Brusnikin's theatrical universe. Theater on Malaya Bronnaya

The performance "Brothers and Sisters" of the St. Petersburg Maly Drama Theater of Lev Dodin was held last week in Stary Oskol as part of the project "The Best Performances in Russian Cities" by Alisher Usmanov.

In 2000, the play "Brothers and Sisters" entered the top five performances of the twentieth century. It was shown in 52 cities around the world, including New York and Paris. The performance employs forty people, all leading artists, including folk and honored ones.

On the eve of the performance, the actors met with journalists and answered several questions.

What is the uniqueness of the play "Brothers and Sisters" and how difficult is it to stage in such small towns as Stary Oskol?

Dina Dodina: - "Brothers and Sisters" is the heart around which the Maly Drama Theater was formed. Fate gave the actors and Lev Dodin a meeting with the writer Fedor Abramov, they went to see him in the Arkhangelsk region, in the very village about which the novel “Brothers and Sisters” was written. The performance is large, complex, dedicated to the war and post-war years. This is a performance-universe. It is also about you and me, about our fathers and grandfathers, a performance that is watched from St. Petersburg to Japan.

- "Brothers and Sisters" - 25 years. What is the secret of the performance's creative longevity?

Natalia Fomenko: - We started playing when we were just over twenty, and now we have outgrown our characters twice. The magic of this performance is that it carries a charge of vital energy from the artists themselves, and the director Lev Dodin, and the author of the novel Fyodor Abramov. It is this combination that gives the energy of life to this performance. We play different performances in different cities and in front of different audiences, but the feeling of unity between the artists and the audience in this particular performance is simply unique.

The play premiered in 1985. And so far, the same actors are employed in this performance in the main cast. How is it possible to play the same hero for 25 years?

Peter Semak: - We have been playing for fifteen years, when I said that I would no longer say the phrase "In three weeks I will be eighteen." Then Lev Abramovich told me all the time: “You see, now it’s not clear how old you are.” Problems arose with the understanding that my hero is a teenager. Now I just brazenly say this phrase, and the audience believes. This is the magic of the theatre. You go on stage - and age, fatigue are forgotten, you are completely immersed in that life. Indeed, this is a unique performance that first draws us - the actors, and then the audience.

- Do you like touring? What do they give the actors?

Tatyana Rasskazova: - Air. To bring something to the stage, we have to take it somewhere. Here we also take at you - spectators. Different cities, different speech, different attitude to life. We really enjoy touring.

Peter Semak: - Fifteen years ago we played this performance in Lyon. And so, at the end of the first act, I go into the aisle of the auditorium. And the French jumped up, hugged and said: "Russian, don't cry." And I cried even more.

You can’t take pictures of the performance itself, so I took some pictures at the rehearsal. By the way, the six-hour performance consists of two parts and goes on two evenings in a row.

Petr Semak has been playing eighteen-year-old Mikhail Pryaslin for 25 years

Pyotr Semak arrived in Stary Oskol with a high temperature, so part of the rehearsal in the role of Pryaslin was actor Vladimir Zakhariev.

In just one night, the Corporate Communications Department of OEMK OJSC (part of Alisher Usmanov's Metalloinvest holding) prepared and donated to the troupe of the St. Petersburg Academic Maly Drama Theater - Theater of Europe an album with photographs of the tour in Stary Oskol, which included these pictures.

Life changes, we change too. And each reassessment of values ​​occurs depending on the individual vision of life prospects. Not always the way Nietzsche wrote about it. In transitional or crisis stages of life, people seek salvation in art. For some, on the contrary, art itself becomes the starting point for the revaluation of their own rules of life.

About which performances help with the passage of difficult stages in life and which theatrical heroes will show the way in the correct development of new life roles by their own example - in my new selection.

Illusions (Moscow Art Theater named after Chekhov), director Viktor Ryzhakov

Have you ever thought that our world will still not be perfect, no matter how hard we strive to make it so? When you come to the performance of "Illusions" at the Moscow Art Theater, it seems that all your thoughts have been transferred to the stage. Here, it would seem, is the ideal relationship, the kind that we dream of all our lives. We call them fantasy and secretly hope that we will be lucky too. And in one second, our ideals on the stage are broken into provocations, intrigues and betrayals, in which the viewer becomes a direct participant.

On the stage of the main drama theater of the country, two blocks unite - a modern playwright and former artistic director of Praktika, master of the theater of complicity Ivan Vyrypaev and artistic director of the TsIM, a titled innovative director who knows the audience better than they do, Viktor Ryzhakov. Dmitry Brusnikin and Igor Zolotovitsky play in the performance, who bake a real biscuit cake right on the stage, the almond-chocolate aroma of which spreads right up to the wardrobe of the Small Stage.

"Illusions" at the Moscow Art Theater is a performance that takes place not on the stage, but in the hall in the heart of every viewer, who from the first minutes falls in love with the characters and empathizes with them as if they were family.

Ordinary Story (Gogol Center), directed by Kirill Serebrennikov

People come to Goncharov's "An Ordinary Story" as a program work, which, moreover, was staged by Kirill Serebrennikov with an elevated, ceremonial mood, but they leave the performance, which turned out to be a satirical mystery, a little lost. Here, too, there is a place for illusions that break - perhaps like dishes, or perhaps to smithereens, so that we become callous and draw conclusions.

Serebrennikov transferred the plot from 19th-century Petersburg to the modern Moscow whirlpool. The capital here is a black hole that disfigures everyone who falls into it. Here, the main element of the scenery is Goncharov's three "O", which, as the plot develops, we cease to perceive as letters and see zeros in them.

The younger Aduev (Philip Avdeev) will come to his uncle Peter (Aleksey Agranovich) as a young and inspired rocker from the provinces, and by the end of the performance, a reassessment of values ​​​​will occur in his head and he will kill everything alive in himself for the sake of success and money. For him, a crisis is a choice at the crossroads of opportunities: which way to go so as not to lose yourself. He begins to think about what he really wants from life and what life will require of him in return.

For today, this is really an ordinary story, and as proof - the new attitude of Alexander Aduev, so fashionable today: "No one owes anything to anyone." But will the Aduevs always think that new false values ​​are happiness, or will karma and disappointment overtake the heroes?

"Hidden Perspectives" (Contemporary), directed by Evgenia Arie

Another performance of Sovremennik, where Chulpan Khamatova shines, this time about how the life of a peaceful person changes in peacetime, but through the fault of war. Sarah (Chulpan) is a military photojournalist who, while doing her job, was blown up by a mine. She's post-coma, her hair is short from recent chemotherapy. Sarah can only fall asleep with the help of a handful of sleeping pills and antidepressants, but even they do not save her from pangs of conscience. Working in hot spots, she daily touches death: she is under the target, she hears the groans of the wounded and the silence of the dead. Sarah's mission is not to help them, but to be an observer, to take pictures, to convey the truth to others. Is it a feat: to watch how children are killed, but not to interfere at the same second? These thoughts cannot but excite Sarah. And in the head of the viewer who watches Margulis's play "Time stands still", there is a short film "One Hundredth of a Second" - about journalists in the war, which became the winner of the Manhattan Film Festival in 2007.

Katerina Izmailova (Bolshoi Theatre), director Rimas Tuminas

For many, a reassessment of values ​​occurs immediately after they first enter the Historical Stage of the Bolshoi Theatre, but if this reassessment is rather material, then a reassessment of family and personal values ​​will come after watching Katerina Izmailova.

Rimas Tuminas so unusually shifted "Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District" into a certain German-Lithuanian way that Leskov's complex narrative style begins to look fresh and relevant. The large-scale production is a resounding success with the public and critics and has been nominated for so many theater awards that La La Land never dreamed of. Perhaps this sinful woman is simply close to the Russian audience, who preferred blinding passion to the rules of a reliable Domostroy?

The Passenger (New Opera), directed by Sergei Shirokov

Passenger - an opera statement about the Holocaust. We will see the history of the concentration camp here from two opposing sides: prisoners and overseers. The viewer absolutely understands the tragedy of the prisoner. But the position of the overseer, who continues to be sincerely convinced even after the war that her actions were a just cause, leads the viewer into a dead end. At first, the overseer was carried away by the rapid rise through the ranks of murders, and now she is trying to explain that she killed for justice.

The full effect of immersion in the tragedy of sick psychology is created thanks to modern visual effects by the artist Larisa Lomakina, known to the general public for her work on the performances of Konstantin Bogomolov. Larisa literally takes the viewer either to the cool deck of the liner, or to the gloomy, damp fascist prisons, or inside the Yad Vashem memorial.

The fundamental work on the costumes was carried out by Igor Chapurin. One can only guess how morally difficult it is to create costumes of concentration camp prisoners for the stage. The opera by Moses Weinberg, a student of Shostakovich, staged by television director Sergei Shirokov is the brightest event of the new theatrical season.

"Sasha, take out the trash" (TsIM), directed by Viktor Ryzhakov

3 nominations for the "Golden Mask" and another work by Viktor Ryzhakov with modern dramaturgy. This play was written by the Ukrainian playwright Natalya Vorozhbit recently, during the years of the fratricidal war, which took away the breadwinner from the family of the main characters. The wife and pregnant daughter were left all alone. But this year without a man will change their view of life. The waves of mobilization in Ukraine are not decreasing, and it seems that even fallen soldiers are being called up. But what if a fallen father and husband are called? For the audience, this is mysticism, but for the heroines, it is reality. Are they ready to relive the nerves of war and face the death of a loved one again?

The performance of a small form was created with elements of immersion, when the audience feels at the same time on the stage, and at a steep cliff, and in a narrow gap, and in the Ukrainian kitchen, where there is freshly brewed borscht. In "Illusions" (Moscow Art Theater named after Chekhov), Svetlana Ivanova-Sergeeva plays a woman who has lost her husband, who bakes a pie for the whole performance. In "Sasha" in the TsIM - a woman who has lost her husband, who greets the audience with borscht. And these are two completely different images of one actress, each of which makes you think about love, life, duty, honesty and eternity.

"Rabbit Hole" (Theater on Malaya Bronnaya), directed by Sergei Golomazov

Although Nastasya Samburskaya is involved in the performance, its title is not a reference to the "rabbit holes" from the later versions of the Sims game, but a reminiscence from Carroll's book "Alice in Wonderland".

How deep is the Rabbit Hole on Malaya Bronnaya? In the play by David Lindsey-Abeir, a tragedy unfolds that cannot be survived: a mother loses her child. The crisis in her life is painful. But it does not mean a dead end. After all, the psychological drama of Golomazov is a performance in which we shed a sea of ​​tears in order to experience enlightenment at the end and understand that you can find the strength to cope with any grief in life, even when the person is no longer around.

Yulia Peresild plays the main role in the play. She, of course, will not give the viewer a clear plan on how to cope with the horrors of fate, but will teach you to be free in your grief and suggest that everyone has the right to choose how to cope with a personal apocalypse. Leaving the hall, a person realizes: if you suffer, do not make others around you suffer, they have their own misfortunes, which they may be silent about.

Each of these performances helps to look at the world from a new angle. As Robin Williams' character said in Dead Poets Society: "I stood on the table to remind myself to look at things from different points of view. From here, the world seems completely different. If you don't believe me, try it yourself."

Lisa Lerner– theater columnist, blogger, creator of original lectures on the history of theater in Russia and abroad.

Text: Alexandra Gorelay

Brusnikins are a real phenomenon of the Russian theatrical world. Actually, anyone who graduated from the Moscow Art Theater School with Dmitry Brusnikin can be called this name: this is Alexandra Ursulyak, and Daria Moroz, and Sergey Lazarev. However, today the Brusnikins are also a fashionable theatrical trend, "a troupe that can do anything." They released more than 10 productions, staged performances and composed street performances. WATCH met with their "father" - Dmitry Brusnikin, a director, actor and screenwriter with an unusually warm voice, who calls his students only colleagues and plans a new revolution - theater without an artistic director.

In one of the interviews, you once said that Dmitry Kravtsov dragged you to the audition, then you went to theater schools for a bet and unexpectedly entered, studying at the same time at the Institute of Physics and Technology. That is, the theater was not a conscious choice, but a coincidence?

Probably yes. In my family there was no tradition, environment. Dad was in the military and we traveled a lot. So, I was born in Potsdam, and finished school in Klin. Then there was a fashion for physicists, and I entered the Institute of Electronic Technology. He began to go to theaters with friends of his older brother, knew the entire repertoire of Taganka and accidentally contracted the theater bacillus. Nevertheless, there was no desire in my head to drastically change my life. Getting into the theater and becoming an artist seemed something unattainable! Therefore, it was more like a game moment - "let's take a chance, sing something, play."

In June of this year, the Praktika Theater abandoned its unified artistic leadership and announced the creation of a residence. And for the current year, your Workshop has been chosen as residents. What is this format? And what are your expectations from it?

I have only good expectations. We have been cooperating for a long time with Ivan Vyrypaev and Yuri Milyutin, the current director of Praktika. The directorate and administration of the theater do not interfere in the creative life of the Workshop and deal only with production and organizational issues. We come up with projects and implement them. If the theater sees an economic opportunity and financial feasibility, then it cooperates with us, if not, we stay within the Workshop and look for other venues and formats. In addition to us, there is also, for example, the Workshop of Oleg Lvovich Kudryashov. It will be great if the "Practice" becomes a stage for such formations. There are many creative and talented people, but there are very few places for the implementation of their creative experiments. There are only two theatrical centers in huge Moscow: the Center. Meyerhold and the Theater Center "On Strastnoy". Moscow theaters, with all due respect and desire to help the Workshop as a young organism, cannot do this - it is economically unprofitable for them to let them on their stages, and we cannot afford to pay rent. Therefore, such institutions and formats are very much needed, this is a revolutionary breakthrough. Because the practice of an artistic director, who takes everything under control and does not let anyone go anywhere, is a thing of the past. Such theaters are actually dead.

The theater does not stand still, something experimental appears all the time. What is modern theater like? What opportunities do you see in him as a director?

The theater is different. And his possibilities are endless. It is impossible to convey its essence in one word. This is a serious and long conversation with detailed examples, analysis of directors and theatrical trends, with a description of the new role of the artist. If earlier there was just a graphic designer, now the artist is a creative unit, which often outstrips the significance of the director. He is a theater philosopher. It is the artists who allow themselves new formats and new ideas. See how interesting the theater is developing in terms of finding space. The latest magazine "Teatr", for example, is completely devoted to this topic. Directors leave traditional scenes, move to factories and parking lots. And this is not to shock the public, this is how the search for language and contact in the modern world is being carried out.

What are your creative plans for the new theater season? I heard that performances based on Viktor Pelevin and Ivan Vyrypaev are being planned.

In less than a month, we will start rehearsals of the premiere in "Practice" - this is Maxim Didenko's production of "Chapaev and the Void" based on Viktor Pelevin. Maxim is putting on a performance with the Workshop, maybe even I will play there. In addition, the Foundation for Contemporary Art organizes the Play of the Year competition, in a month we will be reading three winning plays in the Boyar Chambers, and I do not exclude that one of them will later be included in the repertoire of the Practice. We also continue experiments in the field of modern drama, we are in contact with all festivals.

Everyone is afraid of something: heights, death, not having time to realize their dreams. What are you afraid of?

You know, this is not an interview question - the topic of fear is deep and serious. What is fear? How does he settle in society, in the country, in the soul of the individual? It seems to me that in the modern world in general, and in our country in particular, there is a lot of fear, and it grows more every day. There is a lot of aggression around, and the answer to aggressive behavior is just fear. What am I afraid of, you ask? I'm afraid of war, and I can say in the words of Volodin's character: "If only there was no war." Today suddenly these words become alive, serious and important. In the post-war period, in the 1950s, this phrase sounded relevant, and people, uttering it, understood how important it was, what content it was filled with. Then another era came: now people have an understanding that war is bad, but somewhere in their memory, it seems that it does not concern them directly. But now fear, the fear of war is becoming our reality again, they are spreading.

You have directed both feature films and series. How different are these formats in terms of perception and operation? Some directors say making a series is hell...

Yes, of course, this is hell, but I take it easy. Although I haven't been taking pictures lately. I used to do it because, firstly, it was interesting, and secondly, I loved and still love working with actors. I do not treat the series as a second-rate art form, but I do not say that it is a masterpiece. Just a kind of training that I'm not ashamed to show to the public. Training of work with an actor of a piece, personal nature. Of course, the series is not an author's film, but it is an artistic craft. And yes, shooting it is a real hell, but it all depends on the attitude, on how to perceive the process. You can just spit and leave, or you can cope with this hell.

What tasks do you, as a teacher, set for the “Brusnikins”? Or do you let the actors set their own tasks?

It is important to understand that I am not alone. I am a student of Oleg Nikolaevich Efremov, Alla Borisovna Pokrovskaya and Andrey Vasilyevich Myagkov. As soon as we finished studying, my teachers called me and Roma Kozak to teach. We became assistants almost immediately, and Marina Brusnikina even earlier - already during the training. Efremov taught us to take responsibility, work with the text, parse, love the theater. And we are his successors, the workshop comes from there. Many of our students, whom we released with Alla Borisovna Pokrovskaya and Roma Kozak, are now the main actors of the Theater. Pushkin. And our other students, the same current Workshop, thanks to which the term “Brusnikinites” appeared, are no longer just masters, but master teachers: Yura Kvyatkovsky, Lesha Rozin, Serezha Shcherin. So, Yura as a director is already a component of the conceptual modern theater. And he is not only my student, he is my colleague, a fully formed author. Why am I talking about such continuity? Because it is important to create an environment and opportunities for the emergence of the author. We have a lot of different experiments, and we often throw ourselves into completely unexplored theatrical paths.

The festival is in full swing now.Territory. How important is the culture of festivals for contemporary theatre?

It's a beautiful story and it needs to be supported because it's essential to be able to watch and communicate in the first place. This is necessary not only for the audience, but also for the theatrical community itself. Unfortunately, because of my “Before and After” performance, I didn’t see anything this time at Territoria and I am very sad about this. But we are pleased with the number of positive reviews that our performance has collected.

When you go on stage as an actor, do you completely become who you play, or are you just yourself? How does the transformation process take place?

You have such interesting questions that I cannot answer in a nutshell. This is a serious and deep topic. Well, how do you say? I am an actor of the art theater and an adherent of the Stanislavsky system. Such words frighten many, and, unfortunately, they have long become a bargaining chip. Nevertheless, this is a wonderful term, it just needs to be understood by people who are engaged in acting, to be reminded that the system is not finished, it develops and changes all the time, just like the person himself changes.

If now you had the opportunity to meet with your past, with the one who was just starting his journey in theater and cinema, what advice would you give yourself?

You know, we are talking a lot about this now just in the context of the performance, which was released jointly with the Artist Charitable Foundation - Before and After. There, sophomores, those who had just entered the profession, met and interviewed people who had lived in it and were already leaving. These are the wards of the fund - elderly actors, artists, directors, costume designers. And there is a dialogue between them. Therefore, your question in this regard is very interesting. I remember myself at that age a lot, albeit with difficulty. And there are many things in the performance that just answer your question, so just come to us and watch - you will learn a lot of interesting things.

Cast: Polina Agureeva.

1 hour 10 minutes

The performance has been withdrawn from the repertoire.

"July" - a performance that has been at the main theater festivals in Europe. The monologue of an elderly cannibal from the lips of the fragile Polina Agureeva turns a frightening text into an almost magical act. According to critics, this is one of Vyrypaev's most powerful texts, with mystical beauty and mesmerizing musicality.

Reviews

"JULY" by Ivan Vyrypaevadirector Viktor Ryzhakov, theater "Practice" and "Movement KISLOROD". Premiere - November 2006. One-man show. Confessions of an elderly maniac-cannibal, in the role of which is the incredible, fantastic Polina Agureeva. Since it's a one-man show and no scenery, it's hard for me to draw a line...

Extremely ambiguous impression. I'll try to sort it out myself. What will be written - I myself do not know yet. Specially "slept" with the impression. So ... What do we have. And we have three colors. Black. White. Scarlet. The blackness of the scene. The blackness of Polina Agureeva’s clothes (“deaf”, completely covering, hiding the fragile ...

An eventful performance is one that even those who have not seen it argue about. There aren't many performances like this. It is believed that there are few, in principle, decent performances - this is also true, but in part: more or less successful productions, after all ...

"July" is firmly stuck in my head, I want to find a meaning, but so far I have not been able to. From the moment of viewing, I retold the content five times to my friends and acquaintances, asking: “What do you think the author wanted to tell us?” Some shrug their shoulders in bewilderment, others...

The heroes of Ivan Vyrypaev live and write to him personally from a psychiatric hospital or go to surrender to a madhouse, killing everyone along the way.
"July" is monstrously, inconceivably ominous. But... The text leaves Polina Agureeva's lips with a mysterious smile, so that when describing the murders and dismemberments, the audience giggles. Some even manage to get some sleep, despite the growing volume and pace of reading. She reads with gusto. Light and smoke is good.

I will only add that the hero (probably the one that the New Drama is looking for) receives the hand and heart of the woman he loves in the literal sense: by killing her, he will take the heart out of his chest, with a brush he will suffer longer to extract it, as he wanted. Before that, he basks in the warm streams of blood of the dismembered and eaten homeless and dogs. It is very difficult to listen to all this, especially to understand what goal the author himself pursues. What did he mean by this?
Tomorrow I will take my soul to the "City of mice".

The idea of ​​Lev Dodin to revive the performance is artistically accurate and noble. We have survived decades of cynicism, outright lies, and this is not over. It is not easy for the new generation to live with the rewriting of history, forgetting its best pages. The return of the performance is a return to the high traditions of the Russian theater with its civic intensity, today expelled from the theater. And this task fell on the actors of a new generation.

Independent newspaper

Lev Dodin restored his legendary play "Brothers and Sisters"

Galina Kovalenko

In terms of the complexity of the mise-en-scene, the work of light, sound, and set design, there is little that can be put next to this production even by Dodin himself. How Eduard Kochergin's grandiose scenography works here, his wooden curtain-platform, birdhouses on long poles, wooden poles-spindles enclosing the stage - live their own separate and meaningful life. How rhythm transitions are built. What a wealth of mise-en-scenes, where life and being overflow into each other, Pekasha's life - into the fate of the people.

New news

"Brothers and Sisters We Loved So Much"

Olga Egoshina

The current youth of the MDT also performed this ritual - they also mowed, sowed, went to logging sites, got acquainted with the prototypes of Abramov's heroes or their relatives. In a word, they experienced everything without which it makes no sense to go on stage in this material. But there is also courage, and a creative itch - otherwise this impossible height cannot be reached. And there is a deep personal need to comprehend our common history and draw the necessary conclusions. And to help make them for those who are just entering life in today's Russia.