The mighty name of Tovstonogov

The central event of the theatrical February and, perhaps, the most anticipated premiere of the new theater year is the release of Alice , the first performance, staged by Andrei Mighty as the artistic director of the St. Petersburg BDT. Colta.ru opens a series of publications dedicated to the premiere of Alice - next week it will continue the conversation about the Métier Theater Composer with the co -author of the play Nastasya Khrushcheva. Today is the text of St. Petersburg critic and historian of the theater Nikolai Pesochinsky; Since the late 1980s, he wrote about the mighty and the BDT separately, and now he shared his thoughts about that difficult theatrical context with Colta.ru, in which the founder of the “formal theater” in the theater named after George Tovstonogov begins today.

The appointment of the artistic director of the BDT Andrei Mogovy and the departure of his predecessor Temur Chkheidze means much more than the change of the chief director of one, albeit the most significant, troupe. This is a sign of the theater time. This is a reason for big questions.

What can be the fate of “large dramatic theaters” in general - not by name, but by format? In the 19th and 20th centuries, especially in Soviet times, they formed the basis of the theater process. But in the past twenty years, ideas that determine dramatic art appear both in studio basements and in performances-projects. The “School - Studio - Theater” model works with might and main. In St. Petersburg, Lev Erenburg with the “Small Drama Theater” of his students, “Experimental Scene” by Anatoly Praudin, “Workshop” Grigory Kozlov, “Study Theater” graduates of Veniamin Filcheminsky, Dmitry Volkostrelov with the “ Poste Theater”, “Our Theater” Leo Stukalov, the Laboratory of New Directory and New The dramas “On. Theater”, “The Copyright Theater” by Oleg Dmitriev, “White Theater”, “Such a theater”, “The mansion” - this series of “independent” according to their type of theater groups can be continued. Nearby are projects: in the “comedian shelter”, in “Light people”, on “Skome”, etc. Dodinsky MDT - formally, it seems to be old and large, at the same time clearly copyright, led by the will of one director, and the troupe there consists of students of the same workshop, and the name “Small” is present in the name - he also adjoins the “School - Studio - Theater” model. Also in Moscow. Sergey Zhenovach became famous, forming with the students the "studio of theatrical art." It is difficult to say how the future of the Gogol Center will turn out, Kirill Serebrennikov, but the beginning of the “seventh studio” of his students was clearly successful; It is difficult to say how the future of Mindaugas of Karbauskis in the Mayakovsky Theater will turn out, but his performances in the “Tabakerka” were clearly successful.

It seems almost a rule: a new theater as an idea appears in the new theater as an organism. The historian will confirm this, calling the names of the classics of Russian directing, from Meyerhold and Vakhtangov to Fomenko, Dodin and Vasiliev: they all created their own studio groups. The historian will recall the idea of ​​Stanislavsky about the reforming of the Moscow Art Theater to the Panteon theater: the theater should consist of several studios, and the best results of their experimental work will compose the repertoire of the main scene. "Does the Art Theater understands that now, saving the studio, saves himself at the same time?" - then asked the co -founder of the Moscow Art Theater. Otherwise, he predicted, “the most powerful, authoritative and experienced will pull the young people in their direction, but their work, excellent in itself, will be organically unacceptable to artists in the later formation. It will turn out violence, the initiative will be killed, and it will be replaced by craft work. For the development of artistic creation, an initiative is necessarily needed, which is possible only with the freedom of its manifestation. ” So these two types of theater - “studio” and “academic” (repertoire) - have been compared and opposed for a long time. And not at all in favor of the "large": everything happens to them more difficult. But it is in them that thousands of spectators go-and not dozens, like in the theaters-studio.

A century passed. In the era of the instant distribution of information and interactive disputes about Butusov, Bogomolov and Volkostroil about the fate of large Moscow theaters - the Malo, Mossovet, Yermolovsky, Pushkin, there are no disputes on Malaya Bronnaya. How to determine them today and future paths? But what are the traditions in each of these theaters, what portraits hang in the lobby - and what did the notorious “traditions” give them?

(The history of the relationship between Yuri Lyubimov and Theater (more precisely, two theaters) on Taganka, by the way, in general became a mockery of the philosophy of the directorial theater of the twentieth century.)

The phenomenon of the chief director of the Bolshoi repertoire theater falls into the Red Book, at the head of the theater, it is replaced by either media persons or director-producers, and quartermasters. Directors are artistically guided by how the directors can lead. Finance, estimates, contracts, personnel policy, repairs, legal regulation. What is primary, what is secondary? The art process, however, is still needed by the main directors.

In order not to swim in an indefinite mainstream, academic theaters are looking for non -standard moves of updates and development. The mains-foreigners are invited: Rimas Tuminas, Alexander Morphov. The Moscow Art Theater comes to the forefront of the theatrical life with the performances of young directors-provocateurs: yesterday-Serebrennikov, today-Bogomolov and Gatsalov ("The tradition of Stanislavsky", AU!). The Petersburg Alexandrinka, with the appointment of Valery Fokin, first closed on general cleaning and perestroika - not only metaphorical (manifesting the “new life of traditions”, commitment to Meyerhold’s ideas, a conventional theater, grotesque and postmodern), but also practical: in recent years the theater has been repaired and complemented by a whole adjacent to the whole fit The historical building of Russia is the quarter. Even earlier, in St. Petersburg, Gennady Trostyanetsky generally closed the Litein Theater for six months, created a new repertoire and opened a almost new theater, in which he himself, Alexander Galibin, and Klim - in the former, Khamarmerovsky, “foundry” they would not have come.

The phenomenon of the chief director of the Bolshoi repertoire theater falls into the Red Book today.

The question of transmitting traditions in the theater is paradoxically simple: the history of directing does not know a single case of the heirs in a straight line. The theatrical method, turning to other hands, at another time, is deeply transformed in the living theater. If you try to maintain the surface, the appearance of the old style, its creature inevitably discovers secondaryness, non -denial, discredit, turns into a caricature and disappears. The same Valery Fokin did not continue the “tradition” of the Leningrad theater named after Pushkin of the 1930s-1980s directly to him, the theater of Vivien, Muzil, Gorbachev, ”or continued at some very hidden or general level, so the line from Meyerhold goes in Fokinskaya Alexandrinka not in the form of repetition and not at all in repetition of forms. Needless to say the reincarnations of the traditions of founding fathers among new leaders-from Vakhtangov to Tuminas, from Goncharov to Karbauskis, from Nemirovich-Danchenko to Bogomolov ...

It is interesting that in the BDT in this sense everything was completely different: Temur Chkheidze just consistently retained the tradition, the type of psychological non -bore poetic performance - and this art program was unique in the Russian culture of the turn of the twentieth and XXI centuries. It is dismissive to what Chkheidze did in the BDT is unfair - and this is a quite common point of view . The most difficult fabric of many performances of Chkheidze (“Ogliness and Love”, “Macbeth”, “House where hearts break”, “Masquerade”, “Antigon”, “Under the Flies”, “Maria Stuart”, “Power of Darkness”, “Dreamy Dream” and many others) was a metaphorical one, associated with metaphysical, and at the same time genetically, and at the same time genetically genetically genetically genetically genetically genetically genetically genetically genetically genetically genetically genetically. Inherited Chkheidze on the Georgian scene to previous experience. In addition, these were a meaningful relationship with the classic - from Shakespeare, Schiller and Pushkin to O'Neil and Anuya, which corresponded to the BDT style at the best moments of his story (at the very beginning and then under Tovstonogovov) and developed this style.

Already the first performances of Chkheidze in the BDT showed that the Georgian director departs from the theater language that the late Tovstonogov left here. A lot was expected from the actors, they are well -known in school and work on this scene - but also completely new for them. “It is clear that the actors require a special way of playing rhythmic, light and sinister, perhaps puppet in acute theatrical plastic,” wrote Elena Kuita then. “It is clear that the BDT actors are accustomed to act according to the laws of cash rather than dreaming reality, therefore they are heavy, looking for psychological motives where they are not expected.” And the actors of the troupe went to the new, following the directorial poetics of the new main director: Kirill Lavrov, Valery Ivchenko, Alisa Freindlich, Elena Popova, Andrei Tolubeev, Mikhail Morozov, Iruta Vengalite, Marina Ignatova, Maria Lavrova, Valery Degtyar and other artists ended up “Chkhaidze Theater” in the result BDT is a new BDT. Chkheidze also had his own logic: invited directors Gennady Trostyanetsky, Anatoly Praudin, Grigory Dityatkovsky, Andrzej Buben, each in their own way created a psychological theater here in non-life-like forms. It was the maximum possible option for a traditional path of traditional for the BDT - and it went down in history, even if the reserves of tradition were exhausted.

At the turn of the change, the question of continuing the BDT tradition is raised. But what exactly is considered this tradition now, in 2014?

The BDT troupe in the last twenty years is by no means the Tovstonogov troupe. And it’s not the point, it is better either worse and how many first values ​​are there: it is generally different - according to the composition, by type, in school, and it cannot be otherwise. The directorial routes are said above - and these are the paths of specific directors that are possible for them and for no other. So does the “tradition” come down to the most general ethical and professional laws of the theater? Is the “tradition” by myth, simulacrum - and should it dominate the artistic reality?

The decision to appoint Andrei Mogeliy Khudruk was the most non -standard of all possible. I well remember how almost a year ago I learned about him in the capital of Mongolia during the celebration of the 150th anniversary of Stanislavsky-and all together seemed a dream. But if you think about it, this is the most bold solution. Instead of a remake of the Tovstonogovsky phantom, a full -fledged, integral, original theater system can be created here today. Andrei Mogeliy is a large figure in directing, and objectively this is a master with more than twenty years of experience, with 44 performances in the portfolio, with obvious recognition from the public, criticism and professional community.

The mighty theater is based not only on powerful fantasy, on exciting theatricality, but also on the philosophical view of the world - to take at least the recent Isotova and Ivanov in Alexandrinka. In his performances there were live relations with the texts of Andrei Bely, Eugene Ionesko, Lodovico Ariosto, Hayner Müller, Tom Stoppard, Chekhov, Gogol, Hoffmann, Wilder, Gozzi, Sasha Sokolov, Meterlink, Kafka and modern Russian drama. He owns a large stage form, which is now a rarity, remaining by nature an experimenter, who has gone a long way of searching for the form of a performance-from a monoscope to the Cyric Theater, to the opera in the church and on Red Square. The mighty develops his own ideas of acting training and the rehearsal process, in which he, when he was the full -time director of the Alexandrinsky Theater, managed to successfully involve the artists of all generations - from Corifei Nikolai Marton to the young Prima, Janin Lakoba. Finally, the mighty is a genuine builder of the theater: his group “Formal Theater”, laboratories of young directors, four international festivals “Theater Space of Andrei Mogeliy”. With the generation of the European “New Theater Reality”, it is not only united by the corresponding prize, but also has creative connections that, one must think, materialize in St. Petersburg. This is his baggage.

If he wants to build a new theater, an open, who has not stopped in the search, is a new mighty one, should come to the BDT. This is a space, this troupe, these spectators become real conditions, participants, partners of the director’s existence. And he becomes the same for them. It is worth recalling the last phrase of Anatoly Efros “Rehearsal - My Love”: “We need to put many more performances. To come up with a good new job for ... ”(Then the names and surnames of his artists are listed). Such tasks are to create a repertoire, to come up with a job for specific people in the troupe - not obligatory for the next director, but for the main - the obligatory, perhaps, now become the main challenge of the mighty path on this turn. It is interesting how he will respond to this challenge in Alice - a performance in which almost all the luminaries of today's BDT are busy.

The goal facing the mighty is not to maintain the legend of the BDT, but to create on the merits a new large drama theater.