Reviewed by John Freedman
Until now, Vasily Sigarev
has enjoyed good fortune as a playwright. He made
his
"Plasticene." It was immediately latched onto by the hip crowd in
it won its author an international reputation -- the
When "Plasticene" came out at the Playwright and Director Center,
where it
continues today in repertory, I was guardedly impressed. The production of
it by Kirill Serebrennikov was a key ingredient in the show's success.
As a playwright, Sigarev exhibited an admirable independence, unabashedly
writing about sex, drugs and confusion in a young man's life. He did that
using a relatively natural lexicon that usually allowed his characters to
speak like people rather than literary characters. What hurt the play was
that the origin of the pain in it occasionally resembled that of a popped
pimple more than any deep-seated ailment. The lurid mix of homosexuality,
violence and rebellion seemed as though it might have been culled from a
list of themes that have proven saleworthy.
But the upshot was that Sigarev clearly had something going for him. I was
curious to see what would come from him next.
"Black Milk," directed by Sergei Yashin at the Gogol Theater, is a
play I
probably would not have attributed to Sigarev were his
name not printed in
the program. Although it is another work about youth and morals, it has none
of the loose ends, none of the paradoxes that redeemed the underlying
conventionality of "Plasticene."
A young
selling toasters, pretending to be giving them away for free and taking
payment only for delivery. But they get stuck at an out-of-the-way train
station. And when the local residents realize they've been duped, they
descend upon them demanding refunds.
Matters are complicated because Tiny is pregnant. She's as tough as nails
and twice as grumpy, most of the time keeping Lyovchik's hands full as he
tries selling a toaster to the station ticket seller, makes fun of an old
drunk, humiliates an old woman in distress and beats back a horde of unhappy
customers. But during the experience of a premature birth induced by all the
excitement, Tiny has a change of heart. She sees God and resolves to mend
her ways. She will even give up smoking and popsicles, which seems to
irritate her lover boy more than anything.
The more this play develops, the more inane it becomes. The fact that
Sigarev backed off a happy ending does little to attenuate that. The
characters are molten stereotypes. Aside from the hot-shot couple, there is
the kind drunk, the scheming ticket seller, the good and moral woman who
acts as a midwife and the throng of heart-string-tugging common folk.
Yashin bought this play at face value. He serves it up as a plodding moral
admonition.
The unattractive set by Yelena Kachelayeva does little to raise the show's
sights. It features a twisted train track flying through the air and is
flanked by the two grimy walls of the station interior.
A handful of actors distinguish themselves nicely against the odds. Ivan
Shibanov scratches out a few shades of charm in the handsome, blank-headed,
violence-prone Lyovchik. Anna Gulyarenko puts some genuine human sympathy
into the midwife Lavreneva.
Most interesting is Alla Karavatskaya as Tiny. She holds her own against
Sigarev's repetitive, slangy text while playing the smart aleck girl who has
yet to experience the mystery of giving birth. But it is in the few scenes
during Tiny's short-lived "reform" period where she really shines.
Even as
the play bogs down in cliches, Karavatskaya finds ways to give her heroine
the aura of truth.
Late last season I saw what amounted to a dress rehearsal of another of
Sigarev's plays. I won't judge the production because it has not opened yet,
but the play, "Lie Detector," is a monumentally silly work about a
hypnotist
saving a bickering couple's marriage. It, like "Black Milk" and, to
an
extent, "Plasticene," is blatantly constructed on stock characters
and
situations. Increasingly, this seems to be what characterizes Sigarev's
work.
***"Black Milk" (Chyornoye Moloko) plays Sat. and Thurs. at the Gogol
Theater, located at 8a Ulitsa Kazakova. Metro Kurskaya.
Tel. 261-5528.