2022-11-17 23:26:19
Artistic Director of the Theatre. Moscow City Council and the author of the new play “Dowry” Yevgeny Marchelli is famous for his unexpected interpretations of classical drama. He knows how to look at the wrong side of familiar stories and stuff them with stage spices in such a way that they take on an unusual angle. This is not the first time Marchelli has turned to Ostrovsky: in addition to The Dowry, in Moscow you can already see his performances Thunderstorm at the Theater of Nations and Jokers at the Satyricon.
The events of the play by Alexander Ostrovsky take place in the 19th century in a city on the Volga. The story of the dowry Larisa Ogudalova, who is in love with Sergei Paratov, who cruelly deceived her, ends in tragedy: the unfortunate girl is killed by Karandyshev, whom she was going to marry out of shame and despair. The heroine dies not only from the groom’s bullet, but also from the indifference with which her soul has been shelled all her life. Evgeny Marchelli etched a lot from the original source, but dislike, as a principle of life, was nevertheless transferred to the performance.
The time of action of the “Dowry” is a conditional modernity, although there is much more from the zeros in it. The characters are dressed in everything: trouser suits, luxurious dresses and feathers in their hair, knee-high boots, shoes, swimwear, wigs. The motley eclecticism of the costumes contrasts with the gray space: gigantic blocks like concrete walls are layered on top of each other, forming a cold, lifeless background. The Volga open spaces are not guessed either in it or behind it – a crushed airless world has been established here.
/Mossovet Theater
Actors speak into microphones (and this is loud), sometimes they scream heart-rendingly. And yet the performance seems quiet. You do not immediately notice the reason for the paradoxical impression: it turns out that there is no music at all and no sounds, except for voices and champing. The action begins and ends with a scene where the characters are eating. Such is their essence – to absorb, devour, smacking carnivorously. And if, according to the play, at least from Larisa (Anastasia Belova, who entered the theater only a year ago, but has already announced herself with roles in such performances as the recent premiere of Marchelli’s “SHAKESPEERHAMLET”, “Woe from Wit” by Alexander Yatsko, etc.) the soul is pure , then here she is no more alive than the moral dead around. In her love, the least of all is love itself, but there is a lot of thirst for attention to herself, swagger and lust. When Karandyshev (Dmitry Podadaev, known for the film “Forbidden Love”, the performances “Roman Comedy”, “Idiot”, etc.) shoots at her, she continues to argue energetically, sitting at the table and eating treats with appetite. “Who burned down, you can’t set it on fire,” Yesenin wrote. Do not kill the one that was killed a long time ago.
“What will we sing:“ I’m like a butterfly to the fire ”or“ And in the end I will say ”?” – Larisa is asked in the scene of her birthday celebration, ironically alluding to the songs from Eldar Ryazanov’s film “Cruel Romance” based on “Dowry”. Ostrovsky’s text has been considerably revised: some remarks have been removed, others have been added, and even the surviving phrases have been given a special intonation, partly flattering, rudely ordinary. In a dead world, there is no singing: only a drawn-out cry is heard. True, it is not easy to find its nature – not a groan, not a cry, not a roar, not a challenge, not a plea for help. Unfounded cry.
/Mossovet Theater
The buoyancy of the foundation is characteristic of almost the entire production. There seems to be no perspective in it: it only repeats again and again that the law of dislike is total and nothing opposes it. This is not a vector, but a point from which the action descends from time to time, being distracted by other topics – however, immediately abandoning them. The logic of events breaks every now and then, and taken, but not continued lines of thought clutter up the air of the performance, unnecessarily weighing it down.
But along with this, there are many subtle details in the performance. Almost for the first time, the emphasis was placed on the fact that Paratov (Stanislav Bondarenko, who also plays in the performances “The Importance of Being Serious” and “Not Everything is Shrovetide for a Cat”, etc.), having taken Robinson, left another person on the island – all the voluptuous cruelty at once or outside. Or, for example, Karandyshev walks with a concave belly and chest, as if a funnel has formed in him from countless humiliations. And Larisa at the first appearance resembles the Snow Maiden – an eloquent rhyme, because she will inevitably melt, love will literally kill her.
“DES” in the title of the performance is highlighted by the director. It really has something infernal, but not ominously powerful, but rather sticky. Here no one really loves anyone and the soul degenerates into instinct. It turned out, in essence, an evil satire, the strength of which (with all the internal bumps) is in the aftertaste. It evokes a passionate desire to live at all costs differently than these unfortunate people walled up in the void.
#Dowryless #killed #long