Illusions of Emigration. What the Play "Salute" by Ivan Viripaev, Dedicated to the Dramatist's Colleagues Forced to "Leave Their Countries," Turned Out to Be

The premiere of Ivan Viripaev's debut novel "Salute" was staged in Warsaw. Directed by Dasha Shamina, the stage featured Wanda Konisevich and Vadik Korolev, the soloist of the band OQJAV. The performance is called a "performance-DJ-set" and it indeed features a lot of music. In September, the performance will go on tour to Amsterdam. "Novaya Yevropa's" correspondent attended the premiere in Warsaw and truly felt nostalgia for Viripaev's performances in the past in Moscow, but also experienced strong envy towards the characters of the play about emigration. Photo: Teal House Foundation / Localie Hub. On the stage of Mała Warszawa (contrary to its name, it's not small at all: nearly all seats in the 450-capacity hall are filled) - two characters reading text from sheets and a DJ accompanying the entire reading process with club music. The combination of reading and a DJ set seems to be an optimal way to convey Viripaev's text, dedicated to the author's eternal theme: love. Such a delicate approach to the text is especially important, as "Salute" (the playwright's debut novel, by the way) is not yet published, and its perception relies solely on the performance. On stage, two actors enact a love story, sometimes hiding behind pseudonyms, and sometimes removing masks (under which, however, another mask will be found, not a face). This immediately brings to mind Viripaev's 2002 play "Oxygen," where two actors also played a story of unimaginable and impossible love. In that story, people far from each other, who were unlikely to meet, suddenly find themselves bound by animal passion. Back then, passion drove Viripaev's characters to sweep away all obstacles in their path and commit acts, even crimes. But in "Salute," sex and passion between the main characters are practically absent. What happens if you keep unimaginable and impossible love but remove sex from it? What happens if you don't fight for your love, or for anything at all? The plot is simple: his name is Zhenya, but it could be Denis, Egor, or someone else. This incredible and unique story could happen to anyone, as is emphasized many times in the text. On New Year's Eve in Madeira, he meets Her. Her name is Nadi, he calls her Nadya, but generally, we remember the declared universality of the story. A salute ignites in their hearts, just like the one in the sky during the New Year's party. They realize they were sent to each other by God. Their entire previous lives were just preparation for this fateful meeting, and all their love was a prelude to an inevitable separation. Photo: Ania Poluboyarinova / Teal House Foundation / tn=*F" target="_blank">Facebook. She (Wanda Konisevich) came to Madeira with her fiancé, a wealthy Lebanese man, and she herself comes from an evidently complex family. Zhenya is not simple either: his poems and songs are popular in Moscow (he is played by Vadik Korolev, the frontman of the band OQJAV). Viripaev doesn't explain why these people, seemingly made for each other, don't even try to be together. However, as fans of the playwright know, it doesn't matter. His plays may pretend to be drama with development, but this is just playing with traditional notions of plot. The characters will simply go in circles, drawing the audience into their reflections - usually on love, God, and salvation. In this sense, "Salute" is an absolutely Viripaev-esque story. The performance and adaptation of the novel's text into a stage play were done by Dasha Shamina, director and founder of the Fulcro theater, and she did it with utmost care. At times, it feels like watching a performance staged by Viripaev himself during the "Praktika" theater era. Zhenya and Nadya, or rather, Nadi, over the seven years covered by the story, from 2019 to 2026, will change several countries. Nadi will get married and have a child, Zhenya will marry Oscar winner Lucy, get a French passport, divorce Lucy, and meet several other women... Throughout this time, they will occasionally message each other, attaching Spotify links to share their favorite songs. They will never become a couple (and will only have sex once). Nadi will several times ask Zhenya (or Denis, or in fact, it doesn't matter what the character's real name is, Viripaev tirelessly reminds us) to let her go. The only signs of their immense mutual love and incredible soul connection will be those Spotify links. In the finale, Nadya will ask Zhenya to meet, only to say goodbye to him forever at the Western Wall in Jerusalem. "Nadya, I hurt without you," the protagonist repeats over and over. He experiences this pain in hotels with rooms costing $1,500 per night, in bed with another girl, in Warsaw's "best restaurant," in London visiting acquaintances, Ukrainian gay oligarchs, at resorts where he's invited to perform songs, in a bar in New York where the protagonist will meet Jim Jarmusch. Here, one can only ask: "Are you complaining or bragging?" Photo: Ania Poluboyarinova / Teal House Foundation / tn=*F" target="_blank">Facebook. "One must read Florensky, watch Banksy's film 'Exit Through the Gift Shop,' adopt Vakhtangov's system... and stop drinking, at least for a while!" Viripaev said in his column in "Novaya Gazeta" in 2011, discussing ways to transform theater. If the novel's characters drank, they've long since quit: alcohol is almost not mentioned in the text. However, the characters will use drugs ("the creator of this text (God, of course) is categorically against drugs (especially now), no-no-no..." - a quote from the novel). Some chapters are practically travel notes from drug trips: during the viewing, one expects that this entire lavish fairy tale will (at least partially) turn out to be a hallucination. "Vanya sent chapters one by one, nobody knew how it would end, and he himself didn't know," describes the author's process of working on the text, with actors present at its birth. Until then, I, as a spectator, also didn't know how it would end: the author is certainly ironic towards us and his characters. Now the protagonist will wake up somewhere on the border with Kazakhstan or Georgia, or perhaps on a Flixbus, in a dirty hostel, or in line at a visa center. But the fairy tale of a beautiful life continues. The characters' reflections on agonizing love are inexhaustible, like their financial flows and drug supplies. Borders of fronts and countries change, governments rise and fall, entire cities turn to dust, while Zhenya and Nadi's creative projects and businesses invariably flourish. They are surrounded by equally wealthy, well-groomed, and talented people. None of the crises and wars that have erupted in recent years affect their financial well-being or freedom of movement. In the finale, clearly out of good intentions, a dedication sounds: "To my colleagues 'in the shop,' forced to leave their countries due to wars and totalitarian regimes. Thank you for your conscience and courage to create in this fucked-up time. Vanya." This phrase pulls one out of the sweet trance the performance induces. "Directors and playwrights must stage from the auditorium; they must be spectators first and foremost," Ivan Viripaev used to say. But here I am, sitting in the auditorium, looking at the stage, and not finding myself in the characters' adventures. I look into the hall and try to find myself at least here, among the other spectators, but I can't. We are all too different. I see several celebrities in the audience, including Viktor Shenderovich. He left the country, I left the country, the novel's characters left their countries. What do we all have in common? When people write or talk about emigration - pumpkin or any other kind - there is an illusion that emigration is some kind of universal common experience. One wants to believe that we are all on the same wavelength and understand each other. But it is obvious that this is not the case. "There are refugees with one backpack, who crossed the Belarusian border with a compass and a flashlight. But there are also those who left for work, study, roots, or family reunification long before all the current wars. 'They' have completely different problems than 'we' do. The novel's characters are formally our contemporaries, but the entire fabric of their lives is permeated not even by pre-war, but by pre-COVID carelessness. Ivan Viripaev himself left Russia over 10 years ago. At the same time, one of his projects, Teal House in Warsaw, helps exiled artists, including financially. It is difficult to suspect him of lacking contact with reality. Perhaps this fairy tale is such a tender, nostalgic look into the past. It is unlikely that the author consciously emphasizes class differences and provokes envy towards the characters, plastic in their glossy beauty, who have hardly suffered from all the cataclysms against the barely noticeable background of which the novel unfolds. But the word "illusions" spins in my head. That was the title of one of Viripaev's performances fifteen years ago. The characters, as always, talked (lied) about love. So, "Salute" is an illusion of fateful subtle connections between people. An illusion that could be described by the words "we are together." Only I, unlike the characters, don't have drugs and money to sustain belief in this when the actors come out to take a bow and the lights come on in the hall. Willfully or unintentionally, Viripaev reminds us of the abyss that has formed not only between "those who left" and "those who stayed," between different waves of emigration, between those who were rich and became richer, between those who lost everything and those who strove for the middle class and almost reached it. Perhaps, of course, this was another illusion. "Most of what we do is not 'I made a real play and touched your heart.' My task is to convince you that I made a real play and touched your heart," Viripaev said. Perhaps he will manage to convince someone.