"It's scary when you are buried alive"

Actors, musicians and critics-about the closure of the Gogol Center (instead of which the Gogol Theater will now again be in Moscow)

On the evening of June 29, the Moscow Department of Culture announced the change of artistic director and director of the Gogol Center: Anton Yakovlev and Alexander Bocharnikov, Alexei Agravovich and Alexei Kabeshev, take place . Now the center will continue to work called the Gogol Theater-it was on the basis of this theater in 2012 that Kirill Serebrennikov founded the Gogol Center (he quit from there in 2021, leaving the institution in the hands of like-minded people). According to Serebrennikov, in fact, this means the closure of the Gogol Center . The last productions of the previous team were “I do not participate in the war” and “take care of your faces”. Here's how directors, playwrights and musicians reacted to the closing of the theater.

Valery Pecheikin

playwright "Gogol Center"

Today, many are asking to comment on the closure of the Gogol Center. Allow me, I will give one comment for everyone. I also made my introduction to the performances - for everyone.

We were very lucky: we leave a little earlier than the audience wanted it. It is much worse to leave when you call yawn. Even worse - when they do not even yawn in the hall when the hall is half -empty, it is half under the veil. So, they say, it was in the old Gogol Theater, in the place of which the Gogol Center came. The bedspread was removed, places and doors were opened. You could go to the theater at noon. So he turned from the theater - to the center.

But there is a centriferous time, but it happens - centrifugal.

And in general there is death. Remember this, please. Do not lie down tears, because no one died.

The Gogol Center had a time when his artistic director-Kirill Serebrennikov-was sitting under house arrest, and his director-Alexei Malobrodsky-in a pre-trial detention center. There was a day when Serebrennikov was not allowed to say goodbye to a dying mother. It was a day when Malobrodsky had a heart attack right in court. And he almost died.

But all, I repeat, are alive. We are alive and, apparently, are loved. Of course, there are those who hate us. But they also need to be loved. Otherwise, what have we been doing all this time if we did not learn to love? You yourself see what hatred leads to.

What will we do next? Everyone needs to ask about this personally. What will I do? Don't know. I can't get through to myself. Most of all I would like to learn how to be silent, as a bust of Gogol, who was standing in the courtyard of the theater, was silent all this time.

Gogol was the first I saw when he entered the theater nine and a half years ago. There was a large pit in the lobby, the floor was opened, and the communications, the intestines of the theater were dark inside. I shuddered. Gogol seemed to get out of this pit and stood, looking at the cliff. Today I understand the power of this image.

It's scary when you are buried alive. Very scary.

But Gogol was then alone. Nobody heard his voice. We have never been alone - we had spectators. Ten - almost - years. You heard us, loved, gave flowers. In general, they gave me bread for the last time. Thanks for everything.

I want to thank Kirill Semenovich [Serebrennikov], Nikolai Vasilyevich [Gogol] and all his colleagues.

You are living souls. I love you.

Alexander Kuznetsov

actor

I am an anti -theater person. But this was the only theater that I sincerely loved. With the best and dear people and with the smartest spectator.

The closure of the Gogol Center at the peak of its relevance, success and talent is a truly historical event that shouts in black and white about the fact that this country is in this form and with this degenerative-woman’s mind-it is accurately ****** [end].

All who are involved in this event - go ***** [to hell]. You will go down in history exclusively as a person who killed John Lennon - from powerlessness and envy. Only unlike the murdered John Gogol Center and all its employees will live and create many, many years, in other forms and in other places where they will be carried in their hands. And you will disappear like dust and dirt.

Monetka

singer

For a couple of years she lived opposite the Gogol Center, went to the performances, a lot was printed, and from the very beginning it was surprised how a living point on the map was this place. Recently, [Theater] has delighted with stamina, the doves of the world on the performances, but now it is closed. The last performance will be “I do not participate in the war” according to the [poet Yuri] Levitan.

It is funny to read the response of the Department of Culture that in fact the theater will remain in place, other people will simply work there now, the leadership will change. Do not curl in your soul, there is no more theater. Because the theater is not a sign above the door, not the address in the header of the letter, but people with their unique gaze, reading, position, building their artistic language on stage for many years, around which actors, spectators, friends are united. This is a living system, it is a whole world. It is so cruel to destroy it that I am convinced: the authors of these decrees were not read the “war and peace”, but even the “avatar” never looked.

For me, this is a real betrayal. Another betrayal of culture, the betrayal of youth and the future, your promises and our hopes.

Yan GE

Gogol Center actress

Thank you, Gogol Center, Kirill Serebrennikov, and that’s all. I was very lucky with you. I will never forget these best years in my life. I love you all very much.

Anton Khitrov

Theater critic

In 2012, when Cyril Serebrennikov headed the theater to them. Gogol, I first decided that this was some kind of joke. In those years, I firmly knew that the directors who are interested in the state did not trust theaters. Putin had just been re -elected for the third term, and I learned to live with the feeling that such as me in Russia is not happy. Nevertheless, in cultural policy, the inertia of the Medvedev “modernization” remained for some time-it allowed the “Gogol Center”, the Stanislavsky electricheater, reform the BDT and much more.

The innovation of the Gogol Center was not some extremely new directing or dramaturgy, but a fresh vision of the theater as such, in the sense of a place. It was Moscow of the future, the city where I always wanted to live. Not the “Theater-house”, where you are, like, visiting, but “Theater-Park”, where all the townspeople are the owners.

Tickets were checked only at the entrance to the hall, the lobby worked as a public space opened to everyone from morning to evening. The theater did not divide, as usual, into the sacred part and the profane - it was completely transparent: the audience and employees dined in one cafe, and the old scenery became part of the interior. Quir-aesthetics and free attitude towards the body, in a sense, also programmed the city life of the future. The political values ​​of the Gogol Center were expressed not only in “civilian” performances-“idiots”, “(m) student”, “baroque”-but also in the lifestyle of this site.

I am infinitely sorry for the spectators of the Gogol Center: they will no longer have their own space, and even the state wants to destroy the memory of it, returning the theater an old insecure name.

One of Serebrennikov’s best performances “Dead Souls” ended in the song “Rus', what do you want from me?” “Rus wants you to be not here,” the Moscow Department of Culture tells us. It is difficult to believe in the opposite. But it is necessary.

Anna Narinskaya

Literary critic

Closed the Gogol Center. This seems to prove that nothing talented, bright and, most importantly, living in today's Russia cannot exist. On the other hand, it proves that it is talented, bright and, most importantly, living in today's Russia.

Absolutely amazingly (and important) that the last performance of the Gogol Center is called "I do not participate in the war." This is the production of Alexei Agranovich according to the verses of Yuri Levitansky. I am happy that I have an attitude towards this performance.

For me, the Gogol Center is the implementation of a silly combination of the words "beautiful Russia of the future." As an “Hz”, it lost its stupidness and became just a statement - this is such a future beautiful Russia: young, sharp, talented, courageous, loving its culture, but not trembling before it, open to the world. Gogol-Center was a place where such Russia was given to us to feel.

Alexander Tsypkin

playwright

The departure from the Gogol Center of the current team-led by Alexei Agravovich and Alexei Kabeshev-, in fact, means the cessation of the existence of this highly artistic and megaprofession project, creation. In my modest opinion, this is a big loss for the development of the cultural life of the city and the country. For the "unprincipled readings" Gogol-Center was the main home since 2016, and we are infinitely grateful to each person in their unique family. I'm afraid it will be difficult for us to perform on this scene without them, so the second day [July] we have the last readings there. They are only sure that everyone who leaves the Gogol Center, and then will be art to change the world for the better. If, of course, this world can still be helped.

Lado of quitania

director

And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not declare it.

In Russia, the era of a modern, free and courageous theater has ended. The founder of Gogol Center Kirill Semenovich Serebrennikov today publicly announced his closure. The Gogol Center in the form in which he conceived, acted, raised new artists and authors, changed the cultural map of Moscow, represented the country in the international cultural arena, ceases to exist.

When I was a student of the theater institute, Kirill Semenovich was a lighthouse, an icon. When Kirill Semenovich was under house arrest, I was lucky to get to know him personally. I rushed to visit him, my idol was sitting in front of me with a bracelet on my leg - and in paints I talked about the opera, which I put, being locked up and under investigation. I expected anything from this meeting, but I was amazed. Kirill Semenovich said an important thing that I took with me and which has firmly sprouted in me forever, he said: “We must continue to create no matter what.” Do not be afraid of anything. Take care of your faces. Continue to create contrary!

Mange

singer

I was 22 years old when I secretly came to the Gogol Center at night to rehearse my first songs. Then there was no money for a paid base, and the guys let us create music. Nobody ever demanded anything, it was just so instituted there: those who came for art are always equal. It doesn’t matter, you are an artistic director, spectator or theater administrator.

We were children and felt that with the onset of the evening, doors to the world of freedom and creativity opened. The world where you love, respect and are free to do your favorite business. These feelings are now with me, when my beloved Gogol Center says goodbye to us.

How many friends I met there, how many ideas were invented there, how many unforgettable performances were there, how many unique minutes of happiness on the stage were. Kirill Serebrennikov and his entire team built a place of power for so many. And it seems that I want to say something like: “Do not recreate it anymore. Do not recreate. " But not the walls made a Gogol Center, but people. And these people are among us. And I love them very much. I love very much. And this love gives me hope.

Anton Dolin

film critic

Closed the Gogol Center. The best Moscow theater. The most free. The most honest. There I felt at home. To stay without a house is a terrible feeling in recent months has become familiar, almost banal. On the other hand, it is logical. Well, they still close them.

Alexander Filippenko

actor

“Listen!

After all, if theaters

Close -

So someone needs it?

So it is necessary

To every evening

At least one theater closed?! "

With these words, we ran out to Lyubimov on the cabbage in honor of the five -year -old Theater on Taganka in 1969.

And here are photographs [in Filippenko’s post on Facebook ] - from the legendary scene of Taganka, and immediately nearby - with the image of Lyubimova, with Venya Smekhov, Alla Demidova with Lesha Agravovich. But we are already at the Gogol Center. Bright, complete energy, luminous theater - a star! And again, an unknown, faceless “someone” needs to be closed. How bizarre a deck of maps was hiding - I did not think that I would see a repetition of history, and even against the backdrop of the death of people and the destruction of cities when everything else fades.

Today in the Gogol Center we will play “I do not participate in the war” according to Levitan verses. And although this poem is not in the play, I love it very much:

I saw the Ecumenical Evil.

I saw a lot of everyone.

And he abutted me, and broke

And yet I was lucky.

My friends gave me friendship

And women loved gently.

I was not killed in the war,

I was even lucky.

I was still lucky that here

I lived to your era

where are my things bad at all

And my snack tomorrow.

And yet I am happy that I could

What the moment lived before

Before that powerful shift

heavy underground breeds.

I saw the beginning of the end

And then God did not offend me,

I was an eyewitness, I saw

The beginning of the future principles.

I lived, I was so lucky

I have seen and know probably -

The story moves right

Only her standards are not about us.

And all the last day

This feeling will be in me -

I was there, I know what will be

Someday after me.