NOW

2005
 
15 January
 

They phoned me. I listened, nodded, sighed and went to sleep.

The dream:

There is a jester on the stage, either Pierrot or just the Punch from a fair. He has a marionette - the complicated one with 32 strings. He dances some rubbish, then he is angry with the puppet. He pulls it wickedly. Its hands are twisted. He tears the strings. He scoffs at it. He smashes it. He throws it and stalks toward the back of the stage with a disgusting smile. Nobody claps their hands. They all hate him as they would any other Talent. But it is easy to see that he is even more than a Talent...

He’s almost gone. Suddenly he’s being violently jerked up by his shoulder. Then some force (and he knows which one) twists him, tears him apart, squeezes the life out of him like water from a child’s snowball.

So there are two piles on the stage – the broken puppet and the broken man.

The scene is 4 minutes long.

It is impossible to move so. Humans cannot do it. Non-humans do. No applause, please. Go home. Go carefully. Nobody has conquered those strings yet.

A revenge?

Or awaiting that force too?

Nikolay Nikitin has died. A mime, a teacher, a witness.

A fool of God’s.

He left the world and took his ease.

We dared to dedicate to him the part of LA DIVINA COMMEDIA named ‘The Cross’. He didn’t come to the performance but he sent nine children. They were silent, they smoked and sneered.

Two
A puppet Archibald by Eduard Bersudsky. Photo - Tatjana Jakovaskaya
Nikolay Nikitin
Nikolay Nikitin
 

Original text: Anton Adasinsky & DEREVO

Photos are provided by Maxim Jakubson
English text editor: Jennifer Williams
 
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