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Premiere of the play “Balzaminov” at the Satyricon Theater

Director Marina Brusnikina took three plays by Ostrovsky, the main character of which is the poor and impossibly stupid official Balzaminov, who dreams of finding a rich bride, thoroughly shortened them and staged them in one evening. Two unsuccessful matchmakings of the hero (in the original play, “A festive dream - before dinner” and “Your dogs are biting, don’t pester someone else”) made up the first act, the third matchmaking - a successful one - was shown to us after the intermission. That is, in fact, in the play “What You Go For, You Will Find” everything was a little more complicated, and before becoming the groom of a rich woman’s widow, Balzaminov experienced another stupid adventure, but the director with a firm hand blotted out half of the play: at first the hero suffered, that's enough now, now we need a simple happy ending.

Ostrovsky is now back in fashion, every director finds in the texts something dear and close to him. Brusnikina found in him only pure entertainment, which the playwright, who perfectly understood the laws of the theater, of course had, but still was not the main thing. And she made a performance according to the laws of entertainment.

These laws now necessarily imply singing and dancing. As a result, the performance looks like this: the actors come out, exchange a few lines, and suddenly a choir, made up of characters who are not participating in the action at that particular moment, comes out of the wings and starts singing something Russian-folk or stylized as such. I must say that they sing well, harmoniously (much better than they speak, because they simply cannot speak, they all scream and make very unnatural voices), and for the first time you even listen with pleasure. The second time also nothing. But when the eighth song plays during one act (there were more, I just stopped counting), you think: maybe it’s worth warning on the posters that the performance is for fans of folklore?

Well, they sing, some dance, the action stands. Then the action must pick up the pace sharply (after all, there are three plays, and the audience cannot be kept until midnight) - and everyone begins to run around and make comics. Elvira Kezheeva (Balzaminov’s mother) paints the role with thick gouache, Marina Drovosekova (Nichkina) grimaces wildly, and for some reason burrs, rolls her eyes to her nose and shakes like a wet spaniel Alena Razzhivina (Ustinka). And for some reason, the director or the actors think that it will be very funny if they force a woman to raise her shoulders and hang her head to her chest like a vulture: several actresses use this technique at once. The dynamics of the action are also imparted purely mechanically: for example, the hero and heroine are standing on the piano (this is already funny), and at that moment the heroine’s friend pushes the piano so that it begins to rotate around its axis. And he makes more than one circle, and not two...

Of all the heroes, one can only look at Balzaminov himself without regret and bewilderment - Alexander Gunkin. Not a nonentity at all, just a klutz with a childish smile on his face. Incapable of harming anyone and completely useless socially, this Balzaminov is played softly, carefully and intelligently. He is, in general, an intellectual invalid, and if once in the theater “The Marriage of Balzaminov” was staged as a social satire, with the idea that, supposedly, all the problems in Rus' are due to such nonentities, in the play “Satyricon” - - in this single role - a different plot emerges. A plot implying that this senseless calf - he also has the right to his life and his happiness. Let's put it this way: humanistic pathos replaces heroic pathos. Should this be considered the spirit of the times? Hardly. Rather, it was simply the hobby of an actor who wanted to understand and “justify” his character.

Anna GORDEEVA