Dina Goder. Without context

There are usually few premieres in June. It’s clear: they rehearsed and rehearsed, the elite were invited (although what a elite in the summer - everyone is on vacation), even reviews came out, and by the beginning of the next season everyone had already forgotten what it was about. Theaters are now trying to show new performances prepared for the end of the season a couple of times on the sly, without journalists or distinguished guests, and saving the grand premiere for September.

June is a time for festivals, tours and spectacular one-off outdoor projects. So the current theatrical summer in Moscow begins quite traditionally.

The two main June events for theatergoers are the tour of MDT , which brought almost its entire repertoire from St. Petersburg to Moscow, and the Declan Donnellan Festival of Performances. Of course, the arrival of seven of Dodin’s productions to the capital (this tour is presented as a continuation of the anniversary festival for the 10th anniversary of the Golden Mask) is a particularly pathetic event. It was widely announced and advertised, tickets for famous performances were sold out, the halls were full, but at the same time there was no noticeable discussion of these tours. Not surprising - all the imported performances, from the almost 20-year-old Brothers and Sisters to the latest premiere, Uncle Vanya, have already been to Moscow. Their current show in Moscow is similar to a large personal exhibition of a recognized and well-known artist, like Kustodiev, who is now being shown at the Tretyakov Gallery. What they had, they demonstrated. In the absence of new context, no new twists, skeletons in the closet, depths or omissions are visible. There is no dialogue - and seven large-scale performances lie like a dead block, like a mausoleum to which newcomers are brought to bow, recognizing MDT immediately in the form of “our everything”, which does not tolerate lively discussions and comparisons.

In essence, there was nothing to talk about. Yes, they missed Sergei Bekhterev, who left MDT, they said that “Chevengur” is incomplete without him, and “Brothers and Sisters” seem worse without the white-eyed commissioner Ganichev, and for “Demons” the absence of his scary Pyotr Verkhovensky is a huge loss . They disagreed about Abramov's epic: some believed that the performance was as powerful and lively as before, others said that the age of the actors, who had aged 20 years, was making itself felt, especially in young roles. But all these conversations took place on the sidelines of the tour. There were no productive clashes - and at the huge "Demons" I didn't want to remember the last two Moscow productions based on this novel, and "Uncle Vanya" passed by the Chekhov cannonade of "Cherry Forest", except that excerpts of radical texts from the old "Claustrophobia" reminded of today's interest to Sorokin and new shocking authors. Still, the fact that the Maly Drama tour was taken out of the anniversary bouquet and served in a separate vase, it seems to me, did them a lot of harm. Or rather, it didn't help.

The Donnellan Festival of Performances, which was organized by the Confederation of Theater Unions, remained the only opportunity for a large-scale dialogue with Dodin (especially since it was at the MDT that Donnellan staged his first “Russian” play - The Winter’s Tale, which did not come on this tour). Next to the somewhat ponderous power and complexity of the most famous Russian theater in the world, the Englishman’s performances seemed flighty and artless. And next to Donnellan’s laconic performances, it became especially noticeable that the best and most important thing in the productions of Dodin, who once seemed to be his antipode, was still the same artist on a bare stage.

The Donnellan festival consisted of only three performances - "Twelfth Night" and "Boris Godunov", staged with Russian actors, and the most recent London premiere of the Cheek by Jowl theater - "Othello". It was the last performance that provided the small festival with intrigue and the opportunity for comparisons, at least in the context of Donnellan’s own performances.

Staged four years ago with a team of actors, Boris Godunov is still considered by many to be Donnellan's best Russian production. The changeable and nimble plebeian Otrepiev, played by Yevgeny Mironov, and the intelligent, sophisticated ruler Godunov - Alexander Feklistov - since the first elections of the current president, have demonstrated ways of manipulating popular opinion, and this was an expressive lesson. Last year's charming "Twelfth Night", in which most of the actors from "Godunov" moved on (all the roles in it were played by men), was received very coolly by critics at the premiere, but has now turned into a real hit, having a massive success with viewers here and abroad . It is clear that Moscow theatergoers, who had previously seen many of Donnellan’s English performances, and in recent years had become accustomed to his Russian productions, were very jealously awaiting “Othello,” with which he revived his long-dormant Cheek by Jowl theater. In essence, the current festival was perceived as a competition demonstrating whose actors were better: famous English ones or ours. The outcome of the competition had to decide a lot, because now they say that the real glory of domestic artists remained far away in the times of Stanislavsky, and what we were proud of was a product of Soviet mythology next to rockets and ballet. So, during the days of the inglorious Russian performance at the European Football Championship, theater fans ran around shouting: “Hurray! Ours won!”

Othello disappointed everyone. Critics who attended the premiere wrote about the dryness and rationality of the English performance, about its predictability, and that, as Roman Dolzhansky wrote in Kommersant, “sincerity and awe cannot replace confrontation with damned truths,” that is, “these qualities are not enough, to stage a Shakespearean tragedy." And Marina Davydova from Izvestia even suggested that “it is apparently no longer possible to stage a tragedy of love as pure as a tear. No matter how hard you try, it will still resemble a soap opera (in this case, very stylish) with characters just as passionate and as abstract as the passionate and abstract types of the television series." Critics wrote that - absolutely incredible for Donnellan's performances - the audience left during the intermission, and there were chuckles during the strangulation scene.

However, all this was said about the first performance. I was at the last one - the fourth - and Othello seemed completely different to me. That is, the “victory of ours” was still obvious, I agree that this production is not the best for Donnellan, and, I admit, in the first act, where the boring and predictable intriguer Iago was the main character, I was bored. But in the second act, suddenly something became clear about the main characters - Othello and Desdemona - and everything changed.

Donnellan, as always, dressed the heroes in modern costumes - men in strict three-piece ties, military uniforms and soldier's uniforms, women in frivolous dresses, trousers and T-shirts with bare midriffs. And the whole story came together. About a categorical high-ranking father, accustomed to the subordination of those around him and unwilling not only to forgive, but even to talk at all with his previously downtrodden daughter who disobeyed him (and he will not forget her humiliation in front of her colleagues). About a girl - small, homely, with a snub-nosed, rough face - and her boyfriend - a huge, clumsy and very ugly black fat man. The story is that without each other, Othello and Desdemona had no chance - no one would have been flattered by either of them, but they found each other and became everything to each other.

In fact, there is no inequality in their couple, which is what this tragedy is usually based on. Neither social (Desdemona’s father, of course, is an important person, and Othello has also already made a career, and the nobility of birth is of little concern to anyone today.) Nor racial (this, of course, is talked about all the time, but the difference in skin color was always indifferent to Donnellan - he always cast black actors in the main roles like Sid or Rosalind, while their parents, brothers and sisters were played by white ones, and he could not understand what was surprising here. So in “Othello” the beautiful Emilia is played by a black actress, and everyone is around. they talk about the ugliness of the black Moor, as if she were white). There is not even age inequality, on which, for example, Nyakrosius based his “Othello”. Donnellan's twenty-five-year-old student, black as wax Nonso Anozi, is not just young - he is spontaneous, naive, trusting and impetuous like a child. The actor, who in the rehearsal photographs seems free, charming and graceful, is dressed in a stupid uniform that looks like a tight school uniform on a fat boy, he puts his feet in an X, awkwardly kicks his butt and all the time feels like a freak taking up too much space. A huge, ridiculous, round-eyed baby doll next to the ugly Thumbelina. This complex young Othello feels good only next to Desdemona, and it is clear that when they are together, they want only one thing - immediately, holding hands, run away somewhere backstage to kiss. Even when Desdemona puts on airs and portrays an independent woman. Even when Othello says that he has other, more urgent matters. In essence, the situation in this story is not like in the traditional “Othello”, but like in “Romeo and Juliet”: they loved each other and wanted only one thing - to be together. But they weren't allowed.

Iago played on the Moor’s youthful complexes: “maybe it’s true that I, such a freak, cannot be loved?” Cassio is really handsome. There is a piercing feeling that, dying from jealousy, Othello loves Desdemona more and more. And exhausted by the need to show cruelty. He strangled her in several stages, almost crying: first he held her above her head by the neck while she kicked, and then with a pillow. And he stood next to the body, confused, not understanding what he would do alone. He awkwardly hid the sword next to her under the blanket. And having stabbed himself, he fell and quickly grabbed onto her, like a child on his mother, so as not to be dragged away. Nobody laughed.

And now, after the story about the festival and the tours of the masters, two more words about the last title on the June list - a special summer project, which also took place this year. This time we were treated to the most spectacular and ambitious "E'fedra" - a dashing compote of all kinds of "Phaedra" staged by Zivile Montvilaite, who recently graduated from the Russian Academy of Theater Arts. If you allow me, I will omit the ideological part (and there was one). I will only list that it contained the branched plant ephedra, and, accordingly, ephedrine, which brought with it some drug-addicted connotations, and “I will not see the famous “Phaedra,” and Euripides, and Seneca, and Racine, and Tsvetaeva, and some that of the radical Sarah Kane. And football on the green lawn, where Ippolit shared his thoughts with friends, and video on three large screens, where art, documentary recording and funny titles alternated with a live broadcast of the action, and young attractive actors, and a live “orchestra”. intuitive music", and a disco, and long-legged goddesses Aphrodite and Artemis hanging from the ceiling, and a TV show asking viewers to choose the ending (white and black chocolates were handed out), and a club atmosphere where the bar never stops working, and you can still walk, lying on pillows, smoking and talking on the phone. I can’t vouch for the meaning. They wrote in the press release: “The peculiarity of the project is the simultaneous multimodal perception of reality, displacements in space. This is, in a way, a psychological study by the authors of the project of the everyday life of people, the collective unconscious through a priori constructs of the behavior of heroes of ancient myths in the modern imagination...” And so on. Well, okay, I promised that I wouldn’t talk about ideology.

All this happened on the Shchukin stage of the Hermitage Garden - there is a theater next to the Parisian Life restaurant that has not been completed for a hundred years, for which there is always a behind-the-scenes struggle. The space there is enormous. Very high height - like in a real theater, but small area - the whole building is the size of a stage. So, if you don’t get particularly involved in the simultaneous multimodal perception of reality , but turn your head a little more, it turns out that a lot of productive and interesting things have actually been invented for this space. Spectators lie on a very steeply rising amphitheater, where pillows are folded into comfortable mattresses (the amphitheater was designed by Andrei Alvarez, Andrei Ginev). There is a net behind the audience so that they don’t fall out, but they can look back, where the bar is lit, the actors are resting and some scenes are taking place, which are immediately filmed and broadcast on screens hanging on the other side, in the back of the stage. The stage is a square lawn with real grass, and on the sides are multi-story scaffolding ("Icing of Architects" and Ilya Voznesensky). The actors also jump along them and take the audience on a tour during the performance. The most boring thing in this performance is the actors' screams on the theme of "Phaedra", although all the participants are cheerful, young, fearlessly climbing the top and could certainly play something well if the need arose. It is known for sure about some of the actors that they are good and even in the previous play that Montvilaite staged - “Parasite” - they played interestingly. But on the other hand, let's not be too demanding. For example, the English "Othello" was played in St. Petersburg without any scenography at all - it was detained at customs. We made do with whatever we had to. But in "E'fedra" it was mainly the setting that played the role. Good too.