New face "Golden Mask"

The most prestigious All -Russian Theater Festival starts in Moscow

The Golden Mask looks unchanged, but it is waiting for the inevitable and, possibly, dramatic changes

On February 4, in Moscow, the show of performances of the festival and the National Golden Mask Prize - an annual review of the best achievements of the modern theater begins. This fall, a scandal erupted around the Golden Mask, caused by the rude intervention of the Ministry of Culture in the affairs of one of the most successful cultural institutions of the country. In this regard, the “Mask” was spoke everywhere, those who were never interested in the theater or prizes learned about it. And many had the feeling that a raider seizure of a prestigious theater brand was being carried out.

The phenomenon of the Ministry of Culture

The Golden Mask is really the main and most popular theater award. Over the twenty years of its existence, this structure, which arose in 1994 as the Moscow Prize of the Union of Theater Workers, has turned into a huge project operating all year round. This is the only theatrical institution that connects all the theaters of the country together, creates context and offers landmarks, points out the development path and marks its stages.

There are quite few well -working systems in Russia, and the Golden Mask is one of them. This prize, established by STD, is mainly based on sponsors. Since 2002, the main partner of the award is Sberbank, which now gives almost 70% of the budget, and thanks to this, the “mask” can afford that many such organizations cannot - year -round, permanent, consistent work. The Mask does not pass tenders, competitions, and over the past ten years, its directorate has not changed.

Actually, it was for this circumstance that the Ministry of Culture was hooked. The Ministry of Culture was not the founder of the award, but some time ago became her partner. This decision was made for the development of the festival - of course, they hoped for money from the state budget, who went, first of all, on the tour of the winners in the regions and abroad. But then it could never have occurred to anyone what consequences this would lead to.

The voice of the dissatisfied

The “mask” has always been independent, the mechanism of its work is quite transparent. Decisions are made by experts: the laborious process of collecting and analyzing information throughout the theater space of Russia is conducted by two expert councils, musical and dramatic, their decision is announced in the fall. In the spring, two jury, consisting of professional directors, actors, critics and teachers, watch a competition and make their decision. The laureates of the “masks” are many issuing theatrical figures, and joining this list is very honorable. Of course, such a large project does not do without dissatisfied.

In the theater, this was perceived as an insult, its director almost asked with tears in his eyes: “How? How could you? You kill the old people! "

I remember how long and painfully members of the dramatic jury of 2013 (I was one of them) discussed what to do with the play “The Pier” of the Vakhtangov Theater: on the one hand, it was impossible not to note this worthy work of the artistic director of the theater Rimas Tuminas, thanks to which the viewer was able to see the senior actors of the theater in the scenes that have advantageous for them; On the other hand, to name the best performance consisting of small numbers made specifically for the beneficial exit of the stars beloved by the public, it would be strange. As a result, the jury decided to give the “pier” a special prize, for the preservation of traditions. But in the theater, this was perceived as an insult, its director Cyril Krok almost with tears in his eyes asked: “How? How could you? You kill the old people! "

Theatrical people are emotional and close to their hearts. By the way, in the same year, the winner was recognized as the performance of the Yaroslavl Theater “Untitled” with the really outstanding work of director Evgeny Marcelli and actor Vitaly Kishchenko. Victory does not often get provincial theaters, the case of Marcelli is the second for the entire period of existence of the prize. However, the participation of groups from all over Russia in the competition is fundamentally important, and this means a lot for specific theaters, facilitating the complex existence of innovative and artistically bold performances in the province.

Chairman of the Union of Theater Workers of the Russian Federation Alexander Kalyagin, President of the Golden Mask festival Georgy Takorakin and Deputy Minister of Culture of the Russian Federation Alexander Zhuravsky are trying to agree on the future of the main Russian theater award

The Mask never flirted with peripheral theaters, did not reduce criteria for the sake of formal participation. Experts drive throughout the country to see what can become a real achievement, and thanks to their work, any city theater receives the chances of being recognized if an interesting, vivid performance appears there.

In addition to the Mask contest, it brings to Moscow the performances of the additional program “Mask Plus” - experimental and unusual. The programs are changing: this year, instead of the traditionally arranged “Russian Case” (for guests from other countries), laboratories and seminars, the Alexander Theater will come to Moscow, and during school holidays a special program of children's performances will be shown.

It would seem that there is something to be proud of, we do not have so many thoughtful systemic work. But this is precisely what caused unexpected attacks from the team of Minister Vladimir Medinsky. In May, at a meeting of the Ministry of Culture “On the implementation of the Fundamentals of the State Cultural Policy of the Russian Federation”, which took place in Tula, Deputy Minister of Culture Vladimir Aristarchkh suddenly said that the Golden Mask festival “systematically supports production that is obviously contradicting moral standards, obviously provoke society, obviously contain elements of Russophobia, contempt for the history Moral framework. " People who know the situation firsthand were very surprised by the officials of the official: “The cabbage soup for theatrical productions is not the drama, even if she considers herself the new one, which we must support. (...) If the budget of the same festival consists of 80% of the non -state, from the Sberbank, that the same thing is that we probably have the right to demand that people do not harm us for this money. ”

For replaceability

The question of these most “non -state” money, which are “the same as the state,” obviously cornerstone. Officials of the Ministry of Culture, who are not competent in art issues, but well -knowledgeable bureaucratic techniques adopted under the current president and its government, consider themselves the guardians of certain “national values”, which they, as devoted servants of the sovereign, must present in demand an invariable form. Therefore, they are sure that people who have developed a certain brand for twenty years are less interested in success and know their business worse than they, who came to their posts from the career stairs of youth ideological movements. These people need to be corrected, or even replaced.

Of course, there were many dissatisfied in the theater environment itself. For example, the director and actor Nikolai Burlyaev, who has been heading his own Golden Vityaz festival for many years, generously supported by the state, simply and unfoundedly stated that the “mask” had turned into “profitable vision”, “between the might”. And the playwright and writer Yuri Polyakov complained that “from the headquarters of the“ Golden Mask ”they called the regional theaters and persuaded not to put my plays” (they helped him and allocated a state grant to the personal festival “Smalls”, consisting exclusively of his plays, staged, despite the prohibitions of “headquarters”; I got it). A whole team gathered dissatisfied, the efforts of which the Ministry of Culture and began an attack on the prize regulations.

Officials who are not competent in matters of art consider themselves the guardians of certain “national values”, which they, as devoted servants of the sovereign, must present at the request a constant form

It was put on pressure on STD, there was talk that the dancing girl dictates the rules of conduct, that the replacement of experts is needed (the word “replacement” in the conditions of the current government can only be perceived as a caricature). This item turned out to be the most conflict: the work of an expert who watches more than 200 performances a year from Kamchatka to Kaliningrad requires great self -denial, free time and good health, but criticism demanded immediate introduction to the expert councils of older people or famous journalists who could not work, but provided status.

As a result, several people were introduced to the Council on the initiative of the Ministry of Culture, of which the specialist of the Likhachev Institute Kapitolina Kokenev, who became famous for the views of excellent hardness during the examination of the notorious performance of the Novosibirsk opera, Tangaizer, distinguished themselves with the most odious views. One mention of her surname caused a sharp reaction of those directors who had long become a buzzing protective journalism: Konstantin Bogomolov and Kirill Serebrennikov immediately stated that they did not want to work with such an expert council. This added oil into the fire, the situation was stuck, and only the efforts of the director of the Golden Mask Maria Revyakina and the chairman of the STD Alexander Kalyagin, who took over the duties of peacekeepers today, introduced the situation back into the working mode.

The Golden Mask this year was created according to the old rules. New will show themselves in a year. There is a hope that the basic principles of the award managed to preserve that theatrical figures accustomed to a boil of passions are defending their position without much damage to its meaning. Although, of course, it is not perfect to destroy, but clearly and meaningfully working mechanism is easy. But to build in his place something similar is unlikely to be on the shoulder for a vigorous and muscular fighters for ideological control.

Photo: Alexander Yakovlev/ITAR-TASS, Mikhail Japaridze/TASS