Translated material
Open lesson
Premiere of Yuri Pogrebnichko
A new play appeared in the repertoire of the theater “Near the Stanislavsky House” (destroyed by a fire and still not rebuilt) - “Old, Forgotten...”, which became part of a triptych begun by the theatrical cabaret “Russian Melancholy” and continued with the play “Before the Film Show” . Spectators enjoy watching these small performances, during which they can listen to their favorite songs, old and not forgotten, and watch the action performed by the participants of the concerts - characters as if dusted with the dust of time, as slightly shabby as things on the mezzanine, and so or cute. This time, new forces were brought into action - third-year students of the Shchukin School, whose master is the artistic director of the theater "Okolo..." Yuri Pogrebnichko. Yuri Pogrebnichko decided to present his chicks to the world under the cover of his honored old comrades - the permanent performer of his favorite romances and songs, Natalya Rozhkova, appears on stage as an accompanist, in the role of a shy admirer of a young lady - the famous television “grandfather of my dreams” Valery Prokhorov, and of course, on stage the constant trio of musicians: button accordion, guitar, phono - Nikolai Kosenko, Yuri Kantomirov, Alexander Kulakov.The students are ruddy, young, fresh - as if in the crowd. However, everyone has their own few minutes of fame, when on the proscenium they perform - solo, or as a duet, or as a quartet - numbers specially selected for them.
The artist Nadezhda Bakhvalova sewed costumes for the girls, who were almost an automatic corps de ballet on the choir barre, in the spirit of the late 50s - early 60s (voluminous skirts, thin waists), made babette hairstyles, and selected shoes and gloves. Chicks, darlings, beauties... Boys - with the expression of non-typical actors' faces characteristic of the actors of the Pogrebnichko Theater, in suits like from an old Soviet movie, where a pair of jackets calmly coexisted with boots...
The songs are sung from the same time, familiar to the performers not from life, but from old films. All sorts of songs - both criminal and lyrical. A girl who looks like Deena Durbin performs “Study” in distinctly school English, making funny gestures. To the tune of Efremov-Doronin's "Tenderness" a certain simple guy in an imaginary semi-truck, his whole body following the steering wheel, seems to be overcoming the off-road conditions that are not Moscow. Four girls, each freezing in their own way in some distinctly Spanish flamenco pose, sing “Latin,” and one takes out a tragically crumpled handkerchief, while the others compassionately “support” her. “And I’m walking, walking around Moscow,” says a choir of boys, one of whom bears a vague resemblance to the young Nikita Mikhalkov. And the lullaby “Svetlana,” dedicated by the elder Mikhalkov to the leader’s daughter, was slyly assigned to be sung by the daughter of the artistic director himself, also a student of this course.
In general, everything is as always, no clear plot - half-smiles, seemingly frozen gestures, hints and omissions. There is not a word in simplicity, and there are almost no words - only random fragments of phrases, fragments and quotes. It's funny to watch how young and still very inexperienced artists diligently and obediently carry out the director's instructions. How they record a drawing that is not always completely clear to them, how they consistently maintain formation and a deliberately slow rhythm, dancing a kind of foxtrot given to them by the director.
In essence, this might not pretend to be a performance, remaining what it is - a lesson in stage performance at the Pogrebnichko Theater, but this lesson is open. And if it is open, then there must be an audience, and if there is an audience, then everything comes together, a performance is born.
This is science. Each theater teacher has his own techniques - not only for teaching, but also for presenting his students. Some keep them locked up until the last moment, not allowing, or at least not approving, the desire to go outside, for example, to act in films. Teacher Yuri Pogrebnichko decided otherwise; his recruits are tested in battles at a very tender age. But he shows the public not only their capabilities, smooth cheeks, hot eyes and trembling souls in this nostalgic and ironic performance. This is also a master class by director Pogrebnichko, where he decides to demonstrate his techniques in their pure form, so to speak, without embellishment.
This is how it is done, he shows. The text of the play is born from seemingly random things - look how well that guy shows a camel, let it be illustrated by "Jafar Ali's Caravan" ... You can do without text, without plot and without character development - much more can be said with one glance, movement. Here a little gray-haired man named Valery invites a girl to dance and leads her carefully and ornately. And the impudent and experienced drunkard snatches the beauty, spins it recklessly carelessly and leaves... This is the theater, at least the Pogrebnichko Theater - in a mood guessed from a half-hint, a conveyed emotion, gentle as pollen on the wings of a butterfly, which cannot be grabbed by rude playing with your fingers.
This is a lesson in theatrical hearing, where the main thing must not be out of tune. It doesn’t matter that half of the participants do not have a voice, musicality is measured here by other standards... Theater is an emotional state that can be shared with other people.
At first, the play was supposed to be called “I would like to be among those who managed not to be born”... Somehow this phrase from the novel by Evgeniy Schiffers “Trampling on Death by Death” seemed very close to the director - it runs like a refrain through the entire action. But that was not the case - the young energy of the students completely changes the overall tone of the performance; the usual intonation of sad irony for the Pogrebnichko Theater involuntarily gives way to a carefully hidden, but still breaking through, happy smile...