a pronounced social aspect.
Now it’s for is still here, but the other was considerably larger. So when I started to become a playwright, all I’ve done, all my metaphorical design was really, to put it mildly, unfashionable. But it was important not to adjust, and to be yourself. To check whether someone. Actually, still checking.
– Many writers are specifically looking for solitude for creativity. You work a lot during the quarantine?
– All very individually. But the person writing now is in a better position than anyone. Whether our time masterpieces? — we’ll see. On this account a lot of skepticism. Evaluate — it is critics, not practitioners. Although… not critics. It’s a matter of time, of history. But to be alone, to drop out of high flow, a little bit to sit on the beach even useful.
I nourish a dying time, Yes. In the last stages of life social activity had to alternate with isolation. I did it to myself personally to have something to write. Someone writes in the morning and dayseat in the evening and goes out into the world to teach, to watch the performances. I can’t do that. Therefore, alternate. So now you can take a long breath.
Theatre – a mirror of society. How, in your opinion, the epidemic will affect the drama?
– Leave out the obvious, Yes? There will be many pieces about how people experience isolation. It’s situational. Some of them will be something timeless, and they remain “in the library of world drama”. Most will be nothing more than evidence of the moment. That’s not the point.
There is a formula – “modernity begins with the last catastrophe.” The word “disaster” didn’t come here to scare or to equate the current situation to one of a hundred times more terrible picture of the past. Accident is a fracture. And it is clear that it is happening. We will come to the new world in a new modernity in which we and the subjects and testers. And it’s not new laws that will make government, and in new patterns that would emerge out of thin air themselves.
It’s like a train that rails, when the construction of a railroad. Pads, and the same goes for him. Then (until the next disaster) on these tracks will drive other trains. We are now in the first.
It is unique and for gambling experience of the unknown. When Shakespeare, through the mouth of hamlet said “have the time”, he means something like that. Happened a turning point, and time changes its properties. Looked like an iceberg from the mainland, and the characters floated on it. To deal with it and cope.
did not think to write a play based on postirochnoy reality?
– In December — that is, in a past life — Director Simon Alexander asked me to think about a play for two actors for the play, which could go to “Zoom”. On “Zoom” at that time nobody knew. It is now he has become a major theatrical venue (hopefully temporarily). I wonder intuition Alexander.
Heroes — people who made it, and live a lovely life of luxury freelancers, but faced with insoluble problems. Like I liked everything. I felt that this story about the expulsion from Paradise… but the work was not. I feel like I didn’t feel a connection with the characters — neither his nor the audience’s future. Neither I nor the audience has no such experience. We are not in heaven, but in a much more harsh reality. And then I wanted to exclaim: “I wish I had their problem!”.
In the end, I recognized his grief. The idea froze… And after a few months I suddenly realized that we are now experiencing the conflict of Paradise lost. He is an illusion. It doesn’t matter. We in the collective longing for yesterday. Such a joint experience. This prompted. Suddenly came a completely new story, and — Yes — a variation of post-KovenOh really. The action takes place in 2035, but of course, this is a story about today. About the fear of a new world in which we might be strangers. And about the possibility of its overcoming, finding freedom within unfreedom. The play is called “Marriage”. And with June, you can see it on the network.
– the Characters of your plays a lot of talk about Russia. It is felt that the historical and cultural past of the country for you is not an empty sound. What do you think the country will emerge from the pandemic?
– I hope more independent from the government. With fewer illusions about what this government is. But we’ll see.
Two months of isolation was significantly aggravated and exacerbated human relationships. Increased cases of domestic violence, the panic is off the charts, people build the theory of global conspiracy. How, in your opinion, to preserve humanity in extreme conditions?
– this is Probably the most important question…you Know, in his Nobel lecture Brodsky there is a phrase “the World is likely to save will not succeed, but the individual is always possible”. She’s not pessimistic, she’s optimistic. Because when you feel powerless in the face of reality, you can try to do something for someone… maybe you are the person we need to save. To retain empathy and excitement not only for myself but for everyone. I don’t know. We have to work. And strictly for a monitor. I would like to keep, of course.
– In one interview you said: “what is Happening in the country now, I was wildly traumatic and does not allow to live. Just does not live private lives. Just live, I don’t know, child birth. All this, of course, very nutrient medium for writing, but lousy environment for people”. It was in 2018. How has your attitude on may 14, 2020?
– And we can talk about it? How to apply to the fact that the authorities lift the quarantine (oops, slip of the tongue — tying with non-working days) per day when out on the third place in the world in the number of infected? Of course, all now in the field of a giant experiment. No one is immune from mistakes. Risks difficult to calculate. But the trends are quite clear. We — as we now say — inherit the tradition of the Soviet Union. And in them – to find a grain of sand, cog, material, and human life — a value which can be neglected. So all is logical. Will see what will.
