UNNAMED WOMEN

The play called Unnamed Women was a hit at the State Academic Musical Theatre. It was directed by Irada Gozalova, who adapted it from the Turkish play Matryoshka by the acclaimed playwright Tuncer Cucenoglu. The Azerbaijani translation was done by Maleyka Alikizi. Cucenoglu has won many Turkish and international theatre awards, and his plays have been translated into Russian, German, French, Spanish, Arabic and Japanese. His works have been performed in theatres across Russia, Germany, France, Poland, Australia, USA and now Azerbaijan. Some of his plays that have been translated into Russian are Babenki, Avalanche, Sabahattin Ali, Visitor, Matryoshka, Dead End and more. He describes the genre of Matryoshka as a romantic comedy with black humour. However, Gozalova has her own interpretation of the issues raised in the play, and she chose to present it as a musical lyrical-psychological melodrama under the title Unnamed Women.

About the play

The original setting of the play is Istanbul, but Gozalova changed it to a more abstract and artistic space that does not have a specific location. This way, the story of the characters - a Woman (Gultaj Alili), a Man (Amrah Dadashev) and his Wife (Nigar Shahmuradova) - could happen anywhere in the world, regardless of the geographical, cultural or religious context. The play shows that human nature is weak and sinful everywhere, especially in the 21st century, when ethnic and cultural values are rapidly fading from people's memory.

The main idea of the director is expressed in the title of the play, My Woman. The character of the Man, convincingly portrayed by Amrah Dadashev, is a serial cheater who does not care about his wife and enjoys life with many women. He represents many vices: adultery, lying, cowardice and betrayal. This is not a youthful mistake, a rare exception or a casual affair. Sadly, this is a socially accepted lifestyle, behaviour and attitude towards each other: men to women, women to men.

You might disagree and point out the hedonistic parties of ancient Rome, where the ideal of physical beauty was valued, unlike in Greece, where the inner qualities mattered more. That is, education, soul, spirit. And you would be right, but no one remembers or wants to remember that the Gods of Olympus punished people for their immoral lifestyle with the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. Yes, we have advanced technologically and we no longer walk or ride animals, but use cars and planes, and we have gadgets to isolate ourselves from each other. But what has changed in us? In our perception of the world, our worldview? Nothing! We still have the same weaknesses, the same vices and moral flaws and crimes, which are no longer seen as sinful in the 21st century, but as normal and acceptable.

A living dead man

Who has the right to say "my"? Certainly to the Man who lies, portraying with the rapture and conviction of a virtuoso hero-lover the passion for one, the second, the third woman... They have no names. They're just women. But all of them somehow acquire the same expressive face of the same Woman-lover (Gultaj Alili), whom he uses to satisfy not even passion but lust. Is Woman a thing to fulfil Man's sexual need? It turns out that it is so - a woman for the hero of this story, regardless of the status of Wife or Mistress, is just a thing. The first - to provide domestic comfort and cover false promises like: "I would marry, but my wife is terminally ill. How can you leave her?" The second - to provide sexual needs. And all of them together - for his own drive. It's the only way he can feel alive. 

The director has every right to say that this is her Woman too. Because Irada Gozalova, unlike many of her fellow directors, has her own theme in stage art. It is the theme of a woman in the modern world. The director, addressing the audience, including women, from play to play does not speak, but shouts in the voices of her heroines - Larisa Ogudalova ("Lara Martins. Jazz Club", based on Ostrovsky's play Bespridannitsa) and Woman (My Woman), trying to draw the public attention to an important problem, which acquires a substitute, but stable form of "moral norm". Yes, we live in the 21st century and we know that a woman has equal rights with a man in all spheres. Except for love. Because this sphere is also turning into a kind of business, which is based on a very immoral approach, with a tinge of petty bargaining, where the balance of power is based on the principle 'scratch my back, and I'll scratch yours!.

A woman is not a thing or a commodity that can be sold off, the director expresses through her play. She is a human being. A woman wants to love and be loved. Real love, not a substitute surrogate consisting of a set of false and cowardly promises, payoff gifts and other completely unsympathetic tricks that are used by men who have long lost the idea of the original meaning of the word Man...