A few good guys

The Higher National Theater Award celebrated the twenty-anniversary of this spring, and it is impossible to start talking about the results of the anniversary contest without remembering what the Golden Mask has become for Russia over the years: from the very beginning, it was conceived as something more than the trivial fair of the workshop Tchezlavia, it stubbornly confirmed its deserved status of one of the main (certainly the most authoritative) season) domestic cultural institutions. Consistently and pedantically analyzing and comprehending the processes taking place in the modern Russian theater, the Golden Mask for the third decade structures the complex space of today's Russian scene. Long and short liners of the Golden Mask- its diagnosis, anamnesis and epicrisis: future generations will be able to study the history of the post-Soviet drama theater.

The results of the Golden Mask - 2014 (at least in the dramatic part of the competition) indicate how difficult it is to lead to a common denominator a picture of the theatrical life of the country in the conditions of its tragic disunity and the emphasized internal heterogeneity. The point here, of course, is not only in the eternal antagonism of the metropolitan and regional troupes that exist in fundamentally different cultural contexts and production circumstances: with each new season, the polarization of the theater process is increasingly exacerbating, on one flank of which are large repertoire hospitals, and on the other - more and more active and numerous independent theater companies. Another obvious problem of the competition is the mismatch of the linear structure of the nominations of the rhizomatic nature of modern culture: to answer a painful question what “the best directing” and “best performance” are today, forcedly putting on one board of gray -haired masters, fifty -year -old classics and twenty -year -old “young and angry”, it becomes more and more difficult and difficult.

This year, the dramatic jury was especially not easy: colleagues on the Expert Council left the judges of the Golden Mask problem inheritance in the form of internally heterogeneous short lists. The most indicative (and most problematic) situation has developed in the category of “experiment”, whose participants are traditionally responsible for the competitive poster for expanding the artistic borders and the search for a new stage language: the absolute majority of the nominees of this year (including the final proximity of Andrei Afonin) was possible even for a fair amount of desire) Members of the Expert Council chose to turn an “experiment” into a reservation for social projects of all stripes and calibers, which have long deserved in the Golden Mask system of a separate, independent nomination.

To answer a painful question what is “the best directing” and “best performance” today, every year it is becoming more difficult and difficult.

At the time of their announcement, only lazy did not write about the exorbitantly inflated short-lists at the time of their announcement-but the question of the reasonable, whether the authors of the productions participating in the competition for the best performances of large and small forms should be automatically nominated for the best directing, and did not follow, did not follow. In such circumstances, Rimas Tuminas became the owner of the dramatic jury of the bribe: the prize for the best directing was Rimas Tuminas-his “Evgeny Onegin” is still listed as one of the most popular performances of the metropolitan scene, although this production at least in a small degree of the theatrical process, I think, will not even turn out the most ardent fans of Khudruk Vakhtangov Theater. The traditionalist alignment of the prizes emphasized the shadow even at the obvious favorite of the season, Leo Dodin with his “cunning and love” (a reward for the best performance of a large form plus the personal “Golden Mask” to the scenographer Alexander Borovsky) is a performance in which the owner of the St. Petersburg MDT and a brilliant acting ensemble led by Elizaveta Boyarsky and Danila For the first time in recent years, Kozlovsky has come to unexpected aesthetic borders.

The results of the competition have already been called super -conservative - although, in fact, if there is something to repent to the members of the dramatic jury, this is that the results of the Golden Mask - 2014 do not reflect the real picture of theatrical today. Take at least the Gogol Center’s incident: the artistic advantages and disadvantages of its individual performances can (and should be) treated differently, but leave unnecessarily unique for today's realities the experience of super-efficient cultural management that has turned the former. Theater named after Gogol in the new center of theater Moscow means creating a precedent. Of the two performances of the Gogol Center, nominated this year on the Golden Mask, the most of all earned the emblematic “Summer Night Dream” by Kirill Serebrennikov-but the jury members preferred to give the “Vassegon Theater” to the best performance of the small uniform.

The phenomenon of the Gogol Center could be noted with a special prize-but they preferred to award Yuri Butusov with the wording “For Search in the Field of Theater Language”: the paradox here is that since the Satyricon Seagulls, marked by the “golden mask” two years ago, the director of a special update did not suffer. Even a cursory look at the results of a dramatic competition indicates that this year the jury emphasized from making fundamental decisions, preferring to make a choice in favor of the usual conventions: a list of Laureates of the Golden Mask - 2014 - a “several good guys”, but to understand the last theater season, alas, is impossible.