A PROVOKING PREMIERE

The State Pantomime Theatre has a premiere again. Once again, the theatre attempts to talk the audience about the existing problems. They do not do this only to amuse the audience. Rather they respect the audience, asking questions, making it analyze and think. The play staged by Art Director Bakhtiyar Khanizadeh is called The Underground. No, it is not a stylistic form of the play opposing the popular culture, mainstream and official art. It is also not an attempt to surprise or amuse the public with unpretentious provocation. This is a chronicle of modern life. Our life. It is quite specific. It is a form of protest to the accepted norms, ethical and moral values, traditions and introduced values atypical to our behavioral patterns, reminiscent of the theme of American and European underground where the drugs, sexual minorities, and cynical lawlessness are legal.

And what about us? We rush to live; we do not take a time to look at faces of our friends; we continue increasing our wealth not noticing the lost children around us. We have no time. But children do not forgive. They leave us and go down to the world of cellars, dungeons, and drugs. There is the world they build themselves. That world does not communicate with us, no feedback at all...

Approximation

Bakhtiyar Khanizadeh and his team are pondering on those, who leaving the routine life not eager to have feedback. In the black space of the Universe, there is nothing but a red, intrusively ringing telephone. A call of the heroes of the world rejected. Little hope for unity. Alas. The seductive call will remain just a call: none of the characters will answer that call. The nine characters played by Bahruz Ahmadli, Nurlan Rustamov, Elnur Rzayev, Elkhan Shikhaliyev, Solmaz Badalova, Leila Atayeva, Nurida Musabayli, Sabira Hasanova and Ibrahim Taghiyev experience the problems of existing generation on stage: loneliness, restlessness, lack of confidence, fear, cruelty and meaninglessness of existence. Their heroes are so beyond reality, that the only real way to get out of the situation is suicide. They do not die in terrible agony from drugs or disease. They simply cease to exist. Instantly: a gun, a temple, a bullet, death. Our boys and girls. Our children. Our future. All wiped out in an instant.

The Scorpion Humans

The author of the play leaves no room for compromise. Same as his heroes, he does not want to give away to the opponent. All is hard, real, and truthful. Just as in life: everyone gets what he chooses. And none of the nine heroes, but the two in the middle of the play, manage to find a way out of a standard situation. These two, conflicting and hating each other, at some point realize that their strength is in unity. Only together, they are a force. Only together, through uniting their efforts, they will be able to make a breakthrough into a different, more attractive life. However, the finale, according to the will of the author, is not optimistic. The three heroes are trying to divide the space of their dwelling. Two, at the behest of a third, kill each other. The third, left alone, eats himself. People have ceased to be human. They are similar to scorpions killing themselves in a moment of danger. The scorpion humans. They are faceless, hence terrible. They have no creativity, and hence no life. They are doomed to failure.

Having decided on such a finale, Bakhtiyar Khanizadeh shows the hard and swinging reality of our life: where there is no willingness and desire for creativity, the death replaces the spiritual degeneration. You may say that it's all too hard and realistic? You say that there must be a standard Hollywood finale? But the theater does not provide such rules of the game in its dialogue with the audience. This is not a hypocrisy or a willingness to draw the audience to the box-office. The dialogue is built on equal footing: trust and respect of each other.

The Underground is a provoking performance, a performance of dialogue. It is designed for family viewing, for seniors and students; for an open discussion with the students of University of Culture and Arts. Where else is more suitable for holding such live and exciting discussions? After all, as the saying goes, the debates serve the cause of truth...