Above the Law

A grim 19th-century farce about police brutality is eerily reminiscent of events in contemporary Russia.

By John Freedman
Published: May 13, 2005

There is nothing in the universe, wise men and scholars assure us, that happens at random.

If that is true, must we look far to see why, seemingly all of a sudden, Alexander Sukhovo-Kobylin's 19th-century tragifarce "The Death of Tarelkin" has become the hottest play of the season? This piece about a clerk who fakes his own death in order to break free from his checkered past, but is crushed by a corrupt and sadistic police force, has now been staged by two theaters in the last two months. The most recent is Alexei Levinsky's production at the Yermolova Theater, which follows on the heels of a rendition at the Et Cetera Theater. Still another version is being prepared for the end of May at the Playwright and Director Center.

"The Death of Tarelkin" is one of the grimmest comedies ever written, a ferocious tirade against the powers that be and the injustices they foster and administer. It is, in fact, the concluding play, the symphonic crescendo, of a trilogy that follows loosely connected people through harrowing and inevitably futile confrontations with the bureaucracy and the law. The first play, "Krechinsky's Wedding," portrays the cheerful, simple Muromsky whose life is brought to the brink of ruin when his daughter becomes implicated in a swindle concocted by her unscrupulous suitor. Sukhovo-Kobylin's second play, "The Case," observes the ruination and death of Muromsky at the hands of the demented officials handling his protracted court affair. "The Death of Tarelkin" -- which has been staged most often, in part because it condenses the debauchery of the first two plays so well -- branches off to follow the sordid adventures of the same individuals who drove Muromsky to the grave.


To cut to the chase, "The Death of Tarelkin" might easily be seen as a reflection of what some perceive to be the current Russian government's vindictive, trumped-up case against Mikhail Khodorkovsky and his Yukos oil company. Here are some facts: It has been well over a decade since the last major Moscow production of "The Death of Tarelkin." Suddenly, in the course of eight weeks, just as the Meshchansky district court is preparing to announce its verdict in the Khodorkovsky case, three prominent theaters have unveiled renderings of Sukhovo-Kobylin's classic play about sham justice meted out by fraudulent keepers of the peace.

Coincidence? I hardly think so. This rather would appear to be a relatively rare case of the theater community responding in a timely fashion to a controversial current event. This doesn't mean that Moscow theaters at large have suddenly discovered a conscience. Prudent patriotism and an almost total refusal to admit the existence of the war in Chechnya still rule the day on Moscow stages. But this only makes the apparent response to the Khodorkovsky case even more striking. Here, evidently, is a situation so obvious and so irrefutable that referencing it is not only possible, but expected.

None of this is to say that direct parallels can or should be drawn between "The Death of Tarelkin" and the actual details of the Khodorkovsky case. The connection is one of general ambience. The notion of one group of people squashing others mercilessly by hook and by crook for personal gain is one that hovers in the air we breathe. It has the look, sound and feel of the truth.

At the Yermolova, Levinsky emphasized the play's connections to folklore. It emerges as the story of a band of workers who go about their business with unwavering and unquestioning diligence. The fact that their business involves the arresting and torturing of everyone they can get their hands on is merely an insignificant detail. Every job, even torture, should be done well. The action frequently stops to make time for a good song sung by the members of the cast -- only for some reason, almost all of the songs are sad.

Designer Viktor Arkhipov determined the place of action as an amateur performance space. The stacking of a few drab, gray benches establishes a kind of puppet box from behind which characters can pop up or disappear, while disembodied hands help direct them or hand them necessary props. The costumes and make-up form an eclectic assortment that reflects key periods and personalities in Russian history.

Sailor-soldier outfits evoke echoes of patriotic movies and plays about the revolutionary years. Grungy body warmers allude to the garb worn by zeks, or prisoners, in Soviet labor camps. The most enthusiastic policeman, Rasplyuyev, is outfitted as Felix Dzerzhinsky, the first head of the Soviet secret police. When Tarelkin fakes his own death in order to take over the identity of his dead neighbor, Kopylov, he pulls off a wig to reveal a buzz-cut hairdo that would do any New Russian thug proud. When Tarelkin/Kopylov's chief rival Varravin disguises himself as the eccentric Captain Polutatarinov, he dons a long leather coat of the kind worn by Communist commissars in the 1920s.

Tarelkin (Andrei Kalashnikov) is a moderately corrupt clerk who is so deep in debt and so fed up with his vile superior Varravin (Alexander Kovalyov) that he resolves to skip town under the guise of his neighbor Kopylov, who has recently died while traveling abroad. But Varravin is too smart to be fooled. He knows Tarelkin has stolen some of his most incriminating papers and he quickly recognizes his former employee beneath the mask of Kopylov. He convinces Rasplyuyev (Sergei Vlasenko) to arrest the mysterious man as a mortally dangerous changeling and further urges Rasplyuyev's superior, Antiokh Okh (Vladimir Murashov), to withhold water from the prisoner for the duration of the interrogation period. Meanwhile, Rasplyuyev and Okh -- dressed as a Soviet general -- undertake to cross-examine, torture and incarcerate almost everyone who knew the real Kopylov.

Levinsky's actors go through the motions of their dirty deeds in a dispassionate, expressionless and unhurried manner. When Tarelkin is first bound and tortured, it is done with his own aid and consent. In a similar fashion, when the calm and proper Varravin changes into the clothes of the exotic Polutatarinov in order to investigate Tarelkin's strange disappearance, he does it right in front of everyone. He makes no effort to fool anyone and no one is fooled. The proceedings invoke the sensation of an eternal cycle of life going round and round, one that has little meaning in itself but which advances inexorably according to the crudest of laws. This is a place where only the fittest, cruelest and most cunning survive.

The sole interjection of emotion comes in the form of the folk songs that punctuate the performance. In them we hear melancholy words about love and nostalgic allusions to the great, green expanses of Russia. The irony of these lyrics sounding against the background of such furious inhuman activity occasionally rises to the level of bitter sarcasm.

Isn't that always the way, Levinsky seems to be saying; it is only the artist, the singer, the actor, who will tell you the truth. And for some reason that truth is always colored by pain, sorrow and regret.

"The Death of Tarelkin" (Smert Tarelkina) plays May 20 at 7 p.m. at the Yermolova Theater, 5/6 Tverskaya Ulitsa. Metro Okhotny Ryad. Tel. 203-9063, 203-6082. Running time: 2 hours, 25 minutes.

(From The Moscow Times, 5.13.2005)