( “The Lonesome West“ by Martin McDonagh; director, Sergey Fedotov; production, Theater“U Mosta“ – Perm – Russia; performed at SkupiFestival 2019)
The theater“U Mosta“ from Permis one of the regular participants at ScupiFestival, and this time they introduced themselves with the play “The Lonesome West” by Martin McDonagh, a prominent Irish author with a world-renowned work, whose creativity demonstrates a special interest and piety,of which speak his many works performed on their scene. After all, McDongh is one of the most popular authors in the world and here, including the before mentioned play.
Director Sergey Fedotov (who is also a signatory to the scenery) creates specific conditions for realization that seem to be stripped from another theatrical era, even though it is the plague of modern society – loneliness! Through many things, the traditional scenery forms the only living room space where the four characters of the Irish province, the Palanka, are “rattled”. Thus, the atmosphere in the play has close theatrical references to the plays and characters of the little people of the Russian province of provence of Gogol. There’s humor that “exhales”, but one that frozen the lips: black and desperate. The loneliness of the West (and also in the East) increasingly creates monsters, demons, but with a blunted human face! The director, Fedotov, with nothing (except perhaps music (Olesia Egorova)), does not foreshadow the dark and mysterious events, the murders, the suicides, while the subtlety and attention to detail blend in with the solid and granite structure of the set. a highly profiled aestheticization of evil that is skillfully embedded in all segments of the play, there is no horizon and perspective except perhaps the sky and the often-repeated destinations, paradise and hell. Without a gram of pathetics, it is quite discreet and contemporaryphenomena such as pedophilia, the hypocrisy of the clergy, women’s sports club that bestial rag, etc.To summarize in the case of “The Lonesome West”, it is the directingthat is jargonly said to be a directing that is “not seen”, but masterfully weaves the multicolored threads into the loom of the act on the stage. The contribution of the acting ensemble led by Vasilij Skidanov and Vladimir Ilin to the roles of the two brothers, Valen and Kulman Connor, is more than evident. They build characters of people who are constantly in fray and clashing over small and insignificant things. They constantly pile on each other various pests and evil. This is especially true when they later confess their sins to one another, with the obligatory “Sorry!” In the role of Pastor, Wells himself who is deeply “slack” and intoxicated by alcoholism, who condemns the act of suicide as a blasphemy for himself and then he himself commits suicide, plays Ilija Baboshin. The role of the trafficker girl is interpreted by Marija Novichenko. They give the impression of a quintessential acting quartet, synchronized and stage productive.
The West remains irreparably lonely, miserable, abandoned, lost … It is an ontological loneliness filigree transformed into a stage act in which the distinction between fiction and reality is erased! It’s a bitter-tasting, fun-loving performance…
