Petrushevskaya three girls in blue read. Lyudmila Petrushevskaya three girls in blue comedy in two parts. Kitten Little Elka

© Lyudmila Petrushevskaya, 2012

© LLC Astrel Publishing House, 2012

© Astrel-SPb LLC, original layout, 2012

© Sergey Kozienko, photo, 2012

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Characters

Ira, young woman, 30–32 years old

Svetlana, young woman, 30–35 years old

Tatiana, young woman, 27–29 years old

Leocadia, mother-in-law of Svetlana, 70 years old

Maria Filippovna, Ira's mother, 56 years old

Fedorovna, hostess of the dacha, 72 years old

Pavlik, son of Ira, 5 years old

Maksim, son of Svetlana, 8 years old

Anton, Tatyana's son, 7 years old

Nikolay Ivanovich, an acquaintance of Ira, 44 years old

Valera, husband of Tatyana, 30 years old

Young man, 24 years

Elka the cat

Kitten Little Elka

The action takes place at a dacha near Moscow, in Moscow and in Koktebel.

Part one

Picture one

Children's voice. Mom, how much will it be - take one away from two? Mom, do you want to tell a story? There were two brothers. One is medium, one is older and one is young. He was so tiny. And went to fish. Then he took a scoop and caught a fish. She wheezed along the way. He cut it up and made a fish cake.

The stage is a country veranda. Ira prepares water with lemon. The door to the room, the door to the yard.

Ira. Peacock, how are you feeling?

Fyodorovna enters. She is wearing a rather old dressing gown and has yellow rubber boots on her feet. She has a cat under her arm.

Fedorovna. Have you seen a kitten? The kitten is gone. Didn't you feed?

Ira. No, no, Fedorovna. I already spoke.

Fedorovna. The kitten is gone for the third day. Have your boys been killed? With a spade, or something, they hacked to death? (Looking into the room.) That he lies with you in broad daylight, get up, get up, that he is like a sour gingerbread.

Ira. Pavlik has thirty-nine and three.

Fedorovna. Got a cold, right? And don’t tell them, they sit in the river to the bitter end. And then the mother suffers. They are boys, they need. Yesterday went to raspberries. And there the ovary is pouring. I had a nail puller on the door, now I don’t know who to think. The kitten was killed. Not since Thursday. The third day. I thought she was keeping him in the attic, she climbed into the attic, she meows, she is looking for him. Well, Elka, where is your pet? A? Meow! There is no meow, there are evil guys. I know. I am watching them.

Ira. We were not on Thursday, we went to Moscow to wash.

Fedorovna. So you bought it, so he got sick with you. You redeemed him, and on the same day he went to the river to wash his sins. He needs! I rightly didn’t want to let you in, now there are three boys on the site, this will not be in vain. The house will be burned down or something like that. The kitten was lured. I noticed a long time ago that boys are interested in him. Either they called him with milk from the attic, then they wielded a piece of paper in front of him.

Ira. Fedorovna, I'm telling you, we weren't there on Thursday.

Fedorovna. Probably neighbor Jack tore it up again. The dog broke. It's not a dog, it's a bully! The kitten got scared, the boys chased him, so he jumped to the neighbors. This is what you need to know!

Ira. This is Maxim with Anton, probably.

Fedorovna. Sure, but what's the point! You can't bring the kitten back! They are, they are! Gathered strength. And also the Ruchkins, opposite their plot, they bought a gun from their great mind to Igor Ruchkin. Igor Ruchkin bought, in short. And shot stray dogs. And he killed my Yuzik. Yuzik, whom did he disturb in the meadow? I didn’t say anything, I picked up Yuzika, buried her, but what should they say? Their house is glorious throughout Romanovka. And well, a week passes, another passes, their Lenka Ruchkin drowned from drunken eyes. He ran into the river from the hillock with his head, and there the depth was thirty centimeters. Well? What is the demand.

Ira. Pavlik has thirty-nine, and they run like horses under the window, Anton and Maxim.

Fedorovna. The balm was planted there, under the windows! I'll tell them! The celandine has been planted!

Ira. I say: guys, run in your own half! They say: this is not your house, that's all.

Fedorovna. AND! Insolence is the second happiness. There is a house on the mountain where the Blooms live. The bar is two stories high. All Blooms. How many times did the lower Blums sue to have Valka Blum evicted, he occupied the room and blocked the door to that half where Isabella Mironovna Blum died. Blum Isabella Mironovna was a music worker in my kindergarten. The musician was weak, she could barely crawl. He will come, catch his breath, cry over the soup, there is nothing to wipe himself with. I, he says, played concerts, now “Over the Motherland the Sun” is going astray, believe me, Alevtina Fedorovna. What can I believe, she is not deaf. And there was a famine, the forty-seventh year. And one teacher started stealing from me, she couldn’t stand it. I strictly kept everyone. She steals, her daughter was an adult disabled child. Apples for children, bread, our kindergarten was a sanatorium type for the weakened. Here she will put everything in a stocking, a stocking in her locker. The technician told me: Egorova has apples in her stocking, pieces. We seized all this, they stuffed wooden cubes into Yegorova's stocking. She went home with this stocking. They ate cubes, here. On the second day, she quit. And then Bloom dies in the hospital. I visited her, buried her. Valka Blum immediately broke into her room and moved in with his family, he had a family back then, three children. And no one could prove anything to the police. He is Bloom, they are all Blooms there. Until now, the doctor Blum, Nina Osipovna, keeps an evil eye on him. Recently they received a pension, Nina Osipovna shouted to him in the corridor, he was the first to sign: yes, with such methods you will achieve everything in life. And he says: “What should I achieve, I am seventy years old!” (To the cat.) Well, where did you put your pet? A? As it lambs, all the kittens count, they will bring them out of the attic, once one, once another, and not a single one! All kittens will be lost. Jack, here he is. Back and forth, back and forth! Like a surf. In winter, I fed three cats, by the summer one Elka remained.

Ira. Why is this: not your home? And whose is it? Theirs, or what, the house? They took and live for free, but I have to shoot! And I will be the same heir as they are. I'm also entitled to that half.

Fedorovna. Yes, Vera is still alive, still toiling. And I warned you, it's expensive here, you yourself agreed.

Ira. I had a hopeless situation, I burned with a blue flame.

Fedorovna. You always burn with a blue flame. And I have my own heirs. Serezhenka needs to buy shoes. Will she buy him? I'm retired, grandma, buy it. Fifty pension, yes insurance, yes gas, yes electricity. She bought him a black drapery short coat, a yellow ski suit, knitted gloves, Vietnamese sneakers, bought a briefcase, and gave it for textbooks. And for everything about everything, the pension is half a hundred rubles. Now Vadim has tourist boots, a winter hat made of rabbit. Does she think? Give her a Zhiguli, what are you doing! And I still had two thousand from my mother, my mother bequeathed. Summer resident Seryozhka stole last year. I see that he is striving for the attic. And then they leave the dacha, I looked behind the pipe, the money was lying there for fifteen years - no, two thousand rubles!

L. Petrushevskaya's play "Three Girls in Blue" is both repulsive and beautiful. The phrase of Tvardovsky, to whom Petrushevskaya brought her first opuses, is widely known. Tvardovsky said: “Talented, but painfully gloomy. Could it be brighter?" It seems that the endless and unsuccessful search for an answer to this question eventually turned into a kind of non-healing wound in the work of Petrushevskaya.
The comedy "Three Girls in Blue" became her fourth dramatic work. Previously, "Music Lessons" (1973), "Love" (1974) and "Get Up, Anchutka!" (1977). In all these works, the vector of Petrushevskaya's creative search is already guessed, but in none of them has it yet been outlined with all passion. "Three Girls in Blue" is a turning point in this sense. In it, for the first time, Petrushevskaya showed her previously barely audible voice in full force, and in this voice, notes of a new aesthetics, hitherto unfamiliar to the Soviet audience, the aesthetics of postmodernism, were clearly heard. The first of the signs due to which it is necessary to talk about the postmodern aesthetics of Three Girls ... is a certain discrepancy between the content of the text and the comedy genre declared by Petrushevskaya.
According to the classical definition, comedy is a kind of drama in which characters and situations are expressed in comic forms that expose human vices and reveal the negative aspects of life. Petrushevskaya's comedy corresponds to this definition only in part. Indeed, the play reveals the negative aspects of life, human vices are considered, and all this looks comical, but at the same time, "Three Girls ..." is a tragic, philosophical work. We see that the heroes really suffer deeply, exhausted by everyday life, an undeveloped life, the expectation of an even more bleak end. It's like laughing through tears. Such an ironic attitude to the need for a genre definition of one's own text is nothing more than a postmodernist depreciation of the attitude to one's own creativity, to the theater, and, perhaps, to life in general. Petrushevskaya is deliberately indifferent here.
On the other hand, the postmodernist indifference of Petrushevskaya, manifested in "Three Girls ...", is still "Soviet". Having crossed one line, she does not dare to cross the next. Therefore, the world she created is emphatically naturalistic. There is absolutely no Becketian immanence, Strindberg's madness in it, and there is also no interpenetration of the conditional, scenic world and the world of existence, inherent in the later dramatic delights of postmodernists. Although the play, of course, correlates with the life-like theater not without difficulty. Not without reason, in the first version of the play, according to Petrushevskaya herself, made in the book "The Ninth Volume", the intrigue was resolved by the general "failure into the toilet", which, of course, was a rather specific artistic decision, given that in general the work strives for plausibility. Or the mysterious "fairy tales-dreams" told here and there by a hero named "Children's Voice". Is this not a symbolism? Isn't this a development for a conditional action? And although the symbols, the symbolism - and we remember that the emergence of a conditional theater in Russia is directly linked to the flourishing of symbolism - were pushed far into the subtext in the final version, it cannot be argued that the entire play unconditionally belongs to the tradition of a life-like theater. Just grains of conventionality that are present in "Three Girls ..." have not yet interested the new Meyerhold, who, having focused the viewer's attention on them, would visualize the play in accordance with the principles of a conventional theater.
The name of the play, according to the author himself, refers us not only and not so much to Chekhov, but to the Hollywood comedy "Three Girls in Blue", the basis for which, however, was all the same Chekhov's "Three Sisters". But Chekhov, talking about his sisters, is diligent, objective, emphatically impassive. Its name is a fixation of the fact that in the next one and a half to two hours the viewer will be involved in the relationship of the three sisters, in their inner content, in the specifics of their "aquarium", so to speak. The name of Petrushevskaya is not without pathos. "Three Girls in Blue" is not a literal recreation of the appearance of the heroines - blue here, if you remember Kandinsky, is a metaphor for "deep feelings and purity of intentions." In other words, Petrushevskaya admires her characters, which, when getting used to the action, causes a feeling of some confusion, because there are even fewer reasons for admiring in Three Girls ... than in Chekhov's drama. This apparent mistake in interpretation is removed when we remember in which direction the playwright Petrushevskaya Lyudmila Stefanovna eventually developed and what horizons he eventually reached. In one of her future plays - it will be called "Male Zone" - we will also find in the title a reference to the famous text of Dovlatov ("Zone"). And there will be all the same admiration of the heroes in a situation that cannot serve as an example of beauty for the layman, but which serves as such for the postmodernist artist.
The structure also deserves a detailed analysis. There are two parts in the play, but in parallel with the division into parts, there is also a fragmentation by pictures, there are eight of them in “Three Girls ...”.
What is the reason for division into parts?
In the first part, the viewer gets acquainted with the characters of the play, delves into the situation that pushed them together, gropes for invisible threads, whose intricacies in the second act should build a climactic knot. If we demolish the play with the structure of the drama according to Aristotle, it will be clear that in the first part of her comedy, Petrushevskaya closed the prologue, exposition, and plot. Apparently, according to the author's intention, the viewer should go for a break (the break is caused by a change of scenery, because with the beginning of the second act the action from the dacha village is transferred to a Moscow apartment) completely involved in what is happening on the stage. He must have a lot of questions, and not a single real answer. The answers are in the second act.
The fragmentation of the play into pictures has a different meaning. It is already noteworthy that in the first act there is only one picture and it occupies the entire first part of the play. The fact that there were no changes in the interior of the stage during the whole act tells us about the general "stagnation" in the artistic world created by the author. From the replicas of the heroes who complain about life and each other, sitting in a house with a leaking roof, for which they have to fight, we pull out the most basic thing - the heroes are infinitely unhappy, because their life is boring and petty. Against this background, the dynamically developing events of the second part, in which there are as many as seven paintings, seem to be overflowing with events, vain. Traditionally, the subtitle "Picture No. ..." is introduced by the playwright into the text of the play when artistic circumstances require a change in the scene. In the second act - and the second act contains the development of the action, the climax, the denouement and the epilogue - Petrushevskaya, through the frequent change of scenes, creates the dynamics necessary to resolve the plot. There is no longer the "stagnation" that was conspicuous in the first act. With the beginning of the second, serious changes take place in the life of at least one of the heroines: she falls in love. And this falling in love gives rise to a series of movements, which, perhaps, do not bring happiness to the main character, but at least “drag” her into existence from her usual state of being crushed by everyday life.
In an attempt to analyze the list of characters in "Three Girls ..." in terms of the way a stage depiction of a person, one inevitably stumbles upon a common opinion: "Petrushevskaya is a characteristic playwright." Lyudmila Stefanovna loves and knows how to create heroes and builds many of her plays on this. So the play "Three Girls in Blue" contains characteristic characters. Each of them has a number of psycho-physiological features that serve to evoke in the viewer a holistic image of the hero acting on the stage: Svetlana is a little arrogant, straightforward, a nurse who hates her own mother-in-law; her son, Anton, is a restless child, as militant and straightforward as his mother; always giggling about something, always at war with her husband Tatyana, etc.
However, when considering the type of hierarchy present in comedy, their belonging to the characteristic type can be called into question. The fact is that the main intrigue of the play rests not so much on business as on intra-family contradictions. Irina, Svetlana and Tatyana are second cousins. The age of each of them does not go out of the range of 28 - 32 years. Each has a son, and there is a significant female person in old age. In other words, all three heroines can be a figurative expression of a certain typological constant. There are not just a few personalities, but three age categories. If, in addition, we recall O. N. Kuptsova, who in her article “Positions” indicates that “a character created as a dramatic type-role reflects not a unique human personality, but a “representative of a group”, “one of many” idea of ​​typification according to the principle of role in "Three Girls ..." ceases to seem so far-fetched. In the first part, a hint is given: Svetlana, in a dispute with Fedorovna, says that she hates her mother-in-law. It would seem - a character trait and nothing more. But Irina is also at enmity with her own mother (old age?). And in the finale, when the relationship between Irina and her mother seems to be on the mend, Svetlana's mother-in-law, who kept silent throughout the play, gives her voice, and - most importantly - this voice is benevolent. All this looks as if Leocadia, on behalf of all mothers, grants forgiveness to her daughters. However, not only sisters and their mothers can be averaged in this way, but also their sons. After all, the "Children's Voice", telling strange tales from time to time, does not always belong to Irina's son. Sometimes it's just - "Children's voice."
It is also difficult in "Three Girls ..." space-time is organized. Literary critic R. Timenchik in one of his articles points out: “... In the new stylistic territory, this time, in the dusty bushes of stage dialogue, a novel written down by conversations is being created. Romance is expressed in the plays of L. Petrushevskaya either by the inhibition of the exposition, or by the epilogue of the narration, or by the vastness of the geographical territory in which events unfold, or by the multi-population of the world created by the playwright - in everything that strives to be “too much”. The “excess” that came from the novel structure, which is necessary in the novel, but avoided by ordinary dramaturgy, turned out to be more than appropriate in L. Petrushevskaya’s plays, because everything tends to be “too” in her.
Time is dynamic, that is, the transition from the past through the present to the future. One of the methods of such novelistic redundancy is Petrushevskaya's constant use of retrospection: here and there the playwright presents the past through the characters' dialogues. This technique not only helps to recreate the past of the characters, but also explains the motives of their behavior in the present and future. Therefore, it is very important in determining the physical laws in accordance with which the artistic world of Petrushevskaya exists. In the first part of "Three Girls ..." there are many bleak memories that form a number of prerequisites for the creation of the main ups and downs of the play. The future in the first part is connected only with everyday problems. The heroes are concerned about how to change the current roof, where it is more convenient to get a job during the distribution of the inheritance. The future for them is as bleak as their past, it is associated with an incredible number of everyday tasks that need to be solved. None of the characters feel real. The characters seem to be unable to live like human beings, they are too immersed in "survival". In the second part, Irina, as a truce from a group of 30-year-old women, falls in love, that is, she turns out to be “dragged out” from this endless tangle of troubles into life, into happiness, into passion. We see that throughout the second act she lives in the present, that is, she does not remember either the past or the future. And such a life eventually creates a climax - leaving her son, Irina goes with her lover to the sea.
Indirectly, the principles of the artistic use of space have already been said. It will not be superfluous to consider this aspect in more detail. The scene of the entire first part of the comedy is the veranda of a country house with a leaky roof, for which you have to pay for living. However, all designated heroes are ready to fight for the right to live in it. It is quite obvious that Petrushevskaya strives to sacralize the house, as if it has the ability to make its inhabitants happier. Even the main antagonist of the comedy strives to become his own here. The paradox is that the sisters seem to be unhappy and the cause of each of these misfortunes is in family troubles, but nevertheless, all of them, in spite of everything, agree to exist under one roof. And even having gone under the southern sun, after her beloved man, Irina, having suffered, suffered, is glad to return to her father's shelter, no matter how boring and boring he may have seemed before. In other words, “native, habitual misfortune” turns out to be more attractive than “alien, but energy-consuming joy”. This fact allows us to confidently speak about the special role of space in the play.
The assertion that "nothing happens" in Petrushevskaya's plays has long been a commonplace in modern literary criticism. On this statement, as a rule, the work of Petrushevskaya is identified with the dramaturgy of Chekhov. How true is this and why is this question so important in the analysis of the compositional component of "Three Girls ..."?
Composition is primarily the structure of a work of art. The classical structure of the work includes a prologue, exposition, plot, development of the action, climax, denouement, postposition and epilogue. But already in Chekhov's dramas this structure was substantially reworked. What should be the structure of a play in which "nothing happens"? The answer is obvious: no development, no climax. That is, the action should get stuck in the quagmire of the narrative immediately after the plot. With Petrushevskaya, this is how it happens at first. It is with a sense of bewilderment from what is happening that the viewer goes on a break after the end of the first quagmire-like part, since even the introduction of Nikolai Ivanovich does not add any tangible intrigue to the comedy. But with the resumption of action in the second part, everything changes at once: we see a number of exaggerated, abrupt, compositional shifts. In many short scenes that replaced the boring, drawn-out polylogue of the first part, the development of the action, the climax and the denouement, even with a hint of an epilogue, are easily guessed.
Such an avalanche in the development of the plot, squeezed into a short second part, and the extraordinary protractedness of the first part are Petrushevskaya's artistic innovations. With their help, she, apparently, intended to describe as clearly as possible two planes of existence: everyday, essentially Buddhist in its impassibility, but cozy fatigue, and bright, juicy, but fleeting cheerfulness.
S. P. Cherkashina in his dissertation “Creativity L.S. Petrushevskaya in the mythopoetic context: the matriarchal nature of the artistic world" writes:
“In the play “Three Girls in Blue” the lasciviousness of the main character Irina is opposed to motherhood: the correlation of these qualities is one of the conflicts of the play. Wanting to spend a vacation with her lover, Irina leaves her five-year-old son in the care of a sick mother, and after she gets to the hospital, the boy is left alone in an empty apartment. Abandoned by his mother, Pavlik is personified by a kitten, which was also abandoned by the cat-mother.” S.P. Cherkashina, considering the internal conflict of the main character, fills it with mythopoetic meaning, as required by the specifics of her scientific work. But if we try to consider this conflict, relying on the fact that Irina in the comedy acts on behalf of all the sisters, and more broadly, on behalf of all women, then we will find that this small-town, seemingly intrapersonal conflict is the main conflict of the work. However, here it is necessary to make a reservation right away. In order for the indicated conflict to be called the main one, the opposition "fornication - motherhood" must be replaced by a more capacious one: "attachment - disunity". Indeed, no matter what topics the sisters touch on in the dialogues, or Irina in conversations with her lover, their speeches - if not at the level of utterance, then at the level of subtext - are always about the same thing ...
- Tanechka, how to live when you are completely alone in the world. No one, no one needs! You came, I thought, to put up. It's called sisters. - Irina exclaims to the sisters, suffering from a discrepancy between the statements of her relatives and her idea of ​​\u200b\u200bfamily.
We don't really know each other, but we are relatives. So to speak, one litter. - Tatyana's husband declares, ironically over the crushed value orientations.
- My Maxim will not follow me in old age. - Doomedly states Svetlana, knowing ahead of time her future position.
In all three utterances, the characters are genuinely concerned about intra-family discord, which not only prevents them from agreeing on the fate of the inheritance, but makes communication itself, the act of communication, impossible. Hence the misunderstanding between the sisters, hence Svetlana's hatred for Leocadia, hence Tatyana's discord with her alcoholic husband, hence the enmity between the children. Finally, is it not for this reason that meowing is not heard in response to the call of Elka the cat? All this is overcome at the climax, when Ira, kneeling at the airport, begs the dispatchers to let her on the plane, and, returning, finds her son safe and sound; when Elka finds a kitten, and Leocadia, Svetlana's mother-in-law, who had not uttered a word in the play before, suddenly starts joking.
According to the definition of Yu.M. Lotman, “... the selection of events - discrete units of the plot - and endowing them with a certain meaning, on the one hand, as well as a certain temporal, causal or any other ordering, on the other, constitutes the essence of the plot", identified with "a certain language" of culture. What is it about?
The plot, according to Lotman, is the author's concretization of a certain conceptual principle, the artistic association of this principle with a series of different situations in which the unity of time and place of action, as well as the composition of the participants and the nature of their relationship form a kind of single whole, compositionally, stylistically and plotly brought to its logical completion. In other words, this is a series of separate episodes, separated by time, space, circumstances of what is happening, as part of a single author's intention. Consequently, the plot is composed of changes in time, space and circumstances. And Petrushevskaya's comedy is no exception in this sense. Here the plot - once again we note that the main plot twists are concentrated in the second part - follows from the same changes, whether it is Irina's flight from her parents' apartment to the dacha, which she herself admits to one of the sisters, or her return to her mother, when the relationship with Nikolai enter the active phase, or the sisters' relocation to Irina's living area, at the time of her absence.
The share of remarks in the play is not high enough. On average, this is one comment in ten to fifteen lines, usually concerning the actions of the characters. Petrushevskaya, unlike her contemporaries, in contrast to the opinion of N. A. Nikolina, who in her book "Philological Analysis of the Text" says that "in the conditions of the rapid development of theatrical forms, stage directions transform the theater from the inside" leaves the remarks the role of an insignificant aid . There are practically no repetitive remarks here, very few “portrait” remarks, there are general remarks about the weather and the time of day, but there are almost no descriptions of the decoration at the scene, any characterizing features of the space. Having twisted one's soul, one can say that the story with the kitten plays an important role in understanding the author's intention, naturally conveyed to us in the remarks, but to say that Petrushevskaya elevates the remark to the rank of the most important artistic means on this basis is still stupid. Particularly noteworthy are the cumbersome instructions, squeezed right into the "meat" of the play and concerning the pronunciation of certain words by this or that hero. For example:

T a t i a n a - In general, there are so many holes in the roof! (“Actually,” she pronounces as “more.”)

In this case, we see a completely inappropriate author's remark. Not only do such nuances automatically correlate with the language norm during the playback of the episode, that is, they are flattened to conversational habits, but there is simply no reason to remark in this example. After all, even if Tatyana pronounces this word correctly, no one will capture such a particular in the general flow of speech, and if it does, then the fact of its discovery will not affect the image of Tatyana created by Petrushevskaya. The situation would be reversed if the text were saturated with such remarks, but in the whole play one can find no more than ten cases of their use, moreover, in the remarks of different characters.
However, since we have moved on to dialogues, it's time to conduct a general analysis of their originality. Moreover, the dialogues are the main expendable material of "Three Girls ..."
The dialogues in the play are structured in such a way that each next line often changes the meaning of the previous one. According to critic M. Turovskaya, “modern everyday speech ... is condensed in her to the level of a literary phenomenon. Vocabulary makes it possible to look into the character's biography, to determine his social affiliation, personality. We have already mentioned Petrushevskaya's unusual "romance" for a playwright. Often the writer overshadows the playwright in it. "Three Girls in Blue", a play in which, as if nothing is happening. It seems impossible to watch such a play on stage. But! The situation is saved by magnificent, precise, accurate dialogues. The entire first part, in which the exposition is merged, the plot and the prologue keeps afloat, arouses deep interest in the hall precisely thanks to the author's talent to create the image of the hero through his statements. Replicas - or rather their seeming alogism - creates a sense of plausibility, the order of statements allows you to keep the interest of the viewer, and most importantly - they always have an actual center around which the thoughts of all those who participate in the conversation revolve. It’s as if it’s about nothing, but this “about nothing” at the same time contains everything that is needed. Let's take an example:

Valera - Wait a minute. Svetlana, let's have a drink and get to know each other. My name, as it has long been known, is Valerik. (Takes her hand, shakes it.) I'll still be useful to you, I feel it. You just need to get the roofing material.
They pour, they drink. Enter Ira.
Ira! You are proud! Understand it!
Tat'ya na - Oh, long-awaited! Ira, come in, sit down.
Svetlana - We are sisters! Well, let's drink to the acquaintance.
And ra - Yes, I will not ... The child is sick.
T a t y na - We three ... (stammered) second cousins.
V alera - We must drink. To not fall off.
Svetlana - We had one great-grandmother and one great-grandfather ...

In this small fragment, a huge amount of information is concentrated. First of all, a pragmatic goal - the characters get to know each other. Second: from the first remark it is clear that all the polemicists need to solve an everyday problem - to repair the roof. Valera, the hero pronouncing it, feels out of place, as if they want to push him aside, and based on the last remark, one can understand why he is so talkative and excited. Here you can also find a maternal feeling that does not allow Irina to drink for a meeting, her wariness towards her sisters and their fawning over Irina and God knows what else. All artistic planes, all plot layers, all the threads of the author's intention, one way or another, appear in the presented fragment of the text. Moreover, we cannot say what exactly the subject of discussion is, in the fact of acquaintance or a feast, or in the fact of family reunification or in something else, we are only drawn into the orbit of this subject. Each character here, as in Chekhov's drama, speaks about his own, not wanting to hear another, but the general meaning of the action, nevertheless, is not overwritten by this endless interruption. As P. Pavi wrote: “A dramatic text is quicksand, on the surface of which signals are periodically and differently localized that direct perception, and signals that support uncertainty or ambiguity ...”
M. I. Gromova in her textbook “Russian drama at the end. 20 - early. 21st century v.", outlining the range of problems from year to year dissected by the genius of Petrushevskaya, mentions the all-consuming routine, "overloaded life", "absurd devaluation of kindred feelings", and the eternal female disorder. The world of “Three Girls…” also rests on these three whales, that is, Petrushevskaya, talking about a person, explores the life and being of a lonely, unfortunate woman (Bulgakov said that all literature is autobiographical). In each play, she tries to help this woman, but none of the solutions seems to suit her completely. "Three Girls ..." begins as a boring, sick, everyday story about a Woman, that is, about herself. At the level of subtext, the viewer is served a kind of turbid broth from the experiences of sisters offended by life and therefore very similar to each other. The author himself does not seem to be able to help them, and therefore the viewer is also unable to do so. But what does a person experience when he sees someone's suffering and cannot help? He starts to feel compassion. And this is the task of the drawn-out long polylogue of the first act - to make the viewer sympathize. Only when the viewer plunges into the life of the characters, begins to look at the world through their eyes, does Petrushevskaya give hope in the form of falling in love (at the level of the text). Falling in love, of course, is deceptive, it is just a bait on which Irina pecks out of hopelessness, but having been deceived, she suddenly begins to see the joy of life in what used to be ordinary, impersonal, evil, deaf. In someone in whom until now she has not seen anything but prudence, she suddenly notices sincere compassion and this becomes the beginning of a fundamental revision of her own worldview.
At the level of subtext, Petrushevskaya heals herself. That suffering image of a woman that she created, she also saves with the help of creativity, activity. Dramatic "shifts", which, as we remember, are found only at the beginning of the second act - this is Petrushevskaya's art therapy in relation to the heroines mired in the swamp of doing nothing, that is, in relation to herself.
Literary critics, not having at their disposal a complete, absolute, real definition of postmodernism, often talk about "Three Girls ..." as about the baptism of Russian dramaturgy with postmodernism. There is a certain set of properties and qualities that, being embedded in the text, make it, in the eyes of some critics, postmodern. Although others may associate the same work with post-realism or something else. Therefore, both of these concepts are applicable to the play “Three Girls in Blue”, it contains in small doses such postmodern features as intertextuality (“Three Sisters”), deconstruction of meanings and values, and conceptuality. At the same time, in "Three Girls ..." there are such features of post-realism as the author's lyricism, refracted in the fate of the characters, the author's emphasized subjectivism in describing reality.
To the question asked by Tvardovsky at the very beginning of Petrushevskaya's writing career, she answered in her own way, namely, by destroying the support, thanks to which such a question could be asked and seemed appropriate. Now, for which Petrushevskaya was once reproached, it has become good form in dramaturgy.

1 .) S. G. Istratova. "Postmodernism as a Literary Phenomenon of L. Petrushevskaya's Creativity"

2.) S. Ya. Goncharova-Grabovskaya. "Russian drama con. 20 - early 21st century V. (Aspects of Poetics)"
http://elib.bsu.by/bitstream/123456789/13307/1/.pdf

3.) S. I. Pakhomova. Dissertation "Constants of the artistic world of Lyudmila Petrushevskaya"

4.) O. N. Kuptsova "Role"

5.) A. P. Tsoi “Genre poetics of Petrushevskaya’s plays and the dramaturgy of the “new wave””

6.) S. S. Vasilyeva ""Chekhov" in the artistic interpretation of L.S. Petrushevskaya"
http://jurnal.org/articles/2011/fill2.html

7.) S. P. Cherkashina. Dissertation “Creativity of L.S. Petrushevskaya
in the mythopoetic context: the matriarchal nature of the artistic world"

8.) L. S. Petrushevskaya "Three girls in blue"
http://lib-drama.narod.ru/petrushevskaya/girls.html
9.) Yu. M. Lotman “Inside the thinking worlds. Man - text - semiosphere - history" (p. 238)

10.) N. A. Nikolina. Textbook "Philological text analysis"
https://litlife.club/br/?b=135271&p=64

11.) Universal popular science online encyclopedia "Krugosvet"

12.) P. Pavi "Dictionary of the theater"

13.) M. I. Gromova. Textbook "Russian dramaturgy of the end. 20 - early. 21st century V."
http://fictionbook.ru/static/trials/06/60/10/06601013.a4.pdf

LVI International scientific and practical conference "In the world of science and art: issues of philology, art criticism and cultural studies" (Russia, Novosibirsk, January 20, 2016)

Collection output:

"In the world of science and art: issues of philology, art history and cultural studies": a collection of articles based on the materials of the LVI international scientific and practical conference. (January 20, 2016)

ARCHETYPE "HOUSE" IN THE PLAY "THREE GIRLS IN BLUE" L.S. PETRUSHEVSKAYA

Verbitskaya Galina Yakovlevna

cand. art history, Assoc. Department of History and Theory of Art, Ufa State Academy of Arts. Z. Ismagilova,

Russian Federation, Ufa

Frantseva Maria Vyacheslavovna

4th year student of the Ufa State Academy of Arts. W. Ismagilov,

RF, G. Ufa

Email:

ARCHETYPE “HOME” IN THE PLAY “THREE GIRLS IN BLUE” BY LIUDMILA PETRUSHEVSKAYA

Galina Verbitskaya

candidate of Art, assistant professor of history and theory department Zagir Ismagilov Ufa State Academy of Arts,

Russia, Ufa

Maria Frantseva

4th year student Zagir Ismagilov Ufa State Academy of Arts,

Russia, Ufa

ANNOTATION

The article is devoted to the archetypal imagery of L.S. Petrushevskaya "Three Girls in Blue" (1980). The author examines the female images of L. Petrushevskaya's play according to the archetype of the Great Mother and the archetypal category "House".

ABSTRACT

This article is devoted to archetypical imagery in the play “Three girls in blue” (1980) by Liudmila Petrushevskaya. The author analyzes female characters of this play according to archetype of Great mother and archetypical category “Home”.

Keywords: Ludmila Petrushevskaya; archetype; Great Mother; "House"; archetypal image.

keywords: Liudmila Petrushevskaya; archetype; The Great Mother; “Home”; archetypical image.

For each person, the concept of "Home" has a sacred meaning. Home is the place where we are expected. Shelter, food, comfort, your own quiet corner where you can wait out the cold and hide from the hardships of the outside world - all this somehow unites the concept of “Home” in the human mind, pouring out into expressions familiar to everyone from childhood: “my house is mine fortress”, “home is a full bowl”, “at a party it’s good, but at home it’s better”. Thus, the concept of "House" acquires the properties of an archetype - "original image", "prototype" (according to C. G. Jung), uniting the universal collective unconscious.

In her autobiographical essay “The Little Girl from the Metropol”, L. Petrushevskaya recalls her childhood darkened by Stalinist repressions and the war: “We are no longer at home. These are not our two rooms at the Metropol. We are with strangers. Our apartment was sealed. We are "driving". This word is from my childhood life. The father left the family, the mother was forced to leave for Moscow to continue her education - the little orphan girl stayed with aunt Vava and grandmother Valya in the evacuation in Kuibyshev. The war deprived the Petrushevskaya family of support - the feeling of “Home” - a full bowl: “I was a beggar, a wandering girl of war. We lived with my grandmother and aunt without electricity, ate from the garbage. I saw everything."

The little wanderer girl, always hungry, like other children of the war, lost her sense of home: “I fought back more and more from home. The first time I ran away in the summer already at a more or less conscious age, at the age of seven. And once, when grandmother Valya and aunt Vava decided to lock the girl in the apartment, she ran out onto the balcony and went down the fire escape: “I ran away, as it turned out, forever. The next time I saw them only after nine years, and they did not recognize me. I was already eighteen."

L. Petrushevskaya, who survived the war, a hungry childhood and many life difficulties, raised three children herself. Perhaps that is why the central figures of the writer's artistic world are the images women mothers and her child. Literary critic T. Prokhorova notes that “in the work of Petrushevskaya, not just a female view of the world is expressed, but a maternal view” - sincere, filled with love and compassion. The memory of the past with its difficulties and hardships became the basis of Petrushevskaya's personal maternal outlook on life and work. The writer lays in her heroine a divine potency - the woman in L. Petrushevskaya is the Mother Goddess. And her philosophy is contained in a secret phrase: “Circumstances have never scared me. Children are at hand, and there is a corner. The eternal and main game of life, your home. For a mother who has "children at her side", life's difficulties suddenly become not terrible, as for the Great Mother, who creates the universe, there are no barriers. “The image of a woman-mother is the prototype of all great and small goddesses, mother-earth, motherland, everything that has the features of motherhood, and in general - the Great Mother. The Great Mother, giving birth and nurturing, gives birth to them all, she is that archetype that permeates all human life.

The archetype "House" as a space dominated by the archetype of the Great Mother, acquires a universal existential meaning. The house is the basis of being of each individual person. Your “corner” is like a microcosm in the vast space of the macrocosm. The famous writer, doctor of philological sciences and one of the largest Pushkin researchers V.S. Nepomniachtchi considers the category “House” as follows: “A home is a dwelling, a refuge, an area of ​​peace and freedom, independence, inviolability. Home - hearth, family, woman, love, procreation, constancy and rhythm of an orderly life, "slow labors". Home - tradition, continuity, fatherland, nation, people, history. Home, "native ashes" - the basis of "independence", humanity of a person, "a guarantee of his greatness", meaningfulness and non-loneliness of existence. The concept is sacred, ontological, majestic and calm; a symbol of a single, holistic great being ". Thus, a great being is reflected in a small one - a private human life, and vice versa.

However, along with the holistic image of "Home" as a symbol of orderliness and security, there is another category, the category of "Homelessness" - a person deprived of his place in the world is doomed to wander, to search for his "corner". “Homelessness” is understood apophatically as deprivation of a home, that is, a place where a person lives (with other gr. homelessness). "Homelessness" includes two dimensions of being: social[italics mine - M.V.] as an expression of the rootlessness of a person in the fatherland and rootlessness in the social world and spiritual and cultural» .

The heroines of "Three Girls in Blue" dream of finding their "Home" both in social and spiritual terms. In the artistic world of Petrushevskaya "Dom" is a saving haven for the seekers and the destitute, wandering and homeless souls. Second cousins ​​Svetlana, Tatyana and Irina meet together at an old dacha near Moscow, where each hopes to find peace and their own place for a peaceful life. But this space is too small, which causes flare-up quarrels, antipathy and constant attempts to divide the “House” into parts.

Irina: “I say: guys, run in your half! They say it's not your house and that's it<…>Why is this: not your home? And whose is it? Theirs, or what, the house? They occupied and live, but I have to shoot! And I'm just as much an heir as they will be. I also have the right to that half! - this is how the idea of ​​a disparate shaky "House" arises in the play, in which there is no comfort and balance.

In Three Girls in Blue, the space of the House is presented in two forms: this is the Moscow apartment of Maria Filippovna, Irina's mother, and the dacha of Aunt Fedorovna near Moscow. In the chambers of the "terrible" mother, Irina does not find a place for herself, she runs away from her with her little son to a dilapidated dacha. It is still easier for her to endure the hardships of rural life than to stay under the same roof with a snarky mother. Irina has been a wanderer since the age of 15: paradoxically, having a house in the social sense (mother's apartment), she is spiritually homeless. Spiritual homelessness pushes her to search for the "House" of the soul.

Nikolai Ivanovich: “Listen, Ira, is this your own house?”

Irina (angrily): "Yes! Own! Grandma's aunt."

Svetlana: "Ph! Her home. Well, you think! Tanya will be pissed off! Her home! .

The sisters slander, divide the house into territories, harass and sting each other with accusations: they are so different, but still one thing unites them - the desire to find spiritual and spiritual refuge from the harsh outside world.

Alien sisters are trying to remember their common relatives, but only the owner of the dacha, the old woman Fedorovna, manages to do this: “I am Fedorovna. It was my husband Panteleimonovich. There were twelve of them: Vladimir, this is mine, Anna, Dmitry, Ivan, Nadezhda, Vera, Lyubov and their mother Sophia, I don’t know the rest ... Ah, you are some kind of grandchildren. Petrushevskaya weaves into the narrative the Christian motif of the three sisters Faith, Hope and Love, born from mother Sophia, the goddess of wisdom. The archetype of the Great Mother invariably holds together the union of three sisters, albeit different, almost alien, but sisters nonetheless. Women cannot remember the past, because the family connection has long been lost, as well as the understanding of the "House" - a full bowl. Their house has long since fallen into disrepair. The old roof is cracked.

Svetlana: “My Leocadia sat down and sits. Afraid of the rain, apparently. That she will choke lying down.

Tatyana: “In general, there are so many holes in the roof! In general, a nightmare, one sieve was left in one winter.

The “house” without a custodian owner loses its integrity, it is no longer a home that protects from adversity, but an old rotten trough. The summer promises to be rainy and the "mute" old woman Leocadia is trying to escape from the impending disaster. Svetlana notices with alarm: “My Leocadia is sitting with an umbrella, she is all crooked. He knows he's waiting for the flood." Rain and the expectation of a flood goes back to the archetypal symbol associated with such apocalyptic mythological representation of the end of the world as the Flood. In the Christian tradition, which is closest to L. Petrushevskaya, this idea is embodied in the biblical story of Noah's ark, which shelters all living creatures from deadly disaster.

An old dacha with an ever-leaking roof in the play "Three Girls in Blue" acquires the meaning " House-ark". The sisters and sons fearfully await the "end of the world", but Irina, driven out by them to the covered veranda, as the bearer of the divine name of the goddess of peace and tranquility, saves everyone from the Flood. At the end of the first picture, Petrushevskaya solemnly describes in a remark the rescued relatives, marching in a stately procession - the author's remark: “Fedorovna is ahead, still with the same trough over her head, then she goes, raising the collar of her jacket, Valery with two folding beds, with a backpack. Tatyana leads after him, covering Anton and Maxim with the skirts of her cloak. The boys have a kettle and a saucepan in their hands. Svetlana closes the procession, leading by the arm Leocadia, an old woman under an umbrella. Svetlana has a suitcase in her hands.

The power of the Great Mother is ambivalent: it can be destructive like the elements of nature, but it is also creative in the role of the giver of life (Mother Earth). So in the female, maternal world of Petrushevskaya, the transitions from enmity to peace for the sisters occur instantly. A woman in Petrushevskaya becomes like a goddess, who is given through everyday life to restore the harmony and integrity of the world. In the Karamzin Village Diary, the writer’s lines about the life-giving function of a woman sound like a prayer: “... they / create every minute / food / peace / cleanliness / well-fed / healthy / sleeping / clean / children / husbands / old people / forever and ever” . A woman by L. Petrushevskaya is capable of creating a cosmos out of chaos - so will Irina, whose name contains the creative potential of the “goddess of peaceful life”.

According to the symbolism of the archetype of the Great Mother, researchers consider the category "House" as an "ever-bearing mother's womb". Just as the Mother's womb protects the baby, the space of the "House-Ark" - Irina's small veranda will protect mothers and children, old women and men from trouble. Fedorovna will peacefully say: "We'll all fit, nothing, I have a room of sixteen square meters, it's warm, dry." So a tiny space becomes the focus of warmth and comfort, saving all living things from inevitable death.

In the Christian tradition, faith and love are seen as the foundation of the spiritual "Home" of every Christian. “God is laying the foundation of the Christian church, declaring Jesus Christ to be the son of God, and his apostles to be living stones, one of which was named Peter (Greek “stone”). Spiritual cement in the construction of the Christian "House" is love. And Christ is compared in the New Testament with the bridegroom, the Church with the bride, which creates the image of a loving conjugal home.

But women, single mothers of Petrushevskaya are left without male love and support. In the female world of the heroines of Three Girls in Blue, there are no men who can take on the role of Carpenter Savior. None of them, neither Valerik nor Nikolai Ivanovich, will take responsibility for saving the "House" from the Flood. Single women are forced to cope with their problems on their own, without hope for a man's shoulder. Valera Kozlosbrodov, Tatyana's ex-husband, with his dislike for physical and intellectual labor, will contemptuously reject this request, and Nikolai Ivanovich, Irina's lover, is not going to spend at all (“I don’t promise this. (Cheerfully.) That's when it will be yours! And Will I cover the general with them?"). He is one of those who take, not give. Gosplanovets boastfully tells Irina a story about how he built a “cooperative” for another mistress, but as soon as the relationship ended, he took his own: “Over time, my daughter’s apartment will be there. Everything came in handy."

A man in the matriarchal world of Petrushevskaya is not capable of creating a “House”, as a social and spiritual being, but only of building a village toilet. The sarcastic tone of the playwright is confirmed in the 3rd scene, when Tatyana giggles ironically in response to Fyodorovna's enthusiastic exclamations: “What a toilet he built for her! For this alone, you can rely on a person. Look what a domina is worth!” .

Such a man is not-Noah and not-Christ, loving and protecting the Church - his bride. His power is limited to the "creation" of the toilet - he is not able to repair the roof of the Ark House. All the power of the creative and saving power belongs to the woman-mother: Irina, the bearer of miraculous Love, is able to stop the plane and save her child from death at the end of the play. She is also able to restore peace and tranquility in the "House". Her joyful laughter illuminates the space of the “House” and reconciles the warring sisters: “Enough of us wandering - Yes, Lord, live!” . Where the Woman is, there is the world, there is Salvation. Irina not only saves the Ark House, she becomes the Ark herself. She hoped that she would find love with a man, but he betrayed the "butterfly bird", and then, spreading her wings over the world, she flies to save her child - her only joy that fills life with meaning. She finds peace next to someone who will always appreciate her love and warmth. Irina the Wanderer finds a “Home”, not within the walls, no, she finds it in her own soul, filled with love for her neighbor, wisdom, sensitivity of the heart and maternal compassion - the forces of great female weakness.

“Okay / live a house without a roof / play in happiness / in good weather / comfort / shelter / weak / old women and children / you are not for our rains” - these lines from the Karamzin Village Diary contain the quintessence of the meaning of the play “Three Girls in blue."

In the artistic world of Petrushevskaya, the "House" is a life-saving shelter for the seekers and destitute wanderers. But it is the woman with her creative power of maternal love that is given to save all living things from death. The loving soul of a woman-mother is the saving Ark, which protects from troubles and gives shelter to all the desperate and suffering. Irina, as the goddess of peaceful life, as the Great Mother of all that exists, returns everything to its place: love for one's neighbor, humility and acceptance of life restore cosmic order. At the end of the play, so magical and fabulous, another heroine suddenly finds speech - the silent old woman Leokadiya, Svetlana's mother-in-law. Petrushevskaya gives her a name, from Greek meaning "white", "light". The phrase she uttered (in an unexpectedly sonorous, clear voice) becomes an absolute miracle: "It's dripping from the ceiling." The shocked sisters freeze in a daze.

“The finale of the play “Three Girls in Blue” is one of the most striking examples of the “ascension” of the plot, the merging of life and being, as in Chekhov's plays. According to the meaning of "It's dripping from the ceiling" and Sonino's "We will see the sky in diamonds" - this is a consolation to all those who are suffering, desperate and lost hope. Therefore, the “ascension of the plot” is like resuscitation, like a return to life. Saving, healing maternal love in the artistic world of Petrushevskaya produces a miracle. The Mother Goddess creates the world by the power of her weakness. Irina triumphs - from now on the end of wanderings. From now on, everyone will find their own “Home”.

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Three women "over thirty" live in the summer with their little sons in the country. Svetlana, Tatyana and Ira are second cousins, they raise their children alone (although Tatyana, the only one of them, has a husband). Women quarrel, figuring out who owns half of the dacha, whose son is the offender, and whose son is offended ... Svetlana and Tatyana live in the dacha for free, but the ceiling is leaking in their half. Ira rents a room from Feodorovna, the mistress of the second half of the dacha. But she is forbidden to use the toilet belonging to the sisters.

Ira meets her neighbor Nikolai Ivanovich. He cares for her, admires her, calling her a beauty queen. As a sign of the seriousness of his feelings, he organizes the construction of a toilet for Ira.

Ira lives in Moscow with her mother, who constantly listens to her own illnesses and reproaches her daughter for leading the wrong way of life. When Ira was fifteen years old, she ran away to spend the night at the stations, and even now, having arrived home with a sick five-year-old Pavlik, she leaves the child with her mother and quietly goes to Nikolai Ivanovich. Nikolai Ivanovich is touched by Ira's story about her youth: he also has a fifteen-year-old daughter, whom he adores.

Believing in the love of Nikolai Ivanovich, about which he speaks so beautifully, Ira follows him to Koktebel, where her lover is resting with his family. In Koktebel, Nikolai Ivanovich's attitude towards Ira changes: she annoys him with her devotion, from time to time he demands the keys to her room in order to retire with his wife. Soon the daughter of Nikolai Ivanovich learns about Ira. Unable to withstand his daughter's tantrum, Nikolai Ivanovich drives away his annoying mistress. He offers her money, but Ira refuses.

On the phone, Ira tells her mother that she lives in a dacha, but cannot come for Pavlik, because the road has been washed out. During one of the calls, the mother reports that she urgently goes to the hospital and leaves Pavlik at home alone. Calling back in a few minutes, Ira realizes that her mother did not deceive her: the child is alone at home, he has no food. At the Simferopol airport, Ira sells her raincoat and on her knees begs the airport attendant to help her fly to Moscow.

Svetlana and Tatyana, in the absence of Ira, occupy her country room. They are determined, because during the rain half of them was completely flooded and it became impossible to live there. The sisters fight again over the upbringing of their sons. Svetlana doesn't want her Maxim to grow up squishy and die as early as his father.

Ira suddenly appears with Pavlik. She says that her mother was admitted to the hospital with a strangulated hernia, that Pavlik was left alone at home, and she miraculously managed to fly out of Simferopol. Svetlana and Tatyana announce to Ira that they will now live in her room. To their surprise, Ira doesn't mind. She hopes for the help of her sisters: she has no one else to count on. Tatyana declares that now they will take turns buying food and cooking, and Maxim will have to stop fighting. "There are two of us now!" she says to Svetlana.

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Ludmila Petrushevskaya
Three girls in blue
Comedy in two parts

© Lyudmila Petrushevskaya, 2012

© LLC Astrel Publishing House, 2012

© Astrel-SPb LLC, original layout, 2012

© Sergey Kozienko, photo, 2012


All rights reserved. No part of the electronic version of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, including posting on the Internet and corporate networks, for private and public use, without the written permission of the copyright owner.


© Electronic version of the book prepared by Litres (www.litres.ru)

Characters


Ira, young woman, 30–32 years old

Svetlana, young woman, 30–35 years old

Tatiana, young woman, 27–29 years old

Leocadia, mother-in-law of Svetlana, 70 years old

Maria Filippovna, Ira's mother, 56 years old

Fedorovna, hostess of the dacha, 72 years old

Pavlik, son of Ira, 5 years old

Maksim, son of Svetlana, 8 years old

Anton, Tatyana's son, 7 years old

Nikolay Ivanovich, an acquaintance of Ira, 44 years old

Valera, husband of Tatyana, 30 years old

Young man, 24 years

Elka the cat

Kitten Little Elka


The action takes place at a dacha near Moscow, in Moscow and in Koktebel.

Part one

Picture one

Children's voice. Mom, how much will it be - take one away from two? Mom, do you want to tell a story? There were two brothers. One is medium, one is older and one is young. He was so tiny. And went to fish. Then he took a scoop and caught a fish. She wheezed along the way. He cut it up and made a fish cake.


The stage is a country veranda. Ira prepares water with lemon. The door to the room, the door to the yard.


Ira. Peacock, how are you feeling?


Fyodorovna enters. She is wearing a rather old dressing gown and has yellow rubber boots on her feet. She has a cat under her arm.


Fedorovna. Have you seen a kitten? The kitten is gone. Didn't you feed?

Ira. No, no, Fedorovna. I already spoke.

Fedorovna. The kitten is gone for the third day. Have your boys been killed? With a spade, or something, they hacked to death? (Looking into the room.) That he lies with you in broad daylight, get up, get up, that he is like a sour gingerbread.

Ira. Pavlik has thirty-nine and three.

Fedorovna. Got a cold, right? And don’t tell them, they sit in the river to the bitter end. And then the mother suffers. They are boys, they need. Yesterday went to raspberries. And there the ovary is pouring. I had a nail puller on the door, now I don’t know who to think. The kitten was killed. Not since Thursday. The third day. I thought she was keeping him in the attic, she climbed into the attic, she meows, she is looking for him. Well, Elka, where is your pet? A? Meow! There is no meow, there are evil guys. I know. I am watching them.

Ira. We were not on Thursday, we went to Moscow to wash.

Fedorovna. So you bought it, so he got sick with you. You redeemed him, and on the same day he went to the river to wash his sins. He needs! I rightly didn’t want to let you in, now there are three boys on the site, this will not be in vain. The house will be burned down or something like that. The kitten was lured. I noticed a long time ago that boys are interested in him. Either they called him with milk from the attic, then they wielded a piece of paper in front of him.

Ira. Fedorovna, I'm telling you, we weren't there on Thursday.

Fedorovna. Probably neighbor Jack tore it up again. The dog broke. It's not a dog, it's a bully! The kitten got scared, the boys chased him, so he jumped to the neighbors. This is what you need to know!

Ira. This is Maxim with Anton, probably.

Fedorovna. Sure, but what's the point! You can't bring the kitten back! They are, they are! Gathered strength. And also the Ruchkins, opposite their plot, they bought a gun from their great mind to Igor Ruchkin. Igor Ruchkin bought, in short. And shot stray dogs. And he killed my Yuzik. Yuzik, whom did he disturb in the meadow? I didn’t say anything, I picked up Yuzika, buried her, but what should they say? Their house is glorious throughout Romanovka. And well, a week passes, another passes, their Lenka Ruchkin drowned from drunken eyes. He ran into the river from the hillock with his head, and there the depth was thirty centimeters. Well? What is the demand.

Ira. Pavlik has thirty-nine, and they run like horses under the window, Anton and Maxim.

Fedorovna. The balm was planted there, under the windows! I'll tell them! The celandine has been planted!

Ira. I say: guys, run in your own half! They say: this is not your house, that's all.

Fedorovna. AND! Insolence is the second happiness. There is a house on the mountain where the Blooms live. The bar is two stories high. All Blooms. How many times did the lower Blums sue to have Valka Blum evicted, he occupied the room and blocked the door to that half where Isabella Mironovna Blum died. Blum Isabella Mironovna was a music worker in my kindergarten. The musician was weak, she could barely crawl. He will come, catch his breath, cry over the soup, there is nothing to wipe himself with. I, he says, played concerts, now “Over the Motherland the Sun” is going astray, believe me, Alevtina Fedorovna. What can I believe, she is not deaf. And there was a famine, the forty-seventh year. And one teacher started stealing from me, she couldn’t stand it. I strictly kept everyone. She steals, her daughter was an adult disabled child. Apples for children, bread, our kindergarten was a sanatorium type for the weakened. Here she will put everything in a stocking, a stocking in her locker. The technician told me: Egorova has apples in her stocking, pieces. We seized all this, they stuffed wooden cubes into Yegorova's stocking. She went home with this stocking. They ate cubes, here. On the second day, she quit. And then Bloom dies in the hospital. I visited her, buried her. Valka Blum immediately broke into her room and moved in with his family, he had a family back then, three children. And no one could prove anything to the police. He is Bloom, they are all Blooms there. Until now, the doctor Blum, Nina Osipovna, keeps an evil eye on him. Recently they received a pension, Nina Osipovna shouted to him in the corridor, he was the first to sign: yes, with such methods you will achieve everything in life. And he says: “What should I achieve, I am seventy years old!” (To the cat.) Well, where did you put your pet? A? As it lambs, all the kittens count, they will bring them out of the attic, once one, once another, and not a single one! All kittens will be lost. Jack, here he is. Back and forth, back and forth! Like a surf. In winter, I fed three cats, by the summer one Elka remained.

Ira. Why is this: not your home? And whose is it? Theirs, or what, the house? They took and live for free, but I have to shoot! And I will be the same heir as they are. I'm also entitled to that half.

Fedorovna. Yes, Vera is still alive, still toiling. And I warned you, it's expensive here, you yourself agreed.

Ira. I had a hopeless situation, I burned with a blue flame.

Fedorovna. You always burn with a blue flame. And I have my own heirs. Serezhenka needs to buy shoes. Will she buy him? I'm retired, grandma, buy it. Fifty pension, yes insurance, yes gas, yes electricity. She bought him a black drapery short coat, a yellow ski suit, knitted gloves, Vietnamese sneakers, bought a briefcase, and gave it for textbooks. And for everything about everything, the pension is half a hundred rubles. Now Vadim has tourist boots, a winter hat made of rabbit. Does she think? Give her a Zhiguli, what are you doing! And I still had two thousand from my mother, my mother bequeathed. Summer resident Seryozhka stole last year. I see that he is striving for the attic. And then they leave the dacha, I looked behind the pipe, the money was lying there for fifteen years - no, two thousand rubles!


Ira walks around, takes the drink, comes back, takes out a thermometer, goes to set it, comes back, starts the alarm clock.


Or rather, six thousand, my mother left us: me, sister and brother. The thief Seryozhka got six thousand. I went to Moscow to see them, I immediately looked: they bought a Zhiguli. For my six thousand. I didn’t say anything, what to talk to them, I just said: “Well, how did my Zhiguli suit you?” His father, Serezhkin, blushed, all red like a cancer, and mutters: “I don’t understand anything, I don’t understand anything.” Seryozhka himself came, wiping his hands, not raising his eyes, smiling. They bought a car for an old woman. How can I report to my brother now, to my sister? My brother wanted to come from Dorogomilovka and put up a latrine. He promised to help my Vadim with the Zhiguli: he gives seven thousand, excluding those that I have, but they whistled from me! My sister came, brought two kilos of meat, bones to Yuzik, and Yuzik was killed. She brought me a sarafan, brought a five-liter jar of tomatoes, a bottle, brought ten bags of soup. And they lie to this day. And there is no Yuzik! Yuzik's mother was a real sheepdog, father is unknown. The mother is a shepherd dog, she ran and ran around here, apparently got rid of it, last spring she was shot by the same Igor Ruchkin. She ran, and in March in a pioneer camp, I came behind the door, removed the door from the hinges, I looked, this shepherd dog was lying, and next to it there were five fat badgers like that. Then I gave her bread, soaked the dry pieces, I have no teeth. And Igor Ruchkin shot her. I went on the third day and took one for myself. They have already begun to spread, from hunger and the blind crawled. This very Yuzik was.


The alarm clock rings. Fedorovna shudders, the cat breaks out, runs away. Ira runs into the room.


Ira how much money do you get?

Ira. One hundred and twenty rubles.

Fedorovna. And where are you going to pay me such money for the dacha? Two hundred and forty?

Ira (he comes out with a thermometer). And what?

Fedorovna. What?

Ira. How much should I pay?

Fedorovna (fast). How agreed. I say, how do you get that kind of money?

Ira. I myself am surprised.

Fedorovna. Maybe let me let you have one vacationer from a rest home? The woman came and asked. She is all day at the rest house on the mountain, will only spend the night. She has a husband not a husband in her vacation home.

Ira. Until I get around.

Fedorovna. And then I would let it go. One bed, she and her husband will spend the night on the veranda, twenty-four days twenty-four rubles. Or he is not her husband, I do not know.

Ira. No need, no need. I barely got away from my mother, no need.

Fedorovna. And I also told her: I’ll ask, but I can’t guarantee. What is twenty-four rubles in our time? She would give more.

Ira. What is one hundred and twenty-four rubles in our time!

Fedorovna. I also said - do not need your thirty-six rubles, her ottoman is not one and a half. No one can vouch, and suddenly you want to rest the dead hour, and there are children on the site, here she has a child, here these two have a child. Three boys, this is a company! And that's it. She then began to ask: would you put my hives on the site? She has three hives.

Ira. News!

Fedorovna. What are the hives! First her bunk, then her husband, then the beehive! Listen, do you have a husband?

Ira. Yes, there was. Dispersed.

Fedorovna. Alimony pays?

Ira. Pays. Twenty-five rubles.

Fedorovna. It happens. Blum Valya recently wooed me, he also receives a pension of seventy-two rubles. He has three children grown up, and two rooms, and I have half a house. He is seventy years old, and I went seventy-second. I pour thirty buckets a day under apple trees. Maria Vasilievna Blum brought us together. I put on yellow shoes, teeth, a blue cloak, a blue half-shawl with roses, my daughter-in-law gave me once in a lifetime. Hanging in a wardrobe, I'll show you. It’s here that I am so ... finding myself, and I have an astrakhan fur coat since when my daughter-in-law has been hanging in the closet, boots are on the tsigeyka. I'll come to you somehow in Moscow as a princess of the circus. I'm saving for better times. My godfather, mother-in-law, keeps boasting: how much is on your book? Me: what about you? Like number five? She says, yes, I won’t cheat, about that and above. She wears diamond earrings to work, she works as a cashier at Supersam. And then two Georgians come up to her: “Listen, my mother urgently needs exactly the same earrings.” She listened, the next day she didn’t come out in earrings. Uprooted! And why do I need Valka, I don’t like men. Caring for an elderly pensioner is beyond my strength. I didn't love my husband either.


Enter Svetlana, Tatyana and Valera.


Valera. Baba Alya is right there! Hello, grandma!

Fedorovna (not listening). Well? She didn’t love, as soon as Vadim gave birth, she immediately went to her mother. Where he is buried, I don't know.

Valera. Baba Alya!

Fedorovna (thinly). Ai.

Valera. How are you, grandma? (Puts a bottle on the table.)

Fedorovna (wipes corners of mouth with two fingers). Well, you have guests, I went, I went.

Svetlana (this is a very thin woman, like a pole, speaking in a bass voice). Well, Fedorovna, for the company!

Tatiana. Grandma, where, where! (Chuckles.)

Valera (important). Sit down.

Fedorovna. Well, for the company and the monk got married. I just need a spoon, a dessert spoon. I'll bring. (Exits.)

Valera. Hm!


Everyone sits down, he stands. Ira stands, closed the door to the room.


We don't really know each other, but we are relatives. So to speak, one litter.

Tatiana (chuckles). You will say too.

Svetlana. Why is this a litter?

Valera. Litter! (Raises fist.) This is when one pig farrows at a time. This is immediately called a litter. Farrow. I read it with my own eyes in a local newspaper during a business trip. The slogan: "For a thousand tons of litter from one pig!" I thought they raised pigs there for fertilizer. But! Explained. Litter. Swords on the table bricks!

Tatiana. People are sitting, and you are talking about fertilizers. (Chuckles.)


Ira finally moves from her place, puts down the cups, cuts the bread.


Svetlana. Tatyan! We forgot. We also have cheese. Mine in cellophane, yours in paper.

Tatiana (chuckles). Bring it!


Svetlana runs out. Ira goes into the room, closes the door tightly.


Tatiana. Why did you take my wallet again?

Valera. For a bottle, yes!

Tatiana. You know, I'm not going to feed you.

Valera. A fool is a fool.

Tatiana. On the contrary, I'm not even stupid.

Valera. Such cases are solved only with a bottle.

Tatiana. She won't agree.

Valera. Be quiet! Other things were done with the bottle. In general, you asked - I came. Ran for a bottle. Because of you fools!

Tatiana. Why did you take my wallet? Fools.

Valera. Do you know what debt is for men?

Tatiana. Eight years you have all the debts and alimony. All cases and cases.

Valera. Can a man get a hundred and thirty in his arms minus alimony thirty-five monthly?

Tatiana. Who is to blame for you, got into an accident with drunken eyes.

Valera (angrily, whistling). Remember!

Tatiana. He gave birth to children.

Valera (reviving). Who gave birth? Me, right?

Tatiana. You. You. The Bible said. Isaac begat Jacob.

Valera. Mind! When a child is born, the man dies again. And so every time. No man wants this. There is even such a novel: "We only live twice." Understood? (“Understood,” he says with an emphasis on “o.”)

Tatiana. Why breed nonsense. They came here as a gift.

Valera (jokes). Maybe. (“Probably,” he says with an emphasis on “o.”)


Tatyana giggles because Ira comes out with a pot in her hand.


Ira. Now.

Valera. Yes, pour into our toilet, do not be shy. I treat.


Ira leaves.


Tatiana. It's always like this: whatever, to the store or for vodka, you grab my purse.

Valera. Again, pennies for fish!

Tatiana. Listen, let me give you alimony!

Valera. Grabbed! Do you know what will happen to you? Remains! I already considered. One hundred and forty-three salary, thirty-three percent. Subtract two from four... Forty-seven rubles and kopecks.

Tatiana. Forty-seven rubles sixty-six kopecks.

Valera (gloatingly). Let's cut it in half! A? Twenty-three rubles and kopecks! And this is a month! And I give more!

Tatiana. Twenty five, yes.

Valera. Well!

Tatiana. How much can you say: you eat, you sleep, you need an apartment, you need electricity!

Valera. Am I supposed to pay for sleeping too?


Pause. Tatyana blinks her eyes.


Tatiana. What about underwear? I give it to the laundry.

Valera (cheerfully). Set ruble per day night!


Uncorks a bottle. Pours into cups, clink glasses, drink. Tatiana giggles, stretches. Svetlana enters with cheese.


Svetlana. My Leocadia sat down and sits. Afraid of the rain, apparently. That she will choke lying down.


Valery pours for Svetlana, who covers the cup with her hand, then gives up. Tatiana giggles. Svetlana drinks.


Tatiana. There are so many holes in the roof! ("Actually," she pronounces as "voshche"). In general, a nightmare, one sieve remained in one winter.

Svetlana (rubbing his hand, sniffing the cheese). Yes, it was you who brought the house to an emergency state. Everything is rotten. That's what you tried.

Tatiana. Listen! Vice versa! From the house would have been trash for a long time. A house without an owner rots. We supported him. Valera now with a spatula, now with a hammer! He carried earth in buckets to the ceiling.

Svetlana. Most importantly, the roof was finished.

Tatiana. We did not finish, we lived! Voshche. When you don't live in your own house, you know, you would also think with your head. To cover the roof is four hundred. Yes, we would have been better off renting from the owners and lived for two summers! Four hundred. (Chuckles.)

Svetlana. Did you enjoy? You pay for it.

Tatiana. Are you currently using it too? Let's pay.

Svetlana. You opened the roof.

Tatiana. We didn't dance there. It's time, time! Would you live, would you wing?

Valera. No!

Tatiana. Someone else would not have wings.

Svetlana. My Leocadia is sitting with an umbrella, all crooked. He knows the flood is waiting.

Valera. Is this your mom? That old lady?

Svetlana. This is my mother-in-law, I inherited it from my husband. My husband is her son. He died, she lived with us, and lives according to the old memory. I am mainly on night duty, after all, Maxim does not sleep alone. In my position, relatives are not chosen.

Valera. Maxim - who is this?

Tatiana. Yes Maxia, her boyfriend.

Valera. Ah, boy. Did they grapple with ours today?

Tatiana. I work during the day, she works at night ... When her day falls on the weekend, I sit with the guys ... Hard labor, in general.

Valera. It's good, Anton has his own friend. And here the Ruchkins are dancing ... Everyone is asked the question: “Who is the mustachioed-striped one?”

Svetlana. Who?

Valera. And this is your mattress!


Tatyana giggles, covering her mouth. She is uncomfortable.


Svetlana. What a hooligan.

Valera. And the Blooms are bandits, the top ones. They are seven or eight years old, they smoke.

Svetlana. No, I didn't expect you to lure me into such a prison.

Tatiana. I lived here, in general ... And nothing. Try to rent a cottage here. Here are the dachas of the State Planning Commission. River, forest, airport. And you are free.

Valera. Like Gosplan!

Svetlana. But without a roof, understand! What if the summer is rainy?

Valera. Free in the rain.

Tatiana. Valera! There is no way out, it is necessary to cover the roof with roofing felt.

Valera. Tolem! I have an aversion to physical work. And mentally makes me sick.

Tatiana. At least cover with straw, or something.

Valera. Where can you get straw now, du-ra! At the beginning of summer. Everything is eaten.

Svetlana. Where are we going to take the kids?

Valera. In general, the tinsmiths are doing well! These are the Zhiguli that are being restored after a major overhaul. Oh, I'll go tinsmith!

Tatiana. So they were waiting for you.

Valera. Remember.

Tatiana. Well, what kind of husband, is it a husband? Your son will be out in the rain with bronchial asthma.

Valera. I had to heat it up! You didn't!

On the threshold are two boys - Anton and Maxim.


Maksim. And Aunt Ira closed in our toilet!

Valera. Come on, kids, go play! Do not beacon, do not beacon here. Get out of the tree. There is your wounded comrade! There's your wounded comrade, up in the tree! Do it.


The boys look at each other and disappear.

Children love me. And dogs. And drunk, by the way.

Tatiana. The brother-in-law sees the brother-in-law from afar.

Valera. And I will harden them! I'll teach you! I will come.

Tatiana. Now. ("Now" she pronounces as "right now".)

Svetlana. How did I just fall for this bait of yours! Not only am I crawling after your Anton on all fours: Antosha, have lunch, Antosha, wash your hands, and Antosha curled up with a rope, remember how they were called.

Tatiana. And don't call him! Hungry runs, he will jump.

Svetlana. Yeah, and it's great for him to warm up again? Am I the cook here?

Tatiana. It will warm up by itself, not small. Warms at home. He will come from school, the key is around his neck, he warms himself.

Svetlana. No, I won't let him near the gas stove. It explodes in adults, and even more so they indulge in matches. No-no. As you wish, but I cannot live without a roof.

Valera. Wait a minute.

Svetlana Let's have a drink and get to know each other. My name, as it has long been known, is Valerik. (Takes her hand, shakes it.) I will still be useful to you, I can feel it. You just need to get the roofing material.


They pour, they drink. Enter Ira.


Ira! You are proud! Understand it!

Tatiana. Oh long awaited! Ira, come in, sit down.

Svetlana. We are sisters! Well, let's drink to the acquaintance.

Ira. Yes, I will not ... The child is sick.

Tatiana. We are three... (stammered) second cousins.

Valera. Gotta drink. To not fall off.

Svetlana. We had one great-grandmother and one great-grandfather.

Ira. I don't know that far. I had a step-grandfather Philip Nikolaevich.

Tatiana. And I don't remember anyone. They stayed in the village.

Valera. You really don't remember. Now they would wave yours to the village. For free.

Tatiana. It is necessary to carry clothes to the village and give them. Backpacks and parcels.

Valera. Oh well, now no one takes from dead relatives!

Tatiana. They are now carrying crimped suits to their children.

Ira. I'm for my husband. And after Chantsev's father.

Svetlana. And my husband is Vygolovskaya. And my father's surname is Sysoev. And my mother's surname is Katagoshcheva.

Ira. Dad's last name is Chantsev, but he's been gone for a long time. My mother's last name is Schilling, after my stepfather.

Valera. England?

Ira. He is one of the Russified Germans.

Tatiana. And my mom and dad are the same name. Kuznetsovs! Grandfathers and grandmothers, again, all Kuznetsovs!

Valera. And keep in mind: namesakes. Not relatives. And my last name, I spell: Kozlos-brodov. Goat! (Pauses.) Brodov.

Svetlana. Through dash?

Valera. No, why.

Tatiana. And I'm Kuznetsova!

Valera. And Anton is Kozlosbrodov!

Tatiana. We'll change, we'll change. We'll put a dozen in the teeth of those who need it when necessary and change it.

Valera. Remember! So ... There is a proposal to raise a toast to patronymics. I don't mean biological relatives, I mean everyone here!


Raise cups. Fyodorovna enters in a blue silk cloak, a blue sheepskin coat with roses, in yellow shoes, shining with false teeth. She has a dessert spoon in her hand.


Fedorovna. Welcome! Here I pulled a salad ... What came up. Washed in a barrel. So eat your vitamins! Watercress.

Valera. And you, Panteleymonovna. (He pours it into her spoon.)

Fedorovna (drinks, grimaces and chews salad). I am Fedorovna. It was my husband Panteleimonovich. Their father was a merchant of the second guild, had a mill and two bakeries. There were twelve of them: Vladimir, this is mine, Anna, Dmitry, Ivan, Nadezhda, Vera, Lyubov and their mother Sophia, I don’t know the rest. And their father Panteleimon. Vera Panteleymonovna is still alive in Drezna, in the nursing home, the kingdom of heaven to her. And you are their grandchildren. I myself don’t know anyone, Vladimir was a pilot, I don’t know where he is, I’m divorced from him. Your mother, Ira, remembers someone.

Valera. You fake grandchildren, that's what I'll say. This Vera probably also has children.

Fedorovna. Her children, she outlived them, and where the children are children, no one knows.

Svetlana. How many of these children were there?

Fedorovna. There are three of you out of three, and out of nine others the same ones are wandering around, no one knows where.

Valera. So this is nobody's house, it's common!

Svetlana. Maybe twenty more grandchildren.

Fedorovna. No, we gave birth one at a time ... and you, even more so. I gave birth to Vadim, went to live with my mother. I got along with my husband so easily, I did not love. Vadim was born, I did not deal with him at all. I remember there was a fire at the neighbors across the fence, I grabbed Vadim at night, wrapped him in a blanket, ran out, put him on the ground, and let's carry buckets of water myself. By morning, everything burned out, our fence, but it didn’t go to the house. And I missed - where is my Vadim? And he lay on the ground all night. I was active! Vadim has a son, Seryozhenka, an excellent student!

Valera. Do they visit you, grandma?

Fedorovna. And no, no! In the past, there was a big difference in age among children. The eldest, for example, is sixty ... and the youngest is forty. You, too, can give birth in another fifteen years.

Valera. Only over my dead body!

Svetlana. The stepfather does not want to impose on the child's head.

Ira. You don't know how to put it on your feet. And pray and pray, just to live!

Valera. Need to heat up! Every morning cold water ear, throat, nose. I tempered Anton!

Tatiana. Who hardens in the winter, fool!

Valera. If not for Tatyana, I would have hardened him. You need cold, open windows, pouring water ...

Svetlana. Now we will have such conditions. There will be a pour. I’m not on duty today… Tanya and I will cover everyone with their tablecloths, polyethylene… You can’t dry anything anywhere… There’s nothing to say. Thank you, Tatyanochka, for inviting me to babysit your Antosha for free while you are relaxing at work, and even without a roof over your head. Although I have the same rights to live in this dacha alone and without your consent.

Valera. Once-whether-va-yu! Last. (Spills.)

Everyone drinks. Ira went into the room.


Fedorovna, you do not have a medicine tincture of calendula?

Fedorovna (carefully). What is this from?

Valera. It's from the throat.

Fedorovna. No, no, Valerik, I'll rinse with burdock. Will you get hurt?

Valera. Do you have lemongrass tincture, eleutherococcus astronaut extract?

Fedorovna. No, no, Valerik. What is this from?

Valera. This is from low tone. Is there any tincture?

Fedorovna. On alcohol?

Valera. By itself.

Fedorovna. There is, Valerik, but it won't suit you. Iodine tincture.

Valera. Sweeter than anything.

Fedorovna. I'll find something. (Exits.)


Enter Ira.


Ira (decisively). What do you think, I also have the right to live in that half, my mother has some documents. So don't think. If you checked in earlier, then I have to rent for two hundred and forty rubles!

Svetlana (fast). Nobody speaks! Let's change.

Tatiana. We'll move here and that's it. You there!

Valera. What did I say? Without a bottle, no way! And everyone was having fun.

Ira (excitedly). Fedorovna called my mother and said that there was no one to live in that half, the house without tenants was falling apart. I arrived, washed everything, whitewashed the frames in the room, washed the windows ... A week later I arrive with things, with a refrigerator, with a child, by car, and here you are! You already borrowed what I washed. Interesting. (He sits with his head hanging down. She is carried away.)

Valera. What was, will not return. Law of the jungle!

Ira. They made me a scandal.

Valera. They are fools! Fools. They themselves do not understand their own happiness. Now alive! Wash everything and give it to her. They didn't spit there. And you will drive in there, and I'll scourge the refrigerator on a wheelbarrow.

Ira. No, I no longer have the strength to move. I suggest that we have the same rights. We all pay eighty rubles for me. And then you live for free in my square.

Valera. All right, let's chip in eight chervonets each, and what will happen? What will we gain from this?

Ira. Why should I pay if you borrowed everything?

Ira. I stay here, you are there.

Svetlana. No. You did not understand. We just take all the payment and move here.

Ira. Wonderful. And I'm without a roof with a sick child.

Tatiana. OK. Let's do this: we cover the roof, Valerka will cover it, and you let our children and her grandmother under the roof.

Ira. To the terrace?

Svetlana. To the room, to the room. There is cold.

Ira. And we? He has thirty-nine and six!

Svetlana. How do we always do it? Are we doctors? We fence off with what we have: a screen, blankets ... My bleach.

Ira. But there is no rain.

Tatiana. Yes, it's barely holding on, look!

Svetlana. We will fence him off, the most important thing for him now is warmth. We will inhale. Ira. And we take the cost of three. Eighty.

Tatiana. But to cover the roof - you heard, four hundred rubles. In the shopkeeper, I don’t understand. You are eighty, and we are two hundred and eighty?

Valera. Others would take six hundred. But for their...

Ira. I don't understand... You're two hundred each... And I'm two hundred and forty, but how many people are in one room?

Svetlana. The roof is shared! And yours too!

Ira. Why is mine!

Valera. That's not how things will work. Girls, let's go! By the rump! And then the tent will be covered! Tatyana and I have already contributed four.

Ira. I do not have. You won't let me into your toilet!

Valera. Ira! You are proud! You be easier!

Tatiana. This toilet Valera knocked down with his own hands eight years ago, and the toilet is already on snot. Are you with the hostess? She has to give a place to go.

Svetlana. No, what a conversation, please go. Look not heaps only with him.

Ira. Fedorovna has nothing. She says go to the chicken coop. And then there's the rooster...

Valera. Ah! Vaska? Will peck out what is necessary and not necessary.

Ira. I'm afraid of him. (He sits with his head down.)

Valera. Girls, stop talking! The tent is closed!

Svetlana. Briefly speaking. We must live, life will tell.

Ira. First your boys beat my Pavlik, right? It was they who kept him in the water, took off his underpants. He got sick after that.

Svetlana. Now I will bring them, and we will find out who filmed what from whom. Now. (Comes out with quick, large steps, all red.)


Fyodorovna enters, carrying a vial in her hands.


Fedorovna. Here is a sweet tincture, as you asked, Valerik.

Valera (beret). Well! One hundred and fifty grams!

Fedorovna. Marshmallow root tincture. (Holds out his dessert spoon.)

Valera (wandering around). So. Sodium benzoate. sodium bicarbonate. Now it's all chemistry. Drops of ammonia-anise. There are anise ones, I know. Breast elixir. For what? Sugar syrup. Fuck him.


Fyodorovna pulls the spoon.


So… (Sniffs). Some rubbish. Nothing stinks. Surprise for my grandmother. Eh, let's go! (Pours from neck into mouth.)

Tatiana. ABOUT! Funnel something!

Valera (remembering). What was that?

Fedorovna. The kids even drink. Nothing. Yes, you took a lot. It says dessert spoon. (He snatches the vial from Valery's hands, pours the rest onto a spoon.) That's how they take it! (Drinks with pleasure, wiping his mouth with his hand.)

Valera (groans). Oooo, nasty! Woo!

Fedorovna. It works well, now you will spit well.

Valera. What holiday is this from?

Fedorovna. Expectorant.

Valera. Mommy! (Rushly flies out the door.)

Fedorovna. The whole first-aid kit gasped.

Tatiana. Where again with a wallet? Now he will give out the last two rubles.


Fedorovna comes out to see what's wrong with Valery.


Ira. Tanechka, how to live when you are completely alone in the world. Nobody, nobody needs. You came, I thought, to put up. It's called sisters.

Tatiana. And you?

Ira. I'm alone. I never had a brother or a sister. There is a son.

Tatiana. You have a mother.

Ira. Mother! This is such a mom...

Tatiana. If my mother were here, I would (nods at the door) would drive right away. When she comes from Sakhalin, there is a holiday in the house, warm, light, home! She got married and they were sent. I don't have a mom now.

Ira. If! If only I had it!

Tatiana. Mother! This is the first word a person utters, and the last ...

Ira. My mom hates me. Does not love.

Tatiana. Well, don't do it, I don't like such things. So this is the daughter. Mom is mom. And I immediately understood what you are. You are clingy.

Ira. Tough, to say the least. I cling to life.

Tatiana. You can't complain to me. Mother gives birth to us in pain, educates, feeds. What else. Erases on us. Everything we do now. Yes, we are working. For me to ever think that I hate Antosha! Yes, I can kiss all his toes! I'll kill everyone for him!

Ira. I, too, will kill everyone for the sake of Pavlik. And then it will be clear to you if they start drowning your son.

Tatiana. Throw pathetic words.

Ira. If your Anton is under water, huh?


Both got angry.


Tatiana. Who told you these nonsense? I suppose your Pavlik himself. I swam until I was blue in the face, that's what I came up with.

Ira. Two versus one.

Tatiana. He is like an adult, nothing childish. Is reading! Readers read, dogs wrote. And keep in mind, he will always get the first one. Here, remember.

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