Inclusive theatre and its role in the sociocultural space (on the problem of specifics and artistic language)

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Theatrical art occupies an increasingly significant place in the modern sociocultural space. This is because of prevailing sociopolitical circumstances, on one hand, and the artistic specificity of this type of art, on the other. Theater, unlike other arts, reflects life in the forms of life itself; it is closest to reality, everyday life, and priority human problems (spiritual, personal, ethical, psychological, moral, and psychophysical). On stage, the viewer perceives a living, active human actor, and the energy of acting, as in no other work of art, penetrates visibly and sensually into the auditorium, evoking empathy in people, and also coexistence, sympathy or condemnation, and reflection.

According to K.S. Peretrukhina, “The theater nowadays finds itself in a privileged position, as no other art simultaneously possesses such an arsenal of direct contacts with the audience. It is the theater that has access to dialogue with it, influence on it, and rapprochement with it. Today it is one of the most relevant communication tools. This means that theater, more than any other art, can lay claim to becoming a mechanism for improving society” [1, p. 161]. Exploring the sociocultural paradigm of theatrical art, we come to the conclusion that the unity of the audience and the cast on stage is aimed at preserving, developing, and affirming the highest spiritual values, which, in any of the most difficult and seemingly insurmountable circumstances, allow a person to physically create a spiritual person in himself. The theater has such art therapy capabilities that help heal a person’s soul, integrate him into a healthy sociocultural environment, and involve him in a full-fledged, positive, creative life.

In this regard, we consider a phenomenon in cultural studies such as inclusive theater to be a unique direction of stage creativity intended to organically and effectively involve people with physical and mental disabilities in not only an adequate social life but also a full-fledged cultural process accessible to ordinary people.

The problems of inclusive creativity have not received sufficient or broad-based coverage in the scientific and methodological literature. Some aspects of this phenomenon have been addressed by K.S. Peretrukhina [1], B.Yu. Yukhananov [2], A.B. Afonin, E.A. Osipova, E.I. Aksenova, E.A. Drozdova [3], M.M. Galyavetdinova [4], N.V. Gubina, E.P. Tagiltseva, Ya.A. Ivonina [5], A.E. Evaeva [6], S.S. Zagrebin, K.A. Tukhvatulina [7], A.A. Shafikova [8], and others.

There are many examples of the implementation of inclusiveness through the stage existence of actors with special psychophysical features and total emotional and spiritual unity with “their” audience. We review in detail the experience of the recently held III All-Russian Parafestival “Theater is a Territory of Equal Opportunities,” which took place from October 29–31, 2022, at the Samara State Institute of Culture theater department and the “SamArt” Samara Theater for Young Spectators.

Inclusion translated from English means “involvement.” Inclusion as a process aims to include people with disabilities in society so that they feel like full-fledged members. In this regard, the sphere of artistic culture is of great importance, for it is capable of creating conditions under which a person with disabilities has the opportunity to be involved in an equal cultural process.

Inclusive theater is a special direction in dramatic art. Through stage acting, it allows people with physical and mental disabilities to become full-fledged participants in the creative process. In the environment of inclusive theater, it is customary to call the actors and audience “special” without focusing on medical terms. Directors of inclusive theater often argue against this term and designate their theater as “special theater.” Inclusive Theater, established as a children’s theater by teacher Mary Ward and composer Joe Collins over 45 years ago in London, is now one of Europe’s leading inclusive theaters. The concept of inclusive theater consists of treating psychophysical disorders and health limitations not as shortcomings and inferior development but as a person’s “specialness” and “dissimilarity” from ordinary people. It is important to consider the deep specificity of the psychophysics of a “special” person, his dignity, the uniqueness of his personality, and use all the elements of his “specialness” as expressive means of the performance idea. Of course, inclusive performances are based on the complex psychophysical capabilities of the actors, but the ideology of working with such a “special” actor is that the manager seeks and finds compensation for disadvantages and limitations in something else. The logic is simple. If psychophysical limitations arise or are initially present, then there must be compensation for them, other opportunities, and prospects. The most important task of the director of a theater group is to believe, see, discover, and implement everything that is given to the “special” participant in the playful element of inclusive theater.

People with disabilities should and can become self-sufficient members of society and socialize and integrate into a full-fledged, active life filled with spiritual and intellectual processes. Inclusive theater effectively involves people in the space of artistic culture and makes them participants in the creation of a work of theatrical art. Naturally, the director’s attempt to translate the actor’s psychophysical deficiencies into a number of expressive means or simply into the organic fabric of the performance raises significant doubts and smacks of primitive promotion, but this is only a stereotype of the perception of uninformed people. The performances staged at the “Theater is a Territory of Equal Opportunities” All-Russian Parafestival indicate the opposite.

Vladimir Lopaev’s Dance Theater from Irkutsk presented the play “VeraYareV” with its amazing music, immediately captivating the audience with its atmosphere as if coming not from the stage but from some fantastic nothingness, and two performers in a limited light space, a twenty-year-old girl and an older young man who leads her and controls her like a doll. It is clear that the young man is a professional choreographer; he controls his body quite well. At first, it seems that the girl is transforming into a person with cerebral palsy. She is so free and organic in her movements and actions, but understanding occurs much later. Broken, fragile, and at the same time soft, bewitching plasticity and careful, smooth, or impulsive movements are filled with tenderness and a desire for knowledge. This can be perceived from the very first minutes of the performance.

There is no narrative, plot transitions, or history. The entire performance is an alternation of episodes that reflect specific actions and emotional impulses, for example, the moment of meeting a puppet controlled by a young man. In a circle of light, the puppet slides across the floor as if in search of someone close to it. The girl is drawn to it; she is interested in it. Her partner teaches her to walk, lifts her onto his shoulders. She sees the world from above, and it delights her. There is an episode of joy and playful games when both performers, sitting on the floor, fool around in a friendly manner, laugh, enjoy communication, and the fact that they simply exist. And here, he is trying to get her on her feet so that she can learn to stand. She keeps falling, but he catches her, and they both laugh. There is no grief or misfortune because she cannot stand in an upright position. She likes to fall and feel the gravity of the earth. There is no humility or discounts for the problem of the physics of a body that is not like everyone else’s. There is joy and thirst for life.

However, the most important detail is not the plastic drawing of the performance but a genuine, deep experience of all the proposed circumstances and episodes. The experience creates an illusion that this is not a stage play at all but the characters’ real life, where sincerity, joy, and a positive understanding of existence reign through the infectious, artistic images of the theatrical reality they create. The girl’s face shines with the light of a genuinely pure, sincere smile. At the same time, all the elements of acting necessary to appropriate the proposed circumstances are used in this performance. The girl is constantly in an active process, stage communication, creating assessments of new proposed circumstances. Here, faith and naivety as the leading elements of K.S. Stanislavsky’s system determine the vocabulary of movements, the genre features of romantic lyrics, and the manner of acting. At the end of the performance, she suddenly speaks in complete silence, with difficulty and effort. The words are difficult to make out, but it is their meaning and the confidence that they convey that are important: “Love is you, love is me, love is us...” Then, she is in the auditorium and watches the performances of other inclusive groups, and her face also shines with joy and faith.

Meaningfulness of actions, the stage process in general, understanding of the meaning conveyed, deep faith in the stage circumstances of one’s own character, sincere naive living of the role, internal infectiousness, and external expressiveness with an ascetic set of expressive means (in both the work of actors and scenography) characterizes the best inclusive performances, and these traits are so lacking in ordinary modern professional theater. This confirms the position of team leaders regarding the problems of various types of disabilities as specific material for acting. It must be recognized that this position is not always transformed into a high-quality theatrical product. The closer a “special” person is to ordinary people, the more he is at the mercy of stereotypes and standards. People with Down syndrome are a mystery at best to an ordinary person, but they are a miracle to the director of a theater group. This is how the famous theater teacher, director, and artist Dmitry Brusnikin spoke about them and about working with other “special” actors: “When I started working with them, I was shocked. He doesn’t seem to be doing anything special, but he lives his role in such a way that my throat tightens and my skin is crawling. These are unique acting opportunities. You just need to create an environment for this gift to manifest itself... Of course, this has its own specifics. As soon as you enter this territory, artistic thought immediately starts to work because you do not have the opportunity to follow the beaten path. The choreographer arrives, and the man has no legs. And he faces the unique challenge of finding new expressive possibilities through the absence of conventional possibilities. This is a pre-artistic territory of search” [9, p. 136].

The particulars of working with actors with Down syndrome and “their” spectators have a number of specific starting points, without which a positive result is impossible. First of all, it is important to understand that these are people-children or children-people, not ordinary children, but people who have not lost their direct, pure, true perception of the world. When the famous director Boris Yukhananov first came to the school where these people-children were studying, they began to hug him silently. Next, it is necessary to establish proper contact with them. One should not try to penetrate their worldview and “master” the basics of their psychology to find the line of connection between a “standard” person and “aliens” [2, p. 125]. To do this, it is best to involve people-children in some creative project. It is imperative not to treat them from the position of ontological advantage, not to adapt them to our world and vision, but to find a synthesis of the generally accepted and the transcendental. Tolerance, if necessary, should not be visible and fundamental. The director must have sensitive perception, a keen ear, and an intuitive ability to empathize. When rehearsing in an inclusive theater with actors with Down syndrome, it is detrimental to put oneself in the role of a mentor, to demonstrate one’s “service,” to ignore their otherness, or to subordinate or control them. In this regard, it is best to use game training, traveling to magical lands, and searching for something unusual, bright, and joyful. The brightest imagination, wild fantasy, and unexpected semantic solutions and manifestations of the nature of these people’s feelings, which are not always clear to us, ordinary people, can further result in the most natural, infectious performance stunning in its novelty.

This performance was shown at the “Theater is a Territory of Equal Opportunities” parafestival. The Planet of Friends Theater from Omsk presented the fairy tale “Ivan Tsarevich and the Gray Wolf.” At first glance, we did not see anything special in this performance, but from the very first minutes, there was a sense that the performance was not being played but was actually happening then and there before our eyes. The absence of acting in the traditional theatrical sense convinced the audience that actors with Down syndrome were simply living in the circumstances of a fairy tale. From the point of view of ordinary thinking, this is simply impossible. A fairy tale is a work of folklore. Its structure is made up of the components of performance theater, such as the brightest colorful assessment of the facts, the grotesque as the main artistic device, the buffoonish solution to the “grain” of the role, caricature, the mask as a way of acting, the dynamics and large-scale mise-en-scène, etc. Of course, the game is open, demonstrative, and emotional. There was nothing of this in the performance from the standpoint of traditional interpretation. Everything was compensated by nature and stage conventions, and it was very funny and instructive. The manner of acting, not rehearsed, but originated as if from an intuitive appropriation of the material, was based on the personal qualities of the performers. The most valuable aspect of the play was that the actors did not try to make the audience laugh or entertain it. They occupied the stage as if lazily and reluctantly. Here Ivan is looking for his horse. He does not portray panic or heroism, does not perform readiness for feat or adventure, using standard techniques of “fairy tale” theater, but he is simply looking for a horse. This unobtrusiveness toward the viewer, coupled with the charm and organic nature of the performers, has the strength and energy of the performance. The principle of natural surprises, which K.S. Stanislavsky once spoke about but is for some reason very inaccessible to modern professional theater, is implemented in this case with a special effect. Episodes alternate without concern for any logic. Suddenly, gatherings with sunflower seeds arise. Then, the three-headed Zmey Gorynych appears from the three guys without changing clothes or external theatrical effects. Hay bales transform into a throne, benches, mountains, a sleeping place, and an abstract motor, defensive, dynamic means. For actors, this is not a game; is life, which they live on stage together with their heroes sincerely and genuinely. The Queen of Shemakha, Baba Yaga, Koschey, the Gray Wolf, Vasilisa the Wise – they all exist in a conventionally scenic but at the same time extremely reliable and infectious fictional space. The unobtrusiveness of theatricality and the actual rejection of a bright stage form in exchange for an inner sense of humor, an ascetic spectacle filled with inner, unactualized faith in the proposed circumstances of the fairy tale – this is the strength and specificity of performance charm. The same features and principles are noticeable in other performances in which people with Down syndrome participate.

The method of working with special actors, of course, depends on the type of “specialness.” People with mental disability (a complex of various congenital disorders of the intellectual and psychophysical apparatus) or dysfunction of the musculoskeletal system (wheelchair users), the hearing impaired, the visually impaired, the deaf-blind – all of them are deprived of the opportunity to be full members of society. Their activities are limited, and their social status is significantly lower than that of ordinary people. Every year the number of such people grows. What is needed are not isolated programs but rather a special state-level system that would solve the problems of these people. The Russian Federation ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities only in 2008. This obliges the state to ensure their equality in rights and opportunities with ordinary people. This process is developing, but not actively enough.

In this regard, the theater independently does its noble work and proves that involving people with disabilities in stage creativity helps them to achieve personal fulfillment. It is also worth noting that theater latently and imperceptibly includes special people in the general sociocultural process. It is only necessary for the director, teacher, and manager to be extremely attentive and patient in searching for methods of working with actors and ways of reaching the audience.

Experience shows, for example, that the viewer often prefers a certain kind of repertoire, a special style and genre, where the word is by no means dominant. Ceremonial, ritual, folkloric, or sometimes mystical or mythical sources that lead to philosophical generalizations and conventional stage decisions often determine the general trend of inclusive performance. The performance-reflection “On the Other Side of the Moon,” by the inclusive theater studio “Maskless,” from Ufa, reveals in a conventional, plastic manner the strange yet understandable world of the other side of the moon, where people are looking for lost souls. We find ourselves in a world of illusions, in a land of lost voices, a dark world of shadows. In order to return to the spiritual closeness of our loved ones, we are ready to sacrifice our souls for this. The other side of reality, alien to us, requires this sacrifice.

The poetic play “The Life of Angels,” by the Cherepovets city public support group for people with special needs “I Can,” tells the story of a visit to Earth by guests from the Planet of Angels, whose inhabitants do not know what love is. Here the word is not the leading means of expressing the thought. Love as a real being, full of life, joy, and hope, is given as a gift to the angels to help them realize themselves and get closer to people. The unity of disembodied angels and living people through the life-giving energy of love is the pathos and idea of this performance.

The plastic composition “Norns,” by the integrated plastic and dance theater “Orange” in the city of Kinel, Samara region, is an abstract, ritual-like action based on German-Scandinavian mythology. We see mystical creatures influencing the destinies of people, predetermining their lives. These are the Norns. In sacred plastic dances, manipulations with ropes, and ritual emotional-dynamic scenes, we can see the frailty of everyday existence and the mission of a reasonable, spiritual, and moral person destined not to conquer nature but to be part of it, its crown.

Ironic and captivating with the simplicity of its means of expression and the lively, unexpected nature of the acting organics, the performance “On a Ray of Light,” by the inclusive theater “My Joy,” in Syktyvkar, is based on the use of tempo and rhythm as the main elements in the creation of an artistic image. K.S. Stanislavsky made it clear that tempo and rhythm are the most powerful means of stage expressiveness in both acting and directing. Rhythmic claps correlated with verbal text and plastic movements, counterpoints of tempo and rhythm, fragments of rap interspersed with Mozart’s music, and mass but lively and friendly communication are filled with continuous, slightly ironic surprise and individual assessments of what is happening. The story is about a boy named Albert who could not speak for a long time but whose natural powers of observation, active imagination, and inexhaustible curiosity eventually performed a miracle, giving birth to the great scientist Albert Einstein. The performance is valuable primarily in its use of expressive rhythm as a means of revealing the acting individuality of each participant.

Inclusive theater often becomes verbatim. This is not accidental because, for special people, theater is often a way of relating their biography. Based on real events, the autobiographical drama “Blue Cat” is a solo performance by Galina Mikhailova of the private theater “Face to Face” in Samara,. In the extremely limited space of a corner of an apartment, a story about the unpredictability and surprises of life takes place. Everything in this performance is focused on the heroine’s internal monologue, which we hear and understand. With this revelation, we learn to love and accept this life, forgive people for their weaknesses and wrongs, and most importantly, learn to give our love. Then, hope and faith emerge.

From the examples mentioned, a complex of attributes, principles, and trends that are inherent in inclusive theater is formed. The specific artistic language of inclusive theater can be divided into two categories, general and specific. The general category contains natural manifestations of the nature of stage art, in which the actors are “special” people. We should immediately note the special role of “our” spectator in inclusive theater, which was mentioned at the beginning of the article. An inclusive theater needs its own audience, like air [8]. Without it, there is no inclusion itself (that is, inclusion of people from the audience in the creative process). Here an analogy with folklore theater is suggested, where the presence of the audience itself was the basis for the accomplishment.

The common features inherent in all inclusive theater are associated, first of all, with the sociocultural component of this trend in theatrical art: the human need for socialization and participation in the general cultural process. A person goes to the theater to fulfill himself as a creative person and be viewed/regarded as equal by society despite the mental and psychophysical problems that deviate him from the conventional norm of development. What is important here is the support not so much of government agencies as that of the viewership and social networks.

The next aspect is mixing of “special” people and ordinary participants in the creative and general cultural space. This is a very important part of an inclusive theater experience. Almost all of the performances of the laureates of the “Theatre as Territory of Equal Opportunities” parafestival included a mixed cast. Sometimes it was impossible to understand who among the performers was “special” and who was ordinary. People feel integrated into a full-fledged, real life. This has a healing effect and helps them perceive the fullness of life as one of the effective means of the inclusion process.

The third attribute of inclusive theater is direct, conscious, full dedication to the creative act. No matter what problems a person has with mental or physical health, he is fully involved in the performance and does not reflect. Sometimes this imparts the performance with liveliness and energy that can rarely be seen in an ordinary professional theater [6; 10]. The next complex feature that can become the basis of the artistic language is the tendency toward conventional, non-verbal, iconic theater. The saturation of the best performances of inclusive theater with stage semiotics of different levels and of unexpected (unfamiliar) natural origin, the attraction to symbolism, ritual elements, abstract physical actions, and magical intonations in spectacular forms of interaction with space can clearly be traced to the results of the All-Russian Parafestival and are also noted in live communication with directors and artists of inclusive theater, at master classes, and in the process of sharing experiences. The last common attribute of inclusive theater is the composing of an original version of the performance. The team composes a performance, which is most often done without words. Perhaps the author of the play is a director, but in the context of the entire theatrical process, the initial position of the director is clearly visible and is determined by the personal and acting characteristics of the participants and the artistic preferences of the team. It is the act of composing a performance which takes place in the depths of the aesthetic specificity of the theater troupe that is the main entertainment and semantic foundation that determines the uniqueness of the artistic language.

Particular principles of work, specific features, and methods of interaction with the actor are determined by the type of health limitation. Theater that involves people with Down syndrome is characterized by the absence of acting in the traditional theatrical sense. They really live in the circumstances of the role and the continuous action of the performance as their faith in the proposed circumstances is so sincere and deep. In addition, the artists of this theater are often called children. This is not an emphasis on developmental delays; this is material for implementing a role in oneself, for creative self-embodiment. The other quality related to particular manifestations of inclusive theater is the emerging natural ability to improvise, when a person is eager to get involved in the creative process in order to fulfill his potential, get to know himself, and help himself find harmony and stability in solving mental and psychological problems. This readiness for stage improvisation is called inspiration. By controlling it, we can create amazing artistic images that are required of not only the actor but also his viewer. Another aesthetic element of inclusive theater is the documentary one-man show in the verbatim context. This is where the confessional function of theatrical art comes into force, and also the opportunity to speak openly and receive mass support. This kind of theater helps people with mental disorders and low self-esteem, thoughtful individuals who are isolated from others.

The last component, which can be considered the principle of implementing an inclusive performance, is a synthesis of directions, styles, and genres. In fact, this phenomenon comes from the nature of folk theater, which did not speculate about the artistic unity of the performance, but still had it. Sometimes, from a seemingly unjustified eclecticism of expressive means and mashed-up details, something original and integral emerges. This is the play “Epochs of Time” by “Inclusive-brand,” the experimental fashion theater in Samara. Literary theater, mystery fragments, acrobatic performances, and fashion shows of costumes from different eras alternate here. At first, such an agglomeration raises bewilderment and questions, but this is if we evaluate the work from the standpoint of fashion theater stereotypes. If we perceive this spectacle in the aesthetics of inclusive theater, whose main aim is to involve participants in the creative process on stage, then composing the performance becomes logical and justified. There are actors on the team with the skills of gymnasts, so they have a place in the performance; there is an artist-fashion designer who can create; there are singers, dancers, and elocutioners, so everything can be invented and embodied in one performance for their audience. Any amateur performance is designed to implement the creative aspirations of the individual. The goal of inclusive theater is the same; it is just that “special” people perform in it, and this determines and justifies their means. And if their performances shake the audience, cause tears and empathy, understanding, delight, and admiration, then this can be considered art, especially when in the hall there are not only “our” spectators but people from the ordinary outside world.

Inclusive theater is just beginning to develop. This movement is new and little studied in the general theatrical process, but everyone understands that it is necessary not only for “special” people but also for ordinary people. Otherwise, we would not be human. Persons with mental disabilities and psychophysical disorders are a special world that is incomprehensible to us and can be recreated on the stage if there are specialists who are able and willing to work with them. A.B. Afonin, director of the integrated theater “Circle II” (Moscow)and board member of a regional public support group for people with mental disabilities and psychophysical disorders, speaking about the specifics of working with special actors, noted that the concept of “novel of life,” introduced by K.S. Stanislavsky, is only a term of effective analysis for everyone [3, p. 136]. For “special” actors, this is their real life, running through the entire structure of the performance. This life is often reflected in strange, dark or mystical tones, fanciful fantasies and otherworldly shadow manifestations, or abstract models of clouded meanings. The subconscious aspiration into the metaphorical element of conventional theater, expressing their worldview and their ontology of reality, ultimately gives rise to puzzle performances that cannot be solved by ordinary people who do not have the skill of communicating with “special” people. However, if the performance is staged by a talented specialist who knows from the inside the nature of the feelings of “special” actors, then it results in a “special” performance that is filled with the energy of life and depth of meaning and excites any viewer.

This is the case of the play “I am Who...,” by the Theater Studio “Inclusion. School. Kurgan” (Kurgan), staged by A.B. Afonin. In the play, actors from the “Inclusion...” studio and the integrated theater group “Circle II” perform, or rather conduct, performative research. This is not a performance but instead a prepared improvisation of a stage version of the philosophical problem of knowing oneself through another person. Young people walk around the small space of the stage looking for someone who is similar to them in energy, mentality, and aspiration. The process occurs at the level of the subconscious or intuition. There is a feeling that this is psychological training. People are looking for their place in space and someone with whom they will feel comfortable, someone who can understand and accept them. Someone was already completely settled down. Found. However, this is not right. Again the search takes place with close internal attention and spiritual and sensory perception of one another. It is not eye to eye or hand to hand, but rather mental perception of one another. It is impossible to perform this.

In an ordinary theater school, such training is often ineffective since ordinary studio students are already “slagged” with stereotypes, mistrust, and mental calculations. Everything here is the truth of my essence, open to another. Furthermore, when the pairs are formed, the viewer understands that this is not just a training session but a prepared experiment instead of a polished or carefully rehearsed performance. Here, as in many performances of inclusive studios, there is no plot, effective through line, or everyday logic. There are no words, no events. Here is the process of cognition of oneself through another person. The specificity and magical attractiveness of theater as such consists precisely of the fact that only this type of art really allows one to know oneself when transforming into another. Moreover, this feature is characteristic of this movement of theatrical art, which the whole world calls the Russian psychological theater of experience. The pairs begin to interact. Each has its own world, its own conflict, its own enlightenment and unity. Somewhere they form groups to help one person. Everything is in the language of plasticity, although it is clear that these are not professional gymnasts or pantomime artists. They are just young people who want to understand themselves through others, and by doing this, they find a friend who is close in spirit and mentality. Also, there is so much genuine human kindness, warmth, selflessness and even an unconscious desire to understand another person that one begins to believe that loneliness is not a problem; one needs only to be able to search and not surrender. In the finale, all performers are a single whole. Or is it just an illusion?

Perhaps this performance is most typical for understanding the uniqueness of the artistic language of inclusive theater. Such experiments can be performed by amateur or professional actors with any type of disability because they all have that undeniable and powerful motivation that ordinary people do not have, namely, to make the world, society, culture, and art accessible to themselves, to be included in the processes of a full-fledged life. Ordinary people have this opportunity, but they are not able to appreciate it until they themselves become “special.”

In conclusion, we should mention a professional inclusive theater. The Russian State Specialized Academy of Arts (RSSAA), which has been functioning in Moscow since 1991, trains people with disabilities in creative professions. The Nedoslov Theater is a unique creative association of deaf professional actors who graduated from the RSSAA. They stage all kinds of different songs. Each performance has its own program, revealing a particular topic. Each song is a short plastic performance. The plastic images that Nedoslov creates are not just a song translated into stage language, but it is their vision of the song, and the song ceases to be a work of vocal art. When a singer sings, we hear the song; we can even close our eyes. When a song becomes a performance, we perceive it not only with our ears, not only with our eyes, not only with our mind and heart, but in the complex of our entire being. How does a song staged in a regular theater differ from the musical and plastic images of Nedoslov? It is hard to say. There is no time for words here. A phonogram of songs about war, familiar to us from childhood, sounds. Deaf artists “sing” it, living it so deeply and passionately with such energetic value and in a surprisingly precise, emotionally rich plastic structure that one forgets conventional theatrical language, loses control of their presence in the auditorium, and unconsciously abandons oneself to the experience together with the performer, feeling his pain, joy, trembling thoughts, triumph, and pathos of true art. We cannot help but wonder why modern professional theater is devoid of all this. Inclusive theater has a great future if it is supported by the state, but its most important aspect is its ineradicable motivation, a healthy and creative love of life.

作者简介

Viktor Petrov

The Samara State Institute of Culture

编辑信件的主要联系方式.
Email: petrovvv@samgik.ru

Associate Professor, Professor at the Theatre Directing Department

俄罗斯联邦, 167 Frunze Str., Samara, 443010

Natalia Zavarnitsyna

The Samara State Institute of Culture

Email: tf@samgik.ru

Associate Professor, Candidate of Philological Sciences, Dean of the Theatre Faculty

俄罗斯联邦, 167 Frunze Str., Samara, 443010

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