The Mayakovsky Theater has a new chief director

Theater appointment

Director Mindaugas Karbauskis has been appointed artistic director of the Moscow Mayakovsky Theater. ROMAN DOLZHANSKY comments.

The position of artistic director of the Mayakovsky Theater became vacant two months ago. Then Sergei Artsibashev, who had headed the theater for almost ten years, resigned. He left “of his own free will,” but not of his own free will: back in January, a significant part of the theater troupe spoke out against the artistic director. A group of actors, including presenters (Mikhail Filippov, Igor Kostolevsky, Evgenia Simonova), blamed Artsibashev for both the creative and economic decline of the theater. In recent years, too many random performances have appeared in the repertoire, serious critics have stopped writing about the once famous Mayakovka, the theater has clearly found itself on the sidelines, and the historical building itself on Bolshaya Nikitskaya Street has become fairly dilapidated and no longer meets any standards - both in its spectator part, and behind the scenes. The troupe demanded changes from the authorities.

However, it turned out to be easier to remove Artsibashev than to find a replacement for him. For a long time, the respected master Adolf Shapiro was considered the most likely candidate - long negotiations were held with him, but he still refused: the Mayakovsky Theater is now not in a state to consider him a tempting offer. At the end of April, it was said that the current director of the Theater on Malaya Bronnaya, Sergei Golomazov, a student of Andrei Goncharov, the director who directed Mayakovka throughout the last third of the last century and kept the theater among the popular leaders, would almost certainly be appointed artistic director. But the seemingly already decided appointment also soon “dissolved”: supposedly Golomazov, at least for a while, wanted to retain both theaters, but the authorities did not dare to do such a combination. The list of possible candidates also included younger, but already well-known directors - Konstantin Bogomolov, Kirill Serebrennikov, Mindaugas Karbauskis. None of them, however, made any statements. The Committee for Culture of the City of Moscow (Mayakovka - a theater of city subordination) did not announce any competitions for filling the vacant position - they decided behind closed doors.

Yesterday the theater troupe was finally introduced to a new artistic director. It was 39-year-old Mindaugas Karbauskis, one of the most famous Moscow directors, who enjoys special favor from critics. A native of Lithuania, a student of Pyotr Fomenko, laureate of the Stanislavsky Prize and the Golden Mask, he became famous for his performances at the Oleg Tabakov Theater, the Chekhov Moscow Art Theater and the Youth Theater - "Old World Landowners", "The Tale of the Seven Hanged Men", "When I Was Dying", " Copenhagen", "The Story of Happy Moscow", "A Draw Lasts a Moment" and others.

Karbauskis the artistic director cannot be fully considered a creature of the capital’s authorities. The actors of the Mayakovsky Theater themselves named his name as a desired one, primarily those who started the overthrow of Artsibashev. Karbauskis, a foreigner by passport and a man with a reputation as an obstinate man with a difficult character, was probably not among the bureaucratic favorites. Still, this is a rather strong step on the part of the Culture Committee. Perhaps the strongest in the capital's theatrical personnel policy for many years. Karbauskis received a very serious appointment as the first of those directors who, in the opinion of many, were ripe to lead the theater, but while maintaining the old personnel policy, he had very little chance of trying himself as an artistic director of a repertory academy.

Another thing is that the Culture Committee never decided to transfer all power into the hands of Mindaugas Karbauskis. The new artistic director has not yet been allowed to appoint the administration at his own discretion: Evgenia Kurylenko became the director of the theater, whose name was not previously known to either the theater community or, more importantly, Karbauskis himself. In general, the key to the success of this very talented director as artistic director of the Mayakovsky Theater depends not only (or even, as strange as it may sound, not so much) on his creative form, but on the freedom of action that he will be allowed to use. The building of the Mayakovsky Theater needs urgent repairs, the repertoire needs radical updating and reflection, and the troupe needs a strict revision.

Mindaugas Karbauskis was given a stage