THEATER AND THEATRICALITY IN THEIR RELATION TO HISTORY AND THE ARTS IN THE NOVELS OF VLADIMIR SHAROV

Abstract

Vladimir Sharov (1952–2018), a distinguished contemporary Russian writer, published nine quasi historical novels. Each of his novels suggests a different semi-fantastical version of Russian history that is locked into continuing cycles or - to use Sharov’s preferred word - “rehearsals” of violence. Theater and performance are a recurring theme in Sharov’s prose.
 In Before and During [До и во время], one of the main characters is Alexander Scriabin. In The Rehearsals [Репетиции] Patriarch Nikon orders a play – a mystery-play about Easter — in which the amateur peasant actors are assigned roles from the Bible and replay these roles for generations. In Should Not I Spare [Мне ли не пожалеть], the opening section shows characters participating in Chekhov’s plays, and the main part of the narration tells the story of staging an oratorio. In the last two novels, several of the protagonists are theater directors. This article argues that for Sharov, theater is an apt metaphor for history and a basic ontological principle, because theater is an experience that can be documented but is never reproduced in exactly the same form. The article examines how Sharov brings out the power of the playwright, director, and actor to implement multiple and different scripts and life stories. Life and art in his works imitate each other through a constant multiplication of versions or rehearsals - “rehearsals” in its expanded sense as reinterpretations, revisions, rewritings, and continuations.