Abstract
Dotsenko clarifies the specifics of Russian New Drama, drawing on the original text of the plays, translations, and considerable secondary literature. The plays by leading authors of New Drama, such as Ivan Vyrypaev, Vassily Sigarev, Asya Voloshina, and Anjelica Chetvergova, will be considered, as well as the role of famous directors, such as Кirill Serebrennikov, Mikhail Ugarov, and Elena Gremina, in the evolution of Russian New Drama movement. The influence of British drama on contemporary Russian theater process and the reception of Ravenhill’s plays in Russia will also be considered.
“New Drama” in the Russian theater is a movement from the last two decades, formed in the late 1990s and became highly prolific at the start of the millennium.
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Notes
- 1.
New Russian Drama: An Anthology, ed. Maksim Hanukai and Susanna Weygandt (New York: Columbia University Press, 2019).
- 2.
The New Drama movement, its origin and background are the subject of several recently issued books: B. Beumers and M. Lipovetsky, Performing Violence: Literary and Theatrical Experiments of New Russian Drama (Chicago: Intellect, 2009); A. V. Vislova, Russkij teatr na slome ehpoh. Rubezh XX–XXI vekov. [Russian theatre at the turn of epochs. The turn of XX–XXI centuries] (M.: Universitetskaya kniga, 2009); and P. Rudnev, Drama pamyati. Ocherki istorii rossijskoj dramaturgii. 1950–2010-e. [Memory drama. Essays on the history of Russian drama. 1950–2010s.] (M.: Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie, 2018). The festival and competition components of the movement are described in detail in each research.
- 3.
M. I. Sizova, “‘Novaya drama’: istoriya i geografiya” [“‘New drama’: history and geography”], in Novejshaya drama rubezha XX–XXI vv.: predvaritel’nye itogi [The Newest Drama of the Turn of XX–XXI Centuries: Preliminary Results], ed. T.V. Zhurcheva (Samara: Izd-vo Samarskogo universiteta, 2016), 7.
- 4.
Ibid., 6.
- 5.
M. G. Merkulova, “Novaya drama” [“New drama”], in Eksperimental’nyi slovar’ novejshej dramaturgii [Experimental Dictionary of New Drama], ed. S. Lavlinskij and L. Mnih (Siedlce, 2019), 209.
- 6.
Ibid., 212.
- 7.
I. M. Bolotyan, “Novaya drama” [“New drama”], in Eksperimental’nyi slovar’ novejshej dramaturgii [Experimental Dictionary of New Drama], ed. S. Lavlinskij and L. Mnih (Siedlce, 2019), 215.
- 8.
Ibid., 216–17.
- 9.
B. Beumers and M. Lipovetsky, Performing Violence: Literary and Theatrical Experiments of New Russian Drama (Chicago: Intellect, 2009), xxxiii.
- 10.
K. Serebrennikov, Foreword to Performing Violence, x–xi.
- 11.
A. Sierz, Rewriting the Nation: British Theatre Today (London: Methuen, 2011), 15–16.
- 12.
Bolotyan, 338.
- 13.
Sizova, 6.
- 14.
S. Dugdale, Preface to Performing Violence, xvi–xvii.
- 15.
John Freedman, “Sasha Dugdale recalls the origins of New drama in Russia,” The Theater Times, November 17, 2014, https://thetheatretimes.com/sasha-dugdale-russia/ (accessed August 10, 2018).
- 16.
I. M. Bolotyan, “Verbatim,” in Eksperimental’nyi slovar’ novejshej dramaturgii [Experimental Dictionary of New Drama], ed. S. Lavlinskij and L. Mnih (Siedlce, 2019), 45–54.
- 17.
D. Desiateryk, ed. Al’ternativnaya kul’tura, Enciklopediya [Alternative Culture. Encyclopedia] (Yekaterinburg: Ultra Kul’tura, 2005), https://royallib.com/read/desyaterik_dmitriy/alternativnaya_kultura_entsiklopediya.html#225280 (accessed September 15, 2018).
- 18.
A. Shenderova, Verbatim Inedita, Interview c glavnym geroem [Interview with M. Ugarov], Teatr [Theatre] No. 34 (2018): 18.
- 19.
Ibid., 19.
- 20.
A. Sierz, In-Yer-Face Theatre: British Drama Today (London: Faber and Faber, 2000), 4.
- 21.
B. Beumers and M. Lipovetsky, xxxiii.
- 22.
The year 2018 has become a really sad year for Russian theatre: Mikhail Ugarov, Elena Gremina, Dmitrii Brusnikin passed away, all in their early 60s; Kirill Serebrennikov, the artistic director of Gogol Center, has been under arrest. “Gogol Center is a place of freedom” is written on the website of the theatre.
- 23.
D. Vasil’eva, D. “Vanya Vyrypaev—vazhnejshij hudozhnik iz vsekh moih sovremennikov” [“Vanya Vyrypaev is the most important artist among all my contemporaries”], IA “Irkutsk online”, 11 May 2017, https://www.irk.ru/news/articles/20170511/theatre / (accessed July 15, 2018).
- 24.
Theatre critic Tatiana Moskvina criticizes Vyrypaev’s plays for “using the Lord’s name in vain.” From the critic’s point of view, the “unintelligible” plays and performances do not demonstrate a good aesthetic taste by their author. (T. Moskvina, “BDT podyhaet, Bol’shoj dramaticheskij teatr zhiv” [“BDT is dying. Bolshoi Drama Theatre is alive”], Peterburgskij teatral’nyj zhurnal [St. Petersburg Theatre Journal], February 11, 2016, http://ptj.spb.ru/pressa/bdt-podyxaet-bolshoj-dramaticheskij-teatr-zhiv/ [accessed August 21, 2018]).
- 25.
A. Nesterenko, “Filosofiya Ivana Vyrypaeva” Interv’yu [“A philosophy of Ivan Vyrypaev”], Glagol. Irkutskoe obozrenie [Verb. Irkutsk review], July 30, 2018, https://glagol38.ru/text/30-07-2018/filosofija_ivana_vyrypaeva (accessed September 30, 2018).
- 26.
I. Vyrypaev, P’yanye [The Drunks], Act 2, Scene 2, https://freedocs.xyz/docx-437600772 (accessed September 30, 2018).
- 27.
Ibid., Act 1, Scene 1.
- 28.
M. Lipoveckij and B. Beumers, Performansy nasiliya: literaturnye i teatral’nye ehksperimenty “Novoj dramy” [Performing Violence: Literary and Theatrical Experiments of New Russian Drama] (M.: Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie, 2012), 335.
- 29.
Nesterenko.
- 30.
Sigarev was called “Russian Ravenhill” in the 2002 article in Kommersant newspaper by P. Sigalov, “Otkrovennye priznaki hita v novoj p’ese Marka Ravenhilla” [“Some explicit features of a hit in a new play by Mark Ravenhill”], Kommersant, May 4, 2002, https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/316746 (accessed September 15, 2018).
- 31.
Serebrennikov, xii.
- 32.
O. Mukhortova, Vasilii Sigarev’s The Land of Oz Program Notes, Revew “Strana O3” Vasiliya Sigareva, http://www.academia.edu/24563181/Vasilii_Sigarevs_The_Land_of_Oz_Program_Notes_Ревью_Страна_ОЗ_Василия_Сигарева (accessed September 25, 2018).
- 33.
Information from Theatre.doc. website: “In an interview to the magazine Bolshoy gorod Elena Gremina said that the play about Magnitsky was the first performance in which the Theater.doc moved away from its traditionally neutral political position.” See http://www.teatrdoc.ru/person.php?id=7 (accessed September 28, 2018).
- 34.
J. Preston, “The playwright Mark Ravenhill talks about his upcoming adaptation of Candide for the RSC and how his cool, ironic years are over,” The Telegraph, August 21, 2013, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/theatre/theatre-features/10232821/Mark-Ravenhill-interview-I-feel-much-more-passionate-and-engaged-now.html (accessed June 16, 2018).
- 35.
M. Ravenhill, “A touch of evil,” Guardian, March 22, 2003, https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2003/mar/22/theatre.artsfeatures (accessed May 15, 2018).
- 36.
M. Ravenhill, Candide (London: Bloomsbury Methuen Drama, 2001), 35.
- 37.
A. Kiselev, “Kandid: spektakl’-trip s vos’mibitnym oformleniem ot vypusknikov Britanki” [Candide: performance-trip with 8 bytes decoration from the graduates of the British Higher School of Art and Design], Afisha Daily, October 4, 2016, https://daily.afisha.ru/brain/3149-kandid-spektakl-trip-s-vosmibitnym-oformleniem-ot-vypusknikov-britanki/ (accessed September 25, 2018).
- 38.
O. Bagdasaryan, “Secondary Forms in Contemporary Russian Drama: Strategies of Literary Recycling,” in Russian Classical Literature Today: The Challenges/Trials of Messianism and Mass Culture, ed. Y. Lyutskanov, H. Manolakev and R. Rusev (Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2014), 108.
- 39.
Ibid., 102.
- 40.
“In fact, I’ve always loved the Bernstein musical,—Preston cited Ravenhill.—But then I thought, well, Candide has been adapted before and no doubt it will be adapted again, so there’s not much point in worrying. Frankly, I suspect it’s more of a concern for the musicians than it is for me” (Preston).
- 41.
A. Voloshina, Antigona: redukciya [Antigone: Reduction], in Luchshie p’esy 2013: sbornik [The Best Plays of 2013: a collection] (M.: NF Vserossijskij dramaturgicheskij konkurs “Dejstvuyushchie lica”, Livebook, 2014), 101.
- 42.
Merkulova, 212.
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Dotsenko, E. (2020). Russian “In-Yer-Face Theatre” as a Problem or a Process. In: Boles, W. (eds) After In-Yer-Face Theatre. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-39427-1_7
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