Increased sugar content

Lev Dodin staged "Warsaw Melody"

A strange thing, an incomprehensible thing... In 1966, the success of Leonid Zorin's play flared up like gunpowder. It was immediately staged at the Vakhtangov Theater, then everywhere. In those days it was called “gorodazh”: “Warsaw Melody” was shown in one and a half hundred cities. The play gave every reason for this: two roles (practically in use, especially on tour), of which the female one is unusually winning, a benefit performance. The heroes meet three times: in 1946 in Moscow, then ten years later in Warsaw, ten more - again in Moscow; She is first a student at the conservatory, then a singer, which means she can change her hairstyles and dresses with age, and generally demonstrate all her available colors and professional capabilities.

Which is what many wonderful actresses began to do. Helena from “Warsaw Melody” became a highlight of the track record of Yulia Borisova, Alisa Freundlich, and Ada Rogovtseva. The play remained in the repertoire for a long time (Freundlich, in particular, played it from 67 to 83) and disappeared due to the natural transition of the performers into the age category.

Then “The Warsaw Melody” lay safely in the archives of “Soviet dramatic classics” until Lev Dodin removed it from there. If so, “Warsaw Melody” should be judged by the same criteria as “Brothers and Sisters” and “Uncle Vanya” performed on this stage. She categorically cannot stand such a trial.

A new Alice was not born. Since the times of Pushkin's Budrys, we have known that “there is no queen in the world more beautiful than a Polish maiden.” “The Young Pole” is the embodiment, the pure substance of the charming: proud, fragile, shining with a soft, captivating charm, especially touchingly manifested in speech, in abundance of sibilants. Alas, the Polish student of Professor Dodin, Urszula Malka, who plays the main role, does not have enough charm to capture and hold a prisoner for two and a half hours of stage time. However, Urszula is a pretty girl, and she has some talent for the stage. In addition, she is a good school: she knows how to present reprises, of which there are many in the text, not boldly, but as if thrown in, but accurately, demonstrating the taste characteristic of MDT. In some places (especially at the beginning) she still plays “from the voice,” motorically pedaling the intonation, when you clearly hear not the live speech, but the director’s instructions to the actress. In general, the work is more or less satisfactory, which is not bad for a diploma, but not enough for a theater where Pyotr Semak and Sergei Kuryshev serve.

Her partner's task is completely thankless. Victor, yesterday's front-line soldier, now a student, then a successful winemaker, is needed in the play to highlight the iridescent grace of the heroine with his masculine brutality. In the current performance, Danila Kozlovsky’s Victor moves forward due to the insufficiency of Helena - and also does not stand up to this first plan. The young actor is diligently trying to master a large array of text, coloring every word in every possible way, but for now it’s not just about stage freedom, but simply about getting rid of the usual clamp in which he finds himself (the lower part of the face is especially clamped, which is why facial expressions and speech acquire a fair amount of straining).

In general, for the actors this whole enterprise turned out to be an unreasonably generous advance. Not only from their teacher and director, but also from the artist Alexey Porai-Koshitsa. The stage is covered with a white cloth, gradually going up to the grate. It is lined with music stands, chairs, and objects that arrive as the action progresses remain on it: bottles, glasses, shoes and other props. At the end, the cloth begins to rise, and all the accumulated rubbish pours out and rolls into one sloppy heap. A beautiful and accurate metaphor for exactly what Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya is shouting about: “Life is lost!”

Lev Dodin has repeatedly declared that Chekhov seems to him more interesting and modern than all the latest drama. So he gives Zorin’s play an almost Chekhovian language. Fair enough: “The Warsaw Melody” is not only excellently constructed architecturally, but also well written. However...

The collection in which the play was once published is called after one of Zorin’s works contained in it: “Theatrical Fantasy.” Apt! Leonid Zorin is a great master of creating theatrical reality, which has little connection with real reality, with genuine life. This, by the way, makes him similar to another hitmaker of the Soviet theater - Alexei Arbuzov. Nowadays they often try to give Arbuzov’s fairy tales a topical edge that is alien to them. Dodin tried to do the same with Zorin’s canonical text: a piece that was once cropped was inserted, where Gelya remembers her Jewish friend, who was forced to sew a yellow star on her sleeve, and generally talks about the horrors of the 20th century. The actress leads this episode in hysterics - completely unconvincing: I think it’s not her fault. You can’t make Zorin not only Petrushevskaya, but even Vampilov. He did not let into his lyrical story any terrible truth of the time he described, and even the law of 1947, which prohibited marriages with foreigners, is not the leaden inhuman abomination of Stalin’s tyranny, but just a circumstance necessary for the movement of the plot, preventing lovers from uniting.

The premiere is received with a bang, especially by young people, who are eager to clap at every hug, especially kiss. This seems to be the most meaningful and important thing about the “Warsaw Melody” venture.

Previously, Lev Dodin stubbornly followed his line, making performances heavy, difficult, painful, realizing in them his tragic worldview. But now society doesn’t want anything like that and is diligently avoiding it. At the Mariinsky Theatre, Janacek's tough "Jenufa" was greeted with a bit of sourness, and the vulgar, pretty "Tosca" was greeted with delight. “Cargo 200” by Alexei Balabanov is not advised by ordinary people to watch each other: we don’t want unpleasant experiences! Nowadays, not only literature, but even religion should be pleasant and unburdensome, increasing the overall comfort of existence. The production of “Warsaw Melody” fits perfectly into this, so to speak, trend.

...Victor promises Gelya to take her to a winemaking practice: “You will see how they analyze sugar content.” A page later, the witty heroine makes a charming remark: “Now I will analyze every word for sugar content.” If you make it the surrounding reality, the result will be: increased.

Dmitry TSILIKIN, St. Petersburg