Ersatz

A book-performance. Autobiographical. Written in 2009. The author is an actress. She graduated from LGITMiK in 1987, from the class of Prof. A. I. Katsman.

"Have you ever been deceived? Be quiet, everything is already known: you have been deceived, are being deceived, and will be deceived, and you respond in kind; no one feels sorry for you—you know the Rules. But the girls... Those people who undertook to teach them know the Rules perfectly well, yet like ‘proper heroes’ they ‘always go around the other way.’ ‘Nothing can be done—such is life,’ they say with their whole appearance. Yes, such is life, and such is the most hypocritical and false excuse of all time.
They began enrolling students in the acting faculty of Ulyanovsk State University almost from its opening. And back then, in 1996, it was fantastically cool: their own theater school where the teachers were theater actors! And those actors, in turn, had once graduated from the Shchepka, the Shchuka, LGITMiK, the Moscow Art Theatre School-Studio, GITIS. Wasn’t that splendid? Delightful! To get into a class with such ‘guys’ was like killing two birds with one stone: you got an education without leaving mom and dad, plus a state diploma, plus practical training alongside your studies, and on top of all that a big advance promise of employment right there—in a word: a fairy tale, a fairy tale, a fairy tale... But, as they say, years passed... and, as often happens, ‘the fairy tale became reality.’ So I want to ask you... is this what you were born for, sir, for your pupils to cry from grief? And grief is always the companion of deceit, and also of darkness. I wouldn’t even dare sketch that picture in pencil, so pitch-black did the darkness in their young heads seem to me. Put yourself in their place. Climb into their skin for just a second, especially since your profession obliges you to. Imagine that you are a lamb. In the nook allotted to you for living, the walls sway, the floor heaves, and plaster falls from the ceiling at every sneeze. Can you imagine it? No?? Well then, do try, make the effort... Add to that the howl of the wind, the barking of dogs, and a full moon. Still not working? What if you multiply all that by the burning eye of a wolf maddened by hunger? What if the cold is infernal? What if you are alone and abandoned by everyone? Well? How then, my good sir? Then you are the same as those first-year girls, and it makes no difference whether you are an ordinary People’s Artist of Russia or a State Prize laureate, an eternally honorary citizen. Theater is not a building where performances are shown and where actors adorn the pavement at the entrance with stars in their honor. Theater is a temple of the liberated soul. It cannot be built without love for humanity, and what is built without it is what we have. And do you know what the real horror is? In the ‘similarity,’ in the ‘almost indistinguishability’ not only of Form, but of Content as well. The spectator intuitively senses the substitution, but will never openly admit it. Like a mother whose child has been switched, who will raise and believe until the very last, very last minute in blood kinship with another woman’s child, finding in it a portrait resemblance to her beloved husband. Because it is easier to believe in deception, to allow it, than to detect it. Such is our public as well. For the most part, for the most part...
The system of the great reformer, having passed through the hands of several generations, has treacherously mutated, lost its virginity and naivety, and turned into a call girl. And I have great doubts about your pure intentions, gentlemen, regarding this ‘lovely creature’ sitting on your knees."

...Let what will be, be. The main thing is to convey it. That is my goal. That is my desire. If something is destined to break through—it will break through. That’s all.
What did I want to convey... About the Artist, about his essence. About personal freedom, the freedom we have lost. About faith in oneself, about the strength and weakness of that faith. About love, which drives the creative process, which raises the soul to the level of God. And about memory: in it lives gratitude to those true creators who through their creativity preserved the lives of many generations. The book speaks not only with my voice, my words and feelings—there are a great many voices in it. And if your soul is capable of ‘hearing’—it will absorb all the sounds. And one more thing.... Every person sooner or later feels the pain of deception. Feels like part of someone’s evil, insidious design, part of a Game into which he has been drawn through ignorance, naivety, or simply because ‘everyone does it.’ Deception has gained access to all spheres of our life. We ourselves handed over the rights to it. It seems to us that by shielding ourselves from the truth, we preserve ourselves. No. By choosing this path, we destroy ourselves.
About... of course, about ‘being.’ But ‘being’ differently, in a new way. ‘Being’ not in the sense of distributing oneself in space, but in the sense of defining oneself within it, realizing oneself as the Creator’s design, as a highly moral personality striving for spiritual perfection. To be or not to Be—each person decides for himself. Everyone should try to ‘come to be.’ Those whom I wanted to remember came to be. Their happiness lies in having known the joy and torment of flight. Many of them are no longer here. But they continue to fly. And they continue to teach us to fly.
Also... about the forgery that must be seen as Forgery, as a skillful deception imposed on people; about the responsibility of those who have dared to enter people’s consciousness and souls through lies.
It turns out that “Ersatz” is about the fate of Conscience. If that sounds loud and pompous, it can be put more simply: about the loss of shame...

Contents:
Part One. Straw Arrows:
01. A Bad Good Director
02. Prelude
03. Straw Arrows
04. Troll on the Throne
05. City of the Night Sun
06. Mastery
07. Daughter
08. Swimming Pool
09. Children of the Theater
10. Trifles
11. The Highest Rank
12. Our Everything
13. Moscow
14. Tenderness
15. Hunger
16. The Dead Sea
17. Victory
18. You
19. My Poor Guru
20. Diagnosis - Faith
21. Cranberry in Powdered Sugar
22. Three Sisters
23. The Question “Why”
24. Three Sisters - continuation
25. Extras
26. Philharmonic Striptease
27. Art is a Field
28. The Yellow Dragonfly of Envy
29. Eternal Child
30. Look at the Sky
31. Easier, Gentlemen!
32. Listen
33. Red Cat, Green Fish
34. About Love
35. From Personal Correspondence
36. Words
37. Theater of the Future
38. Lies
39. A Profession That Cannot Be Taught
40. I Am with You Again. May I?
41. Now You Are Undressed
42. Pros on Pros
43. Kunstkamera
44. Foundation
45. The Principle of Enflage
46. I Believe. I Don’t Believe

Part Two. The Highest Rank:
47. Citadel
48. Paganini
49. Komissarzhevskaya
50. Bashlachev
51. Modigliani
52. Savelyeva
53. Tarkovsky
54. Shukshin
55. Vysotsky
56. Jeanne
57. Solonitsyn
58. Kaidanovsky
59. Dal
60. Mordyukova
61. Nikulin
62. Shepitko
63. Sokurov
64. Yankovsky
65. Epilogue