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Illustration copyright Theater Royal Plymouth Image caption On the play's poster, the play "The War Has Not Begun Yet" is presented as a "black comedy"

This week, the Royal Plymouth Theater began premiering Russian playwright Mikhail Durnenkov's play The War Has Not Begun Yet.

This is not the first time Durnenkov the playwright has presented to the English public - in 2009, his play The Drunks, co-written by him with his brother Vyacheslav, was staged by the Royal Shakespeare Theater in Stratford and received good reviews.

Translated into English by Noah Birksted-Breen, “The War Has Not Yet Begun” was included in the performance at London’s Frontline Club in January of this year, but then it was only a reading of the text from the stage, now it is a full-fledged production.

"The War Has Not Yet Begun" is a play for three actors, consisting of 12 dialogues. There are practically no author's remarks in it: we do not know when or where the characters' dialogues take place, or even who these characters actually are - which of them are men, which are women. “Gender and age do not matter,” the author tells us, which, it seems, both simplifies and complicates the director’s task.

Considering that plays by contemporary foreign playwrights are not often staged on the British stage, being chosen to stage such a multi-layered work is a great achievement for its author.

A few days before the premiere, Mikhail Durnenkov, who lives in Moscow, gave an interview to a journalist from the BBC Russian Service Katerina Arkharova.

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Illustration copyright Theater Royal Plymouth Image caption The play's director, Michael Fentiman, explains the stage task during rehearsal.

K.A.: In what year was this play written? While reading it, on the one hand, I thought that it was completely fresh, but on the other hand, that it could have been written 10 years ago?

M.D.: It was written in 2014, but 10 years ago - no, probably it could not have been done. The fact is that the phenomena that interested me as a playwright have always been in the context of society, morality, and relationships. Because a playwright is such an observer of society and changes, and it seemed to me that we are not much different from other countries of a similar economic social status. But in the last three or four years, everything has begun to change rapidly, and events are simply rushing at a gallop, I would say. Now there is a unique cross-section of society and what is happening to us, so it seems to me that this play could not have been written 10 years ago.

K.A.: In what sense is it “rapidly changing”, in what direction?

M.D.: We lived under the yoke of this oil money, and all social phenomena and everything that happened were suppressed and muffled by some kind of, if not security, then at least some feeling of economic growth, life, integration into Europe, some kind of Europeanization Russia - visible, at least. Those who stole still stole, but there was enough money for everyone, so no one was particularly indignant about it. And in 2012, this breakdown happened, when people took to the streets, these demonstrations began from Bolotnaya Square, and then other events - the war in Ukraine, Crimea, sanctions, crisis, political tightening of the screws, performances by artists, imprisonment (all this began to happen just in droves), "churching" - in fact, there are many events. This is how you begin to list it - and you become silent simply from the feeling of some kind of wave of everything that has happened to us over these four years. The country has simply become different. Maybe genuine in some sense. Perhaps, processes that have always existed have been revealed - both the fact that we are very conventional Europeans, and the fact that our society is not yet quite ready to accept liberal and democratic ideas. This all suddenly became clear.

Illustration copyright Theater Royal Plymouth Image caption The play stars Tamzin Griffin and David Birrell

K.A.: You said that a unique cross-section of society has formed or is beginning to form, and at the same time, don’t you think that people do not change, and in your play this is very obvious, since it is timeless in many ways?

M.D.: I think yes. You know, I had a desire to capture this in a play - the moment of what was happening around, and it just seemed to me that this form - many short stories - was the most suitable for this. But when I wrote it, it turned out that it was, of course, about some eternal mechanisms or processes: inciting hatred, using fear, using human relationships to incite this hatred, to incite cruelty - this was all before and after, but somehow all these processes went on latently, and here they were revealed so shamelessly, let’s say, that it was impossible not to pay attention to them.

And our society... I remember, about five years ago it was quite monolithic in some sense - an art community or something else - and then suddenly it split into two parts. Suddenly this sleeping paradigm of Westerners-Slavophiles has become so obvious that these people do not shake hands with each other. Previously, this was more of an aesthetic difference than an ideological one, but now it’s downright ideological - people won’t sit next to you, not even at conferences.

Illustration copyright Theater Royal Plymouth Image caption Each of the characters in the play is fighting his own war.

K.A.: It’s interesting that in your play “The War Hasn’t Started Yet” all the discrepancies are universal, that is, you still accepted the author’s detachment, whether you wanted it or not. Maybe that's why it was staged in England?

M.D.: I think so, because it’s clear what we’re talking about, despite the fact that I’m talking about some of my own things. But you know, this is in any work. There was a contemporary artist, Achille Bonito Aliva [Italian art historian and critic – K.A.], who developed the term “gloucal” - both global and local at the same time: when you write about something private, about some life of shepherds high in the mountains, where they are far from society - and when you describe their life, you realize that you are telling eternal human themes that also concern people living in large cities.

It’s the same here - when describing the time that is happening to us, you cannot help but use terms and not touch on what is happening, probably, everywhere now.

K.A.: How well are your plays staged in Russia and are they staged?

M.D.: They are staged, but less often lately - the last two or three years - because I have probably become more harsh in my statements and began to write about things that are probably not customary to talk about in public space - like this play "The war has not yet begun." To be honest, I doubt that it will be staged in Russia, because it goes against the state ideology, and our theaters are state-owned...

K.A.: Where does it go against?

M.D.: It describes a point of view on events that is probably not accepted.

K.A.: But there is nothing specific there, only dialogues. There are practically no stage directions, and the cast can be arbitrary...

M.D.: There is a story, for example, quite a documentary one, about how a crucified boy was shown on TV. Then it turned out that it was a fake, but no one refuted it on TV. It remained in the minds of millions; it remained a real fact of the “cruelty of the Ukrainian punitive forces” who are vicious and commit atrocities on the territory of the former Russia, relatively speaking. And in general, this play is such a big fig in the pocket, in the sense that it is, of course, completely not about what is now shown on TV in Russia. Such plays will definitely not be staged. I wrote it at the request of Nicola McCartney, playwright and curator of the program at the Oran Mor Theater in Glasgow, and I understood that it would be staged in Glasgow, and I did not limit myself in any way in my creativity. The fact that it is not being staged in Russia now is something I didn’t even count on.

Illustration copyright Theater Royal Plymouth Image caption Young actor Joshua James on stage at the Royal Plymouth Theater

K.A.: How do you see it - as verbatim or as a staged play?

M.D.: I think it's staged. I even pointed out in the stage directions that the actors “play” the characters, that is, the degree of detachment is an important thing. This is what brings history to a universal level. The fact that an actor of any gender and age can play any character in this play indicates that there must be a great distance between the actor and the character.

K.A.: You indicated in the initial remarks that depending on the stage task, the director may have a different approach to the order of scenes, to the choice of actors - that is, their age, gender, and so on. I wonder how it can vary, what do you think - this stage task?

M.D.: I’m being a little disingenuous, since I still propose a rather successful order of the short stories; there is a rhythmic structure there - in the way they are composed. But of course, the director, without even asking me, can rearrange all this. I know that in England they always try to stage it literally and close to the text - here in Russia we are not used to this, here the playwrights’ texts are rewritten in any way they like. Nevertheless, I considered it necessary to leave such a remark. But it seemed important to me to leave this metaphor with Ukraine last...

K.A.: Yes, this is a strong moment: “I’ll remember why you don’t need to kill him... this is some very simple word...”

M.D.: Yes, I read somewhere, I remember, it struck me that Russia treats Ukraine like its wife, who fell in love with another, and cannot forgive her for this, like such a cruel husband. At one time I was shocked by the accuracy of this comparison and the behavior of the parties in this case.

  • The War Has Not Yet Started runs at the Royal Plymouth until May 28

    I try not to fight with what is around me; on the contrary, I build relationships with the surrounding world by mutual consent. If there is ground for dialogue, I negotiate. If not, then I don’t fight - I just leave. - from an interview with director Semyon Alexandrovsky.

    The war that has not yet begun, but there is no end to it, lies not in the exact words, but in the pauses, in the smiles, in the greed with which the Brusniki residents grab their squeakers and rattles, trying to squeak out and rattle out the horror that we cannot or are afraid to explain.

    Kommersant, Alla Shenderova

    There are no heroes or people here, there is only text, very symptomatic. The only way to fight this total distrust, hypocrisy, stupidity and complete loss of reference points is to say it out loud and preferably, as here - in an exaggerated form, with a furious verb and with emotions on the face. Otherwise, you cannot get rid of this bacillus. That’s why the form is such a clown show and a circus. In general, clowns are not only entertainment, they are also horror, fear and hatred, which is what this performance is about. The fighting is now in our kitchens, which is why military rhetoric on TV resonates so well in the hearts of Russians. She is her own, dear.

    TV channel Dozhd, Denis Kataev

    The director in the program notes that he wanted to achieve a therapeutic effect, to survive traumatic events through a combination of laughter and horror. He succeeded. But the performance now looks more like a diagnosis. The value of the play is not at all in its political position and orientation. The most important thing is that the playwright managed to capture the landscape around him in that very year 2014, that point of no return, when everyone was so hot and explosive that the slightest spark was enough to blow everything to pieces.

    The paradigm of online absurdity continues abruptly, without pause, with non-fiction novellas, their narrators either evil clowns or naive children at a noisy matinee. Colorful clothes and artificial blue-yellow-violet curls, squeaks and rattles in hands, a lively and furiously rainbow melody on the harmonium create that unambiguous contrast that all these black or colorless stories “from TV” require. “In principle, getting stuck is probably the most important pleasure right now.”

    Nezavisimaya Gazeta, Elizaveta Avdoshina

About the daily “war” around us: in everyday life, on TV, government agencies and even conversations with friends. “Snob” talked with the director of the play Semyon Alexandrovsky, artistic director of “Praktika” Dmitry Brusnikin and actor Vasily Butkevich about their personal “war” and found out how they cope with the abundance of negative information


Ɔ. What are you fighting against within yourself and in the world around you?

Semyon Alexandrovsky:

Every person has people with whom he constantly conducts an internal dialogue. Most often these are his loved ones, and this dialogue is very complex, and there is a lot of war in it. It arises inevitably, because we often hurt each other, and then we experience it alone with ourselves. And I’m trying to overcome this war within myself, because there is nothing more important than peace with loved ones. I'm trying to make sure this war doesn't come out.

I try not to fight with what is around me; on the contrary, I build relationships with the surrounding world by mutual consent. If there is ground for dialogue, I negotiate. If not, then I don’t fight - I just leave.

Semyon Alexandrovsky Photo: Vladimir Yarotsky

Dmitry Brusnikin:

I'm not fighting. Neither with the outside world, nor within yourself. I am talking. With yourself - about laziness, impatience, some problems. And I conduct a dialogue with the outside world. There are a lot of irritating factors and aggressive manifestations, but there is no need to fight with them.

Vasily Butkevich:

Every day I fight with my complexes: those from childhood or acquired later. I express all this on stage - 90 percent of my experiences go there.

In the world around me I fight injustice. I don’t like her manifestations either towards me or towards other people. I can’t accept this calmly: I often enter into counter-contradictions, even get into trouble - and I suffer a lot because of this.


Scene from the play “The War Has Not Begun Yet” Photo: Vladimir Yarotsky


Ɔ. How do you cope with the abundance of negative information around?

Semyon Alexandrovsky:

My greatest shocks come from the material I'm working on. Once we were doing a sketch on the case of the 1968 demonstration on Red Square, and I was forced to read the investigation reports - it was a very painful experience.

I try to limit the information flow - sometimes I read the news, but I’m not very interested in it. If I feel aggression or anger inside, I try to switch off. I made a conclusion for myself a long time ago: you cannot respond to negativity with negativity - you need to create an alternative.


Vasily Butkevich Photo: Vladimir Yarotsky

Dmitry Brusnikin:

I try not to perceive negativity and not let it into myself. I read less news, I don’t look at Facebook much, I limit myself in this way. We need to compensate for this negativity by reading more. And classical literature and poetry. And listen to music.

Vasily Butkevich:

My profession saves me. If I hear something, I can come to a performance or rehearsal and throw out these emotions, somehow isolate myself from them.

If some tragedy happens, I try to avoid social networks, I don’t watch TV at all. And I want to completely remove myself from social networks: every morning I open them and receive a stream of dirt. I hope someday I will find the strength to do this.
Ɔ.