Oleg Tabakov left

We have much more talking and discussed than do business. This is how the modern classic Tom Stoppard says: "Art should give rise to a contest in generosity." And so far we live according to the Russian counting: “In our small company, someone has greatly hit. One-two-three-this will be you. "

Despite the now familiar irony, I am ready to say again and again that in Russia the need for the theater has deep moral roots. What are they growing from? "Where does this need need that is impossible to quench?" On this earth, with its suffering? A short period of prosperity at Stolypin and Witte, and then an idiotic entry into the war, then the February revolution, the October Revolution, hunger in the Volga region and Ukraine, repression, the lost war in Finland, the war with the Germans ... victory obtained by dozens of millions of dead fathers of ours. Here Mayakovsky said: “If you put the crying Bolshevik in the museum ...” And if you put the Russian woman and count the liters of tears, spilled-first by my father, then by my husband, then by my son, then by my grandson ... When I look at Stalingrad at the Rod, I think: “Lord, how many tears did you shed.” In the story that she brought out on her shoulders, of course, the need for something that would elevate her suffering would cleanse them. Of course, it goes to church, but the church rarely gives the emotional stress that the theater gives. Therefore, the fact that the Russian viewer goes to the theater is a pattern for me, and not at all evidence that he does not know how to spend money on some other entertainment.

NT: *But you, as a person who has created a theater who has been using unchanged success for 20 years, who has come to the Moscow Art Theater in a very difficult period of its history and made this theater one of the most visited, should know how the new viewer has changed, how difficult it is to attract it and what compromises have to go. *

I dare to say that I raise the viewer to my level. Since 1957, I have never played in my gym not only half -empty, but in which there were less than eighty percent of the public. Unless only on the virgin lands in the Karaganda region in unfinished cowsheds. And then because the milkmaids were not brought in time. And when they brought a lifting, I began to play in the Rozov playing barn from the play, who chopped furniture with a saber ... My experience that causes fifty years of interest from the public allows us to say that I raise the viewer to my level, which, I apologize, is clearly higher than the average.

NT: *Many of those who took part in our discussion claim that the level of the public has fallen, its new requirements for the theater are underestimated. And theaters create performances for the sake of its taste. *

This is wrong. We have the audience that we deserve. If we take the audience for the standard in the 60-70s, the audience of acute civilian temperament, which came to Yuri Petrovich Lyubimov to “associate”, and not just empathize, there is no longer this public, since for 17 years there is no that country-the Soviet Union. The theater of subtext and allusions now makes no sense. I will die, I will not forget one episode in the Mayakovsky Theater at the play of Peter Fomenko “The Death of Tarelkin”. At the most pathetic moment of the first act, the woman who was sitting next to me grabbed her neighbor’s hand and moaned: “You understand what they mean!” It always annoyed me. I don’t need this association! I am quite confident in my craft to extract the same thing from the auditorium, but by other means - means of reproducing the actor of the living life of the human spirit. The Political Sayword Theater has left. I disappeared ... I went to the chess circle to the dramatic circle, where my mother led me to protect me from the strengthening influence of the street. We had such an Isai Babaev, who, when he began to lose, pressed the boards on the edge of the board, and ... all the figures looked like the floor. That's the same as Isai Babaev, the story of the Political ambiguity Theater ordered. And when I recall the performances of Yuri Petrovich Lyubimov, I am least occupied by a number of political allusions. I remember those performances of the Taganka theater, on which I did not “associate”, but cried: “A good man from the Sezean”, “And the Dawns here are quiet”, “House on the embankment”, “Exchange” and others. Not words spoken, but human passions ... I am a supporter of such an impact on the viewer and work in this manner. When I corrected the stocking on my leg, playing the barm-tree in Aksenov’s play “Always on sale”, I did it so that after the performance two or three representatives of non-traditional sexual orientation were waiting for me ... And playing differently makes no sense. For me, the viewer is always right. In any of its manifestations. This point of view, I heard, is not separated by some of my colleagues, since this, they say, is the opinion of a successful theater worker. I apologize in advance about this.

NT: *Let me argue with you. The Moscow Art Theater has a play “Tartuf” in the production of Nina Chusova, where you play the main character. You cannot help but understand that this production is very vulnerable. However, the viewer goes to the performance of a crowd and the production is a huge success. *

This is the case in which the viewer is mistaken.

NT: *But what about the axiom “The viewer is always right”? *

This is the very exception that confirms the rule.

NT: *That is, in this case, it cannot be said that you raise the audience to your level? After all, there is a completely opposite. *

There are failures and mistakes in my practice. This is an honest performance, honestly performed by professionals. But in this case, we did not achieve the desired result, which, however, does not prevent the viewer from experiencing a rise in spirit. Well, what to do? You say something-and they applaud you. You will build a face - a flurry of applause.

NT: *Do you have contempt for such an audience? *

Writing to the public has never been and cannot be. I love the audience.

NT: *Why do you, if you think the play “Tartuf” is not very worthy, will not remove it from the repertoire? *

Maybe I will take it off. I have a tartuf play as a nail in my head. Something was not brought to the case there ... But, remember, I did not allow several performances from the plays of famous authors, in the production of eminent authors, with remarkable actors engaged in them. It didn't work out. But we also learn from mistakes. In the theater, not only high demands should be present, but also a measure of risk. However, as in life ...

NT: *On the sidelines, theatrical figures often say that you turned the Art Theater into a commercial enterprise. *

Let the results of this theater achieve, and then we will continue this conversation. And what is a commercial enterprise, what kind of scarecrow is it? Synonym for success? And the “White Guard”, and “Hamlet”, and “philistines”, and “forest”, and Astafyev, and Bulgakov, and Anui, and much different that we have success, is the commercial theater? As one critic used in the 60s, the seals can jump out of laughter ...

NT: *We can assume that they will say that they do not want to achieve such results - success and box office. *

My dear, if you want to seriously talk to you, do what is done in this theater! And then I will come and study. I am a Russian artist, my teacher was a student of the great actor Davydov Vasily Osipovich Toporkov. And Davydov considered himself a student of Shchepkin. I have a powerful root system. And what you say: “Ah, why work like that, and even for such a viewer” is simply not serious. Try to be an interesting viewer for half a century. And then we will arrange a discussion, whose way is more true. Look - after all, young stars have risen, and there are many of them. However, the old horse does not spoil the furrow. ( Laughs ). The play “Amadeus”, which goes 24 years, where I play with my student Sergei Bezrukov, still collects a full hall. This performance is about eternal problems: what is envy, an unbearable pain from consciousness, that someone is more talented than you ...

NT: *Do you know such pain? *

To me? No. I envy only two categories of people: those who say in French, and who knows how to play the violin and piano. Maybe this is due to the fact that I got it early and that I am strongly supported by cinema, multiplier, radio, grames ...

NT: *You give an example the tremendous success of the theater, but for your opponents, success is not an argument. *

The theater is a theatrical and entertainment enterprise. For some reason, my opponents do not remember how many times in their correspondence Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko ask a friend a friend question: “Will we have a success?” They were not the Hanjas, they loved the theater and were not ashamed of this love. And outside the audience recognition, there is no success. The actor’s internal freedom is born only if he is powerful in demand by the auditorium, the trust of this hall. And here I refuse my opponents in the right to polemize on these topics if they do not have audience recognition. In this case, they are not interested in me.

NT: *Now I will speak as a moralist. *

Come on, try it.

NT: *In the play “PROSEDING A SUN”, which goes on the MHT small scene, a huge obscene monologue is pronounced. The mat on the stage of the art Theater, on the Holy Stage - isn't it indulging in the low -powered tastes of the audience? Not a violation of the covenants of the founding fathers of the theater? *

This is wordbag and demagogy. If in another performance a mat, perhaps you will be right. And since this was uttered at the play based on the play of modern playwrights of the Presnyakov brothers - here with artistic truth everything is in order, in my opinion. And peering into the exhausted soul of the captain of the police, which this monologue pronounces, we will understand that he could not speak out otherwise. Well, he does not have stronger words for a story about his feelings. By the way, it is written on tickets that children under 16 years of age are prohibited for this performance.

NT: *How would you describe yourself as a viewer? *

I am a grateful viewer.

NT: *But on some performances you fall asleep. *

I fall asleep when information stops coming to me. I just shore my time and is engaged in the business that I think at the moment more appropriate.

NT: *In your theater there is a play "Copenhagen", where you play, Olga Barnet and Boris Plotnikov. This is a difficult, difficult to perceive the performance of physicists, almost entirely built on dialogs. What is the tour fate of this performance? *

This is a difficult problem. Copenhagen is not for the thousandth hall. I experienced a very strong stress when, after the intermission, in the play that was played in Kyiv on tour, we went on stage and saw how much the audience massifs thinned. I decided to play this performance in Moscow, selling tickets only to stalls and underwear.

NT: *That is, this kind of spectacles at the viewer attends less. Isn't that a problem? *

Problem. But art should be different, like the viewer. For example, the Moscow Art Theater gives free performances in the houses of culture of Moscow institutes in order to engage the future viewer, to bother him to the theater. However, the situation is not as sad as you imagine. At the beginning of the season, I came to the Meyerhold Center for the performance of the theater art studio Sergey Zhenovach “The Budge Rod”. In the almost three -hundredth hall, the audience were of different cultural preparedness, but they (viewers) left after this performance more close to each other. As they say, "a crowd that has passed through the theater becomes a people." And young artists pleased me. They were serious, honest and excited. And I thought that Russian Melpomen is still capable of childbearing. And yesterday, having visited the workshop of Peter Fomenko at the performance of Yevgeny Kamenkovich “The most important” by Shishkin’s novel “Hair Venus”, he was glad again. Smart, bitter, talented performance. Spectators of the center hall for three and a half hours sat quietly, not coughing, without dropping the numbers, holding their breath. It was clear that the story told about them too. So to argue about what performances the audience attend more and which are less is an ungrateful occupation.

NT: *Valery Fokin believes that theaters received the audience, similar to the one that came to the theater halls after the 1917 revolution. And she needs serious work. *

As for the need for work, I completely agree. But with the assertion that we received the audience of a model of the fall of 1917, I do not agree. We received the public Mixed. Mixed group. These are, of course, people like those who came to the Moscow Art Theater after 1917, but also the descendants of modern Ryabushinsky, frost and mammoths, already weaned in Oxford, Moscow State University, Phystech, MSTU named after Bauman ... Yes, and middle -class representatives feel the urgent need of the theater. I see this, looking at the turn of two hundred and a person on the day of preliminary sale of tickets to the Moscow Art Theater.

NT: *such a mixed audience can be attracted by the same performance? *

Certainly. Talent. And nothing else.

NT: *But the example with Copenhagen indicates the opposite. *

You need to come to Copenhagen and see how the audience listens to this performance. And how intelligent and grateful she is at the end of this performance.

NT: *Do you really have a completely unfamiliar compromise with the public? *

The main thing for me is to do everything that I can this evening. I come to the performance to give everything accumulated.

NT: *You very often repeat the word "success". Apparently, there is no other criterion for you, except for success. *

Yes, for us - for K.S. Stanislavsky, V.I. Nemirovich-Danchenko and for me, including-success is an objective confirmation of the lively interest of the auditorium, the urgent need for the theater. In order for the success to be long, you need to seriously own craft. The audience, which I rarely deceived, trusts me. I can tell you which viewer I love most. My mother worked in two works, but we lived well. And I recall that often, when my sister and I had dinner with borsch, which my mother was brewing three days ahead, she said: “Guys, Svyatoslav Theofilovich Richter (or Dmitry Nikolaevich Zhuravlev) comes to us in Saratov). We have almost nothing left to pay. Can I go? " Here is what kind of viewer I dream ... In Vladivostok, my dressing rooms were not out into the courtyard, where expensive cars were parking before the performance. I chose the dressing room from which the path was visible: late people fled along it, who did not have such cars. In their palms, they carried tickets bought for "my mother's money." Lord, how long I love these faces!

NT: *You really have a well -organized theatrical business and relations with the public are similar to a long happy marriage. But in the theater environment you do not have a feeling of loneliness? *

Of course it arises. Nevertheless, I associate myself with Mark Zakharov, Kostya Raikin, Galya Vorop. With great love, I treat some performances of Peter Fomenko, Seryozha Zhenovach. But we have much more talking and discussed than they are doing business. This is how the modern classic Tom Stoppard says: "Art should give rise to a contest in generosity." And so far we live according to the Russian counting: “In our small company, someone has greatly hit. One-two-three-this will be you. " As the great Chekhov said with the mouths of Trigorin in the "Seagull": "What to push, there is enough space for everyone."

First published in NT No. 7 of March 26, 2011