"Ozhivlyazh" in the space of the bathyscaphe

"Deep Blue Sea" at the Theater. Vakhtangov

On the backdrop is a huge porthole; in it are either the open jaws of sharks or schools of small fish (everything, however, is blurry, out of focus). At the back, slightly elevated, is a bathtub. Meanwhile, this is not happening at all in a comfortable submersible - it is assumed that this is a London apartment. This apartment is inhabited by Hester Koller, a lady who, a little less than a year ago, left her husband, with whom she had previously lived for more than seven years, and settled with her lover. In the first scene, the neighbors find her unconscious, the gas valve is turned off - a suicide attempt.

Terence Rattigan's play The Deep Blue Sea was written and first performed in Britain in 1952; some traces of the era remain in the text. The fact that the neighbors considered the heroine to be the wife of Freddie Page, and not his mistress, she introduced herself as “Mrs. Page” - in the early fifties, such a disguise was apparently still necessary for good fame in the house. This same Page's old uniform and his fleeting memory of the war; a mention that the husband did not give a divorce. With all this, the specific circumstances of the place and time are not important for this play: a neat melodrama can be played without details.

At the center of the play is this same Hester Koller. Rattigan, like many playwrights who were not at all interested in women in real life, wrote stories not about women, but about Divas - significant, magnificent, always misunderstood, tragic. And all the famous actresses of England played in his plays: half a century ago, when “Deep Blue Sea” was filmed, the main role went to Vivien Leigh. Elena Sotnikova in the Moscow performance reproduces the Diva type: these instant transitions from proud gestures to falling to the floor like a broken flower, these words are strangled sobs that are designed to make the viewer cry in shock... Hester Koller seems cut out from the fifties and transferred to us some kind of unfriendly wind - this manner of behavior looks so strange on today's stage.

However, this manner must have been imposed on the actress by the director: the young director Pavel Safonov thinks surprisingly archaically. Every significant word (and a word that should be significant according to the director’s idea) is punctuated by a musical phrase. That is, there is a dialogue going on, something is said, a hop - everyone froze, a significant search of keys - let's move on. If a hero or heroine wants to speak to the point (say a monologue), then they go to the front of the stage, drop one knee to the ground and broadcast something to the audience. And if in a conversation between two people some third person is mentioned, he comes on stage: for example, the heroine’s neighbor talks about his long-standing affair with an actress - and a girl in a white dress runs along the backdrop, sits on the bathtub, lies down on its edge and again runs away. She doesn’t appear again, just as she doesn’t appear in the play. Why was this run necessary?

Perhaps because the director, apparently feeling that he was going too far with the archaic, rushed to the other extreme - he began to “revive” the performance. As a result, dances periodically appear on stage, and in the most unexpected places. For example, the neighbors have just discovered the under-intoxicated heroine, got worried, called her husband, the lady is still lying in the next room, the doctor is busy around her - and then the neighbors begin to dance heartily on the proscenium. Or the hero-lover, having quarreled with his beloved, leaves home in hysterics caused by his own sense of guilt and the inability to overcome this guilt, and throws her a really cruel remark, implying that he needs to kill himself more carefully so as not to be pumped out. And at this moment, when the audience is really ready to gasp and feel sorry for the heroine, the hero is given a rather long dance. So colorful and cheerful. (Choreographer - Maria Serebryakova.)

Meanwhile, this is the only fragment of the performance associated with the hero, when it becomes uncomfortable for the director. Vladimir Vdovichenkov, who played this role of a former pilot, current drunkard and heartless lover, easily overcomes both the archaism of the performance and its “revival”. His animal, cinematic, modern organic quality, his excellent skill (to portray various degrees of intoxication and never overact, never try to “entertain” the viewer and at the same time keep his attention on himself all the time) only allow us to sit through almost three hours of this performance . And when in the finale the heroine, after a second suicide attempt, having parted with her current lover and - once again - with her ex-husband (played by Evgeniy Knyazev, portraying a variation on the theme of Ryazanov’s immortal Ippolit), decides that life in the world is still worth living , the audience breathes a sigh of relief. The story ended, the only truly living hero went to test planes in South Africa. But he was still in the performance - and this helped to survive the evening.

Anna GORDEEVA