Published: 26 March, 2009, 19:15
Edited: 26 March, 2009, 19:15
A play based upon a novel by famed Russian writer Nikolay Gogol has drawn the attention of the local Prosecutor’s Office after an actress, portraying a young witch, appeared nude in front of an underage audience.
The Prosecutor’s Office in the central Russian city of Tver has warned the head of the local Theater for the Young because of the content of the play “Pannochka” (the word means ‘a young Ukrainian lady’), based on the novel “Viy”. The warning was made concerning the law stating that children should be shielded from ‘information damaging their moral views’, the Ria Novosti news agency reports.
Gogol’s “Viy” tells a story of a young seminarian who becomes enchanted by a beautiful witch. When she died, he was forced to spend three nights in a church with her body and read the burial service. Each night demons and witches try to frighten him and he dies on the third night.
The actual play in the Theatre for the Young was written by dramatist Nina Sadur. The announcement reads: “The horrible story of Khoma Brut, which happened to him because of his unrestrained desire for women and gorilka (the Ukrainian analog of vodka)”.
The part of the performance which drew public attention was when one of the actresses, playing the part of the young witch, appeared on stage naked. Another controversial scene was when three other ‘witches’ in transparent clothes were hugging and kissing the seminarian.
The row broke out in the middle of March when the ‘erotic’ performance drew media attention. Newspaper headlines read “Tver’s Theater for the Young shows a porno-performance for kids: actors appear nude”.
But in an interview with NTV channel, the theater’s director, Aleksandr Bakharev, claimed the journalists got it wrong:
“It’s been ten years that this play has been continuously staged in our theater. There have been no worries about that as the scene last only 3-4 seconds and cannot be called erotic in any way,” Bakharev said.
Later it was revealed that, according to the director’s order, children under 16 years were not allowed in for evening performances – though “Pannochka” was one of those scheduled plays. Some news sources, however, reported that some children came to watch the play with their parents or teachers.
On April 2, Tver’s Committee on Culture will discuss the question of how ‘moral’ the “Pannochka” is for young audiences.