Translated material
"I decided to never be a waiter"
Writer Elena Skulskaya recalls Sergey Yursky
The last time I saw Sergey Yursky on the anniversary of Novaya Gazeta. He then (just recently) said that, waking up in the morning, he thinks: "Is there anything good awaits me today?" And if this is the day of the release of the "new", then he smiles ...
We met in Tallinn, many years ago, Sergey Yuryevich expressed a desire to meet me, because he liked my book about his father. For Sergei Yuryevich, as for me, his father was the most important person in life; Then I had to be at the evenings that Jurassic arranged in his honor: these were concerts talented and at the same time giving birth to a nicer feeling of loss ...
Sergei Yuryevich assured (such were the laws of the Silver Age) that there should be no gap between human and acting qualities, that is, he did not believe that talent, like a war, would write off everything. He demanded from himself an absolute human honor and decency and even thought that his success and glory were provided not only by his talent, but also by the behavioral severity that he had charged with his duty.
To my question: "What did you sacrifice in the name of art?" - He answered amazingly lapidarously, scary and magnificent: "Everyone!"
The rumor did not secure a single gossip for him, not a single dubious story, and, paraphrasing Montens, we can say that if you touch the gilding of his image, then the paint will not remain on your hands. With a laugh, he said:
-Once in my youth, I got to the country to one old artist; We played with him in the BDT in “Woe from Wit”. He offered me to drink, I refused, citing the fact that in the evening I had to be Chatsky. “Ah, I understand, they are sick,” the old artist sympathized with me. “No, no, I am healthy,” I hastened to assure, “but in the evening a performance!” -"Well, and what is the connection?!" - “So in the evening we are playing together, you are Famusova, I am Chatsky. I can't before the performance. " - “I understand and respect. Although I must admit that it does not work with such intimacy with such people - it is painful strict. And to yourself and to others. But if a person is a teetotal ... ” -“ No, I am like everyone else. I just do not drink before the performance. ” -"Do you drink it?" - "So I drink!" - “Fu, like a mountain from the shoulders! And before the performance? " - "Not one!" - “And when do you drink? As far as I know, you have 25–28 performances per month, so, therefore ... ” -“ So, after the performances ... ” -“ So you go to bed drunk? Not hygienic! "
During one of his touring visits to Tallinn, we talked about the role of an artist in society; I said that they no longer ask the writer "what is the meaning of life?" Sergei Yuryevich said that he would willingly answer this question:
- The meaning is probably to guess why all this was ...
-( continues ) I began to use the term, either dreaming to me, or read somewhere, I do not know ... not even the term, but the formula-“pure sound”. I realized that this formula best describes my audience joy, delight, when the note is absolutely taken without any interfering overtones. The rhythmic impeccability is still very important here that the length of the note is not very large, not very small, but completely accurate. I gradually began to characterize this concept and things that do not sound. Paintings. I am now less likely to go to museums, but I used to go often, I was a fan of classics, sometimes I was delighted with modern, I did not choose between schools and directions, but between pure and polluted sounds. So in the theater. Why are you doing this business all your life? To achieve pure sound. And how do you hear this pure sound? All feelings. Including the sixth.
In such a conversation about meanings, you always inevitably touch on the topics of changing values today, all this happened right before our eyes. I asked if his praise was rich in the notebooks of Tsvetaeva? She claims that she likes the rich. From the rich, like from the kings, ”writes Tsvetaeva,“ you are not waiting for anything good. Therefore, when they pronounce at least something human, you immediately delight. If it is impossible to be a person, personality, an artist, then you need to be at least rich ... This is written in 1919.
Sergei Yursky answered:
- I have no evidence, but it seems to me that in the world of wealth, art does not need art. What is called design is not part of the painting. Either one or the other. For some time, of course, you can balance. You can create something like a variety with the presentation of hot and cold snacks during the performance, and will even be bad. But then they either leave the waiters, remove the tables and say, they say, excuse me, but we will have a theater here, or the artists are first offered to learn how to be waiters and serve on the menu, and they are dismissed politely, and they have not been dismissed by the others, and they continue to call the others by artists. This is the quality of today's theater relationships. Many colleagues of my age, which have gone the same path as me, relate to the current situation very easily and claim that art, finally, took the place in society. This hypertrophy of literature, the hypertrophy of the theater, which was, - they say, is all from our poverty, and now we are rich.
But I still don't understand who is rich? Yes, the performances have become unusually rich and expensive in design. Have they acquired something new and worthy? I don't see this. Moreover, I notice some amazing dependence that I cannot prove: the performance is too expensive in some strange way devoid of spirit. And they say to me: yes, nonsense dog, everything was just working out ...
Of course, I survived to the age and reached the measure of fame when it was possible, not worried about anything, to expect various signs of respect and go to the stars with appropriate importance on the face. My irritability does not allow me to take this position ... The old waiter always causes special sympathy and bitterness, sometimes a piece in the throat does not climb when you look at the obsolete old man ... If you have not been a waiter all your life, and in old age they offer you this position for very good fees, then you are annoyed ... and be irritated badly; There is a condemnation in irritation - they say, and the restaurant is bad, and the menu is bad, and the waiters are disgusting, and I do not like the owner ...
What happens? Am I urge to reduce salaries to artists? No. I'm just watching and a little lost. I am convinced that today those who are talented are rich, everything comes to them, and those who are poor are simply unstable. Those who are rich are needed by people, those who are poor, people do not need. And everything is in place. And everything is fine. And exceptions? Yes, let's not deal with exceptions, let's engage in the rules! I can’t believe it all, because I am not blinded by ready -made solutions, ready cliche, I still look at the world with my own eyes. I go a lot, I see the country and see the countries; many, many cities of Russia, which are completely different from Moscow ...
Today's "jungle" with their cruel laws are interested in me, but they disturb me. It seems to me that terrible creatures hide in their thickets.
Sometimes, overcoming fear, I am approaching these creatures: I look at binoculars or just come. And what? I look - people. It only seemed to me from afar that they were monsters. And you leave, hear the sounds that they habitually make, you observe their habits, their relationships, learn about the sentences addressed to you yourself, they say, go more often, do it for us, and you understand, no, still monsters!
It always seemed to me that in art there is a certain heavenly echo. If so, then it will survive. And if not, then it will turn into something, perhaps even very useful, beautiful, aesthetized, but not art no longer ... but I would like to preserve an echo of eternal, true, absolute. And I cannot come to terms with the fact that God is money, and everything is fine. I could also live richly, but I really do not want. I am disgusting. It is disgusting to the most pure sound that we are talking about today. When someone becomes rich, I begin to suspect him in advance that he is moving away from pure sound. And while I, unfortunately, never made a mistake ...
- Why do you think the genre of revelations is in such demand? Why do many are eager to hear the last and most often disgusting truth about a great man?
- Envy. Just envy. Envy begins the investigation and certainly finds some evidence of his innocence: please, the idol turned out to be either a drunkard or a drug addict. Say, in my life I was familiar with at least several people of absolute, impeccable decency. I will name the dancing, Popov, Nikulin, Kopelana. But they will certainly beg me, wave their hand: Come on! They are not so flawless! And they will go, and they will go to expose, invent, build. Completely distort the appearance. They will make, for example, from the Ranevskaya ordinary swearing, and they will not leave anything for her anymore ... Gradually, even such a reconciliation theory arose: if a person is dishonorable, low, then probably gifted and interesting, and to be honest and decent, then most likely boring and mediocre. This is a terrible position. You can't!
Of course, sentimental rubbish is to show only good. A full look sees the evil of the world, and evil in every person, and the field of the battle of good and evil, how else? The question is: where is the author himself?
It seems to me that the guess is to consider personality traits not in their arithmetic listing, but in dynamic combination. When I worked with Tovstonogov, I saw his authority and cruelty perfectly, but I also saw that he was a wonderful leader, a big artist ... Once I had a chance to work, and then make friends with the Polish director Erwin Akser, who put the “Career of Arturo Wi” and “Two Theater” in the BDT. Erwin said that all the great people were vicious: that had such a terrible flaw, but this one had such. Once I dared to ask: "And what is a monstrous vice inherent in you?" He replied: “I’m not the great ...” I believe that Erwin Akser is the great director, which, of course, was characteristic of the shortcomings, but he was a harmonious person-this was combined in him various properties ... This beautiful sculpture can be beautiful from all sides, no matter how it is, and a living person changes depending on the angle ... Today is a signs of dies and vitality. To unravel yourself, let go off, fall out in the mud ... No one is interested in how the actor plays, it is only important how he behaves with women, with his superiors, how he dresses, which car he drives ...
I am endlessly valuable with my lack of freedom, my dependence on my reputation. I will never act in advertising, I will not take on a role in a vulgar play or a vulgar film.
I even abandoned the most beautiful enviable role - to play the old Henry Miller - talented, sloping, obscene ... I can’t. I cherish my lack of freedom!
... On my book shelf there are a number of his books with gift inscriptions. Not a single banal or trivial. I dare to quote the most expensive, because it has to do with all of us, who recall these days of the great artist: “The gift to create is inseparable from the gift of love ...” We are talking about the very pure sound that Sergei Yursky followed all his life and led the viewer and reader. This viewer and reader somehow guessed that he was loved by the artist (the viewer and reader always know this from somewhere), and responded with enthusiasm, laughter, tears, applause, timid attempts and try to be a decent person himself.