Anna on stage: a toy train was launched at the Maly Theater
In December, famous stories of Leo Tolstoy, Bertolt Brecht and Federico Fellini were recreated on Moscow stages, and they also played documentaries. The critic Vlad Vasyukhin — about the most notable Moscow theater premieres, especially for Izvestia.
"Anna Karenina"
Maly Theatre
The theater, which has a reputation among the capital's advanced theater-goers as perhaps the most conservative or, to put it mildly, "true to tradition," unexpectedly invited the fashionable and radical director Andrei Prikotenko, artistic director of the Novosibirsk Red Torch. And he "lit up" by releasing a performance generously dusted with fake snow, but not mothballs, which may even have scared the regular audience. A stylish spectacle, where the main colors are white and black, sweeps through the whirlwind of a waltz, leaving a feeling of frosty freshness.
Actors Neil Kropalov (Count Alexei Kirillovich Vronsky) and Polina Dolinskaya (Anna Arkadyevna Karenina) during the press screening of the play "Anna Karenina" at the State Academic Maly Theater
Today, "Anna Karenina" is in the repertoire of several Moscow theaters. And if on Taganka the entire action of Tolstoy's great novel was transferred to the station buffets of Moscow and St. Petersburg, and in one of the recent entreprise productions to the train, then Prikotenko chose the children's room with its wooden horses as the main location, hinting that the main characters had grown up, but had not matured. A toy train becomes a symbol of the tragedy. The director's main focus was not on Anna (Polina Dolinskaya) and Vronsky (Neil Kropalov), but on Alexei Karenin, whom Viktor Nizovoy plays not as a textbook cracker, but as sentimental, shy and passionate.
"Orchestra rehearsal"
Mark Zakharov's Lenkom
The performance by Vladimir Pankov, the new artistic director of the famous theater, became a kind of homage to the legend — and to the whole Lenkom, and specifically to director Zakharov, during whom the golden Lenkom century happened, and Federico Fellini: based on his film parables (1978), a large-scale production of the same name was created. It is also Pankov's first work in its current status, his mission statement.
A scene from the play "Orchestra Rehearsal"
The performance could well have been included in the book of theatrical records, if there had been one. The director brought almost the entire troupe on stage, plus invited musicians — a total of 126 people! The format of the review does not allow us to list the names of even national and honored ones: from Maxim Averin and Ivan Agapov to Vladimir Yumatov and Anna Yakunina. It's not hard to guess that many actors have nothing to play in such a densely populated play — just a few lines. But that was probably the director's idea: to show that everyone is equal in the theater, that every instrument is important in the orchestra.
Actor Ivan Agapov in the play "Orchestra Rehearsal"
The greatness of the idea, even if it became a great performance, and the fact that the director managed to achieve consistency from such a large number of bright individuals cannot be overlooked. A number of episodes, for example, involving Dmitry Pevtsov (Conductor), Anna Bolshova (Drinking violinist) or Anton Shagin (French horn player) will surely be etched into the memory of the audience.
"The story of one photograph"
Theater of Nations
Why did Maxim Gorky return to the USSR? It was no coincidence that director Elizaveta Bondar was interested in this question: she was offered to "do something" for the Gorky + festival. And she decided to answer it through a performance created in the mockumentary genre, which came to the modern theater from a feature film — this is when a fictional plot is disguised as a documentary. And in this case — also with the participation of dolls!
A scene from the play "The Story of a Photograph" at the Theater of Nations
And now, right in front of the public, a story is born about a certain famous photographer Andrei Levitsky, who photographed Soviet leaders and had long dreamed of capturing the great writer Gorky. And finally he managed to do it — in 1929, on a steamer bound for Solovki... Levitsky and Gorky are brilliantly portrayed by puppets (artist Maria Kravtsova). And the live actors got a parallel plot: our young contemporaries, like a real director (Sofia Slivina) and a playwright (Sergey Volkov), compose this story of one photo. They are separated by a long distance, because the playwright is now a relocant, and his own drama — once they were not only a creative, but also a loving couple... When they talk about Gorky and his reasons for leaving the sunny island of Capri, they talk about themselves and our time.
"The first love of the last year"
Theater named after Evg. Vakhtangova
After the large-scale biopic Sun of Landau, Anatoly Shulyev, the chief director of the Vakhtangov Theater, staged a chamber, but no less impressive, retrohistory about the lives of ordinary Soviet people, into whose lives the war is about to break...
Irina Kalistratova as Zinaida Vasilyevna and Anna Lyakhova as Tanya Nikolaeva in a scene from the play "The First Love of the Last Year" at the theater. Evgeniya Vakhtangova
The touching story of four young friends growing up before our eyes unfolds from 1936 to 1941 and involves young, still unknown actors, almost the same age as the characters. It is based on Yuri Slepukhin's first novel "Crossroads", written by him at the age of 23, in Argentina, where the future Soviet writer did not come of his own free will - in 1943, the Germans stole him for forced labor in Germany, and he returned to the USSR only in 1957.
The production team subtly and honestly conveys the atmosphere of the time, makes the audience empathize without putting pressure on the tear glands.
"Before dawn"
Nikita Mikhalkov's Workshop 12
This theater with a long name is a new old point on the cultural map of Moscow. From the post-war years until 2019, the Cinema Actor's Theater operated in the constructivist building on Povarskaya Street, and since May 2025, after an excellent reconstruction, a troupe led by a classic of cinema has been playing here (and it has nothing to do with the previous history). The theatergoers haven't had time to pave the way here yet, and this is the only reasonable explanation for the fact that the play "Before Dawn" is not sold out. If this spectacle of Bertolt Brecht staged by Nikita Mikhalkov had appeared on the stage of, say, the Theater of Nations or the Chekhov Moscow Art Theater, the crowd would have torn down the doors.
A scene from the play "Before Dawn"
"Fantasies based on motives" is based on the Brecht play "Fear and Despair in the Third Empire", written in 1938 and demonstrating the penetration of fascism into the lives of the inhabitants of Nazi Germany. The performance of nine short and gloomy sketches combined by zongs (composer Pavel Akimkin) is made on an epic scale, where a large place is given to the grotesque and cabaret, without prejudice to journalism (choreographer Sergey Zemlyansky). Due to modern technology, Yuri Cooper's detailed scenery changes in a matter of minutes, and it makes no less impression than the brilliant work of the actors. The finale is not from Brecht at all, the bridge was thrown by the director in our time, but let's do without spoilers. Deep, bold, topical, talented — everything you need to know about this performance.
Переведено сервисом «Яндекс Переводчик»
