Justice is a great word, they fight for it, but rarely achieve results. And yet she is triumphant. Occasionally, but triumphant. This happened last weekend at the Vakhtangov Theater, where the premiere of “The Artist Will Be Asked” was presented on the Simonov stage. The play, staged by a young director and performed by young artists, restores the name of Leopold Sulerzhitsky, who was unfairly lost in the shadow of the founders of the Art Theater. The authors of the noble project are Margarita Litvin and Elena Dunaeva. From the premiere screening – columnist for “MK”.
The performance begins at the end of … the life of Sulerzhitsky’s beloved student, Evgeny Vakhtangov, who returns home to Denezhny Lane from the last rehearsal of his last performance, Princess Turandot, in his life. When everyone dispersed in the morning, Vakhtangov, whose temperature was near 40, remained alone in the hall and screamed in pain – he was dying. He knew that his days were numbered.
A toy carriage with a sleigh is brought onto the stage: a toy cabman, a passenger is also a doll – that’s the whole set, and for the whole performance. A little later, the dialogue between the cab and the rider will be performed by the artists – so, about nothing and about everything … The Blue Fence. Six artists dressed in blue tsani costumes (servants at the court of the Chinese emperor in the fairy tale “Princess Turandot”). Either a dream, or the delirium of the terminally ill Vakhtangov, but how fascinating … The actors will play out the life of Leopold Sulerzhitsky, about whom theatrical people know more and more, for the rest this name does not say much. Meanwhile, if not for Leopold Antonovich, if not for Suler …
At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, this man meant a lot in the life of Russian theatrical art. Who is he? Writer, artist, vagabond, sailor, American (as he is called after his trip to the United States). He is also a Tolstoyan, a God-fighter and a friend of all famous writers. The correspondence with them is split into six votes. Sulerzhitsky to Chekhov, Chekhov to Sulerzhitsky, Tolstoy about Sulerzhitsky, and Gorky to him and about him.
Thanks to Sulerzhitsky, Stanislavsky was able to put together and implement his famous actor’s education system. And it is Sulerzhitsky that Russian culture owes the emergence of a brilliant galaxy of actors and directors, including him, Suler, and his students – Evgeny Vakhtangov, Mikhail Chekhov, Alexey Dikiy, Boris Sushkevich, Alexey Popov, Serafima Birman, Ivan Bersenev, Richard Boleslavsky and others. It will be he who will work with the great English director Gordon Craig on Hamlet, and this production will quarrel them and introduce a rift between Sulerzhitsky and Stanislavsky – the latter will behave more than strange. All this is documented, the stage life of an extraordinary person is composed of this.
The most interesting thing is that the documentary basis served the director Asya Knyazeva to compose a cheerful theatrical action. And its theatrical core was Vakhtangov’s last performance “Princess Turandot”. Its graceful fragments, like handmade toys, are embodied by the artists between biographical milestones. Their generation, of course, did not catch the legendary theater performance (there were officially three versions – 1922, 1963, 1991), which remained in the repertoire until 2006. Nevertheless, the romantic aesthetics of the performance are very accurately conveyed by the young, and, importantly, with respect for the past.
However, their reverence for tradition is devoid of false pathos, it contains passion, mischief and irony, which did not hide the joyful attitude of the Vakhtangovites to life even in the most difficult times. And at all times they saved the theater. Several episodes were made for Yulia Borisova (the second Turandot in the history of the play), for whom Elizaveta Palkina stands, and for Vasily Lanovoy (second prince Calaf) – for him Vladimir Logvinov. The melodiousness of the recitation is precisely removed by them from the “originals.”
However, there are no fixed roles in the play – all the artists play all the characters, changing them on the run, like a jacket: there was Sulerzhitsky, the teacher of the First Studio, and now he is Craig, indignant at the work of Suler, who in a minute will turn into Stanislavsky or some kind of emperor from “ Turandot “. By the way, about her: Kachalov’s son – Vadim Shverubovich – wrote: “… from the Suler games, from his festivities … nine years later the game-holiday“ Princess Turandot ”was born – a brilliant creation of Vakhtangov. In any case, when we watched this amazing performance, we all saw Sulerov’s games, listened, copied the singing and Sulerov’s music. ” Yes, he also wrote music – one waltz, written for the Moscow Art Theater performance, sounds in the performance. As the author of the literary composition Elena Dunaeva told “MK”, these notes were found in the museum of the Moscow Art Theater, and this is a great success.
The high technique of the actors, combined with emotionality, gives the theatrical documentary story the charm of the holiday – everything is like according to Vakhtangov. Eldar Tramov, Vladimir Logvinov, Artem Parkhomenko, Alexey Petrov, Evgenia Ivashova, Elizaveta Palkina. They are already known to the public for successful premieres of the past and current seasons: Tramov performed wonderfully as the king of tango – Oscar Strok (“Tango Between the Lines”), Vladimir Logvinov brilliantly played Anatoly Kuragin (“War and Peace”), Artem Parkhomenko has two notable works in Romulus the Great and in War and Peace, Evgenia Ivashova has a brilliant work in The Fool, and Liza Palkina in Mademoiselle Nitush.
A bright performance, embodied by a well-coordinated ensemble, but … In the finale, the words of Sulerzhitsky himself will be heard, which it would be good to remember for all artists and, above all, for those who call themselves fashionable, cult stars, and have sacredly believed in it. “Performing art,” wrote Sulerzhitsky shortly before his death, “the only one from which no monuments remain, cannot remain, since its only material is the beating (fluttering) of a living heart at a given moment, an affective feeling that is born here, in front of the viewer , an exciting and exciting heart of the viewer, infecting him directly, from heart to heart. The bearer of this heart, the actor, died, the bearer of another heart, which was with the actor, died, the spectator, and nothing but the words: “He was a wonderful actor!” and dead photographs – nothing remains … “. And these lines are read by the artistic director of the Vakhtangovsky Rimas Tuminas.
Newspaper headline:
Stanislavsky’s shadow was moved in Vakhtangov
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