The Silver Age by Mikhail Roshchin, Mossoviet Theater
By John Freedman
Published in The Moscow Times, November 2001
Mikhail Roshchin's The Silver Age at the Mossoviet Theater is a show whose point of view you must admire. It tells of the inhabitants of a Moscow communal apartment in 1949, but focuses mostly on the schoolboy Misha who discovers great poetry -- and the truth about his country -- thanks to older friends.
But if I appreciated Roshchin's civic stance, his desire to remind us of the realities of Stalinism, it was harder for me to accept the play as theater or art. I found this nostalgic melodrama, which reminds us of hard truths without ever making us uncomfortable, to be simplistic and preachy. Director Yury Yeryomin, while doing a good job of giving the play form, also fell hard for cliches rather than looking for new approaches to the play's topic.
Misha (Yevgeny Pisarev) is a typical Soviet kid who likes the poetry he is taught in school. But when his mother's slippery, freedom-loving friend Viktor (Georgy Taratorkin) introduces him to the enigmatic, intellectual bookseller Kira (Lyudmila Drebnyova), his life changes drastically.
Not only does Misha discover the forbidden poetry of the Russian Silver Age -- Nikolai Gumilyov, Anna Akhmatova, Marina Tsvetayeva, Osip Mandelshtam and others -- but he falls in love with Kira who is 16 years his senior. This delights Viktor but infuriates Misha's simple though good-hearted mother Klavdia (Olga Ostroumova). She is not about to see her son's future ruined by a woman she assumes is a hussy.
Drifting in and out are a quartet of NKVD agents, the secret police. First they keep tabs on the artist Matvei (Vyacheslav Butenko) who paints only in blue. Next they take an interest in Misha, for his associating with suspicious people. Finally, they arrest Viktor -- he talks openly about freedom too much for his own good.
Yeryomin emphasized the play's melodramatic basis by introducing a movie or TV screen which can be lowered or raised, and on which the title, credits and other information occasionally run. He also ensures we understand when good poetry is being recited: a live band, usually led by a soaring violin or a wailing trumpet invariably accompany the characters when they recite poetry.
The Silver Age essentially works on two levels: as a primer to educate youth about one aspect of their country's history, or, as a stimulus allowing older viewers warmly to remember their younger days. But this show never engaged my heart or my head. It too often took the easy way out of complex problems.
