{"id":69,"date":"2018-05-04T15:59:28","date_gmt":"2018-05-04T15:59:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/17\/?p=69"},"modified":"2022-02-06T21:17:46","modified_gmt":"2022-02-06T21:17:46","slug":"let-sleeping-moliere-lie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/17\/let-sleeping-moliere-lie\/","title":{"rendered":"Let Sleeping Moli\u00e8re Lie"},"content":{"rendered":"

Emiliia Dementsova<\/strong>*<\/a><\/p>\n

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It is impossible to put it in writing,
\nbut to record the horror of the thing here is a black cross mark.<\/p>\n

The Cabal of Hypocrites<\/em>, Mikhail Bulgakov<\/p>\n

Abstract:<\/strong> “Dreams of M. de Moli\u00e8re,” with its treacherous, conformist logic, typical for \u201cdenouncing the bohemian style of life\u201d presentations, the article argues, actors rebel only when stripped of privileges, boons, patronage. They rebel when they have nothing to lose. Considering this season (2017-18) is overshadowed by the duel between Themis and Melpomene (the case of Kirill Serebrennikov), such interpretation seems, at the very least, ill-appropriate<\/p>\n

Keywords:<\/strong> Bulgakov,\u00a0 Moli\u00e8re, Lenkom theatre,\u00a0 Kirill Serebrennikov, adaptation<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

On January 13, or about that time (cf. The<\/em> Life of Monsieur de Moli\u00e8re<\/em> by Mikhail Bulgakov), a certain Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, known by his stage name Moli\u00e8re, was born.<\/p>\n

On September 13, on the stage of the Lenkom theatre, a certain production, titled Dreams of M. de Moli\u00e8re<\/em>, was brought into the world. It was a still-birth.<\/p>\n

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Moli\u00e8re (Igor Mirkurbanov). Photo: Alexander Sternin (from the official website of the Lenkom Theatre)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It is a bitter task to write an obituary for a theatre production, especially when the diseased is still on. Actors keep deserting the show; spectators keep leaving before the end of the performance. The price of the tickets has to be reduced on a regular basis.<\/p>\n

Could all this mischief come from the long dozen?<\/p>\n

\u201cMy children just don’t survive infancy, Your Majesty,\u201d Bulgakov made his Moli\u00e8re say\u2014as if foretelling the brief onstage life of his own plays. The plays were banned, cut, closed.<\/p>\n

Seven years passed from the completion of the play to the opening night. Seven times, all in all, the show was performed.<\/p>\n

On February 16, 1936, the show opened at the Moscow Art Theatre. On February 17, 1673, Moli\u00e8re died. There is something mystical, cabbalistic about the numbers matching like this, and Bulgakov did describe himself as a writer not foreign to the mystical.<\/p>\n

In 1966, Moli\u00e8re<\/em> (or, in fact, The Cabal of Hypocrites<\/em>, the title that was thrust on the author in the thirties, and still remained valid thirty years later) became the last of Anatoly Efros’ productions at the Lenkom theatre. In 1967, he had to resign from his post as head of the theatre.<\/p>\n

Is it the belated echo of those bygone events mystically resonating at the Lenkom theatre now?<\/p>\n

This production, done by Pavel Safonov, provokes many a question and, at the same time, puts the reviewer in a position very similar to that of the Register\u2014the character who chronicles the events that befell Moli\u00e8re’s company in the play, and who, time and again, sets out to search for the answers, look into the causes, yet, invariably, finds himself powerless to prevent a single misfortune, and thus ruefully resorts to putting down more and more black crosses in his log.<\/p>\n

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A crowd scene from Dreams of M. de Moli\u00e8re<\/em>. Photo: Alexander Sternin (from the official website of the Lenkom Theatre)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It is the Register, blowing dust off his manuscript, who opens the show. A metaphor for the upswept dust that both the play and the events it presents have accumulated in the course of time, some might think. But, paradoxically, in Lenkom, instead of removing this dust, the creators laboriously apply even more of a like substance upon Bulgakov’s text. The faces are powdered, the show is powdered. The finale settles the question: the chronicler was not so much blowing the dust off, as throwing dust in the eyes of the audience, for the purposes of clearer perception.<\/p>\n

Powder is a means of making things up, of masking reality. And, indeed, there is something about this theatrical production that bears resemblance to a raid carried out by masked officers of a special branch\u2014the kind of operation that, decades ago, acquired the nick-name \u00abmasked-show\u00bb, after a popular TV comedy show. And it seems only proper, in times when balaclavas, or ski-masks, are worn for the purpose of masking identities, when officers of the law escorting a theatre director into the courtroom hide their faces, that mask becomes the signature theme of the epoch.<\/p>\n

In this production, we have masks of all kinds\u2014Italian, Japanese, animal masks, cloth half-masks, the \u00abbeaked\u00bb plague doctors\u2019 masks, impersonal Volto masks\u2014that turn into death masks. The very title\u2014Dreams of <\/em>. . . \u2014 is masking. Dream, as a form of narration, is a very convenient way of forestalling reproach.<\/p>\n

The title of this production, being heir to the title of the censored version, consequently makes the shift, in the narration as a whole, from The Cabal of Hypocrites<\/em> to M. Moli\u00e8re<\/em>; from the universal human tragedy to romantic dramedy.<\/p>\n

Presumably, the theatre must have seen something contemporary in this Bulgakov play to introduce it into their repertoire; something resonant with the anxious mood prevailing in society\u2014the feverish condition of the cultural workers\u2019 community included. Then, what is the point of camouflaging their findings, doing everything in their power to make this, relevant for the present-day, play as alien for the audience as possible?<\/p>\n

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A crowd scene from Dreams of M. de Moli\u00e8re<\/em>. Photo: Alexander Sternin (from the official website of the Lenkom Theatre)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Was the theatre apprehensive that The Cabal of Hypocrites<\/em> in large print on a theatrical bill might be mistaken for a picketer\u2019s sign\u2014in times when controversy around a movie, the biopic Matilda<\/em>, fueled by religious zeal, blazes up into something little short of warfare, and the panel of experts on theatrical issues, under the auspices of the Ministry for Culture, seems to be nursing the dream of transforming theatre into a house of worship, as the phrase goes, but literally meaning to worship in there anything but the Arts?<\/p>\n

Moli\u00e8re is dreaming. His dreams are scenes of his own past, episodes written by him (and, with him, used as a writing implement); dreams that are either terminal delirium or dreamed from beyond the grave; a sort of a posthumous flashback of his earthly experiences, faded, dull, seen through the shroud of the big sleep. \u201cAy, there’s the rub;\/ For in that sleep of death what dreams may come. . . .\u201c<\/p>\n

Moli\u00e8re, Igor Mirkurbanov attired in a cloak, seems to be a case of self-inflicted artistic sabotage, or a hoax to test the loyalty of the actor’s fans: how will they respond to their idol appearing in so weird an image under the skies of the Lenkom theatre?<\/p>\n

Video 1<\/h6>\n