The premiere of the play "The Wave" based on the book of the same name by Tod Strasser, a famous American writer and journalist, took place at the Russian Academic Youth Theater.

The plot is based on a documentary story: a five-day psychological experiment conducted in 1967 by a teacher in a school in a small California town and turned high school students into exemplary citizens of a totalitarian state.

Director Galina Zaltsman staged the production in the chamber space of the Black Room with a young team of artists, and the main role - a school teacher - was played by the leading actor of the troupe Maxim Kerin.

In the professional development of Galina Zaltsman, the names of three masters are intricately intertwined - Alexei Borodin, Yuri Pogrebnichko and Viktor Ryzhakov.

Teachers respond in the works of the young director: Borodin - in honesty and uncompromisingness, Pogrebnichko - in metaphor, Ryzhakov - in the sharpness of perception of the world.

More recently, the School of Modern Play Theater hosted another premiere of Zaltsman, a production of Renegades based on the play of the same name by contemporary playwright Alexandra Fomina, which explores the theme of rebellion.

The play is about events related to the revolutionary activities of the People's Will.

In the center of the story are three young people who ended up in the casemates of the Peter and Paul Fortress not only for dissent against the authorities, but also for specific cruel crimes against it.

In The Wave, as in The Outlaws, the director, together with the actors, speaks to the audience in a straightforward, backhanded way, and offers to answer the (at first glance, rhetorical) question about the nature of the emergence of "ordinary fascism."

Tod Strasser in his book changes the names of the participants in this documentary story, and the authors of the play also emphasize that,

although the plot is based on a real experiment, neither place nor time matters.

After all, this could happen anywhere.

Or couldn't?

First, the audience is invited to go to the White Room.

Sitting at a desk, everyone must fill out a questionnaire and answer several questions in a categorical form: “Yes” or “No”.

“Is it better to be with everyone than against everyone?”

or "Will a strong leader lead to success?"

Understanding all the ambiguity of the chosen answers, you yourself seem to become a participant in a dubious experiment (in the future it will continue: the audience is offered either to take a campaign leaflet, or to tie a blue ribbon as a participant in the meeting).

The performance then continues in the Black Room.

Several desks, a chalkboard, two screens.

The usual history lesson, the theme of which is the spread and establishment of fascist ideology in Germany.

Six students, staring at their phones, are throwing lines at each other and at the teacher.

At first, it seems that such communication is just a familiar marker of time.

But no!

"You have words here."

“But they were removed!”

- Returned yesterday.

So how was it?

  • © ramt.ru

Then the historian decides to give a kind of master class on establishing a dictatorship.

Step by step, day after day, without voicing his goals (he only has an honest dialogue with himself), the teacher involves the whole school in the experiment.

Ben Ross creates the youth organization The Wave, which is based on three principles: strength in discipline, strength in unity and strength in action.

And thanks to his eloquence, knowledge of mass psychology and personal charm, he becomes the leader of this organization, which gradually captures the minds of the entire school (we are talking not only about children, but also about adults).

In a strange way, teenagers who grew up in a free country are excitedly involved in a new "game", unaware of its goals.

The phenomenon of this impulse lies in their anticipation of personal success, which is possible only if you are part of something big, meaningful, massive.

Six students are like six archetypes: the leader (David - Andrey Laptev), the leader's friend (Brian - Anton Savvatimov), the first beauty (Lori - Anna Dvorzhetskaya), the "gray mouse" (Amy - Polina Lashkevich), the clown (Brad - Georgy Gaiduchik ) and an outsider (Robert - Vladimir Zomerfeld).

Each of them, when confronted with the idea of ​​"The Wave", initially experiences euphoria, which becomes a trigger for the rapid development of events.

Everyone will have their own path and their own “success”.

Human manipulation is the main motive of the play.

It is about her that the authors of the play speak straightforwardly, categorically, leaving no questions to the viewer.

But this story gives rise to more than one additional topic for reflection.

This is the scourge of our time - school bullying, which is subjected to one of the students.

Robert is closed, unsociable, silent.

He is openly despised.

Adults don't try to change things.

And only the “Wave” awakens a different existence in him.

Vladimir Zomerfeld wonderfully plays the process of transformation, as if “enlightenment” (this is both facial expressions, and reactions, and movements) of his hero: from a gloomy outcast to an inspired personal guard of the leader of the Wave - a man with a real weapon.

This includes relationships with the adult world, where a parent or teacher often does not care about what his child really lives, the main thing is the eternal race for grades and prestige (ratings, points, olympiads).

The headmaster of the school where the experiment is taking place is primarily concerned not about its essence, but about how it affects student underachievement.

The role of teacher Ben Ross is played by one of the most powerful and versatile actors of the RAMTe troupe, Maxim Kerin.

Although its historian resembles the teacher-mentor Vpalych, whom Kerin played in the play "I want to go to school" a few years ago.

But this material does not require any pronounced role drawing, because Ross is both the narrator and partly Kerin himself.

The stage design is minimalistic.

In addition to several desks and a board, several blocks with a pull tape become an integral part of the production: an easily moved fence that is movable during the performance.

The heroes of the performance are placed either on a tiny limited bridgehead, or outside it, or suddenly find themselves tied with a ribbon.

After all, a person is always girded and crossed by boundaries, but only he himself can establish them - by his own desire and effort.