Aidar Zabbarov staged «The Fate of a Man» at the «Demidov Mansion»

A simple Russian man from Voronezh

Zabbarov's voice is heard at the beginning of the performance, where he explains that he chose this work because it is based on the story of a real person. Sholokhov's story, written in 1956, describes events from the life of his friend, Nikolai Kargin. Already in 1959, a film was released in which the director of the film, Sergei Bondarchuk, played the main role — this is how his big film career began.

The performance features three actors and several puppets. Valery Antonov, who is known for his work at the Youth Theater (and for working with puppets), and Anna Zinnatullina, who staged the puppet story «Hedgehogs — Little Dreamers» at the Youth Theater, interact with them.

The main role of Andrey Sokolov is assigned to 41-year-old Emil Talipov, a truly multifaceted actor. He has played a mullah and an investigator, and in the dilogy «Khush, Avylym» («I Will Not Return») he rapidly aged and rejuvenated.

Before the performance begins, Talipov is on stage, where a fence made of wooden planks has been built, and he is talking to a puppet that depicts his adopted son Vanya. Like other puppets, it has no eyes, but there are two actors holding it by the rods. Talipov speaks quietly, sometimes even indistinctly. After the credits with the title and the voice-over, his voice becomes clearer, but he still has a «okanie» accent.

With a mustache, in a hat with ear flaps, a padded jacket, boots with foot wrappings, Talipov is a simple Russian man from Voronezh. He works at a factory. He won his wife, Irina, from a certain Stas by knocking out two of his teeth. Of course, after work, he sometimes drinks and plays the Kirov harmonica «Vostok». But his wife is uncomplaining (a puppet), she will sigh in the morning and bring a glass for a hair of the dog. And he has good children, three of them — a boy and two girls: «I don’t know myself, brother, where he got such a huge talent for this science from».

Such a simple man ends up at the front, and then in captivity, where he has to sleep on a stone floor, save his own by sacrificing someone else's life, and transport a valuable «language» to the other side of the front. But is there any point in returning home? A bomb hit the house in Voronezh. And his only son... It’s not clear at all whether a classic work can have spoilers.

«We lived for 17 years and didn’t notice how they passed»

But you still wait for the final scenes where Sokolov meets an orphan and says: «I am your father». The power of this fragment cannot be disputed, and it, of course, makes you temporarily forget about the weaknesses of the performance.

Because Talipov is definitely not playing the film version of Sokolov. Sergei Bondarchuk's hero is a man who has turned into flint, re-educated by the war.

Sokolov in the performance is a soldier who has lived an ordinary life with a quiet wife: «We lived for 17 years and didn’t notice how they passed». And then he grieves that he pushed her away when saying goodbye at the station. He has a cheeky charisma, which is emphasized through scenes of drinking alcohol. If the first time it happens in Voronezh, the second time it happens in fascist captivity, where the hero is forced to drink, and he, starving to death, refuses to eat.

So in the film, this scene is important and scary. In the performance, it is rather humorous. Indeed, Sholokhov wrote: «I wanted to show them, the damned ones, that although I am dying of hunger, I am not going to choke on their handout, that I have my own, Russian dignity and pride, and that they did not turn me into a beast, no matter how hard they tried». And here the strong hero seems to mock his superiors, and then carries bread to his own, and, typically, collects every last crumb from the floor. But this does not give a feeling of emotion, rather a breather.

Carries like a twig

And puppets surround Sokolov: an adopted son, a wife, Germans, a doctor... It is interesting that Antonov leads them without looking Talipov in the eyes. But Zinnatullina seems to be playing for the characters, as if these puppets are just intermediaries between her and the main character. On the other hand, why are there puppets then, is it a detachment?

Talipov sings songs: «Oh, frost, frost», «Dark Night», as well as a composition from the film «Belorussian Station», which was released only in 1970, and then returns as background music.

Probably, the symbolic moment in the performance is when the wounded Sokolov is picked up by his partners and carried like a puppet. This is the fate of this man — he is carried by the waves of history, now not alone, but with orphan Vanya, and it is a bit scary for the life of such a couple. And so the boards on the stage, from the walls of the barracks, a five-walled house and just space for projection, turn into Noah's ark. But the flood has already begun.