
And Murke can: the sufferings of Don Juan and the German God-seekers

The first month of spring was full of theatrical novelties in the capital. The palette of premiere performances ranges from the love adventures of Don Juan to a detective showdown in Germany in the 1960s. The critic Vlad Vasyukhin attended all the most notable premieres of Moscow scenes for Izvestia.
"Don Juan. A new myth"
Moscow Provincial Theatre
Jean-Baptiste Moliere, who worked in the 17th century, suddenly turned out to be one of the headliners of the current Moscow theater season. And although the comedy about the "greatest impious man" and the "real sensualist" Don Juan was written exactly 360 years ago, it is unlikely that this fact was the reason for the production. Most likely, the main motivation is the presence in the MGT troupe of the ideal candidate for the role of the hero-lover.
Anton Khabarov not only spectacularly demonstrates family underpants in the seduction scene of a nun or portrays a goat at a wedding of animals. His immoral character begins to experience pangs of conscience, to suffer from lack of faith. And here the artist is no less convincing. And the center of the spectacle is their conversations about good and evil, about love and God with the devoted and naive servant Sganarelle (Mikhail Shilov).
Maxim Melamedov's performance turned out to be beautiful and, what can be reproached to him, meditative. If you don't match the set rhythm, then a number of episodes will seem unnecessarily prolonged and even sluggish. But if you find yourself in the "one stream", then you will have fun. It's just unclear why the director put "new myth" in the title instead of "stone guest". In general, the play is old.
"Burghers"
Ermolova Theater
Maxim Gorky's debut play about time and the Bessemenov family of burghers has had several successful incarnations since it was written in 1901. Time will tell whether Grigory Yuzhakov's play, staged on the New Stage of the Ermolovsky Theater, will be among them. But now it is worth noting that the director has assembled a strong acting ensemble, where the veterans of the troupe (Georgy Nazarenko, Elena Silina, Svetlana Golovina, Irina Savina, Andrey Popov) are not inferior to the young ones (Egor Abramov, Viktor Vorzonin, Alexandra Mileshina).
A family conflict in which everyone has their own truth — generational, ideological or otherwise — is solved by Yuzhakov traditionally, without experiments, special effects and fashionable technologies. This is the case when "the director died in the actors", when we have a "boring classic" in front of us, which is a rarity nowadays.
"Autumn"
Chekhov Moscow Art Theater
Three years ago, Olga Litvinova and Artyom Bystrov, together with director Andrey Goncharov, surprised Moscow with the "peasant thriller" "Womb" based on the early prose by Evgeny Zamyatin. And here is their new collaboration on a New stage, where a duet of excellent artists plays out a story written in 1886 by the Swedish classic August Strinberg.
These scenes from the ten-year married life of Axel and Lily, who are still young, but have already cooled towards each other and lost the freshness of their feelings, will seem familiar to many viewers. Moreover, the inventive director mixed both times (the characters have a mobile phone and an electric guitar at their disposal) and genres (psychological theater is adjacent to immersive and even clowning). However, will all the spouses try, like these two heroes, to turn the autumn of life into its spring by arranging a date again at the hotel where it all began?
"The Mirror"
"The Space Inside"
Munich, mid-1960s. To a rented apartment with a young radio presenter, Paul, unexpectedly (and at the wrong time!) An art history professor comes in with a rather strange request: to replace the word "God" in the audio recording of his lecture with another designation — "That supreme being whom we honor." This becomes the beginning of an intellectual duel, during which the audience, in particular, learns that the professor is selling paintings stolen from the Dresden Gallery, and Paul's father is a Nazi general who fled to Latin America and was found by the MOSSAD. And that they have a secret in common.
The dramatization is based on Heinrich Bell's short story "The Silence of Dr. Murke," and Kurt Vonnegut is also listed as a co—author. Director Savva Saveliev performed in this seemingly simple but full of subtexts and reflection performance also as a playwright, artist and member of an acting duo — he played a professor. And Pavel Tabakov became his partner in the "detective cabaret", as the genre of "Mirrors" is designated. The representative of the famous acting dynasty did not disappoint, giving credibility to a very contradictory image.
"I.A. Bunin. In Moscow"
Drama and Directing Center
If this performance reminds the theater-goers of the "Workshop of Peter Fomenko" from her youth, then nothing surprising. Three famous short stories by Ivan Bunin ("Ida", "In a familiar Street" and "Clean Monday") were directed by Kirill Pirogov, "Fomenkovets" since 1994. Staged as a student's play, the play will now be staged at one of the CDR's venues, Begovaya Street. Six graduates of last year's Shchukin College are playing, Pirogov was the artistic director of their course.
Stories about not the happiest "loves", which do not go beyond the shores of the author's idea, will make you worry and give the audience pleasure due to the young energy of the performers. They gave their characters fervor and foolishness, romance and timidity, tenderness and fragility. The lack of solid professional baggage is offset by crushing charm. On a small, cramped stage, there is a special intonation and an atmosphere of light breathing.
Переведено сервисом «Яндекс Переводчик»