| "Antigone" at the Taganka Theater The ancient story of a girl who, despite the king’s ban, decided to bury her murdered rebel brother and paid for it with her life, has appeared on stage hundreds of times since the time of Sophocles. Actors and directors, with its help, clarified the relationship of people with God (royal power versus supreme power), in later times - people with people (a free person versus a powerful person; the reversal of the theme - a person responsible only for himself - a person responsible for the peace of the state). It is clear that now, when all these topics are again on the surface (and the bodies of killed terrorists are not given to relatives by law), the appearance of “Antigone” on the poster of the Lyubimov Theater promised a performance very familiar to the former “political” Taganka. Nevertheless, the performance, which begins in complete darkness (the spectators are helped to take their seats by attendants with flashlights; the audience sorts out motives - from banal traffic jams to the metaphor of last year’s “end of the world”), did not become so.
Whether they were talking about the revolution of 1917, about Pugachev or Galilee, the old Taganka approached the audience and spoke their language. Now she hardly talks, she sings; the phrases drag on, the voices carefully gather into a choir. It is no coincidence that the soloists of Dmitry Pokrovsky's ensemble were invited to the performance, and it is no coincidence that in the program the composer Vladimir Martynov is mentioned immediately after the director. Music becomes more important than words-thoughts; the word is used as a musical fragment. And it is also no coincidence that Rustam Khamdamov became the costume designer: the white mantles he gave to the heroines, the dark skirts fitted to the heroes - a sign of the utmost detachment of time and place. Who else came up with the idea of smearing the actors’ faces with white paint is unknown (there is no separate position for a makeup artist in the program), but a person worked on the same effect: the boundary between the stage and the hall is built more rigidly than the “Iron Curtain”.
Lyubimov has long been reluctant to talk to the audience, to take their hand, to shake them, to convince them. He is generally no longer interested in disputes, including the dispute between Creon (Felix Antipov) ruling in Thebes and Antigone (Alla Tribunskaya) rebelling against his order. Yes, Creon is an absurd, heavily stomping monster, there is no rightness behind him; but the noisy Antigone, concerned only with the graphics of her poses (the girl still strives to freeze like a monument against the most advantageous background), also does not evoke any sympathy. They - both Antigone and Creon - speak in equally unnatural voices, as if broken from ordinary speech.
The only one in the play who is given the right to speak humanly is Haemon, the son of Creon and the groom of Antigone. The role went to Konstantin Lyubimov (no, no, namesake), and, without drawing out a phrase, without growling like a beast, in his dialogue with Creon he draws a clear outline of the role: yes, a lover, yes, a reverent father; he comes with confidence that he will be able to cancel the execution, and before the eyes of the audience this faith collapses, something breaks inside. The hero leaves his father so decisively that it is clear that he is leaving forever. He is the most alive in the play, this Gemon, because he is driven by human feeling, and not by the idea of duty (religious or state).
Fragments from the “Song of Songs” are woven into the text of the tragedy (translation by Merezhkovsky, thoroughly edited by Lyubimov), and they are drawn out by the choir. They glorify the beloved, but still it is unlikely that this particular, affected Antigone, always trying to demonstratively tighten a wide belt around her neck (the heroine of Sophocles, as is known, committed suicide in the cave where she was walled up, before the king changed his mind and canceled the execution order). Rather, this is Gemon’s dream, his idea of a girl, because of whose death he kills himself. A dream, an illusion, or perhaps a memory of how she once was (before the war?), but the hero did not notice the changes. In the finale, vague shadows of people sway behind the white canvas and Creon says that time takes away everything, leaving only the mind to feel the loss. Apparently, Lyubimov now sees the deaths of young people as the main losses of humanity. And he is no longer interested in who is to blame for them, because there can be no right here. Anna GORDEEVA |
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