Oleg Bogayev

{{short description|Russian writer (born 1970)}} {{Infobox writer | embed = | honorific_prefix = | name = Oleg Bogayev | honorific_suffix = | image = Олег Богаев.jpg | image_size = | image_upright = | alt = Oleg Bogayev, seated, smoking a cigarette | caption = | native_name = Олег Богаев | native_name_lang = Russian | pseudonym = | birth_name = | birth_date = 1970 | birth_place = Russia | death_date =  | death_place = | resting_place = | occupation = Playwright | language = Russian | education = | alma_mater = Yekaterinburg State Theatre Institute | period = | genre =  | subject =  | movement = New Drama | notableworks = ''The Russian National Postal Service'' (''Русская народная почта'') | spouse =  | partner =  | children = | relatives = | awards = {{plainlist| * Anti-Booker Prize * Best Play at Russia's Golden Mask Festival }} | signature = | signature_alt = | years_active = | module = | website =  | portaldisp =  }}

'''Oleg Anatolyevich Bogayev''' ({{langx|ru|Оле́г Анато́льевич Бога́ев}}; also transliterated as '''Bogaev''' or '''Bogaiev'''; born 1970)<ref>{{cite web | title=Spectacle 'La poste populaire russe' | work=Art Russe | date=2 December 2004 | url=https://artrusse.com/Spectacle-La-poste-populaire-russe.html?debut_articles=30 | access-date=17 December 2008}}</ref> 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|<nowiki>[Nikolai]</nowiki> Kolyada]]’s playwriting course at the Yekaterinburg State Theatre Institute."<ref name="poetry_of_excess">{{cite journal | last = Freedman | first = John | title = The Poetry of Excess: Nikolai Kolyada in Yekaterinburg | journal = TheatreForum | issue = 30 | pages = 48–57 | date = Winter–Spring 2007 }}</ref> He is now on the faculty at the same school.<ref name="russias_new_drama">{{cite journal | last = Ross | first = Yana | title = Russia's New Drama: From Togliati to Moscow | journal = Theater | volume = 36 | issue = 1 | pages = 36 | publisher = Duke University Press | year = 2006 | doi = 10.1215/01610775-36-1-27 }}</ref> Bogaev is also the editor of the ''Ural'' (''{{langx|ru|Урал}}'') literary magazine, a post he took over from his mentor Nikolai Kolyada in August 2010.<ref> {{Cite web | title = Срочно! Николай Коляда ушел из журнала "Урал". Его тут же вызвали в минкульт, а Гредин встретился с преемником | date = 2010-09-08 | url = https://ura.ru/content/svrd/09-08-2010/news/1052117815.html | access-date = 2010-11-29}} </ref>

==Biography== Oleg Bogayev was born in 1970 in the city of Sverdlovsk (now called Yekaterinburg) 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: "<nowiki>[What]</nowiki> I know is that Russia is just the right place for a playwright - with shattering of fates, conflicts, crumbling of hopes, clashes of ideas - all that I've seen and experienced."<ref name="letter_to_luda">{{Cite web | last = Bogaev | first = Oleg | title = [Untitled letter to Luda Lopatina] | date = December 2008 | url = http://www.tutato.com/production/marias-field | access-date = 2009-01-06}} </ref>

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.<ref name="letter_to_luda"/>

In 1997, Bogayev won the Anti-Booker Prize for ''Русская народная почта'' (''The Russian National Postal Service'') and the award for Best Play at Russia's Golden Mask Festival for that same play.

==Plays== The author of over 30 plays,<ref name="lmda">{{cite web | last=Engelman | first=Liz | title=Artist Exchange in Yekaterinburg |website=Literary Managers and Dramaturgs of the Americas | publisher=Literary Managers & Dramaturgs of the Americas | date=15 December 2005 | url=http://www.lmda.org/blog/_archives/2005/12/15/1451010.html | access-date=16 December 2008 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061001203105/http://www.lmda.org/blog/_archives/2005/12/15/1451010.html | archive-date=1 October 2006 | url-status=dead }}</ref> he is best known for his play ''Русская народная почта'' (''Russkaya Narodnaya Pochta'', variously translated as ''The Russian National Postal Service'', ''The Russian People's Post'', etc.), for which he has won the 1997 Anti-Booker Prize for a stage play<ref name="moscow_times_new_productions">{{cite news | last = Freedman | first = John | title = New Productions Failed to Break New Ground | work = Moscow Times | date = 23 July 1998 | number = 1501 }}</ref> and the award for Best Play at Russia's Golden Mask Festival.<ref name="nyt_freedman">{{cite news | last = Freedman | first = John | title = At a Russian Festival, the Discussion's the Thing | work = New York Times | pages = 38 | date = 30 April 2000 | url = https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9501EEDA1330F933A05757C0A9669C8B63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all | access-date = 16 December 2008}}</ref> 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.<ref name="ginkas_works_magic">{{cite news | last = Freedman | first = John | title = Ginkas Works Magic on Tabakov | work = Moscow Times | date = 6 November 1998 }}</ref> 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 (living, dead, and fictional) 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.<ref name="ginkas_works_magic"/><ref name="guardian_lenin_meets_queen">{{cite news | last = Billington | first = Michael | title = Lenin meets the Queen at the Old Red Lion: Russian National Mail: Old Red Lion | work = The Guardian | pages = 14 | date = 29 August 2005}}</ref><ref name="independent">{{cite news | last = Jones | first = Alice | title = Russian National Mail, Old Red Lion, London | work = The Independent | pages = 43 | date = 5 September 2005 | url = https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/theatre-dance/reviews/russian-national-mail-old-red-lion-london--none-onestar-twostar-threestar-fourstar-fivestar-505618.html | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20090131220853/http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/theatre-dance/reviews/russian-national-mail-old-red-lion-london--none-onestar-twostar-threestar-fourstar-fivestar-505618.html | url-status = dead | archive-date = January 31, 2009 | access-date = 16 December 2008}}</ref>

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'' (''Марьино поле'') received its United States premiere<ref name="chicago_reader_mf"/> 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.<ref name="tuta">{{cite web | title=Bogaev: Maria's Field | publisher=TUTA Theatre| location=Chicago | url=http://www.tutato.com/tuta.php?action=mf | access-date=16 December 2008}} {{Dead link|date=October 2010|bot=H3llBot}}</ref> 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."<ref name="letter_to_luda"/> 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.<ref name="chicago_reader_mf">{{cite news | last = Williams | first = Albert | title = Maria's Field | work = Chicago Reader | url = http://events.chicagoreader.com/events/Event?oid=933143 | access-date = 27 January 2009}}</ref>

===Notable Productions of ''The Russian National Postal Service''===

{| class="wikitable" style="text-align:center" |+Notable Productions of ''The Russian National Postal Service'' |- ! Date !! Theatre !! Director !! Language (Translator) !! Title as Produced !! Note |- | June 1997 || Lyubimovka Festival of Young Playwrights, Moscow || unknown || Russian (not in translation) || ''Русская народная почта'' (''The Russian National Postal Service'') || staged reading |- | Fall 1998 || Tabakov Theater, Moscow || Kama Ginkas || Russian (not in translation) || ''Komnata Smekha'' (''Room of Laughter'')<ref name="ginkas_works_magic"/> || World Premiere |- | May 2001 || International Playwrights Festival, Royal Court Theatre, London || unknown || English (Tom Birchenough) || ''Russian National Post''<ref>{{cite web | title=International Playwrights 2001 | url=http://www.royalcourttheatre.com/internationalfestivalsdetail.asp?FestID=29 |website=Royal Court Theatre | location=London | access-date=16 December 2008}}</ref> || Rehearsed reading |- | Fall 2001 || Théâtre Espace Go, Montreal || Luce Pelletier || French (Fabrice Gex) || ''La Poste Populaire Russe'' (''The Russian People's Post'') <ref name="theatre_opsis">{{cite web | title=Archives: Cycle Tchékhov | work= Théatre de l'Opsis |url=http://www.theatreopsis.org/cycle_tchekhov.html}}</ref>|| |- | Fall 2004 || Studio Theatre, Washington DC || Paul Mullins || English (John Freedman) || ''The Russian National Postal Service'' <ref name="bogaevs_voice_fresh">{{cite news | last = Blanchard | first = Jayne | title = Bogaev's voice fresh at Studio | work = Washington Times | pages = D08 | date = 17 September 2004 | url = http://washingtontimes.com/news/2004/sep/16/20040916-093855-5100r/ | access-date = 16 December 2008}}</ref>|| United States Premiere |- | Summer 2005 || Sputnik Theatre Company, London || Noah Birksted-Breen || English (Noah Birksted-Breen) || ''The Russian National Mail''<ref>{{Cite web |title=Sputnik Theatre Company website |url=https://sputniktheatre.co.uk/productions/russian-national-mail/ }}</ref><ref name="guardian_lenin_meets_queen"/><ref name="independent"/> || British premiere |}

==List of Selected Plays== * ''The Russian National Postal Service'' (aka ''Room of Laughter'', ''The Russian People's Post''), 1997 * ''Phallus Imitator'' (aka ''Falloimitator'', ''Phallic Imitator'')<ref name="blasted_theory">{{cite news | last = O'Mahony | first = John | title = Blasted Theory | work = The Guardian | date = 25 October 2003 | url = https://www.theguardian.com/books/2003/oct/25/theatre | access-date = 15 December 2008 }}</ref>

** ''The Rubber Prince'' is a musical based on ''Phallus Imitator'', 2003<ref>{{cite news | title=Theater | work=Moscow Times |date=31 October 2003 | url=http://context.themoscowtimes.com/plain/31102003/theater.html | access-date=16 December 2008}}</ref> * ''Maria's Field'' <ref name="tuta" /> * ''Thirty-three Fortunes'' <ref name="lending_ear">{{cite web | last=Freedman | first=John | title=Lending an Ear to Russian Tradition| pages=18–19 | publisher=Plays International | url=http://johnfreedman.webs.com/documents/Bogaev.pdf | date=August–September 2006 | access-date=22 January 2016}}</ref> * ''Dead Ears, or A History of Toilette Paper'' <ref name="russias_new_drama"/><ref name="yana_ross_synopsis">{{cite web|last=Ross |first=Yana |title=Synopses of New Russian Drama |page=4 |publisher=Literary Managers & Dramaturgs of America |url=http://www.lmda.org/_attachments/1308025/Synopses%20of%20New%20Russian%20Drama.doc |date=18 October 2005 |format=Microsoft Word |access-date=1 October 2006 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061001214441/http://www.lmda.org/_attachments/1308025/Synopses%20of%20New%20Russian%20Drama.doc |archive-date=October 1, 2006 }}</ref> (the title has also been translated as ''Deaf Souls'' <ref name="lending_ear" />) * ''The Great Wall of China'' <ref name="freedman_index_by_writer">{{cite web | last=Freedman | first=John | title=Index of Russian Plays by Plays and by Author | publisher=Literary Managers & Dramaturgs of America | url=http://www.lmda.org/_attachments/1430799/Index%20by%20Writer.doc | format=Microsoft Word | access-date=16 December 2008 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061001214345/http://www.lmda.org/_attachments/1430799/Index%20by%20Writer.doc | archive-date=1 October 2006 | url-status=dead }}</ref>

==External links== * [https://web.archive.org/web/20061001214501/http://www.lmda.org/_attachments/1282081/The%20Russian%20National%20Postal%20Service,%20by%20Oleg%20Bogaev.DOC Script for ''The Russian National Postal Service: A Room of Laughter for a Lonely Pensioner''] By Oleg Bogaev, Translated by John Freedman, as first produced in this translation at the Studio Theatre in Washington, D.C., Sept.-Oct. 2004 (Microsoft Word format)

==References== {{reflist}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bogayev, Oleg}} Category:1970 births Category:Living people Category:Russian dramatists and playwrights Category:Russian male dramatists and playwrights Category:Writers from Yekaterinburg