Gearing Up
The final month of spring is here, and there’s lots awaiting us in the country in May. Theatres opening, borders opening, and, when did they say we can finally gather at each other’s houses for parties of not 2, not 3, but maybe even more than 6 again? That last one is probably in June, though, but no matter. May is a month to look forward to regardless, with all the bank holidays and (hopefully) good weather.
But for me, and many of the people of my ethnic origin, from our joint ex-Soviet history, May means also another celebration.
Victory Day.
It is on the ninth of May that we celebrate it. Here, in Britain, people have their own memorial day: Remembrance Sunday, which happens on a Sunday in November. Ever since I came to this country, I remember autumn, the red poppies, a minute of silence, the general sombreness of it all. And another thing: the dead of both, the First and the Second World Wars are remembered.
Russia pulled out of the First World War. Betraying friends and promises, we were insulating ourselves in a new world, new ideology. There was going to be an amazing, kind, fair society in USSR, the state of the world outside be damned.
And I don’t think Stalin went into the Second World War with the same humanistic ideas Churchill had. But to a degree, it doesn’t matter.
On the ninth of May we celebrate in post-Soviet countries (celebrate, not mourn) the joint effort of all of our people, we remind ourselves that our grandparents lived through a time we cannot imagine. A time when it seemed we were waging war against inhumanity itself. It doesn’t matter that our leader in that time was a horrible tyrant. This celebration is not about him.
In my particular post-Soviet country, however, in recent years with the patriotic slogans of F*ck You Putin and the profound insurgence of the Dignity Revolution, it’s become fashionable to ignore this day of celebration. In fact, unbeknownst to the EU members cheering Ukraine on to break out from Russia’s hold, we have begun to claim main victimhood in the Second World War. Apparently, we were senselessly used in an immoral battle of two great tyrannous countries, poor us. So, really, there’s no reason to celebrate Victory over an ideology of cruelty and death, enslavement and inequality, because… honestly, I cannot even explain the warped thinking behind it.
In a world increasingly more complicated, we are driven to look for simplest, easiest explanations: these people bad, Russia evil, someone saying something politically incorrect once – cancelled. But such simplistic thinking is incompatible with the reality of existence. Such simplistic thinking is what leads people to war.
It is necessary to recognise the complexity, the duality of each person, in order to deal with the duality of life: that it is both beautiful and cruel.
I find actors are especially good at that. Not all of them realise this, of course, they go back to their own lives after rehearsals, and they, like everybody else, have their own judgements of people, their own selfish thoughts.
But when they approach a character, they are all compassion and understanding. It doesn’t matter if their character brought on witch hunts, murdered children, lied, betrayed, committed terrible crimes. An actor will look for inner logic of the character. And they will always love their character.
This is the most important thing. I remember working on DRAGON, and there was an actor who struggled to love his character. He loved playing him, but it was a parody, a criticism; yet an actor must never criticise their character like a separate being from them.
But I digress…
The month of May has a lot of dates to look forward to and celebrate. The 17th, the 9th, May the 4th, of course… But aside from celebration, it is also the month when things are finally set in motion, we are gearing up to full awakening from the horrible dream that last year has been, and I think it is important, in a world so much more complicated than even a century ago, to be mindful of the way we interact with others. Be aware of lazy judgments we pass on each other, the jealousies we hide under the mask of victimhood; be aware of wars on our doorstep, just waiting to happen, and the wars that are already happening. As we are all awakening, emerging from lockdown, let us emerge as better people than we were before.