Forest. Moscow Art Theater named after Chekhov. Press about the performance

Kommersant, December 27, 2004

"Forest" has become a forest

Ostrovsky at the Art Theater

The first premiere of the Chekhov Moscow Art Theater this year will be Ostrovsky's Forest directed by Kirill Serebrennikov. Since the first week of January the newspapers are resting, the theater has invited journalists for the last pre-premiere rehearsal. ROMAN DOLZHANSKY thought that he saw two whole performances.

One of the wonders of classical Russian drama, Ostrovsky's Forest, is written in such a way that each director will certainly have to make a choice which of the two main plot lines of the play to take as the main one. Either focus on the events in the Penka estate, where the landowner Gurmyzhskaya trades in timber, languishes for a young Alexis Bulanov and eventually marries him to herself. Or to enlarge the roles of two wandering actors, tragedian Neschastlivtsev and comedian Schastlivtsev, who have become household names. As a matter of fact, the average statistical interpretation of "The Forest" consists in a collision of two worlds - a dense landlord swamp and a freeman of a provincial theater, two knights of which have not a penny in their pockets, but they do not occupy nobility.

Kirill Serebrennikov is one of the directors who know a lot about throwing stage gestures, bright theatrical receptions, and festive surprises of action. But he does not agree to recognize the superiority of theatrical romance over the vulgarity of everyday life - too much vulgarity usually lurks in this romanticization. It is much more interesting for the director to deal with everyday life, that is, with society and its history, using active theatrical means. Kirill Serebrennikov and artist Nikolai Simonov brought the action of Ostrovsky's comedy to the 70s of the last century, to the Soviet world, dreaming of forbidden luxury and bourgeois happiness. To that world where the "sexual revolution" could not be called by its real name, but where the freedom of passions grew out of the lack of freedom of rules.

Raisa Pavlovna Gurmyzhskaya (by the way, the name of Ostrovsky's heroine is not "Ostrovsky", but as if from a Soviet comedy) lives in clothes and interiors, copied from the miracle brought and read to the holes by the girlfriends of the German magazine "Neckermann". So the girlfriends themselves are right there - the director sharply increased the concentration of women in the list of characters, instead of the neighbors of Uara Kirillovich and Evgeny Apollonovich, neighbors appeared in the "Forest" - Uara Kirillovna and Evgenia Apollonovna (the latter, by the way, is charmingly and stylishly played by the veteran of the Moscow Art Theater company Kira Nikolaevna Golovko, who at one time saw Meyerhold's "Forest" and played Aksyusha in the Moscow Art Theater "Forest" in 1948). And instead of an elderly servant Karp - a pair of hilariously funny maids in starched tattoos, exactly from the party's special buffet. In general, the play has a lot of clearly recognizable and very well-functioning signs, details and sounds of the era: crystal chandeliers and a radio tape recorder, home chairs and simple attractions from the playground, a gray passbook in a box and huge, in the whole stage, photo wallpaper, Lolita Tores and Vysotsky's song under guitar. Plus a children's choir on stage, giving the whole atmosphere of the Forest not only a musical mood, but also a logical completeness.

In the nostalgic hell of Soviet childhood, in this "city of women" by Kirill Serebrennikov, the uncontrollable passion of an aging lady for a young man is born and grows. The director seemed to wake up Natalya Tenyakova from the actor's hibernation that had lasted for years: she in detail and courageously traces the transformation of an aunt with ridiculous pigtails into a lustful, broken-down hetera in a short dress and high boots. You should see how Mrs. Tenyakova squints her eyes towards the young man doing home gymnastics in shorts and a T-shirt. And how an unusually talented young actor Yuri Chursin plays a different transformation, from an awkward ugly duckling to a boorish housekeeper, one must also see. In the final, Bulanov makes a keynote speech in front of a microphone and, together with the children, performs the hit by Pakhmutova and Dobronravov "Belovezhskaya Pushcha". The neighbors, clearly inspired by the example of Gurmyzhskaya, grab the teenage choristers and sit them down next to them at the table.

Kirill Serebrennikov leads his heroes to a happy epilogue and at the same time to a deadly dead end: it is no coincidence that already in the shadow of the closing curtain, the maid Ulita manages to put a funeral wreath at the feet of the Gurmyzhskaya. The heroine Yevgenia Dobrovolskaya also had moments of longed-for ladies' emancipation in the play - the middle-aged, homeless idiot Arkashka Schastlivtsev could do the job. But the character of Vanguard Leontyev, unfortunately, turned out to be an actor, and disappointment with his social status turned out to be stronger for Julitta than the temptation of the flesh. In the new Moscow Art Theater "Forest" the theater has no magnetic power at all, and the poor relative of Aksyusha runs away from the estate not because Neschastlivtsev ordained her an actress. Judging by the mood of her fiancé Peter, the young are going to hippie and have fun on dance floors.

It is with the theme of the theater that the main blunder of this boldly and talentedly invented and, on the whole, captivatingly performed performance is connected. In my opinion, the director's appointment to the role of Neschastlivtsev Dmitry Nazarov became an unfortunate mistake of the director. Mr. Nazarov, an actor of heroic build, sweeping gesture and unrestrained temperament, works full-blooded and energetic, not lower than his capabilities. But this is just bad: his Neschastlivtsev seemed to wander into the Moscow Art Theater "Forest" from a completely different performance. And against his will, simply by virtue of natural data, Mr. Nazarov almost broke the entire director's game, almost trampled on the main theme. It is quite possible that he will receive the main portion of the audience's applause. But do not flatter yourself. After all, since the director's intention is associated with a certain era, one should remember that the years in question are marked by a completely different type of acting, unseen, merging with life and shying away from koturnov. What would happen if a luxurious, highly respected wardrobe from another era was suddenly introduced into the interiors of the discreet chic of the 70s?

Newspaper, December 27, 2004

Gleb Sitkovsky

"Children of your bison do not want to die out"

"Forest" at the Chekhov Moscow Art Theater

Kirill Serebrennikov's adventures in Moscow are becoming more and more interesting to follow. The intelligible director's handwriting and ingenuity in terms of mise-en-scènes made Serebrennikov a persona grata for all sorts of Moscow theaters in an instant, but in the last two seasons this director was almost privatized by the savvy producer Oleg Tabakov, in whose hands Serebrennikov became addicted to the classics. A year after Gorky's controversial "Bourgeois", the director took up Ostrovsky's play "The Forest", achieving much more significant success.

Serebrennikov is not a thinker, he is an inventor. Instead of laboriously paving his way through the dense massifs of text, he always strives to slip from the end, to slide along a smooth surface - from bump to bump, from one spectacular number to another. Not with every play such a number will come out, but having turned off a bump, you can, as you know, knock off your tailbone. But in the case of Ostrovsky's play, such an exciting slalom gave impressive results: it is clear that in this "Forest" Serebrennikov studied all the paths ahead of time.

The shortest path, as it turned out, runs through the 70s, not the one before last, but the last century. In fact, in the courtyard, according to some scenic signs, the 21st century has long been, but in this dense more often time has definitely stopped, and the Gurmyzhskaya sniper was captured by the actress Natalya Tenyakova as a 100% recognizable Soviet lady, forever remaining in the dietary era, known as "stagnation" ... And what the cutest dinosaurs are surrounding Raisa Pavlovna, what wonderful old naphthalene women who have climbed out of what thickets ... Ostrovsky actually has no old women, and they were made by Serebrennikov from his rich old neighbors: from Evgeny Apollonovich after a small operation (over the text, of course , - do not think badly) it turned out Evgenia Apollonovna, from Uara Kirillovich - Uara Kirillovna.

The sufferings of the lovely girl Aksyusha (Anastasia Skorik), who is not allowed to marry by the mistress of Belovezhskaya Pushcha, were not very interesting to Serebrennikov, and this role by itself was transferred from the main to the secondary ones. The two most powerful acting works and two obvious semantic accents of the play are Gurmyzhskaya (Natalya Tenyakova) and Neschastlivtsev (Dmitry Nazarov). Forest and freedom. And, since such opposition has arisen, then Peter (Oleg Mazurov), who is drying up for Aksyusha, cannot do without Vysotsky's song about the perilous forest: "Your world is sorcerers for a thousand years ..."

The millennial forest of the Soviet people does not relax its grip, clinging to people with branches, and the reserved melody continues and continues, as if on a spoiled record. Only sometimes, somewhere high in the branches, a neon red thought flashes, jumping into the head of one inhabitant of the forest, then another: "DIDN'T GET ME OUT?" The culmination of the Sererennikov performance is a wedding revelry in a restaurant accompanied by the same mournful Pakhmutova. A whole pop act has been worked out: the young well-meaning groom of Raisa Pavlovna (Yuri Chursin), stamping his heel on the ground, turns into the spitting image of Vladimir Vladimirovich. The inauguration ("Gentlemen, although I am young, I take not only my own affairs, but also public affairs very close to my heart and would like to serve society") passes under the groan of a laughing audience.

All this pamphlet and outright farcism did not enter, oddly enough, into any significant contradiction with Ostrovsky's text, and such an approach to the old play could not fail to recall the legendary production of Meyerhold's "Forest" in 1924. Kirill Serebrennikov dedicated his performance to Meyerhold, and this dedication did not seem strained. In the end, the famous "installation of attractions" - clearly on the Serebrennikov part. Taking Ostrovsky, he planted a whole "forest" of attractions - most of them turned out to be appropriate and witty.

NG, December 27, 2004

Grigory Zaslavsky

Good in the woods!

Ostrovsky's comedy at the Chekhov Moscow Art Theater

You must see this "Forest".

"The Forest" directed by Kirill Serebrennikov is the best that could be seen this season. Imagine: Schastlivtsev (Avangard Leontyev) comes out with three metal nets for eggs, where he has some Soviet plays, glasses taped on the bridge of his nose and tied with an elastic band that ruffles a rare growth on the back of his head. And the little goatee rips off the chin at the first request of Neschastlivtsev (Dmitry Nazarov). Props, brother! And the merchant Vosimibratov (Alexander Mokhov), appearing to get married, brings with him a children's choir "Voskhod" - about thirty people: "A reserved melody, a reserved distance, the light of a crystal dawn is a light that rises above the world ..."

Instead of a forest in the play, there are photo wallpapers (scenography by Nikolai Simonov), and the brothers-actors meet not in the meadow, but in the station buffet, where a dozen mugs of beer are passed at the counter with conversations and memories, and business trips and travel allowances are passed by ... And when he talks Schastlivtsev about living with relatives and comes to a terrible thought, the famous question "Should I strangle myself?" a red neon ribbon lights up over their heads. Going to see his aunt, Neschastlivtsev exchanges canvas pants for a suit with a tie (suits by Evgenia Panfilova and Kirill Serebrennikov). And the chairs in the house of Gurmyzhskaya (Natalya Tenyakova) are from a Czech set of the late 60s, and a large one, on high legs of a radio, of about the same years. Amazed at the money that Gurmyzhskaya keeps, Neschastlivtsev takes out of her casket not gold, but savings books.

A merry performance came out, and Serebrennikov extracts fun from the text, and the inconsistencies of the picture with Ostrovsky's words only reinforce the comic. For example, in the play, Gurmyzhskaya is more mature than Ostrovsky's age, and Ulita (Evgenia Dobrovolskaya), on the contrary, is younger. What is unnatural in the fact that Gurmyzhskaya, who is about to get married, calls herself the same age as Ulita? And she, wanting to sweeten the pill and - "according to Ostrovsky", enters into an argument: you are younger ... Even funnier.

How good Nazarov is: here he is - at last! - gets his own, plays his own, to the full breadth of his Russian nature - what a voice! What temperament, it seems, almost according to him - the house will blow.

How good Tenyakova is! How fearless, how extreme, how willingly she goes to all directorial provocations. And Kira Golovko, who - so as not to try to count her age, we will refer to another date, from the program: she came to the troupe of the Moscow Art Theater in 1938. And, despite her maturity, she hooligan with the rest, finding special pleasure in the fact that in her play there is neither academic stiffness, nor respect for faded shadows.

From the program you can learn that the creators of the play dedicate their interpretation of "The Forest" to "Soviet Theater and Vsevolod Meyerhold". With Meyerhold, it's understandable: in the mid-1920s he staged Les, where there was also a lot of self-will. Overwhelmed with feeling, Aksyusha grabbed the rope and began to circle, lifting her feet off the ground. There was such an attraction - it was called "giant steps". Serebrennikov's Aksyusha also rises above the stage, with wings behind his back. Gathered in an actress, to the question "Are you going?" replies with an instantly learned actor's tongue twister: "I'm driving along potholes, I won't go out of potholes."

As for the Soviet theater, in fairness, quotes, in quotes and without, in the play - a dime a dozen, and Serebrennikov borrows cheerfully, without painful reflection (but not without tricks!) And not only from the Soviet theater: say, two maids, Large-caliber aunts, in starched tattoos and white aprons, have just adorned Hermanis's "Inspector General", and the bright light of fluorescent lamps has recently become a common place for contemporary theater artists, although it was appropriate in Marthaler's performances ...

In "The Forest", where we are talking about a cheerful, all-conquering theater and free acting, by the way, everything fits this "dimensionless" play. To paraphrase a revolutionary classic, any hooliganism is only worth something when it knows how to defend itself. You can't argue with. And I don't want to argue with Serebrennikov. He is right. Almost everything is right. As a "god of memories with the face of a junk dealer," he eventually finds its place and a good owner for each thing.

And the children's choir? Poor children who have to stay up to the end, that is, almost to eleven! But - you can't argue - the performance would have lost a lot without their final release. And I would like to say especially about this exit and especially thank you for it.

When Bulanov (Yuri Chursin, who successfully debuted on the Moscow Art Theater) marries, and Gurmyzhskaya accordingly marries, she appears in patent-leather boots above the knee and a short white dress, he is in a strict suit. He walks up to the microphone and says what he is supposed to do. Gurmyzhskaya advised him to settle down, and there are metallic notes in Bulanov's voice, the speech moves with familiar short "dashes", with intonations that are remembered by the public from the recent three-hour communication with the journalistic community ...

For the Moscow Art Theater, which is in no hurry to remove the Yukos emblem from its programs and posters, this innocent amusement has turned into a civil act. The audience instantly "deciphered" all the hints and began to applaud with such enthusiasm that the applause almost disrupted the continuation of the performance.

Izvestia, December 27, 2004

Marina Davydova

To the "Forest" in front

Towards the end of the outgoing year, the Art Theater erupted with the brightest and most memorable premiere of the current season. Kirill Serebrennikov released Ostrovsky's "Les" on the big stage of the Moscow Art Theater.

Serebrennikov has always been some kind of outsider for the Russian theater. Now, after the premiere of "The Forest", it is finally clear why. The action of Russian performances (and this is their main distinguishing feature!) Unfolds, as a rule, in the timeless magical world of the beautiful. For Serebrennikov, the category of time, on the contrary, has become almost the most important. He knows how to stage performances about people in specific historical circumstances, about people from the artistic (and more often non-artistic) far away - he does not know how and does not want to. In the Moscow Art Theater premiere, the answers to the questions of where and when the events of the play took place largely exhaust the director's concept. But the initial conditions are rigid and clever.

The action of "Les" was moved to the end of the Russian sixties, with all the visual and musical consequences that followed - passbooks, a tap-hole, supposedly Venetian glass chandeliers, door curtains "under bamboo", a receiver similar to a chest, an orange female combination ... Raisa's estate itself ... Pavlovna Gurmyzhskaya (Natalya Tenyakova) resembles some kind of boarding house for vacationers of the first category with a banquet hall and a concert grand piano. Explicit off-season. The mistress of the copper mountain, in the sense of a boarding house, toils with melancholy. Around - the female kingdom. The rich neighbors of Gurmyzhskaya were turned into widows of high-ranking workers, suffering from the absence of men no less than Raisa Pavlovna herself. Puritan Soviet manners knit hand and foot, but man's affection wants to cramps. To the rabies of the uterus. Sitting in the foreground, the housekeeper Ulita will spread her legs with a compass with a burning eye, shocking the lady with the way of expressing thoughts, the course of which, however, they both really like. Wiry, a bit like a bird of prey Bulanov (Yuri Chursin), doing exercises with dumbbells in the morning, here, of course, walks like a king. In this gender situation, a career as a Komsomol worker is guaranteed to him. Vosmibratov (Alexander Mokhov), transformed from a merchant into a strong business executive, dreams of becoming related to the Soviet nobility. When he marries his son Peter to a poor relative of Gurmyzhskaya Aksyusha, he brings with him a children's choir with an appropriate repertoire - and how else to show the mistress ideologically verified respect? This whole storyline was perfectly invented by Serebrennikov and amazingly played. The simple Soviet woman Ulita Evgeniya Dobrovolskaya, yearning for free love, is especially impressive, and Gurmyzhskaya Tenyakova can generally be considered the return of the great actress to the big theatrical voyage (the scene where she, in conversation with Aksyusha, reveals not a lordly authority, but a female weakness bordering on hysteria, is played almost brilliantly ).

The second storyline - the aforementioned Peter (Oleg Mazurov) and Aksyusha (Anastasia Skorik) - was also well thought out (these children of the sexual revolution, humming to Vysotsky's guitar, did not care about any moral code), but played weaker. Aksyusha is so clumsy in his passionate impulses that the director has to cover her with various tricks all the time, up to flying on a lounger under the grate bars, but this does not save the topic as a whole. Finally, the third, perhaps the most important line - the theme of the theater, the acting freelance, the lucky-unlucky ones, who despise the philistine world of owls-nobles and the world of cash purity related to him - was played excellently (and who would doubt that the acting duet Dmitry Nazarov - The avant-garde Leontyev does not disappoint), but it is invented less convincingly. The world of provincial tragedians and comedians of pre-revolutionary Russia, even after putting the poems of the disgraced Brodsky into the mouth of Neschastlivtsev, is difficult to turn into a semi-dissident acting bohemia of Soviet Russia. These two worlds existed according to different laws, and they are united by and large only by the love of strong drinks, vividly demonstrated by the brilliant duet. The savory acting gags that the Moscow Art Theater show is full of (like an impatient Schastlivtsev, unbuttoning Ulita's dress on his back, puts glasses on his nose, how Gurmyzhskaya, who moved out in a squabble wig, will touchingly correct Neschastlivtsev) save the concept's flaws.

These gags - or, more simply, a specifically Russian benefit style of playing - combined with the principles of the theatrical European avant-garde (only a blind person will not notice that Christoph Marthaler spent the night in the stage design of this performance together with his faithful ally Anna Fibrok) and create a special style of Kirill Serebrennikov. around which the theatrical community does not get tired of breaking spears, as if forgetting that having a style of its own is in itself a synonym for talent. It is embarrassing, however, that towards the end this style, like a sin, begins to slide into pure Sotsart, and from it - generally into some kind of "Smehopanorama", where Gurmyzhskaya in a short dress resembles Alla Pugacheva, and her Komsomol husband with well-washed cheeks - a young clone of GDP. I don’t understand, even if you cut it, why, if so many things have been well thought out, we must leave what is so-so invented or not thought out at all (for example, an attempt to turn Julitta into Katerina from "The Thunderstorm").

Serebrennikov's performance is generally very redundant and uneven. Behind its postmodern "forest", smelling tartly of freshness and beckoning to its jungle, sometimes you can't make out the trees. But in everything he does, there is such a drive, such a powerful energy of delusion, such a desire to be modern, that it is worth a lot in itself. After all, theater is generally art for contemporaries. And only those who hear the voice of time should practice this art. Kirill Serebrennikov hears him.

Vremya Novostei, December 27, 2004

Anna Gordeeva

Who is the wedding, who is the truth

Kirill Serebrennikov staged at the Moscow Art Theater "Les"

Seventies? The seventies, but not the nineteenth century (when Ostrovsky wrote "The Forest"), but the twentieth. Kirill Serebrennikov brought us a hundred years closer to the story of a fifty-year-old lady who married a grammar school student, and two actors who wandered into her estate. The suits (Evgenia Panfilova and Serebrennikov) are accurate: leather coats as a sign of wealth, jeans appearing on the younger generation. The situation (artist Nikolai Simonov) is more complicated: it was engineers who furnished apartments with Czech furniture (signing up and checking in for a long time); the well-to-do class of party officials preferred something darker and more polished. The inaccuracy is fundamental: having pulled the characters out of their time, Serebrennikov did not write new biographies. (The text resists: all respectful "-s" are removed, some details have disappeared, but the phrase "I present to you a young nobleman." it is very clear: whether her late husband was the secretary of the regional committee or was in charge of a large store, it does not matter. It is important that she is rich; that a poor relative and an equally poor friend's son live in her house; that she is a cheapskate and that on her estate a beggar actor will set an example of carefree nobility.

In the twentieth century, the play was often reduced precisely to acting nobility, rising above the avarice and selfishness of the rich. (It is clear that this is how the romantic mythology of the Russian intelligentsia was reflected in "Les" - the motives of escapism sounded as well.) In the 21st century, in Serebrennikov's work, this topic is also important, but another - the topic of continuity of power - balances it.

Serebrennikov is a gambling inventor, a bright contraption. He rushes at each remark and colors it ("Please, pen" - and Gurmyzhskaya stretches out her hand to measure her blood pressure; Schastlivtsev's thought "shouldn't I hang myself" is highlighted by bulbs, turns out to be a slogan hanging in the air). But juggling with details, the director rigidly builds the performance - in the finale, the lines converge precisely.

One line - Gurmyzhskaya and Bulanov. Natalia Tenyakova's Gurmyzhskaya is a masterpiece. Small-cunning and lordly-imposing; not very smart, but significant; during the dialogue, counting the rings on the interlocutor's hands; dressing a la Alla Pugacheva for a wedding with a schoolboy (short white coat and black boots above the knees) and walking in this outfit so defiantly happily that it would never occur to her to laugh. Bulanov (Yuri Chursin) is an obliging boy, pathetic, but ready for anything in advance. He seems like a weakling, but does exercises, stubbornly does push-ups; he looks closely, preparing for the start, but he fears a false start like fire, fears that he will be chased away, and therefore reacts only to an obvious invitation. Here is this expectant look - and instantly acquired swagger when I realized: you can! this is what they are waiting for! At the wedding, he is in a strict suit and tie, is already beginning to give orders, and his speech - with his hand pressed to his chest, to the accompaniment of a children's choir leading the Belovezhskaya Pushcha - clearly resembles an oath. The episode was inspired by a scene from Bob Fosse's Cabaret, where the children's singing turns into a fascist march, but it seems that the director wanted us to remember this scene.

And next to the line is Neschastlivtseva. The magnificent actor Dmitry Nazarov, together with Avangard Leontyev (Schastlivtsev), draws a different way of life in a space where first ruled by Gurmyzhskaya, then Bulanov. His Neschastlivtsev is a huge man, without the riot at all, which the play suggests. Kind, loud, a little ridiculous and guided through life by an absolute righteous instinct. The girl is drowning - she must be saved; the woman was underpaid for the forest - it is necessary to shake the shortage from the deceiver (although Gurmyzhskaya does not deserve protection); You have to give the last kopeck to a dowry woman and not for a moment regret the money. Not romantic at all, but a righteous seeking note. Is this the antidote? Perhaps.

And there are no middle options. Aksinya (Anastasia Skorik), who did not set out on the acting path, but chose home happiness with timid Peter, clearly loses: this is her husband - a merchant calf in the play, here - the son of an entrepreneur (again "time is out of hand"; in the 70s - the director of the base ?) with gangster connections and the same manners. Nothing good will come of their marriage. (Well thought out: at the moment when Peter - Oleg Mazurov - needs to keep Aksinya, he sings to Vysotsky - both because he does not have his own words, and because this is a sign of romance familiar to the young bandit.) The rulers have a wedding (inauguration?) , the actors leave wandering pennilessly. It is interesting that the current Moscow Art Theater - rich, treated kindly, prosperous - can speak out so harshly. This is what it means to welcome young directors.

Rossiyskaya Gazeta, December 27, 2004

Alena Karas

More forest

Moscow Art Theater. Chekhov showed another play by Ostrovsky

In "FOREST" Kirill Serebrennikov finally consolidated his position as the most socially oriented director of the new generation.

Like his peer Thomas Ostermeier, he tries to turn a classical text into material for social analysis. He is, however, less decisive than his Berlin counterpart, who recreates in "Burrow" the current design, cultural habits, style of behavior and dress, typical for the stratum of successful businessmen in modern Europe. His operations on the classics are more conspiratorial; and for him, as well as for his theatrical teachers, the Russian classics are still a reservoir of metaphysical and romantic miracles. In Ostrovsky's play "The Forest" Serebrennikov relocates everyone to another era - everyone except for a couple of theatrical comedians Arkashka Schastlivtsev (Avangard Leontyev) and Gennady Neschastlivtsev (Dmitry Nazarov). They are still with him - agents of anarchy, romantic and heartfelt human brotherhood, the same touching madmen as in the days of Ostrovsky.

All other characters live in a stagnant world, at the "end of a beautiful era": the death of the Soviet empire has not yet been signed in Belovezhskaya Pushcha, but the song about Belovezhskaya Pushcha already heralds the end of all social ideals and values. Gurmyzhskaya's house is a kind of paradise for the socialist nomenklatura, party widows and government wives. In this Belovezhskaya Pushcha, women dominate in strength and sensual power, while men are just pitiful and cynical opportunists. The Gurmyzhskaya mansion is designed according to the fashion of the late 70s of the last century. But Serebrennikov does not insist on signs of an era of "stagnation." When Vosmibratov (Alexander Mokhov) bursts into the house, the style of gangster capitalism of the early 90s is clearly discernible in his habits, and in his infantile son Petrusha (Oleg Mazurov), like the young opportunist Bulanov, one can hear a clear hello to the most modern times. Actually, we have before us a story about how the era of Russian "yuppies" was born - indifferent clerks at the turn of the millennium who adapt to any power.

Perhaps the most radical metamorphosis occurred with a couple of lovers, with Aksyusha and Peter. The young heroine of Anastasia Skorik, deprived of illusions, is ready for any turn of her fate, and when Neschastlivtsev invites her to become an actress, she easily agrees. It's so real to place bets. And if the spineless Petrusha is not ready for decisive action, it is better to leave him and move on.

She, a poor relative of Gurmyzhskaya, clearly understands the fate of a woman in this female Pushcha. It is no coincidence that Evgeny Apollonovich Milonov turned here into Evgenia Apollonovna (Kira Golovko), and Uar Kirillovich turned into Uara Kirillovna (Galina Kindinova) - two neighbors of Gurmyzhskaya, two witnesses of "the end of a beautiful era." The scene, which the audience will remember for a long time, is an eccentric and desperate celebration of female lust, which is arranged for themselves by Gurmyzhskaya (Natalya Tenyakova) and Ulita (Evgenia Dobrovolskaya). At the thought of young males, they rush to change, and instead of two aging (or frankly degraded) women, two luxurious divas in brocade dresses appear on the stage. Gurmyzhskaya opens the curtain on the right, and refuses in front of a huge mirror, edged with glowing lamps. In the light of this disco stage, they will unfold their lustful nets, capturing in them miserable and ready for anything males.

Gradually, in the course of the performance, Alexis Bulanov (Yuri Chursin) will undergo all new metamorphoses, first donning a fashionable "major", and then completely in an ambitious "yuppie" in an elegant suit. His "inaugural" speech as the future husband of the rich landowner Gurmyzhskaya is a brilliant parody of the pragmatists of the new Russian forest. But the meaning of this "Forest" is not at all in the audacity of a direct parody. A more dangerous phenomenon is guessed behind the hero of Yuri Chursin - the young, following any regimes, devastated cynics of the new era. Serebrennikov composed his most decisive opus, in no way inferior to the social criticism of his Berlin colleague in Ibsen's play Nora, recently shown in Moscow.

Russian courier, December 28, 2004

Elena Yampolskaya

Gurmyzhskaya Pushcha

"Forest". The main stage of the Moscow Art Theater, staged by Kirill Serebrennikov, set designer - Nikolai Simonov. Cast: Natalia Tenyakova, Kira Golovko, Raisa Maksimova, Evgeniya Dobrovolskaya, Dmitry Nazarov, Avangard Leontiev, Alexander Mokhov, Yuri Chursin, Oleg Mazurov

The composition of Mr. Ostrovsky "The Forest" is positioned as a comedy. This reflects, to put it mildly, a peculiar idea of ​​the nature of the funny, which has been characteristic of our authors from time immemorial. In our country, drama is practically equated with tragedy and always goes hand in hand with death. The death (if possible bloody) of one or more characters is an indispensable attribute of Russian drama. Everything else is classified as a comedy. Suppose they shot at a man, but missed, or he breathed in incense, but still survived, or tried to drown himself or strangle himself, but it didn’t work ... - for all these reasons, the heart of the Russian writer is full of glee and joy.

If Katerina Kabanova had been pulled out of the Volga in time and appointed as a premiere in a provincial troupe, "The Thunderstorm" would have been considered a comedy. If Kostya Treplev missed a second time, we would have every right to make fun of his bandaged head. Comedy a la russ is not at all the genre to which the modern, prosperous and frivolous Western world is accustomed.

Let's take "Forest" for example. A rich lady - gray hair in a chignon, a devil in a rib - was inflamed with a passion for a pretty youngster and drove her nephew out of the house. The nephew, a man no longer young, without a penny of money and any solid hopes for the future, drags across Russia, overcoming absolutely fantastic distances on foot (between Kerch and Vologda, according to my calculations, about 1800 km). A nice girl lives with the aforementioned lady in the position of a poor relative, a dowry, and throws herself into the pool because of unhappy love. However, they take her out, do artificial respiration, after which they first offer a creative field - to drag around Russia after two losers, and then they give 1000 (in words - one thousand) rubles so that she can marry papa's worthless son, exchange a hateful house Gurmyzhskaya on the high fence of Vosmibratov's fist ...

You’ll laugh.

"The Forest" by Kirill Serebrennikov is much closer to a comedy than the dramatic original. There is little reason to fall under the armchair, but for three and a half hours you look at the scene with a smile of affection, which from time to time is illuminated by a bright tear. And she, the smile, does not get worse from it.

The action was moved about a century ahead - in the 60-80s of the twentieth century. Wall murals with nature views, Czech crystal, Chinese straw, chipboard furniture (from the stage, sipping pungently with polyvinyl chloride), and in the center - oh, God! - a lacquered chest with thin legs, a tube radio "Rigonda", near which, by the way, my childhood passed ... And the music of the past flows, flows from the speakers (although for the heroes of "Forest" these are songs of the distant future).

Embroidered sheepskin coats, platform boots, synthetic turtlenecks, the first leather jackets of a fabulous chocolate tint. A savings book in a cherished casket and a perfume "Krasnaya Moskva", to which Gurmyzhskaya's neighbors are stubbornly clinging to - ladies with a cool permanent in purple hair. Ostrovsky conceived male neighbors, but Serebrennikov changed the endings of names and surnames: Raisa Pavlovna, in order to lie, gossip and brag about domestic jewelry (for lack of artistic merit, valued by weight), of course, needs girlfriends. Secular ladies, Soviet ladies - the difference is in one letter ... The rabid bourgeois women are confronted by the alcoholic intellectual Neschastlivtsev: having returned to his native land, he recites Brodsky with a trembling voice.

A serious conversation between Gennady Demyanovich and Aksyusha takes place on the playground, among the various swing-roundabouts. Schastlivtsev appoints Ulita on a park bench (there is not enough sculpture nearby: if not a girl with an oar, then a pioneer with a horn); while exposing herself to her new lover, Julitta remains in a terrible Soviet combination from the series "once you see, you will not forget." Petya strumming Vysotsky's guitar: "You live in an enchanted wild forest, from where you cannot escape," characterizing Aksyusha's position with absolute accuracy, but in vain promising her a bright castle with a balcony on the sea.

Bulanov says “you need to be baptized,” but he himself does it “be ready” with both hands. "Please handle" - I mean the cuff of the manometer, - Gurmyzhskaya measure the pressure. The verb "to call" no longer denotes a bell for calling a footman, but an ordinary telephone set, in truth, antique, for the present times, guise.

This jump in time, everyday stage design and song hits reminded me of Sergei Yursky's "Players", staged at the Moscow Art Theater, probably fifteen years ago. True, Natalya Tenyakova played a hotel maid for Yursky, and for Serebrennikov she was assigned a truly beneficial role. Raisa Pavlovna Gurmyzhskaya rushes about the house to the howls of Lolita Torres, desperately tar, and late love excites the remnants of a woman's insides and pours hypertension into the back of her head. The drama of a woman, not just aging, but old, who, however, thinks that she is aging, and anxiously expects to be reborn from the ashes. I must say that a miracle named "Phoenix" appears to us repeatedly: Gurmyzhskaya changes wigs and toilets, jumps from woolen socks to elegant sandals; just now it was soggy junk, backed up against the wall by my nephew, and now - a platinum waterfall over the shoulders, varnished boots, a disarmingly bold mini ... Not Raisa Pavlovna - Alla Borisovna. And if the young woman is no longer young, she is still too luxurious for the hunk Bulanov.

It is clear that we are faced with a human tragedy, an aunt's dream, that Bulanov will milk the old fool and throw it away, and those who came to draw up a will and ended up at the festive table did not bring wreaths with them in vain. The funeral bells will sound for Gurmyzhskaya. Here he is, the groom, at the solemn moment of the inauguration ... sorry, engagement. Feet shoulder-width apart, hands in a causal place, and the voice is so insinuating, and the smile is so pure, and the look is so transparent. And the audience mockingly rolls with laughter, because, apart from laughter, we have nothing left. Russia, an old fool, fell in love with a young woman. I believed it.

I do not think that Kirill Serebrennikov considers "The Forest" to be an epoch-making event in his biography. It is more pleasant for him to search for his own scenic language on chamber sites, free from cash dependence and open for experiment. Meanwhile, you don't know where you will find it. In the area of ​​large forms, the director Serebrennikov is quite good. I would call his style magnificent eclecticism - when the actors jump on top with the dexterity and lightness of squirrels, when the performance is assembled from separate "pieces" - partly supporting the structure, partly completely idle, with the proviso that these little things are appropriate, thoughtful and logical. Serebrennikov has excessive imagination - like Pelevin, like Brodsky. He wants to cram into three hours of stage time both this, and this, and the fifth, and the tenth, and why there is a fifth, but there is no sixth, why this is beaten, and that is missed, there is no point in asking. Serebrennikov is a free man. Perhaps this is its most attractive quality. You sit and think: how great it is that they are mischievous on stage, and how good it is that they are mischievous with the mind ...

Of course, "Les" is being cut, chips are flying, but it is difficult to catch Serebrennikov. For example, in Brezhnev's times there were no people in Russia who were more popular than actors. In this respect, the vegetation of Schastlivtsev-Neschastlivtsev is rather unusual. But even then the director got out: they ask the exposed Gennady Demyanovich for autographs, take pictures with him as a keepsake, but they categorically do not hold him for a person.

In "The Forest" not only ends meet, but, most importantly, the actors do not wander in the three pines. If at first there is a feeling that Ostrovsky's text and Serebrennikov's visual series stretch in two parallel lines, then the intersection point of these lines is found pretty soon - in the waiting room, where Schastlivtsev and Neschastlivtsev met over a glass of beer under the roar of electric trains. They are conducting an extremely relevant dialogue about the death of the performing arts, and the more empty dishes on the counter, the steeper the pathos. Moreover, the drinking companions were awkwardly perched on the beer mugs. Schastlivtsev's dangerous thought: "Should I hang myself?" written in height with colored bulbs. As if "Happy New Year 1975, dear comrades!" or "Glory to the KPSS!"

Literally a few details transform the space, which is in principle unchanged, from the Gurmyzhskaya house into a spattered station buffet, and that, in turn, into the banquet hall of the only restaurant in the entire district. What is this food paradise called? Well, of course, "Should I hang myself?" ...

Arkashka and Gennady Demyanych, Avangard Leontyev and Dmitry Nazarov - a brilliant duet. They play in completely different ways, displaying two types of humor. The comedian flounces violently like a beetle overturned on its back. On his head he has a plastic bag from the rain, in his hands - nets for eggs with a traveling "library". Compared to Nazarov, Leontyev seems strikingly small, but in the play his figure is one of the most noticeable. Mindful of the terrible (let's be honest - disastrous) role of Cleant in Tartuffe, you sigh with relief: how beautiful Leontyev is when he is in his place ...

The noble tragedian conquers the audience with the acting and male power of Nazarov; thanks to him, the performance expands not only in breadth, but also in depth, although initially no application seemed to be submitted to any particular depth. Next to Nazarov, with his support, young Anastasia Skorik - Aksyusha also conducts her best stage.

Arkashka is both low and petty, but his mind is clear. He clearly explained to the audience the class stratification between the parterre and the tiers. Neschastlivtsev himself burns and feeds others with the energy of delusion: those who are confused in their own life can always go to play strangers. Think of a different world for yourself and be comforted. Gennady Demyanych is great, like Napoleon after the devastating Waterloo ...

The performance by Serebrennikov is dedicated to "Soviet Theater and Vsevolod Meyerhold". In fact, in my opinion, it was made in memory of our childhood - the childhood of the post-post-post-meierhold's generation. And childhood, although it is school and stagnant, it is impossible to remember otherwise, except with nostalgic tenderness. Well, I can’t accept Neschastlivtsev’s guilty verdict against the inhabitants of the Penka estate (the one five miles from the town of Kalinov, where Katerina drowned herself). Are these ladies at the age of elegance - "owls and eagle owls", "the offspring of crocodiles"? They are from my childhood. I just can't help but love them.

Musical refrain "Forests" - Pakhmutov "Belovezhskaya Pushcha". A song overloaded with meanings: firstly, "Pushcha" equals "forest"; secondly, when Bulanov, in the guise of VVP, performs it together with a charming children's choir, one cannot get away from political allusions; and finally (I don't give a damn about all the hints) the audience is already beginning to tighten up the chorus in a heartfelt and solidarity. "The children of your bison do not want to die out", - about what generation of this country is being sung? Rather, what generation does this not apply to?

And there will also be a general final "Letka-Enka" ... Oh, damn it, I'm even sorry to tell you everything. It is a pity that it will not be a surprise for you what so pleased, amazed and touched me for three and a half hours.

Forgive me generously.

Culture, December 30, 2004

Natalia Kaminskaya

Feeling of deep satisfaction

"Forest" A. N. Ostrovsky in the Moscow Art Theater. A.P. Chekhova

Moscow Art Theater. A.P. Chekhova is releasing the second comedy on her Big Stage, and almost back to back with the first. Not a month has passed since the premiere of "Tartuffe" directed by Nina Chusova, when Kirill Serebrennikov is already ready to entertain the audience with AN Ostrovsky's "Forest". The hall at the preview of the performance (the official premiere is scheduled for January 6) was, of course, specific, more and more with a bite and a squint of connoisseurs. But laughter emanated from such a contingent permanently. You can fantasize what will happen at the performance when the ordinary audience comes to the theater.

Kirill Serebrennikov, who puts on the classics, is true to himself, who puts on the classics. This explanation, I think, is important, since he is almost the only one of the new directing generation who retains an interest and taste for the new drama and the plays of the Presnyakov brothers in his productions, one after another, acquire a successful and happy stage life. But when Serebrennikov takes on classical drama ("Sweet-voiced Bird of Youth" in Sovremennik, "Bourgeois" in the Moscow Art Theater, now - "Forest"), questions begin. With the epoch of the play, it has shifted closer to the calendar life of our contemporaries. With the artists - big and very famous ones are sure to be taken. Here Serebrennikov looks like a seasoned and strong professional who knows by heart how it is quite traditional, according to his role, to stage a play at the troupe. Looking ahead to the "Forest", I will give you an eloquent example. Natalya Tenyakova plays Gurmyzhskaya - have any questions? A couple of Schastlivtsev - Neschastlivtsev are embodied by Avant-garde Leontiev - Dmitry Nazarov, and another entrepreneur from the time of Alexander Nikolaevich Ostrovsky could envy such an accurate hit. Such a "classic" is a priori doomed to success, because the combination of a cool artist with a cool role will endure all the trials that lie in wait for them around. Serebrennikov - both Korsh and Treplev rolled into one. Around the big artists, meaningfully playing big roles, he has a lot, as it were, of the modern. Whatever one might think: the director did not invent anything, he did not find new moves.

"Forest" in this sense is cut in the same way as "Bourgeois" and "Sweet-voiced bird". The action was moved to Soviet times in the 70s. Music (this time not a PAN Quartet, but a selection) creates not only the appropriate temporal context, but also a lot of literal associations. What is one "Belovezhskaya Pushcha" worth - a reserved forest, an SS Psalm, the place of sentencing "a sixth part of the land", etc. etc. Or "Give me a reserved seat ticket before childhood" - the sweet languor of a Soviet person with the destiny to travel no further than the state border. We go further: a mature Gurmyzhskaya, in dreams of a young lover, dances to Lolita Torres, to the hit of her youth.

The artist Nikolai Simonov also saturates the space of the game with details that he probably remembers from childhood. Here it is, socialist chic: brown wood panels, satin curtains, crystal chandeliers made in Czechoslovakia, crocodile metal merry-go-rounds in the park (we all rode a little on them). But the poisonous backlights or the silvery "rain" of the curtain are like the present, boring, true, but certainly not the day before yesterday. There is also a wallpaper with forest views. These, I remember, were used to decorate their apartments by those who had acquaintances in the trading environment. The merchant Vosmibratov - Alexander Mokhov and his son Peter - Oleg Mazurov wear leather jackets and coats from the era of developed socialism. Ulita - Evgeniya Dobrovolskaya runs in a German nylon combination. How in these realities Gurmyzhskaya could sell the Vosmibratov wood, I find it difficult to understand. What, again, a dowry of a thousand rubles for Aksyusha - Anastasia Skorik was expected by Vosimibratov in the era of Brezhnev's stagnation, God knows him. The director, as usual, plays, flirts and is little concerned with the background of the game.

Hence the tedious question: what is the play about? - we will not ask? And here we are! The funny thing about this really and unnecessarily funny performance is that, following Ostrovsky, the director sings a hymn to the actors, eccentric talented unmercenaries. D. Nazarov, aka Gennady Demyanych, manages to read the poetry of the disgraced Joseph Brodsky to his mercantile relatives. The cunning and explosive Vanguard Leontyev, aka Arkashka Schastlivtsev, strangles a colleague in his arms for a brilliantly performed scene of defending a poor aunt. Everything works in this couple on the topic: a combination of the textures of a handsome tragedian and a springy, eccentric comedian, drunken recklessness of both, swindling, dullness, a brilliant ability to improvise, the excitement to turn everything into a game, into a theater. And here it is the turn of Natalia Tenyakova, a star who has not shone so brightly on this stage for a long time. To say that Tenyakova knows how to play a comedy is to say nothing. But the director also gave her a kind of female evolution taking place before our eyes. An elderly lady falls in love with a boy and grows prettier from episode to episode: she changes wigs, toilets, the heels of shoes are increasing in centimeters, and her eyes and cheeks are in the amount of cosmetics. The natural sexy of this actress (the word does not fit well with the intelligent Tenyakova, but such a feminine principle, like hers, is not given to anyone) plays an important role here. However, the whole point is in Tenyakova's personality, in her mind and skill. Tenyakova has a crafty, bold and graceful feast of colors. So she stood up like a wolverine in front of the mirror, suddenly shrugged her shoulders, threw up her hands - and went into a dance, from which only such a specimen as Bulanov (Yuri Chursin) would not tremble. And even when she appears at her wedding in a short robe and high boots a la Alla Pugacheva, we see not so much a woman who has lost her sense of reality, but an absurd and even touching beauty.

Although this wedding is already a perfect stage, a concert number. Bulanov, with his speech into the microphone, imitates the current President of the Russian Federation. The ubiquitous children's choir (music school named after II Radchenko, conductor Galina Radchenko) starts the polyphonic "Belovezhskaya Pushcha". Marvelous, well-dressed old women Milonov - Kira Golovko and Bodaeva - Raisa Maksimova - are either museum workers or trade unionists. In this hopelessly soviet ecstasy - the apotheosis, which, by the way, suspiciously often sprouts in our life, Gennady Demyanich Neschastlivtsev came off in full. French chanson sang gorgeous. I realized that it was inappropriate. Barked to Arkashka: "Hand, comrade!"

If Les played about the new Russians, it would have turned out flat and rude. If it were in estates, with boots and jackets, the director would be blamed for the lack of new forms. Serebrennikov went to an era that still evokes a vivid memory in everyone, even the youngest. As you know, the favorite slogan of this time was "the feeling of deep satisfaction". The tattered concept of the performance does not evoke this light feeling. Of course, it is far from new forms. As well as before new meanings. But that kick, with which good artists play their good roles, and the drive into which the director let them go, are triggered.

Vedomosti, January 11, 2005

Oleg Zintsov

Moscow Art Theater found the root

The first theatrical premiere in 2005 turned out to be unexpectedly evil. The further you enter the new Moscow Art Theater "Forest", the more distinct the feeling of disgust. In Kirill Serebrennikov's performance, it was consciously and principled.

"The Forest" is Serebrennikov's most perceptive work, which does not at all prevent it from being the most important of all that this director has done in several years of his super-successful Moscow career. There is nothing wrong with the fact that Thomas Ostermeier's clear German handwriting is now and then visible in the Moscow Art Theater - Serebrennikov is one of those people for whom it is not only natural, but also necessary to follow fashion.

The action of Ostrovsky's play at the Moscow Art Theater has been postponed 100 years ahead. That is, not in "today", as in Ostermeier's Burrow, which was recently shown in Moscow, but in the early 1970s, where, for example, the action of Ostermeier's other production, Relatives, was very close to the new Forest. degree of sarcasm. At the same time, by the way, the Riga "Inspector General" by Alvis Hermanis, played in the interior of the Soviet canteen, from which, it seems, two fat cooks, apparently, came to the "Forest", got stuck.

Why the 1970s is almost unnecessary to explain - for all three directors (Ostermeier, Hermanis, Serebrennikov) this is the time of childhood. But if in the performance of Alvis Hermanis the smell of rancid butter and fried potatoes caused an acute attack of pity and nostalgia through laughter, then one can only foolishly be touched by "Les". There is even the phrase "Should I hang myself?" flares up not in the story of Arkashka Schastlivtsev, but right above the stage - in clumsy glowing letters. Once lit, it then burns almost the entire second act, like a garland on a Christmas tree. And the good mood will not leave you anymore.

At first, however, everything looks caricatured, but not yet pamphlet. The interior of the estate of the landowner Gurmyzhskaya (Natalya Tenyakova) is stylized as a Soviet boarding house. The radio tape in the foreground is as accurate a sign of the era as the forest itself on the photo wallpaper and the song about Belovezhskaya Pushcha. In the play, she is diligently sung by a children's choir led by the merchant Vosimibratov (Alexander Mokhov), who is wooing his son Peter for a poor relative of Gurmyzhskaya Aksyushu. Who already has an idea of ​​how to dress fashionably, and how to behave: pretending to be a fool (either drowning, then becoming an actress) and be on your mind. In this "Forest" young people quickly understand what's what.

The young Bulanov (Yuri Chursin), whom Gurmyzhskaya marries herself in the final, is meaner, smarter and therefore luckier than everyone else, but Aksyusha (Anastasia Skorik) and Peter (Oleg Mazurov), nagging Vysotsky's song with a guitar, are not fundamentally different from him. It would be good if this "Forest" was a nature reserve, but Serebrennikov does not bustle and stuns the audience with a rough pamphlet finale: taking over as her husband, the miraculously transformed Alexis Bulanov reads the inaugural speech in a recognizable presidential manner. By itself, a trick in the spirit of Maxim Galkin is quite harmless, and people in the audience laugh willingly: the TV stage really weaned off relating the joke to the context. Meanwhile, Serebrennikov made the first Russian performance in many years, in which the accusatory pathos is consistently and distinctly sounded. Not to a specific address, of course, this "Forest" is generally about where that grew from.

Serebrennikov's "forest" is a quagmire of repressed sexual desires. Longing for a viscous, sucking, female era for a domineering hand. For clarity, the neighbors are turned into old women-neighbors, enviously discussing the young master's house. Natalya Tenyakova fearlessly plays the lust of the decrepit Gurmyzhskaya, and even the servant Ulita (Evgenia Dobrovolskaya) in this sense is in no way inferior to the hostess. In this nutrient medium, notorious youths logically flourish, moving from ingratiating themselves to rudeness.

There is no one here to save, and no one needs salvation. But someone has to try, right? Schastlivtsev and Neschastlivtsev, two beggar comedians, the personification of the acting freelancer, at any glance, wandered into this "Forest" from a completely different era and another theater. Having perfectly played the meeting in the station buffet for a dozen beers, the huge Dmitry Nazarov and the nimble Avangard Leontyev begin to bend the traditional line, presenting their characters exactly as is customary in the average performances of Ostrovsky's play. Everything falls into place only when Nazarov-Neschastlivtsev opens a shabby suitcase, takes out fake white wings and presents them to Aksyusha.

A drunken angel, inappropriately singing at someone else's wedding, inappropriately denouncing, for no reason, offering wings when you need only 1,000 rubles. With truly angelic patience, he preaches to those who are more appropriate to immediately and forever send to hell.

Results, January 11, 2005

Marina Zayonts

To the forest - backwards, to the viewer - in front

"Forest" by A. N. Ostrovsky, staged by Kirill Serebrennikov at the Moscow Art Theater. Chekhov, became a real sensation of the Moscow theatrical season

THIS IS REALLY REALLY, you NEVER know how our word will respond. Only the critics unanimously complained (after the NET festival ended) that they stopped creating large, significant performances on big stages, relevant, correlated with real life, and Kirill Serebrennikov staged just such a performance. It is tempting to say that the director has shaken the old days here (referring to the successes of the Soviet theater of the 60s and 70s, which snapped such performances like nuts) and proved that our theatrical community still has gunpowder in its flasks. It will sound, of course, trite, but Serebrennikov really shook this old thing like a stale feather bed, gave it a modern presentation, turned it around at a frantic pace and fired - exactly at the top ten. In any case, such a stormy, crazy success has not been seen for a long time. This is not about the final applause, which is easily distributed from us to the right and left, but about the complete and absolutely happy merging of the audience and the stage, when almost every gesture, important for the director, was understood and accepted by the viewer with a bang.

Actually, in the program it is written: the newest Moscow Art Theater "Forest" is dedicated to "Soviet Theater and Vsevolod Meyerhold". And here, not for the sake of a catchphrase, Meyerhold, who in 1924 staged this play by Ostrovsky especially daringly, and the theater of the era of developed socialism are mentioned. In this performance there is nothing (well, or almost nothing) that was done for no reason, for the sake of illustration or empty entertainment - everything that Serebrennikov had sinned with until now. Something on trifles also flickers in "The Forest", in the general fervor not thrown away, in vain left, but I do not want to talk about annoying trifles at all - this performance was staged and played so powerfully, victoriously and defiantly topically. And with Meyerhold and the Soviet theater, Serebrennikov entered into an interesting dialogue, starting off and quoting, and the connection of times, the loss of which many now lament, here it is, is being pulled into a reliable and strong knot before our eyes.

Just like Meyerhold once in his legendary "Forest", Serebrennikov took a classic play in his hands to speak about the present day. Not only about the turn of the 60-70s of the last century, where the action of Ostrovsky's play was transferred, is discussed in his performance, but also about you and me. That is, about what will happen after Raisa Pavlovna Gurmyzhskaya, a lady of respectable age, will play a wedding with a young Alexis Bulanov, and two actors - Gennady Neschastlivtsev and Arkashka Schastlivtsev - will finally shake their nobility and dissolve in the Russian open spaces.

One of the reviews of this performance states that Serebrennikov is not a thinker, but an inventor. Like, jumping from bump to bump, inventing spectacular numbers, but everything global, thoughtful, research is not his at all. I don’t want to argue, if only because the "Forest" was invented and is indeed very witty and infectious. It is interesting to tell it from the episodes into which the performance is divided, exactly like Meyerhold's. In the retelling, it turns out - the classic "montage of attractions", tricks, gags, unstoppable laughter of the audience. Here, Aksyusha flies above the stage with angel wings behind her back, and Gurmyzhskaya is dressed exactly like Pugacheva at the wedding, and Schastlivtsev and Neschastlivtsev, having met at the station, among the business travelers, they play beer, and the children's choir sings "Belovezhskaya Pushcha" -enku dancing. But the fact of the matter is that the performance, divided into numbers, merges in the end into a single whole, thought out and felt by the director, and the thoughts are by no means cheerful, despite the Homeric laughter that now and then arises. It is difficult to pronounce - it sounds too shabby and vulgar, but here, you know, they are forced to think about the fate of the country.

Instead of a forest in the entire width of the stage, there is a photo wallpaper. Massive radiola, Romanian furniture, Czech chandelier. The estate of Penka of the landowner Gurmyzhskaya turned into a kind of boarding house for party workers (set design by Nikolai Simonov). Fat maids in starched white aprons scurry back and forth, the grand piano in the banquet hall. Off-season, boredom. Elderly nomenklatura dowager women toil without men, Lolita Torres from "The Age of Love" is listening on the radio. Serebrennikov turned Gurmyzhskaya's neighbors into neighbors instead of Evgeny Apollonich Milonov, it turned out Evgenia Apollonovna, and so on. Raisa Pavlovna (Natalya Tenyakova), still untidy, not made up, with ridiculous pigtails, tells her friends about the young man she encourages. And Alexis Bulanov (Yuri Chursin), a slender young man who knows how to please everyone and without soap to rub in wherever you want, right there - doing gymnastics in the distance, pumping up muscles. Neighbor Evgenia Apollonovna marvelously plays Kira Golovko - in the Moscow Art Theater since 1938, played Aksyusha in the "Forest" in 1948, by the way, and "Forest" Meyerhold could well see. The young actor Yuri Chursin, on the other hand, is a new person for the Art Theater, rented from Vakhtangov, and is not very well known to the public. The role of Bulanov should be decisive for him - it was played talentedly and precisely as a sniper. However, in this performance, all, absolutely all the actors, including children, singing in a choir, play with such undisguised pleasure and infectious drive (for example, Julitta, a servant and confidante, Evgenia Dobrovolskaya plays brilliantly, sparks fly from her eyes) that you don't know who to applaud more.

For the director, everything is important here, and Golovko's age, and Chursin's youth, and the children who go on stage. Rapidly changing times are the main thing in this hilariously funny performance. And the game with Meyerhold's "Forest" was not started at all by chance, here, in addition to a direct roll call, you can read a lot of interesting things. The "giant steps" described by theater historians many times, swinging on which freedom-loving Aksyusha and Peter dreamed of the future, turned into a swing on the playground at Serebrennikov's. And the flight is low, and the dreams are short for the new generation. Poor relative of Aksyusha (Anastasia Skorik) and her beloved Peter (Oleg Mazurov) know one thing - take someone by the breasts and shake until you get what you want, get to Samara, have fun at the disco, and whatever happens there. Like Meyerhold, Serebrennikov looks at a bygone life through the eyes of a pamphleteer and lyricist. Only his lyricism was gifted not to the young, about freedom and not dreaming, but quite unexpectedly - to Raisa Pavlovna Gurmyzhskaya, lordly and imposing, like all Soviet chiefs (it does not matter, the director of the store, the head of the housing office or the secretary of the district committee), comical and touching in her belated love, such that the neighbors are ashamed, and delight can not be hidden. Natalya Tenyakova plays her truly amazingly. She accurately represents a familiar type, and then suddenly revives him with such genuine passion that you don't know how to react, whether to laugh or cry. He comes to his wedding with a young man in a suit a la Pugachev - a white short dress and black boots above the knee, a flirty wig, and on his face such shyness and such happiness cannot be described in words.

And of course, the actors Schastlivtsev (Avangard Leontyev) with Neschastlivtsev (Dmitry Nazarov) lyricism are not bypassed, although they are associated with a lot of comic tricks that are scattered around the play with a generous hand. Nazarov and Leontyev play luxuriously, sweepingly and loosely, but their violent, self-willed artists from God were also put here in a common channel, in the main, dominant theme. During the years of revolutionary romanticism, Meyerhold was inspired by the idea of ​​the triumph of comedianism over life, his wandering free artists left Penki victorious, with Serebrennikov today, alas, everything is not so. Here life is by itself, and the theater is by itself. They do not affect each other, even if they hang. By the way, over all this Soviet dead kingdom hangs, with lighted bulbs shimmering a question, comically voiced by Arkashka: "Shouldn't I hang myself?" Well, these actors are free from state theaters, they do not play in anniversary party plays, they dissident on the sly, they read Brodsky from the stage (Neschastlivtsev comes to his aunt with this number), so what? But nothing. From Bulanov (and all others) like water off a duck's back. He will take an autograph from the artists, drink vodka and start preparing for the wedding.

The wedding here is both the culmination and the denouement at the same time. Confused with happiness, Gurmyzhskaya, blessed Aksyusha, everyone retreats into the background, they are extinguished. The future owner comes forward, a timid young man at first with an iron will and strong muscles. Aleksey Sergeevich Bulanov stands in the foreground in front of a solemnly dressed children's choir and reads like an oath (or oath): "... I take very close to my heart not only my own, but also public affairs and would like to serve society," and then together with chorus, pressing his hand to his heart, picks up: "A reserved melody, a reserved distance, the light of a crystal dawn - a light that rises above the world ..." laughter. Only now nothing funny happens on the stage. Noble eccentric artists beautifully (and what else is left for them) leave the stage, and all the rest, lining up at the back of each other's heads, obediently dance the notch-yenka. Jumping briskly from the 70s of the past century straight to our days.

17. Moscow Art Theater named after Chekhov. Forest (A. Ostrovsky). Dir. Kirill Serebrennikov.

Doshirak from the chef.

The branded emerald programs that are sold at the Chekhov Moscow Art Theater well satisfy the information hunger - here the repertoire, the history of the production, its participants, biographies of actors and creators, there is even a vocabulary and many photographs. How will one of the most famous contemporary theater directors (including the scandalous) Kirill Serebrennikov satisfy the spiritual hunger of the audience?

The action was transferred from the 19th century manor in the 70s of the last century, to the Soviet retro setting, where part of the interior you can see the Rigonda radio, a crystal chandelier, and on the children's courtyard from the past there is a wooden bench, swing and steel horizontal bars and young people listen to jazz ... The backdrops, replacing each other, depict a forest, then autumn, bright red, then winter, white and blue.

The heroes are also "modernized" and actualized to the point of impossible, to the point of scandalousness: Gurmyzhskaya has turned from an imposing, sedate landowner into a pretentious, imperious pensioner, casually talking to everyone in a nasal, seemingly drunken voice. Always dissatisfied with everyone, impudent, she has one passion - to marry a young Alexis; neighbors-landowners became old purses-friends of Milonova and Bodaeva, who love to gossip together, lounging in armchairs; young people, without exception, have become stupid, imbued with cynicism and exceptional pragmatism: Bulanov is now a time-consuming gigolo and dandy, prancing around the stage like a bunny from Playboy; Aksyusha and Peter - two daring, frivolous and stupid teenagers, overwhelmed by the action of hormones, Peter became an impulsive idiot with his hair slicked back. Julitta has grown younger and with her foolishness, obsession and activity gives odds to everyone else, bringing dynamics into the action, frantically serving her mistress.

The bright duet of Neschastlivtsev and Schastlivtsev, performed by Dmitry Nazarov and Avangard Leontyev, deserves a separate word, which is firmly attracting the attention of the audience with its selfless and cheeky play. There is a feeling that the actors are enjoying their roles, they cause laughter. This half-insane couple of two wandering actors who love to cheat, tragedian and comedian, ragamuffins and rascals, are remembered almost more than everything else in the play. Neschastlivtsev, a comical balabol of gigantic proportions, however, not at all evil and completely disinterested, is not averse to getting involved in any adventure that comes along. He loves impromptu, often talking nonsense using his acting literary baggage and theatrically straining. He seems to be completely confused where is the reality and where is the game. The ridiculous and beautiful-minded idiot Schastlivtsev with a plastic bag on his head and metal string bags, in which he wears his simple belongings, acts as his faithful squire.

The merchant Vosmibratov predictably evolved into a modern businessman. At the time of another deception when buying a forest, he easily returns to his roots - turning into yesterday's "brother" from the 90s in a leather jacket, black glasses and thieves' habits. The modern freak show of characters ends with two surprisingly fat female servants, moving across the stage at a wild speed, furiously flapping their fat sides, bringing an atmosphere of light surrealism.

The story of Gurmyzhskaya and Bulanov is interrupted with the appearance of another main couple - Neschastlivtsev and Schastlivtsev. The irrepressible Neschastlivtsev invades the world of Gurmyzhskaya and takes the initiative. All the brightest scenes of the performance are with the participation of Dmitry Nazarov: the meeting of Neschastlivtsev and Schastlivtsev in a cheap railway station beer hall with men's conversations “for life” and a “serious” conversation with Vosimbratov because of an unpaid thousand rubles. Neschastlivtsev becomes the protagonist.

The director does not let the audience get bored even for a minute. One of the author's techniques is when something happens in the background. Here, near the backdrop, Peter looms, tucking his shirt into his pants, drinking vodka or bawling songs in family shorts at a time when small talk is taking place in the foreground. Live music also greatly refreshes the perception - a quintet plays in different combinations in the performance: grand piano, double bass, wind instruments, guitar and accordion. A large children's choir with a conductor appears several times.

Children sing about Belovezhskaya Pushcha - the remains of a primeval relict forest, and if Ostrovsky has "owls and eagle owls" in the dense forest, then Serebrennikov's forest has become much thicker, more ancient, and the inhabitants have turned into overgrown bison and mammoths. I must say that the director makes fun of his experimental characters, even scoffs. They are grotesque, turned inside out. Gurmyzhskaya frenziedly and awkwardly gesticulates, wringing her hands, Julitta performs the duties of a servant with abnormal zeal and grimaces, and Neschastlivtsev's drool is flying from his mouth during a pretentious monologue. This performance is not about money, love and power, but about modern people tired of life, long gone astray and whose morality has fallen asleep. They regressed, became dull, deteriorated even more. And if earlier they tried to cover up the unseemly with good manners, now not a trace remained of the manners. People have become more vulgar, cynical, vulgar, more unpleasant.

The audience accepts the play and the story about themselves remarkably - they hear a lot of laughter, sometimes hysterical. Here, a strange gray-haired and tall maiden, at first quietly gagging and gurgling with laughter, finally ceases to control herself and laughs more and more louder, starting to clap out of place and shout "Bravo!" - unspent energy is bursting out. But this is still not a classic, but entertainment, there is little left of Ostrovsky. Sterlet ear with burbot liver and milk in a porcelain plate turned into Doshirak from a plastic box.

• Author - Alexander Nikolaevich OSTROVSKY
  
• Stage Director - Evgeny LANTSOV
  
• Production Designer - Anna FEDOROVA
  
• Author's interpretation of P.I.Tchaikovsky's music - Larisa KAZAKOVA
  

Performance duration: 3 hours (with one intermission)

The provincial tragic actor Neschastlivtsev, making the traditional route of Russian entrepreneurial artists from "Kerch to Vologda", unexpectedly for himself suddenly finds himself not far from the estate of his aunt Raisa Pavlovna Gurmyzhskaya. His unplanned visit to the estate of a distant relative coincides with the fateful decision of the landowner to sell the forest. The motives for such frivolous behavior of Gurmyzhskaya - the sale of real estate - become an intrigue for all the inhabitants of her estate, and the whole neighborhood. Neschastlivtsev, hiding his real role in life and playing a noble wealthy relative, with all the power of his tragic temperament penetrates into the thick of events, but creates only ridiculous situations, not realizing how ridiculous his “noble hero” is in reality, not a stage. This is how the Theater meets a Life in which the boundaries of moral principles are already blurred, where it smells of easy money, and callousness, sober selfishness, coarse selfishness and lustful licentiousness have replaced indisputable ideals. The theater meets the very life of which it should be. Do they recognize each other? Comedy…

Evgeny Lantsov (production director): « Amazing playwright Ostrovsky. Kind. Sincere. Real. I appreciate him immensely, and just as immensely grateful to the theater for the opportunity to meet him. This author loves all his heroes so much that he does not lose their dignity, and even if he sometimes treats them cruelly, but only out of a deep desire to transform the hero, to make him better than he thinks of himself. For all its versatility, for all its complex structure, the play "The Forest" is very simple. She's about how theatre suddenly meets with life just like a mirror meets a face.

Neschastlivtsev - a great tragic artist - thoroughly imbued with the roles of real heroes with a warm heart, noble ideas and pure thoughts, once played, ends up on the estate of a wealthy relative of Gurmyzhskaya. With all the might of his temperament, he invades the thick of events, completely not realizing how ridiculous his "real hero" is in the conditions of reality, not the scene ...

So, theater and life meet, but learn NS Are they at the same time each other? Actually, this is the comedy. The comedy of our whole life. "

Here is the absolute favorite of the season - what is the season, in the last few years there has not been a performance that has caused so much noise. Light, but substantial, homerically funny and alarming at the same time, daring and at the same time terribly touching, this performance lasts four hours, but looks in the same breath. In connection with him, they talk about the European quality of the direction of domestic production, about the return to the big voyage of a major actress - Natalya Tenyakova, who played the main role. Everything is true, but I'm talking about something else. For the sake of order, let me remind you of the content of the play. So, Ostrovsky's "Forest". The landowner Gurmyzhskaya has views of yesterday's poor schoolboy, whom she settled in and wants to marry a poor relative, Aksinya, so that she could be closer. And the poor girl loves the merchant's son and wants to marry him. But a scandal in a noble family broke out not for this reason, but because Gurmyzhskaya's overage nephew, who once showed up at the house with a friend, turned out to be an actor. And what, do you imagine a landlord's house from post-reform Russia? No matter how it is. Photo wallpaper depicting a forest, bamboo curtains, a radio with long thin legs, Czech glass chandeliers, passbooks instead of gold, leatherette jackets, wedges, embroidered sheepskin coats - Serebrennikov transferred the action a century ahead, to the Brezhnev seventies. It would seem that this is also a trick for me - wherever classical plays have not been converted, but this time the flight takes your breath away (is it because these are the attributes of childhood?). Gurmyzhskaya (Natalya Tenyakova) has become older, now she is like an elderly nomenklatura widow. Her confidante Ulita (Evgenia Dobrovolskaya), on the other hand, became younger, and the respectable neighbors changed their gender to female. Indian kingdom, in a word. At first glance, the meaning of all these operations is the same - to make it funny. Of course, it's funny when Schastlivtsev and Neschastlivtsev (Avangard Leontyev in bandaged glasses and a huge, loud Dmitry Nazarov) meet for a beer in the station buffet and by the end of the binge a neon sign lights up above their heads "Should I strangle myself?" Vosmibratov (Alexander Mokhov), in order to please Gurmyzhskaya, tumbles towards her with a children's chorus: white top, black bottom, white knee-highs, "Reserved motive, reserved distance ...". Neschastlivtsev, having appeared in a house where he had not been for many years, reads with a trembling voice in Brodsky's voice, and Peter at night on the playground sings Aksyusha to Vysotsky's guitar. Every second scene will attract a separate concert number - since the time of Meyerhold, this director's style has been called “editing of attractions”. But this "Forest" is not good for its montage daring either. They wrote about the performance of Meyerhold (1924) that it was a satire of the past and agitation for the new. Young, new people Aksyusha and Peter flew over the stage on rope "giant steps" - there was such a fairground attraction. Serebrennikov, who dedicated his performance to Meyerhold and the Soviet theater, is not the same. He has Aksyusha and Peter (Anastasia Skorik and Oleg Mazurov) swing on a tight children's swing, and if the ridiculous, shameful, but humanly understandable lust of an elderly aunt for a young body somehow, at least with a stretch, can still pass for love, then these new ones have no flight, no feelings, one penny calculation. One might think that the domineering old women and sad youth are opposed in his performance by a special tribe - reckless, broad-minded people, actors. And that's true. But what, in fact, Serebrennikov is driving towards, becomes obvious only in the finale - and this is pure Sots Art.

At her own wedding, Gurmyzhskaya is a prima donna in a blond wig and patent-leather boots above the knee. “Gentlemen! - A neatly combed juvenile bully Bulanov (Yuri Chursin) stands in the foreground and freezes in a familiar pose: a mixture of determination and lack of will, hands are clasped in the groin area - either it is the guarantor of the Constitution himself, or the parodist Galkin. "Although I am young, I take not only my own affairs, but also public affairs very close to my heart, and would like to serve society." The children's choir re-engages in Belovezhskaya Pushcha. “The children of your bison do not want to die out,” the tiny lop-eared soloist deduces, taking the same pose as Bulanov's. The bewildered, limp bride's eyes are watering with happiness.

For four hours Serebrennikov told a lot: about the acting freelancer in the contract world, about the first love of new people, cool as a dog's nose, and about the last love, blind and shameless. But in the end, all four hours he talked and lamented how this elderly, imperious, longing for a strong man's hand, a woman - Russia, had done it.