Chekhov’s Gun

Common sense dictates that there are people in Moscow one should fear automatically – angry OMON officers, for example, or particularly belligerent drunks that stand outside of metro stations at night and look for someone, anyone, to have a fight with. Not many of us have an innate fear of theatre administrators – but perhaps we should.

Any theatre administrator worth their salt is a terror to behold. Subtly, very subtly, they remind people of what their real place in life is. Just ask actress Arina Marakulina if you want proof. Recently, she wasn’t allowed to bring a friend to her dressing room – at an established Moscow theatre where she was actually starring in a show. According to the administrator, who shall go unnamed lest they hunt me down and disembowel me: “This just isn’t done around here.” The backstage, to people like said administrator, is a sacred space. It cannot be inhabited, however briefly, by some ordinary person.

I still fume to my husband about the one time that an administrator at a theatre where he works decided to try to make me wait out in the cold while discussion of a performance was wrapping up – even though I would not have bothered anyone if I was allowed to hang out in, say, the cloakroom. The interesting thing about that incident was that the administrator in question fully expected me to beg to be let in. It was a kind of psychological stand-off.

“Why do you think I should let you in if discussion is not done?” she asked, even though she knew me, and knew I wasn’t exactly a threat.

“I think I’d rather go get a coffee,” I replied tartly before stalking off into the winter night.

An administrator’s job can be any combination of boring, underpaid, stressful and, in some cases, humiliating – especially if you wind up having to shepherd actors who decide to throw a little soiree after a premiere. Getting back at the world can be essential to one’s survival, as I was reminded when I visited a theatre festival north of Moscow.

“You can’t go there!” an angry administrator told me shortly after I’d arrived at a small regional theatre to sit in on a rehearsal my husband was conducting. “There’s people rehearsing!”

“I know, and the guy in charge is my husband, and he asked me to be there,” I said.

“I will need to see some documents!” he replied.

I showed him my passport.

“But your last names don’t match up! How do I know he’s really your husband?”

At this point, I started ranting. I pointed out the stupidity of it all – getting huffy about a stupid rehearsal, checking my documents as if I’m a potential terrorist, the sexist assumption that I should have taken my husband’s last name upon marriage, etc. For my closing argument, I dissolved into tears (it had been a long day already). Thankfully, my husband happened upon the scene and dragged me away before I punched the administrator.

Later, in the evening, the same administrator ran into me in a hallway and apologised. “You just have to be really careful,” he told me, explaining his actions. “There are too many strange people out there.”

In reality, the toughest theatre administrators just happen to know which way the political wind is blowing. There’s no reason to let people think that they can just go about their business without being harassed, and especially not in a theatre, the temple of dramatic arts. Or maybe they’re just being practical – and not wanting the cloakroom to get robbed or anything like that. Or maybe it’s both.

Most theatres still live in the USSR and in modern, crime-ridden times simultaneously. And their administrators just don’t get paid enough to deal with the various clashing realities that exist under one roof.