Just Chekhov: Anton Pavlovich was staged in Moscow in a different setting
In May, new readings of Chekhov's classics, a staging of Vasily Terkin, and fashionable delights by the modern playwright Tsypkin were shown on Moscow stages. The critic Vlad Vasyukhin visited all this especially for Izvestia.
"Uncle Vanya"
Mayakovsky Theatre
77-year-old Yuri Ioffe, who has been a full-time director at the Mayakovsky Theater for more than forty years, realized his long-held dream: he directed Chekhov's Uncle Vanya. And, by the way, this is the first production of "scenes from village life" in Mayakovka, where Chekhov is not the most sought—after author. The play is played on a Small stage, the actors are literally at arm's length. The center of the chamber composition is a spiral staircase leading not only to the second floor of this labyrinth house, where "you will never find anyone," but also to the sky. The very "sky in diamonds" that unlucky characters dream of seeing. The leitmotif and even a full-fledged participant in the textbook story, designated here as a tragic comedy, is Alfred Schnittke's "Polka" with its contrasts and expression, with its laughter through sobs.
This is an ensemble performance where everyone is convincing and in their place, and therefore singling out one of the actors is simply rewriting the entire program. And this is Chekhov, who can be safely recommended to both schoolchildren and grandmothers, although the director allowed himself a little bit of co-authorship.
However, Ioffe is not the first to change the sad finales of Chekhov's plays for a happy ending. For example, in the recent "Cherry Orchard" at the Taganka Theater, the whole company suddenly returns to a boarded-up house for a forgotten Fir Tree. And here, after Sonya's sad monologue, a soup tureen with coveted chicken noodles is suddenly brought onto the stage, and life no longer seems so hopeless...
"Terkin"
Pyotr Fomenko's Workshop
By the 80th anniversary of the Victory, performances dedicated to the May date appeared on many metropolitan stages. Good and different. The "Terkin" presented by Fomenkovtsemi is one of the good ones, the kind that people talk about "in one breath." This is a play about hope. It is not the first time that the young director Fyodor Malyshev has shown interest in a poetic text: recently, he staged "Listen!" on the same stage. Mayakovsky and Yesenin's Pugachev, demonstrating special skill in mass scenes. Malyshev saturated Alexander Tvardovsky's plotless poem "Vasily Terkin" with memorable metaphors.
The collective image of the folk hero, who "always exists in every company," is solved as follows: eleven (!) artists of different ages transform into Terkin in turn. That's why all the characters are the main ones. The laconic wooden transformer decorations created by Evgenia Shutina are reminiscent of the works of the legendary set designer David Borovsky at the Taganka Theater. And this monochromacy is in harmony with the director's decision, which is just as simple, understandable and harsh.
"Elizabeth of England"
Ermolova Theater
The characters in the play by the Austrian Ferdinand Bruckner are real people, but the author has mixed fantasies and myths with the facts. This drama with sharp dialogues and strong emotions is not only and not so much about history, about the conflict between Spain and England, but about love and treachery, about war and the inevitability of fate.
The moody and jealous virgin queen Elizabeth I, who ruled England for 44 years, is played by Evgenia Dmitrieva, one of the most interesting modern Russian actresses and, moreover, the wife of the director of the play, Vladimir Kimmelman (as she herself ironically informs the audience, momentarily leaving the image and destroying the fourth scene). It would not be an exaggeration to say that Dmitrieva is the main reason to go to this imperfect performance.
"Once upon a time there was a house"
Moscow Art Theater named after Chekhov
One of Alexander Tsypkin's professions is listed as an "expert in strategic communications." And I must say that the fashionable playwright knows it perfectly, since he has managed to build a successful communication with the current artistic director of the Art Theater Konstantin Khabensky. Experts cannot explain the appearance of the uncomplicated Tsypkin fairy tale for adults on the historical stage of the Moscow Art Theater with anything other than the "feat of friendship."
Nine sketches of varying degrees of fascination and dynamics are played out in the scenery of an apartment building, where an explosion is about to occur due to a gas leak, which none of the neighbors suspects. Among the residents there are not only people experiencing their little joys and tragedies, but also parrots (one is played by director Khabensky himself), rats, a dog and a cat (another unexpected role of the brave Igor Vernik) and even angels.
Oleg Tabakov, who led the Moscow Art Theater for almost two decades, likened the theater to a supermarket, where there should be shows for every taste. The appearance of the play "Once upon a Time There was a House" in Kamergersky can be compared to the delivery of popcorn and chips.
"Metamorphoses. Holy simplicity"
Mikhalkov Academy of Cinematographic and Theatrical Arts
The premiere of this collage performance took place at Chekhov's estate at the 25th Melikhovskaya Spring Theater Festival, and it is quite possible that this student performance will be included in the repertoire of the young capital's Workshop 12 Theater. Eight Chekhov stories are perfectly staged and wittily embodied by three directors — Alexander Vedmensky, Sofia Kutserubova and Tamara Razorenova. Nikita Mikhalkov is the artistic director of the production.
The most unusual solution is the story "Drama", which many people remember from the short film with Faina Ranevskaya and Boris Tenin. The already funny story of how countess Murashkina unexpectedly came to the famous writer's house with her play and literally exhausted him by reading is reinforced by the fact that the hero is watching... TV with pre-revolutionary news!
Переведено сервисом «Яндекс Переводчик»
