Sergey Vasiliev. Triumph of kitsch: Maestro, shorten the march!

Kitsch is a product of creativity that claims to have artistic value, but does not possess it. Typically, kitsch is characterized by superficiality, sentimentality, sweetness and a desire to enhance the effect.

Critical difficulties

It’s easy to write about musicals due to the primitiveness of the genre (not technological, but ideological). It’s difficult to write about musicals - you can neither criticize nor praise them. It is inconvenient to praise, because I am “sort of an intellectual” and write for the same people. Scolding is also not interesting - who hasn’t scolded them recently? And it didn’t even explode! Think about it: the Chechen terrorists went to blow up not the Bolshoi Theater, not the Tretyakov Gallery, and not even the Moscow Art Theater, but “Nord-Ost” - so this very spectacle was at that time the theatrical and concert symbol of our country.

Let's try to follow Pushkin's advice - he is our everything. A.S. Pushkin advised judging the artist according to the laws that he set for himself. Even if this artist is a craftsman (from our highbrow point of view).

The laws, in this case, were set by the odious personality Tsekalo and the not so odious producer Keosayan . It is clear that the main law was: “to give people joy” and “to recapture money” (“lave”, “capital investments”). But you need to be Tsekalo and Keosayan to understand how to do this. They understand what is pleasant and surprising.

Meyerhold style

I don’t know how well Mr. Keosayan is familiar with the creative methods of Vsevolod Meirhold, it doesn’t matter. It is important that they (or not they) found the absolutely correct principle for constructing the action - the installation of attractions.

What happens on stage is nothing more than a sequence of vocal and choreographic numbers that completely brazenly grabs you and doesn't let you go for about 2 hours with one intermission. It is only later that you can make appropriate or inappropriate comparisons with the novel, with the film - although it is somehow stupid, it’s like comparing a comic book with a novel. People didn’t come here to discover worlds or to explore depths - they came to have fun, to have fun, to enjoy life. That is: make us beautiful for our money. Entertain us. Make us forget about the subway, work, traffic jams... Give our tired senses a Spectacle. Such is the petty (or large) bourgeois business - these musicals. And what are Messrs. Tsekalo and Keosayan doing? They do exactly what they are asked to do - captivate and entertain - in precisely the above-mentioned method.

It is important here that one grotesque and amazing number is replaced by an even more unexpected, even more grotesque and amazing... The Master himself (V.E. Meyerhold) at one time called this “Meyerholdism”. So, the impression of “Meyerholdism” is complemented by a single decoration - this is nothing more than the tower of the Third International Tatlin. As the performance progresses, it will transform and become a steamship, an almshouse, and a hostel named after monk Berthold Schwartz! Dashing and even somehow metaphorical. Two rogues (one of the former) are rushing around the Bright Future project in search of diamonds - gentlemen, intellectuals, there is something in this...

Each scene is a small masterpiece. And so - a kaleidoscope of masterpieces. The production is 5+, the choreography is the same 5+, the vocals are quite pop (but Vorobyaninov sang beautifully), the acting is timid and tense (but again Vorobyaninov was good). But you forget about the flaws instantly - everything flashes, transforms, changes, and the most pleasant impression remains.

About the merits of the author and composer

So, the musical “12 Chairs” - the second Russian musical - is certainly a successful work, which Pushkin, in accordance with his principle, would have appreciated. This is success.

Success, first of all, of the composer and the author. Firstly, I would like to praise the latter. For a year and a half, poet-librettist Alexander Vulykh rewrote the text of Ilf and Petrov, this classic Soviet picaresque novel, into the format of what later appeared on the stage. At the same time, he managed to create a witty text, quite logical, considering that in the novel little was left untouched - many plot lines were removed. And, most importantly, designed for the perception of the broad masses. Some of Vulykh’s witticisms warm the ears of 40-50 year olds (who have read the novel and still remember Soviet times ), others amuse teenagers, whose name is legion in the MDM hall. This is the skill of a pop poet who managed to walk along a narrow path and tell a motley audience exactly what he wanted.

Music is magnificent in its secondary nature. It is competently stylized by Igor Zubkov to resemble everything possible: Dunaevsky, gypsy romances, tango, etc. A year and a half of work - and the result is pleasing - this is Estrada in its best earthly incarnation.

Some will say that the musical has few original tunes. But it seems to me that our pop music could do with the grafting of classical samples.

Highlights

There are many simply masterpieces in the performance, I especially note the choir of old women from the almshouse, the auction scene with a brilliant auctioneer (how can one not recall the entertainer from Bob Fosse’s Cabaret), the most beautiful coffin master Bezenchuk, the ascension of Vorobyaninov’s mother-in-law, and finally, the arioso of Kisa himself from Act 2, which would have done honor to any White émigré performer - from Vertinsky to Boris Rubashkin.

And what is the scene on the ship worth (Maxim Gorky shakes Ostap’s mischievous hand, which he painted as a poster “Sower” - “black square”)? Perhaps she is worth all of Russian literature, painting, theater, and heaps of them - Berdyaev and Shestov...

And finally - the coup de grace: Ostap will perform the Romanian tango to the cannibal Ellochka in the most authentic Romanian language.

High meanings

We are dealing with an event that marks a turning point in our era, its collapse into some new and wonderful mass-consumer nowhere. This, gentlemen, is the triumph of our vulgar era, the triumph of kitsch. Humanity experienced the “triumph of the will” then, in the cruel and wonderful years of totalitarianism, at the same time the uncontrollable rogue and trickster Ostap was born and died there. And now we have buried him in our sugary, rich, belle-epoch and laugh at the great times that have passed. On stage, to the background of brilliant tap dancing (Druzhinin choreographed), there is a parade alley of the dead. In the Marxist way, laughing, we part with the past. GPU - ha ha ha! White emigration - ha ha ha! Pioneer organization - ha ha ha!

And also space flights, Stalinism, KSP and what the hell... (everything is mentioned in the hooligan text by Vulykh).

Russian modern history, thickly sprinkled with the sauce of Broadway aesthetics, Mother Russia, on whose bones all and sundry have tap-danced (chess players from Vasyuki, organ workers, Bender, Ellochka) - this is the country we live in. This is called “mass society,” which we all dreamed of for so long during the harsh years of tsarism, serfdom, and developed socialism.

Why "triumph of kitsch"

So, we are dealing with a spectacular, sentimental, low-grade spectacle, balancing on the verge of tastelessness. Some would call it “postmodern,” but the word “kitsch” is closer to me.

This word was once a dirty word. And now - a genre that is most appropriate for the times.

“His Excellency loved poultry and took pretty girls under his protection” - in such a glamorous way. This is kitsch, gentlemen, it is brilliant, sweet, lustful, but that’s what makes it beautiful.

So, gentlemen, go have fun. But follow my advice - be sure to drink champagne - before and after. Let it flow like a river to the delight of your stylish friends.

And the chorus is: “Money can buy everything!” (this is the title hit of the musical).

Quite appropriate for the times.

Maestro, shorten the march!