A CLOUD IN TROUSERS
performed by Samantha Bloom
Accompanied by Alfia Nakipbekova – cellist
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“I shall rise, like a goblet of wine
At a festive board, a skull brimful of verse’
Mayakovsky – A Cloud in Trousers
A jilted lover awaits the arrival of his beloved, rehearsing the confrontation he wishes to have, preparing the words he wishes to express his inmost self. This man with a record of past loves, cloyed by streetwalkers and squalor reaches for an elusive future in the heart of love’s content. Despite setbacks and frustrations, he senses that perhaps the motions of the soul can lead to reconciliation.
This mesmeric piece fuses music and poetry, exploring and playing on the pains of a broken heart with dark resonance and surreal humour. How is that this early 20th Century Russian poet can speak to directly to our confused souls in the early 21st?
This futurist revolutionary left us a legacy of exquisite poetry that splits earth and beauty in equal measure in this autobiographical tale of a man’s heart broken.
“Lily – love me. Comrades – do not think me weak-spirited. Seriously – there was nothing else I could do. Greetings” Mayakovsky – final lines of his suicide note 1930.
The relevance of Mayakovsky’s influence cannot be limited to Soviet poetry. While for years he was considered the Soviet poet par excellence, he also changed the perceptions of poetry in wider 20th century culture. His political activism as a propagandistic agitator was rarely understood and often looked upon unfavourably by contemporaries, even close friends like Boris Pasternak. Near the end of the l920s, Mayakovsky became increasingly disillusioned with the course the Soviet Union was taking under Joseph Stalin: his satirical plays The Bedbug (l929) and The Bathhouse (1930) which deal with the Soviet philistinism and bureaucracy, illustrate this development.
Mayakovsky was interred at the Moscow Nivodevichy Cemetery.
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Editor’s Notes
- A Cloud in Trousers was adapted for the stage by Samantha Bloom and Anna Ostergren. Written in 1915, it was Mayakovsky’s first major poem of appreciable length and it depicted the heated subjects of love, religion, revolution and art written from the vantage point of a spurned lover. The language of the work was the language of the streets and Mayakovsky went to considerable length of debunk idealistic and romanticised notions of poetry and poets.
- SAMANTHA BLOOM, born in Canterbury and educated at Kent College, trained at Guildhall School of Music and Drama. Her credits include Pride and Prejudice (Joe Wright), Rabbit Fever (Ian Drury), Cashback (Sean Ellis), Love and other Disasters (Alek Keshishian) and most recently in a film with Joan Collins directed by Ivan Massow. She also works with the English Chamber Orchestra as an Animateur and Director for their outreach programme Close Encounters. She performed A Cloud in Trousers at the Edinburgh Fringe as well as in theatres in London.
ALFIA NAKIPBEKOVA was born in Central Kazakhstan and studied at the
Moscow Conservatoire with Mstislav Rostropovich. She was awarded the "Special Prize
For Outstanding Mastery of the Cello" at the Casals Competition in Budapest and soon
after moved to London where she studied with Jacqueline du Pre. Here in the UK she
soon established herself as a soloist, chamber musician (with The Bekova Trio) and
recording artist (Chandos and WCM). Alfia is also prominent on the contemporary
music/improvisation/experimental theatre scene, as well performing extensively with her
ensemble Cellorhythmics.
"She was wonderful, delivering one of the most beautiful, poignant performances of
Elgar's concerto that I have ever witnessed in concert...Her technique seems flawless,
with the easy, natural legato which so often appears to be an inherent characteristic of
the best cellists from the former Soviet Union."
Margarida Mota-Bull SEEN AND HEARD INTERNATIONAL Music International's
Worldwide Concert and Opera Reviews, Elgar Cello Concerto performance at the
Cadogan Hall,London, with The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, December 07
- ANNA OSTERGREN (original Director) trained on LAMDA’s Directing course. Recent directing credits include: Birthright (King’s Head Theatre), Merchants (Theatre 503), Feuline Else (The Macowan Theatre). Recent assistant theatre and opera credits include: The Magic Flute (Opera North), La cage aux folles (The Chocolate Factory), Sante (Almeida opera), Who Killed Mister Drum (Riverside Studios), Tom’s Midnight Garden (The Unicorn Theatre), Worlds End (West End. She is currently assisting at the Globe Theatre.
- ALAN COX, Director, directed the surprise hit of the 2004 Edinburgh Festival “Dirty Fan Male” (Best Concept, Guardian pick of the Fringe). His work in London include Flanders Mare, (Sound Theatre), The Riot Act (the Gate) and A & R (Theatre 503 as well as a lingerie floor show featuring 17 strippers at the Millennium Hotel. He also works as an actor and will be playing the role of David Frost in the US National tour of Frost/Nixon.
VLADIMIR MAYAKOVSKY, Georgian poet, born July 19 1893, Bagdadi, Georgia, Russian Empire. In l930, his birthplace of Bagdadi in Georgia was renamed Mayakovsky in his honour. He took part in socialist demonstrations from an early age. He has been described as the most influential futurist in Lithuania. He died on April 14th, 1930 in Moscow, Russia, USSR. Repeatedly jailed for subversive activity, he began writing poetry during solitary confinement in l909. On his release he became the spokesman for Futurism in Russia, and his poetry became conspicuously self assertive and defiant. He was the leading poet of the Russian Revolution of l917 and the early Soviet period. In Summer of l915 Mayakovsky fell in love with a married woman, Lilya Brik. Unfortunately for Mayakovsky, she was the wife of his publisher, Osip Brik. The love affair, as well as his impressions of War and Revolution strongly influenced his work of these years.
