At the Samara Opera and Ballet Theater, spectators left the performance because of Mikhail Efremov, who "joyfully sent a mat" to the audience

At the Samara Opera and Ballet Theater, a scandal occurred during the performance of the artists of the Moscow Contemporary Theater with the production of the play by Harold Pinter "Do not become strangers." Spectators who paid for tickets from 4 to 7 thousand rubles complained that Mikhail Efremov forgot the text and was drunk.

According to the Moscow Komsomolets , the incident occurred in the past Wednesday, March 7. The audience complained that the beginning of the performance was detained for half an hour, and when Efremov appeared on the stage, it turned out that he was drunk.

During the performance, the artist forgot the text, confused in the lines and spoke very quietly. When dissatisfied remarks and requests to speak louder began to be heard from the audience, Efremov swore obscenely and "joyfully sent the Samara spectators and all of Samara."

Local journalists note that the hall at that moment was the Minister of Culture of the Samara Region Sergey Filippov. The audience outraged by Efremov’s behavior left the performance, and only a few people remained in the hall until the end of the production.

This incident was widely publicized, in particular, after the local actress Alla Korovkin, who was personally present at the performance, wrote about him in social networks.

Efremov has already responded to accusations of inappropriate behavior on the stage. “This is a pintar, a black English comedy. They didn’t catch a little, that’s all. More precisely, even one woman did not understand, who wrote all this,” Efremov quotes MK .

The famous artist also did not agree that many viewers remained unhappy with the production. According to him, some simply “rewritten” Korovkin’s post, not understanding what actually happened. “Before that, in Voronezh, I shot at the hall from a pistol, and everyone laughed,” he added.

Journalists, in turn, note that Efremov’s black English humor could not only evaluate Korovkin, and quotes from reviews about staging on social networks: “After the first intermission, a third of the hall left. And people constantly left. Complete disrespect for the audience from the protagonist”; "We came to the theater, not to a rock concert, he would still help in the crowd"; "Maybe we are not metropolitan residents, but for us the theater is a holy place, not the trash and the booth that Efremov arranged."

In a commentary for RBC, the artist was less verbose. He only stated that "do not become a stranger" is a "complex play for the Samara viewer." “I will not give any more comments on this subject,” Efremov added.