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A Dream on a Winter's Eve
Polunin arrives for Yule-tide
It was a dream. A dream that on Thursday the 13th it snowed in the auditorium of
the "New Opera" theatre in Moscow. Snow covered the entire floor, all
the chairs, and all those who sat in them. A marvellous dream it was.
Well-disposed oligarchs and icy pop stars in tuxes smiled in beguilement, even
dropping themselves into the gathering snowdrifts. Suddenly a wind began to
blow, hard as only hurricanes know, and music to deafen one's ears to
sepulchral silence. Fear gripped us in anticipation of what was to come.
But the lights came up - and out shuffled a clown with small, meditative
Kabuki-theatre steps: a figure in vastly-oversized yellow overalls and red
fluffy slippers. A rope in his hands coiled into a noose, then - slipping like
rosaries through his fingers - framed his face in portrait, became a leash,
then a jump-rope, and then an Alpinist's life-line... a hawser from which a
friend - one of a clan of buffoons in hats with helicopter-blade ear-flaps and
ski-esque elongated booties - dragged himself out...
I dreamt that there is no such thing as postmodernism, but only the primacy of
feeling, an ancient purity of emotion. The touch of fine fingers on a spot-lit
balloon in the dark... And - look - the balloon has flown away! Slava the clown
weeps. With forbidding whistle, he sternly orders it back; with gentle
persuasion, he beseeches the escapee to return; he blisters and boils with
rage, then whistles out his longing. And the balloon drifts back, bulging a fat
yellow smile, dangling its rosy little thread by his side, and then! - explodes
in his arms. The poor baggy sod in red slippers - he couldn't withstand the
momentary bliss of his sudden repossession...
What poetic mime! The rhythm of its verse is such, that all are free to
interpret, which means, to co-create...
[That last gesture, for example: surely it depends upon the space in which you
are evolving, or, in which you are deteriorating...]
It wounds the heart. But bitter, too, is sweet life. And sweet it was for me -
and not for me alone - in that packed-out theatre-hall, as an enormous
spiderweb descended upon us just before the intermission. For in that glassy
fibre's thread everyone gasped for joy - joy that we had been entangled, that
finally someone needed us. And we didn't go to drink and smoke, but sat in
anticipation of that true happiness that even the intermission seemed to
promise. And in reward for our expectations, an even thicker snow began to
fall. Children aged 10 to 65 contrived to make snowballs, showering one another
with snow in glee. Yet for this spontaneous happiness their could be no
reproach: it was innocent. And the tears had not yet dried, the salty drops not
yet trickled to our lips that stretched in smiles from ear to ear, before again
we began to cry, and again, and once more, anew...
Ekaterina Vasenina
Victor Kramer
Victor has been a student and follower of the Russian classic Tovstonogov.
Since 1992 he has been leader and art adviser of the Fantasy Theatre, one of
Russia's youngest and best companies. Victor's work is characteristic of the
Russian theatrical school festivals of theatre combining bright form and
psychology. At present, he is working at the Comedy Theatre in St. Petersburg
producing festivals and TV shows, but his past successes have been Farsy,
Striptease (by Mrozek) and Fantasies, Vakhlyanky (by Turgenev). Victor has won
a number of international awards for his festival shows- Baltic house and The
Theatre Without Borders; The Golden Sofit - '96; Kult Modern; Ukrain in Russia;
Undersland in Denmark; Hideshaim Art from Germany and Fama - '95 in Poland.
Victor Plotnikov
Victor has graduated from the St. Petersburg Academy of Theatre, Music and
Cinema in 1989. In 1991, he created his own art project which he called the
Magical "White Goat" Theatre. Victor works with complicated images,
combining visual theatre, mechanics, art and music. He lives in Russia and the
South Urals but has spent two years living and working in Switzerland. His
works has been widely displayed not only in Russia, but also in the USA,
France, Germany, Taiwan and other countries.
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