Vahit Karkyraev. Shura Balaganov and the skit masters. Swim #5

Shura Balaganov and the skit masters. Swim #5
Review of paper press on culture

Vahit Karkyraev

Publication date: December 20, 2000

“Shura, we want to receive reciprocity from you . ” This is not Babel, and not Ilf and Petrov, but the title of an article by Roman Dolzhansky in today's Kommersant . It’s not hard to guess what. What the newspapers trumpeted almost daily has come true: Alexander Shirvindt was introduced yesterday to the troupe of the Satire Theater as a “young” artistic director. Dolzhansky’s article is fully consistent with the commercial spirit: a detailed description of the conversation with the watchwoman, who did not allow the journalist to attend the troupe’s gathering, is replaced by an equally detailed description of the solemn speeches and intimate family atmosphere (in a banter tone). I admit, I still cannot forget a similar description of Oleg Efremov’s funeral. After all, the venerable theater critic sat through the entire memorial service and wrote down in a notebook who behaved and how, what old women fans and famous theater figures said, and how Berezovsky arrived at the cemetery. What you won’t do for a Kommersant reader felt involved in significant events: anniversaries, weddings, funerals. everyone who is still interested in the fate of the Satire Theater Therefore, I refer to a small but poignant publication in Vremya Novostey .

Marina Davydova, apparently, was not so prompt and did not make it to the troupe’s gathering. But she grasped the tasks of the new artistic director even without this: “More humor, less satire.” But lately there has been little satire at the Satire Theater. And there is more than enough low-quality humor. In fact, it slowly but surely turned into a branch of the Variety Theater ." Those who read yesterday a long interview with Shirvindt in Nezavisimaya Gazeta already understood that "in general, everything will be like under grandfather (Pluchek - V.K.) " .

“What actually happened? ” Davydova further asks. “ Ninety-year-old Pluchek gave way to sixty-year-old Shirvindt . ” Regarding the difficult conditions in which metropolitan directors much younger than sixty exist, here is an interview with fashionable director Elena Nevezhina. In contrast to "Satire".

And for contrast to the interview - a review of Nevezhina’s performance in “Snuffbox”. Again Marina Davydova, again scolding. It turns out that there is no one to step on the heels of ninety-year-old plucheks except sixty-year-old Shirvindts. The circle is closed.

He also became isolated in Vedomosti , where today - apparently, already the last - Oleg Zintsov’s review of “Masquerade” by Viktor Shamirov. And an interview with young actors Irina Grineva and Sergei Pinchuk - the work of Elena Kovalskaya .

It has long been known: what material is the main one on a cultural strip - that’s what the strip will be like. If after the central article by Roman Dolzhansky in Kommersant you don’t want to read anything else (the opening of Konstantin Latyshev’s exhibition in the Aidan Gallery, St. Petersburg news and an “information sheet” about the new ballet with conversations by Vladimir Vasiliev). But Vremya Novostey quite rightly placed the article “An old friend is better than two new ones” under the heading . Ekaterina Biryukova, who attended two “December Evenings” concerts, skillfully mixed a piano trio with the vocal cycle “The Beautiful Miller’s Wife,” turning a simple review into a reflection on the problems of performing romantic music.

In a series of publications about Bertrand Blier’s new film “Actors” with the participation of all the aging stars of French cinema, the word “cabbage” sounds like a refrain . “We do this at any acting skit - but it never occurred to anyone to film it and show it to people. Imagine Abdulov, Makovetsky, Ilyin, Ulyanov, Khazanov, Mordyukova and other of our favorite actors, who were simply put in front of the camera, were not given no text in their hands and were asked to carry whatever came to mind" ( Valery Kichin , Izvestia ). It’s even scary to imagine Khazanov without a prepared text!

“Into the film <...> , outwardly similar to a virtuoso trifle, the participants in the film put a living human nerve, managing to express their current experiences in jokes. For a very long time, the participants of “Actors” grabbed stars from the sky, were popular, young, full of energy . The illusion has held on for too long that it will be like this forever" ( Ekaterina Salnikova , Nezavisimaya Gazeta ). Only Alexey Medvedev in Vremya Novostey is pessimistic : “Another plot of auteur cinema with its programmatic reflection has been exhausted. A new cinema is beginning, in which the level of emotional impact on the viewer becomes much more important than semiotic paradoxes and philosophical statements about the nature of art . ”

“No, the Americans don’t know how to be so funny and poignant. We could, but the guts of imagination have become thinner. The cabbages will be kaput ,” says Valery Kichin . But you can’t take us with your bare hands! Shamirov's "Masquerade" is a skit, the Theater of Satire is one big skit. The smoking room is alive!