Handwriting of two directors different generations and nationalities turned out to be so close that in 2010, during the tour of the Comédie Francaise with the play "The Marriage of Figaro", this similarity was discovered and, so to speak, taken into account by the Fomen actors.
In the autumn of 2016, the Frenchman Christophe Roque was invited to conduct several master classes. As a result, Moliere's "Amphitrion" was obtained.
Moliere is already on the stage of Fomenko - "School of Wives". This is a chamber performance, while "Amphitrion" is a creation of a larger character. But from this it is no less intimate and close to the viewer.
The choice of Christophe Rock, as he himself explained, fell on this play because it is especially poetic and harsh, and besides, it is not as popular as, for example, "Tartuffe". And there is nothing more French than Molière, says Christophe Roque. Although before that he had never worked with the works of Jean-Baptiste. He was also attracted by the problems of the text.
Christoph Rock. Photo: Anna Belyakova / RIA Novosti
"Amphitrion" raises an important topic - the loss of oneself and one's face under the yoke of ladder subordination. It would seem that power, hierarchies, the devilish tricks of the strong over the weaker just because they can do it - in our modern world, free from prejudice, should no longer excite the mind and heart, but it excites. The play about Jupiter "I want and I can, because I am a god, and let him, little man, die of horror and fear that I am now he" sounds relevant and sharp. The hall responds and reacts very lively. Actors interact with the viewer, directly involving him in the course of action and making their world a common one.
A scenographic solution with a mirror that not only reflects, but distorts, and sometimes even transforms what is happening on the stage, turning everything upside down, or putting things in order, putting things from head to toe - simultaneously plays two actions on stage. And this emphasizes another important idea of the performance: the dualism of things is the inevitability of our life. We see this way and that, and each, moreover, awry. The fragility of truth, sometimes even imaginary, and the fear of self-doubt - this is what haunts us and what this mirror, so simple in its execution, but surprisingly accurate, is a reminder of.
Run-through of the play based on Moliere's play "Amphitrion" Photo: Sergey Pyatakov / RIA Novosti
Christophe Rock also brought lighting, sound and costume designers with him. In appearance The performance has a certain austerity. For example, there is no epoch on the stage. It is not clear when the action occurs, but it does not matter. Props are limited to a few chairs, candlesticks, a mattress and... a revolver. An unexpected stroke - a tragicomic element - results in a vital and tearfully funny curiosity. One way or another, familiar, probably, to everyone, the blackmail of people we love causes the public to delight in the accuracy of the hit.
The play ends with a paradox. There are expected things - morals in such plays always draw a line. One of the heroes is obliged to come out and say his last, usually revealing word. And Soziy (in a brilliant performance by Karen Badalov) comes out, but says a stunning phrase:
About things like that sometimes
Better not say a word.
Such is the final, such is the question, what is freedom, where does it end, and is it even there, probably, it will remain so eternal theme. But Christoph Rock, together with the Fomen actors, tried to give, in my opinion, a very deep and detailed, if not an answer, but a commentary, his vivid and memorable statement. Undoubtedly, this performance will be for a long time live on the stage of the theater Workshop of Peter Fomenko.
Moliere's "Amphitrion" is a reworking of the play by the Roman playwright Plautus about how Jupiter almost drove the commander Amphitryon crazy by appearing to his wife Alcmene in the guise of her husband Amphitryon, as a result of which Hercules was born. The play was written while the novel was developing. Louis XIV with the Marquise de Montespan, whose husband was put in the Bastille for a while, so as not to get in the way. Usually played out as a hilarious adultery comedy.
For Christophe Rock, this is a play about the limits of freedom and the hierarchy of power. The gods test their power over people, manipulate them. When you are deprived of your personality, name, home, family, when God assumes your form, then you must involuntarily submit. You must either go crazy or accept someone else's influence on your destiny. Manipulative gods constantly prove their power. And fate here is not equal to man. She is beyond his understanding, because she lives according to a divine whim, bypassing human understanding. The gods are immoral - they corrupt people. After meeting with God, a person does not remain the same. Man is incinerated by the intervention of God in his destiny. Molière opens the new kind fear - the fear of losing one's own identity. Hence the mirrored scenery. Faces multiply - individuality is lost. Duality is like an obsession that nullifies your existence. The performance is not about love, but about desire, about manipulation of the object of desire, about the vertical of subordination. In this case, this vertical includes not only masters and servants, but also gods. Molière is not sentimental. He is only social.
- Christoph Rock:
- Molière is the most French playwright. And I really love this play. I really wanted to stage Amphitryon. Not obvious - "Tartuffe" with "Misanthrope". This play is very poetic. I am fascinated by this vertical - gods - people, power - a simple person.
If we talk about the genre, then Christoph Rock believes that everything is a comedy, where there are no corpses at the end. But it is the drama of the characters that causes laughter in the theater. Caricature in the theater is inappropriate. To create comedy, you have to go through drama. What causes laughter is pure human features and not the character pure form. It is necessary to reveal the features of human nature in its most twilight and paradoxical manifestations. It is these manifestations that make us laugh because of the situations that the author creates, they make us laugh and turn the play into a comedy. To laugh at others, you have to laugh at yourself. And if we only laugh at others - we just laugh at clowns.
"Amphitrion" by Moliere is the first work of the Fomenko Workshop with a guest director-foreigner. The choice fell on Christophe Rock (Christophe Rauck) not by chance. It was discovered at the same time by two leading actresses of our theater, when in 2010 Comédie Francaise brought on tour Beaumarchais's The Marriage of Figaro staged by our hero. The actresses felt the amazing similarity of Christoph's direction with the handwriting of Pyotr Naumovich Fomenko. This taste similarity between the two aesthetics allowed us to think about a possible collaboration.
In the fall of 2016, the Fomenko Workshop invited Kristof Rok to conduct a series of master classes on the topic French theater. As a result of this joint work within the framework of master classes, the play "Amphitrion" was born.
- Christoph Rock:
- Theater is one of the latest collective arts. The artist works with his team. We bring our own aesthetic. If I worked alone, it would not be my performance at all. I mean light, sound. We work in a different range, on other nuances. I make the performance as if in black and white ink with all the drawings. For the troupe, this is a journey into a different aesthetic. We open ourselves new country. The actors of the Workshop shocked me with their acting. Together we ended up where we had never been before. We have created a new space - sensually new.
Project curator - Irina Zaitseva
The performance features Antonio Vivaldi's Concerto for Bassoon and Orchestra in G Major performed by Sergio Azzolini
You can read the audience reviews about the performance on our forum using the hashtag.
ATTENTION! During the action of the performance, performing the director's creative tasks and the author's remarks, the artists smoke on stage, and a smoke machine is also used to create various stage effects. Please consider this information when planning your visit to this performance.
Husband of Alcmene, father of Iphicles, adoptive father of Hercules. Mentioned in the Iliad (V 392) and the Odyssey (XI 266).
He taught Heracles how to ride a chariot. The ruins of the palace of Amphitryon were shown in Thebes, the rest of Alcmene was visible. According to the Theban version, after killing his children, Hercules wanted to kill Amphitryon, but Athena threw a stone at him. This stone (Sophronister) was shown in Thebes.
Amphitryon fell in battle against the Minians from Orchomenus, with whom he fought along with Hercules in order to free Thebes from a shameful tribute, and is buried in Thebes in the same place where later Iolaus.
In art
The protagonist of the tragedy of Sophocles "Amphitrion" (fr.122 Radt), the tragedy of Euripides "Hercules", the play of Aeschylus of Alexandria "Amphitrion", the tragicomedy of Plautus "Amphitrion" and the play Action "Amphitrion", the tragedy of Seneca "Hercules in Madness", Rinton's comedy " Amphitryon".
In the 20th century, the image of Amphitryon was depicted in his works by Otokar Fischer ("Hercules", 1919), Jean Giraudoux ("Amphitrion 38", 1929), Georg Kaiser ("Twice Amphitrion", 1944), Guilherme Figueiredo ("God spent the night in the house" , 1973).
In Russian-language literature, Amphitrion is one of the main characters in fantasy novels by Henry Lyon Oldie " There must be one hero" (1996) and "The grandson of Perseus" (2012).
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Notes
Links
- // Encyclopedic Dictionary of Brockhaus and Efron: in 86 volumes (82 volumes and 4 additional). - St. Petersburg. , 1890-1907.
| Predecessor: Alcaeus (son of Perseus) |
List of mythical kings of Tiryns OK. 1300s BC. |
Successor: Sthenelus (son of Perseus) |
An excerpt characterizing Amphitrion
The viceroy will take possession of the village [Borodin] and cross his three bridges, following at the same height with the divisions of Moran and Gerard, who, under his leadership, will move towards the redoubt and enter the line with the rest of the army.All this must be carried out in order (le tout se fera avec ordre et methode), keeping the troops as far as possible in reserve.
In the imperial camp, near Mozhaisk, September 6, 1812.
This disposition, very vaguely and confusedly written - if you allow yourself to treat his orders without religious horror at the genius of Napoleon - contained four points - four orders. None of these orders could be and was not executed.
The disposition says, firstly: that the batteries arranged at the place chosen by Napoleon with the guns of Pernetti and Fouche, having aligned with them, a total of one hundred and two guns, open fire and bombard the Russian flashes and redoubt with shells. This could not be done, since the shells did not reach the Russian works from the places appointed by Napoleon, and these one hundred and two guns fired at empty until the nearest commander, contrary to Napoleon's order, pushed them forward.
The second order was that Poniatowski, heading for the village into the forest, bypassed the left wing of the Russians. This could not be and was not done because Poniatowski, heading for the village into the forest, met Tuchkov blocking his way there and could not and did not bypass the Russian position.
Third order: General Kompan will move into the forest to take the first fortification. Compana's division did not capture the first fortification, but was repulsed, because, leaving the forest, it had to be built under grapeshot fire, which Napoleon did not know.
Fourth: The Viceroy will take possession of the village (Borodin) and cross his three bridges, following at the same height with the divisions of Maran and Friant (of which it is not said where and when they will move), which, under his leadership, will go to the redoubt and enter the line with other troops.
As far as one can understand - if not from the stupid period of this, then from those attempts that were made by the Viceroy to fulfill the orders given to him - he was to move through Borodino on the left to the redoubt, while the divisions of Moran and Friant were to move simultaneously from the front.
All this, as well as other points of the disposition, was not and could not be executed. Having passed Borodino, the viceroy was repulsed on Kolocha and could not go further; the divisions of Moran and Friant did not take the redoubt, but were repulsed, and the redoubt was captured by cavalry at the end of the battle (probably an unforeseen and unheard of thing for Napoleon). So, none of the orders of the disposition was and could not be executed. But the disposition says that after entering the battle in this way, orders will be given corresponding to the actions of the enemy, and therefore it might seem that during the battle all the necessary orders will be made by Napoleon; but this was not and could not be because during the whole time of the battle Napoleon was so far away from him that (as it turned out later) he could not know the course of the battle and not a single order of his during the battle could be executed.
Many historians say that battle of Borodino not won by the French because Napoleon had a cold, that if he had not had a cold, then his orders before and during the battle would have been even more brilliant, and Russia would have perished, et la face du monde eut ete changee. [and the face of the world would change.] For historians who recognize that Russia was formed by the will of one person - Peter the Great, and France from a republic developed into an empire, and French troops went to Russia at the behest of one man - Napoleon, such an argument that Russia remained powerful because Napoleon had a big cold on the 26th, such an argument for such historians is inevitably consistent.
If it depended on the will of Napoleon to give or not to give the Battle of Borodino, and it depended on his will to make such or another order, then it is obvious that a runny nose, which had an influence on the manifestation of his will, could be the reason for the salvation of Russia and that therefore the valet who forgot to give Napoleon On the 24th, waterproof boots, was the savior of Russia. On this path of thought, this conclusion is undoubted, just as undoubted as the conclusion that, jokingly (without knowing what), Voltaire made when he said that Bartholomew night originated from an upset stomach of Charles IX. But for people who do not allow Russia to be formed at the behest of one person - Peter I, and for the French empire to take shape and the war with Russia to begin at the behest of one person - Napoleon, this reasoning not only seems to be wrong, unreasonable, but also contrary to the whole being. human. When asked what is the cause historical events, another answer appears, which consists in the fact that the course of world events is predetermined from above, depends on the coincidence of all the arbitrariness of the people participating in these events, and that the influence of Napoleons on the course of these events is only external and fictitious.
Nadezhda Karpova reviews: 184 ratings: 184 rating: 177
As much as Captain Fracasse disappointed me, so much and even more did I like Amphitrion. However, it was predictable: the French team, the professional troupe of the theater did their job. An unusual, creative, not boring performance, and also not long (by the way, at the same Chekhov festival, foreign productions were not long, which attracted my attention). Creativity began even with a program, which is made in the form of a mirror, which reflects the name of the performance.
In general, the design in this performance is simply magical. The central element, as you might guess, is a mirror, and located at such an angle that it creates the feeling that the viewer is looking at the heroes from above, as if from heaven, where the gods, the heroes of this performance, should live. The mirror moves completely, and this feeling changes if necessary. The mirror creates an atmosphere, sometimes creating a feeling of reflection not even in itself, not in the mirror, but on the water surface, giving some unreality to what is happening. The mirror is often the main element when it is necessary to look into it, because it simply makes no sense to look at the stage, for example, the same painted house of Sozia is closer to the finale. The mirror creates an atmosphere of some reserve, intimacy, for example, when burning candles are displayed around it: this is almost not a bedroom, but even a sacrifice.
Here I will digress a little and say that I recently saw a mirror in Thunderstorm at the Theater of Nations, but there this technique didn’t even have such an effect, it wasn’t used, it didn’t play. Here, of course, everything is much more thought out, tasty, professional.
Special effects are actively involved in the performance, in particular, smoke. Sometimes there is so much of it on the stage that everything is hidden in this artistic smoke, which allows the actors to disappear, and together with the moving mirror, the viewer seems to find himself in some kind of mystical place: either these are clouds, or some strange swamp. A simple technique, but how effective here. No less simple technique and a chair with an artist rising from inside the stage, which creates the feeling that we are seeing a product of evil, the Devil, although this is not entirely true in this performance. Or so? Considering not quite good deeds these gods to people, why are they good and not evil?
I would like to note the delightfully created scenes: the actors do not freeze for a minute, they play, it is interesting to watch them. And the first scene is almost mimic, because the text uttered by Night and Mercury is so difficult to perceive, but the actors act out it in such a way that it is simply impossible to break away. Each word here is accompanied by an action, one follows from the other - smoothly, accurately, effectively. On the one hand, the mirror somewhat fences off the viewer from what is happening, from the actors, some elements of their game are emphatically theatrical, like intonations, on the other hand, the actors go into the hall, interact with the viewer with frightening authenticity, almost shoot themselves, climb onto the arms of the chairs which is completely unexpected for any viewer.
The costumes here are strict and concise, ideally combined with the no less strict design of the performance. Indeed, an almost magic circle of candles goes well with a strict dress, but does not fit with a “down and feathers” dress. Sosius does not need a jester's costume to be funny, and the gods do not need royal clothes for their greatness.
In this amazing performance built on the deception of the gods ordinary people, twin actresses are busy taking possession of the gods by other people's personalities Kutepov sisters. Surprisingly, their heroines are the only ones who are not confused with each other, not changed, not substituted. Their heroines are almost the most theatrical, and they sparkle like diamonds on a strict diadem performance. Their similarity causes a curious effect, not direct, but emotional, just as the connection between their destinies is relatively understandable: one way or another offended by their husbands, suffering, but proud. One mistress, the other a maid, but the gods decided to laugh at both almost equally. Looking at each other, they are essentially looking into their own reflection. Just like their husbands in a way, equally deceived in the same way. Amazing irony in the game of these twin actresses. Stunning Polina and Ksenia, they are the center of this performance, its core.
Incredibly liked Karen Badalov as Soziya. An amazing comedy role. What a transformation into a funny coward, a sly one, how much plasticity in the movements of this nimble servant! He is absolutely convincing and incredibly charming! He's like...a ferret darting back and forth, not too positive, but overall not bad either. Just a wonderfully played role: so often Sosius is alone on stage, and for a long time alone, but it is incredibly interesting to look at him.
The rest of the roles were played no less professionally and efficiently, but did not make such a strong impression.
Of course, this is a performance-application. Delightful, smart, original: such a boring classic and not a classic at the same time. In this production, a foreign hand is definitely felt, but a lot depends on the actors. I advise you to convincingly look at "Amphitrion". It's really great.
