2023-06-30 12:43:00
Russian directors who have left for Europe are starting a marathon of reading the play Finist the Bright Falcon in support of Zhenya Berkovich and Svetlana Petriychuk. In Berlin, readings in English and German are being prepared by young directors Masha Sapizhak and Oleg Khristolyubsky. We talked with Masha Sapizhak, for whom it is important to be called a “director”, about the features of the play, about why the stories of women leaving for militants of the Islamic State terrorist group take place not only in Russia, and as a literary text revealed a whole layer of problems of Russian society.
Deutsche Welle: Why was it important for you to stage a reading of the play in a language other than Russian?
Masha Sapizhak: I immediately decided to do a reading in English, because many Russian versions of the play are freely available on Youtube. We wanted to increase the visibility of this case to the local public. It is obvious that in the current news it is difficult for Europeans to understand what is happening in Russia, especially when the war has dragged on for so long. Increasing the visibility of the play, we show that, of course, there is no terrorist message in it, on the contrary, it is deeply anti-terrorist.
When I started doing research for the reading, I suddenly found out that this is not such a unique story that could only happen in Russia. The play “Finist the Bright Falcon” is based on interrogations of Russian women who married Islamic State militants and left there. It turned out that in Europe there are also a lot of such cases, when women married terrorists and fled their country. There are documentaries. For example, about a 15-year-old French woman who ran away to a guy fighting for ISIS. Even on Netflix there is a fictional series “Caliphate”, also on this topic. It is very important to extrapolate history and not be limited to the fact that this can happen only in one country.
– In Europe, these women were also judged?
– Yes, like ours, they also fall under the article on supporting terrorist activities. Because if you are (conditionally) doing laundry and cooking for a person who you know is killing people, then you are essentially supporting him. But for us, who work with this context, it is important to understand the reasons why people go for it, what attracts them so much and what is the primary source of this trouble. These are almost philosophical questions.
– Have you found these reasons for yourself?
– This is a problem of total loneliness and an acute desire to be loved, treated kindly. Which is very difficult when you have been socialized in a fairly violent system. When you have not received something from your parents, from previous partners, and you continue to choose the system of violence again and again in all your next relationships. It’s about how much a woman lacks warmth, that somewhere on the Internet a stranger wrote “I can’t, I love you, come”, and she is ready for anything.
Masha Sapizhak: “This is a story about total dislike in our society”Photo: Roman Ekimov
The play has an unusual structure, in which dry documentary material develops into the motifs of Russian folk tales. Each of us, to whom fairy tales were read in childhood, is passed on to generations that there is some kind of prince who needs to be sought, to suffer, to wear out iron shoes, and only then will you be worthy of happiness, as in the fairy tale about Finist. The end result is just a scary story. This is about the substitution of concepts – that love is where you definitely need to sacrifice yourself. And if you do not follow these precepts and remain without a relationship, then you receive social stigma.
So for me this is a story about total dislike in our society. And about emotional immaturity. When you have empty space inside you for some reason. Maybe you lived in a dysfunctional family, or you had an abusive relationship – it is very easy to succumb to the temptation to at least something to fill this void. The play is easily extrapolated to some basic life attitudes, values, attitude to life. The stories of women who have fallen into the hands of terrorists are one of the consequences of a gigantic, vast problem.
– But why exactly Islamic terrorists? How do absolutely secular Russian and European women get to them?
– The actress who participates in the reading told me that when she was 15-16 years old, she came across the anthem of the “Islamic State” on YouTube and was surprised that it was some kind of cool music. And since YouTube’s algorithms work well, she soon began to receive a lot of various videos about ISIS, that it is heaven on earth, that women are queens there, and so on. Of course, when you are a teenager, and, most likely, in conflict with your parents, then you see a very attractive system in this fairy tale. And if you are also not very socialized among your classmates, then you will be especially attracted to the idea of belonging to some kind of close-knit community. And this is another important question – how propaganda works. As in the case of the Russian agenda, these are primarily emotional components that override rational thinking.
– What was the most difficult thing about working with this material?
– An important challenge in working on a play is not to make an Islamophobic product. Because it is clear that ISIS is not real Islam. The Muslim religion welcomes harmonious relationships and family life without any violence. This is a matter of propaganda and interpretation.
For me, the play “Finist the Clear Falcon” is a challenge. For example, for a long time it was not clear to me how you can voluntarily wear a hijab. You are free women in a free world, why are you doing this? While working on the play, I had to immerse myself in this topic and understand that no one should be stigmatized. You can dress how you want, the main thing is not to kill other people while doing it. I keep in mind all the time that radical manifestations of any, the brightest idea, are always bad.
– Berkovich and Petriychuk are accused not only of justifying terrorism, but also of the fact that the performance contains “signs of the ideology of radical feminism and the struggle against the androcentric social structure of Russia.” Why does this seem so dangerous to those in power?
– My first feminist performance was called “Mastectomy” and was about the inadmissibility of harassment (in which the main character decided to cut off her chest in order to stop being the object of abuse. – Ord.) We received a lot of criticism of the production, especially from men. We were told that the heroine was crazy, that in general we did not have such a problem, that there was nothing to play in the play. However, in Russia, every woman has experienced harassment: she was touched at least once on the subway, told a greasy comment, or experienced harassment from someone in power.
There was such an important moment: first we played a performance, and then we had a discussion, talking about the statistics of crimes in the country. We asked viewers, if anyone has ever experienced harassment, to take a deep breath. And a wave swept through the hall. If someone has ever witnessed harassment, we asked to change position. And the whole room moved. It was impressive and scary.
– After the arrest of the director and playwright for the performance, has your attitude towards your own safety changed?
Perhaps I was too optimistic. My relatives were worried about me, but it seemed to me that I was too non-media person for anyone to be seriously interested in me. Now I would not be able to do my work in Russia. Because I cannot do any other theater, only acutely social. And any topic today has become political. And not only political activism, but even ecology and environmental protection.
In January 22, I wrote a post about my burnout. The intensity of tightening the nuts went off scale even then. I was terribly tired of feeling that everything has to be done with caution: will the police come, will there be trouble, will there be “questions”. All the time – background alarm.
On the eve of the war, on February 21, I staged the play Kalykhanka in Moscow about the protests in Minsk. It took place in a secret place and we gathered the audience simply by acquaintances in order to filter the audience. It was already the only working way to show your production safely. However, many of my acquaintances continue to work in Russia and do important social things, constantly improving their safety skills. I admire them endlessly.
– Working in Europe, what differences between theater communities have you noticed?
– Recently I met a man from the post-Soviet environment, and the first thing he asked me was where I studied. This is very important in the Russian theatrical institutional get-together, because if you studied somewhere “not there”, then you will not be accepted as one of your own. Then he asked what I was famous for.
In an international environment, these stupid questions are not asked. There it is customary to ask about what you are interested in, what topics you work with, in what format.
It seems to me that due to the fact that very few resources are allocated to culture in Russia, very strong competition flourishes there. Therefore, there are people who decide who deserves to be in the profession and who is not. Here I do not feel such anxiety that I am losing in something, that I urgently need to run and do a million projects, otherwise I will fall behind everyone. Everyone here is relaxed, it’s a very cool feeling. I think this is because the culture is well provided for, and in principle there is no feeling that you have to gnaw through everyone and everything, or die under the bridge from hunger.
– Your first project after leaving Russia is the performance “InnerVoice-dot-ru” (the action of the performance takes place on a platform made of coal, which is covered with sheets with excerpts from the diaries of Russians watching the unfolding of the war. – Ed.). How did he appear?
– I left Russia in mid-March. Despite this departure (I did not yet call it emigration), it was important for me to keep in touch with the society to which I belong. I then realized that it was necessary to collect the testimonies of people who remain on the territory of Russia, to record their thoughts and feelings at this historical moment. I collected testimonies, read excerpts from interviews on camera, and posted the net. Then in Georgia, where at that moment I was working as a waitress, I was invited to do some kind of artistic performance. This is how “InnerVoice-dot-ru” appeared. It is about how the boundaries of the individual change in the face of growing dictatorship, how the context affects you as a person. First, I stand in front of the audience in white clothes that look like underwear. At the end, I’m smeared with coal dust. It’s also a story about how we’ll never get clean.
Readings in Berlin will be held at Ballhaus Prinzenallee, Prinzenallee 33, 13359 Berlin on July 6 in German (staging by Oleg Khristolyubsky) and on July 7 in English (staging by Masha Sapizhak).
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