Grishkovets: “What for has he done comb-over with long hair over his bald head?”

• 10.11.2009, 14:58

A popular Russian writer, dramatist and actor shares his impressions about Minsk theatrical public.

According to Yevgeni Grishkovetz, Minsk theatrical public is noted by its reserve. “Narodnaya Volya” informs that he has written about that in his blog.

“When I performed in Minsk for the first time, this reserve seemed something like coldness to me,” Grishkovets writes. “But it was reserve. People do not laugh aloud in Minsk, it is not so easy to earn applaud in Minsk… in the moment when the public is roaring with laughter in Moscow or Kyiv, Yekaterinburg or Petersburg, people in Minsk are smiling. But what a silence could be created by Minsk public! I would say that namely in Minsk during the performance the public does not constitute the public, some unified community for two hours. Everyone is hearing, is emotional, laughing or grieving separately from others. I do not know why it is so, but that’s the way it happens. And after the shows applause was powerful and unanimous, there were many flowers and gratitude was genuine…

One of viewers gave me an amazing present. I wanted to call him, to express gratitude, but there was no phone number or other address in his note…”

Besides, Grishkovets described unexpected reaction to depiction of a person with comb-over.

“There was unexpected reaction to some parts of the text,” he wrote. “These reactions were purely local. In particular, in the piece “+1” where I portray an unattractive person who does not feel this way himself, and even not the fact that he is unattractive, but he simply makes himself unattractive thinking it’s beautiful. I say: “Why has he made a comb-over with his long hear from the side of his head? It is awful!” And people reacted to this passage in a special way. Maybe people thought that I decided to say these words in Minsk on purpose, remembering the peculiar hair style of the Belarusian president? No! I read the same text everywhere, but there was an unusual reaction in Minsk…”