While all the people solve their earthly problems and primarily look for bread and circuses, a paradise is being constructed in the very center of Moscow under the roof of the Mossovet Theatre, and all the sinners seek their way there. Who is the fallen angel? Who is innocent? And does love bring death, if it is love? Oleg Menshikov’s team, which produces “The Demon” by Mikhail Lermontov tries to find answers to these and other questions. The dramatic version of the poem hasn’t been staged so far, and the opera by Anton Rubinstein is not regarded as a masterpiece. But nevertheless, Oleg Menshikov and Kirill Serebrennikov assailed the dangerous piece.

The stage “under roof” of the Mossovet Theatre
15.00. It is quiet here so far. I called, but only assistant director Olga Krainidovna came out. She said the rehearsal would start in 30 minutes. In a small space between the two rows of seats, only three huge stones are hung on the ropes. And that’s all? Nice decoration to a Caucasian story, I should say.
People start to appear. The first is a singer with a bagpipe, Mikhail; in the corner near the drums there’s a drummer, also Mikhail. And under the stones three guys in tights are already loosing up. One is completely bald, another is short-haired, and the third is not that disheveled, but compared to his companions, quite hairy.
“Hello, hello”, says Oleg Menshikov and passes to a small pen behind the curtain. He is elegant as usual wearing a striped pullover and a leather jacket. The director enters – Kirill Serbrennikov. He wears a baseball cap with a sewed-on road sign “Give way”. “Jolly pretensions”, you can say about anyone else, but not Kirill. Today he is #1 director among the young ones, and many have stepped aside already.

Same place
15.30. The place that has been silent, now is filled with natural cacophony! The two shaved guys torture the haired one, and the latter squeaks: “Misery, immortality…” Drummer Mikhail beats the drum, and is joined by the sound of a string instrument; something whistles and creaks. The stones rattle on the floor. And all this demonic cacophony has arisen in 30 minutes.
Three men drag a piano from on side of the stage to another. They are joined by choreographer Albert Albert. The name is easy to remember; he is puny, with fine and expressive face. Suddenly he stumbled and fell down. Everybody gasped: the choreographic talent perished under the instrument. But nothing of the kind: gutta-percha Albert slipped out, toppled over his head and stood up safe and sound.
“OK, let’s start”, Serebrennikov orders not in a commanding voice, but rather in a business-like.
The three dancers count in English to the drums’ beat, in a special way move to the stones and block the puny fellow with a pole. And on the right the Demon, Oleg Menshikov, has already appeared. He is all dressed in black: black baggy sweater, black trousers and black gym-shoes with white sole. Exactly the living Demon. What kind of Demon is he? The same man, only winged? Or sexless creature of higher spheres?

His way above the sinful earth
The melancholy Demon winged
And memories of happier days
About his exiled spirit thronged;
Of days when in the halls of light
He shone among the angels bright…

He recites about his own self. The exile of the paradise has a beautiful voice. Every word, every letter is filled with a low sound.
“No. Oh, no. Absolutely wrong sound”.

Same place
16.10. Indeed, Menshikov knows how to surprise, and assails “The Demon”. Why? For what reason? Lermontov’s masterpiece sounds impossible for stage especially today, when all the modern drama trains the public for simple, if not miserable, phrases like: “Damn, gonna kil’ ya, know-how and PR-technologies…” And suddenly such a literature!
A thousand flower-hearts that beat!
The sensuous warmth of afternoon,
The scented dew which falls to strew
The grateful foliage 'neath the moon,
The stars that shine as full and bright
As Georgian beauties' eyes by night!..
Joy of spirit! You may taste these words and rhymes, and feel as if in an expensive luxurious restaurant. But how can it be staged? About the scented dew 'neath the moon, and the stars that shine as eyes...
Only Kirill Serebrennikov, the shock worker of the domestic theatre, knows how to do it. He releases several productions in a season, and his every next work makes more noise than the previous one. In case of “The Demon”, there is enough noise at the rehearsal.
“No. Oh, no. Absolutely wrong sound”.
It is composer Alexander Bakshi unsatisfied with the sound of a glass. He is brought another one, and he moves his finger over its edges. In fact, they extract sounds out of everything here – be it a lyre, a xylophone, drums or an aquarium, which is sawed with a fiddlestick by drummer Zhukov. He shows me an African instrument with a frightening name “birimbow” and explains that “bow” is a kind of weapon. He counted sixteen instruments in total. Also, he says, Tigranych with kemenche is about to come. All the sounds of the world seem to serve “The Demon”.

Next day. Same place.
13.00. And meanwhile... It is not a casual phrase for “The Demon”: in the poem the strain is not even in words, but in what is behind the words, between them, and, probably, among the sounds – the foreboding of something irreversible that is about to happen, and suddenly… The events in the poem, which Lermontov started to write at the age of 14, develop headily: the Demon is exiled from the paradise, beauty Tamara waits for her fiancee at the wedding table, the fiancee hurries to her, but perishes on his way, Tamara leaves for the convent, and the Demon appears. O-o-o-o-oh!!!
More like the gentle afterglow
As evening deepens into night!...

Same place. Break.
They started to mount the settings
14.00. Menshikov near the musical instruments.
“Oleg, probably you know why the desired Demon’s love brings death to Tamara, though she is longing for love too?”
“I’ve been searching for the answer for six months already. It can’t be explained by words. They will be banal. Well, I can say: ‘The Demon is punished, and is punished for ages. And he cannot be forgiven’. It is impossible to express by words”.
“Does it mean love brings death?”
“According to Lermontov, it is so”.
“And according to you?”
“No. In that case it is not love. And the Demon is a high knight, like the one from the last chapter of ‘Master and Margarita’”.
“Is it strange and frightening to be the Demon?..”
“I haven’t been the Demon. Actually, it is strange, it all is strange. I can’t say I’m frightened or nervous more than usually. There’s fear not of the role, but of the structure that we have invented. But on the other hand, there’s a lust for pronouncing this great verse. Sometimes you say these lines, and feel your hair stir. But my task is to make it stir not on my head…
“Oleg, why don’t you ever go to the theatre’s artistic cafe with the others? Many in the theatre have noticed it”.
“I don’t eat that much. I just don’t feel like eating. My relations with food are quite free”.

Two days later. Same place.
16.30. And here’s Tamara’s fiancee, who “forgot his forefathers of old” and didn’t pray in the chapel, and perished. The fiancee is Anatoly Beliy, the actor who recently has been claiming himself louder and louder. Half-face, when he sits on the floor in the pose of “lotus” in front of Tamara, he is living Vladimir Putin. Tamara covers him with a white cloak, because her fiancee is dead. Though in ten minutes, he will be eating goulash in the artistic cafe very lively.
The verse and the music are always interlaced with some strange sounds – feast, mourning, laughter… And many other sounds, extracted from this very kemenche by Tigranych, or Grant Tigranovich Airapetyan, the only Moscow’s kemencheist. He is the only indeed, because he is even dressed unlike the rest of the demonic team. He wears a neat brown suit with a neck-tie and holds the exotic instrument in his hands.
“Kemenche is 400 years old”, he says, while something is being discussed on the stage. “No, don’t touch it. This is a nut with four strings. I play it for a long time, and play everything – from classics to jazz…”
And he immediately proves his international popularity as kemencheist and shows photos with a black singer and some other celebrities.
“Break. 15 minutes”, Serebrennikov announces.

17.00. Everybody went to the artistic cafe, and only the director stayed. He speaks very quietly, as if we may bother someone.
“Kirill, whose idea was to stage ‘The Demon’?”
“Mine. I offered it to Oleg. He got excited at once”.
“Everybody’s wondering why ‘The Demon’? Why not ‘The Seagull’, for example?”
“It is always interesting to do unexplored things. I always return to this text. I staged ‘The Demon’ as a laboratory work and I have its modern interpretation in my film ‘Rostov-papa’. It produces a magical and enchanting impression on me”.
“Maybe, you were on friendly terms with Lermontov in your previous life?”
“Very probably”.
“Did you cast actors as you usually do before each new project?”
“No, I didn’t. Oleg was unquestionable; only he could play the Demon. I had a clear idea that Tamara is the role for Natalia Shvets, the rising star. We met at the shooting, and she acted in my films ‘Murderer’s Diary’ and ‘Rostov-papa’. Recently she assumed the role in ‘Some Explicit Polaroids’.
“The rest are the three musicians and three dancers. They are amazing fellows, and they control their bodies as nobody else. They work in different international troupes. They are fantastic!”
“Listen, why do we speak so quietly?”
“I don’t know. Maybe, the Demon flew about”.
“What is your Demon?”
“He is a creature of higher spheres, the fallen angel who can experience grandiose emotions and bring them to life. His tear burns down a stone. I don’t interpret the poem in some special way. We just try to tell the story itself – with its high passions, emotions, and depths of sounds that live in the souls. The author’s Demon is a sad and absolutely lonely person trying to abandon his solitude. But he fails – his pride is too great. The whole modern civilization is based on pride, vanity, etc. We pretend it’s not a sin. But it is an awful sin, really terrible.
“In the theatrical aspect, the Demon is an enormous and powerful actor.”
“And his name is Menshikov?”
“Yes, his name is Menshikov”.

Artistic cafe.
17.15. “The Demon” people treat themselves to the modest menu of the local cafe. The murdered fiancee gobbles his goulash at the same table with the dancers. “Plastmen”, as they call themselves.
“In fact, they are choir”, says Beliy.
“And who are you?”
“I am an actor, a duke and an angel-ghost. I like to be a ghost.
“Half-face you’re our living president”.
“By the way I played him in Alla Surikova’s film”.
Plastmen – two Konstantins and Sergei – are from different dancing troupes. They have enough work in the performance: with dance they express emotions, comment on the events and almost don’t leave the stage. They state they paid their due to the mystery of “The Demon”.
“During the rehearsals all our crosses disappeared. And Sergei dislocated his thumb...

Stage
17.15. And here’s the convent – same stones on the ropes. Same stone rattle. Oleg Menshikov pushed one stone, and it started to move as a Foucault pendulum.
For long and long, though powerfully
The convent seemed to draw him, he
Could not make up his mind to break
That hallowed peace.... One moment more
And he was ready to forsake
His cruel intent –
– recites Oleg in front of Tamara. Natalia Shvets, in a long black skirt and with her hair carelessly tightened on the back of her head, listens to the sweet words.
I swear by you, your life, your death,
Your last, long look and your first tear,
The gentle drawing of your breath,
The silken torrents of your hair;
I swear by suffering and bliss,
I swear even by this love of ours…
What woman can resist it? Rostand is right: women love with their ears. As we know, Tamara showed her weak point, and... We know how it ended. I don’t want to repeat it for it is too sad. Though the scenery is not sad at all, especially in the scene of Tamara’s funerals. Quite a merry scene, scored by Tigranych and his kemenche with some rogue music.

17.33. The settings are just being mounted, the costumes have been tried on just once. Igor Chapurin, who worked with Menshikov in “Woe from Wit”, designed several dresses for Tamara, and one of them is glowing. And the Demon? The Demon, as he must be, is all dressed in black and doesn’t have wings.
Some ten days remain till the premiere. There is no hysterics on the setting, though the pre-premiere strain is felt. When they finish, everyone will surely remember Lermontov, who in one of his manuscripts of “The Demon” wrote: “I finished – and my heart is full of involuntary doubt!”