August 30, 2020
“Wet, happy”: Anton Adasinsky performed a confession on the border between pantomime and stand‑up comedy under a pouring rain in Arkhangelsk.
Towards the end of the third day of the XXVI Street Theatre Festival, a pure improvisation took place in the museum courtyard on Pomorskaya Street. Never before had the creator of the Derevo theatre been so close to the Arkhangelsk audience.
And yet, this amazing director, choreographer, and dancer came to the capital of the North for the festival for the third time already. But he still struck me to the core. Arkhangelsk has seen both his “Wolf Tango” and “Mephisto Waltz,” but this time it seemed that he was approaching not the infernal being, the master of the storm from these dance‑performances, but the real Adasinsky. Or the way he allowed himself to be seen — as a cosmic tragicomic clown.
In fact, Anton Adasinsky was originally supposed to perform the solo show “The Last Clown on Earth” in Arkhangelsk (its premiere took place in Dresden in 2016), in which the artist calls for “eternalizing the cosmic figure of the Clown, forbidding life without laughter, and establishing the scale of the Sacrifice that the Actor must make so that his work will remain forever.” The scenery was set up in the museum courtyard for two days. The maestro, who hadn’t appeared before the audience for five months, “having forgotten how to be anxious or worried,” was waiting for the audience to arrive…
In fact, Anton Adasinsky was originally supposed to perform the solo show “The Last Clown on Earth” in Arkhangelsk (its premiere took place in Dresden in 2016), in which the artist calls for “eternalizing the cosmic figure of the Clown, forbidding life without laughter, and establishing the scale of the Sacrifice that the Actor must make so that his work will remain forever.” The scenery was set up in the museum courtyard for two days. The maestro, who hadn’t appeared before the audience for five months, “having forgotten how to be anxious or worried,” was waiting for the audience to arrive…
But it’s time to get used to the fact that an artist’s performances in the capital of the North are always a challenge: either it’s raining, or it’s freezing cold and windy. And so it was on the third day of the festival, whose program “The Last Clown…” was supposed to conclude, that the weather didn’t cooperate: it kept raining all day. It was impossible not to perform, impossible to move the sets that had been so painstakingly put up, and dangerous to perform: in the pouring rain, a short circuit could have occurred—just think of that huge fan that was still live. Until the very end, it was unclear whether the clown would meet the audience.
In the end, an extraordinary decision was made — Anton Adasinsky opted for pure improvisation based on the planned one‑man show. Under absolutely extreme and challenging circumstances, he made direct contact with the audience, creating a performance right there and then, swinging from subtle pantomime to a show with elements of stand‑up comedy and satire.
To the audience, soaked to the skin (almost everyone had umbrellas, but not everyone opened them so as not to block the view for others), he emerged like a beggar from Schubert’s song “The Barrel Organist” from the vocal cycle “Winter’s Journey,” dragging what looked like a coffin behind him. He taught the spectators to weep loudly, like mourners. According to Adasinsky, laughter and crying share the same nature, the same physics.
The distance between the artist and the audience shrank to the length of an outstretched arm, and in some places it disappeared altogether in a tight embrace. From a beggar, he turned into a trickster prince in a dandyish checkered suit who could dial God’s number on the first smartphone he came across. Arkhangelsk saw an artist who wasn’t Mephistopheleanly silent, but talkative, approachable, and a brilliant showman. And then, no—and a touching, defenseless mime.
But a clown is not a queen; he is a pawn in front of the audience. Adasinsky didn’t let anyone forget this, throwing himself into the arena of the audience’s negativity. He agreed to turn the other cheek on behalf of all those who had been wronged, forcing the audience to berate him, shuddering with every insult.
He dragged three volunteers onto the stage and had them dance to a song from his Leningrad past.
He, opening his chest to the rain, swayed in the air like a fluff of cotton in the wind. “Tragedy” and “comedy,” the actor said later, “are just words, and all the most important things happen at the boundary between laughter and tears.”
The transparent strokes of rain shone silver in the beam of the spotlights, as if piercing the fragile, sinewy figure right through. Behind it, a red spot of light pulsed — like the soul of a clown, trembling within the body.
After the performance, Anton Adasinsky said that it was the audience that inspired him to step out into the rain.
“There’s such a response from the people, such a desire to see,” the artist said. “When we started, I thought: ‘I’ll go out there, and everyone will be half‑dead…’ But in reality, they got me going. In Russia, everything is different: it’s like some kind of first wedding night! Half‑hearted doesn’t cut it here. <…> There’s been very little laughter lately—people are so burdened. And then, finally, it’s wow! Everyone’s standing there in the rain, all wet, all happy.” This is a moment of such happiness that it’s simply beyond words. After all, if we’d been cancelled altogether, it would have been sad. And they could have cancelled us. But the guys did a great job, saying: “Come on, artists, perform, work hard!” It was awesome. Later, our lighting designer came up to me and said: “Listen, it’s like in childhood!” Like in childhood—that is, when everything feels like the first time. And the technician later said: “It was just like in childhood, period!”
“There’s such a response from the people, such a desire to see,” the artist said. “When we started, I thought: ‘I’ll go out there, and everyone will be half‑dead…’ But in reality, they got me going. In Russia, everything is different: it’s like some kind of first wedding night! Half‑hearted doesn’t cut it here. <…> There’s been very little laughter lately—people are so burdened. And then, finally, it’s wow! Everyone’s standing there in the rain, all wet, all happy.” This is a moment of such happiness that it’s simply beyond words. After all, if we’d been cancelled altogether, it would have been sad. And they could have cancelled us. But the guys did a great job, saying: “Come on, artists, perform, work hard!” It was awesome. Later, our lighting designer came up to me and said: “Listen, it’s like in childhood!” Like in childhood—that is, when everything feels like the first time. And the technician later said: “It was just like in childhood, period!”
© DEREVO
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