"What will happen after us is the question"

Today is 80 years old Oleg Tabakov. COLTA . Ru congratulates Oleg Pavlovich on his birthday and publishes a great interview, which the outstanding Russian actor and theater manager gave alley Shenderova on the eve of the anniversary.

“Once, after you played in the“ Seventeen Moments of Spring ”by the head of Hitler's intelligence Schellenberg, his niece sent you a card with the text“ Thank you for the human approach to the image of the uncle ” . More recently, Elizabeth II wrote a similar letter to you - with gratitude for the role of the British jeweler Maurice in the play "Jewelry's anniversary". What did you feel?

- I felt that I managed to get it. Although Kostya Bogomolov specifically came up with such a start that I did not go on stage, but was already sitting when the curtain rises, he did not meet me for the first time in many years by applause.

- You are not offended?

- No. I gave him a ring for this. Beautiful. Here, look: the same as mine (there are three letters on the ring: Moscow Art Theater. - Ed. ). Only I have silver and Fianites, and he has gold and diamonds. Because talent is a jewel.

- Konstantin Bogomolov offers its actors a special way of existence on stage ...

- Oh, quit, he did not offer me anything! You will then formulate it. You see, when I read the play, about a week later I know what I will do in it. And this does not at all abolish the merits of Georgy Alexandrovich Tovstonogov or, say, Oleg Nikolayevich Efremov. But I firmly know that I will do it - and I do it. Although, of course, if I had built my career, then for the fifteen years that I have been going to the post of arts from the Moscow Art Theater, I probably had to play at least eight roles - at least one in two years. However, he did not play, because he did another job: he restored the cardiovascular and circulatory system of this theater, in which a maximum of forty-two percent of the audience gathered fifteen years ago in the auditorium. Two years later, this figure increased to ninety-odd interest, and then began to be ninety-nine percent-and some other figure after aim.

- Are there roles that you had to play and did not play?

- I will not say. I’d better tell you what was in the fourth year of the studio school: it was already 1955, the father of the peoples rested, and decent people began to release from the Gulag. Suddenly, Elena Petrovna Pestel (great-granddaughter Pavel Ivanovich) and her friend, I don’t remember the name-reporting, by the name of Negrul, appeared on the run of the second semester. Once they were in the studio of M.A. Chekhov. Then they sat together. And so they came to us, to the course of Vasily Osipovich Toporkov. And our course was rare: Valya Gaft, Zhenya Urbansky ... So, Negrul and Pestel watched three scenes from the Gogol's “Examiner”: I left the monologue of Khlestakov, then the first scene with a tavern servant, then the second scene. And then these two women began to categorically say: “Chekhov! Chekhov! Mikhail Alexandrovich ... "

- And you?

- Yes, I felt very funny. And I switched the arrow to the science of passion tender, which I took up. That is, I was engaged in this and the first two courses: older students were not indifferent to me - they washed me and stroked the shirts, and I: “I remember a wonderful moment ...” However, I never read the poems to women - I heard Boris Leonidovich Pasternak, Anna Andreevna Akhmatova and the “red -haired” - laureate of the Nobel premium ...

-As you think, why do few of the actors know how to read poetry?

- Because their own spiritual life is much less than the fluctuations in the spiritual life of Joseph Brodsky. But why did I remember this? To the fact that over the past sixty years, counting from the moment when I first chopped furniture in the play “In Search of Joy” with a saber, I learned a lot of good and a lot of bad things about my craft. There were surprises: when my teacher Toporkov at my creative evening in the actor’s house suddenly told how he saw his student in Prague-in February 1968 I played twenty-four “auditors” in a row there. When I wounds, people began to clap - just like on the performances of the Bolshoi Theater. Here I am telling you now, and if I tensed, the tear would have already gone ...

- The Soviet tanks were already in Prague then?

- No. I managed to before them. The Czech government came to this performance almost in full force - then the government, which then did not. But this did not affect the Chekhov love for me: they made me a doctor of their Academy of Fine Arts.

I won the right to behave as I behave with my work.

- You often say that you determine the measure of the artist’s talent by its energy intensity. What is it measured?

- The children come out - applicants, and you immediately feel that one can cover this room with its energy, the other - four such rooms, and the third - ten. And ten - this is the hall of the Moscow Art Theater.

- And when the young director comes and asks for the production, how do you determine, call or not?

- I speak with him. If there is not enough once, I say twice and understand: either he is a vulgar or talent. When several years ago they began to update the managers of theaters, you know who was appointed? Serebrennikova, Pisarev, Karbauskis, and a little earlier - Zhenya Mironov. All of them came out of the Moscow Art Theater or from the "snuffbox". And now I have (I'm not even talking about Bogomolov-he has already taken place) there is another three or four. What will happen after us is the question.

- And really - what? Now you are covering their backs, but the situation is unpredictable. I recently told me one story. 2005. The Ministry of Culture is discussed by the future premiere of the opera “Children of Rosental” by Leonid Tetratnikov at the Bolshoi Theater. Well, that is, not a meeting, but a pogrom. The best musical critics are trying to explain something to one raging deputy. Suddenly the door swings open, you come in, say: " Continue, continues . " Sit down in place, listen to it to the end. And then suddenly, loudly: “ How dare you yell at smart, intelligent people? .. ” He, blushing, sits down. The question is removed. Where do you get the strength to protect contemporary art, young directors?

“I will tell you this way: I won the right to behave as I behave with my work.” When Efremov went to save the Moscow Art Theater, I thought: “I gave the best fourteen years of my life to make a“ contemporary ”to stand on his feet.” He went to the culture department of the city party committee and suggested: "And let me be the director." And over time, he began to behave with them exactly as you tell. If I see that this is talent, I won’t spare anyone for him and I won’t regret anything. I won’t give my head: I have four children. By the way, take into account: I'm not serious, in general, artist, I am comic.

- And this probably helps a lot?

- But what about! During my life, at some point, one could either go crazy or become a daffodil. And with me neither one nor the other. And on the eve of the 80th anniversary, the prime minister still happened (“Jewelry’s anniversary.”- Ed. ), Which nothing seemed to be foreshadowed, but as a result, only seven to eight times per performance are coughing. Well, here. Take a closer look and understand: I am too ambitious to have something undeserved. Americans have such a term Dream Team is a "dream team." When I know that I have Vovka (Vladimir Mashkov. - Ed. ), Zhenya (Evgeny Mironov. - Ed. ) And my other students and associates, perhaps the best half of Russian artists, I think: are there any analogues? Do you know them?

- I - no.

-That's the point. And my performances have always been successful. How to be here? After all, the roof can go.

-And how to keep it-a roof?

- ironically treat yourself and your success.

- Soon the term of your contract of the artistic director of the Moscow Art Theater is soon expired. Will you agree if you are offered to extend it?

- Don't know. Once, when I was about to leave, the king-father asked: “And who is the successor? What is the name. "

- In our country, this is bad with this.

- Of course, bad! And I knew the boy, the entrepreneur Ivan Artemyevich Blonde, a large artist of Saratovsky. I looked at him in childhood and thought: "Who instead of him?" And if so - then carry your cross and believe. It is a great honor that the Lord gave me these abilities. And in no other way, it is impossible to return.

- Do you think the type of officials has been changing over the past couple of decades?

- Favorant, but slowly. You see, if the leaders of culture do not like something, nothing will come of them. Well, here I love and love “Masters and Margarita”, “Slonded Bochkotar”, “My Sister” Pasternak, Viktor Astafyev’s prose. I recorded on the radio his “king-fish”, recorded the “carpentry stories” of Vasily Belov. Yes, you do not frown - I did not write it down a civil confession, but a "familiar business." By the way, my biggest money, do you think I earned in the cinema? No, I earned them on the radio. Because they paid me twenty -one rubles and another seventy -five percent per skill. In one minute of the record.

- What are this in which years?

-60-70s, the very beginning. I was brought to the radio Nikolai Vladimirovich Litvinov - he called me to play a mosquito (squeaks like a mosquito) . I don’t remember in what program it was. Life, it is like that - you want to lie, but not worth it. After all, everything is recorded.

- In the preface to your book, Anatoly Smelyansky wrote that at all times you knew how to “split” any boss.

- Yes, what a secret! I have never a ruble from what I received for general benefit, I spent on myself. And if a person does not steal, many are lost before that.

- Why is it customary to steal in Russia - from poverty?

- Certainly! Here is my grandfather, sorry, there is no photograph here: he has a huge gray hair, beard, mustache. I usually sleep for an hour and a half before the performance. And then I could not fall asleep and suddenly realized that if all the hair was removed, Pavel’s face would be ... my grandfather produced so much grain that when Nicholas II began to fight with Japan, a significant part of the needs of the army, which fought there, was satisfied due to this grain.

- Recently in the country there is a split in society into those who support the government’s policy, and those who are against. And in the walls of your theaters you do not feel this split?

- In the walls of the theaters where I work, each actor receives ten thousand rubles a month for each child. The money that the actors of this theater have for their work is comparable to the money that actors of the municipal theaters in Europe receive. And why do they need, as you say, a “split”?

- Well, you have a version, why is contemporary art, primarily painting and theater, causes more irritation than literature?

-It’s difficult to read, especially for those who put pork heads under the doors of the theater.

- Those who put their heads have recently supported the Deputy Minister of Culture: he said about the Russophobic festival "Golden Mask" and in general - about Russophobic performances.

- Do you know how my grandmother answered in such cases? "LELENKA, that is the illiterate people."

-Do you regret something in life?

- I regret that I did not have time to return gratitude to my parents in full.

- Can I ask once again about the role that you would like to play?

- I will not say, because I will not play. And if I play, then why speak in advance? Well, okay - just to make you understand. Myshkina did not play, Judushka Golovlev did not play-he gave Zhenya to Mironov, akim, the old man from the "power of darkness", did not play, Richard III did not play, but would probably play with details. In general, dousing with tears above the fiction is the sweetest for me.

- What will happen to the country, Oleg Pavlovich, - do you have a forecast?

- It will be better. Maybe not from this season, but it will be - now and then. This is a very rich country, the Americans never dreamed.

- So after all, everything was plundered.

- Oh, what are you! You just need to block these channels of theft. But if, God forbid, they will attack us, the shameful will leave again.

- Yes, no one will attack, this is only telling on TV!

- Well, maybe. But you know, you asked what I regret. Fate arranged one test to me. In America, a young girl fell in love with me, and I was already appointed director of “Contemporary” and had to fly away. And then she says: “Lelik! I know you want to make a theater. This is not my father’s money with my mother, this grandmother left me - half of you. ”

- It was a pity to fly away?

- Yes, I loved her, that's the matter! And among other things, she bought various mechanics: then the strobe scraps only appeared, and when people walked along the stage, their movements were laid out - oh, how great it was! On the other hand, I now understand that, if there were no situations in my life, where would this desire to pay people for work as much as they invested.

- I know that at all times you have been envious and envious a lot. And you yourself - to whom?

- envied people who know French. Playing piano. Mstislav Rostropovich envied. Of course, I'm sinful. But I never envy that the Lord would take his talent from Glory or somehow damage him. I cried when he played. And he played better from this.