He taught to think independently

Memory of the playwright, director, founder of “theater.doc” Mikhail Ugarov

On April 1, Mikhail Ugarov, director, playwright, founder and permanent artistic director of the Moscow Theater.doc, ideologist of the New Drama movement, died from a heart attack. He was 62 years old. He raised a lot of young actors and directors and revived in the Russian theater, cinema and television interest in new drama. At the request of Medusa, the theater critic Anton Khitrov tells how Mikhail Ugarov changed - and continues to change - the modern Russian theater.

The playwright, director, actor, teacher, curator of theatrical and dramatic festivals - Mikhail Ugarov had many specialties. Since 1976, he is an artist of the Kirov Youth Theater, adopted in the troupe without a theater diploma, since 1989-the author of plays, equal to the director-innovator Vladimir Mirzoev and the head of the Moscow Art Theater Oleg Efremov, since 2002-the creator of the performance-chita “Rubbing OFF ” in the center of dramaturgy and directing of Roshchin and Kazantsev. In the same 2002, Ugarov, along with colleagues-dramators, created the first theater of documentary in the country-the non-state and non-profit “theater.doc”, which became the work of life for him and his wife, the permanent director of the site of Elena Gremina.

Ugarov identified himself primarily as a playwright. In the era, when the main characters of the theater became the directors, and the play ceased to be an indispensable component of the performance, he defended the leadership of the author and the text: “Theater.doc” under his artistic leadership became not only the flagship of the domestic documentary theater, but also the main platform of the modern Russian -language play. In general, by his example, he showed that the theater can be done differently than it is everywhere accepted in Russia: without a permanent troupe, without state money, without any censorship. The political statements of the theater - such as the merciless performance of Ugarov “Eighteen Hour” about the death of Sergei Magnitsky - eventually led to the attack of the authorities to the site: in recent years, the theater.doc twice broke the lease and forced to move twice.

Ugarov was not a dogmatic preacher of one approach. Formally, in the “Theater.doc” there are rules prohibiting, for example, the directorial “metaphors”, bulky scenery, dancing and music (except cases specified by the author in the text of the play). In fact, the rules regularly violate: they, as Ugarov explained, are not needed in order to limit the directors, but in order to exclude rash, random techniques. If you remember that the scenery is prohibited, but still insist on them - you know exactly why they are. Not to take anything by default, to approach everything critically, any decision is deliberately made - these are the real, unspoken rules of his theater.

Everyone who was with Ugarov on “you” called him by name and patronymic-Mikhail Yuryevich, “although he opposed this and even somehow wrote on Facebook that he did not understand where this formality came from: they say, you have only a name for each of you. Probably, the reason is that everyone saw the teachers in it: not only documentary directors, whom he taught at the documentary cinema and theater school, along with Marina Razbuzhkina, not only actors-people of the Moscow school of new cinema, but also associates, spectators, subscribers in social networks. Ugarov taught not only art: he first of all taught critical thinking, showing a personal example how to think independently.

Religion, the state, the mainstream theater - he questioned everything and, as a genuine researcher, looked at everything from the outside. His wary attitude towards feminism, which gave rise to a lot of fake disputes, was dictated not by conservative views, and a natural distrust of any partisanship (but no contradictions with feminists prevented him from interfering with his actress Anastasia Elephant, who accused Peter Pavlensky’s violence).

It is impossible to reconcile with his death: he was not a “patriarch”, not a “legend” - he was one of the people who determined the face of the Russian theater as of 2018. The 62-year-old Ugarov left at the peak of the director's uniform. His last production “Man from Podolsk”, created last spring co -authored with director Igor Stam, is almost the main theatrical sensation of recent years. According to the plot, strange-intellectual police officers catch and raise inhabitants living, as it seems to them, is not conscious enough. The well -read spectator of the "theater.doc" emotionally connects to the "Revenge of Smart" - and then with surprise and horror understands that he participated in a collective reprisal.

In this performance, the director not only opened the new playwright Dmitry Danilov, who is being put all over the country today. He deliberately contrasted himself with the mainstream, releasing the prime minister with the classical trinity of the place, time and action, in a serial fascinating plot and psychologically reliable heroes-but with social statements so accurate and non-trivial that no one could reproach the Ugarov for inconsistency. On the contrary, he rehabilitated the "archaic" form, proving its vitality and strength. The search for an alternative, a dwarming, unobvious path has always been its principle.

Tomorrow, April 3, the “Theater.doc” will show the production “When we come to power” - one of the last projects to which Ugarov was involved (the program calls it among the participants in the “working group”). The money collected from the sale of tickets will go to the aid of the director’s family. This is a performance of a utopian controlled by civil society. On the stage - a government chosen by the theater with human rights activists, lawyers, activists in the role of ministers, Ombudsmen and supreme judges. In the repertoire of the "theater.doc", you can not find a project that is more suitable for farewell to Ugarov. Raising civilian firmness, an independent mindset, curiosity for the world around him, he worked for a better future - society, and not just the theater. It is unfair that he has died now, when plans for the best future seem so distant.

Anton Khitrov