Making Kafka a musical: Don Quixote from the Laundry and Dulcinea Tambovskaya

Onegin fighting with icicles, a musical based on Kafka and Shakhnazarov's courier from the 80s - the capital's theaters managed to surprise the audience in the last month of winter. The critic Vlad Vasyukhin — about the most interesting premieres on the Moscow stages, especially for Izvestia.

"Eugene Onegin"

Mayakovsky Theater

The artistic director of the Mayakovka, Egor Peregudov, cannot be denied the courage: not every director in the capital will dare to touch Pushkin's poetic novel, because since 2013 in Moscow they have been playing almost its standard embodiment — at the Theater. Vakhtangov Street. The bar is high, comparisons are inevitable.

Considering that the lines from "Onegin" bounce off the teeth of many viewers, Peregudov can be credited with an unusual staging. Without destroying the author's idea, he rewrote individual fragments, put other people's lines into the mouths of the characters, and therefore it is at least fun to follow the story familiar from school.

The first audience reproached the director and his constant co-author, set designer Vladimir Arefyev, for "quotes": they say that the theater-goers had already seen most of their finds in performances of other theaters. I'm sorry, but does anyone have the exclusive rights to fake snow or for an artist to run around the hall?! The director was even credited... "morbid obsession with water." Water really flows over the backdrop of the stage for most of the action, and closer to the finale it is presented in the form of real icicles. They are effectively smashed with a cane by Onegin (Mamuka Patarava).

With a tribute to the opera: the Wagner Marathon was launched at the Bolshoi Theater

Soloists of the GABT and the Mariinsky Theatre take part in the performances.

The show is designed for a young audience and for the participation of new cast members. In addition to the handsome Patarava, yesterday's graduates are involved in the main roles: Varvara Bochkova (Tatiana), Alyona Vasina (Olga), Nikita Yazykov (Lensky), Semyon Alyoshin (Zaretsky). The young people are talented, but the audience welcomes the veteran of the troupe, Honored Artist of Russia Tatyana Orlova, who plays the Nanny, ironic and determined.

"Courier"

Drama and Directing Center

After the premiere of "The Courier," 22-year-old Alexander Fokin has already been called the "opening of the season," although last year's graduate of GITIS plays in several Central Theater productions, he "shot" precisely in the role of Ivan Miroshnikov. Fokin made his character charming and lyrical, making all the viewers fall in love with him.

Vladimir Pankov's play is based on the story by Karen Shakhnazarov, which was adapted into a film by the author in 1986, and that film starring Inna Churikova, Oleg Basilashvili, Svetlana Kryuchkova and other stars has long become a cult. The CDR team made absolutely "their own movie". Suffice it to say that the performance is staged in the style of soundrama, implying a synthesis of different genres, and along with the dramatic text, hits of the 80s, permeating the entire story, and choreography play an important role. I don't want to spoil it, but a performance where the audience laughs a lot will unexpectedly cause shock and tears in the finale.

"Don Quixote"

Theater of Nations

The theme of the little man is perhaps the main one for director Anton Fedorov, and reshaping classics, from which he makes "fantasies on a theme," is his favorite activity. So Fedorov turned the cunning hidalgo Don Quixote of La Mancha into a crazy maniac, and transferred the action to an abandoned public laundry inhabited by the homeless. The conservative viewer can only exclaim: there were no washing machines in the time of Cervantes!

The audience will be even more amazed to learn that the knight errant (Timofey Tribuntsev) holds all these homeless people from purgatory, as this laundry is called, hostage and they play along in his fantasies. The faithful squire of Sancho Panza is played by Semyon Steinberg and, according to the artist himself, "this is also another scumbag."

A warrior from the field: the Tabakov Theater has released a play about adapting to civilian life

"Call Sign Silence" is based on a real-life combat memoir.

Retelling this multi-layered and uncomfortable play about good and evil, lasting three hours and forty minutes, is as difficult as sitting it out to the end. The patient will see the portly Dulcinea in the finale, but not Tobosskaya, but Tambov — such puns are also a feature of Fedorov's performances.

"Arcadia"

Peter Fomenko's workshop

British playwright Tom Stoppard subtly, complexly and wittily combined the present century and the past century in his 1993 Arcadia. Representatives of two eras live in parallel in one room of an English country estate. The former (from 1809) live their own lives, and our contemporaries from the 90s of the twentieth century restore, explore, and interpret this long-past life. Past and present, chaos and order, love and death, the second law of thermodynamics and Lord Byron's brief visit are all mixed up in this tragicomic kaleidoscope.

Passport controller: ticket sales have plummeted in Moscow theaters

Experts attribute this to the new conditions of document-based purchasing

A well—coordinated acting ensemble led by director Evgeny Kamenkovich, together with a mechanical turtle named Plautus, create an amazing, fascinating atmosphere - a feast of the spirit for intellectuals!

"Transformation"

Taganka Theater

Andrey Goncharov, a young director from St. Petersburg who has already made himself known in a number of the country's leading theaters, is staging Taganka for the third time. His unusual "Othello" was played on the historical stage, where Irina Apeksimova was Desdemona, and even now you can see the hilarious play "Marriage" by Gogol. And on the new stage, Goncharov has just released the chamber musical "Transformation" based on the story by Franz Kafka to the music of Alexei Kirillov and Alexandra Mikaelian.

This is the backstory of the life of a traveling salesman, Gregor Samza (Maxim Trofimchuk), before he turned into a nasty insect. And the culprit of this tragic transformation, according to the playwright Nadezhda Tolubeeva, was a complex family relationship. It turns out that Gregor, like Franz Kafka himself, is being suppressed by an absurd and domineering father (Roman Kolotukhin). Dramatic actors sing well to a live ensemble. Set designer Konstantin Solovyov created the sets and costumes. And this surreal spectacle lasts less than an hour and a half, which is rare nowadays.