Boris Akunin - All the World's a Stage

He’s overwhelming me , thought Erast Petrovich, turning on his charm – and with superb skill. This man is an excellent actor and a born manipulator. He was frightened by my little trick and now he wants to know just what sort of creature I am, get my measure and crack open my shell. Well then, bite away, do. Only be careful not to break your teeth.

‘You possess the inner strength of magnanimity,’ said Noah Noaevich, continuing with his fawning. ‘Oh, I understand about such things. There are not many people with whom I feel a desire to be frank, but you inspire the desire to be defenceless… I am terribly glad that Olga Leonardovna has sent you to us. There really is some strange process of fermentation taking place in the company. It would be excellent if you could take a close look at my actors and were able to perceive the villain who hid the snake in the flowers. And at the same time it would be good to find out who poured glue into my galoshes the day before yesterday. An idiotic prank! I had to have a completely new pair of boots resoled and throw the galoshes out!’

Erast Petrovich promised to ‘perceive’ the destroyer of the galoshes as well, when he was given a chance to meet the company.

‘Then we’ll see to that straight away!’ Stern declared. ‘No point in putting it off! We have a meeting scheduled right now. In half an hour. I’m going to announce the new play for production and give out the parts. The actors display their genuine egos most clearly of all when the squabbling over parts begins. You’ll see them as if they were naked.’

‘What play is it?’ Erast Petrovich asked, recalling what his companion in the box had said. ‘Or is that still a secret?’

‘Oh, come now.’ Noah Noaevich laughed. ‘What secrets can there be from a clairvoyant? And in any case tomorrow all the newspapers will write about it. I’ve chosen The Cherry Orchard for my new production. Excellent material for routing Stanislavsky with his own weapon and on his own territory! The public can compare my Cherry Orchard with their anaemic exercises! I won’t deny that the Art Theatre used to be pretty good once, but it has lost its fizz. Any mention of the Maly is simple laughable! And Korsh’s theatre is low farce for merchants’ wives! I’ll show them all what real directing and genuine work with actors look like! Would you like me to tell you, my dear Erast Petrovich, what the ideal theatre should be like? I can see that you would make an intelligent and appreciative listener.’

It would have been impolite to decline the offer, and in any case Fandorin wished to get to grips with the bizarre workings of this world that was so new to him.

‘Do t-tell me. I’m interested.’

Noah Noaevich stood over his visitor in the pose of an Old Testament prophet, with his eyes glittering.

‘Do you know why my theatre is called “Noah’s Ark”? Firstly, because only art will save the world from the flood, and the highest form of art is the theatre. Secondly, because in my theatre company I have a full set of human types. And thirdly because I have two of every kind of beast.’

Noticing the puzzlement on his visitor’s face, Stern smiled contentedly.

‘Oh, yes. I have a hero and a heroine; a high-minded, no-nonsense father and a grande dame , otherwise known as a matron; a male servant-cum-prankster-cum-buffoon and a pert maidservant-cum-prankster-cum-ingénue-cum-coquette; a male villain and a female villain; a simpleton and a principal boy (not a pair – for these two types, singleness is the prescribed arrangement); and then finally, for performing all the other possible roles, there is myself and my assistant director – I play the secondary roles and he plays the tertiary ones. According to my theory of acting, one should not rely on artistes of the so-called versatile type, who are capable of playing absolutely any part. I, for instance, I am an all-round actor. I can play anyone at all to equally good effect – whether it be Lear or Shylock or Falstaff. But one very rarely come across geniuses like that,’ Noah Noaevich said regretfully. ‘It is not possible to assemble an entire company of them. However, there are any number of actors who are very good in their one and only type. I take a person like that and help him develop his strong but narrow talent to perfection. The type should become inseparable from the individual, that is the very best way. Moreover, artistes are susceptible to that kind of mimicry, and I am very good at guiding them. When I take actors into the company, I even require them to adopt a stage-name that matches the genre of their roles. You know, give a thing a name and that’s the way it will be. Only the prima donna and the male lead have kept their former pseudonyms – they both had names that are a draw for the public. My no-nonsense philosopher became Sensiblin, my villain became Mephistov, my coquette became Aphrodisina, and so on. When you take a look now, you’ll see immediately that each of them has literally grown into the skin of his or her type. Even offstage they’re still working on their characters!’

Erast Petrovich, who had already learned the membership of the company off by heart, asked:

‘And what is the type of the god Pan, who demonstrated such bravery yesterday? Nonarikin is not a name that arouses associations with anything in particular, except perhaps the number nine, from the Latin nonus .’

‘Well he is indeed a number nine in the deck of cards, so to speak, not an ace or any kind of face card. But he’s the secondary director, my irreplaceable assistant, one in nine persons and a jack of all trades. And also, by the way, the only one apart from myself who performs under his own natural name. I picked him up in an appalling provincial company, where he was playing heroes quite appallingly under the name of “Lermont”, although he is actually more like Lieutenant Solyony in The Three Sisters . Now he’s in the right place and he’s absolutely indispensable; without him I’m all thumbs and no fingers. The basic ploy involved here is that in my theatre absolutely everyone is in the right place. Apart from Emeraldov, I suppose.’ The skin on the director’s forehead gathered into tragic folds. ‘I regret to say that I was beguiled by a striking appearance and a long train of female admirers. A hero should be played by a hero, and our Hippolyte is merely a peacock with bright feathers…’

The genius did not grieve for long, however. His face soon recovered its triumphant radiance.

‘My theatre is ideal! Do you know what an ideal theatre is?’

Fandorin said no, he didn’t know that.

‘Well then, I’ll explain to you. It’s a theatre which has everything that is necessary and nothing superfluous, since a deficit or superfluity of anything is equally injurious to the company. The problem is that there are very few ideal plays in the world. Do you know what an ideal play is?’

‘No.’

‘It’s a play in which all the types are represented vividly. Griboedov’s Woe from Wit is considered the classic example. However, no one writes like that any more, and you can’t exist on a diet of nothing but the classics all the time. The audience gets fed up. It would be good to have something new, something exotic, with a whiff of a different culture. You say you have lived in Japan? You ought to translate something about geishas and samurais. After the war the public became very keen on everything Japanese.’ He laughed. ‘I’m joking. The Cherry Orchard is almost an ideal play. Just the right number of parts that I need. Set a few things right here and there, state some things a bit more distinctly, and there you have an excellent comedy of masks, built entirely on characters, without Chekhov’s usual half-tones. We’ll see whose orchard has more blossom when the time comes, Konstantin Sergeevich!’