2023-10-31 18:44:21
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Shakespeare with chips and Tarantino
Following the tragedy “Mary Stuart” by Schiller, Pyotr Shereshevsky staged “Romeo and Juliet” at the Moscow Youth Theater. Variations and Commentaries” is “a theatrical exploration of the nature of love and violence based on the play of the same name by William Shakespeare.” A free adaptation of the classic was carried out by playwright Semyon Sakseev, behind whom one can guess the director himself. And here we are again in the 90s, where Juliet eats chips.
As they say in the play by Semyon Sakseev, Romeo is not chosen, they live and die with him. So the 90s are our everything, a cross for many years, alas. Victoria Verberg, who recently received the Golden Mask for the role of Queen Elizabeth in Mary Stuart, and she is a magnificent and courageous actress, a student of Anatoly Efros, has now played Shakespeare’s nurse, called Aunt Juliet by Shereshevsky. This same aunt in a tracksuit always has a very specific photo of her late husband with her. She will find a common language with anyone: she will bring some sense to Juliet, and she will speak to Romeo’s friends from the gateway in a language they understand. The director of the play also decided to talk to the modern viewer in a language accessible to him. But adults are always not very good at understanding how young people live and feel. And what recently seemed bold begins to smell like old stuff.
Maria Stewart also wears a tracksuit at MTYUZ. Now Juliet, played by Evgenia Mikheeva as a girl from the alley, always chewing gum, has put it on. She has already been through thick and thin, she knows a lot about men. She has a very close relationship with her brother Tybalt. He cuts her toenails. The rest can be figured out.
Romeo, as Vadim Sosnin plays him, is also not an ardent youth, but a completely grown man. He is nobler than Juliet, but chooses a girl not to match himself. While Juliet eagerly devolves onion and sour cream chips, he talks about transcendence, quoting the French philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty. Ten years ago, Leo Tolstoy’s characters crunched on chips in the film “Boxing Day” by British director Bernard Rose, known for the film adaptation of “Anna Karenina” with Sophie Marceau. And in “Don Juan” by Theodor Currentzis in Perm, the characters fried shish kebab, as Romeo’s friends do now. Discoveries are becoming increasingly difficult to make. Contemporary theater and cinema have become adept at radical and often superficial adaptation of the classics.
Photo courtesy of the theater press service
Brother Lorenzo, played by Ilya Sozykin, is the owner of a car repair shop and went through Afghanistan. It’s as if he came out of a Balabanov film and was written out of the 90s. His shoulder is decorated with a tattoo of the Airborne Forces. Romeo is a faithful mentor and will marry young lovers. Paris, aka the Duke of Verona, is a man in uniform who keeps the city in fear and dreams of getting Juliet.
A cube descends onto the stage, from which the audience does not take its eyes off. They are not looking at a live artist on stage, but at a close-up of him on the screen. Throughout the entire performance, the actors work on camera, with a cameraman always nearby. Many are not ready for such an experiment and do not feel very confident. And microphones attached to the face – the scourge of modern theater – can destroy any trust in relations with the audience. But talking about this has become common place.
Photo courtesy of the theater press service
The stage seems to be covered with ashes, in which the classic heroes of modern bottling are swarming. The plot outline of Shakespeare’s tragedy is preserved, his lines are heard, but they are so thickly seasoned with modern slang that they drown in it ingloriously. The crowning glory is a used Mercedes on stage. He is a symbol of the 90s. It is clear that life is getting smaller before our eyes and morals are not getting better. Where are we from Shakespeare? But to ground him like that is cruel. Although the radical fusion with modernity delights some of the public.
In the second act, TV presenter Vsevolod Zagogulka (Arseny Kudryashov) appears on stage. On the TV show “Book Characters at a Psychotherapist’s Appointment,” he invited psychologists whose shoulders were covered with dandruff like flour. These long-unwashed people, reminiscent of commedia dell’arte characters, are the head physician of the Moscow Regional Psychiatric Hospital No. 23 Alik Courvoisier, Associate Professor of the Department of Psychophilology of the Russian Academy of Sciences Timofey Timofeevich Sadness and Doctor of Family Psychology, Master of Pickup, author of the bestseller “Awaken the Shakespearean Passion in Yourself” Valery Valerievich Zadorny — they talk about the nature of Romeo’s love. In general, there was no love.
Photo courtesy of the theater press service
In the finale, the young lovers watch the film Romeo + Juliet by Baz Luhrmann. The young and beautiful DiCaprio suffers on screen. Perhaps it will be he who will push them to the only right decision, and they will choose life and freedom, not death. “Why are we worse than Tarantino? He can, but we can’t?” – Romeo and Juliet will exclaim and drive off into a bright future in a well-worn Mercedes.
#Romeo #Juliet #90s #grounded