[1] Первый вариант пьесы был опубликован в 1964 году под названием «Ярмарка». После Вампилов неоднократно вносил изменения, и окончательно пьеса «Прощание в июне» была опубликована в 1966.

Sarah Chatta

Genadii Gushin’s A Farewell in June 

For the first time in more than forty years, Alexander Vampilov’s A Farewell in June is playing at the Okhlopkov Theater, directed by Genadii Gushin Stepanovich. The play is set in a city like Irkutsk, in the springtime during the 1960s. The scenes occur in outdoor settings with flowering trees, in a garden where the main character Kolesov grows alpine grass, hoping that it will one day become a meadow. The play begins with a group of college students taking the stage, strumming their guitars to the song ‘Spring’—the time is coming when people lose their heads, and that time is called spring!» During the course of the performance, this bright and cheery setting often stands at odds with the darker meanings that the play evokes, as the young characters are faced with the harsh realities of their world. The springtime setting reflects the appearance of youth, a beautiful veneer to mask the turmoil involved in the process of growing up. The main character of the play is Kolesov, a precocious and mischievous student of geology in his final year of university. After the university proctor threatens to expel Kolesov, they make a deal: Kolesov will stop seeing Tanya, (the proctor’s daughter), and the proctor will allow Kolesov to graduate.

When I had the opportunity to sit down with A Farewell in June’s director, Genadii Gushin, we discussed the primary conflicts in the story, and how his staging of A Farwell in June can be compared to Vampilov’s play.

Gushin first saw A Farewell in June when it was running in Irkutsk’s Okhlopkov Theater in the 1970s.

«That performance», said Gushin, «made a very strong impression on me. I felt joy, an anticipation of goodness to come. When you see such a play you understand that surely everything will be okay. That play gave me hope».

And so, as a first-year at the Irkutsk Theater Academy Gushin became obsessed with A Farewell in June. In fact, there are seven known versions of the play, Gushin’s performance employs material from all of these texts.^[1] Particularly important to Gushin’s A Farewell in June was Vampilov’s earliest version of the play, The Fair.

«The meaning of The Fair is that people sell themselves just as they sell their possessions; in that play Kolesov ‘sells’ his diploma. When Vampilov wrote The Fair the country was under very rigid censorship, and to allow a play a theme such as a diploma which is for sale could not be in our Soviet society; to present such a trade was impossible. For that reason, Vampilov was recommended to change the name of his play to A Farewell in June».

In many productions of Vampilov’s A Farewell in June, the relationship between Kolesov and Tanya is primary. Gushin calls the play «a legal comedy about the relationship between Kolesov and Tanya», because what makes their romance compelling, is that their love is constantly given value in relation to Kolesov’s diploma. And thus, the world of A Farewell in June is a world in which everything is for sale, as long as people are not morally opposed. The character who introduces this theme in Gushin’s play is Zolotyev.

«The name Zoletyev» explained Gushin, «comes from two words in Russian: gold and evil.^[2] Though doesn’t Zoletyev seem like such a pleasant fellow? He should present the position that everything can be bought and everything can be sold» Gushin continues, «There is one great moment at the end when Kolesov says, ‘I can’t take this money because I want them to put me in jail.’ That is, there is a moment of atonement for his own sinfulness. This is an important theme, prison as atonement. That is, I won’t take this money; I should atone because I am conscious of my sins. And then Zolotyev says, [to Kolesov], ‘You aren’t in prison because I paid for your freedom.’ Zolotyev offers to write Kolesov into his will, to will him his house, his money. And Kolesov doesn’t know whether or not to accept, because the stakes are high.»

Kolesov’s diploma, later a graduate course, money, his future security—these are the stakes that Kolesov balances against his affection for Tanya, a girl whom he hasn’t known or loved for very long. Kolesov must reconcile his ideals and his morality with the reality before him.

«Like Dostoyevsky used to say» says Gushin, «on earth there is a constant battle happening between good an evil, and the field of battle is the hearts of men.»

And what makes a person pure?—asks one of the characters in Gushin’s play—A pure person is a person to whom little money is given. It can be that you give so much, that a person cannot refuse.

At the end of Gushin’s play, Kolesov’s internal battle materializes on stage: Kolesov takes center stage, and to one side of him stands Repnikov with Kolesov’s diploma, and on the other side stands Zoletyev with a briefcase of money. And far, far downstage appears Tanya, «Who comes to Kolesov like an angel» says Gushin. At the bus stop during Gushin’s finale, «when Kolesov is sitting there desolately, [Tanya] comes to him like an angel, and they repeat again what is your name, that is, they repeat the text which was spoken in the beginning, let’s begin again, live through it».

After seeing the play, I had an altogether different reaction to Gushin’s Tanya. At the end of Gushin’s play Kolesov and Tanya reacquaint themselves and sit together on a bench at the bus stop smiling, and the curtains close. I felt that Gushin’s finale closed Vampilov’s open-ended conclusion; in reacquainting herself with Kolesov, it seemed to me that Tanya had again forgiven him. In Vampilov’s final version of A Farewell in June, the play concludes with Kolesov and Tanya meeting again at the bus stop. In cyclical relation to the beginning of the play, Kolesov invites Tanya to a wedding. She declines as she had in scene one, and when the curtains close the characters remain three steps apart.

However, Gushin considered his ending in the style of Vampilov’s, both cyclical and open-ended. Responding to my reaction, Gushin says that, «In general in Vampilov’s plays the girls are young. They are sent like angels at the moments when the hero is broken. Well, there is Valentina in Last Summer in Chilumsk [an exception]. Simple girls, they seem like it yes? But just at the moments when something is not at all good with the hero, when his soul is scattered, when he is drifting in his life, when has committed terrible acts in anger, the girl appears. And [the hero] will be able to understand something, or not. Or he tries to increase his suffering. In this case, in our performance, Kolesov at first refused Tanya. But the Lord does not refuse his children. And Kolesov makes another attempt, but already he is making the attempt from lived experience. Already there is a betrayal of something. And then, [at the end Tanya and Kolesov] remain on the bench we raised; they have weighed themselves on the wicked earth. That is love, that is my hope of what should be».

 Tanya’s character is wronged most often, and yet she forgives most freely, in the hope, perhaps, that her forgiveness will give her greater ultimate happiness. But how does this moralistic principle play out over a slightly longer period of time? Does her patience for forgiveness wane?

What is most attractive about Vampilov’s A Farwell in June, its youth, its sincerity and naivety, is arguably what is most problematic about the play. A Farewell in June is set in the springtime, a time of hope and expectation, and in Gushin’s own words, the springtime reflects the process of growing up. In the material world of Vampilov’s A Farewell in June, Kolesov destroys his diploma, which he paid for by rejecting Tanya. This material sacrifice is a symbol that proves to the audience that Kolesov has not been corrupted. But in Gushin’s play Kolesov retains his diploma, and therefore, he makes no material sacrifice to be with Tanya. Is it possible then, that in the final scene Kolesov’s morality remains in question, or stated in another way, can Tanya trust him? Should she forgive him? Gushin’s A Farewell in June^[3] forces viewers to consider if there are circumstances in which the ability to forgive forfeits its value.