«Жестокий урок» в Американском Университете в Болгарии (AUBG)
The Vice of Discipline
The long-awaited AUBG theatrical season was opened with Valentin Krasnogorov’s play A Cruel Lesson (Жестокий урок) in the ABF Student Center theatre on April 10. Directed by Sofya Volkhonskaya and performed by the multinational Russian-speaking crew, the independent project set a serious tone for the whole festival. Referring to the Milgram experiment, the play examines the origin and nature of human violence.
The action is set in the medical laboratory of the university where two students, Kira (Ekaterina Almukhamedova) and Mikhail (Vlad Muntean), are invited to conduct an experiment under Professor Koltsov’s (Aziz Zhalelov) supervision.The attractive female assistant Alisa (Alena Usacheva) has to be tied to the chair and connected to the numerous cables, which reflect her live indicators.
The students are required to teach the testee an excerpt from Shakespeare’s drama, applying an electric shock whenever the assistant strays. Their willingness to continue the experiment drastically fades as soon as the tested woman shrieks and quivers from the pain. Nonetheless, only shy and emotional Kira finds the strength to stand for her moral principles and resist the the professor’s authority.
The plot of the production is based on the real experiment held in July 1961 to study the psychology behind the Holocaust. Investigating the Nazi inhuman experiments, Yale University уцпрк»psychologist Stanley Milgram, examined the conditions that led to the mass murders. He concluded that the obedience to the pressing authority made law-abiding citizens carry out the inhumane executions.
Following the historical case, A Cruel Lesson features two common people encouraged to practice violence, provided that the responsibility for their actions will lie on their senior instructor. The play instantly shows how easy it is to prefer full submissiveness to integrity.
The actors showed how numerous factors build up on each other, thus forming their characters and affecting their actions. Inborn characteristics such as natural sensitivity and emotions in combination with social standing, behavioral norms, and regulations are responsible for the difference of Kira’s and Mikhail’s decisions.
A Cruel Lesson tells the old story in a renewed way, spicing it up with a love line and modern placement. The production is both entertaining and educational. It makes the audience think what decision would one have taken in a similar situation. However, even in such a serious project there was a lot of room for humor. Though the laughter was not in any way expected, “Yes, I am a sadist,” cried out by the Muntean’s character, it was hard to disregard it.
Метки: лучшие пьесы, новые пьесы, пьеса на четверых, современная драматургия