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Meeting one of today’s most controversial theater directors. Talk about meanings, relevance, vulgarity and the search for one’s “I”.
Tickets for the play “The Ideal Husband. Comedy ”is not at the box office for months in advance, and those who saw it are sure that they have visited the main event of the theater season. Director Konstantin Bogomolov told us about his attitude to success, to himself, to life and why the theater cannot but be modern.
High-ranking gays and camp chanson, political satire and rollicking skit aesthetics, an explosive mixture of Wilde, Goethe, Okudzhava and Shakespeare. Four and a half hours of action that does not fit into any framework – all this is a new performance by Konstantin Bogomolov “The Ideal Husband. Comedy” at the Moscow Art Theatre. A.P. Chekhov. It is impossible to retell it, as well as to see it – you can’t get tickets. Critics praise Bogomolov for his courage, scold him for his radicalism and simply shrug. Retrogrades consider him an enemy of the classical theater (and the whole order of things) in Russia, liberals praise him as a fighter against the regime. And he himself considers any attempt to remake the world stupidity. And he explains: I just do what I like.
Psychologies: Tell me honestly, did you expect such a resounding success?
Konstantin Bogomolov: Honestly, no. It seemed to me that a performance of such length and such radicality – by all traditional concepts – simply should not have such … almost aggressive success. But the success of the “Ideal Husband” for me is far from the greatest value. I perceive it as a certain part of the same performance, a continuation of this performance. In the end, success with those about whom the performance is made is far from the most important and interesting form of recognition. On the other hand, for me, as, probably, for any person who is engaged in a public type of creativity, this success gives the main thing: a good, very encouraging feeling that I, apparently, intuitively feel the viewer. And the audience is also a part of the performance, its component. And it means that in this component I have everything in order now.
“Success is with those about whom the performance is made” sounds ironic. And what kind of audience would you like to see at your performances?
K. B.: In principle, I love the audience, I repeat: for me, this is part of the theater. I wonder even his resistance. Moreover, it is often even more interesting than acceptance: the stronger the sparring partner, the better. Convincing an initially distrustful audience, making it live what is happening on the stage is always a victory. In general, I love free people. It is not interesting for me to communicate with hypocrites, with prejudiced people who have ready-made answers for everything. And I would not like to see such people in the hall either. And I would like – people free from pre-established rules. Otherwise, I have no preference. Only inner freedom and curiosity.
And how many of them, such spectators?
K. B.: I think yes. It seems to me that we are greatly mistaken when we start talking about some kind of redundancy of a simple spectator. I will say more: it seems to me more and more often that bydlovity distinguishes not so much the simple as the intellectual spectator. A sort of special intellectual vulgarity… That’s why I don’t consider myself a snob and I think that in Moscow, at least, the audience is quite interesting. He is not easy, but quite open, although sometimes lazy. But definitely not the worst.
Many perceive your performance as purely political satire.
K. B.: It is pointless. Sociality, politics in this performance is just a snag, a hook. And he himself is not about it at all. I assure you, if you remove, for example, the Olympics from there and replace it with something else, then nothing in the performance will collapse. And what else of the overtly political things? Yes, some little things. The story with the orphanage was invented in early November – before all this noise with the adoption law arose. And she, too, is not at all about this law. In general, I speak quite a lot and often about politics, I participate in protest actions, I have my own point of view, which I have never hidden. But the theater is by no means a means of expressing a political position for me.
His way
- 1975 Born in Moscow.
- 1997 Graduated from the Faculty of Philology of Moscow State University and entered graduate school.
- 1998 He left philology and entered the RATI-GITIS on the course of Andrei Goncharov.
- 2007 He won the Seagull Award for the play Much Ado About Nothing (for an unconventional reading of a classic work).
- 2010 Married actress Daria Moroz.
- 2012 Received the Oleg Tabakov Prize “for an original reading of Russian classics”.
Read more:
- Vladimir Mirzoev: “Do you think everything is so simple? Yes, it’s simple. But not at all.”
Can the theater even be such a medium?
K. B.: I know what theater can not be. It cannot be modern. It is not fixed in time and space and cannot be passed down from generation to generation. Therefore, the theater, by definition, does not exist outside of the present moment, outside of the person who is now entering the hall from the street. The theater talks to people about people, and it even seems to me a kind of vulgarity to deny its direct connection with the present day and demand from it exclusively timeless conversations. At least, I’m not interested in such a theater.
You once said that the theater has become a kind of psychotherapy for you …
K. B.: To a large extent. I am quite a closed person. He studied at the university in philology, wrote poetry. And at some point, I faced the acute question of the need to establish ties with the outside world. I realized that you need to be able to communicate – and not just to communicate, but to lead, organize, show will, initiative. I realized that I need to learn all this, learn to be that “social animal”. Well, plus classes in philology bored me. And I went to enter the theater. He entered – and within six months he managed to largely break himself. Or maybe not break, but open up. But I have changed. And, remaining a closed person, he learned to easily build external interactions. The profession itself made it possible for a constructive way out for the character – to be honest, quite powerful and not tolerant of submission. To clarify: the profession made it possible for these qualities to come out creatively, not destructively.
It is unlikely that many can boast of such an ability to understand the need for change in themselves – and the ability to implement these changes.
K. B.: Well, probably, the clear understanding that I’m talking about now came after all later, at that moment everything was rather irrational, at the level of sensations. But I really think that a person should be able to look at himself from the outside, be able to dissect himself. Not only others, but yourself too, and yourself in the first place. By the way, this is very important for a director: to be able to dissect the characters, to understand what is behind one or another of their psychological movements. But it’s better to start with yourself. To observe oneself – only honestly, without romanticization and dramatization. This is such a mental game, quite capable of giving pleasure. Some people find intellectual pleasure in solving crossword puzzles or charades. And here I am – unraveling myself. And as a result, already – and guessing others, the motives of their behavior and actions.
Where did you get this skill of introspection? Have you kept a diary since childhood? Was this taught in the family?
K. B.: No, I never kept a diary, God forbid! For me, this is a kind of coquetry, or something … I don’t see the point in this. I don’t see the point in hard-fixing anything at all. And I really do not like any claim to gain a foothold, to stay in eternity. I, perhaps, like the theater so much because it is an art that does not pretend to be eternal. Life is given once, it flies by instantly and will never happen again. And the theater is a model of life. Here, each performance is also unique and also can never be repeated. And it’s beautiful, there’s a special kind of pure pleasure in it. Burning yourself, your strength without any self-interest, without hope of securing in eternity, for life after death. In general, it seems to me that this is very important: even assuming that everything in the world is meaningless, to live as if there is still a meaning. As for the family… It seems to me that since birth we have already laid the path of spiritual, physical, mental development. I do not believe in the decisive influence of the environment, I believe in the internal organization of a person, in his biology, genetics. The fact that we all develop, albeit at different speeds, according to the scenarios laid down in us from the very beginning. The family, of course, creates this or that degree of favorable development – but the development of what is already laid down. And in this sense, the genetic influence of the family is more important.
But what if a person one day realizes that genetically there are things in him that he himself does not really like? Fight?
K. B.: It’s a difficult question. Of course, if we talk about painful or criminal inclinations, then they cannot be put up with (although defeating them, or at least realizing it, is not always a feasible task). But only in this case. In general, one must love one’s own nature. And I do not consider it right to break myself – never, under any circumstances. In drama schools, for example, there is a well-known formula: “make the inconvenient comfortable.” And I think it’s wrong. That where it is inconvenient, you simply do not need to do anything, you do not need to be there.
“EVEN IF EVERYTHING IS POSSIBLE, IT IS VERY IMPORTANT FOR ME TO LIVE AS IF THERE IS A MEANING”
And your coming into directing with the aim of breaking yourself – isn’t that just the situation?
K. B.: So I wanted to go there! You can say that I broke myself, or you can say that I opened up and finally got on the path that was laid in me from birth. In the end it came easy for me. And if so, then everything was correct. Now, if it hadn’t been given, then I wouldn’t have. Hitting a wall, breaking through a locked door – I hate it. If something doesn’t work out for me, I stop doing it. If I feel that I don’t need to go somewhere, I don’t need to do something, I don’t need to meet with someone, I won’t. I am not ashamed to cancel agreements even of a global order, such as staging a serious performance, even if I just intuitively feel that I am uncomfortable. Without any rational arguments. I trust my intuition a lot. I don’t want it, it’s unpleasant – it means it’s not necessary. There are enough complexities in life as it is to complicate it with self-violence. And I am also convinced that everything that is done is actually really for the best. You need to be able to live with the feeling that if something happened in your life, it means that you definitely need it for something. That nature indulges you and the world around leads you to where you need to go. That you are in harmony with the world. Because if it doesn’t, it’s terrible. Some kind of resistance begins, a struggle, a gnashing of teeth … You need to maintain this harmony with yourself and the world around. And in no case do not force yourself or remake the world.
And what, you never had to do this?
K. B.: To rape and force yourself? Well… maybe I had to. But I’m not talking about what I have to, but about what I aspire to.