In Hazy Hope

Vash Dosug
“In Hazy Hope”
By Nataliya Kolesova
Vash Dosug (Your Leisure)
Apr. 29-May 12, 2002, pg. 37

Oksana Mysina is a rare actress, eccentric and bold. She became famous after having performed in Kama Ginkas?s masterpiece, K. I. from “Crime“, where she mercilessly, candidly and audaciously plays Katerina Ivanovna Marmeladova from Dostoevsky?s novel Crime and Punishment. Oksana?s theatrical nature is such that she cannot abide the commonplace on the stage. This is why, after having gone through various “schools,” Oksana Mysina resolved to undertake her own directing project. For this she selected Viktor Korkiya?s Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, gathered together a small troupe of actors and spent a long time rehearsing at the same time that she was performing in Oleg Menshikov?s production of Kitchen and shooting scenes for Yelena Tsyplakova?s TV mini-series Family Secrets.
The stated genre of Quixote and Sancho is a complex one: „a magical ritual in the depths of the soul.” This explains the haziness of everything that happens on stage. It is pointless to try to summarize the zigzags of this play written in free verse. Let?s say only that two figures exist side-by-side in a strange reality: the tall, handsome philosopher Don Quixote (Alexei Zuyev) and the no-less tall, slim tragic clown Sancho Panza (Oksana Mysina). Both, in odd overcoats, resemble characters from El Greco who strive to use their height to break through the limits of the surrounding world. Alongside these entirely unorthodox main heroes are two angels, played by little people, the husband-and-wife team Igor and Alla Sannikov.
Oksana Mysina?s production is a free-form fantasy in the style of Fellini that employs elements of a clown show. People in it drink vodka, pour water on each others? heads, smoke in the doorway, run into the hall and sit down in the first row, shoving aside the surprised spectators. Korkiya?s heroes are Cervantes?s heroes lost in time, full of despair and disillusionment. The production constantly balances on the line between tragedy and farce. The complex music — incorporating folk music, religious music and virtuoso jazz — aids the characters in crossing cultural boundaries. These are two citizens of the world, the dying Don Quixote and Sancho Panz, who plays at life. They are not master and servant, knight and squire, the “Don” and a simpleton — they are simply Quixote and Sancho, who in the depths of their souls, are struggling to find some faint hope for happiness. In the end, they turn to face a screen upstage, surrounded by other actors big and small. Together with the spectators, they gaze on at slides of marvelous paintings — naпve, colorful and optimistic — by the young artist Greta Denisova. That is how this show, nervous and breathing unevenly, ultimately arrives at inner harmony.

, 29-04-2002