Script for the play "Scarlet Sails" - Script. The play "Scarlet sails Scarlet sails script for children

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valentina panina
"Scarlet Sails". Holiday script for March 8 for older preschool children

Leading: Good afternoon, dear mothers, grandmothers, guests!

8 Martha Is a special day in the life of every woman. On this day, all women are incredibly beautiful. Their eyes shine with joy and happiness - your eyes, dear women. Compliments and congratulations are heard everywhere. Dear, dear, please accept from us warm words of congratulations on this wonderful holiday and wishes for good, love and happiness. And also a small gift prepared by your children. We must say right away that this gift is a little unusual. Today for the first time we present to your attention a musical « Scarlet Sails» ….

The introduction to the song sounds "Morning begins"... Children come out, create the effect of playing on the street, boys collect a large pyramid on the floor; others play with the ball. Still others perform 1 verse and chorus

Boy1: What a good, good morning! Really guys!

Boy 2: Yes, and the sun is shining brightly.

Boy 3: And all because today is a special day - festive, 8 Martha.

Boy 4: Exactly, where are our girls?

Boy 5: Look, here they are.

Dance "Fashionistas"

Girl1: Hello boys!

Boy 1: WITH happy holiday to you girls.

All girls: Thanks.

Boy 2: Where did you stay so long?

Girl 2: Did we prepare gifts for mothers? What will you give as a present? Have you already decided?

Boy: Not yet. I would like to give something special, but we don’t know what yet.

Girl 3: (addressing the boy) Listen, yesterday my grandmother told a story about the pearl of the Seven Seas.

Children: - What is this story?

In chorus: Tell, tell us!

Girl: Far, far beyond the seven seas, beyond the seven winds, there is a mysterious island. And on this island is hidden the largest, most beautiful pearl. The pearl of the seven seas.

Boy: Is she magical?

Girl: Many brave sailors tried to find this island in order to get the pearl. After all, she brings happiness and good luck.

Girl: Ouch! Yes, these are all fairy tales! There is no pearl.

1. Boy: And I think that this gem actually exists!

2 Boy: I believe in it too!

Boy: Let's go to this island right now and find her!

Girl: Do not be afraid, because you have to swim across seas and oceans.

Song "Wave"

Boy: Not at all, not scary. We have a brave and brave captain. (The captain makes a solemn circle.)

Captain: Sailors! Everyone on deck! Give up the mooring lines! Full speed ahead!

Song "Ship"

Girls: Have a good trip!

The sound of the sea sounds.

Captain: Boatswain, what do you see ahead?

Boatswain looks through binoculars: Captain, right ahead - goldfish!

Captain: Switch off the engines. We go quietly, so as not to frighten off such beauty.

Dance "Goldfish"

Captain: We continue our way. What? (looks closely)

Boatswain: Captain, a schooner under a black flag is coming right at us.

Captain: What is heard, radio operator?

Captain: All hands on deck! They are pirates!

Dance of pirates

1 Pirate: Aha! Gotcha! Give back your jewelry!

Captain: They are in front of you - this is my team.

2 Pirate: Ha ha ha ha ha! Are you all joking? And you can't joke with us! Then give up your ship.

Captain: And we will not think about it! We have an important business. Are we sailing for a gift for OUR moms?

1 Pirate: Do you think? Surprised!

Boatswain: How heartless are you? Don't you have moms?

Pirate: I have a gun and one eye.

2 Pirate: And I only have old wounds.

Boatswain: Do you want us to tell you about moms.

Pirates: We want. And sit in a semicircle on the floor.

Pirates (moved)

First pirate: Oh, I remembered my mom, she fed me mom's porridge.

Second pirate: Yes, not mom's, but semolina porridge. And I remembered my grandmother.

She told me: "Do not touch dynamite - you will be left without eyes!"

How right she was my poor grandmother.

Captain: Now you understand that we have nothing dearer than mothers.

Pirates: Understood, understood. We will even give up our treasure.

Pirates carry out a chest of tools

Pirates: This is for you, and we have to go.

Sailors play instruments

Captain: And now we must not waste a minute. Full speed ahead!

Boatswain: An uninhabited island on the horizon.

Captain: Drop anchor. Command to go ashore.

Dance of the Papuans

They solemnly bring out a stand, a pillow, a shell with a pearl.

1 sailor: Is this the very pearl of the seven seas?

2 sailor: So we found this island!

The leader: Greetings, strangers! Welcome to my island. What brings you here?

Captain: We went in search of the pearl of the seven seas.

Leader: Why do you need this pearl?

Captain: We want to find it and give it to mothers, may it bring them happiness and good luck.

The leader: .No one has yet been able to reach our island. And you, a foreigner, together with your team, could! For courage and courage, I give you the pearl of the seven seas. May she bring you good luck.

Captain: Thanks. The leader: Goodbye! Fair wind!

The soundtrack of the song sounds "Free wind".

Close the curtain.

And at this time to the music of the song "Morning begins" the girls appear again.

1 girl: How are our boys there?

2 girl: I am very worried about them.

Girl: Look! Look! Scarlet sails on the horizon!

Sailors descend from the ship, follow the captain. The boys hold pearls in their hands, give one to the girls and sing with them a song about their mother.

Leading: Dear mothers, grandmothers! Today your children have once again proved how much they love you and are ready for incredible achievements for your sake. We are confident that this pearl will become the most important jewel in your life.

Children give pearls to mothers.

February 10, 2016

Screenplay based on the story of Alexander Green
"Scarlet Sails"

Compiled by: teacher of the highest category E.N. Kinast

Closed curtain. It depicts a ship with scarlet sails.
The intro is music reminiscent of the sound of the sea.
The curtain opens. In the left corner of the stage there is a table with a candle in an "old" candlestick, an armchair with a throw-over blanket. On the table is a thick book with a flowering branch instead of a bookmark. Silently, putting a finger to his lips (as if calling on the audience to be quiet and listen), the author enters. He sits down in a chair and begins ...

And on the other hand Now I will tell you the story of the romantic love of Assol and Gray.
This is the story of the life of the girl Assol, who lost her mother in infancy. The sailor father brought up Assol well, not interfering with her dreaming, believing in miracles. Once the girl met in the forest an old collector of fairy tales Egle, either in jest or in earnest, telling her that when she grows up, the prince will come for her on a ship with scarlet sails.
Egl The bulk of the crimson sails of the white ship will move, cutting the waves, straight towards you. (include video # 1) This wonderful ship will sail quietly, a lot of people will gather on the shore. The ship will approach majestically to the very shore to the sounds of beautiful music; smart, in carpets, in gold and flowers, a fast boat will sail from him. - “Why did you come? Who are you looking for?" - the people on the shore will ask. Then you will see a brave handsome prince; he will stand and hold out his hands to you. - “Hello, Assol! - he will say. - I saw you in a dream and came to take you away forever. You will live in a brilliant country where the sun rises and where stars will descend from the sky to congratulate you on your arrival.
But Assol believed it and began to wait ... More than once, worrying and shy, I went to the seashore, where, having waited for the dawn, I seriously looked out for the ship with the Scarlet Sails. These minutes were happiness for me; It is difficult for you to go into a fairy tale, it would be no less difficult for me to get out of its power and charm.
And on top Once Assol told this story to a beggar, he, in turn, told it in a tavern. Since then, the inhabitants began to laugh at her.
As the years passed, Assol matured. One early morning, a ship moored to the shore where Assol lived. Its master and captain was Arthur Gray, a noble and courageous young man.
Together with his friend, Gray decided to go into the city. On the shore, near a large and spreading tree, he saw a sleeping girl. Gray squatted down, looking the girl in the face: she was beautiful. Then Gray, carefully so as not to wake her, put a ring on her finger. Assol continued to be in the grip of sleep. And Gray quietly left. After a while Assol woke up, Gray's radiant ring glittered on her finger.

Whose joke is this? Whose joke? She screamed swiftly. - Am I dreaming? Maybe she found and forgot? I cannot explain what happened, but a strange feeling overwhelms me.
And on the other hand, - by chance, as people who can read and write, say - Gray and Assol found each other on the morning of a summer day full of inevitability. The young man, meanwhile, decided to ask one of the local residents about her.
GRAY You, of course, know all the inhabitants here, I am interested in the name of a young girl in a white dress, aged from seventeen to twenty years. I met her not far from here. What is her name?
CITIZEN This must be Assol, there is no one else to be.
On the other hand, Gray was told about how, seven years ago, a girl spoke on the seashore with the song collector Eglem.
Now he acted decisively and calmly, knowing to the smallest detail everything that lay ahead. His plan came together instantly.
Grey Assol will surely see a ship with scarlet sails.
On the other hand, Gray bought 2000 meters of scarlet silk and after a while a ship with scarlet sails went out to sea.
GRAY Now, when my sails are red and the wind is good, I come to the one who is waiting and can only wait for me, I don’t want anyone else but her, perhaps precisely because thanks to her I understood one simple truth ... It is about doing the so-called miracles with your own hands: when a billionaire gives a poor man a villa, and a jockey at least once holds a horse for the sake of another horse who is unlucky, then everyone will understand how pleasant it is, how inexpressibly wonderful. But there are no less miracles: smile, fun, forgiveness, and - just said, the right word. To own it is to own everything.
And then a ship with scarlet sails appeared on the horizon, and Assol saw it. Soft music poured from the white deck under the fire of scarlet silk (video # 2).
But with a word Not remembering how I left home, I fled to the sea, caught up in the irresistible wind of the event; at the first corner she stopped almost exhausted; my legs gave way, my breath was lost and extinguished, my consciousness was kept by a thread. Overwhelmed with fear of losing my will, I stamped my foot and recovered.
I saw a boat full of tanned rowers separate from the ship; among them stood the one whom, as it seemed to me now, I knew, vaguely remembered from childhood. He looked at me with a smile that warmed and hurried.
Grey Assol closed her eyes; then, quickly opening her eyes, she boldly smiled at my beaming face and, out of breath, said:
And with o l Absolutely such.
GRAY And you too. Here, I have come. Did you recognize me?
And on the other hand, Everything was a dream, where light and water swayed, whirling, like the play of sunbeams on a wall streaming with rays.
Again Assol closed her eyes, fearing that all this would disappear if she looked. Gray took her hands. The girl's eyes finally opened clearly. They had all the best of man.
" Friends! Believe in miracles with all your soul, and they will definitely come true! "

It so happened that during the current season I had the opportunity to watch eight performances based on the novel "Scarlet Sails" by Alexander Green. This happened by itself, on trips around Russia. The collection was replenished, the excitement grew, and now it is a shame that not all "Scarlet Sails" are "covered". The number of performances based on staged stories or musicals by various composers reaches twenty, including the neighboring countries, and this indicates important processes taking place in the mysterious depths of the theater. It seemed that this story remained somewhere in Soviet adolescence and modern young people are unlikely to read it of their own free will. (True, in schools it is included in the summer list of books.) But in recent years (since 2007) something has clearly happened. Green's schooner called "Secret" sailed along all the theatrical rivers. Success is great everywhere! And the secret of the "Secret" has not yet been solved.

In my collection of ships there are musical performances with music by Maxim Dunaevsky (RAMT, Vologda Youth Theater, Perm Theater-Theater, Novosibirsk "Globe"), a musical extravaganza of the composer Faustas Latenas (Samara Drama Theater), a musical by Valeria Lesovskaya at the Kuzbass Musical Theater. There is the "Pier of Scarlet Dreams" at the Irkutsk Puppet Theater "Aistenok" and the dramatic performance "Scarlet Sails" at the Kirov "Theater on Spasskaya".

Alexander Green's story is loved in our country. But, it seems to me, mostly grown women love her, or rather, not her, but their memory of the time when they were also waiting. Not all, frankly, waited. The male half of the population recalls the young Anastasia Vertinskaya more in the sweetly cloying film by Alexander Ptushko. It was a real symbol of a man's dream. Whichever of my acquaintances I asked about Green's story, they all answered evasively that they had read it once, but she was not very good for them. Still she is "very" to them! After all, it tells in detail how a man should work hard to win a girl who he accidentally saw on the shore. How much effort and, importantly, how much money to spend. Not to mention the fact that you need to have at least a decent floating craft on which you can attach the desired sails.

What is the reason for today's success of this beautiful fairy tale, written in the hungry twentieth year in the Petrograd House of Arts? Green then lived in poverty, having no literary earnings. The son of an exiled Pole, he was drafted into the Red Army to fight the White Poles (what a grin of fate!) And deserted from there. And everywhere he dragged with him a story about a girl who was beckoned by a dream and whom everyone considered crazy.

What is it that the authors of musicals, plays and dramatizations have caught in our life, which suddenly needed a romantic, strange, with a tinge of gloomy fatalism, the prose of Alexander Green? What did they highlight in it, what did they add, and what did they discard? And how do the three musicals differ from each other? (I dare not write about music, only about meanings, although I prefer Dunaevsky's version.)

A scene from the play. Globus Theater (Novosibirsk).
Photo by V. Dmitriev

The libretto by M. Bartenev and A. Usachev (music by M. Dunaevsky) does not contain the story of Gray. He is left with only a couple of scenes and a deep disappointment in life. Gray is "unshaven, pretty battered by life" and is just the captain of an old schooner. And the sails have to be painted with wine. Not two thousand meters of scarlet silk. The authors of the musical struggled to get away from the story of a young aristocrat with strange fantasies, a family castle and a lot of money. And a real magic ship with scarlet sails appears exclusively in theatrical reality and flies into the hall. Or into eternity - as the libretto authors specify. This depends on the budget of the performance.

And when I hear after the performances: “Gray, of course, no,” - I want to answer all disappointed women: “Do you want Gray from Green's story? So read it or watch an old film with Vasily Lanov. " Of course, all the spectators have their own Gray, but certainly not the one invented by Bartenev and Usachev. And they are right. I know about a dozen and a half Grays of different ages, and none of them looks like Lanovoy. And he looks like some of the performers of this role. For example, the intelligent, disenchanted with life, tired captain performed by Vyacheslav Chuistov (Theater-Theater). Or to the courageous, obviously successful graduate of the Gray River School - Viktor Kharzhavin (Vologda Youth Theater).

N. Uvarova (Mary). RAMT.
Photo by E. Menshova

Menners Jr.'s line appeared in the musical. And it turned out to be very modern. In at least two performances (of all the ones I have seen), this hero turned into a dramatic figure and clearly close to Assoli. His soul is yearning too, and he really loves this strange girl. And, perhaps, worthy of her no less than Gray. And maybe she got excited? Such a dangerous thought crept into my head after the performances of the RAMT, where Menners Jr. was played by Denis Balandin, and the Vologda Youth Theater. In Vologda, the elder Menners was played by Vladimir Bobrov as an ambiguous and not so disgusting hero. The suspicion flashed that he was in love with Mary, or at least envied Longren. Therefore, the younger Menners, in the acute temperamental performance of Timur Mirgalimov, completely in the spirit of tradition, had to fall in love with her daughter.

A priest appeared in the musical, a not very intelligible and fully functional figure. There is the village of Kaperna, in which the action takes place; hence, there must be a priest in it (this is a plot support). Thanks to the scene with him, shaken in faith, Assol looks stronger and more whole. This scene was staged very beautifully in Perm. Dmitry Vasev in the role of a priest looks almost as strange and lonely as Assol. Despair unites them.

The meeting of Assoli and Gray here is almost accidental. It takes place in a nocturnal den, and it might not have been if Assoli's faith had not been shaken. After all, she comes to the brothel to earn money to free her father. But one long look from Gray settles everything, and she runs away. Of course, it is naive and not very intelligible, but, apparently, this genre requires simple solutions.

In the text and music, the image of the fishing village of Kaperna is very important, gloomy, hating everything that is not like it, depending on the imperious whims of the sea. Alexander Green, who lived almost all his life surrounded by such people, knew very well what he was writing about. Not letting any stranger into his "shining world", he was somewhat similar to Longren and his daughter. In the story, the image of Kaperna is written with cruel truthfulness and hostility. And in the musical this theme, important for Green, is picked up and sharpened.

A scene from the play. Theater-Theater (Perm).
Photo by A. Gushchin

Four performances to the music of Dunaevsky are strikingly different from each other. In RAMT (directed by Alexei Borodin) Assol performed by Alexandra Rozovskaya is a savage girl. Disheveled, dressed in something resembling a piece of sail, impetuous, angular. She is good at the beginning, where Assol is a teenager. But she is not good at dramatic and lyrical scenes. And she remains a kid until the end, whose strange whim is, for some reason, performed by an adult man Gray (Alexander Ragulin). Mary performed by Nelly Uvarova is very interesting in this performance. Here she really is of a different blood, there is an oddity in her that the performer Assoli did not manage to play.

In the Perm production of Boris Milgram, Assol first appears as a child (performed by Eva Milgram and Elizaveta Frolova). And this creature from the elf breed imperceptibly and very effectively turns in the performance of Anna Syrchikova (Irina Maksimkina was nominated for the Golden Mask, but I did not see her) into a girl who is not just steadfast in faith, but possessed by this faith. Syrchikova has very good vocals, which are recognized even by music critics, and for the hard-of-hearing critic of the dramatic, this is just a miracle. But, as it seems to me, her Assoli does not have that airy lightness that should be present in this role. She is too strong and unshakable. She has the firmness of a stubborn girl from the people who will achieve everything herself.

In the play "Globe" (directed by Nina Chusova) there are also two Assols. The adult Assol (Maria Soboleva) is too ordinary. She is sweet, charming, but there is no inner drama in her, and it would never occur to anyone to call her not only crazy, but even strange. However, Chusova, it seems, did not put it about.

In the Vologda Youth Theater (production by Boris Granatov) Assol is alone. Alena Danchenko played first a teenage girl in a vest, capable of standing up for herself, and then an adult Assol. Her heroine seems to have grown up, but remained a gullible child, whom it is simply impossible to deceive. Danchenko sings well, but sings (like everyone else in this play) like a good dramatic actress, and this adds charm and warmth to the performance. All the same, a musical is a machine, it is a technology, and in a musical drama performance that does not pretend to be a pure genre, there appears some kind of reckless lightness: what has not been finished is finished.

I will not talk about the four Grays, there is very little space left for them by the authors. If I were Assolya, I would have sailed with Gray from the Vologda Youth Theater. Viktor Kharzhavin is not very popular with the hit that reveals a midlife crisis: "That's all, the dolphins have drowned." Firstly, because he is a real brave captain, and a young one. And secondly, because he is not an aristocrat. After all, God forbid, sail away with Green's Gray: how can you then meet his aesthetic requirements?

But the main thing that distinguishes these four performances is, of course, the view of the director and the artist on this whole story, the attitude towards Kaperna. All the lines in the performances depend on this.

At RAMT Stanislav Benediktov built the world of Kaperna from rusty iron sheets, resembling the side of a ship. Director Alexei Borodin decisively departed (this is just my guess) from his ideas about Green. The world of the village is today's, evil, dehumanized world, in which there is no place for people like Longren, Mary and Assol. This space is without paint, gray, black, rusty. With rude people and cruel jokes. Not all viewers make this decision. Everyone certainly wants it to be different on stage than in life. And it is to this theater that a wise compromise with the audience belongs, a wonderful find when a huge scarlet sail covers the whole hall.

A. Danchenko (Assol). Vologda Youth Theater.
Photos from the archive of the theater

In the Vologda Youth Theater, artist Stepan Zohrabyan and director Boris Granatov followed approximately the same path. On the stage, they also have a kind of "island of lost ships" (according to the exact remark of the critic Dinara Khusainova). Although, perhaps, Vologda residents do not play mass scenes as aggressively as “foam and water” like Muscovites, but in Moscow the realities are different. And, perhaps, only in the Vologda performance such an important, informal role is assigned to Eglu (Alexander Mezhov), who not only gets confused under everyone's feet, but very actively connects the threads of fate. You hate him because he entangled the girl with an obvious invention, and gradually you forgive, because you honestly performed everything that was composed. Here Egle is the most important provocateur and director of other people's destinies.

And only Vologda residents have such a Longren (performed by Igor Rudinsky) who sings like a good dramatic artist, creating a real musical miniature from the hit "I am a postman of empty bottles", and performs a lullaby for Assoli so that every woman in the audience wants to immediately sip it together with my daughter. In a word, the world of Kaperna is of course unpleasant for the residents of Vologda, as it is written in the musical, but the story of Longren and Assoli is shown so tenderly, lyrically that you begin to understand: there are good people everywhere.

A unique case: both the Perm and Novosibirsk performances were nominated for the Golden Mask by the musical expert council in the musical genre in several nominations - it seems that for the first time in the history of the festival, experts surrendered and showed wisdom, because the seizure of foreign territory by drama theaters has become a permanent process. and not single forays. And both productions received a national prize: Alexei Lyudmilin (Novosibirsk) was awarded the best conductor, Boris Milgram received the "Mask" for the best director. But how strikingly different these performances are!

On the "Scarlet Sails" of Novosibirsk people you do not immediately understand that this is the well-known "Globe", which on the same "Mask" was presented in the genre of a small-form dramatic performance ("August: Osage County"; Marat Gatsalov received an award for the best director) ... A virtual sea of ​​wondrous beauty is on the stage. It's magical, scary and very realistic. Just like in the paintings of Aivazovsky. (Those who have seen a huge number of his canvases in the Feodosia Museum will understand me.) The artists Anastasia Glebova and Vladimir Martirosov tried to dress up the stage, the fishermen, and the fishwomen. Kaperna in the play by Nina Chusova is very cute, reminiscent of an excellent operetta crowd. "Waves", in contrast to the black asexual and scary figures in Milgram, are adorable young men and women in delicate pastel clothes. Fishermen and fishermen are not some kind of animals, but just a fun theatrical crowd. Nobody is anyone's enemy here. Well, Assol is declared crazy, but this is so, popular rumor, which, as you know, is fickle. But then everyone will be happy together. The general atmosphere of the performance is incredibly festive and theatrical. And the heroes speak not as dramatic actors, but as actors of the operetta theater, in such, you know, special voices. Nevertheless, this spectacle is very qualitative in its own way, although it is completely devoid of drama.

And God, what was going on at the "Globe" play shown at the "Golden Mask"! Thousandth Hall of the Theater. N. Sats was beaten to capacity, and in the final the audience just didn’t sing along with the heroes. The applause was so long that the theater director Tatyana Lyudmilina, who was in a semi-swoon, seemed to have time to come to her senses. My colleague Alexander Vislov said that he didn’t remember such an audience’s unity at all at a performance of a provincial theater in Moscow, and this also rarely happens at performances in the capital. Dramatic critics were lonely bewildered: again the people were not with us. Or we are not with him.

In the Perm performance, Viktor Shilkrot's set design is an unconditional artistic breakthrough in the musical genre. With the help of constantly moving silvery flyovers, he managed to create an impersonal formidable force that resembles not only the sea, but the ocean of life in general. This force is cold and not even hostile to man, but simply frighteningly indifferent. The fishing village near Milgram (costume designer Irena Belousov) is disgusting in its expressiveness. I often heard a question from people who have not seen the performance: "Is it true that all women have terrible saggy breasts there?" Yes, truth. However, not all. Unlike the tender-hearted critic Marina Raikina, who wrote in MK a review of the Permian performance in the genre of angry rebuke, this did not bother me. The Kaperna fishermen are a powerful image, in the spirit of Otto Dix's painting.

But in the performance of the Permians there is a certain coldness, manufacturability. I think, because the actors of the Theater-Theater have mastered the genre of the musical, in which the refinement and fitting of all the parts of the car protects it from malfunctions. The machine is capable of evoking admiration for its smooth running, but never warmth and sympathy. Although, maybe I don't know enough about cars and musicals.

By the way, when I asked Mikhail Bartenev the incorrect question, which of the performances he likes more, he replied: "The Permians sing the best, and they play the best in Vologda." (True, I don't know if he saw everything then.) Of course, the Vologda Youth Theater does not have such a high budget and such technologies, but art is fully present there.

In the Kemerovo Musical Theater of Kuzbass, the story is completely different. The musical based on Green's story, written by Valeria Lesovskaya, was staged by Dmitry Vikhretsky (scenography by Svetlana Nesterova). The play clearly showed traces of the struggle between the talented director and the theater with traditional musical aesthetics. The forces were unequal, and the theater won. It was a traditional performance, with melodic, sweetish and unmemorable music.

Another thing is important: in this musical (by L. Dremin's libretto) the story of Arthur Gray with his lonely childhood is given in great detail, with his mother Lillian, who appears on the screen, but as if watching him all the time, with the servant Betsy, the graveyard Poldishock and the sailors from the Green's story, which are involved in the biography of Gray. The crowd scenes are staged perfectly, the sailors are almost like real ones. Gray's youth and formation are given in more detail than the history of Assol. As in the story, they follow parallel courses towards each other until Gray's fatal meeting with the sleeping Assol takes place. Nobody here is keen on the topic of a strange girl, immersed in her dream. Assol performed by Kristina Valishevskaya is gentle, dreamy, as it should be, but without an internal breakdown. Gray (Vyacheslav Sobolev) is a young handsome man, a romantic hero in the spirit of DiCaprio. He is not disappointed in anything and is firmly moving towards his goal (even Green's text is partially preserved, which is perceived here somewhat strangely) to the delight of all the spectators who finally saw the real Gray. This pair is completely from Hollywood movies and the voices sound very beautiful.

Meanwhile, there are many absurdities and approximations in the performance, which are common in musical performances. The village innkeeper Menners (Alexander Khvostenko) for some reason appears in a top hat and a black coat and behaves like an infernal creature. Some of the supporting characters are so colorful that when they dress up as other characters, it seems that you are going crazy.

Obviously from the children's matinee, fairies, elves and gnomes, who surrounded the sleeping Assol, leaked into the performance, causing alarm for the fate of the defenseless girl, since it was impossible to understand what kind of strange creatures they were. But young Hollywood heroes caused absolute happiness in the auditorium in the harsh mining town of Novokuznetsk, where I watched this performance.

Scene from the play "The Landing of Scarlet Dreams". Theater "Aistenok" (Irkutsk).
Photos from the archive of the theater

In the Samara Academic Drama Theater named after M. Gorky "Scarlet Sails" staged in an undefined genre of musical extravaganza. The composer is Faustas Latenas, well-known in the capitals. Staged by Eduard Gaidai, directed by Raimundas Banionis. The artist Sergejus Botsullo created a marine environment on the stage. An almost real storm is shown here, and the sailors swing on all the ropes and yards. But just as in the Kemerovo musical, Kapern, as a world hostile to Longren and his daughter, is not of interest to the authors of this play. A certain sign of her is the image of Menners, who, sitting on iron barrels, obviously full of beer, clearly looks like Adolf Schicklgruber, and this is emphasized even by a paramilitary suit. His lyrics like “I am strong, and that means I’m right ...” jarring with their banality.

There are also two Assols here, but the charming doll is so small that it is too early for her to listen to tales about scarlet sails. (And in general, such girls are not allowed to go without adults.) But today's performances are full of poetic conventions, and no one, except for harmful critics, perceives this as a lie.

But the adult Assol performed by Alina Kostyuk is remembered for her strangeness, pretty alien face and complete doom. A girl with such an intelligent face cannot get married here. It is clear. But who did she wait for? Gray performed by Andrey Belyavsky is stocky, self-confident and more like a yacht owner than a schooner captain. He doesn't seem to come. I can’t remember how he came to be and whether he was sailing. But on the other hand, “they are allowed to board the ship according to merit and without,” that is, everyone has the right to happiness. And all the heroes sail to other shores. In this performance there is also a comedic married couple, obviously the aged Assol and her husband. They swear periodically during the action, but at the end they are also happy. This performance, I think, does not irritate adults who are vigilant about the moral education of adolescents. Marina Raikina, I think, would have liked it. The puppet theater did not remain aloof from the "Scarlet Sails": in the Irkutsk "Aistenka" Yuri Utkin staged a play by Alexander Khromov "The Landing of Scarlet Dreams". Since the performance was carried out with the participation of the Mikhail Prokhorov Charitable Foundation, and innovative solutions and technologies were the condition for assistance, all this is present on the stage in huge numbers (performance of the theater's youth rock group, contemporary dance, video installations).

In the first act, the story of little Assoli is played out with tablet dolls. Eight puppet episodes - a wonderful old fairy tale, ending with the death of a seagull torn to pieces by the boys, which the girl could not save. In the second act - Kaperna of our day. And there are already living artists acting here. In the same Menners tavern works the artist Marie (Diana Bronnikova), who, in her drawings, reconstructs the history of Assoli. Egle became an immortal wizard, and immortality was given to him by Frezi Grant (the heroine of "Running on the waves"). Egle protects Marie, because she is like a new Assol. Menners made a commercial project out of ancient history. Every year he holds the Assol of the Year competition in Kaperna, where the most beautiful girl goes aboard a ship under scarlet sails, and some rock star meets her. Where the girls go afterwards, nobody knows. But everyone believes that they are sailing away to their happiness. Girls-contestants are also present. They parade on the platform in a fashion show. We see from the audience only the hand of Menners, who is hidden in a box and conducts all the action from there. For a hundred years, the descendants of the Menners have become even more pragmatic, this is understandable.

Rock musician Arthur (Roman Zorin) brings Menners to the surface with his project and, going through the complex twists and turns of the plot, connects with Marie. Despite the confusion and plot jumbles, despite the slow flow of the second act, this performance is incredibly beautiful. He is remembered by paintings, as in a magic lantern. Marie's black-and-white drawings are beautiful in it, as well as the entire first act, where the dolls, of course, outplayed all the living artists. And there is a longing for the unfulfilled. Maybe through the air of freedom, or maybe through poetry that has evaporated somewhere. Why the authors of the play needed to look at this story with today's eyes is understandable. But the second action is so confusing and cumbersome that it is almost impossible to understand the plot moves. The happy ending looks like a fluke. Maybe the authors of the play just wanted it.

A scene from the play. Theater on Spasskaya (Kirov).
Photo by S. Brovko

The Kirov's Theater on Spasskaya also offered a modern view of this story. The director Boris Pavlovich built the dramatic performance as a collective reading of Green's story. Pieces of text sometimes appear on the screen, then the artists play them, then phrases flutter from one to another, then they forget about the text and begin to think not about the "scarlet sails" at all. Pavlovich looked at Green's fairy tale through the eyes of an adult intelligent person. And together with him, the story is looked at by the artists. Sometimes this is a very ironic look. Assol is an outcast here too. But it happens that the girl is hated because of her beauty and unearthly breed, and it happens because she is fat and ugly, albeit dreamy. Dreaming is not forbidden to anyone. Here is such Assol greedily gnawing an apple and with tears speaks of her loneliness. Funny. And tough. At that moment, before my eyes, a woman with a plump teenage girl left the hall.

In the play there are many confessional monologues of the artists, which sometimes arise out of place, and sometimes it is not clear why, as free associations on the topic. There are several Assols here, and there is a funny moment when Gray puts a ring on a sleeping girl's finger and then all the other Assols raise their little fingers. They are asleep, they are asleep, but they do not lose their vigilance.

Green's story here, in my opinion, is not the main story. This is exactly the myth that the theater is trying to understand. The play is a story about adolescence, about the tragedy of life, which is so acutely felt during this period. And when Green's story falls into the hands, how does a teenager perceive it? And what remains of her in adulthood? Resentment that the ship never sailed? The scarlet pages of the book, on which Green's lines appeared, became a beautiful and capacious metaphor. But here's the strange thing: it's more interesting to think about this performance than to watch it. Many moments remained literary theater, which was often boring. In addition, in a play with such a huge text, the artists should speak better.

But all the same, the Kirov "Sails" forced to look at this text not through the prism of youthful memories. I wanted to reread it. And after rereading, you understand that Pavlovich is right in many ways, but adult viewers will never agree with his rightness. Therefore, I would advise you to specially do "sessions for adults." Let them deal with their own problems.

Should we welcome the return of the myth of the scarlet sails, the girl who waited and waited, the captain who decided to make a miracle with his own hands? I really don't know. I believe that this story should be read primarily by boys. And with girls, I would be careful. Painfully many offended women are sitting on the "Scarlet Sails" and meticulously looking at the captain of the schooner. And they don't like anyone!

I am afraid that women of all ages take the main thing from Green's story: someone has to swim for them! Or gallop up. Or come. If not under scarlet sails and not on a white horse, then at least in a prestigious foreign car. And no matter how the theaters try to draw attention to the fact that not all Grays are handsome and not everyone has a floating movable property, modern assols expect the same as their mothers and grandmothers. And this myth will never die.