18 May Genesis No. 2

By Ana Todorović

Belgrade Drama Theatre, New stage
Author: Ivan Vyrypaev
Director: Anja Suša
Cast: Milena Pavlović, Daniel Sič, Ivan Tomić

A performance which makes you feel you have adopted a new worldview, and contemplating many topics is, in my opinion, a successful performance.

This is not a performance for a wide audience; this is an existentialist drama for strong individuals. Having seen this EXCELLENT work, I could not help but wonder why all the good performances in this country are pushed aside, while the ones with simple, cheerful and vulgar topics are in focus. I did not have to think for too long because I remembered one actress saying that she longs to play in good performances and not only in commercial ones.

This play by Ivan Vyrypaev, a contemporary dramaturge from Russia, who is in a constant search for sense, calls for an inner journey and contemplation about our life principles. Vyrypaev unremittingly explores social concepts which we a priori accept. Moreover, he makes us question the very principles we deeply trust.

The performance follows a very interesting concept – besides three actors, in the roles of John, God Arkady Ilyich, and Lot’s wife or Antonina Velikanova, “the main character is the text”, as stated by Vyrypaev himself. While actors are on stage, the audience has an opportunity to observe a projection on the screen, where the narrators lead us into the scenes in a creative way. The direction is excellent, the actors amazing, and the characters so multifaceted, amusing and authentic, that they take the audience through various feelings and psychological states ranging from tension, confusion, shock, to raucous laughter and tears.

I cannot help but notice allusions to Shakespeare. At the very beginning of Antonina’s speech, she informs the audience that she has decided to write something for theatre, “because, as Shakespeare said – “All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players”. I have come to understand what it means and I hope that the audience will share my views.”

Shakespeare is one of many authors and one of the best ones who have tried to deal with the truth of human soul. He always pointed out at new possibilities and new ways of life. Many authors followed him and refer to him- Ivan Vyrypaev is one of them. Just like Shakespeare, Vyrypaev wants to convey the message that there are always the ones who accept, support and abandon themselves to destructive systems, and the ones who don’t. He writes in a satirical and witty manner about individuals who lead different lives, who are atypical and capable of deep reflection about meaning and about themselves. His aim is to wake us up and make us think about the validity of imposed life patterns and the system of value forced on us by our birth in certain culture.
Vyrypaev plays a little with the difference between the point of view of the rational and the one of the mentally ill, in which mental patients, in this case Antonina Velikanova, keep searching for meaning, keep re-examining their inner state, lead internal monologues wishing to learn if there is “something else”. The omnipotent God, embodied by her doctor Arkady Iliych, keeps giving negative responses to her ideas, keeps denying everyone’s reality and, above all, erases all sensible notions from her memory reducing her to mere existence. The doctor-patient relationship resembles the character of Septimus from Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf, who often tends to refer to Shakespeare as well. In a similar manner, Ivan Vyrypaev wants to show that there is something malfunctioning in the system and in the order of things if the vigilance of mind and depth of feelings belong to a mentally ill person and not to a “healthy” one. Although Antonina Velikanova is ill, the audience persistently takes her side because they feel the primeval suffering and torture of a highly intelligent individual, a former Maths teacher, who is longing to understand the essence of everything.

Besides the humorous role of God Arkady Ilyich, the role of John the Prophet is filled with wittiness, Lynchian absurdity, and immeasurable depths. Between the scenes, John the Prophet peeps out of a TV set with his little accordion and plays his music very convincingly. Vyrypaev himself states that there are short comic rhymes inserted into the text, the so-called couplets by John the Prophet, which “should be performed between scenes in order to entertain the audience for otherwise this text, which has many tragic elements, might seem too heavy”.

The performance begins with a Shakespeare’s quote and ends with a Shakespearean message – one should not fear the warmth of the Sun. In one but last scene, when Antonina and Arkady Iliych literally sit in the rockets to go to the Sun, John the Prophet sings his last and the most comic couplet about the first female astronaut, and before it takes off, he tells us:

Fly where you want
But just
From your launch pad
In your rocket
For your own sake.

In an absolute confusion of all the ideas Vyrypaev entertained while writing this play, the audience, crying with laughter, greeted the actors with rounds of applause.

My personal impressions? Mixed, I’d say – I was exhilarated, puzzled by the play’s complexity, joyful due to all the laughter, and puzzled by many serious questions posed by the author. Just like Shakespeare used to do, Vyrypaev also invites us to sit in a metaphorical rocket and dare to fly to the burning Sun, i.e. to the point of our existence.