The development of two opposing themes also ensured the movement of action in the play “ The Cherry Orchard". On the one hand, these are the themes of the destruction of the estate, estate life, the world order in general, the theme of illness and death of individuals and the whole society. On the other hand, there are themes of people's resistance, their desire to survive in a crumbling world. Evolution of the director's vision of the problem uniting the performances "Uncle Vanya" and "The Cherry Orchard" is obvious. Disease, degeneration and people's attempts to withstand are what unites these performances. But in The Cherry Orchard, these attempts are significantly weaker.
Creating his own plot, different from the plot of a literary source, the director started from the play, but also read a lot from it. The awkwardness of life, presented in the play, in the play is raised to a degree, having received a tragic sound. According to Meyerhold, in the third act of the play - "fun, in which the sounds of death are heard." In the world that is deployed on the stage, there can be no talk of fun, the "sounds of death" are heard from the beginning of the performance, and the finale does not even give hope for the physical survival of the inhabitants of this world. The play continues the theme started by the director in "Uncle Vanya": society is struck by a serious illness, which probably leads to its degeneration. But this does not at all lead to the conclusion about the director's hostility and contempt for the owners of the garden, as some reviewers saw. The heroes of The Cherry Orchard (perhaps with the exception of Yasha), like the heroes of Uncle Vanya, are shown with obvious sympathy. "In the play<…> the director heard a continuous, desperate cry ”, which in the play was embodied primarily in the tenderness with which the director treats the heroes, but at the same time in the ruthlessness with which they were presented.
In one of the reviews one could read that “The Cherry Orchard” by Nyakrosius is, first of all, the tragedy of Lopakhin, who<…> for the first time I heard (not with my ears) a terrible gospel question: What good is it to a person if he gains the whole world, but damages his soul?Lopakhin's tragedy is an important facet of content, but this is only one facet. The play is not about one hero, not one generation and not one section of society. The inhabitants of the estate - both in the play by Nyakroshius and in the play by Chekhov - represent a certain model of society. And in this sense, drama here, as in a play, arises in the form of a contradiction between a person and the general course of life that does not suit him. Reflecting on the play in connection with the monograph dedicated to it, T. Shakh-Azizova wrote: “Her<пьесы> roots in Russian life and Russian literature (including an unexpected and strange, but such an accurate comparison with Oblomovism, a national disease that pervaded the 19th and 20th centuries, and has hardly dried up in the current one). It is with this national disease that the named contradiction is connected. “Here everything and everyone is out of work. It is absolutely impossible to finish the work, to bring the thing to mind. The feeling of half-sleep, half-effort, sinking into emptiness, almost physical.<…> The actors play a collection of types of Russian life. And a collection of woeful notes about each character.<…> These owners of the Cherry Orchard are the last in the family. They are dying out like a impoverished small people, ”wrote E. Dyakova, calling the author“ note ”, of course, the director. It must be assumed that the types here are not typical characters, but the categories of people characteristic of Russian life. Nyakrosius really considers the last stage of extinction in the play, which is recorded in many reviews. “As if reading a cardiogram, the director unfolds before the viewer pictures of a relentless, persistent end, so painful and long. Such death is impossible to accept, but it is useless to fight. " In the house "the spirit hovers not of corruption, but of decay." Hence, “the feeling of trouble is terrible. Doom ". And the feeling of misfortune, and doom, and the spirit of decay and decay - all so. But let's not forget about people's attempts to resist. Attempts by the weak, sluggish, obviously already useless, but which, in spite of everything, were nevertheless undertaken.
Konstantin Stanislavsky as Gaev. Production of "The Cherry Orchard" at the Moscow Art Theater. 1904 year
Leonid Leonidov as Lopakhin. Production of "The Cherry Orchard" at the Moscow Art Theater. 1904 year© Album "Plays of A. Chekhov". Supplement to the magazine "Solntse Rossii", No. 7, 1914
Alexander Artyom as Firs. Production of "The Cherry Orchard" at the Moscow Art Theater. 1904 year© Album "Plays of A. Chekhov". Supplement to the magazine "Solntse Rossii", No. 7, 1914
Vasily Katchalov as Petit Trofimov and Maria Lilina as Ani. Production of "The Cherry Orchard" at the Moscow Art Theater, Act II. 1904 year © Album "Plays of A. Chekhov". Supplement to the magazine "Solntse Rossii", No. 7, 1914
Firs: "They left ... They forgot about me." Production of "The Cherry Orchard" at the Moscow Art Theater, Act IV. 1904 year© Album "Plays of A. Chekhov". Supplement to the magazine "Solntse Rossii", No. 7, 1914
Cotillion. Production of "The Cherry Orchard" at the Moscow Art Theater, Act III. 1904 year© Album "Plays of A. Chekhov". Supplement to the magazine "Solntse Rossii", No. 7, 1914
In this very first production of The Cherry Orchard, Chekhov did not like a lot. The author's disagreements with Konstantin Stanislavsky, who staged a play written specifically for the Moscow Art Theater, concerned the distribution of roles between performers, mood and genre (Stanislavsky was convinced that he was staging a tragedy), even staging means reflecting the naturalistic aesthetics of the early Moscow Art Theater. “I will write a new play, and it will begin like this: 'How wonderful, how quiet! There are no birds, no dogs, no cuckoos, no owls, no nightingales, no clocks, no bells and not a single cricket, ”Stanislavsky quoted Chekhov's malicious joke about the sound score that recreates the life of the estate. This conflict between the writer and the theater is not spared today by any Chekhov biography or history of the Moscow Art Theater. But the oppressive atmosphere, streams of tears and everything that frightened Chekhov is at odds with the few surviving fragments of later versions of The Cherry Orchard - a performance that remained in the theater's repertoire until the second half of the 1930s and was constantly changing, including thanks to Stanislavsky. For example, with a short final scene with Firs recorded on film: the voice of a footman performed by Mikhail Tarkhanov resounds in it - in spite of the situation of a forgotten servant in the house, of how hard every movement is given to this decrepit old man, in spite of everything - suddenly unusually young. Just now, Ranevskaya, sobbing, said goodbye to her youth on stage, and she miraculously returned to Firs in these very last minutes.
1954 year. "Company Renault - Barro", Paris. Director - Jean Louis Barrot
Scene from Jean Louis Barrot's production of The Cherry Orchard. Paris, 1954© Manuel Litran / Paris Match Archive / Getty Images
Scene from Jean Louis Barrot's production of The Cherry Orchard. Paris, 1954© Manuel Litran / Paris Match Archive / Getty Images
Scene from Jean Louis Barrot's production of The Cherry Orchard. Paris, 1954© Manuel Litran / Paris Match Archive / Getty Images
Outstanding European productions of The Cherry Orchard began to appear only after the war. Historians of the theater explain this by the extremely strong impression of Western directors from the Moscow Art Theater performance, which more than once took Chekhov's play on tour. The Cherry Orchard staged by Jean Louis Barrot did not become a breakthrough, but it is a very interesting example of how the European theater, in search of its Chekhov, was slowly getting out of the influence of the Moscow Art Theater. From the director Barrot, who during these years discovered for himself and the audience of his theater Camus and Kafka, who continued to stage his main author, Claudel, one could expect Chekhov to be read through the prism of the latest theater. But there is nothing of this in Barro's Cherry Orchard: listening to the surviving recording of his radio broadcast, you remember about absurdism only when Gaev, in response to Lopakhin's business proposal to arrange dachas on the site of the estate, is outraged: "Absurde!" The Cherry Orchard staged by the Renault Barrot Company is primarily (and strictly according to Chekhov) a comedy, in which a huge place was given to music. Pierre Boulez, with whom the theater collaborated during these years, was responsible for her in the play. The role of Ranevskaya was played by Barrot's wife, the co-founder of the theater, who earned her fame precisely as a comic actress "Comedie Francaise", Madeleine Reno. And Barro himself unexpectedly chose the role of Petya Trofimov for himself: perhaps, the hero turned out to be close to the great mime, who deciphered the character of the merchant Lopakhin by his hands - "gentle fingers, like an artist."
1974 year. Teatro Piccolo, Milan. Director - Giorgio Strehler
Rehearsal of the play "The Cherry Orchard" by Giorgio Strehler. Milan, 1974© Mondadori Portfolio / Getty Images
Tino Carraro directed by Giorgio Strehler "The Cherry Orchard"
Tino Carraro and Enzo Tarasho, directed by Giorgio Strehler "The Cherry Orchard"© Mario De Biasi / Mondadori Portfolio / Getty Images
“Craig wants the set to be as fluid as the music and help to perfect certain places in the piece, just as with music it is possible to follow and emphasize the turns of the action. He wants the scenery to change with the play, ”wrote artist Rene Pio in 1910 after meeting with English director and set designer Gordon Craig. Luciano Damiani's set in The Cherry Orchard directed by Giorgio Strehler, thanks to its striking simplicity, has become perhaps the best example of this way of working with space in modern theater. Above the snow-white stage, a wide, in the entire depth of the stage, a translucent curtain was stretched, which at different moments quietly swayed over the heroes, then dropped dangerously low over them, then sprinkled them with dry leaves. The scenery turned into a partner for the actors, and they themselves were reflected in their own way in very few objects on the stage, such as children's toys taken from a century-old closet. The plastic score of Ranevskaya, played by the actress Valentina Cortese for Strehler, was based on rotation, and the top launched by Gayev rhymed with this movement, spinning for a minute and then suddenly flying off its axis.
1981 year. Theater "Buff-du-Nord", Paris. Director - Peter Brook
"The Cherry Orchard" by Peter Brook at the Theater "Buff du Nord". 1981 year© Nicolas Treatt / archivesnicolastreatt.net
In his lectures on the history of literature, Naum Berkovsky called the subtext the language of enemies, and connected its appearance in the drama with the changing relationships of people at the beginning of the 19th century. In The Cherry Orchard by Peter Brook, the characters have no enemies among each other. Nor did the director have them in the play. And the subtext in Chekhov's work suddenly radically changed its quality, ceased to be a method of concealment, but, on the contrary, turned into a means of revealing to each other that which cannot be conveyed through words. Played with little or no decorations (the walls and floors of the old Parisian theater "Buff-du-Nord" were covered with carpets), this performance was closely associated with post-war literature: “Chekhov writes extremely succinctly, using a minimum of words, and his writing style resembles Pinter or Beckett - said Brooke in an interview. "In Chekhov, as in them, composition, rhythm, purely theatrical poetry of the only exact word, pronounced then and in the right way, plays a role." Among the countless, still emerging interpretations of The Cherry Orchard as a drama of absurdity, perhaps the most unusual thing about Brook's performance was precisely the fact that, read through Beckett and Pinter, his Chekhov sounded in a new way, but remained himself.
2003 year. Stanislavsky International Foundation and Meno Fortas Theater, Vilnius. Director - Eimuntas Nyakrosius
The play "The Cherry Orchard" by Eimuntas Nyakrosius. Festival "Golden Mask". Moscow, 2004
Evgeny Mironov as Lopakhin in the play "The Cherry Orchard" by Eimuntas Nyakrosius. Festival "Golden Mask". Moscow, 2004 © Dmitry Korobeinikov / RIA Novosti
The first thing that the audience saw on the stage was the garments of the inhabitants of the house thrown on top of each other, standing behind low columns, two hoops coming from nowhere: a seemingly manor house, but as if reassembled from almost random objects. In this "Cherry Orchard" there were references to Strehler, but there was not even a trace of the poetry of the Italian Chekhovian performance. However, the performance of Nyakrosius itself was built rather according to the laws of a poetic text. The six hours he walked, connections between things, gestures (as always in Nyakrosius, an unusually rich plastic score), sounds (like the unbearably loud cry of swallows) and music, unexpected animal parallels of heroes - these connections multiplied at an extraordinary speed, permeating all levels ... "A gloomy and splendid mass," wrote the theater expert Pavel Markov about Meyerhold's "The Inspector General", and this is exactly what the impression of the Lithuanian director's play staged together with
plays.
I decided that I still needed to write something ...
I want to warn you right away that this is just a private opinion of one of the viewers. No more.
I had never seen other performances by Nyakrosius, so VS was doubly curious for me: both as another version of the interpretation of Chekhov's long-suffering play, and as an acquaintance, the first contact with the style, the handwriting of the “gloomy Lithuanian genius”. Well. Curiosity was satisfied. Of course, it is impossible to form a single and final opinion about the director for one performance, but, nevertheless, some conclusions can be drawn. I do it. Nyakrosius is an Experimenter with great E. And a very difficult director. Perhaps, without some "preparation" (preliminary reading of the play is not even discussed - this is the default), one cannot watch his performances. He ponders not only every phrase in the most meticulous way, but, I'm afraid, every word, pulling completely unexpected meanings to the surface of the canonical text of the play ... On the one hand, all this is wonderful and I love it. But on the other: according to my feelings, Nyakrosius is so “drowning in symbols” (Jean's metaphor) that the living breath from the performance completely disappears ... I somehow already classified the performances into “for the mind”, “for the heart”, “for the mind and for the heart "and" neither the mind, nor the heart. " Nyakroshyus, as it seemed to me - exclusively "for the mind." I can imagine what may be attracted to him, but this attraction is exclusively rational. My heart (and I cannot complain about the lack of sensitivity) beat smoothly after 4.5 hours of action. And this is not at all because it was protracted (the initial version, if I’m not mistaken, had a duration of 5.5 hours), and not because many of Nyakroshus's “letters” remained undeciphered by me (I didn’t say that I always “translate” director's messages in full) - it's just that the performance is too discrete. For me, it fell apart into many small fragments, each of which, of course, is beautiful and interesting in its own way, but the feeling of wholeness, nevertheless, is not. And therefore the "average temperature in the hospital" is 36.6. What else "did not lie down". Small "decorations", like that. "Clip effect", ie situations when what is happening on stage does not correlate in any way with the text pronounced by the actors. Cyclicity of individual fragments (repetition - several times in a row ... like a nail being driven into the head, by God). And some, in my opinion, are obvious overkill with symbolism. For example, I can neither mind nor heart accept the episode in which Petya Trofimov is giving Ranevskaya a specific slap on the fifth point ... Sorry, but I cannot ...
The director undoubtedly worked with the actors very painstakingly, but, nevertheless, he did not create a team on stage. In terms of the strength of acting, in my opinion, the energetic, strong, sincere, amazing Inga Strelkova-Oboldina (Varya) and the delicate, sensitive, intelligent "peasant" (c) Yevgeny Mironov (Lopakhin) are in the lead with a wide margin from the rest. Still, perhaps, bright and clear, like a forest stream, the girl Yulia Marchenko (Anya) ... Strange Gaev. I can't even find the characteristics for him. I love Vladimir Ilyin very much. The strongest actor, brilliant tragicomic. But here he is not seen or heard. Gayev, after all, has scenes where he is a soloist, but Ilyin is sluggish in them, inexpressive, with a dull look. Either the heat is to blame, or some other reason ... About Lyudmila Maksakova I can not, probably, say everything that asks, but, oddly enough, in the end I liked this interpretation of Ranevskaya's image. In this Ranevskaya, an adult, suffering a lot, is transparently visible, adequately evaluating himself, and understanding and attentive to others (in contrast, for example, from the infantile fool-Ranevskaya, occupied only with her own person - at Renata Litvinova) ... Fat-character Petya Trofimov performed by Igor Gordin caused me such dislike that I probably will not be able to perceive this character normally for a long time. A similar reaction was caused by, perhaps, the same fatty Simeonov-Pischik, performed by the hitherto unknown actor Sergei Pinegin. A socially dangerous type, a potential killer Epikhodov (artist Ivan Agapov) is surprisingly non-comedic, although he diligently twitches his eyebrows and recites his stupid text in a mannered manner, a la Georges Bengalsky ... Very lively, almost a clown, Dunyasha (actress Anna Yanovskaya), languishing in her glory cavaliers. Definitely bluish lackey Yasha (I don't remember the actor's name) is good only in static scenes. Well, and Firs ... Alexei Petrenko has completely piercing episodes (for example, an episode where Firs comes out in an obliquely buttoned coat: he is uncomfortable, he, not understanding the reasons for this inconvenience, as a small one, begins to slowly fumble inside this "outfit" Ranevskaya comes to his aid, rebuttons ...).
The main impression of the performance is a feeling of the most terrible hopelessness. The finale does not cause any doubts already in the initial scenes. "Carthage must be destroyed"... And it's not hard to guess what awaits the heroes - after, already OUTSIDE the production ... And if, when rereading the play, I fall into self-deception, and begin to believe that a favorable outcome of events is still possible, then Nyakrosius immediately makes it clear: "And do not hope, comrades." Whatever the heroes of the play do, we understand perfectly well: everything is useless, a waste of energy, nothing depends on them, what should happen will certainly happen in due time. "... the one who directs my ship has already raised the sail ..." (c) One characteristic episode. On the bank of the river - Lopakhin and Ranevskaya. Lopakhin tries in vain to light a fire, but the only match goes out, and he fails to strike a spark from the stone. Because it’s not the time. Not now. But a few minutes later, when Lopakhin and Ranevskaya are already forgetting about the fire (Ranevskaya talks about her sinful life), he suddenly suddenly lights up himself ... Everything is destined. And everything has its own time ... And I absolutely believe in the shock of Lopakhin, who cannot realize that it was he who bought the cherry orchard. I even think that his shock is partly due to this visual confirmation of the predetermination of everything and everyone. What should be - it will be. And you are just a pawn in the hands of Destiny. The feeling of fatal hopelessness is intensified by the delightful musical accompaniment (psychedelic of the ethnic direction) ... By the way, due to all of the above, the "explanation" of Vary and Lopakhin is very surprising. It, of course, does not work out (as it follows from the text), but in my opinion, in this production it should not be at all.
The main allegory, persistently hammered by the director into our heads throughout the entire performance. "Hare" theme.
Here I have to slip into a trivial retelling, otherwise I will not be able to prove my point ... The first hare appears in the scene of Varya and sleepy Anya. Anya, as in childhood, fell asleep with a toy - with a fur hare. The hare is packed in a bag (either she carries it with her, and it was packed for transportation, or it was here on the estate and, again, hidden in a bag so that it does not gather dust) - only ears stick out of the bag. Next comes a rather long scene of a rugby game, where instead of a ball - Anin's hare. After some more time, the sleeping Anya reappears on the stage. Her arms are raised up and crossed over her head (like hare ears), and she begins in a dream at first quietly, and then more and more "twitching her ears." At the same time, Anya is dressed in a long white shirt to her feet, and her movements are strikingly reminiscent of the trembling of a white tree, which is methodically beaten by an ax. Her terrible dream is interrupted by one of the household, having thrust the same hare into her hands ... The same furry hare Anya will at some point be carried by Lopakhin to the middle of the stage and left there - for us, they say, pay attention again ... ... Charlotte in the scene of tricks does not show any tricks at all, but shows a strange performance in which Anya and Varya participate. The girls jump onto the stage with white paper bunny ears and, led by Charlotte, perform some children's Dance Zaichikov. At the end of the dance, both bunnies - "bang-bang-oh-oh-oh ..." - will be mercilessly "shot" by Charlotte ... The same paper hare ears appear on the tablecloth, on which Lopakhin arranges a snack for those leaving for Paris ... And the eerie finale, in where all the heroes are hiding behind a palisade of turntables and airplanes and suddenly emerge - all of them in these white paper ears. And, as from behind a prison fence, they look through the palisade into the hall, and a hunting rifle, with pleasure justifying its presence in the performance, fires volley after volley at these unfortunate trembling creatures ... Hare, hare ears - Anya's happy childhood and the time when the estate flourished, a prosperous past, to which there is no return ...
It still seems to me ... if I am mistaken - correct me, please ... what is here, to the fact that there is no return - the scene of seduction of Anya Petya is also very close. Childhood is over ... In general, this Petya, comrades ... This is not an eternal student, a fool, a funny idealist, no - this is an embittered man-loser. This Petya has obvious problems of a sexual nature (it is not for nothing that Ranevskaya exclaims: "In your age, do not have a mistress!"). All his tantrums and wild antics (Ranevskaya's slap - obviously) are, most likely, the sphere of professional activity of old Freud. Petya was unlucky with women, but here - a gullible gentle girl ... And this, roughly speaking, Petya, talking to Anya's teeth with rantings about a bright future and powdering her brains with the fact that "we are above love", they say, we are not interested in such garbage, nevertheless, he undresses himself and, in the end, sits her on his lap ... Literally like Yesenin's in "The Black Man": "... As a pimply student, a long-haired freak speaks of the worlds, exhausted from sexual languor ..."... And one more revealing scene - farewell to Lopakhin. Petya splashes saliva and anger, as usual. And even more so - after Lopakhin bought a cherry orchard, of course! Lopakhin, nevertheless, offers him a loan of money. Petya, looking longingly at the bundle of bills, arrogantly refuses, but it is clear that at this moment a terrible painful struggle is going on in his soul. And what do you think, my friends ... Lopakhin puts a pack in Petya's galoshes, the galoshes themselves - Petya's armpit, and Petya - with these galoshes leaves! .. He has no principles, no ideals. Anya was deceived ... This "bright future" has no future ...
In general, what to say ... The Ranevsky-Gayev family is doomed. We get a transparent hint of this sad circumstance at the very beginning, when Ranevskaya, tired from the road, lies on the couch, and the maid Dunyasha, not knowing where to put the welcome bouquet of flowers, smiles, puts it on Ranevskaya's chest ... Lyubov Andreevna herself tried to resist this death, she clung to the cherry orchard, like a drowning man on a straw, hoped that there was salvation in it, but ... What should be will be ... and Ranevskaya still returns to Paris - to the man who ruined her, returns with money that is not enough for a long time, and she perfectly understands this ... Varya, Varechka - having lost their home, convinced of the futility of personal happiness, having lost the most important thing that she lived with all the years - the opportunity to work, dreams of a monastery (where, where, and there is no shortage of work it happens). Anya's life will probably be ruined ... Deaf, sick Gaev will live out his life as a bank employee. How long will he last in that place ... I can't imagine what will become of the worthless, useless Charlotte ...
It seems to me that this thought - the death of everything - was reflected in a strange scene where Gayev falls, clutching his heart, and all the inhabitants of the estate rush to him with alarm, and when they run, they fall side by side and freeze ... I just don't remember if I was among them Lopakhin? ..
As I said, I still have a lot of questions after the performance. "Five thousand Where, seven thousand How, one hundred thousand Why." Those. there is something to guess and decipher (I'm afraid to go deeper into this lesson, because I will inevitably get bogged down and it will be impossible to read all this :). I have some very beautiful scenes left in my memory. For example, there is still, for example, an unexpectedly romantic scene of Renevskaya and Varya right after the "explanation" with Lopakhin: the mother takes the unfortunate Varya to the left edge of the stage, the scene plunges into darkness, and suddenly a blinding silver light is poured over the girl from above. So, for some time in the beam of this dazzling light, the black "nun" Varya ... Ah, Varya-Varechka ... The actress Inga Strelkova-Oboldina is infinitely good ... Lopakhin is a fool ...
In general, the response to this performance in the body, of course, has arisen. But still ... this is not my show.
But I did not have time to mentally gasp and groan, noticing here and there some details, references to which are given in his performances by Butusov Yuri Nikolaevich, as you know, with great respect for the work of Eimuntas Nyakrosius.
On the centenary of the play, Moscow will see The Cherry Orchard by Eimuntas Nyakrosius The theatergoers who remained in the city were very lucky. From 10 to 14 July, on the stage of the recently opened STD Cultural Center, director Eimuntas Nyakrosius will present to the public ...
On the centenary of the play, Moscow will see The Cherry Orchard by Eimuntas Nyakrosius
ABOUTtheater-goers who became in the city were very lucky. From 10 to 14 July, director Eimuntas Nyakrosius will present his new play "The Cherry Orchard" to the public on the stage of the recently opened STD Cultural Center. The production is timed to coincide with the 100th anniversary of the creation of Chekhov's last play and was carried out with the support of the Stanislavsky International Charitable Foundation.
The main sensation of The Cherry Orchard was the Russian acting team: Nyakrosius personally selected the actors. Ranevskaya - Lyudmila Maksakova. Lopakhin - Evgeny Mironov. Firs - Alexey Petrenko. Gaev - Vladimir Ilyin. Irina Aleksimova as Charlotte. Varya - Inga Oboldina. Petya Trofimov - Igor Gordin. Anna Yanovskaya as Dunyasha. Despite the fact that all these are the first actors of different theater schools and generations, the director put human qualities first: “Because the distance at which we must hold out together is long, and anything can happen. Calmness is important. "
Why did Nyakrosius, who was repeatedly invited to stage in Moscow, unexpectedly agree? Because I was going to start the Cherry Orchard anyway. Because it is easier to work with Russian actors than with foreign actors (at the Avignon Festival last year the French "Platonov" was shown, in the program of which Nyakrosius appeared as "collaboration artistique" - a man for working with actors. And in Italy the premiere of the opera "Macbeth "In his production, which will be transferred to the Russian troupe at the Bolshoi Theater in the coming season).
The rehearsals took place in Vilnius, where Nyakrosius works at the National Drama Theater of Lithuania and shares the stage with the troupes of Rimas Tuminas and Oskaras Koršunovas. The newly opened STD Cultural Center, where the premiere will take place, will be honored by the baptism of fire with the performance of Nyakrosius.
"The Cherry Orchard" is the fourth performance by Nyakrosius based on the plays by Chekhov. "Uncle Vanya" and "Three Sisters" were brought to Moscow - these performances became an event in the life of everyone who saw them, "The Seagull" with Italian actors in Russia was shown at the Baltic House festival.
So far, nothing is known about the fate of the play: it will depend on how the director evaluates his work. We can talk about the assessment of the public now: it will be enthusiastic. For those who will scrape together money for the cheapest tickets at 600 rubles - because Nyakrosius is a genius; for ticket holders of 3200 - because Nekrosius is a brand.
Picture of the day
“Put on muzzles. And rejoice. " In kindergartens and schools of Krasnoyarsk, it will be forbidden to take children out into the air on calm days
Parting
This "Cherry Orchard", accompanied by tragic, rather even funeral, melodies (the main melody that sounds in the prologue and in the finale, and which I would call Firs's melody - is somewhat consonant with the famous Albinoni melody), is a farewell performance. Farewell to the cherry orchard turns into goodbye to life. The play is dedicated to the fundamental law of being - the finiteness of everything, the finiteness of life. The two curbstones that loom on the stage in the first two acts in full growth, and gone underground in the last two, are like grave monuments to someone's lives. As well as weather vane hanging in front of the backdrop, and never wrapped, what is it? - symbols of someone's past lives, or kabbalistic signs? With parting, with "burial", the meeting with Ranevskaya begins - her Parisian life is over, her life in the cherry orchard is about to end, she lies on the couch like a dead woman, her face is covered with a black veil, her relatives and servants approach her, who- then, as if in a coffin, puts flowers on her chest.
Naive Petya is trying to talk about something new life, but the audience and listeners on stage meet his speech with laughter, they know that EVERYTHING ends, including everything new, including life. Someone's end is someone's beginning, but Lopakhin and his beginning are not happy - the bitterness of loss wins the sweetness of novelty.
Nyakrosius
The director saturated the performance with so many metaphors and symbols that the performance resembles a supersaturated solution, which simply dissolves, crushes the viewer, like a bird's whistle and ringing in Lopakhin's ears, and in which some images (for example, an ax thrown from the backstage onto the stage when parting Ranevskaya and Gaeva behind the scenes with the people) precipitate. Actors, even such magnificent ones as Mironov, Petrenko and others, are just notes in the theatrical "music" that Nyakrosius is building. Firs, this symbol of the Departing nature, in this "music" of Nyakrosius carries the melody of Farewell, like a bass drum carried by the characters from the 3rd to the 4th act, keeps the rhythm in the orchestra.
Ranevskaya
In the play, the age is indicated only for three characters - Anya, Varya, Firs. I saw performances with beautiful young Ranevskys, but they were about something else. Nyakrosius in his farewell performance needed just such a Ranevskaya - lost, with a face like a squeezed lemon, and for her actress to play, who many, many years ago was a beauty (remember her irresistible Adelma in "Princess Turandot") - like herself Lyubov Andreevna, and now ... she is reclining in a black coffin, forgive the slip, on a black couch, like a withered, wilted flower. And this female beauty of the performer, which has gone into oblivion of time, which still flickers in the memory or subconsciousness of the viewer, is undoubtedly used by the director as another color in his performance. A very strong characteristic of this Ranevskaya is the way she drinks coffee straight from the coffee pot, pulling it out of the hands of the servant, just like the neglected drug addicts take a dose. A man chewed up and worn out by life.
Gaev
For me, this is one of the most significant figures in the performance. Most of the characters in the play are as sincere as children. And in this kindergarten, the youngest "child" is Gaev, he is wearing some kind of kindergarten beret, and he lives like a boy of 5-6 years old, in his own virtual worldwhere you can talk to a friend - a respected closet, and an old rotten garden cannot be cut down just because he saw it in a picture in an encyclopedia. Sharing and eating sweets with the girls is the sweetest and most touching scene of the play, and his phrase - "I am a man of the 80s" was simply greeted with applause, because all the spectators in the hall immediately recalled with their skins what "childish" games they played in 80s, followed by the "grown-up" 90s. Gaev is in every person, as in everyone there is a child that he once was. “Yellow in the middle” is just a thin mask with which he covers himself and his world from “boors”. Gaev-Ilyin is not afraid to be sincere, his speeches, above all, are extremely frank, devoid of pathos, he says in them what is essential for himself, it is a pity that these adults interrupt him all the time. But when he goes out to confess to the ramp, you see that this boy has an old man's face - bags under sad eyes, it is worn out by life almost to holes. I was shocked by his monologue from the 2nd act, which, unfortunately, did not allow him to utter to the end: “Oh, wondrous nature, you shine with eternal radiance, beautiful and indifferent, you, whom we call a mother, combine life and death in yourself , you live and destroy ... ”For me, these piercing words contain the quintessence of the Nyakroshius performance, a performance about Being and Death.
The final
All the characters say goodbye to each other, as they say goodbye, parting forever. “Goodbye, Cherry Orchard! Goodbye Life! " People leave behind the weather vanes and sit down there. Firs comes out with an armful of hay. “We've gone! And they forgot me! " He takes a bunch of green grass out of the hay and chews it. “Life has passed as if it had never lived! Eh, you are a fool! " These words are addressed to every inhabitant of the Cherry Orchard called Life. The backdrop is illuminated, all the characters have turned into bunnies (which they played in the 3rd act), only their white ears stick out, and dead, motionless weathercocks are illuminated. Loud "billiard" bangs-shots are heard - the points of departure of the little bunnies into oblivion. Its end. The curtain.