Berezovo: A Revolutionary Russian Epic

Taking their leave of the Doctor, the three players mounted the steps onto the stage and slipped behind the curtain.

“Here you are, Dimitri Borisovich,” said Yeliena lightly, as she handed Skyralenko his beard. “You will find some spirit gum in a small box by your dressing area. I shall help Anton Ivanovich with his. Don’t use too much now, or we’ll never get it off you again.”

Chevanin watched the prison director retreat towards the opposite side of the stage set. As soon as he had disappeared into the wings, Yeliena turned and looped the top of the beard, made out of two grimy pipe cleaners, lovingly over Anton Ivanovich’s ears. A growl of protest arose from behind the beard.

“I feel an absolute fool wearing this,” he complained.

“You look sweet,” Yeliena assured him. “Now, stand still.”

As she moved closer to him to straighten the beard, he growled again.

“I want to put my arms around you,” he said softly.

Tapping him smartly on the chest, Yeliena laughed.

“Don’t you dare!”

From over the top of the curtain, they heard Dr. Tortsov calling for quiet and ordering the soldiers to stop arranging the chairs.

“It’s all a trick,” Chevanin fumed. “He doesn’t want you to kiss me, that’s all.”

“Ugh!” said Yeliena, pulling a face. “Neither do I! Horrible smelly thing. There!”

With a last minute adjustment, she stepped back and looked at him.

“What do I look like?” he asked. “Fetch me a mirror.”

“You remind me of the King of the English,” she teased him, poking playfully at his stuffing. “I shall call you Eduard.”

“Can we start now please?” cried the Doctor from the back of the hall. “Yeliena, get on stage please.”

“My master calls me,” Yeliena whispered. “I must obey. Adieu, Eduard!”

Blowing him a quick kiss, she ran back to the safety of the centre of the stage. Remaining where he was, Chevanin watched the curtain rise smoothly as Skyralenko joined her. Together they advanced towards the foot of the stage.

“We shall need more light in the hall, Vasili Semionovich,” he heard Skyralenko call out, “otherwise, it will be as black as a witch’s… as night when we perform tonight.”

“Don’t worry,” the Doctor’s voice came floating back. “Captain Steklov has promised us candles and lamps tomorrow night. You will have plenty of light. Take your positions please. Yeliena, you should be sitting down at the table, looking at the photograph. Dimitri Borisovich, you are on the wrong side of her. Hurry! Oh, why is everybody so slow today?”

The final rehearsal began. It soon became apparent to the Doctor that the costumes were proving a mixed blessing. In Skyralenko’s case, his livery had the curious effect of altering his gait. No longer did he march ponderously about the stage, as if he were patrolling the corridors of his prison. Instead, he appeared to have adopted a completely new stance all of his own: half bobbing, half shuffling in a servile manner and executing little steps sideways every time Madame Tortsov addressed him, as if he were dodging invisible missiles being flung at him from the wings.

“As for Yeliena,” thought the Doctor gloomily, “she moves as if she has lead weights tied to her feet.”

It was true. Because of her heavy widow’s weeds, his wife’s ability to express herself was restricted to the upper half of her body. She was reduced to emphasising her lines either by waving her arms as if she were herding geese or wringing her hands like a washerwoman. The Doctor sighed; she was not, in Maslov’s phrase, ‘using the stage’ at all. Only when Chevanin appeared was she galvanised into action, swooping from one side of the stage to the other like a bird that had flown in through the window of a room and could not find its way out again; pausing only a moment to alight upon a sofa or flutter around a table in its restless search for an exit. This improvement was counterbalanced by the fact that three quarters of what Chevanin was saying was muffled by his beard. With growing impatience, the Doctor sat through “Smirnov’s” first speech, then, despite his own ban on interruptions, he commanded the production to stop.

Marching to the foot of the stage, he fixed his assistant with a fierce gaze.

“Anton Ivanovich,” he thundered, “I cannot hear one word of what you are saying. You are mumbling, Sir!”

“Poor Eduard!” said Yeliena sympathetically.

“It’s this beard!” complained Chevanin. “Every time I open my mouth to speak, I get a mouthful of horse hair. Must I wear it?”

“Certainly you must,” replied the Doctor. “You are meant to be a middle aged landowner, not a callow youth. So, please try and act like one.”

“Perhaps I could trim it,” Yeliena suggested. “Would that be of any use?”

Wiping his hand across his brow, Dr. Tortsov fought to regain his temper.

“As you say, the moustache should be trimmed. Will that help, Anton Ivanovich?”

“Yes, I think so.”

“Do anything you want, but just let us get on with this!” begged the Doctor and turned to go.

Coming to the front of the stage, Yeliena called him back.