A very easy death

Alexey Kazantsev found many reasons for fun at Sukhovo-Kobylin

“The Death of Tarelkin”, released by the Center for Drama and Directing, is the third of this season. The tragicomedy (or, if you prefer, a hopeless buffoonery) of Sukhovo-Kobylin was recently staged on the Moscow stage by Oskaras Korsunovas (Et cetera Theatre) and Alexey Levinsky (Ermolova Theatre); In the posters, both performances are still listed as premieres. The first was a polished, cold work, all the shortcomings of which were made up for by the role of Varravin, grandly played by Alexander Kalyagin. The second turned out to be almost overly subtle: the half-people, half-dolls invented by Levinsky convincingly and almost tenderly proved the hopelessness of Russian life, but, as usual, Levinsky’s theater remained a theater for sympathetic mourners.

If we compare the professional skills of Korshunovas and Levinsky with the skills of Alexei Kazantsev, who heads the Center for Drama and Directing, the first thing I want to remember is the saying: where a horse goes with its hoof, there comes a claw. Kazantsev's directorial invention is so poor, his production decisions are so unpretentious, his habits are so old-fashioned that even scolding is boring, I just want to ask: did Kazantsev understand how little he could do?

I have to answer: yes, I understood and did not try to jump over my head. He staged a simple performance, similar to the course work of students of the acting department (probably the third year; the university is not bad). Artist Natalia Somova strengthened this feeling as best she could: screens, minimal furniture, hand-picked costumes. The performers wear student clothes: T-shirts, jeans, sweatpants. A tailcoat or uniform, pulled on top, always fits poorly - it’s clear that the item was sewn a long time ago, for another person, and smelled of someone else’s sweat.

You are surprised to discover that there is a homespun charm in this. Of course, it is difficult to forgive the director for the length of supposedly meaningful silent scenes. It is even more difficult to forgive the amount of general meaningless shouting in the small space of the V. Vysotsky Center. It is even more difficult to forgive the excess of absurd twitches of truly gifted actors, for example, the young Vakhtangov student Sergei Epishev, who plays Varravin. And yet it is interesting to observe how the artists are affected by the reminder of the mischievous student free spirit. By the second act, “The Death of Tarelkin” changes genre: for quite a long time it was an acting exam, but now it turns into an outright skit. Jokes and jokes, acting antics and clowning exercises become the main content of the action. If you talk about what is happening on stage, the reader will most likely make a face: what bad taste! Policemen Rasplyuev and Okh (Ilya Ilyin and Alexey Dubrovsky), realizing what power they were given by the case of the detained “ghoul, vuydalak, mtsyr”, draw out with feeling: “This is the Russian side...”. Doctor Unmeglikhkeit (Timofey Tribuntsev, who plays four other small roles in addition to the doctor), learning about the “mtsyr”, faints; The police mournfully say: “What’s great for a Russian is death for a German.” The game is getting rougher by the minute, but no one demands subtlety any more: the jokes, flat and sweet as a slap in the face, are infectious. The Cabbage Man, being a child of the carnival (albeit a belated and skinny one), does not allow this to happen.

All this has no more to do with Sukhovo-Kobylin than the boorish song of Othello suddenly became furious / And strangled his wife like a louse - to Shakespeare’s tragedy. And Kazantsev’s performance would not be worth attention at all if nothing in it rose above this level. We, however, have to talk about the role of Tarelkin, played by Maly Theater actor Gleb Podgorodinsky. In his biography, this role, I think, is as important as the best roles played on the Maly stage: the unprepossessing clever Chatsky in “Woe from Wit” and the truth-loving clerk Platon Zybkin in “Truth is good, but happiness is better.” Podgorodinsky, one of the most interesting actors of the new generation, continues to get used to personal, far from simple data; expands the range of possibilities. Chatsky - Zybkin - Tarelkin: these are not only three different characters, three different genres, but also three different ways of acting on stage. The last role required the greatest dedication from the actor, but perhaps gave him the most pleasure.

When playing Chatsky, especially when reading Pushkin, the actor always suppressed his natural negative charm; in the role of Tarelkin it is released. Playing a petty and ill-fated scoundrel, the ultimate embodiment of human evil (further everything human becomes either satanic or completely caricatured), Podgorodinsky turned out to be a virtuoso of small psychological gestures. The main quality of his playing is the fluency of his facial expressions and the sound of his voice; we can admire it, just as we admire the careless dexterity of a pianist’s fingers. How Tarelkin-Podgorodinsky squints, squints, grins, and grins as he reads his funeral eulogy (“Tarelkin is gone, and the warm ones need the heat; the front ones were left without a front, and the rear ones got their backs!”) is much more difficult to describe than to consider. The scoundrel’s jubilation seems to be dissected: the psychological portrait changes with extraordinary speed, but at every second it remains clear and clear. This playing technique is very mentally exhausting. If Podgorodinsky does not get tired of playing with the fervor of dedication with which he plays premieres, “The Death of Tarelkin” next fall will be interesting for all Moscow theatergoers to watch. And if he gets tired, the smartest thing to do would be to cancel the performance.

Alexander SOKOLYANSKY