Two Plays by Olga Mukhina

John Freedman, John Freedman, John Freedman

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2005
• eBook ISBN: 9781135293314
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Performing Arts

Olga Mukhina is one of the most talented, young playwrights in Russia. Born in Moscow in 1970, she has already garnered enviable praise from critics and audiences throughout Russia and Europe since her first play, Tanya-Tanya, was performed in 1996.
Tanya-Tanya is an atmospheric, poetic tale that observes three couples at a suburban Moscow home who dance, drink champagne, kiss, fall in and out of love, and struggle with dignity and humor to keep some semblance of control over their lives. The parallels with Chekhovian drama are undeniable and clearly intended by the author.
You, Mukhina's most recent work, is a love poem to her hometown of Moscow as well as a scathing attack on the apathy of people blindly wrapped up in their own happiness and sorrow.

(YoU)

• CHARACTERS
• STEPÁN IVÁNOVICH—about 60 years old
• YELIZAVÉTA SERGÉYEVNA—his wife
• ÁNYA—20 years old, their daughter
• SISTER—35 years old, their daughter
• SÉVA—40 years old, Sister’s husband
• ANDRÉI (Andryúsha)—40 years old
• DMÍTRY—20 years old
• PIROGÓVA (Natásha)—20 years old
• BARSUKÓV—50 years old
• NIKOLÁI (Kólya)—20 years old, his son
• TWO OLD WOMEN

PART ONE

SCENE ONE

White Rolls-Royces, trolleys and flat-bed trucks race by Mayakovsky, Pushkin and Gogol. Morning airplanes fly above the ponds. Horses, bicyclists and pedestrians jostle with singing Mexicans. Lilacs bloom, it smells of rain, bread and salt. A huge sun shines over the entire city.Seva and Andrei walk in the direction of the Kremlin.

ANDREI: I got two letters today. One from grandmother, the other from my sister. My grandmother’s letter was incredibly tender.

SEVA: Careful there. Moscow does not believe in tears.

ANDREI: My whole life this city has observed me as coldly as a cold woman. A woman who laughs at me. Who never once offered me a hand, no matter how I whimpered or begged her to even just a little. I’m a stranger to her. I’m no one to her. She doesn’t love me.

SEVA: All you have to do is throw money at her and she’s yours all night long.

ANDREI: If only that were true.

SEVA: Your head spins, your ears ring, your feeble breast shakes with laughter. You bite your lips and swallow hard—and this town just begs for more!

ANDREI: I don’t have any money.

SEVA: Moscow is not the world’s bellybutton. Other countries have peo ple in them, too, you know. You sound as little as Napoleon.

ANDREI: Every year it gets tougher and tougher. This town has stripped me bare. I hate it! (Begins to cry)

SEVA: Now, now.

ANDREI: I’ve got just one weary desire left in my head—to lie down here and die. To strip off these clothes, kick off my wet shoes, free myself of these rags and die naked—right here. Right here on this asphalt in the rain. I won’t say a thing to her; I’ll just think quietly to myself—HOW ABOUT THAT, SWEETHEART? I LOSE!

SEVA: Idiot.

ANDREI: I’m finished! Wasted!

Enter Pirogova. She runs and laughs and waves photographs in the air.

PIROGOVA: This is Vitya. He’s a pilot. He took me for a ride in an air plane. Way up high! Way over Moscow! We even flew over your street.

SEVA: I thought I noticed something strange. It was like the weather went bad on just our street. But it was just Pirogova taking a plane ride!

PIROGOVA: We flew way up over the clouds!

ANDREI: What kind of plane does he have?

PIROGOVA: I don’t know. I don’t know anything about them.

SEVA: You going to marry him?

PIROGOVA: What’s that got to do with it? He did propose, though.

SEVA: Accept. Go ahead.

ANDREI: I wanted to be a pilot when I was a kid.

PIROGOVA: When I was a kid I swam straight as an arrow.

SEVA: I drew swallows when I was a kid.

PIROGOVA: A swallow flew in my window once.

ANDREI: I don’t like it when birds get inside.

SEVA: They say a nightingale flew into my room once.

ANDREI: So many birds flew into my room, I don’t even know what they were.

PIROGOVA: Maybe it was a sparrow?

SEVA: Or something else, maybe.

ANDREI: What are you doing tonight, Natasha?

PIROGOVA: Where do you want to go?

SEVA: A greasy spoon.

Pirogova laughs and runs out on high heels.

ANDREI: What did you say that for?

SEVA: You never know what’s going on in her heart.

They approach a small house and open the door. Inside music is playing. Anya, Yelizaveta Sergeyevna and Dmitry are sitting at a table and laughing.

DMITRY: I walk along the street and I can’t do anything about it—I laugh! I love all those people who are walking past me, you know? It’s like I physically love them! I want to kiss every one of them. I want to give them gifts, do something nice for them!

SEVA: Home at last.

YELIZAVETA SERGEYEVNA: Seva! Andryusha!

SEVA: Let’s love each other physically!

YELIZAVETA SERGEYEVNA: Why so sad, Andryusha? You’re probably hungry.

ANDREI: You think that’s what I came here for?

YELIZAVETA SERGEYEVNA: Of course not. I just always want you to have a full stomach.

ANDREI: Thank you. I got two letters today. One from grandma and one from my sister. I decided to read grandma’s first I figured she’d be criticizing and ridiculing me. Then I’d read my sister’s letter, to save the best for last. But grandma wrote me such a tender letter I even cried.

ANYA: I think it’s horrible when a man cries.

ANDREI: Yeah. I was walking down the street thinking I’d die if I didn’t have a drink.

YELIZAVETA SERGEYEVNA: Did you?

ANDREI: I had to. So I wouldn’t die.

YELIZAVETA SERGEYEVNA: It’s the other way around with me. I think if I die I’ll never drink again. So I guess I’d better not die.

SEVA: That gives you some kind of goal in life anyway.

ANYA: I keep getting love letters from someone in violet ink.

SEVA: How romantic!

ANYA: Do you know anybody with handwriting as ugly as this?

ANDREI: No, I don’t. What are you drinking? Wine?

ANYA: Yes. Dmitry’s home.

SEVA: For long?

DMITRY: Yes, if there’s no war.

YELIZAVETA SERGEYEVNA: Whenever I see those boys I feel so sorry for them. I want to do something for them. I want to help. I want to go up to them and say, “Everything is going to be all right.”

ANYA: He’s not one of them.

DMITRY: I’m happy.

ANYA: He smiles in the bus at grown-up women ...

Table of contents

• COVER PAGE
• RUSSIAN THEATRE ARCHIVE
• TITLE PAGE
• COPYRIGHT PAGE
• INTRODUCTION TO THE SERIES
• LIST OF PLATES
• INTRODUCTION
• TANYA-TANYA
• (YOU)
• OTHER TITLES IN THE RUSSIAN THEATRE ARCHIVE SERIES: