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- There's power in him, brother: Thomas Mann's most difficult novel was staged at the Vakhtangov Theater
There's power in him, brother: Thomas Mann's most difficult novel was staged at the Vakhtangov Theater
An Egyptian pharaoh, a camel, live music and a biblical story about blood betrayal — this is how Thomas Mann's novel "Joseph and His Brothers" was presented on the New Stage of the Vakhtangov Theater. For decades, he was considered untranslatable into the language of the stage, but the young director Yuri Titov turned the philosophical epic into a three—hour parable, where minimalism of form, live music and an ensemble of artists work on the main thing - a conversation about the rift between brothers, painfully recognizable today. Details about the premiere can be found in the Izvestia article.
A novel that resists the stage
The work of Nobel laureate Thomas Mann "Joseph and his brothers" is difficult to imagine on the stage. Yuri Titov, a young director and graduate of the Shchukin Theater Institute and the Workshop of Peter Fomenko, took up one of the most ambitious and complex texts of the 20th century, which in itself resists any reduction, simplification, and even more illustrative. He does not hide the fact that he approached the material for a long time and painfully. The novel stood on his shelf for years and tormented his gaze, but every time it caused fear.
"As soon as I tried to approach the book, I immediately turned away from it: it was scary, very risky material, not intended for the stage," the director confessed before the performance.
Mann wrote the novel for 17 years against the backdrop of the catastrophes of European history and the impending fascism. It took Titov seven years to implement the plan. Moreover, the most difficult thing was to write a dramatization of one and a half thousand pages and captivate the viewer with it.
The plot of the play is based on the main events of the book: the story of Jacob (Sergey Baryshev), his tragic love for the girl Rachel (Anna Chumak), the appearance of a dozen children from four different women, the upbringing of Joseph's pet, born of Rachel, the betrayal of the brothers, the slavery of the main character and the subsequent repentance of relatives.
A parable instead of a reconstruction
The director chose the path of the parable. This thoughtful, almost meditative story, lasting three hours, begins even with the curtain closed, when ethnic music with characteristic chants begins to sound against the background of a four-meter-high sandy cloth.
The stage is almost empty: a plank floor, black backstage framing, schematic decorations, conventional structures, and a minimum of objects. The space of the New Scene is like a blank sheet. The narrative is based on the artists, the plot, the costumes and — most importantly — on live music and singing. This minimalism does not look like poverty: on the contrary, it disciplines the viewer's attention, forcing them to listen, peer, and become an accomplice rather than a consumer of the spectacle.
Little Joseph (Andrey Titov) appears out of nowhere, playing a pipe, followed by his father Jacob, whom fate will treat cruelly more than once. In another moment, violins, accordion, and double bass will sound from the upper catwalks at the back of the stage. Merchants with a camel, which Daniel Pale masterfully portrayed, prison prisoners and even an Egyptian pharaoh appear on the stage.
The director deliberately abandons historical authenticity in costumes and props, freeing the plot from museum dust. As a result, the performance turns out to be timeless — and thus surprisingly modern.
The brothers Joseph are played by young artists of the Vakhtangov troupe: Alexander Kolyasnikov, Vitaly Ivanov, Klim Kudashkin, Mikhail Konovalenkov, Vladimir Simonov Jr., Ivan Zakhava, Sergey Vasiliev, Danila Gnido, Daniil Pale. Among them are Shchukin College students Ivan Nazarov and Mikhail Lozhkin. Nikita Shamanov plays the role of the adult Joseph. In different compositions, he and Lozhkin, who plays Veniamin, Joseph's blood brother, switch roles. It's a curious move, especially since the actors look strikingly similar.
Their energy, plasticity and ensemble coherence are beyond doubt. But for all the accuracy of the external drawing, there is a lack of the very pain of life, without which the story of betrayal and remorse remains more an intellectual scheme than a lived tragedy. This is not a reproach, but a statement of age and experience. In these roles, the inner weight of suffering has not yet been fully accumulated. But the potential is clearly visible — the desire to work with the material, to hear the partner, to keep the form of a parable, without slipping into everyday psychology.
In the play, Joseph is not only a sufferer and a chosen one, but also a mediator figure capable of connecting a torn world. His path from his beloved son to a slave sold for 30 pieces of silver, from humiliation to power, is drawn clearly and clearly, without unnecessary comments. Titov, as promised, retains the clarity of the dramatic outline without getting lost in the details, and this is one of the main advantages of the production.
The Return of the Prodigal Son
Despite the man-centric nature of the play, the female roles deserve special attention. Vladislav Basova and Anna Chumak first play the wives of Jacob, and then Chumak appears in the form of Mut-em-enet, the wife of the chief of the palace troops Potiphar Petepr. In her regally emphasized grandeur, narcissism and subtle irony combine.
The creators tried to include references to 17th—century European painting in the set design, primarily to Caravaggio and Rembrandt. Contrasting light, thick shadows, and figures snatched from the darkness create the feeling of living paintings. The light doesn't just illuminate the stage, but models the space, emphasizing moments of falling, isolation, and epiphany. In the finale of the play, this picturesque line reaches its climax: the scene of Joseph forgiving the brothers is clearly read as a stage reinterpretation of Rembrandt's "The Return of the Prodigal Son."
The effect is enhanced by music. The instruments sound live, which, together with singing, including a cappella, creates a sense of ritual, the general breathing of the stage and the hall. At these moments, the performance reaches a special density and authentic Vakhtangov magic — when the convention suddenly becomes true.
"Joseph and his Brothers" at the Vakhtangov Theater is not an easy sight and not a performance "for the evening," nevertheless, three hours fly by unnoticed. This is a conversation about guilt and forgiveness, about fate and responsibility, about whether reconciliation is possible after betrayal. Today, in the context of modern Russian history with its traumatic memory, the rift between the "brothers", this text sounds especially painful and accurate. And if the viewer leaves the audience with the feeling that this conversation concerns him personally, it means that the risk taken by the creators was justified.
Переведено сервисом «Яндекс Переводчик»
