Before growing up

“Pretty” at the Sovremennik Theater

The last premiere of Sovremennik, based on Sergei Naydenov’s play “Pretty,” was staged on the Other Stage by Ekaterina Polovtseva, a very young graduate of Sergei Zhenovach’s workshop. Her work has already been noticed both in the collective youth project of the same theater “Experiments”, and in RAMT, for which the novice director composed the sweetest children's fairy tale “Almost for Real” based on Toon Tellegen. Thus, it became clear that Polovtseva is one of those on whom our theaters, hungry for new direction, pin their hopes. But when, after poor student auditions and debut productions, also made in austerity mode, the girl was offered a real, “adult” budget at Sovremennik, it became clear that this was where the first test was hidden.

An ordinary “philistine comedy” of the early twentieth century about a young provincial woman, Shurochka Orlova, who came with her unloved husband to the waters and swirled in a whirlwind of deceitful resort debauchery, which she naively mistook for real life, is inserted by Polovtseva into a glittering golden frame. Artist Alexey Votyakov turned the stage into a boardwalk, with spectators sitting on both sides. And at the beginning, end and middle of the performance on this resort Broadway, mysterious and metaphorical scenes unfold with conventionally Venetian characters in golden suits with fluffy skirts, antique armor and false torsos. These heroes in grotesque masks and fairy-tale headdresses bow, wave fans, run away from each other and dissolve other “delicious art”, apparently symbolizing something like “the whole world is a theater” and other platitudes about lies and hypocrisy. In addition to all this mask tinsel in the play there are other additions to Naydenov’s plot. For example, here a languid lady with a dog walks along the promenade, sometimes recites text from a Chekhov story, but in reality turns out to be a promiscuous, vulgar coquette, looking mainly for money in men.

All these golden nonsense, as well as other not very successful additions, I want to peel off from “Pretty”, like the peel from an orange, so that the very core of the performance remains - the story of the curly-haired, enthusiastic and trusting Shurochka, charmingly played by Klavdiya Korshunova. And then it becomes clear that Polovtseva is really a student of Zhenovach, that she is interested even in such a very secondary text, behind which she finds a living and touching story. That she knows how to carefully analyze this text and gives the actors excellent opportunities for acting.

In “Pretty”, young Nikita Efremov played his first independent role in “Sovremennik” - an impossibly charming successor to the actor-director dynasty. And here, in the role of Mr. Kolb, he not only scattered smiles, as any handsome young actor could, but very accurately played the whip and gigolo, with disgusting languor, allowing himself to be loved by the middle-aged Mrs. Kovylkova. And Kovylkova herself, in love like a cat, flattering, deceitful and feigning high society, is played by Inna Timofeeva - in a way that, it seems, she has never played in Sovremennik. Watching how this shameless lady, cutting the nails of Kolb lying in a hammock, touchingly praises his poetic gift, the famous Chekhov scene comes to mind, where Arkadina entangles Trigorin with her love. But Naydanov’s heroine is a much more vulgar and base creature and even more dependent on her self-confident young lover, who doesn’t mind laughing at her, calling her an old woman and abandoning her.

Well, the second (or first) excellent couple is the Orlovs. Shurochka herself is childish, without a drop of worldliness, instantly blushing at any ambiguity and immediately ready to believe that everyone around is wonderful people. And her boring husband is Yegor Egorovich Orlov (played by Sergei Girin). At first, an absurd, annoying, provincial reasoner, in the finale, when he comes to pick up his runaway wife, abandoned by everyone and almost gone, he becomes a seriously dramatic hero. However, it is still impossible to understand how this story ended - the unfortunate Orlovs, having told each other everything, remain sitting next to each other while the Broadway lights around them are extinguished and the restaurant utensils are collected.

In one of her interviews, Polovtseva said that she would like to stage “Pretty” as a story of growing up, but Klavdia Korshunova’s heroine does not grow up at all. The lovely girl is cheerful, happy and blind, like a child, while everyone loves and pampers her, with teenage maximalism she does not forgive her husband for his old mistakes and is ready to leave him, without thinking about how she will have to live further. But when it turns out that no one needs her husbandless, the heroine, with the same teenage desperation, decides that “the worse the better,” she fights, pushing away the outstretched hand, and pronounces a monologue in the spirit of “Dowry”: “Yes, I am a thing.” . What kind of growing up is there - just tears.

And as for the “golden frame” of the performance, which was discussed at the beginning, it is the same temptation for young Ekaterina Polovtseva with a “real”, “adult” budget, as was the temptation for Shurochka Orlova with a “real” independent life. When he finally matures, he will understand that it’s not about trinkets.

Dina GODER