“Hamlet” with Yura Borisov has already been criticized by Oleg Menshikov, Mikhail Boyarsky and Dmitry Pevtsov

The Moscow Art Theater released Hamlet, directed by Andrei Goncharov, with Yura Borisov in the title role. Tickets for the premiere cost tens of thousands of rubles, and Russian celebrities - for example, Oleg Menshikov - fiercely criticize the director for his free handling of the play. Theater critic Alla Shenderova talks about the premiere.

Yura Borisov does not look like the usual Hamlet - but this only benefits the theater. And director Andrei Goncharov plays up his star status

“Brother, you are on the right track! And you have a bright future,” Robert Downey Jr. said to Yura Borisov at last year’s Oscars: he was nominated for Best Supporting Actor in Anora. Downey called this work “amazing,” and he’s right.

However, none of Borisov’s achievements convinced the theater audience that he was capable of playing Hamlet: many were offended by the very news of the upcoming performance. No matter how the Russian theater has changed in the pre-war decade, some viewers still believe that an actor’s appearance can be an obstacle to a certain role. This is what they said about Borisov: supposedly he lacks the aristocracy to portray a Danish prince.

Apparently, his previous roles are taking their toll: after Volkonogov in the film “Captain Volkonogov Fled,” Lekhi in “Compartment Number Six,” and the security guard Igor in “Anora,” the actor was labeled as a simple, brutal guy—and not everyone is ready to accept such a Hamlet. But the premiere was discussed in advance - which is what the Chekhov Moscow Art Theater, headed by Konstantin Khabensky, probably sought.

The author of the play, Andrei Goncharov, a graduate of the directing workshop of the St. Petersburg State Institute of Cinematography (RGISI) (2016), is inclined to hide the fact that there is something in his background other than theater. Goncharov has a medical degree. I learned this from him himself after I watched his “Morphine” (2018) based on the story by Mikhail Bulgakov at the St. Petersburg “Etude Theater”: everything related to medicine was recreated there with gloomy meticulousness. In the new Hamlet, the clinical conditions of the characters are also important.

Goncharov began collaborating with the Moscow Art Theater in the same 2018: he then staged the sketch “The Womb” based on an early heartbreaking story by Yevgeny Zamyatin at the director’s laboratory. The sketch was memorable - so much so that Khabensky, having become artistic director, suggested finishing the work: “The Womb” is still being performed on the New Stage today.

Before Hamlet, the director worked at the Moscow Art Theater only in a chamber format. However, not so long ago, in 2023, he produced a large-scale play on the main stage of the Moscow Youth Theater - “The Neverending Story” based on the children's story by Michael Ende about how emptiness devours the world. This work finally established his role as an interpreter of prose - from short stories to novels. Realism in The Neverending Story was mixed with fantasy, theater with life. The actors, in addition to their characters, played themselves and did not hide their attitude to what was happening on stage - exactly like Brecht.

With this approach, the participation of media artists not only helps the theater sell tickets, but also adds additional dimension to the performance: the stories of the characters resonate with the stories of the performers whom the public has long followed.

The last time Hamlet was staged at the Moscow Art Theater (this was in 2005), director Yuri Butusov used a similar technique: he invited Mikhail Trukhin, Konstantin Khabensky and Mikhail Porechenkov, former fellow students who managed to make a career in police series, to play the main roles. They played three yard boys (Hamlet, Claudius and Polonius, respectively), who, growing up, were very tormented that now they had to betray and kill each other.

Twenty years later, Khabensky, already at the head of the Moscow Art Theater, decided to return to this familiar strategy. At the beginning of the season, the Art Theater released “The Cabal of the Holy One,” based on Bulgakov’s play; Moliere - not only a playwright, but also the leader of the troupe, forced to coexist with despotic power - was played by the artistic director himself. And Nikolai Tsiskaridze became the Sun King - not only a ballet star, but also a member of the Presidential Council for Culture. The play was staged by Yuri Kvyatkovsky, who managed to deftly maintain a balance between outright opposition and ironic conformism.

It is difficult to say how deeply Hamlet-Borisov would have failed if Goncharov had not covered him: for example, the actor shouts out the monologue “To be or not to be” when he is nailed into a box, so that only a couple of phrases can be heard. After all, Borisov hasn’t played in the theater for a long time. After graduating from the Shchepkinsky School - one of the most archaic theater universities, where, by the way, Oleg Menshikov, the main hater of Hamlet, was educated at one time - the actor worked for Satyricon for a year and a half, but then he began acting and never returned to the stage.

The director does not make this role a benefit performance (like, for example, Tsiskaridze’s role of Louis in the same “Cabal of the Saints”). Borisov does not preside, does not stand “accidentally” in the center of the stage. But the director makes his special status the subject of a joke. “This is a performance for me, not for you!” - shouts Hamlet-Borisov, pushing either Claudius or actor Andrei Maksimov (“A Boy’s Word”) away from the proscenium, when Gertrude - Anya Chipovskaya feigns fainting so that her son does not leave home after his father’s funeral.

This media trinity interacts excellently in the play. More precisely, a quartet - there is also Artem Bystrov in the role of a ghost, not so recognizable to the viewer, but very professional and clearly understands the director at a glance.

Andrey Goncharov completely reworked the plot: now it is a story about a generation unable to change anything

Goncharov worked on the dramatization together with playwright Nadezhda Tolubeeva. Instead of poetic translations, they chose a prose interlinear translation by Mikhail Morozov - which, according to its author himself, does not pretend to be artistic and was made specifically for other translators and for theater researchers.

Perhaps the co-authors of the play decided that various additions would sound more organic this way, or, to put it simply, a gag. Goncharov’s short (less than two hours) “Hamlet” has enough of it. True, sometimes it is easy to mistake the original Shakespearean text for a gag - with talk about preparations for war, the casting of shells, and the purchase of military equipment. One way or another, it is much easier to add something to a prose translation than to a poetic translation.

Goncharov and Tolubeeva got rid of many scenes and characters: all the prince’s friends, real and imaginary, are replaced by Laertes and Ophelia. Another change is expressed not in the staging, but in the casting: most of the characters here are the same age, almost all are in their early thirties.

They try not to approach the castle at the back of the stage, illusory, like all the culture of the past - but at the same time dangerous. The artist Konstantin Solovyov “built” Elsinore out of light: rays in it replace columns. Sometimes, as soon as someone sits next to you on a mattress, the beam suddenly goes out: it seems that the building has collapsed like a book. This set design clearly refers to another “Hamlet” - the first in the history of the Moscow Art Theater: it was staged in 1911 by Gordon Craig, the famous theater reformer.

Basically, the heroes stay at the front of the stage: there is a kitchen table, which also serves as a place to play ping-pong, a polka dot set, an old refrigerator with the inscription “Peace” and a rotary telephone.

The details are redundant, some are clearly unnecessary, but together they suggest a sensitive and at the same time broken generation whose choice has been taken away. Unable to change anything, they either swallow pills or play ping-pong. And then, as if on cue, they start yelling, singing or twitching to the rhythms of a rave, as soon as they hear the words about “spots of blackness” in the soul. Hamlet's conflict - the necessity and impossibility of revenge - everyone plays here.

Gertrude talks about the stains when Hamlet reproaches her for marrying his uncle. This monologue sounds not in prose, but in verse; Anya Chipovskaya not only recites it, but sings it like an aria and even dances. It is he, and not “To be or not to be,” that becomes the main thing in the play.

“Bonjour, medame et monsieur...” Polonius greets the audience (the young Nikolai Romanov is wearing an aged wig with a bald patch), announcing in French the score of the ping-pong game. Apparently, this has something to do with the desire of his son Laertes (Kuzma Kotrelev) to return to France. In general, in this performance there are many attempts to build new cross-cutting plots, to come up with everyday rituals for the characters - but so far they do not work towards a common goal: they turn out rather to be puzzles - either too complex, or not thought through to the end.

In the middle of the game, Borisova's Hamlet announces that he has “got to go.” He is clearly not going to the university, but at least to military training: otherwise why would he need a large backpack with a blanket attached? Laertes also sells him a package: “There are eggs, a book - scientific, very interesting, and seedlings” (no one else will remember about the seedlings). Having grabbed the gift, Hamlet saws off the kitchen stool: he takes half with him, and gives the other to Ophelia. He thrusts a brown ball to his still living father as a farewell, muttering: “You’re going to die.”

Marusya Parfenova-Chukhrai dressed the characters as in real life - that is, fashionably and randomly. The white crow Hamlet wears not a khaki suit, but armor made of crumpled foil (remember the foil hats that supposedly protect from harmful radiation). Coupled with Tourette's syndrome, which Borisov portrays at the beginning (and forgets about by the end), one can understand this as a hint at the hero's special vulnerability.

He is not a plebeian here, but not an intellectual either - just a good person, too sensitive for the circumstances proposed in the play. Sensitivity, however, can be corrected: when Hamlet Sr. dies and Gertrude calls her son home, the first thing they do is remind each other about taking pills. But fixing a “dislocated eyelid” is more difficult. The dislocation is irreversible.

Not everything is all right with Gertrude either. Chipovskaya plays her as a lonely teenager. Upon learning of her husband's death, the queen runs to the refrigerator and hurries to eat, and then packs the crown in a box. At first it seems that it is for my son. In fact, for the two-meter strong man Claudius, who in his first scene loiters around, in the second he bullies his brother, and in the third he gets under the widow’s feet, shyly expressing condolences. In the fourth, he already talks about the “spontaneous memorial” at the grave of Hamlet Sr., which is worth following. And Laertes shows dissatisfaction: there is war all around, and he is going to France.

“Waf waf waf France” - this is how the king voices Laertes’ request. And it’s not that the director and his team have flat humor. This is humor for show - so that we understand what narrow-minded, infantile heroes we are dealing with. They fill forced inactivity with games.

It seems that Hamlet Sr. was fond of amateur performances: in any case, before his death, he ordered a huge box full of props (including Yorick’s skull). The box is delivered after the funeral - Claudius puts his annoying nephew in it, and not on the ship at all.

There are theatrical props on the stage, but there are no wandering comedians and a “mousetrap”: the uncle’s guilt is already obvious. Instead of persuading the actors to bring the king to light, Hamlet becomes an actor himself - he reincarnates as his own grandfather (not even mentioned in the play) and calls God on his behalf. He orders the ghost to go wander and atone for his sins. And Claudia demands to be put in a corner, facing the backstage: so that he doesn’t flirt with the audience.

It’s not that director Goncharov wants to completely reinvent Shakespeare, replacing words with physical actions (this is what, for example, the great Eimuntas Nekrosius did). There is simply no action left for these heroes. Hamlet felt that his dad would be killed, but he could not change anything: the king lay down on the steps of the palace, and his brother poured poison into his ear. And then he crushed him with a huge brown ball (the same one that was previously a small ball in the hands of Hamlet the son). And he didn’t do it because he was a villain—it just happened that way.

This is a performance for an independent theater in the basement, and not for the Moscow Art Theater

Despite the unnecessary details and dangling plot lines, in which the meaning is drowning like in a pile of ore, this “Hamlet” is clearly designed for “our own people” - those who read the meanings implied by the director into the play that has not yet taken shape.

If this “Hamlet” had been released in some small independent theater in the basement, whispers would already be going around Moscow about a new brilliant and freedom-loving reading. But “Hamlet” is shown on the main stage of the country, where “our own” people are unlikely to attend: ticket prices reach 50 thousand. But “not our own”, like Oleg Menshikov, are furious with him. About seven years ago, when there were still completely different players on the theatrical field - for example, Bogomolov, who had not yet changed his shoes, staged his completely revolutionary “Karamazovs” - this was called a “bold interpretation of the classics” and was in trend. Now the field has been cleared, there are no others, and those are far away, and the trend is the opposite. Now Mikhail Boyarsky, having not seen the Moscow Art Theater’s “Hamlet,” confidently calls it “shit.”

However, tickets for the upcoming shows are sold out. So, if the new “Hamlet” does not have very high ill-wishers, Konstantin Khabensky will be right this time too.

Alla Shenderova