On May 17, a press conference was held at the Marriott Hotel, the main face of which was the festival's general director Valery Shadrin.
The Chekhov Festival is held every two years, and this year celebrates the 20th anniversary of its birth. Over the years, the festival has gained a reputation as the most respected and large-scale forum in Russia. And not only in Russia. International respect is evidenced by the composition of the guests attending the press conference - the ambassadors of Israel, Canada and France, representatives of the embassies of Germany, USA, Taiwan, Great Britain. Before giving the floor to the guests, Valery Shadrin explained to the journalists what and how the program was formed, looked into the past of the festival, remembered the "first swallows", mentioned all the masters, all the collectives who were the first to respond to his initiative. “The program is born in contacts, out of our common desire to preserve theater and culture. The motto of the Italian director Giorgio Strehler “Theater for people” is still relevant. Therefore, we have put together a program that will be interesting to both true theater-goers and a wide range of spectators. The entertainment attracts the audience. And we depend on the public. After all, there is not only a creative, but also an economic side of the issue. We receive one third of the funds from the Ministry of Culture, one third from the Moscow government, and the rest is our earnings. "
By the way, the poster of the festival is almost completely known, tickets for many performances have already gone on sale.
According to Valery Shadrin, the Chekhov Festival gives preference to new experimental productions that dominate contemporary theatrical art. Most of the performances are based on circus elements and modern dances... The audience will see performances by Joseph Nage, Emmanuel Demarcy-Mot, LIN Hwai-min and new works by Robert Lepage, Matthew Bourne, and others.
The opening performance of the festival was staged by James Thierre (Charlie Chaplin's grandson). Critics speak of him as the inventor of the otherworldly theatrical world, physical and animal. He is a mime, acrobat, clown, dancer, magician, violinist. James owes all his theatrical skills to his parents, who introduced him to their own performances "Imaginary Circus" and "Invisible Circus". With his first performance, The Maybug Symphony, James became a celebrity.
At the press conference, James Thierre said just a few words about the new play Raoul: “I don’t like to explain my performances. The theater explains everything itself. I am glad that "Raul" opens the festival. My performance is a celebration celebrating theater as an eternal art. I've already been to Moscow. The romance with the Russian audience began with the play "Goodbye, Umbrella", that's when I realized what a receptive audience you have. There is no such public anywhere in the world. Thanks you". The playbill of the festival includes another member of the Chaplin family - the granddaughter of Aurelia Thierre, who will present the play "Whisper of the Walls" staged by her mother Victoria Thierre-Chaplin, the daughter of the great comedian. And if Raoul, that is, James, will fly over the stage, play the violin, meet fish, insects and elephants, then the world built by his sister is completely far from reality and does not fit into the framework of any theatrical genre. She is a magician and puppeteer who creates a space from living scenery.
The festival will run until July 14. The program is conventionally divided into three parts: the world series, the program of the Moscow theaters "In memory of Pyotr Naumovich Fomenko" and the regional - "Performances of the XI Moscow Theater. Chekhov and international projects of the Chekhov festival in the cities of Russia and Riga.
Read more in the section “culture today” (screen and stage).
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Alla Shenderova. ( INFOX.ru, 18.6.2009). Marina Shimadina. ... Shown one after another, three circus performances of the Chaplin-Thiers family formed a plot about the lost world of childhood ( OpenSpace.ru, 22.6.2009). Roman Dolzhansky. ... James Thiers at the Chekhov Festival ( Kommersant, 17.6.2009). Dina Goder. ... Chaplin's grandchildren showed their performances at the Chekhov Festival ( Vremya Novostei, 18.6.2009). Marina Davydova. ( Izvestia, 17.6.2009). Olga Egoshina. ... The Chaplin clan increased Moscow's endorphin levels ( Novye Izvestia, 19.6.2009). Marina Zayonts. ... The new circus of the Thieres Chaplin family magically returns people wrapped in life to a cloudless childhood ( Results, 22.6.2009). Marina Raikina. wove a story out of chains and ropes ( MK, 16.6.2009). ... Either the theater, or the circus of Aurelia Chaplin ( MK, 19.6.2009). Marina Tokareva. ... The Chekhov Festival introduces the new French circus ( Novaya Gazeta, 22.6.2009). Natalia Kaminskaya. ... "Goodbye, Umbrella" and "Aurelia's Oratorio" at the Chekhov Festival ( Culture, 25.6.2009). |
VIII International Theater Festival. A.P. Chekhov
Goodbye umbrella. May Beetle Company (France). Oratorio of Aurelia. Small watch company (France). Press about performances. Whole festival
INFOX .ru, 18 June 2009
Alla Shenderova
Circus gene is inherited
Following their famous parents - illusionists Jean-Baptiste Thiers and Victoria Chaplin - James Thiers and Aurelia Chaplin performed at the Chekhov Festival. The main theme of their performances "Goodbye, Umbrella" and "Aurelia's Oratorio" is an attempt at self-identification. Not only a modern person, but also a modern theater.
For several years the world theater has been struggling with a crisis - not financial, but creative, striving in vain to get out of the circle of hackneyed themes and expressive means, trying to synthesize something new, mixing everything familiar. The poster of the current Chekhov Festival is no exception. You can't tell right away what genre these performances belong to: circus, ballet, opera, elements of performance and traditional drama are mixed like ingredients in a cocktail.
What the Chaplins show is also not a pure circus. This is a new circus, a circus in half with a theater - a genre pioneered in the late 1960s by the son of a Parisian worker Jean-Baptiste Thiers and Charlie Chaplin's youngest daughter Victoria, who dreamed of a career as an acrobat.
Surrealism will save the world
Of course, James and Aurelia, who have participated in their father's performances since the age of four, followed in their parents' footsteps. Now each of them has their own theatrical business: "The May Beetle Company" with their brother and "Little Hours" with their sister. When you watch the performances of this dynasty one after another - first the “Invisible Circus” of the parents, then the children's show - you start to think that surrealism, that is, the ability to mix dreams with reality, seems to be the only thing that will save today's theater.
In the performances of the Chaplins, any object is capable of instant transformations. A huge bundle of ropes turns into a tree trunk, inhabited by gutta-percha acrobats who strive to replace one another, all sorts of miracles are pouring out of the pocket of the idiot magician (James Thierre's play "Goodbye, Umbrella"). Flowers are placed in a vase with their heads upside down, the ice cream does not cool, but burns, the mouse catches the cat. As soon as the heroine calls out for a taxi, two eastern women bring out a chair with its back down - one should sit on it upside down (this is from the Oratorio of Aurelia, staged by Victoria Chaplin). In short, the world is arranged as if we are facing the adventures of Carroll's Alice.
Alice in Wonderland
Big-eyed Aurelia Chaplin really looks like a grown-up Alice, spinning in a spicy Parisian whirlwind. A large wooden chest of drawers stands on an empty stage. The silence is cut through by a phone call, a broken male voice begs for a date. In response to this, a hand with a red shoe protrudes from a drawer of a dresser, and a leg from another drawer. The shoe is put on the foot. A few more tricks, and from the bottom drawer by some miracle (the drawer is clearly too small for her!) A charming woman in a black dress emerges. He wants to run out on a date, but then another leg sticks out of the dresser in the same red shoe. After that, when Aurelia soars over the stage, hanging on her own scarf, stretched out and entangled everything around, a third hand flashes in the velvet curtains ... "Stranger and stranger", as Alice used to say, after drinking a magic potion and trying to regain her normal appearance.
Actually, all these troublesome preparations of the heroine of "Oratorio" on the road, traveling with a suitcase, flying on her own scarf, playing hide and seek with her lover (dexterous Jamie Martinez begins a dance with a woman's dress, but after a few steps, Aurelia turns out to be in the dress) - the same attempt find yourself, and sometimes re-create yourself.
One of the most magical episodes of the play (they are not named, there are no words at all, but the logic of the construction is iron) is Aurelia's dream. From the air, or rather, from the darkening twilight on the stage, black screens and a white lace curtain emerge, behind which the heroine sleeps. The canopy does not exactly sway, but falls in an endless rain - one guipure fabric replaces another, the heroine dressed in lace wakes up and begins to knit. As soon as she is distracted by a butterfly fluttering above her head, a toothy fish emerges from the sea of \u200b\u200blace and bites off her leg. What to do? Well, of course, weaving itself again - there are a lot of threads around ...
There are also a great many such dreamlike symbols and transformations in the play by James Thiers, but, unlike his mother, he does not have the talent of a director - the ability to string his fantasies on a single rod. "Goodbye, Umbrella" remains a chain of talented sketches with grandfather's artistry. By the way, it is James who most resembles Charlie Chaplin, not only externally, but also with his plasticity, and the passion with which he climbs to the very top of his rope "tree", pursuing a clever acrobat. Or he tries to "shout" to the viewer, silently opening his mouth to the beat of Vivaldi's piercing violins. When he begins to accompany the opera singer, knocking on a typewriter, the famous dance with pies from the "Gold Rush" comes to mind.
Solo for hours without a fight
The ability to make the most unimaginable objects dance and sing is a Chaplin family trait. In The Invisible Circus, Victoria masterly made sounds from cups and pots hung on her, like on a Christmas tree. The heroine of Aurelia's Oratorio takes turns pressing the buttons of a battery of alarm clocks, bringing out a sad melody interrupted by a cuckoo clock.
Aurelia's mother gave this and other episodes. Like the whole performance, it was thought up with special tenderness. However, some of the symbols of the "Oratorio" shudder: the corset of a fluffy dress can easily turn out to be hourglass bulbs, for a moment - and the heroine falls down in golden sand. Having barely materialized, he decides on a new trick: putting on a spacious cloak, he takes out some kind of secret box from his stomach, behind which there is emptiness. And now, through the tunnel "Aurelia" the train of the toy railroad rides, and the heroine herself only slightly frowns when a small trailer with a roar passes through her ...
Scattering to dust and finding herself in the most unimaginable places and poses, Aurelia for a moment finds herself among the screens of her father's theater (a small portrait of Jean-Baptiste Thiers hangs right there), face to face with a whole hall of tiny applauding puppets. And it's strange: the closer to the finale, the clearer the rhyme of these seemingly plotless and fearless journeys of the heroine through the basements of memory and imagination, with the history of the acting itself, wandering from genre to genre, from plot to plot, dying and reappearing for thousands of years. in search of myself.
OpenSpace .ru, June 22, 2009
Marina Shimadina
Chaplin's descendants at the Chekhov Festival
Shown one after another, three circus performances of the Chaplin-Thiers family formed a plot about the lost world of childhood.
Who has not dreamed of becoming a wandering artist in childhood and living, like the Bremen Town musicians, a free nomadic life? The Chaplin-Thiers family, who have traveled half the world with their performances and raised their children in a caravan, captivates by bringing back this childhood dream to the audience in a realized form.
Victoria Chaplin's “Invisible Circus” (Charlie was very upset to learn that her daughter had chosen a circus career) and her husband Jean-Baptiste Thiers really reminds us of the performances that itinerant artists gave in city squares. There are no technical bells and whistles or super complicated tricks here. They show mainly classic numbers: they saw a woman, walk on a tightrope, ride a unicycle and pull rabbits out of a hat. Before us is a naive and deliberately old-fashioned circus. And - asks for a definition - man-made. But the main thing that distinguishes the performances of the Chaplin-Thiers couple from the usual circus and brings them closer to the theater is their figurative structure. Here, each number is a mini-performance, each appearance on the stage (even a minute one) is a new image.
It's no wonder that the children of Victoria and Jean-Baptiste, James and Aurelia, who grew up behind the scenes, are fluent in all the intricacies of circus art. However, they took over from their parents and their ability to think in images. In the "Oratorio Aurelia", staged for her daughter Victoria Chaplin, almost nothing remains of the circus in its traditional sense. The audience here admires not the sleight of hand and the flexibility of bodies, but the flight of imagination and the ability of artists to create bizarre parallel worlds on the stage. The heroine of Aurelia Thiers lives in some kind of looking glass, where they eat scalding hot ice cream and put flowers in a vase, heads down; where a shadow "casts" a man, and a kite launches a woman into the sky. It is not surprising that she always has problems with her own body: now the girl loses a leg and knits a new one on the needles, then turns into a tunnel through which a toy train rides, or even completely melts, crumbles into a pile of sand. If you ask the question what kind of world it is on the contrary, where the laws of physics do not work, where things and people disappear and are reborn again, then the answer will come by itself: this is the fabulous theatrical world in which the Chaplins' children grew up.
Nostalgia for the lost magical world of childhood is also felt in James Thierre's play "Goodbye, Umbrella." Why an umbrella? Perhaps the director was referring to one of those umbrellas, from which his mother Victoria Chaplin creates incredible images of fantastic creatures on stage. In the play by James Thiers, there are many such quotes from The Invisible Circus. These are tricks-jokes with exposure, like daddy, and zoomorphic creatures like singing shrimps and predatory fish - mom's inheritance. The great grandfather is not forgotten either: the episode with disobedient limbs clearly has Chaplin roots. And all together it turns into a touching declaration of love for your family. Even in the characters of the play: the eccentric comedian father; his strange, clearly out of this world, wife, striving to fly away, then go underground; and a gutta-percha daughter who walks only on four limbs - it is easy to guess the features of Jean-Baptiste, Victoria and Aurelia. However, the character of James Thiers himself looks more like his grandfather than his father. If the magician Jean-Baptiste easily, playfully transforms the world around him, then his son is completely helpless in front of the surrounding reality. The world, which seemed so clear and harmonious, begins to disintegrate, gets out of control. The hero tries to gather his relatives together, to keep them near him, but the powerful whirlwinds of fate that circle over the stage in the form of a thick bundle of ropes hide, carry away close people from each other.
There are many numbers in the play that make you laugh to tears. But the audience leaves the hall with a feeling of sadness for the world to which they have to say goodbye. After all, the democratic and at the same time high standard art of the Chaplin family is a rare example of "theater for people" today
Kommersant, June 17, 2009
The action did not start
James Thiers at the Chekhov Festival
A series of performances by the famous Chaplin-Thiers circus dynasty continues at the Chekhov Festival. The baton from Victoria Chaplin and Jean-Baptiste Thiers was taken by their children, James and Aurelia, each with their own performance. James Thiers and his Parisian "May Beetle Company" present their own composition entitled "Goodbye, Umbrella!" At the Maly Theater. By ROMAN DOLZHANSKY.
Just don't ask what the umbrella has to do with it. Moreover, a light, graceful Japanese umbrella in the middle of this one and a half hour silent performance really appears for a few minutes in the hands of one of the actresses. True, no one says goodbye to him, and until the end of the performance, no one remembers the umbrella anymore. After all, an umbrella is an umbrella. And questions, probably, only harm this performance.
True, I realized this too late. And I decided during a theatrical trip to ask my friends what, in fact, in their opinion, was the "through action" of this strange and in its own way charming venture of James Thiers. Some said that this is the story of a man who fights demons. Others insisted that "Goodbye, umbrella!" posed about the futility of human efforts to transform the world. There were also those who simply blinked with pleasure and whispered that they were not looking for any meaning, but only enjoyed the flight of someone else's fantasy. They were probably the smartest. I was not lucky: for some reason I invented from the very beginning a completely different, not at all original story - about a person's desire to create a theater - and as a spectator myself fell victim to this story.
James Thiers emerges from the shapeless pile of theatrical ropes, which at the beginning of the performance flew over the stage like the pigtails of a huge mop. He clearly wants to say something to the audience and from the very beginning he is filled with some kind of creative energy. On a naked stage, stripped to its darkest depths, he tries to create his own world - and other people come out, sounds are born, strange details and constructions appear out of nowhere. Simple items from the arsenal of traveling comedians bizarrely coexist here with wigs and velvet robes from some backstage court. The actors - Kaori Ito, Magnus Jacobson, Sachi Noro, Maria Sendou - dance, somersault, show funny tricks and cute circus and acrobatic sketches.
The unnamed character of James Thiers is the protagonist of this world. He is like a creator who is persistently trying to gather people and objects into a single whole, to combine circus acts with the sounding music of Bach and Vivaldi, to link pauses and beautiful theatrical "pictures". The lyrical hero Thiers seems to be failing, but his attempts give birth to amusing theatrical moments, which, however, are not retained in memory and, as soon as they happen, immediately "fade", are not fixed - precisely because they are not held together by anything. Monsieur Thiers himself has the same problem. The point is not in the general laws of a plotless "new circus": Aurelia Thiers' performance "Aurelia's Oratorio", staged by Victoria Chaplin, also lacks a plot, but there is a feeling of general movement, development, which makes individual numbers seem to grow larger and larger.
In the middle of the "Umbrella", the action hopelessly sours, without concentrating the energy that unites all its participants. By the way, the author of the play, James Thiers, is an artist of extraordinary, magnetic charm. It is all the more interesting to look at him because in several pantomimic solos, his genius grandfather Charlie Chaplin seems to be visible in him. Two or three movements - and suddenly one of the great Chaplin episodes comes to mind. In these seconds, real excitement captures the viewer, because it seems that something important begins to happen - it is as if someone we love, who is a part of ourselves, but whom we have never seen sends greetings to.
Unfortunately, this valuable feeling is not able to save the performance. "James Thiers is not only an amazing clown, acrobat and mime, he is also a brilliant dancer and poet," the festival booklet quotes one of the French reviews. Die, and you can't say better. But at the same time - die, and you cannot add one important definition to this list: apparently, James Thiers is not a director by nature. And without this special talent, the performance will not work, even (and maybe even more so) if you were just going to say goodbye to the umbrella.
Vremya Novostei, 18 June 2009
Dina Goder
Antipodes through the looking glass
Chaplin's grandchildren showed their performances at the Chekhov Festival
At the beginning of June, their parents came to Moscow for the first time: Jean-Baptiste Thiers and Victoria Chaplin, the daughter of the great actor and director, who grew up in Switzerland and met her future husband in the revolutionary 60s. The middle-aged Thiers spouses showed the capital "Invisible Circus" - a performance that is both naive and sophisticatedly stylish. Following dad and mom, grown-up children brought their performances to Moscow: James and his "May Beetle Company" from June 15 to 30 on the stage of the Maly Theater plays "Goodbye, Umbrella" in his own direction. And Aurelia, whose troupe is called "Little Hours", on the same days at the Pushkin Theater shows "Aurelia's Oratorio", which was specially staged for her daughter by Victoria Chaplin.
Nature was not stingy: Chaplin's grandchildren, just like his children, turned out to be full of a wide variety of talents and are very similar to their parents. James's performance, however, turned out to be less interesting: it is clear that he is a charming artist, a capable clown, a skillful dancer and acrobat, he can come up with funny tricks, but not a director at all. And his "Goodbye, Umbrella" (what does it have to do with an umbrella is still incomprehensible) tries all the time, but it still cannot form a single performance, scattering into many more or less successful scenes. The best of them, perhaps, is the game with a bunch of ropes hanging from a huge hook above the stage. They hide in these ropes, they climb upwards imperceptibly for the audience, and then from a bunch of ropes hanging like giant pasta from a fork, suddenly many legs and arms crawl out. Some of the costumes for James' play were invented by his mother, and it is impossible not to recognize these amazing walking fish and strange monsters, as if they had migrated from the Invisible Circus.
But "Oratorio Aurelia" looks in one breath. If the parents built their show from a set of separate numbers, as is customary in the circus, and the brother tried, but failed to make a whole performance, then Aurelia plays a performance in the mother's production, where one follows from the other, although it obeys not direct, but whimsical the logic of sleep.
The play begins with the marvelous "Chest of Drawers" scene, where videos flood the internet. Under an agitated male voice, demanding to immediately go to the phone, and that, they say, "we are all worried" and "I know for sure that you are at home," various drawers of the chest of drawers are pulled out and closed, and from there are shown the legs, then the hands, located so, that just can't belong to one person. Legs-hands live their own lives: knocking on neighboring boxes, pouring wine into a glass and taking out cakes, putting on red shoes and lighting a candle. In the end, Aurelia herself crawls out of a large drawer, sits on it, dangling her legs, and next to her, a third leg in a red shoe dangles just as easily, and you have to poke at it to get it back into the dresser.
Inside the portal of the Pushkin Theater there is another one, with a tiered red curtain, and this magical curtain living its own life, like the red color of dresses, capes, jackets that seem to have come off it, will define a lot in Oratorio. Aurelia's long scarf wraps around the stage, stretches after her from one curtain to another, without ending in any way, throws her up, rocks her like a circus trapeze, and rocks her like in a hammock.
Here everything is the other way around, as if through the looking glass: objects thrown into one curtain fly out of another, flowers are placed with their heads down and water the clothes that have been hung to dry. Here, two on a stretcher carry out an overturned chair, and Aurelia sits on it upside down. She flies through the air, holding a kite by the rope, which crawls across the stage. Her partner - dancer and acrobat Jamie Martinez - hangs under the grates and, as if climbing a rope, crawls to the ground. Here in the back of the stage a figure, as dark as a shadow, walks, and, lying on the ground at his feet, a man in a light suit and hat “walks” in the same steps. The Antipodes bows synchronously to Aurelia and move on, reading the newspapers.
Magic mirrors seem to hang between heaven and earth, between one person and another. Aurelia and Martinez had just danced, intercepting each other's coats: now one will put it on with a black drape up, then the other will fit into the sleeve and now sporting red silk. And now the couple met, putting on a black jacket for two and inserting one leg into white trousers, and suddenly they turned out new person... He dances, jumps, raising his legs high and hovering in the air, just like a child plays, sitting at the door of a mirror cabinet so that his mother can see him in half with the reflection.
Under a large red curtain, a small white lace theater grows up: the curtain of tulle falls and falls down like snow, falling on the floor in snowdrifts. Behind him, Aurelia in white sits and knits, the flat figure of a white lace bunny gallops past - such an idyllic picture, similar to a shadow theater on the contrary. Then suddenly a terrible white toothpick sticks out its head and bites off Aurelia's foot, and then the whole leg. But she cleverly grabs the knitting needles and, to the delight of the audience, quickly knits a new white leg for herself. Anti-shade theater is followed by an anti-puppet theater: Aurelia's face plays out in front of the puppet audience, which then applauds, then falls asleep and looks at the “living” spectators in amazement.
There are many almost direct quotes from The Invisible Circus - all the same amazing costumes by Victoria Chaplin. Either some strange creature strapped a jug on its head and turned into a tough-horned goat, then Martinez, who danced with a coat for half the performance, in which Aurelia sometimes found herself, suddenly appears like a lifeless body in the arms of a revived coat. This is an obvious paraphrase of Jean-Baptiste Thierre's doll-costume, which in The Invisible Circus appeared as if on the back of a porter doll.
But the most amazing recent transformations. When Aurelia, just dressed by her loving partner in a luxurious golden dress, suddenly begins to languish, like Hercules, who is burned by poisoned clothes. She rips off her wide skirt, and it turns out that there is emptiness under it, and dust is falling from the sparkling cone of the bodice, as if from an hourglass. The arms, shoulders and head of the frightened Aurelia gradually drain into this funnel until they disappear completely. And only runs around Martinez, softly and confusedly calling her.
Well, at the very end, a high stand will be brought to the stage, on which a toy train will ride around the ring. And then Aurelia would come up to him, part the dress on his chest, and there would be a through hole, so that the train, sparkling with lights, would pass through it, as though through a tunnel. The light will go out, but we will still see the train spinning, piercing through the dark mountain.
Izvestia, June 17, 2009
Marina Davydova
Goodbye, Chaplin!
Theatrical Moscow was filled with the descendants of Chaplin. First, the Chekhov Festival was presented with a performance by his daughter Victoria and her husband Jean Baptiste Thiers "The Invisible Circus". Now it's the turn of the grandchildren. One after another, we saw a funny play "Goodbye, Umbrella", staged by the son of the star couple, James Thiers, and the melancholic "Oratorio Aurelia" composed by Victoria for her daughter.
Nature rests on Chaplin's grandchildren. And he does the right thing. With the gene pool that James and Aurelia inherited, nature simply doesn't need to strain. Not only is the grandfather a genius, but also mom and dad are circus performers by the grace of God. At their age, some citizens clutch at their hearts, going up to the third floor. Victoria Chaplin still walks the rope and hangs upside down on it. So for James and Aurelia to hang upside down under the grate bars, do somersaults forward, backflips, and in any object of the surrounding world, to see an object for a circus trick is as natural as it is for us to sleep lying down and eat while sitting. The fact that they breathed the air of the wings of childhood is visible to the naked eye. The fact that their performances are a continuation of not just circus, but also family traditions, hides its own amusing plot.
Fantastically charming and agile like quicksilver, James Thierre at some moments becomes frighteningly similar to his great grandfather. However, not only his appearance - the very nature of his tricks makes one recall Chaplin's masterpieces and suddenly clearly understand how firmly Charlie's art was rooted in the art of the circus. After all, no matter how pathos his films were, they always had what constitutes the essence of any circus action - a trick. He fell-jumped-hit-survived ... Chaplin just managed to make these almost spontaneous circus reflexes a part of high art. Tell in primitive trick language the eternal story of a little man living in a huge and ruthless world.
In the play "Goodbye, Umbrella," tricks are also desperately trying to weave into some kind of plot. And they do not intertwine in any way. Something like that dawns vaguely at first ... It seems that the hero is looking for a girl who is lost in the phantasmagoric space of the mercilessly naked stage. In its very center, a huge bundle of theatrical ropes turns spectacularly, like a grandiose pomelo. It seems that this spinning itself gives rise to a strange woman (apparently, an evil sorceress) with hair like a gorgon medusa, and a miracle fish, in whose mouth the hero almost disappears, and a lot of other strange characters and even more strange mechanisms. But, barely outlining, the story of the girl and her savior drowns in the abyss of sometimes acrobatic, and more often clown numbers. Chaplin put the trick at the service of the plot. His grandson is a slave to his own trick. He seems to be trying to tell us something in essence, but all the time he gets lost on gags. And they take a talented circus performer no worse than scary monsters.
There is no plot in "Aurelia's Oratorio" either. But it has a theme outlined by Thiers, but not fully realized by him. All of them - grandson, granddaughter, and daughter - have an exciting dialogue with that naive circus, where the circus performer tamed objects and forced them to obey their will. Only for Thiers, the main character of the circus is a clown, and for Aurelia and her mother Victoria, who staged the performance, he is an illusionist. A magician, magician, sorcerer who turns a deck of cards into a hen's egg, cutting a woman into many small pieces and then gluing her together before our eyes. So, in "Aurelia's Oratorio" it's the opposite. main character the play lives in a chest of drawers in the middle of the stage. From the middle box her head appears, from the bottom - a leg, then the leg comes to visit the head, then the hand that emerges from the bottom box puts a red shoe on the leg. And how difficult it is to put this body together! How disobedient it is! And the red velvet frame of the stage, living its own life - just have time to dodge! And the coat that engages in combat with its owner and defeats him! Here a human shadow walks around the stage with impunity and "throws" its master onto the floor. The kite lies on the ground, and the man controlled by it soars serenely in the air. And even a doll that appears for a moment turns out to be more powerful than the puppeteer: it drags his lifeless body to the wings.
In Thiers, the theme of a world that has gone out of obedience also sometimes reveals itself. He (the main clown) has his own apprentice. He walks around the stage in overalls and a helmet with a flashlight and - if some trick is not done - quickly adjusts the mechanism, thereby revealing the circus trick. At some point, this apprentice clown decides to show the audience a very simple gag - tricks with invisible objects. I mean, now I will turn invisible balls into invisible ribbons. But suddenly the ribbons (real, visible) begin to unpredictably crawl out of all the cracks themselves, and a fire suddenly flares up in his pocket, and flowers bloom over his head. And now the would-be apprentice runs in horror from the unbelted objects, which clearly strive to destroy him.
So in the crafty performances of James and Aurelia, a cross-cutting theme of everything suddenly appears contemporary art - a world out of obedience, in which the plot, objects, and the scenes themselves no longer obey the artist. So the descendants of Chaplin, entertaining us, seem to be dreaming of those distant times when the circus performer was the true master of things, the narrator did not lose the thread of history, and the little man in the bowler hat deftly avoided the dangers threatening from everywhere.
Novye Izvestia, June 19, 2009
Olga Egoshina
Simple joys
The Chaplin clan has increased the level of endorphins in Moscow
After the performance "The Invisible Circus" (staged by Victoria Chaplin and Jean-Baptiste Thiers) took place in Moscow with triumph, they were replaced by children - James and Aurelia. James Thierre brought the play Goodbye Umbrella by his own independent May Beetle Company. And Aurelia is showing a production of Aurelia's Oratorio, Little Hours, by her theater. The heirs and successors of their great grandfather Charlie Chaplin - James and Aurelia - have brilliantly proved that talent can be inherited along with hard work and a sense of humor.
In the absence of adequate domestic analogs, the performances brought to the Chekhov Festival by the Chaplin-Thiers clan were decided to be attributed to the circus department, having come up with the name "new circus". Although they can rightfully be classified as an eccentric theater, or a music hall, rooted in the English extravagans, whose performances and shows are traditionally collected from a scattering of polished numbers and are united not by a plot, but by an atmosphere and mood. This is how the "Invisible Circus" was built, created by Charlie Chaplin's youngest daughter Victoria and her husband Jean-Baptiste Thiers. This is how the performances "Goodbye, Umbrella" by Chaplin's grandson James Thiers and "Aurelia's Oratorio", shown by the granddaughter Aurelia Thiers, are also constructed.
In essence, all three performances can be combined into one five-hour performance, whose cross-cutting theme will be the interaction of a person and the world of animated objects around him. Umbrellas, strollers, children's toys, theatrical curtains, sea ropes, kites, shirts, pants, dresses, shoes, bottles, pots, umbrellas, children's railway, miners' helmets and dozens of the most unexpected objects fill the stage. And, falling into the hands of artists, they become game props. In our very serious theater, we have forgotten how unexpected, how joyful and how charming an actor's play with things on stage can be. How the ramp transforms the most hackneyed everyday actions: put on a shirt, pull on your shoes, fan yourself.
The play "Aurelia's Oratorio" begins with a long scene of dressing the Heroine (Aurelia Thieres). From the drawers of the closed chest of drawers, an arm or a leg appears. A hand casually puts the red shoes on the tabletop, then impatiently taps the boards of the box: hurry. Here one shod foot disappears, another appears. The dressing process is ridiculous precisely because of its absolute adherence to everyday logic: the girl in the box only dresses (along the way, demonstrating the wonders of circus gymnastics). Or the Hero (James Thiers) in Goodbye Umbrella gets a migraine. Immediately a white figure in a miner's helmet appears (Magnus Jacobson), who quite decisively "cuts" the hero's head, takes out a white bundle of brains, ventilates them and puts them back. The final slap on the lush hair - and everything is OK!
Who in childhood or adolescence did not fly a kite and does not remember this trembling of a stretched rope and a miracle flying overhead and the feeling of flight ... A kite moves slowly along the boards of the stage, and behind it somewhere under the grate soars Aurelia. The more recognizable objects and situations, the greater the effect of the impact. It is not for nothing that both in Umbrella and Oratorio there are so many scenes based on the interaction of characters and details of clothing: coats, dresses, shirts, trousers. An enraged shirt can overwhelm and almost strangle the wearer. And the coat literally chewed the girl who put it on. The most spectacular act: grinding a man into the sand with a suit. Under the heroine's dress, an iron frame of the structure is found, which slowly absorbs the girl, gently spitting out a thin stream of sand. Then the beloved will find in this heap a shoe, a black dress, and now a leg, an arm will appear from the sand, and an unharmed heroine will be born.
The plot of the struggle of an ordinary person with the world, where the world lays traps, arranges traps, is a constant plot of the Estravagans. The heroes are beaten with plastic bottles, they are run over by steam locomotives (in Aurelia, a toy train goes through a hole in the heroine). Chairs and tables are substituted for them. Wardrobe items are pounced on them, and arms, legs, torso refuse to obey them.
But in the end, the hero descends from heaven, rises from the heap of sand, cracks down on the enraged dolls and, as if nothing had happened, continues on his way.
Such optimistic, cheerful, carefully polished performances do not fall to the lot of the modern viewer, and ovations, applause, shouts of "thank you" are not at all accidental. And there is no better way to raise the level of endorphins in the blood than to uncork a bottle of champagne or go to the performances of the Chaplin-Thiers family.
Results, June 22, 2009
The new circus of the Thiere Chaplin family magically returns people wrapped in life to a cloudless childhood
There is nothing like this in our country. We have everything separately, like flies with cutlets. There is a circus with magic tricks, jugglers, equilibrists, trained bears and tigers, and there is a theater where you can laugh or cry over the fate of a little man. And in France they came up with the term "new circus", and it means a fantastic mixture of both. There is no standard set of numbers, but there is no single action required in the drama. There is no any intelligible plot, but there is an absolutely elusive and poetic meaning, which, like a wonderful aftertaste, will not come to you right away, then, when you taste the product, having received your portion of pleasure. Jean-Baptiste Thiers and Victoria Chaplin are considered the founders of this trend in France. A child of the utopia of the late 60s, Thiers was a prompter at the theater of Jean Louis Barrot, a cabaret actor and inspired by leftist ideas. One day he found in a newspaper an interview with Charlie Chaplin's eighteen-year-old daughter Victoria, in which she said that she dreamed of becoming a clown. He wrote to her, she answered, they met, then got married and began to work together. In 1971, the famous Jean Vilar invited their very first performance "Circus, Bonjour" to the Avignon Festival. However, there are no prophets anywhere in their homeland, and the festival success was soon forgotten. It turned out that the actors had nowhere to play. So, they were simply doomed to long-term vagrancy. Having immersed their belongings in a small house on wheels, Thiers and Chaplin (together with the children who were born) have traveled almost the whole world, having visited many festivals. In less than 40 years, only three performances have been made, the last one brought to Moscow is The Invisible Circus. Not enough, perhaps, but Jean-Baptiste Thiers generally wanted to play only one performance all his life, gradually bringing it to perfection. In essence, he succeeded.
Parents
Jean-Baptiste Thiers and Victoria Chaplin do not give press conferences and flatly refuse to be interviewed. Probably, this is how they protect themselves and their art from the invasion of an alien, aggressive and technological world. They also say that Victoria Chaplin does not like being asked about her father. It is possible to understand, but only to resist and not remember at this "Invisible Circus" about Charlie Chaplin, a little genius man with a bowler hat and a cane, is absolutely impossible. Firstly, the daughter is incredibly similar to him, but this is not the main thing. And the main thing cannot be defined in words, it just hovers over the stage during the performance, gently envelops the hall and dissolves in the happy, blissful smiles of the audience. Anyone who has seen at least one Chaplin film will understand what it is about. In The Invisible Circus, the same zest for life, the same fragility and the same bitterness.
Jean-Baptiste Thiers, a giant with a gray mane of curly hair and wide-eyed eyes (in which naivety and slyness coexist in a strange way), performs simple tricks. Waving a twig, a bouquet of flowers pops out. He puts down a candle, lights it and immediately takes a bite, chewing with appetite, and a moment later a red light comes on in his stomach. He does such numbers with incredible speed, some last a second, no more. It turns out, for example, everything is tapestry - a suit, a suitcase and even glasses with tapestry glasses, or, like a zebra, everything is painted in black and white stripes, even the face. And you sit with your mouth open and laugh like a fool, well, or like a child, which is practically the same thing, if you think about it carefully. The beauty of his work is not in sleight of hand, it is obvious, but in the amazing humor with which all this is done.
Victoria Chaplin (just don’t count how old she is, you still don’t believe it) walks on a rope, flirtatiously clinging to it with her leg, hangs upside down, climbs into a tiny box and in some absolutely incredible way folds in it. It is she, this little sadly-pale clown who brings a strangely sad note to this lightest and most cheerful performance. Numerous costumes, which Victoria changes at an unprecedented speed, in her hands were transformed into outlandish monsters, born of the artist's insane imagination and the trained body of a circus performer. She comes out in an old dress with a crinoline and a powdered wig, and by unfastening a strand from it and removing a vest, before our very eyes, she turns into a horse. Or appears in a costume consisting of a wide variety of dishes. On the head - a tray with a wine glass, spoons hang from the ears, on the body - bowls, pots, glasses, bowls on your knees. And it all works like a percussion set, producing a truly crystal, delicate sound.
As for the promised meaning, it is simple, like everything they do. And just as significant. In fact, each of their performances demonstrates a convinced and staunch opposition to evil, violence and bleak standards. That is, every evening the audience that filled the hall absorbs the good, love, talent and work coming from them. We agree, the perfect set for life at all times. Their openly ingenuous, ostentatiously old-fashioned performance brings light and joy to people. Both, as it turns out, are excellent medicine, so it's time to write on their poster: "The Ministry of Health recommends." And there can be no fakes, too big a risk. The circus is still new, though.
Children
The children of the Thiers-Chaplin family, James and Aurelia, also play their performances in Moscow. When they were very young, they took part in the performances of their parents, and when they grew up, they began to perform independently. However, no one was able to do without the participation of my mother. For her son, Victoria came up with costumes, for her daughter she composed and staged a performance. James Thiers shows Goodbye Umbrella (May Beetle Company), Aurelia Thiers plays Aurelia's Oratorio (Little Watches Company). It turned out that nature did not rest on children at all, they are both diversely talented and very artistic. He is incredibly similar to his mother and grandfather, she is a copy of her father, and whose gene is stronger here is not worth calculating. It is clear that they are continuing the ancestral, family tradition. In their performances, the same tender charm and love and a little sad sympathy for people are also felt.
James Thiers gets out of the pile of ropes hanging on the stage, and it seems that he can be on stage all at once - a mime, a dancer, an acrobat and a clown. He has wonderful partners, the numbers follow one after the other, and some of them are simply wonderful, but the connection between them is not strong enough. And this means that the directing profession, unlike other skills, James has not yet fully mastered. But no doubt he will master this too.
Aurelia Thierre appears on stage from the chest of drawers. More precisely, a hand protrudes from one box, a leg from another, and a head appears in the center. While you figure out how it all works, this strange girl gets out. It turns out that she loves to travel, and some funny, sometimes scary stories happen to her all the way. Behind the white tulle curtain, a monster, clanging its teeth, bites off her legs, and she, armed with knitting needles, under the amazed cries of the audience, "ties" herself the missing part. And at the very end, a piece of flesh is taken out of Aurelia (don't ask how, I don't know), and a clockwork train with glowing lights rides through the hole in her stomach.
"Miracle!" - the cunning Jean-Baptiste Thiers pronounced in broken Russian, turning a small circle into a square with a quick movement of his hands. The performances of his family clan are a real miracle. Because, at least, they magically return people concerned about life and crisis to their happy, cloudless childhood.
MK, June 16, 2009
Marina Raikina
Chaplin's grandson in Ostrovsky's house
weaved a story from chains and ropes
Lifting chain with a hook for 4 tons. Steel slings in casings. Well, to the heap - a chain device with bars. Not to mention the spinning silk hat with a battery-powered motor. What is it? Building materials for the comfort of Rublev's wives? This is the props of Chaplin Jr., who began his performances yesterday at the Chekhov-fest with a play with the most tender title "Goodbye, Umbrella!"
Yes, the House of Ostrovsky (Maly Theater) has seen a lot, but not that. A wooden tray (!), Adorned with seven gilded latex heads (!!!), crawls out of the right curtain in front of the lowered transparent curtain. One of the heads is alive and sings in an operatic voice, while moving like a cuttlefish. And suddenly the curtain flies off, and a magnificent picture opens: something big in the center of the stage flies and sprays light. Only after looking closely and waking up from the blow of a beautiful picture, you understand that these are ship ropes, grabbed into a knot at the top, rotate at speed and create the effect of sunlight. Applause - in this case, the artist.
And here he appears - James Thiers, he is Chaplin, the grandson of the great Charlie. He is barefoot, in crumpled trousers the color of wet sand, a jacket - in general, some kind of strange, frightened. Facing the audience, spread his arms, opens his mouth and shouts ... with a violin. How? And so - the eyes seem to be looking for something, the mouth silently articulates the words, and the violin is heard. His heart will begin to throb in the left half of his chest, and then fall into his legs, in the area of \u200b\u200bthe patella, he will turn - and the audience will crash, because the heartbeats will move to the area of \u200b\u200bthe loins.
This guy from the Chaplin family has his own story. James studied to be a musician, theater and circus performer, mime. Therefore, he brought all his skill to the stage, mixing, confusing, linking talents with the help of terrible construction winches, chains and ship ropes. He himself is incredibly flexible among his international team. Under James, there is one Swede, a Swede, but living in South Africa, two Japanese women, one of whom studied with a Russian ballerina and gives the impression of a girl without bones. She wraps around James' body with hers like plasticine or molten wax, flies up on ropes under the grates and dangles there like the flag of a ship. This ship was sent sailing by James Thiers - a man with great imagination, but very anxious and restless.
Anyway, his "Goodbye, umbrella!" looks like a silent movie of his grandfather, although he hates references to the work of a famous ancestor. With the difference that Chaplin Sr.'s films are sad, concrete stories about a poor funny man. And his grandson (and then I thought, like many) - rather about a screaming laugh the inner world a man called James Thiers. When you don't understand what makes him writhe - from laughter or from grief. This world is filled with fears for loved ones and the inevitable, rigidity, emphasized by the cold metal of winches, and rural tenderness, reinforced with sheaves of straw. In places, inexpressive lengths that hinder the action. But for one spinning hat made of lace and silk with a battery-powered motor on the head of the opera diva (also that little thing), you can forget all the bad things. This very hat adds to the “Umbrella” such paint, from which it flies away.
Obviously, into space, since not all earthlings understood the message of Chaplin Jr.
MK, June 19, 2009
Marina Raikina
Commander of all dressers
Either the theater, or the circus of Aurelia Chaplin
Chapliniana continues in Moscow. Chaplins Sr. were replaced by Chaplins Jr.: James at Maly, and his younger sister at the Pushkin Theater. Aurelia's Oratorio is not about music. Aurelia Chaplin opens this magical world of simple things.
The audience had not yet had time to sit down in chairs, and objects were already running across the stage. First, a screen rolled coquettishly from left to right. Following her, the hanger lazily made a circle, and only the old chest of drawers stood in the middle of the stage, sullenly suppressed. Until that moment, until the graceful female leg in nylon and a red stiletto heel appeared from his top box. Then the hand. Again a leg and - several legs at once, from which someone's hands were nimbly pulling the shoes off. And finally, from the top drawer, as if from a sea wave, a lovely head emerged with light curls of hair above a high forehead and insolently laughing eyes. “That's what you are, Aurelia Chaplin,” we thought, intently examining this folding creature: the head and arms stick out from the top drawer of the chest of drawers, and the legs in shoes - from the bottom one. The youngest of the Chaplin family settled well.
Aurelia is not yet 30 years old. She continues to develop the traditions of the so-called new circus, started by her parents in the last century. What it is? This is when it is no longer possible to understand what is primary and what is secondary - the circus or the theater? They grow into each other so much and mutate so much that no ends can be found. In any case, the circus in the face of illusion, costume transformations, acrobatics entered into a marriage contract with the theater and gave birth to something else. The marriage began by calculation, but it turned out to be for love. Perhaps, only Polunin and Teresa Durova are working here in this area. True, Durova's circus "weaponry" is much more varied and paradoxically exists with the theater. But back to Chaplin.
Aurelia flies over red curtains like a bird. She pours linen from a watering can, like flowers, and puts the flowers themselves in a vase upside down. In the same way - upside down - he sits down on a chair, fixed upside down by the legs to two bars with the inscription "Taxi" and goes upside down into the wings. Then he makes a number that could be called "Winter's Tale". Behind the white tulle, along which a white winter pattern runs, Aurelia is all in white, and a white lizard bites off her white leg.
Aurelia is frightened, but not for long, because she immediately knits a white, bitten off limb for herself with knitting needles ... There are a lot of eccentricities, funny, desperately cutthroat, simply graceful, and they create a kind of magical world from which one cannot tear himself away.
Novaya Gazeta, June 22, 2009
Marina Tokareva
Grandchildren of the great Charlie
Chekhov Festival introduces the new French circus
There is a chest of drawers on the stage. A hand protrudes from one box, a leg from another. A hand takes out a shoe, puts on a foot, then another. The other hand from another drawer takes out a glass, a candle, brings fire, from the third drawer, it seems, the third hand is already taking out a little black dress, a hat. All this happens slowly, thoroughly and goes under the agitated monologue of a male voice on the phone, begging to pick up the phone, listen, understand ...
The woman frees herself from the dresser already dressed: red shoes, a black dress. A red scarf stretches behind her, turns into a hammock, a swing, she sways on them, rising higher and higher above the stage. Red velvet draperies on the sides of the stage - background, frame. In this cabaret for two (he will soon appear, lop-eared, plastic) - the story of a man and a woman unfolds from room to room: he is looking for her, she is herself.
One of the stunning inventive simplicity of the numbers: a winter dream of a monster: white tulle, silhouettes of magical creatures, snow. A "dialogue" of red draperies is built with truly Gallic sharp humor: large and small; black and white tango of a man and a woman merged in one suit; a scene of dolls coming to life, pounced on the heroine.
"Oratorio Aurelia" by Aurelia Thieres and "Goodbye, umbrella!" James Thiers - performances by Charlie Chaplin's grandchildren. And although they do not want to comment on this relationship, which is covered in a separate paragraph in the contract, and although they have long considered themselves self-sufficient (“What does grandfather have to do with it ?!”), blood, as the classic wrote, is a great thing.
This she, the red mercury of the great Charlie, teaches to extract laughter from the air, literally from nothing, from an optional combination of elements, turns a set of tricks into a gamut of feelings, gives flexibility, a variety of talents and charm. In addition, James and Aurelia are the children of Jean-Baptiste Thiers and Victoria Chaplin, an artistic couple who created one of the most delicate and touching circus groups, the performance of which was among the first shown at the Chekhov Festival, called The Invisible Circus, and they began to study circus art from the age of four.
But if parents turn to the most unchanging in the public - a child's passion for miracles, their children, having inherited the whole palette of circus skills, appeal to the consciousness of adults. The performances of the brother and sister were really created by Chaplin's heirs, but by heirs living in a completely different world, a harsh one, touched by the futility and hollow tragedy of postmodernism.
"Goodbye, Umbrella" by James Thiers is a chain of metamorphoses, held together only by the dual personality of the dreamer, the free movement of the circus theater as a play of images.
The staircase, armed with scythe on the sides, transforms into an ominous chariot, a huge rope brush and a giant escalator hook become hieroglyphs describing reality. In a ghostly field of golden brooms, the hero is surrounded by geisha and dryads, devoured by locusts, his head with dusty brains is repaired by a mad mechanic. A wonderful move - the hero talks to the world in the scandalous and dramatic voice of a violin. The red umbrella, the dream of clarity, is unattainable.
“We saw something similar in childhood,” some spectators told me after the performance. In my opinion, this is an aberration, a distortion of memory. Although “Circus on the Stage” was a special direction in the art of Soviet times, and virtuosos came out on the stage in that era: jugglers, magicians, acrobats, trainers of small animals, today's performances show something completely different.
The new French circus - namely, it is represented by a separate program of the Chekhov Festival - is completely different. All traditional skills are used here - from acrobatics to choreography, and all the latest - video, computer graphics, modern mechanics. The main thing in it is not a set of separate numbers, but a story, a parable, told in the language of gesture and image, in essence, a poetic interpretation of existence. After all, poetry in a circus is almost always a philosophy of life. Apparently, this is why, when the new direction began to gain strength, the French circuses from the Department of Agriculture were transferred to the Ministry of Culture.
And yet, the performances of Thiers brother and sister are not all-human, like the "Invisible Circus" of their parents; it often seems that skill surrounds emptiness; in their construction there is no core, center, that which is exhausted by the old-fashioned concept of "soul". Charlie Chaplin's little man walked along the roads of loneliness, evoking laughter and compassion; the works of his descendants (after all, they were born in the era of total visualization) are, first of all, a picture that is beautiful to its intrinsic value, born not so much by the experience of the spirit as by the practice of modern transformations.
Culture, June 25, 2009
Natalia Kaminskaya
Charlie kids
"Goodbye, Umbrella" and "Aurelia's Oratorio" at the Chekhov Festival
Fish - umbrella
Charlie Chaplin's descendants in two generations have become an unforgettable part of this festival. Daughter Victoria and son-in-law Jean-Baptiste Terrier presented the play "The Invisible Circus", grandson James Terrier and his "May Beetle Company" - "Goodbye, Umbrella", and granddaughter Aurelia plays in the play "Aurelia's Oratorio" staged for her by mother Victoria (Company "Little hours"). This time the Chekhov Festival is more than anything like itself, the former. Surely someone today sighs over the past hulks of dramatic art of the "brush", say, Luke Bondi, or Lanhoff, or Marthaler with their daring interpretations of classical plays. And in general, for the drama as such, because now it has been pretty much supplanted in the program by the circus. True, not quite a circus, but something synthetic, in France called the "new circus", but similar to both an eccentric theater, and a ballet - or whatever. Why the play by James Terrier is called "Goodbye, Umbrella" cannot be understood. The umbrella appears there for a few seconds and does not play a plot role. There is no plot at all, there is a certain over-line-fantasy on the grandfather's theme - a "little man" in the big world of people and objects with which he is mostly out of tune. Short, gut-perky and curly-haired grandson James clearly inherits Charlie's grandfather, although his plastic is, of course, that of a modern person. But one story with putting on a jacket is worth it! The sleeves do not obey, the hands fail, a hundred ridiculous gestures are performed per second - do you remember what this is about? Meanwhile, all sorts of magic reigns on the stage, in half with a clown. A sheaf of ropes hangs from the grates, resembling either a waterfall, or a giant broom, or the multi-trunk muzzle of a strange beast. A strange singer, who gravitates towards the theater and music of the Baroque era, intervenes every now and then. In some places it fascinates with its ancient mysterious theatricality. But in some places it makes me laugh with naive irrelevance in the world of unpredictable events. There is also a certain "simpleton", "tsanni", he is an obvious clown, he is a miner-hard worker, brutal, aggressive and uncouth. All his "sticks", however, hit him with the opposite end; in this innocence, the role is equally guessed at the circus and the theater. There seems to be a theme of love, two girls, they are also acrobats, and two guys could make pairs, but in fact they are looking for each other as if in the dark, and connections in this shaky world are constantly breaking. The actors' technique is flawless. The freedom with which they master all means of expression, including trick, gag, dance, vocals, stage combat, etc. , causes undisguised pleasure of the public. Chaplin's humor, philanthropy and compassion are inherited by the grandson and are heard in the performance as a distinct leitmotif. Worse with the Chaplin logic of action, with the consistency of human history. Although - nowadays different times, different forms. In any case, not a second is boring at this performance, and a cascade of all kinds of inventions of the most diverse spectacular nature cannot but cause loud applause. That, in fact, happens at the end, when the Moscow public does not let the artists leave the stage for a long, long time.
Dresser
Next in line is Charlie's granddaughter, actress Aurelia Terje, for whom her mother Victoria Chaplin staged this performance. Its title "Aurelia's Oratorio" does not really explain the content much more than "The Umbrella". Again, we have fantasies on the topic of the difficult relationship of a person with the world, primarily with the world of things. The play begins with a scene of dressing the Heroine, when a hand, a leg appear from the drawers of a closed chest of drawers, then red shoes float up. A girl emerging from the chest of drawers throws a scarf around her neck and, as she leaves, pulls it back and forth across the stage. Endless matter emerging from nothing is the illusionist's technique. The performance is stitched with various elements of the circus - there is both acrobatics and clownery. However, there is dance, and pantomime, and all sorts of things that are difficult to define. Unlike the energetic and inventive "Umbrella", "Aurelia's Oratorio" sounds melancholy, and the techniques used in it now and then look commonplace: dresses hanging from grates, a man's dance, in the absence of the partner herself forced to waltz with her clothes, etc. P. But a few episodes are hard to forget. So, a completely existential view of the relationship of an individual with the world of things is embodied in marvelous "shape-shifters": Aurelia diligently puts a bouquet of flowers in a vase ... stems up; gently hangs out dry linen and then pours it from a watering can; the kite changes places with her, and it is the girl who hovers above on the string. In the snow-white tulle world, Aurelia, dressed in white, is diligently busy knitting. But, out of nowhere, a beast appears, as if nagged and cut out of paper by a child. The beast chops off her foot, and she has to be restored with the help of knitting needles right before our eyes. In the finale, a toy train is moving across the table, and the womb of the heroine, in an incomprehensible way, turns into a tunnel through which he drives.
It is interesting that scenes in which it is useless to look for any meaning, including everyday meaning, sound much more convincing in the play than attempts to "play about life." Aurelia's relationship with her partner, which is designed to reflect some kind of dynamics in the sphere of "man and woman", is very trivial from a theatrical point of view. But the hereditary Chaplin theme of man's struggle with everyday objects here, as in "Umbrella", is given a solid tribute. The heroine and her partner fight with coats, dresses, trousers and shirts, who in no way want to put their sleeves and trousers at the disposal of human hands and feet.
Both James and Aurelia, the children of the star married couple Chaplin-Terrier, openly echo their grandfather. Their art is primarily human. Their observations of human behavior are condescending to the absurdities and weaknesses of the human race. But variations main theme Charlie Chaplin is taken far from the original. Of course, the grandchildren are talented, but not brilliant, and the grandfather was an ordinary genius. However, it is much more important here that this very theme in art now looks much more hopeless. A man in big boots, with a penguin gait, like a fabulous fool of all times and peoples, successfully avoided trouble. The inhabitants of the present world, with incredible difficulty, overcome them and, rather, are lost and frightened, rather than blissfully absurd. The global theme of contemporary theater and related arts sounds distinctly in the performances of Chaplin's grandchildren. And it would be strange if it were not there. But nevertheless, genes also "sound" - James and Aurelia have much more healthy philanthropy than their other less noble brothers in the workshop.
The International Chekhov Festival is in full swing. This year, critics predict the role of the main character of the show for the grandson of the famous Charlie Chaplin, James Thierre. A clown, acrobat, dancer and poet, he will present to the public his production of The Frog Was Right, where he is at the same time a director, set designer, composer and performer.
Where did you disappear for an hour, the parents of little James Thiers once asked. Talking to the frog, Charlie Chaplin's five-year-old grandson answered without hesitation. Today he is 43, and he continues to invent incredible new stories. And we believe him.
Actor, dancer, acrobat, mime, all over the world he has long been called a genius. But, as you know, great talent is always accompanied by loneliness. The play "The Frog Was Right" is just about that.
“I have heard that in Russia there are a lot of fairy tales about the frog. This is a magical creature, it can turn into a beautiful girl or a prince, or it can become a monster that keeps children in the dungeon. But I do not choose a specific fairy tale, I just try to create that atmosphere, mysterious, mystical, as in childhood, ”says James Tierre.
The main characters of his tale are grown-up children. The same as Tierre himself. They were kidnapped by the immortal princess of the underworld in retaliation for her broken heart. But will they be able to return to the forgotten earthly world, when the endless staircase leads to nowhere, and they have to fight first with the laws of attraction, then with each other?
This is a parable about love, betrayal and a person's desire for freedom. And only he can tell it so heartfelt and touching, as if hypnotizing with every movement and thus bewitching Chaplin's gaze. And even when James Thierre speaks the language he invented, everything is clear.
“We call it 'hybrid', it is such a hybrid of all languages \u200b\u200bwe know and it seems to me that everyone understands it, because in fact we all speak the same way. We are equally happy and sad, whether we want something or, on the contrary, we do not want it. The main thing here is to play with intonation, ”the actor explains.
The absolute favorite of the public, James Thierre, as always, brought tons of sophisticated decorations to Moscow, and what is not among these bizarre things - dilapidated furniture, an old piano and even a glass pool.
The scenery is also the fruit of Thiers's irrepressible imagination, and he also wrote the music for the play, those same soul lullabies that the insidious frog sings to children every now and then.
This is the fourth visit of James Tierre to Russia. However, he is not the only one from the Chaplin dynasty who tours the world with his fantastic performances. His sister Aurelia also visited the Chekhov Theater Festival.
By the way, theater lovers have a whole month to see the most popular performances in the world. New hits from Robert Lepage and Peter Brook will arrive in Moscow very soon. And for the first time in the capital, a phenomenon from the Netherlands - director Ivo Van Hove. Over the past few years, he has received every theater award imaginable, from the Laurence Olivier Award to the American Tony Award, for his work on Broadway.
Tickets for his "Obsession" starring Jude Law at London's Barbican Theater are sold out a year in advance. Spectators of the Chekhov Festival next week will be able to see his "Secret Power" - a performance that Western critics call unique in its beauty and intensity of passions.
In the meantime, James Tierre receives his portion of incessant applause. The spectators give a standing ovation, do not disperse for a long time and are on duty at the service entrance. Perhaps they want to ask, what did the frog say to him then?
"She said, 'You don't know anything about life, James.' This, of course, was my fantasy. Many years have passed and, you know, my dad, when he does not understand me, still sends messages with the text: "She was right." The frog was right, ”says James Thierre.
In fact, James Thierree (born May 2, 1974) hates it when it is mentioned that he is the grandson of a great comedian. “We all have parents, grandparents, and we take something from each of them. But in my case, it's always Chaplin, Chaplin, Chaplin,” James says.
But he not only has an obvious external resemblance to his grandfather - he has the same mane of curly (now "salt and pepper") hair and eyes of a soft, blue-gray hue, just like Chaplin's, besides, James inherited his talent masterly own your body.
Raoul par James Thierree. Photo C. Calais.
James Thierre is an acrobat, mime, entertainer, director, violinist and dancer.
James and Charlie: curls and eye color are inherited))
And Charlie Chaplin was not only an excellent actor, mime, acrobat and director of his own films, he also wrote music for them, independently learned to play the violin and piano.
Ch. Chaplin (on the right, with a violin - suddenly, who does not recognize an actor without a mustache and eyeliner)
James Thierre in the movie On My Own
Well, Chaplin moved so accurately that Vaslav Nijinsky himself, that he is a born dancer.
Here, for example, is a small excerpt from the movie "New Times", where Chaplin is rollerblading near an abyss.
Tierre said in an interview: “I see that everyone is constantly comparing us, but this has never influenced me. My profession is my choice. Otherwise, I would never have started doing it. I constantly feel that I have to prove myself ".
photo by Richard Haughton
Did James face a choice of profession?
Already at the age of four, James Tierre, along with his three-year-old sister Aurelia, toured with his parents, portraying a small suitcase in the show. Their father Jean-Baptiste Thierre and mother Victoria Chaplin founded their own circus in the late 1970s. Le Cirque Invisible, very different from the classic - with its unused sawdust and trained animals.
Jean-Baptiste Thierre and Victoria Chaplin
“My mother, Victoria, has a very romantic history. She was eighteen years old, and she lived with my grandparents, Charlie and Una, in Vevey, near Lausanne, and took dance lessons. My grandfather (Charlie Chaplin) was planning to shoot in her new film The freak.
Charlie Chaplin and Victoria are preparing for the filming of The Freak.
Victoria Chaplin
My father (a French actor who starred in films with Alain René and Federico Fellini) saw the article and wrote to it, saying that he was going to create a new kind of circus.
Jean-Baptiste Thierre
My mother answered him. He went to Lausanne and they met in secret because she knew that Charlie and Una would be against him. Then she and my father ran away. My mother, who was about the same age as Una when she married Charlie, was very beautiful, with huge blue-gray eyes and fair skin. She's fifty-five and still looks the same. AND Freak it was never removed. "
The children of Victoria and Jean-Baptiste were taught by home teachers, but when James was twelve he went to Paris to an American school, where he improved his english language... “Most of the children at school were children of diplomats,” he said, “I was the son of a clown. You know how vicious children can be. We were outsiders, outcasts. Traveling constantly from place to place taught us to instability. But we have something constant. was: we looked at our parents at work. "
In addition, James trained as an actor in a magnificent Piccolo teatro di milano, studied at Harvard Theater School and the National Conservatory of Dramatic Arts in Paris.
Handsome James has acted in films several times.
Here are some interesting projects in which he has been seen:
At the age of fifteen, Thierre played Ariel with Peter Greenaway in the beautiful film "The Books of Prospero", where his acrobatic skills were useful
In the film "Vatel" - played the small role of the Duke de Longueville,
Per film Twice upon a Time 2006 was nominated for the Cesar Award for Most Promising Actor.
In the film directed by Gypsy descent Tony Gatlif "By itself" ( Korkoro , 2009) Tierre was played by a gypsy named Talos. The role turned out to be very bright, because Talosh has the mind of a child and looks at the world with naive eyes. A very beautiful film, but the plot, which tells about the fate of the Roma in the Nazi-occupied France, does not imply easy viewing. By the way, it was recently revealed that Chaplin also had gypsy roots, so one can say: James was called to this film by blood))
But James is known not for this, but for this:
In 1998, Tierre founded his own theatrical campaign La Compagnie Du Hanneton, on the stage of which he staged several performances that received excellent reviews from critics and brought him four Moliere prizes. The style of these shows is a mixture of pantomime and acrobatics.
- La Symphonie du Hanneton
- La Veillee des Abysses, 2003
- Au Revoir Parapluie, 2007 (by the way, he was brought to Moscow)
- Raoul,2009 (costumes for this performance and many others staged La Compagnie Du Hanneton created by James' mother Victoria)
To the premiere of a new production Tabac Rouge waiting in summer 2013
This scene was invented by Tierre himself. To cut a beard, instead of a mirror, using the pendulum of a clock - sorry James, very Chaplin!
Well, for those who are interested in the work of this actor, there is great news - you can see his play "Raul" on the stage of the Mossovet Theater (Moscow) within the framework of the XI International Theater Festival. A.P. Chekhov 2013! Dates of performances: May 19, 20, 21, 23, 24, 25.
Eyewitnesses say that his live performances make a great impression. So, we are waiting.
And further. I wrote in the comments ollia_lukoye that another representative of the Chaplin dynasty - Aurelia Tiere-Chaplin, daughter of Victoria Chaplin and sister of James, will also perform in the program of the 11th Chekhov Festival.
The play is called "Whisper of the Walls", the idea and direction - Victoria Chaplin. June 3, 4 and 5at the theater. Pushkin on Tverskoy Boulevard ".
James Thierre in a photo shoot of Paolo Roversi
Below you can watch the entire performances online, there is something magical in them - you start watching and you can't stop yourself.
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2. Charles Chaplin (Jr.) (1925-1968) - the second son of Charlie Chaplin from the actress Lita Gray. Charlie died on March 20, 1968, 3 months before he was 43 years old.
3. Sydney Earl Chaplin ( Sydney Earl Chaplin) (1926-2009) is an American theater and film actor, has received awards in theater and cinema. Charlie Chaplin's third son and the second son of his second wife, actress Lita Gray. Named after his uncle Sidney Chaplin. The oldest son to play in his father's movie "Ramp Lights" and "The Countess from Hong Kong."
Sydney Earl Chaplin died of a stroke on March 3, 2009 at the age of 82 at his ranch. He left behind his wife Margaret Biba Chaplin, Stephen's son (from his first marriage) and his granddaughter Tamara.
Remember, Charlie Chaplin's last wife was Una O "Neil , the age difference was 36 years. Their marriage was registered on June 16, 1943 in Carpinteria, a small village near Santa Barbara.
She gave the director three sons– Christopher, Eugene and Michael, as well as five daughters– Josephine, Joan, Victoria, Anne-Emile and Geraldine.
3. ́ Geraldine Lee Chaplin (Geraldine leigh chaplin, genus. July 31, 1944) - the oldest and beloved of the daughters of Chaplin and Una,best known of all the children of the great artist. First appeared in her father's film "Ramp Lights". The real big debut took place in the film by David Lean "Doctor Zhivago". In 1992 she starred in the biographical film Chaplin.
For a quarter of a century she lived in Spain with her husband Carlos Saura and daughter Una. Filmed in both Spanish-language and English-language films.
4. Michael Chaplin, Chaplin's son (1946) , younger than Geraldine by a couple of years. Childhood was spent in luxury and comfort. The children were looked after by several nannies, maids, governesses. The mother devoted herself to caring for her father. Michael did not want to study, he was bored at school. All attempts to urge the father to take up his education had no effect. To teach a lesson to Chaplin Jr. Chaplin-st. took him to star in the film "The King in New York", where Michael convincingly played his complete opposite, the prodigy Rupert.
For several years he traveled with hippies, neglecting the persuasions of his parents to study or work. Michael wrote a biography book, however, very unsuccessful, which was a kind of clarification of problems with a famous parent, entitled "I could not fumigate trees in my father's garden." But as a result, he got married and settled with his family in France in a village on a farm. They said that in the mid-70s. he has written several books.
Now only Michael lives in the Swiss town of Vevey in the house where the last years of his great father passed. Together with his brother Eugene, they are working on a project for the future Charlie Chaplin Museum on the family estate.
5. Josephine Chaplin (11.11.1949) - also an actress, she is considered the most beautiful of Charlie's daughters.
She married early, having received the blessing of her father, for a wealthy person. However, she soon divorced him, took the child, named after her grandfather, and moved in with the French actor M. Ron. As a little girl, Josephine played in the film "Ramp Lights", where her father filmed her along with Michael and Geraldine.
6. Eugene Chaplin ( Eugene Chaplin,1953) , he inherited his name from his grandfather, a playwright, from childhood he was interested in cinema, theater and music, worked as a sound engineer.
After graduating from the directing department of the Academy of Dramatic Arts, he proposed his candidacy for the post of director of the Geneva Opera. And the offer was accepted. He did not have to use the name and authority of his famous father. And it was this that was the subject of special pride for Charlie and Una.
7. Victoria Chaplin (1951), Her father's favorite has always been Victoria, or just Vicki, she was most like her mother.
And it was she who drove Chaplin to real despair by marrying the clown Jean-Baptiste Thierry. The father had to come to terms with the fact that his beloved daughter also became a circus artist. Thierry ran his own circus, in which Victoria performed. They have two children - James and Aurelia Tierre.
8. Jane Chaplin (1957), daughter, which caused parents more anxiety than all other children. She left early parental home and moved to Paris, dreaming of fame. She starred in "The Rainbow Thief" (1990).
9-10. Annette and Christopher Chaplin- the last children of Charlie. There is practically no information about them. Maybe they were the ones who fulfilled the dream of Charlie Chaplin, who used to say: "I want at least one of my children to have an ordinary, decent profession and make a career as a good doctor, lawyer or engineer."
11. Anna-Emile Chaplin was born when Charlie Chaplin was 72.
CHARLIE CHAPLIN'S GRANDSCONS
In general, the most famous ..
Oona Chaplin of Castile was born on June 4, 1986 in Spain. Her mother - Geraldine Chaplin,daughter of Charlie Chaplin and Una, and her father is also a kind of legend - Chilean cameraman Patricio Castilla. Thanks to this, Una received an excellent education. In addition to schools in Spain and Switzerland, she studied at the prestigious Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in London.
She began her acting career in 2007 with a cameo in the series "Ghosts", starred in the series "Sherlock" and "Game of Thrones" (Talisa Stark)
Una did not find her grandfather alive. She admits that she perceived his image only in films with his participation. "I know that he is my grandfather, but when I think of him, I see a vagrant."
Her first role in a major project was in the 2008 James Bond film: Quantum of Solace. Una also took part in the TV series "Game of Thrones".
Una says that there are also funny cases at casting. “When people hear my name, they ask in a whisper:“ Who came? Oona Chaplin? But isn't Oona Chaplin dead yet? "
Aurelia Tierre (Aurélia Thiérrée) (September 24, 1971) - daughter Victoria Chaplinand Jean-Baptiste Tierre. Aurelia's parents began their careers as circus performers. Life under the dome quickly got bored, the couple decided to invent their own theater. On the stage, they brought the best from under the dome - magic tricks, acrobatic performances, a little clownery and farce. It turned out to be something like a circus, but without trained bears. The troupe of the new theater quickly won over the sophisticated spectator of France. And now the troupe was replenished with young artists who were destined to continue family traditions - Aurelia and James.
Aurelia Thierry starred in Goya's Ghosts (2006), The People vs. Larry Flynt (1996), Measures 24 (2007), etc.
“We all have parents, grandparents, and we take something from each of them. But in my case, it's always Chaplin, Chaplin, Chaplin,” James says.
She made her film debut in 1991 in Wim Wenders' film Until the End of the World and has since been active in both film and television. She made her directorial debut with the short film Tryst in Paname.
Dolores Chaplin (Dolores Chaplin) - granddaughter of the great Charlie Chaplin (Charles Chaplin) and great-granddaughter of the famous playwright Eugene O "Neill (Eugene O" Neill), michael Chaplin's daughter (Michael Chaplin). Own name Dolly received in honor of the actress Dolores del Rio (Dolores del Rio).
Acting career Chaplin started in 1991, having played a cameo role in the film Wim Wenders (Wim Wenders) " When the world ends"(" Bis ans Ende der Welt ").
Sister Dolores, Carmen Chaplin (Carmen Chaplin), also became an actress and also named after a Hollywood star - Carmen Miranda (Carmen Miranda).
Kiera Sunshine Chaplin born July 1, 1982, actress and model, originally from Northern Ireland. Among the ancestors of Kira were not only Irish, but also English and Gypsies. Granddaughter of the famous Charlie Chaplin and great-great-granddaughter of Eugene O "Neil. Kira was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland, she is eldest daughter of Eugene Chaplin, the fifth child of Charlie Chaplin and his last wife Oona O "Neil. During her childhood she lived with her family in Switzerland, currently resides in New York. Since the age of sixteen Kira Chaplin works as a professional model.
Sources from the Internet
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