Marina Timasheva. Fort Melpomene

At the end of Soviet power, the list of branches of material and spiritual production in which we were not inferior to Europe and America by a millimeter was considerably reduced. But the theater still occupied its rightful place there. Along with energy, foreign intelligence and diving and rescue services.

Another 10 years have passed. Deep-sea divers have joined the crowds of "shuttles", the energy industry in the provinces is little by little being replaced by "potbelly stoves", reconnaissance is a secret matter, I cannot judge about it, I can only guess... But the temple of Melpomene 1 still stands. As if on the sidelines of socio-economic processes, shaming pundits with their objective laws and asserting the rightness of the poets:

Thank God for the bread that has been given to us today;
But there's something else in the world, I swear -
She's here somewhere... 2

No famous theater has reformed into a strip hall. They closed only in Dushanbe and Grozny, and even then during street fighting. Latvia also became famous, where the authorities apparently decided that Russian letters and the Jewish surname of the main director ( A. Shapiro ) in the Riga Youth Theater posters could offend the feelings of SS veterans. So the Minister of Culture, by the way Mr. Raymond Pauls, removed the posters and the theater from Riga out of harm’s way. And together with Shapiro.

At the same time, in Georgia, engulfed in civil war and devastation, the actors of the Tbilisi State Theater for Children and Youth took 4 hours to get to work (there was no transport), the salary was enough for 3 kilos of potatoes, in the unheated hall the audience sat in coats - but what’s worse As life got better, the more people came to the performances.

It is still very difficult to separate the “Russian” theater from the “former Soviet” one. Andrei Goncharov's student Eimuntas Nyakrosius, the chief director of the Shota Rustaveli Theater Robert Sturua, and People's Artist of the USSR Bogdan Stupka are not perceived by us as “foreigners.” On the way to St. Petersburg (to the Baltic House festival), the director of the state farm reported on the milk yield to Donatas Banionis as if he were a good old friend. Money for tickets for Tbilisi artists was collected at the festival in Rostov by the entire post-Soviet world 3 .

It is interesting that the government of Ukraine, in which Stupka became the Minister of Culture, is completely nationalistic. But as a man of the theater , and not politics, he plays Gogol ( " Old World Love " ) staged by Moscow director Valery Fokin in Russian, and for this the thugs from UNA-UNSO disrupt his performances...

The point, of course, is not in the sign at the door of the institution - whether the word “theater” is written on it or not - but in the content.

One of my colleagues, not entirely academically, but figuratively expressed the essence of what distinguishes theater from neighboring centers of culture.

It is still impossible to bring a girl from the street to the theater and appoint her as the leading actress for a wad of dollars.

In other words, the professional cultural environment was preserved through the efforts of many people.

There are laureates of Lenin and even Stalin (Yuri Lyubimov) prizes. There is no shame in front of them for the younger generations: Kama Ginkas, Anatoly Vasiliev, Henrietta Yanovskaya, Anatoly Praudin, Grigory Dityatkovsky... Of course, certificates of greatness are issued to the artist after the fact. Big things can be seen from a distance. But today there is little reason to worry that theatrical personalities have been shredded. In Russia or abroad. Nyakrosius is directly called “great”. And his fellow countryman Rimas Tuminas 4 is hot on his heels. Which foreign specialist would deny Lev Dodin or Anatoly Vasiliev that they have independent ideas that are not limited to the heritage of their teachers and have a huge impact on world art? "The Black Monk" by Ginkas, "Family Happiness" and "Absolutely Happy Village" by Fomenko, "The Diary of Anna K." Praudin, “The Lamentation of Jeremiah” by Vasiliev, “The Thunderstorm” by Yanovskaya, “Chevengur” by Dodin - entire fragments of these performances are worthy of being included in anthologies on the history of the 20th century. But the theater is not only the director. This, for example, is also an artist. The older generation, who became famous in Soviet times - David Borovsky, Eduard Kochergin, Valery Levental, Sergey Barkhin - competes with the younger: Yuri Kharikov, Oleg Sheintsis, Pavel Kaplevich, Anatoly Shubin. Puppet artists deserve special mention. Rezo Gabriadze, whose "Song of the Volga" - a great tragedy played with tiny dolls in a space the size of a desk - has traveled all over the world. Or the artist of the Yekaterinburg Puppet Theater Andrey Efimov, who creates fantastic universes in snuff boxes. Stanislav Lem had two demiurge designers assemble new populous planets for the star kings. Only our Trurl does not live at the royal court, but on the outskirts of Yekaterinburg in a house without a telephone. And for some incredible salary (a year ago it was 400 rubles).

The skill of theater artists is especially noticeable against the background of the fact that they are exhibited with pomp and for completely different money in “art arenas” and “contemporary art” galleries.

Let's say that set designers, like artists, are people not of this world. Well, let's take such a selfless service as journalism. In the public media, as a rule, professionals still talk about theater in our country. It is not customary to take money for reviews. And these reviews may or may not be convincing, but even on TV-6 they try to evaluate the play exactly as a play, and not according to some extraneous criteria (profit from the production, sexual orientation, etc.).

It is no coincidence that there was genuine hatred in L. Pirogov’s “report” to the last Anti-Booker ceremony . “The art of theatre, despite the obstinacy of fans and wonderful traditions, is degrading at the speed of G. Yavlinsky’s electorate...” 5 , etc. The LG columnist is wishful thinking. But it is clear that the hated “fans of tradition” for Pirogov personify something that deprives the world of harmony and completeness in which this same Pirogov has settled well.

What allowed the theater to become so isolated?

After all, the servants of Melpomene never constituted a special caste, fenced off from the world by the walls of the monastery. They, too, are always intriguing, quarreling over roles ( “Now I understand why this mediocrity got the role of Louise...”, etc.), selling popular faces to advertising agencies, signing election waste paper - “Pupkina is three times marshals!” - or a petition in defense of yet another “philanthropist” who has stolen inappropriately 6 .

They say that it was easier for theater to resist because, unlike cinema or rock music, it is based on a centuries-old tradition and is very elitist. But it’s no more elitist than the above-mentioned galleries, in which you won’t find even one and a half visitors during the day. And try to get to Sergei Zhenovach’s “Woe from Wit” at the Maly Theater, not to mention the performances of “Lenkom” or “Sovremennik” . As for centuries-old traditions, the literary one is much richer - it still inspires... again, theater directors, but for some reason does not help modern writers.

Meanwhile, there are two characteristic features that distinguish the theatrical process in the 90s from what was happening in neighboring creative workshops. This atypical thing is quite material, even measurable, and one wonders why analysts are so reluctant to pay attention to it.

1. Stability of the organization

It is still based, as in the times of K.S. Stanislavsky, on a stationary repertory theater . Since the late 80s, attacks have been made on this relic of totalitarianism in order to introduce enterprise instead - “a new type of social relations. If public life changes, then the theater must change too...” 7 . An enterprise is a private company that does not educate or educate, but simply sells spectacles, like a stall at the market sells tomatoes. (In this sense, it is truly in tune with the era.) But the dispute between the two organizational models was resolved by practice. If we judge “by its fruits” (and how else can we judge art except by the artistic level of the works?), then the overwhelming majority of good performances are staged in repertory theaters. New enterprises that have seriously declared themselves (Pyotr Fomenko’s workshop, “Tabakerka” , “Et Cetera” etc) are also built according to the traditional model. Even the children's theater "Shadow" , founded as a family enterprise by Maya Krasnopolskaya and Ilya Eppelbaum (later taken under the patronage of Luzhkov), is a mini-repertory theater on the scale of the Red Corner.

Apart from individual successes, which are so rare that they can safely be called accidental, then we can say that the enterprise makes its money on the sidelines of the theatrical process and the description given to it 130 years ago by V.I. Nemirovich-Danchenko seems written yesterday: “Under the yoke of an entrepreneur, actors, firstly, must play all sorts of rubbish, as long as it brings in money; secondly, they often have to play roles that are not their own; thirdly, the entrepreneur, not putting himself in the position of an actor, gives him almost no time for more or less serious preparation" 8 .

From the foregoing does not follow any apology for the repertory theater, which can be prone to bureaucratization and mummification (when the appearance of life is maintained by the names of the great founders and budget subsidies for these names). But the problem is not how many disadvantages the traditional model has, but whether the proposed alternative has advantages.

A pure and correct ten-year experiment in conditions of free competition showed: they do not exist.

Along with the traditional organization of theatrical production, it was possible to preserve the second great creation of the founding fathers of the Moscow Art Theater - the system of professional education. In the time of reforms, universities have survived, in which great masters teach professions for free , ensuring a change of generations and the reproduction of the cultural environment.

2. Emigration to the classics

Almost all performances that became events in the post-Soviet seasons are based on the classical heritage.

The number of successes is proportional to the total number of productions. The latest drama chart in Moscow, compiled by Irina Vinogradova, gives the following results: first place was shared by Ostrovsky and Chekhov (39 productions each), Shakespeare took second place (29), Pushkin took third place of honor (22), etc. 10 .

Classical dramaturgy is complemented by dramatizations of literary works - from “The Lamentation of Jeremiah” at the A. Vasiliev School of Dramatic Art to children’s poems by S. Marshak in “The Absent-Minded Man” by A. Praudin (Ekaterinburg Youth Theater).

Attempts to modernize the repertoire were made by different directors in different theaters - and failed with depressing regularity. And they failed not technically, but shamefully. Please note that new Russian films also collapse at the stage of scripts, which neither the director, nor the actors, nor the cameramen can save. Exactly the same thing happens with “modern performances”. They find themselves infected from birth either with politics of a certain kind (not from sincere faith, like Mayakovsky or Brecht, but from the herd instinct), then by “commerce” (= a conscious game of intellectual decline), then by “postmodernism” (= verbal diarrhea). But perhaps the most common option is “chernukha-porn” . This is how the audience determined this artistic direction. The same ungrateful viewers for whom it was intended and whose tastes (“backward”) it supposedly served.

The only strong emotion is pity for professional artists who are forced to recite obscenity from the stage ( “Claustrophobia” at the St. Petersburg MDT).

Of course, the problems of Dostoevsky and Shakespeare , especially Euripides, are connected with the realities of past eras. But real literature outgrows its era and becomes a universal property. This literature is populated by living characters and, accordingly, leaves the director and actor opportunities for creative interpretation. Options for co-authorship with classics, as experience shows, are extremely diverse.

The staging of the novel "The Idiot" at the theater on Malaya Bronnaya was emphatically academic; the form of the trilogy ( "Shameless" - "Poor Knight" - "Russian Light" ) made it possible to reproduce the text of F.M. Dostoevsky with maximum completeness. Neither in the scenery, nor in the costumes, nor in the acting - there is no modernization. The disputes between the heroes and the very fate of the “Russian Christ” of Prince Myshkin are contemporary. Strictly following the artistic truth of Dostoevsky the writer, director Sergei Zhenovach refuted Dostoevsky the publicist, who had just now become fashionable.

On the contrary, E. Nyakrosius stages Shakespeare, cutting out the literary text by almost half. But the density of the stage text is incredibly high. The director's consciousness is mythological. From meanings intelligible to him alone, he brings to light ancient symbols and brings the conflict to the cosmogonic level. For example, Nyakrosius tells the story of the ghost who sends Hamlet to his death as the story of God the Father and the Son.

And Proudin’s performance “The Absent-Minded Man” made some colleagues want to stand up for Marshak. They believe that a critical rethinking of the Soviet realities of the recent past not only diverges from the meaning that Marshak put into his poems, but enters into an antagonistic contradiction with it. Following their logic, it was necessary to stage such a performance not according to Marshak, but according to Kharms 11 . The relationship between communist Andrei Platonov and Lev Dodin, who turned his “Chevengur” into an anti-communist apocalypse, was even more complicated.

The same Shakespeare play can be presented in hundreds of stage versions. Shakespeare, Dostoevsky and Platonov open different paths, some lead to Rome, some do not. Graphomaniacs do not open any way anywhere.

There is no reason to believe that theater workers formulated their choice in favor of the classics consciously, principled and organized. Rather, a kind of professional self-preservation instinct came into play.

Maybe they would be happy to keep up with the times. The same Oleg Menshikov believed that Maxim Kurochkin was not just an Anti-Booker laureate, but in fact a “talented young playwright.” And he staged a play based on his “Kitchen” . The advertising campaign immediately ended and the conversation began on the merits - and not only about the “drama” (pretentious and meaningless), but also about the acting of Menshikov himself.

If the theater lived according to general laws, it would be possible to pass off failure as success. Blow another soap bubble. If on TV they repeat a hundred times a day that so-and-so is a pop star, then go and figure out whether she is actually a singer or just opens her mouth to the soundtrack.

But in the theater different laws apply. There is no system of “custom” articles, no “paid” airtime, no “market economy” in the work of festival juries. Now Menshikov will think ten times before taking the word of advertising agents. Or - another option - he will finally break with the “conservative” theatrical environment and completely move into cinema and show business.

Justice requires naming two names that partly rehabilitate the concept of “modern drama”. Sverdlovsk resident Oleg Bogaev with "Russian People's Post" , which was superbly directed by Kama Ginkas and in which Oleg Tabakov played the main role. The role of retired front-line soldier Ivan Sidorovich Zhukov, who ends his invisible life in a small apartment in front of a broken old TV. Writes letters to dead friends and the Queen of England. He answers them to himself. The play is hopeless, like the real fate of this old man in 1996, but it differs from the typical “postmodernist” smut in that the author empathizes with the hero, and does not mock him. The middle name is Evgeny Grishkovets from Kaliningrad, a one-man theater of his own, as well as a director and playwright. The phenomenon is so unusual that its belonging to the theater diocese can be questioned. A distant analogy is Lenny Bruce, immortalized by Bob Fosse in the movie of the same name. But Lenny is a very tough author, and the “ new sentimentalist” Grishkovets loves tasty details of the past and the past itself, because then both he and his audience were young, and who doesn’t love themselves young? He even talks about the looking-glass absurdity of military service on Russky Island ( “How I Ate a Dog” ) without strain, with soft, sad, slightly surprised irony.

A necessary clarification is in case of future controversy. I wouldn’t want anyone to read from this article a preaching of disinterestedness in the spirit of the 20s. Or contrasting expert assessment with “popular opinion” . The ideological dogma “money is a universal criterion of the value of everything” is, firstly, incorrect (does not work in many areas of human activity: in medicine, education, etc.); secondly, it is destructive wherever they try to impose it contrary to the nature of things. Of course, it is better to be rich and healthy than poor and sick, and art has its own economy - “...but you can sell a manuscript” - but it is very specific. Tickets for old performances by Grishkovets are selling for 750 rubles this year, for Nyakroshyus - 1200, and the director of the Golden Mask festival, Eduard Boyakov, says that they could sell for 300 dollars - they will still sell out. But the performances were made without relying on rubles or dollars.

The founding fathers of the Moscow Art Theater were not idealists divorced from life; on the contrary, they were rational practitioners. Their phenomenal success is precisely due to the fact that they were able to subordinate the secondary result (the one about which the accounting department reports) to the main one - the artistic one.

As for the quality and mass, then in art it is just different parameters. A bestseller can become both a workshop and a wretched surrogate. The Hollywood " Cleopatra " , which was watched by many millions on all continents, is more cultured, more human and smarter than our "new movie" , supposedly designed for the elite. Everyone chooses by themselves, and first of all this is the choice of not those who buy, but those who sell and replicate.

An indicative example from a sphere close to me. S. Venvach survived with Malaya Bronnaya, not least due to the fact that his performances are not given fees. He moved to the Small Theater and, without changing anything for himself, set him "grief from the mind." Full house. Tickets from the hands of the front entrance are resold at $ 100. The same director, the same classic repertoire. Maybe the problem is with the directorate?

Of course, the theater as a whole experienced the incorrect touches of the Time of Troubles.

In February 1990, the actor’s house with the archives of the All -Russian Theater Society burned down. Fate brought up a fat line under the past life.

What was the former WTO, now the Union of Theater Workers? The public organization of professionals related to the theater, from monitoring to theaters, the coordination center of creative communication and information, and at the same time what will be called the beautiful word "holding". Here we will not delve into the history of artistic and industrial symbiosis - it began in the tsarist times - and in the details of its internal structure. It is important for us that the STD belonged to perfumery and at the expense of income from lipsticks and lotions there were clinics and rest houses.

But cosmetic factories drowned in a stream of duty -free import. Medical services were dispersed in various chambers of the restless CIS 12 , and those health resorts that remained with the Russian Federation still could not compete with Turkish Kushadasa. In the clinic, even famous artists are now perceived as an annoying interference that distracts the medical staff from the main - commercial - activity. But the worst thing is that the impoverished union could no longer carry theaters from the city to the city, to send critics to view new performances (earlier such business trips with subsequent discussion on the troupe were as mandatory as a solemn meeting by November 7), to collect and disseminate information . Even the famous library on Bolshaya Dmitrovka (the same one where you can get programs of almost all the performances, how many of them were staged, and the reviews of them, systematized not only in theaters, but also by personalities), in 1998, on the verge of closing 13 .

The periodicals hid. Let me remind readers of the older generation (and the younger ones did not find this and should believe in the word) that serious theater publications - theater , theatrical life , screen and scene - were sold freely under Gorbachev in every kiosk throughout the huge country. Apparently, the "mass" that bought and read them was not so stupid.

The collapsed cinema with his wreckage hit a very painful in the acting profession. We, unlike America, have the vast majority of artists combined work in the theater and cinema. But all films, as a rule, are good films, such that contributed to creative growth, and not vice versa, and not vice versa, and not vice versa.

We have already touched on the topic of salaries and domestic conditions. The situation of artists and directors in the province, especially sovereign, was not too different from the situation of miners, sailors, teachers and other professionals related to a specific useful business.

But not one of the wounds became deadly.

Theaters learned to survive alone. Without changing the fundamental principles of internal organization, they mastered market relations with the outside world and various forms of ownership: except for state theaters (there are 598 of them in the Russian Federation), municipal and private appeared. The statistics on them are quite vague, but it is clear that there were much more sites than in 1991. You can evaluate this differently. For example, to say that not all growth is healthy; which is better less, but better; that outstanding actors should not turn into mediocre directors, especially the main ones; And that among the neoplasms indicated in the address books for the letter "T", there are those in which the only attribute of art is a sign. All this is true. But it is significant that the new theaters (including false ones) appeared not instead of the old ones, but next to them. And neither those nor others complained about the absence of spectators.

Even the adaptability, which we spoke a little higher with a slight contempt, had its own specifics in our industry. Hiring before the "sponsors", the famous actors and directors, as a rule, asked for money not for their beloved in a jacuzzi, but a troupe for salaries and decorations.

With the destruction of traditional structures (and the main ones were never destroyed!) Creative life itself gave rise to replacement mechanisms. Festivals that spontaneously declared themselves in different cities took up the unified theatrical space - everywhere where enthusiasts managed to ensure a minimum of funds and favor of the authorities. Some quickly sunk into oblivion, while others gained respectability, strict frequency and spread beyond the limits of not only the Russian Federation, but even the CIS. I will call the main: the Chekhov International Theater Festival (once every 2 years in Moscow, the organizer is a confederation of theater unions, represents the best dramatic performances from around the world); The National Festival and the Golden Mask Prize (held annually in Moscow, since last year, laureates are taken to other cities, dramatic, musical and puppet theaters of Russia are participating in the competition, a separate prize is awarded for the best foreign performance on tour in Russia); "Baltic House" (annual, dramatic, competitive - in St. Petersburg, first united the countries of the Baltic region, the geography gradually expanded, now the whole world is the Baltic House); The annual "Christmas meetings" in Novosibirsk (non -competition, the principle of the Chekhov festival, but with less possibilities); "Real theater" (once every 2 years, collects youth and children's theaters in Yekaterinburg); Pushkin Theater Festival in Pskov (annual, non -appealing, thematic - performances based on the works of Pushkin).

No matter what claims to the jury are accompanied by the distribution of elephants, theatrical festivals are practically not affected by corruption and even their controversial solutions remain within the profession: one of the two works is selected - maybe not the best, but quite professional. Nothing, like the “writer Galkovsky” , has not yet been awarded prizes and, we hope, will not be awarded.

The circulation of theatrical publications, both old and new ( St. Petersburg Theater Journal , newspaper Actor's House , a magazine scene , a magazine of the Omsk drama, published right in the theater, etc.), of course, Samizdatovsky, like any meaningful literature.

But Irina Vinogradova’s website “ Theater Wounder ” is available to any computer owner. And the connection with the wide neopernet audience is provided by theatrical observers of public media.

For several years in a row, the Golden Mask was criticized by my fellow countrymen-Moscow for the fact that there are too many bonuses to the provincials, including Petersburgers. "The thesis that there could not be phenomena, commensurate with Moscow ..." 15, had matured in his eyes. " 15 . By the beginning of the new century, balance seemed to be restored and passions subsided. But the discussion itself showed how blocked in the theater community the concept of "center" and "periphery". A number of outstanding directors work in Moscow and there are probably more of them than in any other city - as much as the capital itself is more crowded. But it cannot be said that the theater of Omsk or Novosibirsk focuses on Moscow and follows it as our rock bands behind the Liverpool. Maybe, from some point of view, it is not even easier to work in the capital, because less time is spent on presentation, parties and shooting and in the film and television, respectively, it remains more for creativity. The two best Russian actresses today (in their age category) are Svetlana Zamaraeva and Rosa Khairullina. The first is from Yekaterinburg, the second is from Kazan. Both did not star at all. Only theatrical viewers know them. By the same standards, we must regret it: after all, fantastic actresses have no that popular popularity that they deserve. Today, willy-nilly, you ask the question: would they be so good if they exchanged their talent for stamping about "Putan" and "killers"?

Instead of dividing the “center” and “periphery”, it would be more correct to talk about the “theatrical” and “non-metal” cities, which are distributed on the geographical map quite powerless. A traditionally strong theater - in Yakutia, and not only in the capital of the republic (the main director of the Drama Theater Andrei Borisov - part -time Minister of Culture), but also in the city of Nyurba on the Vilyui River, about 300 kilometers west of Yakutsk; in Omsk; Novosibirsk; Irkutsk; Kazan; Yekaterinburg; Samara; Rostov; Oryol; Yaroslavl; Pskov. But sometimes, the troupe with the most unexpected residence permit in the focus of the critics: for example, in the mid -90s - the theater of Evgeny Marcelli from Sovetsk (Tilsit), the district center of the Kaliningrad region.

If it is impossible to predict the weather more than a week in advance (and for a day - it turns out badly), then what can I say about such a contradictory and fundamentally not translated into the numbers of matter, as art?

It is not clear why the owners of life endure and even sponsor what is obviously breaking out of the general framework. Apparently, they do not take the theater seriously, considering it: a) elite entertainment (the theater has become a kind of prestigious leisure, a place where it is convenient to establish informal business ties); b) Torn from life, especially political. About the same, the Soviet nomenclature perceived the "apolitical" Anatoly Efros or, for example, the chemistry and life magazine. By the way, I miscalculated. If a person is taught to think, he will try to apply this ability not only to chemistry. And the one who is brought up by the modern Russian theater will hardly become applauding the film "Brat-2" .

But this problem is for sociologists.

In 2001, it is clear that the repertoire theater resisted, and the attacks of small Chubais on it are being taken, rather, by inertia.

A more acute situation is with drama.

The controversy on this subject continues at two levels. The first is frankly speculative, we already touched it above. A rather unsightly role is played by colleagues from Western Europe, in all other relationships cute and warning. In the art of prosperous countries, marginal-criminal subcultures with all their nauseating attributes came into fashion. Those very subcultures in which every jargon word is imbued with hatred, dull cruelty, contempt for someone who is weaker, for example, to women. For some reason, it is in this environment that “left” intellectuals are looking for an alternative to boring and hypocritical bourgeois. As if a mad dog becomes a revolutionary because she bit a policeman.

Cultural centers of a number of EU countries promote (in order not to say - impose) in Russia subcultures of drug addicts and perverts 16 . These enlighteners do not essentially enter the polemic, but with the persistence of advertising gaskets they repeat that our directors are lagging behind life, and M. Ewenechill and S. Kayne are large playwrights.

Of course, the whole experience of history, from Athenian Dionysius to Taganka, indicates that the true heyday of stage art is associated with the modern and consonant with the drama. The Moscow Art Theater was not only the Theater of Stanislavsky and Nemirovich, but not to a lesser extent - Chekhov, Gorky, Ibsen and Meterlink. Emigration in the classics cannot continue endlessly. You can not dismiss the warnings of the columnist of the French newspaper Liberaseion Jean-Pierre Tibod: the transformation of the theater into a “ghetto” or “museum department” is dangerous.

And the mass popularity of the artist will not interfere, and modern drama is needed. But the state of drama reflects the state of all literature. And wider - society. Writers have no ideas that could inspire the creation of a great drama. But do politicians, scientists, priests have them? Such ideas cannot be invented, constructed, introduced with a presidential decree.

Modern answers to the main questions of being can grow only from life. From the desire of people to catch its meaning, "not reduced to everyday household needs."

"I am an unbeliever person. But I believe in such a dedicated" service "of life and people, I believe in the uniting theater, in the theater, which is all a painful feeling of self -consumed return. I believe in the word pronounced on stage for others and by means of others. And I also I see in the theater not “joy and fun” (even when it is cheerful), but harsh, selfless, painful searches for cleanliness, order, clarity, truth ” (Georgio arrows) 17 .

The theater has retained a happy ability to communicate at such a level.

Notes:

1 This article is dedicated to the drama theater. The condition of the Musical Theater (opera, ballet) is very similar.

2 Grebenshchikov B. Some get married ... // BG. Lilith. Lean, 1997, p. 41.

3 Timasheva M. Russian path into space. // screen and scene , 1993, #43.

4 I take the opportunity to invite readers to his play "We Play Schiller" at the Contemporary Theater.

5 Pirogov L. I want to hurt and ugly // Independent Gazeta, 01.24.2001.

6 Bright sketches on the topic "Theater and Politics" can be found, for example, in the book of A. Smelansky "The proposed circumstances" (M.: Artist, Director, Theater, 1999).

7 Valery Garkalin. Entreprise is the path to the unknown. // Actor's House, February 2001.

8 Nemirovich-Danchenko V.I. Reviews, essays, articles, interviews, notes. √ M.: WTO, 1980. - S.56.

9 Naturally, now in theater universities, as in everyone else, along with free, there is a paid appointment.

10 Considering the theater poster. - NG, 2.03.2001.

11 The point of view of the author of these lines see: "Do I look for the paths of another ..." // Screen and scene, 1992, #40-41.

The 12th STD of the USSR is a confederation of theater unions (projection of the CIS for the theater community).

13 But still did not close. STD has so far been able to avoid such a scrap and such total stooping, which flourish, for example, in the Writers' Union. The holding can still be restored, and the boarding houses are repaired, and put things in order in the clinic - by the way, this year the profit was first recorded from both perfume factories.

14 Data on "attendance" even in strict Soviet times took from the ceiling - working at the Research Institute of Culture, the author of these lines directly watched how this was done. Today it would be profitable for me to refer, for example, to a survey of the Opinion-2000 service, according to which my favorite art in Moscow was ahead of the popularity of cinema, restaurant, “concert” (?) And a disco (Izvestia, 01.24.2000). But it will not be seriously.

15 Kichin V. ruined the song. Theatrical benefit of conspiracy seekers // General newspaper, 1997, #18.

16 See about this: Smirnov I. Skamaturgy // NG, 3.05.2000. Just in case, I explain that the sign of the subculture is not the topic of the work ("at the bottom" and "three -nibble opera" is also not from university life), but its level.

17 arrows J. Theater for people. - M.: Rainbow, 1984. - P.105.