“Saint “is not a word utilized frequently today. However it describes top qualities that have always been essential: stamina, perseverance, as well as kindness, which allows us not to judge others, and also to forgive.
Journalist and also theater director Olga Proscurnina remembered a discussion with the starlet Rosa Khairullina about Mariette Boncompain, the main character in her play “The Penfriend.” “Once she asked, ‘Mariette is a modern saint, isn’t she?’ I don’t intend to obtain melodramatic, yet realities are facts, and also yes, she is.”
Now with Mariette’s assistance, Olga is attempting to tell the whole world a tale concerning criminal activity as well as transgression, forgiveness as well as penalty, belief as well as mercy.
At first
For Olga, this story began in May 2018, when her friend Natalya Smirnova asked her to look at a message she had just recently ended up converting from French. It was “The Penfriend. Unusual Connections,” the actual document between a well-read Frenchwoman– Mariette– as well as a Texas repeat wrongdoer– Carl Wayne Buntion– who had actually been offered a death penalty for the murder of a law enforcement agent.
For Mariette, everything has started 15 years earlier, when she went to the pastry shop on a springtime day to purchase a cake for her 60th birthday. En route house, she acquired the L’Itinérant paper and also started considering the page with addresses of individuals on death row. She considered it her task to send detainees introductions on their birthday, although she never ever obtained any kind of replies. Eventually she saw the address of Wayne, that was jailed in the Polunsky Unit, a Texas prison for guys condemned to death. She noticed that they happened to have the exact same birthday celebration. She instantly contacted the complete stranger, as well as 2 weeks later for the first time she obtained a reply. And so their lengthy communication began.
Olga could not put Natalya’s translation of the book down. “As soon as I completed, I called her in Moscow and also claimed I wanted to deal with this tale and also learn more about Mariette immediately.” A small play promptly developed into a world of works. Olga chose to make an immersive performance in France (in an abandoned prison). In Russia, they chose to shoot a documentary (which would include recording Wayne in the Texas jail); created an audio efficiency in three languages, produce something in digital truth– and then the pandemic started.
An immersive efficiency
The play was premiered in the summer season of 2021 in Russia. It was performed in the Bomba gallery, which is located in a previous air-raid shelter. Later the efficiency was moved to an additional previous air-raid shelter which Olga said had the sort of dark and closed-in area she wanted to provide the strong feeling of pessimism and anguish.
In this confined room, with a reduced ceiling and dark passages, the Russian film and also movie theater celebrity Rosa Khairullina shows up. She is the target market’s guide. Actors review out loud the letters from Mariette to Wayne and from Wayne to Mariette, and they additionally dance to translate the feelings of the pen friends right into movement.
The option of room heightens the experience. Given that the play is done in a tiny area with a very tiny audience, everyone’s responses can be seen. Nobody is distracted by the phone, looking at the ceiling or yawning. When I saw it, a person was crying (I did not, although my experience was really emotional). After the efficiency several remained to discuss what they had seen with Olga. Some left, claiming they wished to be alone and also think of the efficiency.
Exactly how did Olga find the appropriate tone for such a tough item?
Olga says it is because of Mariette. “She is a great author … with a capacity to find the best words for really complicated issues. She doesn’t claim to be a savoir or moral compass. Most significantly, she does not validate what Wayne did, or claim he didn’t dedicate any kind of criminal activities, or even preserve that he does not be worthy of the death penalty. ‘You devoted that act and also you deserve what you obtain. But I do not desire you to be reduced to just that act.’ She leads Wayne to his fatality, but she takes him by the hand, helping him to find to approve the unpreventable.”
It is an unforeseen story of coming together as well as listening to each other in an age of polarization.
Olga differs with that analysis. She assumes it’s a better time than in the 1980s or 1990s, due to the fact that modern technology lets us inform this tale to ensure that it stays intimate yet is accessible to more individuals.
And besides, Olga states, the styles of grace and mercy are eternal.
