Oleg Bogayev
Oleg Anatolyevich Bogayev, born 1970, is a Russian playwright based in Yekaterinburg. He has been described by Moscow Times theatre critic John Freedman as "one of the first and best-known students to graduate from Nikolay Kolyada|
Biography
Oleg Bogayev was born in 1970 in the city of Sverdlovsk in Russia. He writes of growing up as the Cold War gave way to the emergence of Perestroika, a "change from the decay of the empire to the birth of a new society." He cites the social turmoil of recent decades as useful for artistic product: "Bogayev became interested in writing as a teenager, spurred by what he describes as "two tragedies": first love and the death of his father. He began writing poems and short stories. He worked in theatre as a set and lighting designer; he became interested in writing plays after being exposed to the work of Harold Pinter.
In 1997, Bogayev won the Anti-Booker Prize for Русская народная почта and the award for Best Play at Russia's Golden Mask Festival for that same play.
Plays
The author of over 30 plays, he is best known for his play Русская народная почта, for which he has won the 1997 Anti-Booker Prize for a stage play and the award for Best Play at Russia's Golden Mask Festival. The play first came to public attention at a dramatic reading during the 1997 Lyubimovka Festival of Young Playwrights; it was later produced in a revised form as Room of Laughter, directed by Kama Ginkas and starring Oleg Tabakov in 1998. It has subsequently been performed translated into English and French and has been produced in London, Montreal, and Washington, D.C. as well as around the Slavic world.The Russian National Postal Service follows impoverished Russian pensioner Ivan Zhukov on his descent into madness. He engages in fanciful correspondence, writing letters to important world figures and then writes replies to himself on their behalf. Prominent among his imagined correspondents are Elizabeth II and Soviet Russia's Vladimir Lenin, as well as cosmonauts, Russian officials, and Robinson Crusoe. The play has often been compared to the works of Nikolai Gogol for its absurdism and treatment of alienation.
Few of Bogayev's works other than The Russian National Postal Service have been produced in the English-speaking world. His play Maria's Field received its United States premiere in 2009 by the TUTA Theatre of Chicago. The play explores the fate of three 100-year-old women on a journey through a Russian forest, encountering figures from their own past and from 20th century Russian history. Bogaev relates that the story was inspired by his grandmother, Anafisa, and others like her whose husbands were declared "missing" during war and who still hoped for their return. He writes "The fate of men was easier than the fate of women. It is harder to wait than to die." Despite the tragic theme of the play, it is leavened by a "whimsical and wistful" tone and a "comical cow" accompanying the women on their journey.
Notable Productions of ''The Russian National Postal Service''
| Date | Theatre | Director | Language | Title as Produced | Note |
| June 1997 | Lyubimovka Festival of Young Playwrights, Moscow | unknown | Russian | Русская народная почта | staged reading |
| Fall 1998 | , Moscow | Kama Ginkas | Russian | Komnata Smekha | World Premiere |
| May 2001 | International Playwrights Festival, , London | unknown | English | Russian National Post | Rehearsed reading |
| Fall 2001 | Théâtre Espace Go, Montreal | Luce Pelletier | French | La Poste Populaire Russe | |
| Fall 2004 | Studio Theatre, Washington DC | Paul Mullins | English | The Russian National Postal Service | United States Premiere |
| Summer 2005 | , London | Noah Birksted-Breen | English | The Russian National Mail | British premiere |
List of Selected Plays
- The Russian National Postal Service, 1997
- Phallus Imitator
- * The Rubber Prince is a musical based on Phallus Imitator, 2003
- Maria's Field
- Thirty-three Fortunes
- Dead Ears, or A History of Toilette Paper
- The Great Wall of China