Newly elected President of Ukraine Vasily Petrovych Goloborodko arrives at the Mezhyhirya estate to be briefed on his inauguration ceremony. A rapidly talking aide walks him through the gilded entrance hall and up the grand staircase to the balcony overlooking the lake where crowds will assemble to cheer him.
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Volodymyr Zelensky as the president plays the scene with an understated comic charm, by turns perplexed and incredulous at what he is encountering. The Mezhyhirya estate, now designated as a museum displaying the decadent luxury of a corrupt regime, was the residence of Viktor Yanukovych, who was ousted from the presidency following the Maidan Revolution of 2014.
Its use as a setting in season one of the 2015 Ukrainian comedy series Servant of the People accentuates the theme of regime change that ultimately made the transition from fiction to reality with the actual inauguration of Zelensky as president in May 2019. In the dramatisation, Vasily Petrovych receives some advice from the spirit of President Lincoln and decides to rearrange the event on his own terms.
A former maths teacher, he relocates the inauguration speech to the small reception hall of the House of Teachers, where his students are among the audience. Ignoring the warning of an adviser that ad-libbing leads to Bushisms like "they misunderestimate me", he decides to go off script, though this does not leave him entirely unrehearsed.
Flashbacks show his high school class quizzing him about what he will say and insisting he do a dry run, with their prompting. Remembering the session, he faces his audience and promises only "To act in a way that doesn't evoke shame when looking into children's eyes".
The "real" President Zelensky said rather more at his inauguration, beginning with the statement that "each of us is president". It was a fine speech, urging unity and for a nation of 65 million people cheated for generations into a state of oppression by tyrants across the borders and parasites within. He ended by saying that his career so far had been dedicated to making people laugh; now his goal was to build a nation where Ukrainians would not have to cry any more.
Darker circumstances than he then envisaged have made that task impossible in recent weeks, but since the Russian invasion began on February 24, this most unlikely of statesmen has barely put a foot wrong. Commentators are only starting to grapple with the question of how, in the six weeks since the start of the Russian invasion, he has established such a level of political authority on the international stage.
Evidently, the relationship between dramatisation and reality in The Servant of the People (now the title of his political party) is something more than a weird postmodern irony. But does it constitute effective preparation for someone who unpredictably becomes Head of State in a country notorious for corruption, with a broken economy and dangerous neighbours? This, in fact, is the over-riding theme of the television series.
Across two seasons and the start of a third (curtailed by Zelensky's election), the 50 episodes model a range of scenarios exploring almost every possible eventuality the president may encounter. To begin with there are endless ranks of over-paid government personnel, with their lurks and perks. Then the wheeling and dealing and plotting and scheming of parliamentary business, which is insignificant against the determinations of a handful of oligarchs who control everything from behind the scenes.
In season two the hypotheticals become more sinister and sometimes more surreal. Holoborodko's dreams - and nightmares - of what could happen are interwoven with scenes of what occurs in waking life. Ukraine is caught up in a global loans crisis. Parliament refuses to pass anti-corruption laws. He introduces a visa-free regime (a long-cherished plan), then dreams the entire citizenry have left the country.
This latter fantasy has particular poignancy now, as nearly 4 million refugees have fled from the invading forces. Whatever happens in this churning cauldron of events, there is little that Zelensky has not imagined and acted out.
As for the skills required of a head of state in a crisis, we may be at a time in history when we need to think differently about what "performance" in leadership means. We've seen actors in prominent political roles before, but performance in the dramatic sense is about so much more than presentation. Good actors don't just imitate reality, they embody it, channelling human reactions and determinations with an accuracy born of meticulous observation.
Where crude performers in politics think it's all about marketing and persuasion, actors with advanced skills are never simply manipulative. As Zelensky insisted in a recent interview, one of the ground rules is "don't try to make people believe".
Addressing the Australian parliament last week, seated at the bare table in his bunker, he was austere, plain-spoken and self-possessed. He rarely smiles in these crucial video appearances. A true performer knows that charm does not blend well with concentration, and concentration is what he needs as he sets out the requirements for his country's survival.
It remains important, though, that his domestic audience also know him as an entertainer. The starkest imaginable contrast to Putin, he is someone capable of changing the mood and the register when circumstances allow. Putin's rigidity is that of a man who has always taken himself so seriously that he has become a walking absurdity. Yet the circumstances of the world outside are apparently never serious to him.
Zelensky brings the humorist's capacity to turn a situation inside out and upside down, blow it out of all proportion in order to test its possibilities and so, perhaps, discover some tactics that no one might have thought of in conventional planning.
No amount of ingenuity will relieve his country of the ordeal to which it is being subjected, but if, as he exhorts, the people remain united in their determination to seize control of their own future, they have a leader who will also incite them to dance, to play, and to laugh again.
- The Servant of the People will be available from April 7 through SBS on Demand