Negative Theatre is sick. She has
an intensive sleeping problem, obsessive-compulsive disorder and a constant
depression that she can never overcome.
Compassion! Is it a news in the
newspaper that we read while having a delicious breakfast, sipping our coffee
in our peaceful houses?
Negative theatre approach is first
of all an attack to images of exploitation that are rooted in our mind.
However, Negative Theatre attacks them poorly and desperately; and hence
Negative Theatre humiliates and excludes the feeling of compassion.
Popular culture and mass media
that are nourished by the capital and its “kindness” have imprisoned our
actions by turning our actions into resources in the service of capital. So
that these images sets human actions up just like a clock!
This system which we don't have to
experience, but is presented as if there is no alternative to it, has put us in
cells. And our world is surrounded by freedom-lovers and audiences who chew
freedom-gum, but do not move a muscle for anything.
As Pophrishchin says “people are
under the misapprehension that the human brain is situated in the head: No...
it is carried by the wind from the Caspian Sea.” It is really the wind that
carries our brains; our brains... that go wherever the winds take them.
By writing this story Gogol
forever cursed those who are not excluded nor isolated from society. No one has
heard Gogol's voice as haven't they listened Pophrishchin. And they loughed at
both Gogol and Pophrishchin by helping them to be isolated and alienated from
society.
Pophrishchin has never been to
mental hospital nor has he been insane. He was rather childish. Mental hospital
is nothing more than the cells which have imprisoned the brains of those who
continue to think that they are sane.
Pophrishchin is closer to a child
than a madman. He plays games like a child in every place he has been to; it is
probably because he couldn't get rid of his childish spirit, or because he is
obsessed with his memories of childhood. He demonstrates us what a useless
thing to be an adult and how adulthood has gone into bankruptcy.
