VARIETY
Wassily Leontief
TWO PLAYS IN MOSCOW
Bessmertnova in
Swan Lake,
Plisetskaia in
Corsaire,
a
sumptuously staged opera in the Bolsho i or a competentl y acted
Chekhov play in the Art Theater is what a visiting fireman can expect
to
enj oy in the evenin g after a busy day in Moscow.
Following the enthusias tic advi ce of young asp irants in the
In stitute of the World Economy and Politics where I gave a lecture, I
saw, instead, two ori gina l, fascina ting productions, the ex istence of
which somehow seems to have escaped the a ttention of our foreign
correspondents reporting from time to time on the th ea tri cal scene in
the Soviet Union .
The title of one, "Friends Trust Me ... ," is a quotation from
Pu shkin as are most o f the words th a t flow in verse, in prose and ,
occasionally, in song from the stage of the Theater on the Taganka.
The scr ipt of this fas t moving biographi cal review is composed entirely
of excerpts from Pu shkin 's writing, hi s di a ri es and correspondence–
the latter in exchange with and occasionally between hi s fri ends and
enemi es. Foremost amon g his letters are those of Tsar Nicolai the First,
who chose to act as the rebellious poet's personal censor, and Graf
Beckendorff, the Mini ster of the Interior, who supervised the poet's
behavior and bani shed him, from time to time,
to
hi s country esta te or
to distant Bessarabi a and the Black Sea. One of the hi gh points of the
play is the dramatic confronta tion among these three.
T he dominant theme of the play is th e struggle between despotism
and freedom, censor and poet. One speaks the language o f court di ari es
and mini sterial order; the other responds with the winged lines of
Pushkin 's poetry and prose. " He is the most intelligent man in
Ru ss ia," th e Emperor observed in hi s diary.
T he events unfo ldin g on the stage take place in St. Petersburg one
hundred fift y years ago, but judg ing by the reaction of th e youthful
audi ence tha t fill ed every inch o f ava il abl e space in the theater, the
setting could have been Moscow, 1977. Pushkin 's role is played by six
actors, each reflecting a different aspect of the poet's na ture. The cast is
large, th e pace fa st.
