Love and avalanche: the most interesting theater premieres of January
In Moscow's theaters in January, they wondered about the magical future of the Strugatsky brothers, sympathized with the former working man of the NEP times who longs for the "elegant", and escaped the avalanche caused by early labor. Loud premieres of the month were evaluated by critic Vlad Vasyukhin specially for Izvestia.
"Snail on the slope"
MTYUZ
In Moscow, whatever the premiere, then "the most anticipated". But in the case of the new work of the chief director of the MTYuz Petr Shereshevsky, the advertising message does not seem to be an exaggeration. Theatergoers were really counting the days until the premiere of this production based on a fantastic story by the Strugatsky brothers, which before had been embodied on the theatrical stage only once, and even then in the provinces. And having learned that the play has two equal casts, other spectators watched the four-hour spectacle once again. The popular director did not deceive overheated expectations, but he did not justify them one hundred percent.
Shereshevsky himself wrote the dramatization and, considering that many viewers have not read Strugatsky, he dealt with the large and complex text quite tactfully: he cut away what he considered superfluous, putting together a through story (and still not fully understandable). The playwright added three characters - the brothers-writers themselves (Anton Korshunov and Sergei Volkov), composing their "Snail" in the mid-1960s in a shabby Soviet art house in Gagra, and the local cleaning lady (Marina Zubanova) poking her nose into everything.
Thus, the play mixes three places of action (the house of creativity, some magical future called "The Forest", and the absurd bureaucratic existence of the Forest Department) and several characters. The main ones are the philologist Peretz (Dmitry Agafonov), who wants to get into the Forest, and the microbiologist Candide (Ilya Sozykin), who wants to leave the Forest, where he found himself as a result of a helicopter crash.
Together with artist Anvar Gumarov, the director has figured out how to embody this surreal world with rather simple and highly impressive techniques. It is worth noting the filigree acting and dedication of the acting ensemble. It turned out to be bizarre, inventive, effective, in some places ironic, though you leave the hall with a puzzlement: what was it all about and who was the target audience of the performance!
"Happiness!"
Mossovet Theater
Director and choreographer Alla Sigalova presented a large-scale and extraordinary spectacle: folk opera "Klop" by composer Vladimir Dashkevich and poet Yuli Kim, composed in 1980 based on the first part of Vladimir Mayakovsky's satirical play (1928). The premiere was loud in every sense: the composer combined different genres - from march and foxtrot to ditty, and the live orchestra and sound engineer did not spare the audience's ears.
The action takes the audience to the era of the NEP. The main character - former worker and party member Ivan Prisypkin (Mikhail Troynik) reaches for the "elegant life", changing not only his appearance and surname (he is now Pierre Skripkin), but also his fiancée - worker Zoya Berezkina (Daria Balabanova) for manicurist Elzevira Renaissance (Glafira Lebedeva). We can talk a lot about the relevance of the classics, but is it clear to today's viewers: why, in order for Madame Renaissance (Lilia Volkova) not to be stripped of her patent for a hairdresser's shop, she must have a union member in the person of Prisypkin on her staff?
"Shastya!" - quite a brave experiment for the drama theater, and it must be admitted that if with dancing Mossovetovtsy still cope, then with the musical component of the matter is worse, but all put out, sparing no effort.
"Avalanche"
Shalom" theater
Written in 2001, the play "Avalanche" by Tuncer Djudjenoglu, who is called the Turkish Chekhov, makes us remember another, older and famous story, where the characters also had to make a difficult moral choice - "The Visit of the Old Lady" by Swiss Friedrich Dürrenmatt. But if the traitor Alfred Ill from "A Visit..." deserved punishment, then for the pregnant heroine of "Avalanche" no guilt was not listed, she simply went into labor early. It would seem - so what? But the moans of a woman in labor and the cry of a baby, it turns out, can at this time cause a snow avalanche, which is fraught with death for the entire mountain village. And the kin are obliged to report the premature birth to the head of the community, and a terrible punishment will follow: the young woman will be walled up alive.
"The law is cruel, but it is for the happiness of the people" - so the characters explain the absurd rules of their lives. Instead of the healing mountain air in the village there is an atmosphere of suffocation, anxiety and fear, when silence does not always turn out to be gold. It is only for three months that the village lives a normal life without fear that the noise will trigger an avalanche.
Director Soijin Zhambalova has raised this rather straightforward parable to the level of ancient tragedy, saturating the play with metaphors, and the talented Shalom team makes you believe in this surrealism where the finale remains open.
"Bad Goods."
Pushkin Theater
Evgeny Pisarev staged "a play about a good woman" - this is the subtitle of the popular comedy of manners "Lady Windermere's Fan" by Oscar Wilde, which first saw the light of the ramp in 1892. Who is this good woman: the 21-year-old Lady Margaret Windermere, a happy wife and young mother (debutante Evgenia Leonova), to whom evil tongues have gossiped about the infidelity of her husband Arthur (Dmitry Vlaskin), or the very divorcee - a lady of dubious reputation Lady Erlin (prima theatricala Victoria Isakova), who in the end turned out to be... the young lady's mother? And in general, are there unambiguously good and unambiguously bad people - both in Victorian society and among us?
I think Wilde would have recognized the story he wrote, which he treasured, and would have accepted the version of Pisarev and his team. And would even have spoken out, as he did after the premiere at London's St. James's Theatre, when the playwright took the stage with a cigarette and declared without false modesty that "the actors have given us a charming production of a delightful play."
"The Novel"
Theater of the Russian Army
It seems that the audience has already been overfed with all sorts of versions of "The Master and Margarita". Bulgakov's novel, beloved by the people, has become a musical, a ballet, and a symphony. And although this season the Taganka Theater decided to close the first production of the iconic book - released in 1977, the legendary play by Yuri Lyubimov, the holy place was empty for a short time.
The new chief director of the Army Theater, Alexander Lazarev, known as a Lenkom actor, decided to focus on the biblical part of the book, which already makes his production stand out from the crowd when the main focus is on the tragicomic Moscow pages. But the main lure was not this, but the participation in the play of Maxim Averin and Alexander Baluev, taking turns playing Pontius Pilate, and Alexander Domogorov (in the role of Woland he appears briefly, but spectacularly, scaring fans with predatory makeup). To this list we can add four live horses, a huge dancing cast (choreographed by Mikhail Kolegov) and music by Nikolai Parfenyuk. It turned out to be more of a large-scale show than a dramatic performance. But you can't judge the winners, and "The Novel," for all its shortcomings, was a breakthrough for the Army Theater - the audience returned to this theater that had lost its former glory.
Переведено сервисом «Яндекс Переводчик»
