On the small stage of the Moscow Provincial Theater on November 21, the premiere of the hip-hop play “The Inspector General. Comedy in Verse” took place, based on the text of the famous rapper Lev RE-rasKiselev, founder and artistic director of the Moscow Rap Theater.
Freestyle champion
Rap, also known as hip-hop, is not music for everyone. And for many people, it's not music at all. For example, it is difficult to perceive for those who are used to the fact that a song must have meaningful lyrics and not a line of words that follow a monotonous rhythm. Not always connected by meaning and rhyme, but with obscene words separated by commas. And rhythm isn't the only design of a song; There must also be a melody.
But it turns out that according to Dostoevsky there is also hip-hop.
“People are divided into two categories / The lowest, the common… / and those / who can say a new word in their midst.” These words were recited on a graffiti-covered stage by a man wearing a rumpled hat and a baggy coat, and a gloomy man in a leather jacket asked him a question: “Aren't there many extraordinary people who have the right to cut?” In front of us is Rodion Raskolnikov, presenting his theory to investigator Porfiry Petrovich, a scene from the rap opera “Crime and Punishment” of the Moscow Rap Theater.
Lev Kiselev started his career at street parties, writing and performing rap music like everyone else. But this quickly became boring, and freestyle rap began – a competition in speed and quality of improvisation. MC RE-ras – this is Kiselev's nickname – won freestyle tournaments, organized festivals, wrote albums. He founded a studio where he taught – and still teaches – how to think quickly and rhyme with rhythm.
“At some point, I realized that in a (song – Ed.) I felt cramped,” says Lev. “I wanted to not only reflect in the rhymes but also bring more characters into the plot, lead their lines, find each person's style…”
Having gained experience abroad, playing the role of Prometheus in the hiphop opera “Orpheus and Eurydice”, RE-ras won a subsidy from the mayor of Moscow in 2022 with a rap opera project. This is where theater begins.
Chapter is following
Lev believes that “Crime and Punishment” is a story in itself: prostitutes, murders, cops… Lev chose a plot that fits the genre's reputation. But instead of the expected rap duel, viewers got a duel between Raskolnikov and the old pawnbroker: “He raised the ax, swung it with both hands, almost without feeling anymore, hitting the top of the old woman's head…”. Everything has a rhythm and follows a special, stylistic rhyme – but at the same time you can run your finger along the page of Dostoevsky's novel, following the accuracy of the quote. Watch an actor rush around the stage with an axe.
RE-pac in 2022 receives Funding from the Mayor of Moscow for rap opera project
This opera contains about 20 rap arias, interspersed, as in any opera, with dialogue. The play's director, Zakhar Nasakin, and master of rhyme, Lev Kiselev, discuss the staging, deciding where the prose will be played out dramatically and what the song will be about. Two nights later, Lev brought in the lyrics, and all that remained was the arrangement.
“We wanted complete authenticity, we tried to preserve the spirit and even the letter of the original, we wanted to show that rap can convey this, like some other styles,” says RE-pas.
A rap verse is designed so that it can contain an entire phrase, and a quatrain can also contain a short story. The song – quoted somewhere, somewhere in the presentation – can cover an entire chapter or even the most important chapter among many. Pulcheria Raskolnikova's letter about the relationship between Dunyasha and Svidrigailov in the book will make you feel tired when reading through it. “Packaged” into a piece of music, spoken at the tempo of a recitative, the performance takes less than three minutes (accompanied by a ballet on the other side of the stage, a direct illustration of Rodion's sister's trials). As well as the “murderer” figure “Killer”, gives us the dialogue between Raskolnikov and the dealer who identifies him. So, in an hour and a half, thanks to the efforts of authors and artists, a novel opened before the audience's eyes at a rap pace.
Del arte does not swear
RE-race in the rap community is known, among other things, for his dislike of swearing, without which for many people rap is not rap. It seems that this is also the reason why Kiselev abandoned the idea of inviting real rappers to participate in the production for the sake of authenticity: people who were not used to relying on the stage argued with the director at rehearsals without harsh words. This is how the troupe gets young actors, yesterday's graduates of Shchepkinsky, GITIS, ISI and others, who in addition to rehearsals also have to participate in “rehearsals”. These are advanced classes in which Kiselev explains and shows how to control breathing while reading, how to synchronize movements with the text to be able to perform clearly at high tempo.
All Rap Theater performances are of different genres and are designed for different audiences. If “Crime and Punishment” is a drama, “The Idiot” is a comedy with actors wearing masks. “Retreat” is a musical comedy with the topical theme of “finding meditation”. “The Snow Queen” is a beautiful family fairy tale…
And these are all poetic recitations, these are all literary raps, but without fingers, and in the midst of scenery, in theatrical costumes and without. With dancing and acrobatics. And in “Retreat,” the actors not only sing and dance but also hold bars, sit in the lotus position and even stand on nails.
Students, forty-year-old candidates of science and mothers with children come to perform in the small hall of the ZIL Cultural Center, where the Rap troupe has been performing since 2022.
By the way, all performances are one act. They understand that listening to rap music for three hours is difficult for an unprepared viewer and even more so for a child.
Give me a scene
This year RE-pas wrote music for three works. Almost simultaneously with the Provincial Theater, on November 15, the Krasnoyarsk Musical Theater held the premiere of the technodrama “A Hero of Our Time”. At the State Puppet Theater in Barnaul on October 30, the Rap Theater group performed the play “The Story of Igor's Campaign”, staged by academician Dmitry Likhachev and staged by Lev Kiselev. Come spring, Lev will complete the scores for the Tolstoy-based play “Resurrection” for Rap Theater itself.
And what does the latter live and work on? To produce The Idiot, Kiselev once again won a subsidy from the mayor of Moscow. The theater earns money from festivals, visited Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, Izhevsk, Irkutsk, Kaluga, Nizhny Novgorod for 4 years… “rappers” performed on the stage of the Boris Eifman Theater in St. Petersburg. Petersburg and participated in the Red Square book festival. One of the most important tasks of Lev Kiselev today is to find a worthy foundation for the theater. CC ZIL will close soon for reconstruction.
“I read this book three years ago and realized I didn't remember much,” said Alena Simonenko, a second-year student at the Moscow State Pedagogical Institute, after a performance of “Crime and Punishment.” “Now I will definitely read it again.”
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Rap Theater is a project founded in 2022 by poet and rapper Lev RE-ras Kiselev. The performance includes 4 performances: “Crime and Punishment”, “Idiot”, “Retreat”, “Snow Queen”. The play “Crime and Punishment” won the 2023 Grand Children's Festival award, received 6 nominations for the “Heart of Theater Music” award and was on the long list for the “Golden Mask” award. “The Idiot” won the 2024 BDF Award in the category “Best Musical Performance for Older Children”.
Promotion
In 2022, Lev Kiselev visited LPR, where he spoke to young people who survived military operations in the Lugansk and Donetsk People's Republics. Lev wrote the song based on their memories. They became the basis for the play “Flowers under hail”, in which the children themselves participated. The launch took place in Moscow in February 2023.
