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Among the outlandish theatrical scenery, three men live the life that H.G. Wells wrote about almost 120 years ago. They are the actors of the world’s only Gagauz National Drama Theater named after Dionis Tanasoglu. There are no spectators in the auditorium of the Ceadir-Lungа community center now – only a couple of people on the stage are repeating the same scene over and over again.
Capital, capital! What is it?
A shout comes from the darkness: – “No, not like that! It should be done differently, we need different psychomechanics here. Let’s try again, all over again.” The voice from the darkness belongs to Denis Baburin, Gagauz theater director. Now he is staging a new play The Country of the Blind. This performance is prepared for an adult audience. The actors are listening to him attentively, offer their versions, try them, which do not work and they start over again. This will continue until Baburin is convinced that the scene has been worked out perfectly, and they can move on.
Capital, capital!
Well, what kind of capital am I to you?
Now the rehearsal is over, the stage has been lit up with spotlights and is filled with people. In two more hours, a play for children will be performed on this stage and everything must be prepared by that time. Everyone is busy doing their own thing – Mikhail Konstantinov, the theater director is rolling a large wooden wheel across the stage, a is part of the set. Next to him, Mikhail Gagauz and Anatoly Radulov are dismantling and taking away another structure – status is not important in this matter, everyone is busy with a common cause.
This is not a typical theatrical stage in the sense that it is not technically equipped in any way and the artists have to use a building ladder to bring down the scenery for the upcoming performance. When the scenery is ready and the green carpet is laid, the actors go up to the second floor of the left wing of the community center. There are several large rooms and a corridor there and this is the entire space of the National Gagauz Theater. Here the actors are at home. Here they get dressed, make themselves up, draw up plans, make sets and costumes and rest after the performance. They rent this second floor from the Ceadir-Lunga community center and it replaced the entire theater house they have been dreaming of since the theater was founded in 1997.
Theater history
If we talk about the Gagauz theater, one cannot fail to mention Dionis Tanasoglu – now the National Theater in Ceadir-Lunga bears his name and this is absolutely deserved. In the 1970s, he staged performances in the Gagauz language with Gagauz students from Chisinau. These were non-professional actors – someone studied to be an engineer, someone to be a teacher. He gathered these young people, rehearsed with them in Chisinau, then rehearsed in Gagauzia, right on the stage of the community center after which there was a premiere. The first such performance was staged at the Kongaz community center (which we told about a year ago when we talked about the Gagauz dance). Tanasoglu staged these student performances up to the 1980s. It was not an organized theater, with a permanent troop and a permanent building. Rather it was the realization of the desire to do something in their own language which became possible thanks to like-minded people.
At the end of the 1980s, Tanasoglu opened admissions for drama groups at the Institute of Arts (now the Academy of Arts) with Gagauz the language of instruction. More precisely, all specialized subjects, directing, acting and stage speech (this subject was taught by his wife) were taught in the Gagauz language. All other subjects were taught in Russian. He dreamed of creating a real Gagauz theater and in order to make his dream come true, he needed to train actors in the Gagauz language. There were three such groups, which graduated in 1988, 1989 and 1990. One of Tanasoglu’s students was Mikhail Konstantinov, the current director of the theater.
Then the hope was in the air that everything would work out, and the theater would become a reality. And it did happen, but 7 years later in 1997. Initially the National Gagauz Theater was named after another outstanding Gagauz figure – Mikhail Chakir, a Moldovan and Gagauz educator who made a huge contribution to the development of Gagauzia. The theater had a wonderful start. Already in 1999 the theater took part twice in festivals in Turkey: in the cities of Denizli and Alacati. In 2000, the theater was in Ufa and Tatarstan but starting in 2001, for almost ten years, the theater had faced various difficulties – insufficient funding, and as a result, the actors began to leave the troop. The theater was on the edge of an abyss. But in 2013 things started to change for the better. The theater received a new name in honor of Dionis Tanasoglu and it restarted. Since March 2013, the theater has been working again, making performances for all audiences, both for adults and children.
Nowadays
In 1991, Mikhail Konstantinov created the first amateur theater in Gagauzia called ‘Umut’, which means hope. Of course, in 1997 he began working at the National Theater and in 2007, at a very difficult time for the theater, he became its director.
“I never thought I could become a director since I am an actor. When I entered the Chisinau Institute of Arts, at the very first lecture Dionis Tonosoglu said: ‘Guys, we are Gagauzians, and only we can create our own Gagauz national theater. Please remember, a nation without a theater is a dead nation.’ He instilled in us the feeling that we are Gagauz, that we must love our language, preserve and develop it. Theater is based on words, and only in theatrical art provides us such an opportunity. It is his covenants that keep me.
In 1991, exactly 30 years ago, being a third-year student, I created the first amateur Gagauz theater called ‘Umut’ with the hope that we will have a real theater house, our own temple of arts. I just wanted to try my hand at it. I realized that I could not live without theater when we began to take exams in etudes and acting. This is already an addiction. I don’t know, maybe people of other professions don’t understand this but it really is – you cannot sleep at night if you don’t go on stage.
You get great pleasure after the performance. An internal state of calmness, you sleep well at night. It is the feeling that you are not living in this world in vain – it keeps us going, inspires, does not allow us to stop and makes us move on.
When I headed the theatre, my first priority was to make sure that our productions were of a high standard. For this we had to invite directors. We began to invite them from Chisinau, Tiraspol, Azerbaijan. The late Valery Mogutenko came from Chisinau. Since 1997, he has staged five performances in our theater and Viktor Ignat has staged two. We also worked with Ion Popescu. We stage performances ourselves. I have directed four performances. Anatoly Rodlov is an actor, but he already has three productions of his own. Mikhail Rezunets came to us from the Comrat troop and has already staged one production. And now Denis Baburin, also from the Comrat troop, is staging ‘The Country of the Blind’.
We mainly stage performances for children. Not only in Gagauz, but also in Russian language, there is one performance in Romanian. With this performance ‘Cocosul și soarele’ (Victor Ignat) we took part in the international theater festival in Braila”.
One of the main problems of the modern Gagauz theater is the lack of young specialists, as well as very low salaries. People want a different life for themselves and their families. Almost all theater actors have some kind of additional income.
And in the hungry 2000’s Konstantinov himself was forced to leave home to earn money.
“I decided to go to work in Odessa. There was no other way out. But every Sunday I went to the Odessa Drama Theater, watched performances there – absolutely grandiose performances that I will always remember, especially ‘Viy’ by Gogol. What crowd scenes were there! How the actors worked! Mass fights and festivities – actors like circus performers flew with coffins, like trapeze artists! When there is a creative and material base, a lot can be done.
I would like us to have our own theater house. We do not need any mansion, just a compact building with an auditorium for 150 to 200 seats. This is more than enough for Gagauzia, but we need a theatrical, technically equipped stage. And this theater house should have all the necessary workshops, as in any proper theater, starting from sewing and carpentry to wardrobe department, scene shop, dance classes and dressing rooms. We need a special room for the theater museum, so that when visitors come to the theater, they could find out how the theater began and what we have achieved, what awards we received, feel the atmosphere of the theater.”
Despite the thorny path, from 2009 to 2020 when the pandemic broke out, the theater went to major international festivals every year. The theater is a member of TURKSOY, an international organization of Turkic culture. Due to this, the Gagauz theater is often seen on stages in Turkey and Russia (mainly in Tatarstan). The director’s office is full of awards from these festivals. Gagauzians are very warmly received. For example, at the ‘Milk’ festival in Odessa in 2014, Mikhail Konstantinov received an award as the Best Actor, and Lydia Ormanzhi as the Best Actress. In total, there were 12 collectives at this ‘Milk’ festival and the Gagauz National Theater took second place. It is important to note that in Odessa they performed in the Gagauz language, moreover there were no Gagauzians among the spectators. Konstantinov himself says that the audience feels ‘the energy’ and translation is not necessary.
There were some pleasant moments in the history of the theater also in Tatarstan:
“Kamala Theater is the main national academic theater of Tatarstan. It has a very high status. It is located in the center of Kazan. We performed on the small stage with the play ‘Oglan hem Länka’ in the Gagauz language (we perform only in the Gagauz language at all festivals, both international and national ones). Here is the jury: teachers of Russian Institute of Theater Arts. The play began with the scene where I was sleeping, twitching, turning over – my character had a terrible dream. Then I jump up and so the play begins. Half an hour or an hour after the performance, we are invited by the entire expert commission and the jury, analysis and discussion of the performance begins. And here Stepanova says: ‘Well, the performance begins. A ray of light is on a lying person, a man is in underpants, he has a terrible dream, as if he is being strangled, he jumps up, with a very scary face, and begins to approach the proscenium, getting closer and closer – I got scared!’ It made her feel emotional. It is very pleasant when such theater experts, masters of their craft say later at the discussion that this is good. In Kazan, they once said: ‘These charming Gagauzians …’ It is nice to hear this word ‘charming’.”
Performance
While we were talking with Konstantinov, life was in full swing outside his office. The actors were making themselves up, putting on costumes, joking and were emotionally preparing for the performance. Today they have the most difficult audience – children. To keep the attention of children, you need to have a lot of talent – children see every faux pas. It is difficult to describe the atmosphere that reigned on the second floor of the community center. On the one hand, it is felt that all the people gathered here are worried and treat their work with great respect. On the other hand, one can feel such adrenaline in the air that it seems that they will no longer be able to live differently.
At three o’clock in the afternoon, the bus brought the children from Baurchi – today the actors will have to give their best in front of 65 young spectators. They will play the hit of this theatrical season, the play ‘Mozgoroy’ based on the work by T. Zeneth. This performance was staged by directors Mikhail Rezunets and Anatoly Radulov. The lights in the auditorium go out, silence ensues, everyone is in anticipation of a miracle. Actors walk along the service corridor, like astronauts before a rocket launch. A minute later, two border lights are lit, Konstantinov enters the stage and in the Gagauz language presents the children with a fairy tale that they are going to see now. The light goes out again. Silence.
The play begins …
PS
Next year, on 7 July 2022, it will be exactly one hundred years since Dionis Tanasoglu was born. On this occasion, the Executive Committee of Gagauzia declared 2022 the year of Dionis Tanasoglu.
In 2021, the play ‘Mozgoroy’ got first place in the Gala Premiilor competition as the best play for children. Author: T. Zeneth. Directors: Mikhail Rezunets and Anatoly Radulov, Dionis Tanasoglu Theater, Ceadir Lunga.
