The aged Peter Pan

In Latvia, the premiere of the performance of Dmitry Krymov was first held. The director began this production at the Contemporary Theater before the war

Krymov was one of the most successful and demanded directors of Russia. On February 25, 2022, he flew to the production in the United States, and since then has not returned to his native country. Now in Moscow you can see two works by the director-“Mu-Mu” in the theater of Nations and “Karenina” in the Moscow Art Theater. A.P. Chekhov - without his surname in the list of creators. In other theaters, including the workshop of Peter Fomenko, the school of modern play and theater named after Pushkin, Krymov’s performances were removed from the repertoire. We talked about his creative path after the outbreak of war and the play staged last year in Lithuania last year in one of the previous materials under the Russian Seasons heading. He recently gave our colleagues from the Novaya newspaper Baltiya an interview, in which he said how long he was going to make a play by Peter Pan, how he began to rehearse the contemporary theater in Moscow (handed over the model of the performance on February 22, 2022), and as he rewritten the script for the production for the Riga scene: instead of the national heroes of the Russian theater, Oleg Tabakov and Oleg Efremova, now Yanis Rainis and Mikhail Chekhov, known in Riga, appear. But besides them - also Alexander Pushkin.

Matilda Vinogradova looked at the first production of Dmitry Krymov in Latvia and was convinced that the abolition of Russian culture was still continuing primarily inside the Russian Federation, while outside it - it is alive than all living things.

From the balcony, he and she descend to the stage.

They discuss how high (“fourth”, “no, fifth”), how tired (mainly-he), how he does not like the cheese Chedder, with whom she made a sandwich with, and how it was dancing that they grow up all the time-he points to a sleeping girl in a crib. She does not argue, but at some point in each of her phrase, she persistently repeats: "And you are Peter Pan."

He complains that he doesn’t want anything else: neither showing a fire, nor a duel Pushkin, nor Baroque, nor even sunset in a plulange at 8:30 pm (probably this detail Krymov recalls his own childhood: the creative intelligentsia went to the Baltic Sea in Palanga and Pyarn, while the nomenclature - in Jurmala).

And in general, he just wants to leave-there are all signs of burnout of a magic boy who once did not want to grow up. True, now he is a dented man in the area of ​​fifty,

And his companion is a middle -aged fairy and overweight.

When the girl wakes up, Peter Pan will meet her and start his own, obviously, more than once played, in which he in the company of the same restless, but, unfortunately, the long -aged adults will show a set of stories and entertainment tricks so boring to him.

They will present two glances at the duel of Pushkin, stretch a sheet along the scene, on which they will draw a sunset in a palang with paints, demonstrate their idea of ​​Baroque, they will divorce a stake, call on the stage of Rainis and the Latvian National Theater Mikhail Chekhov in the same building.

For "Peter Pan syndrome" Dmitry Krymov again wrote his own play: this play consists of acting improvisations and associations that are not directly related to each other. And if the fairy is the same elderly tired lady as the main character? And if you add to this company Mikhail Chekhov, who worked here, and then flew even higher-to New York, to Los Angeles? And Rainis was the director of this theater from 1921 to 1925 ... And if you recall the duel of Pushkin, by the way, here was a monument that was not so long demolished here.

With an unfamiliar troupe of the Latvian National Theater, Krymov works as a familiar method, composing his own story from sketches and acting improvisations over a classic plot. The method shows its viability - just as before that was in the Klaipeda Theater.

While Timofei Kulyabin in Tallinn is looking for an explanation of modern Russian history in Brecht’s textbook text, and Maxim Didenko in Germany does the same with the help of a modern “cremor” of the writer Sasha Filipenko in Berlin, Krymov continues to add impressionist puzzles.

In them you can look for thoughts about growing up, loss, existential longing for the old world - and you can also a metaphorical autobiographical mirror.

After all, the aged Peter Pan, who does not want to repeat his (so understandable, so hackneyed) magic again, but it is in the process of repetition that is fond of and no longer wanting to stop in any way - the director is. Especially today. Especially when a changing time is buzzing outside the walls of the theater. Especially when it is impossible to hide from him at the same time, and so I want to do it.

The second performance of Krymov in Latvia ( discuss that “Peter Pan Syndrome” is the most expensive in the National Theater) confirms the hypothesis that the director’s approach in productions abroad has not changed. Krymov released a performance in which you can see the no -imprisonment of those who left the house (along with the impossibility of finding it again), and the desire to remain a boy, despite the fact that they have long been showing an aging man in the mirror. And it is possible - the universality of the director’s approach and the ability of his images to work regardless of the place and language where this performance will be played.

Crimean constant spectators of Krymov’s performances, which are now many in Riga, will see rhyme in the “Peter Pan Syndrome” and with the play “Eugene Onegin” from the Krymov cycle “In your own words”,

In which the encyclopedia of Russian life was retold with the help of visual hooliganism, and the indication that this performance is European: the pavilion with a nursery with light wallpaper and giraffe, where the performance begins, looks so traditional for the European theater.

... To show the girl a sunset, Peter Pan is looking for eggs that will break on the back - and the yolk blurred in the sunset sun. You can, of course, sneak and recall this particular product in Russia, but much more soulful (and rather correlates with the director’s idea) - agree that at any point in the world the eggs are stored on the back of the refrigerator door (where Peter Pan discovers them), and children have the property of growing too quickly. While you washed your hands or talked on Facebook about how to live in a world in which everything got up your head - they have already grown up and healed their lives. And you were not asked.