Nabokov?€™s ?€?Invitation to a Beheading?€™ on Stage

Pavel Safonov is a director with a talent for things big. Curiously, his work has often been confined to small stages, such as his professional debut with “The Seagull” at the Vakhtangov Theater, his rendition of “Long Day’s Journey Into Night” at the Mossoviet Theater, or “Raskolnikov’s Dreams” for the 814 Theatrical Association. But all of these small productions had a sense of grand scope and proportion.

Big is not always better, of course. A production Safonov did of “Caligula” on the main stage at the Vakhtangov a few years ago often lurched out of control. But for that very reason it seemed to be an important work in the director’s development — you could see him struggling valiantly with a huge canvas and monumental themes.

Now comes Safonov’s production of Mikhail Palatnik’s dramatization of Vladimir Nabokov’s “Invitation to a Beheading.” Performed on the large stage of the National Youth Theater, it has that Safonov sense of a tale told in broad strokes and close-ups.

I am not certain that Safonov fully embraced Nabokov’s playful and occasionally grim novel. There are times when it seems to be taking us on a ride that will never end. That is not so much because the show is long — 3 1/4 hours is routine by Moscow standards — but because Safonov is so ambitious. Every scene, every image is packed with references and potential underlying meaning.

Whatever it is, though, this “Invitation” is provocative and often beautiful in an unorthodox way.

Cincinnatus C. (Yevgeny Redko) is, literally, a condemned man. He sits in his prison cell waiting for news about when the execution will take place. No one around him — a janitor, a warden, a lawyer, the prisoner’s wife, his mother and others — care anything about it. To some it’s nothing more than a tasty entertainment, to others it’s a nagging annoyance.

Safonov put everyone but Cincinnatus in expressionistic greasepaint (coordinated by Lyudmila Levchenko), thus making the world surrounding the death row inmate a circus full of clowns. Many are interchangeable — the two actors Alexander Grishin and Ilya Isayev play a host of jolly fellows who constantly invade the prisoner’s cell and urge him not to think about the future. It’s all very far off, this execution — no need to worry yet about death!

Redko colors his character in shades of despair, although I suspect Nabokov intended him to be more perplexed and hapless than despondent.

Grishin and Isayev are superb as the ever-changing intruders. Rude in their familiarity and oppressive in their self-importance, they seem to suck the very air out of Cincinnatus’ cell.

A breath of hope appears when the mysterious Pierre (Pyotr Krasilov) begins paying Cincinnatus visits with the blessing of the warden. Pierre enigmatically declares he was thrown in prison for plotting to help Cincinnatus escape. However, this man’s gaiety and apparent compassion are able to mask his dastardly mission only for so long.

Designer Nikolai Simonov mixed naturalistic objects, such as Cincinnatus’s bed, with impressionistic elements, such as a tall, yellow and corrugated prison cell wall that leaves enormous open spaces to the back and sides. Small details — a stuck clock and a tiny barred window five meters above the floor — suggest reality but distort it. The costumes by Yevgenia Panfilova give a circus flair to everyone except Cincinnatus and the dour Librarian (Alexei Blokhin), who steps in to provide dry background narration on occasion.

What it takes Cincinnatus forever to realize is that, to rephrase a poet’s line, he is nothing but a pawn in the games of others. In that, Safonov’s production resonates with the world that we know on many levels.

It may say more about me than Safonov’s interpretation of Nabokov, but as the performance progressed I could not shake off mental images of Mikhail Khodorkovsky. The former Russian oil tycoon’s experience with arcane legal battles, to say nothing of a general public that couldn’t care less if he rots in prison, just kept fitting with each new turn of the play.

Still, Safonov was thinking in broader terms as he put this show together. It paints a picture of loud, crass, pompous people reveling in little pleasures while, unknown to them, the true nature of the human experience hangs over them all like the blade of a guillotine.

I don’t think this is the production that will demonstrate everything Safonov is capable of doing on a big stage. But it will do fine until that show comes along.

“Invitation to a Beheading” (Priglasheniye na Kazn) plays Wed. at 8 p.m. at the National Youth Theater, located at 2 Teatralnaya Ploshchad. Metro Teatralnaya, Okhotny Ryad. Tel. 692-0069. Running time: 3 hours, 15 minutes.