"The Good Man of Sezuan." Yuri Butusov

Igor Merkulov

The play is a parabola by Bertolt Brecht,

Actors and performers:

Annotation for the play "The Good Man from Sesuan" based on the play by Bertolt Brecht

Written in the 30s of the last century, the play has long become a world classic and a kind of measure of the readiness of the theater and its public to comprehend the original philosophy of the author. The most famous theaters in the world did not bypass this play with their attention. In Russia, in the 60s, the Lyubimov Taganka Theater announced its birth by staging this particular play. In 2013, the Moscow theater named after. Pushkin surprised and delighted the capital's theater-goers with a new interpretation of Brecht's "Kind Man ...". This year, Kaliningraders will be able to form their own opinion about Brecht's dramaturgy and evaluate its reading by the director and actors of our theater.

The action takes place in China, in the non-existent city of Sichuan invented by Brecht (Sezuan is in the European reading). The main character is a priestess of love, a kind, trusting woman who finds a completely unusual way to protect herself from the evil world and evil people. Will she succeed? The viewer will have to find the answer to this question.

This is the story of a woman and her love, but our performance is not a melodrama. This is a story about a non-existent world and its heroes, but our performance is not fantasy. This is a story about spiritual torment and search, but our performance is not a classic drama. In this story, you will visit the court, but this is not a detective story. What kind of Brechtian story will be in our performance, only one person now knows - its director Igor Merkulov, who specially came from Moscow to stage this play.

According to the sketches of the production designer Vladimir Pavlyuk (St. Petersburg), the theater workshops have already begun to create a colorful world on the stage, permeated with Chinese aesthetics. The scenery and costumes are bright, elegant, exotic for the European eye, and worthy of becoming an object of special attention of the public in their own right. A very important topic is the music of the performance. There will be a lot of it - classical works of Paul Dessau for this play, vocal singing, national Chinese melodies and even rock.

There is a big and very interesting work of the whole theater to create a new performance. You have the opportunity to evaluate it personally on February 28, March 1 and 7 at the premiere shows.

03/07/2015 Were at the play "The Good Man from Sezuan". The first act barely sat through. Very delayed. From the second, they left. The storyline itself is interesting, but the staging is a mess. The acting was very disappointing. They played sluggishly, you can even compare it with an "artistic circle". Everyone was on stage on his own, and not in one performance. I did not like the costumes, a lot of modern fabrics were used, although the epoch of the last century was displayed in the performance. The songs were sung very loudly and the microphone phoned. It is unfortunate that a trip to the theater left a negative impression on this performance. Perhaps the directors of the performance and the actors will create a more pleasant impression of the performance in the future.

[email protected] Filippov Ilya ( [email protected] )

I went to the play "The Good Man from Sezuan" on March 7th.

Alexander

Good man and Sezuana. Briefly about the play: Genre Parabola - the geometry of eternal movement: the outcome-existence-return. Ideally, to a height not less than the starting point of the movement. But this is ideal. More often than not, it's the other way around. Unfortunately, "Kind Man" is from the "most often" cohort. Unfortunately, the performance didn't go well. Of course, this is my personal opinion. And these lines are with sincere love for our theatre. Metaphysics of design. “What kind of power is this, forever striving for evil and always doing good?” - so or almost so asks the great Goethe. An existential paradox with no solution. Neither "positive" nor "negative". The idea, you see, is non-trivial. How to convey the inseparability of "good" and "evil" by means of art? Reception is known - a split personality. Transcendence in sunglasses. Heroes "from eternity", such as, for example, the gods, certainly need the appropriate attributes. How to show "eternity" in theatrical ways? For example, the imposition of costumes of one era on the costumes of another era. Main character. There are three Marina Jungans in the Kaliningrad Drama Theater: 1. Photo in the foyer. 2. The main character in "The Good Man" 3. Alter ego Shen De - Shoi Da. There is only one question - why was she “forced” to walk with an absurd “male” gait with torticollis? Dear Natalia Sales. Her temperament and thirst for life-play is such that it is high time for the theater to stage The Idiot or The Karamazovs, even if only specifically for it. Annoying inconsistencies. Mostly explainable and easily fixable. The costumes and stage are magnificent, amazing! The stage setting is beyond praise.

Svetlana

Amendment to Alexey's review dated 03/03/2015 at 01:18. You wrote so much positive (I don’t agree with you in many ways, but this is a personal opinion that will still remain with each of us) about the actresses in the play “The Good Man from Cezuan”, not even knowing that Sh. was played by Maria Savelyeva, and not Anastasia Bashkina (

kath [email protected] Katerina ( [email protected] )

My husband and I went to the premiere of "The Good Man of Cezuan" on Sunday. I don't understand why there are so many positive reviews? We can hardly wait for the end of the first act! They just ran away! If THIS is called acting?! Then I don’t know .. Some kind of booth. The only thing that was pleasing to the eye was the scenery. And this cabaret girl? From her screams and singing, her ears were pawned. Dancing out of sync, incomprehensible costume changes, and what are these "Gods" worth?! Waste of money and time! It's sad to call it theater!

Vladimir

The play is a kind man from CESOUAN. I did not get anything. True, the wife is satisfied - Beautiful,

Thanks to the actors and the theater for the new premiere, "The Good Man from Cezuan". It was interesting to me, I read Brecht at the philological faculty at the university, I didn’t think that it was we who dared to put it on. The conflict of cultures is very interesting. Very colorful and, of course, non-standard. Of the actors, the performers of the roles of the Water Carrier and the Pilot were especially impressed, beautiful dances and costumes.

Vasily Alekseevich

I do not like to write reviews, especially for performances, the impression of which should be subjective. But in the case of the play "The Good Man from Cezuan", I will not answer anyone's question whether to go to it or not. The fact is that the production caused me very strange ambivalent feelings. On the one hand, I saw a very beautiful performance, stop the action at any moment, there will be a great shot. The actors have chic costumes, excellent make-up, some actors seem to be real Chinese. But on the other hand, it is not clear why, some of the actors begin to change into more modern clothes already from 20-30 minutes of action. The idea of ​​the creators of the performance here is most likely in an attempt to get away from specifics and direct reference to the place of events, because those who are familiar with Brecht's play know that China, where the action supposedly takes place, is a very conditional place. This is such an attempt to approach the parable. Also, the authors clearly wanted to show that even the Gods are moving away from the eternal towards modernity and manufacturability. But why do costumes change gradually and not for everyone? The idea is logical, interesting, but somehow ill-conceived. On the one hand, good actors play, I saw them in the latest productions of the drama theater, but here they seem to be in the wrong place, and for this you don’t believe almost anyone. I am extremely far from the work of the director and the choice of people for certain roles, but at least the replacement of the actress who plays the main Shin De with the actress who plays her alter ego looks very obvious (and we discussed with a large group of acquaintances during the intermission of these actresses, we really like them, and everyone agreed in the same opinion). And the actresses are not offended, both roles are the main ones. And the performance gets a fragile, gentle, kind girl in the form of Bashkina Anastasia (a man's jacket on her, by the way, would also look cool) and sexy defiant Marina Yungans as a screaming alter ego. By the way, as for the main characters, why did they make a water carrier out of our beloved Maxim Patserin - a stuttering half-wit. His character in the book was normal and did not stutter (or am I confusing something?). There are dances in the performance, which is great, they give the action even more colors and variety, especially with umbrellas. They could smooth out some of the roughness and imperfections of the performance, but they immediately became another "imperfection" themselves. Why are the dances not staged. It can be seen that they wanted to use elements of Chinese dance, it turned out a lot (as it seemed to me - it didn’t seem to a professional), but why aren’t the couples simply arranged around the stage? The actors interfered with each other, clustered together. The feeling that the artists simply did not mark the points on the stage. In general, duality and ambiguity in everything, except for the duality that Brecht put into his work. After all, the main problem that is clearly raised in the work is the problem of two people who live inside each of us, how to be good and tough, try to be fair, but do as your heart tells you. I didn’t see the tragedy, I just looked at a certain set of sketches ... with a very beautiful picture. There is no integrity from the performance, but at the same time, the picture with the rain was reproduced in the eyes of the whole evening and the next day. In any case, thanks a lot.

No. 14. Pushkin Theatre. The Good Man from Sesuan (Berthold Brecht). Dir. Yuri Butusov.

Breakers of the fourth wall.

"Help!" (the last remark of the good man Shen Te).

Drama Theater named after A.S. Pushkin with a “simple and modest facade” looks like an inconspicuous hard worker in an old dusty robe, at whom the broad-shouldered big man of the Moscow Art Theater named after M.V. M. Gorky, whose brown double-breasted suit is respectable and solid. On the left, on the shoulder of a modest Russian genius, Gorky the old man is leaning, already in a friendly mood - a lot has been experienced together with his neighbor, the T-shirt of the Literary Institute is yellow and in places worn to holes. Inside the theater is good-natured and relaxes with nostalgic Soviet nirvana. The corridors are somewhat confusing (the building was rebuilt many times), the buffet climbed high, to the 3rd floor, but did not become arrogant and remained democratic. As always, there are a lot of women, predatory looking at themselves in the mirrors with their husbands trailing behind. Some of the young beauties look bold and defiant, such a place in the club. The hall is modest in size, but cozy.

Yuri Butusov begins to embody the ideas of the epic theater of Bertolt Brecht even before the start of the performance - the curtain is raised and the audience watches an open stage devoid of scenery, only chairs are placed, with actors resting in the depths; in the twilight one can see a bare brick backdrop - the absence of scenery is one of the principles of such a tetra, because an illusory recreation of the environment is unacceptable, only the most characteristic strokes and signs of place and time are appropriate. Rehearsing musicians look out from behind the side wings, there are four of them: a synthesizer, violin, clarinet, drums - music is given a special place, this is one of the most effective elements of the performance. The very setting of the play takes place in the distant Chinese province of Sichuan, which is a technique of alienation, a way to present the phenomenon from an unexpected side. The acting of the Butusovs is bright, rich, emotional and necessarily personal, this is a method of distancing that allows the actor to express his attitude towards the character. At the very beginning of the performance, the water carrier Wang addresses directly to the auditorium, to the viewer, this is called “destruction of the fourth wall”, i.e. an invisible wall between the actor and the viewer, forcing the latter to believe more deeply and immerse himself in what is happening. A separate word about "zongs" - ballads close to jazz rhythm, parodic, grotesque nature, containing caustic satire and criticism of society, tearing the fabric of the usual course of theatrical action and enhancing the effect of alienation, which are performed by actors live in German, and the translation is carried out in bright red line at the back of the stage.

A play-parabola (a work close to a parable gravitating towards a symbol) by Bertolt Brecht, a German playwright, poet, prose writer, theatrical figure, art theorist, "The Good Man from Cezuan" is one of the most striking embodiments of his theory of the "epic" theater, which he opposed "psychological" theater of Stanislavsky. The plot is quite simple - the Gods descend to earth to fulfill the decree: the world can remain as it is if there are enough people worthy of the title of man. The gods are trying to find at least one kind person who will agree to let them spend the night. With great effort, one is searched for, it turns out to be a prostitute Shen Te. After meeting the gods and receiving a gift from them and the subsequent acquisition of a tobacco shop, her life changes dramatically and she, a kind woman, turns out to be completely defenseless in front of people. Tests with money and love begin. The gods are closely watching what is happening, arguing among themselves. In order to somehow survive, the soft and kind Shen Te has to reincarnate in her alter ego, the tough and pragmatic cousin Shui Ta. As a result, the Gods remain satisfied with Shen Te and leave the earth, despite her complete confusion from the experience and self-doubt.

Shen Te, performed by Alexandra Ursulyak, who received the “Theater Star” in the nomination “Best Actress” for her role, Butusov is rude and vulgar at first, she loudly throws desperate remarks in a hoarse and smoky voice, but thanks to trials she changes, spiritualizes, becomes calm and sincere , notices the romantic, the clothes brighten, she is "cleansed". Metamorphoses with the transformation into Shui Ta occur openly, it immediately becomes clear that the "sister" and "brother" are actually the same person, although you do not immediately guess this from the text. The poor freeloaders, who tightly sat on the neck of a kind woman, are shown as stylishly dressed, self-confident people, singing and dancing in sync to jazz, they are all at the same time against Shen Te, who gives them food. The ragamuffins are delightfully impudent, self-confident, merrily and with pleasure mock and scoff at Shen Te, who feeds them with the last crumbs. It's a whole sabbath. God at Butusov is indicated by a dotted line - he is more present and contemplates. He is one and represented as a woman. Pilot Yang Sun at first looks like a frivolous blockhead, and not a burnt scoundrel.

Butusov creates the story of a kind person masterfully applying the ideas of Brecht - minimalism and lightness are visible in everything, but this is not “emptiness”, the director intensively fills the vacuum with creative finds and from the first minute the performance absorbs the viewer, it becomes irrevocably interesting. And how brilliantly the tobacco factory is depicted with a minimum of funds: it is enough to arrange a waterfall of cigarette packs, add workers rhythmically throwing sacks to a jazz rhythm, put a singing and dancing hero in front of them and end with a monologue told to the viewer from a stranger's face against the background of a projection of a soaring silhouette of a relaxed person. Here it is the embodied magic, theatrical magic, beauty. Simply breathtaking! A special dramatic effect is given by live music and the performance of zongs by the actors - goosebumps appear on the skin, confirming that music is one of the main secrets. Numerous interludes complement what is happening, images projected on the back, complementing the impact, the actors do not stand still, but often move along with the music, a slightly hooligan atmosphere is created, saturated with energy, slightly crazy farce with black humor hidden in the dusk. The actors are emotional and not shy, they speak with anguish, but this only makes them sincere, they definitely believe in what they are playing, this is also one of the secrets of success. At some moments, the hall just freezes along with the actors, empathizing with what is happening. You can hear them say “Cool!” from behind.

Masterfully using these "hooks", Butusov achieves a cumulative effect and simply strikes sparks from the air - not a stone is left unturned from the notorious fourth wall. At the end of the performance, the audience rises and gives a standing ovation. Here it is: "purification of the spirit with the help of fear and compassion, as the goal of the tragedy"! Like Brecht, Butusov does not answer the questions posed in the play, but simply reveals the contradictions that exist in life. In Brecht, even the Gods look confused. What can we say about people...

Good man from Sesuan. Moscow Taganka Theater. 1964

The Good Man from Sesuan (Bertolt Brecht)
Theater name: Moscow Taganka Theater Genre: Parable-play Premiere: 1964
Duration: 02:46:59
Author: Bertolt Brecht Director: Yuri Lyubimov
Music: Anatoly Vasiliev, Boris Khmelnitsky
Translation from German by Y. Yuzovsky and E. Ionova, verses translated by B. Slutsky

Add. Information: The performance, which began the history of the theater.
The premiere took place on April 23, 1964.
Grand Prix of the International Theater Festival in Greece 1999
Videotape - October 2010

Fragment of the play "The Good Man from Sezuan"

The Good Man from Sezuan with Vysotsky at the Taganka Theatre.

Fragments of the play "The Good Man from Sezuan"

Fragment of the first part of the documentary trilogy "Theatrical etude on Taganskaya themes".
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Saint Never Day Vladimir Vysotsky

Włodzimierz Wysocki - Pieśni [songs]. Więcej o Wołodii na mojej stronie http://www.vysotsky.neostrada.pl/ [Lyrics: Bertolt Brecht]
Words: B. Brecht, music. A.Vasiliev and B.Khmelnitsky. Performed in the play "The Good Man from Cezuan".

On this day, evil is taken by the throat,
On this day, everyone is lucky
Both the owner and the laborer all march together to the tavern,
On Saint's Day, the skinny one never drinks at the fat one's house.

The river rolls its waters back,
Everyone, brother, is kind, you don’t hear about the evil ones,
On this day, everyone rests, and no one urges -
On the day of the saint Never the whole earth, like paradise, is fragrant.

On this day you will be a general, ha ha!
Well, I would fly that day.
In [....], you will find peace,
On the day of Saint Never, woman, you will find peace.

We can no longer wait
That's why they must give us, yes, give:
people of hard work
Saint Never Day, Saint Never Day
The day we will rest!

The legendary performance of the Taganka Theatre. This is not a review of the performance, but rather an attempt to declare love for the legendary performance.
For me, acquaintance with began with this performance. It so happened that it was from him. It was back in 1986. Then the Taganka Theater played performances on two stages: the New and the Old. At that time, the old stage was closed for repairs, and all performances were on the New Stage of the Theatre. The theater was directed by a remarkable and legendary director of the 20th century. Old performances by Y. Lyubimov and new performances by A. Efros were simultaneously running at the theater. Interestingly, the programs for the performances did not indicate who the director, the artist of the performance was. For the first time I saw the play "The Good Man from Sezuan" on the New Stage of the Theater (in three more acts).
What I saw in 1986, for me then still a young man, was a real discovery, a breakthrough in my knowledge of theatrical art. The performance, which has already passed 22 years, was probably also childishly fresh and pure, as in the days of the premiere student performances. Immediately struck and made me fall in love with the successful harmony of the performance: the music (and always live), a single team of actors, successful scenography. The performance lived on the stage, which is extremely rare in theaters today (continuous existence and serving a performance). With all this, it seems to me that Y. Lyubimov successfully came up with a stage form for presenting the dramaturgy of B. Brecht. This is a grotesque, which skillfully bordered on light buffoonery. Quick and skillful transition from funny to tragic and vice versa. Plus a direct appeal to the audience, ie. the desire somewhere to voice as much as possible, to convey the problems expressed in the play, were solved by Yu. Lyubimov as the actor’s rapid exit from the stage image into the image of a person from the author, a person from the podium (orator). This combination gave such a strong emotional discharge to the audience that it could not leave the audience indifferent to what was happening.
I always remember those chords at the beginning of the performance, when all the actors jump out onto the stage to pronounce the prologue to the performance. The prologue sets the tone for the entire play. And then the performance began. The performance swept by so fast that while watching it, you always had the feeling that you yourself were a living participant in this story. Even at this performance, for the first time I felt the harmony between the auditorium and the stage. I've heard a lot about this before, but I've never experienced it myself. But it's interesting that I was struck by a performance of just such an unusual, innovative form. I had seen many performances of the classical form before him, but none of them stuck with me for a long time. But as they say, it is in classical performances that it is possible to make the hall control, to subjugate it to oneself. And here is the harmony of the name of the whole performance, I emphasize everything, and the auditorium.
After many years, I return to it again and again. And again and again I feel the feeling that I experienced at the first viewing of the play. This is my performance. He sits in me. And every time I want to return to it again and again. Perhaps I have the right to say so. The performance gives me an emotional and vital charge for a long time, until the next viewing. This is a play about sadness, human lies, joy and life's truth. We must live and love. And be able to forgive, and not look for right and wrong. Life strives, but questions remain eternal. But less and less real people solve them. That's what this performance is about, about life's eccentrics.
To date, I have seen the play six times. I always try to take my friends and relatives with me to this performance. Someone likes him, someone ends his relationship with Taganka, but the problems that are raised in the play are still built into them. At least for a while.
Now about those who once played in the play, i.e. actors that I have seen. Names: (inimitable voice timbre, conveying the depth of feelings and compressed nerves), (sensitive and sincere water carrier Wang, saw his short new return to the play), (evil and selfish Yang Sun), (here is the naive and simple water carrier Wang) , (unsurpassed and inimitable Mi Tqi, landlady), (sincere and honest carpenter Ling Tuo with beautiful and clear eyes),

Yuri Butusov staged a performance based on the play by Bertolt Brecht, adjusted to the point of gesture, frightening and beautiful in its certainty.

For the sake of a social experiment, he imagined himself a god capable of teaching people how to get out of poverty - the causes of all evil on earth. And he composed a parable: the Chinese gods were ready to forgive mankind if they could find at least one good person. Pretending to be beggars, the three of them descended into Sezuan, starving from crop failure, where they met a kind prostitute, Shen Te, who let them under her roof. So the gods put all the responsibility on her: they say, come on, hurry to do good, and we'll see. Shen Te diligently began to distribute rice to the hungry, shelter to the homeless, until both sat on her head in unison. Then her second “I” woke up in a kind woman - a tough and resourceful businessman Shui Ta, who began to exploit and profit from this lumpen.

“Distributing or exploiting” is not at all the problem that worries who put “The Good Man from Sezuan” in. Is good possible today? How can a person who is not indifferent to others survive? And is love now primarily vulnerability?

The director, together with co-author-scenographer Alexander Shishkin, stripped the stage naked, turning it into a huge dark world, pulsing with flashes of harsh light and the rhythms of Paul Dessau's electronic music performed by the Pure Music ensemble. Here, nothing has a cover: in a bare box without walls, the door does not close anyone from anyone, the unmade iron bed stands as if in a ditch, the trees hang without foliage. The inhabitants, in order to at least hide behind something, turn themselves into masks, grotesque and one-dimensional. So, the brutal actor Alexander Matrosov, in front of the audience, turns into a weak fool - the water seller Wang. When people lose their words due to impotence or rage, they begin to chant-sing Zongs in German, which sounds tough, demanding and beautiful. And into this world, Butusov releases a lonely God - a fragile, bloody leg in search of a kind person, a silent girl (). And she meets the lonely and fragile Shen Te () exhausted by other people's desires. And they both decide to love their neighbors.

Ursulyak plays Shen Te, who doesn't turn into Shui Ta for a minute. But when despair rises in her throat, she allows herself to put on the mask of a cynical pragmatist (simply sticks a paper mustache and sideburns on herself) so that she has the strength to say no. And in the mask of evil, she continues to distribute the wealth he has acquired to those in need. Distribute anonymously, not out of modesty, but so as not to reveal the secret and ruin a good deed. Strolling like a little gentleman wrapped in a scarf, she hides all the same suffering eyes under her frowning brows. Shen Te, even for a moment, is still allowed happiness: she loves an unemployed pilot, handsome Yang Sun, and hears his reciprocal confessions. And Shui Ta is forced to listen to the impudent revelations of his beloved, who, it turns out, only needs money. Alexander Arsentiev is the only one who plays Young without a mask, because his egoism is so natural.

After a frivolous, excessive and driving in, he staged a performance, adjusted to a gesture, frightening and beautiful in its certainty, throwing a kind person onto the stage, as if onto a red-hot roof. But Alexandra Ursulyak plays Shen Te without fear of getting burned.

Photo by Sergey Petrov