One-person show mentioning Putin and Medvedev cancelled in Rostov-on-Don

A scandal has burst out on the eve of the regional festival of young playwrights "Rostov Readings", scheduled for May 25, related to the play of the young Rostov playwright Vladimir Golyshev named "Prebiotics". Along with other Russian politicians, the play mentions Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.

The play is in the satirical genre, and looks like a one-actor performance. The action develops in contemporary environment, in the days of resignation of Moscow Mayor of Yuri Luzhkov. Apart from Medvedev, Putin and Luzhkov, other persons are presented - Liudmila Putina, Putin's press secretary Dmitry Peskov and deputy head of president's administration, Vladislav Surkov. Names of other well-known federal and other officials are also mentioned.

According to the plot, Mr Putin has a major stake in Luzhkov's dismissal; and he himself organizes it, in order to take himself, if necessary, the post of the Mayor with the ultimate goal to advance to another presidential term.

For several months already, since February, the play is freely available on the Internet. However, the excitement around it has reached its peak now. The organizers of the event had invited the author to read the play from the stage; however, the TYUZ (Young Spectators' Theatre) bosses excluded the "Prebiotics" from the repertoire.

Alexander Bliznyuk, Acting Director of the theatre, told reporters that Golyshev's play does not fit the frames of decency; he read just the beginning and understood that it cannot be presented to the mass audience of the festival.

According to the author of the play, he "was not eager to take part in the festival of young playwrights." "I was invited to participate, and I agreed. But long before the festival, a journalist of one popular edition called Putin's press secretary Peskov, who said, in particular: 'The author hasn't contacted us; but now we'll find out what sort of play he is preparing.' After that, apparently, the theatre found it better to get rid of the scandalous play," Vladimir Golyshev told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent.

The author has noted that he was even happy with what happened, since because of the ban, the play was read by thousands of people, dozens of editions got interested in it; and Golyshev's blog now has much more readers than before.

Mr Golyshev hopes that now his resonant play will be appreciated by plenty of readers in Russia and beyond. "Dozens of plays have been written about Putin, including abroad; there are frankly mocking ones. Use of a politician's or anyone's 'image' require no permission. Only photos and videos cannot be used without the hero's consent," said the author.

The Rostov theatre has confirmed that in recent days they receive plenty of phone calls with questions about the reason for exclusion of the "Prebiotics" from the repertoire of the festival. They, however, deny that this was done for reasons of censorship, and explain the decision by the low artistic level of the work.

The festival organizers, who use the theatre only as the venue for the event, were forced to accept the ban of theatre bosses on staging the play, in order not to jeopardize the whole event. As reported by Olga Kalashnikova, one of the organizers, she saw nothing wrong with the "Prebiotics" and explained the reaction of theatre bosses by the fear of prosecution for the use of names of major politicians of the country in the play. According to her story, when she read the "Prebiotics", "she laughed several times."

In the opinion of critics, the play is written in a very salty style.

So far, neither Putin himself nor his administration has made any comments.