Experimental Apparently Isn't Black and White (but "Kije" is)

Things I usually don’ t like onstage: obscure and seemingly pointless objects. Monochromatic color schemes. Constant hissing and ambient noise. Not being a huge fan of the esoteric avant-garde aesthetic that is so dear to most of my comrades, squawking actors and floating puppets will often make me roll my eyes rather than tear up in admiration - and they already have, in one or two of the 7 shows we’ve seen here so far.

Tonight, though, that didn’t happen. We saw “Киже” (Kije or Kizhe) at MXAT, and I enjoyed every artsy-fartsy minute. The story is sort of a Russian version of “The Emperor’s New Clothes”, but it’s also based on Russian history during the reign of Tsar Paul I. The fictional part is about a non-existent Lieutenant Kije, who is created by a clerical error. Not wanting to contradict the tsar, the people act like Kije is a real person: he has a love affair, is exiled and pardoned, gets married, and receives a state funeral when he “dies.” The production is concerned with the outrageous things people do to avoid angering their unstable emperor, and the sickening things that happen to those who can’t avoid it.

Of course I can’t talk about text of the play, and the finer points of poetry and plot were lost on me. But the staging of this production was incredible. While the aesthetic was jarring at first, every moment was an inventive combination of light, sound, performance, and composition that truly enhanced the story of Tsar Paul and Kije. To begin with, everything onstage, including the floor, the costumes, and the actors’ faces, was white. It was a blank landscape, against which anything that wasn’t white stood out in stark contrast. The actors were also constantly playing with talcum powder, sending plumes of dust into the air and over each other, creating a striking stage picture.

This colorless visual landscape also imparted greater importance to sound. The production had an orchestra and there was some great traditional music (with better performances than Threepenny Opera), but the instruments were also used in non-traditional ways. In one moment, an ominous blowing/rumbling crept under the dialogue. It was unclear at first where it was coming from, until I realized that the horn players were simply blowing air through their instruments, without playing notes. As a former instrumentalist I can imagine them sitting every night, thinking, “20 years of training for this?” – but hey, it was effective.

In other moments, actors provided their own soundscape: hissing, clicking, screeching, sighing; dropping, clanging, thumping different objects, each of which made their own distinct sound; altering the speed and rhythm of their dialogue to create a coordinated tapestry of noise, which molded the play as much as the visual or the narrative, but never became distracting.

So, perhaps the lesson here is that I should keep an open mind with experimental theater. Or maybe it’s just that I need to see good experimental theater. What can I say, I like a narrative. It’s when theater becomes obscure for the sake of obscurity and too self-important for its own good that things go bad; and it’s when theater uses innovative and surprising methods to share something with its audience that things are good.

What’s better, though, is that I’ve only been here two weeks, and I can already see that immersing myself in Moscow’s rich artistic culture is really helping me to define my own aesthetic. I never thought I’d be able to say that spending three months seeing all the theater, art, music, and history I can stand would be anything but fun; but I think it’s really going to help me bring back a more refined artistic sense. Which, honestly, has been an insecurity for me, since I’m younger and less experienced than most. So, fingers crossed, I can see more like Kije; and if not, that I can confidently proclaim why that dinosaur puppet was completely unnecessary.