M hello to you, dear visitors of the Orthodox island “Family and Faith”!
TO How does Orthodoxy relate to the theater? In ancient times, actors were not even buried in the cemetery. And now how?
D Is the very principle of the game, the acting itself, worthy of condemnation?
TO what is the moral assessment of acting itself: is it not a kind of lie?
E If duplicity is a sin, then does the actor sin, getting used to the role, does he lose his sincerity, and over time, does he cease to be himself?
Archpriest Alexander Lebedev answers:
"IN poll is not easy. Yes, among the church rules there are condemning acting, visiting the theater. For example, a person engaged in this kind of activity, if he wants to become a priest, will have an obstacle to this. Not absolute, but still an obstacle. Even married to an actress has such an obstacle.
But you need to understand that at the time when these rules were approved, the theater was a specific phenomenon and far from coinciding with the theater of Shakespeare and Moliere, Chekhov and Ostrovsky, which we now perceive as classical.
The fact is that in late antiquity (the mentioned rules refer to this time), acting was almost synonymous with debauchery: such were theaters, such were productions, and such was the way of life of actors. The name of the profession of an actress found in the rules eloquently speaks of this: “He who has married a widow or a woman rejected from marriage, or a harlot, or a slave, or a disgrace, cannot be a bishop, neither a presbyter, nor a deacon.” "Disgraceful" here is an actress. The context in which this “disgraceful” is mentioned suggests that public opinion did not assume virginity and chastity in such persons. That is why acting and theater were condemned.
But does this mean that the very principle of the game, the acting itself, is worthy of condemnation? There is no certainty here. It seems that if the theater is cleansed of pagan heritage, then it will cease to be condemned. If Shakespeare and Chekhov are staged on the stage, if moral themes are raised in productions, if the actors play on the stage and not engage in striptease - is there a sin in this or not? More likely no than yes.
However, there remains a doubt about the moral assessment of acting itself: is it not a kind of lie? If duplicity is a sin, then doesn't the actor sin while getting used to the role, does he lose his sincerity, and over time, does he cease to be himself? Of course, there is such a danger, and the danger is serious. It requires a special moral sensitivity from the actor. And understanding the purpose of their work.
The goal of an architect is to build a building, the goal of the workers of a plant or factory is to create a product, the goal of an actor is to create an artistic image. The fact that it is possible to create such images was shown by the Savior by His example. Many such images are contained in the gospel parables, where all the characters and situations are fictitious, however, with the help of fictitious characters, a true image is created: after all, undoubtedly, everything that Christ says is true.
So, it is possible to create artistic images (I include stage ones here as well). But they are created with a specific purpose, and it is the moral assessment of the purpose of creativity that shows which theater is acceptable and which is ungodly.
Taking this opportunity, it is necessary to say about the responsibility of the actor for his work. An artistic image can be extremely durable, have a huge impact on a person, and the actor is responsible for the souls of those who perceive the images he created. How many souls have been ruined and will still be ruined by actors who create the image of "good bandits", showing the attractiveness of vice!
By the way, it will be mentioned that the actor who creates a negative image does not himself avoid the impact of this image. A person is not a pipe, he cannot simply pass through himself a portion of information and sensations and remain the same, he absorbs part of the passing. Therefore, they say, Chaliapin, after each of his performances in the role of Mephistopheles, went to church for confession. He was reprimanded and buried according to the Orthodox order.
On September 10, at the Holy Trinity Sergius Lavra, director Vladimir Khotinenko began filming the film "Heirs", which is dedicated to St. Sergius of Radonezh.
The film has a modern plot - after the celebration of the 700th anniversary of St. Sergius, one of the TV channels collects a talk show dedicated to the St. Sergius.
For filming, people from the church, from politics, etc. are invited. And then the plot unfolds in an unusual way.
It is noteworthy that students of the Moscow Theological Academy took part in the filming of the new film.
Any entry into the role is defined by the Holy Fathers as demonic hypocrisy, forbidden to members of Christ's Church.
In the interpretation of the rules Bishop Nikodim (Milash) it says: "The 24th rule<...>Cathedral<Трулльского>it is forbidden for clergy, under the threat of deposition, to visit theaters and watch theatrical performances; and this rule<51-м>in general, comic, circus and ballet performances are forbidden to Christians; for a transgression against this rule, the cleric is threatened with eruption, and the layman is excommunicated. “Actors and comedians are equated in<...>rule<45-м пр. Карфагенского Собора>to apostates from the Christian faith.
The Holy Fathers of the Church unanimously condemned hypocrisy.
“The theater is the school of this world and the prince of this world - the devil; and he sometimes transforms into an angel of light, in order to more conveniently seduce the short-sighted, sometimes he will, apparently, screw in a moral playlet, so that they repeat, trumpet about the theater, that it is a preposterous thing, and it is worth visiting it no less, and perhaps even more church: because in the church it is the same thing, but in the theater there is a variety of plays, and scenery, and costumes, and actors, ”writes St. rights. John of Kronstadt.
«<Театр>- a school of immorality that can kill the last remnants of morality in a person’s soul, if it exists in him. That's why people now appear - arguing, stubborn, irritable - that they learn morality in theaters, - asserts teacher Ambrose Optinsky.
Sixth Ecumenical Council strictly forbids Christians and clerics from participating in spectacles, both as actors and as spectators. In case of violation of this rule, the laity are excommunicated from the Church, and the clergy are excommunicated from the priesthood.
These strict measures also apply to spectators.
Orthodox Christians, concerned about their own salvation, cannot ignore this teaching of the Holy Fathers. Everything that concerns the theater fully applies to feature films and film actors. For artistic cinema is a technically perfected theatre.
I do not want to condemn anyone, especially perhaps future clergymen, but one cannot remain silent in such cases. The students of the seminary, apparently, do not see a sin in this hypocrisy, since it is associated with the name of St. Sergius and do not attach any importance to this.
But acting cannot be divided into good and bad, just as stealing cannot be divided into good and bad. Sin is sin.
Mikhail Grigoryevich Shchepenko was born in 1945 in Novokuznetsk. Graduated from the Theater School. BV Shchukin and St. Tikhon's Theological Institute. Since 1987, he has been the head of the Russian Drama Theater "Chamber Stage", where he staged over thirty performances. Honored Art Worker of Russia, laureate of the Moscow Prize in Literature and Art (1998) for staging the play Tsar Fyodor Ioannovich. Associate Professor of the Yaroslavl Theater Institute.
There is a fairly stable concept of creating a stage image. I'm talking about the Russian, "heart" school of theatrical art. Let me remind you of some of her messages. You need to "get into the shoes" of your role, Shchepkin said. You need to transform. "I am" - according to Stanislavsky - is a scenic state of identification of oneself and the character. Duality is a property of the acting profession. “I”, a specific person, have a second “I” in myself - an image, and on the stage I exist simultaneously in two hypostases. "Become different, remaining yourself" - a comprehensive formula of acting creativity. “Go from yourself to the image! Go!"
I think that the school of representation, to which Coquelin and Brecht can be attributed, has the same foundations (if this is art!) as the school of experience. Here we are faced with a different distance of the actor's detachment from the image, but the fact of reincarnation, that is, the existence of a second personality in the bowels of the first, is undeniable.
This duality is the sin of hypocrisy that turned the theater into a social phenomenon, categorically unacceptable by the holy fathers. Let's try to consider what is the trouble with acting. I'm not talking now about the side of the theater of the new art, which exorbitantly stimulates pride and vanity, from which a huge bouquet grows, consisting of arrogance, servility, envy, condemnation, anger, deceit, etc. I'm not talking now about the hypertrophy of one's "I" about turning yourself into an idol. I am also not talking about the transformation of art and creativity itself into an “idol”, when even Stanislavsky’s grateful words “love art in yourself, and not yourself in art” have a connotation of relating to art as the highest value in the world, the one that replaces God, means - to the idol. This is a great temptation for any artist. But, I repeat, this is not the point here.
What is the problem with hypocrisy? Firstly, in ambivalence: in the duality, disorder, disunity of personality. Secondly, in the undoubted penetration of the personality of the image into the innermost environment of the personality of the actor and its deformation. The influence of negative characters is especially dangerous. Thirdly, in the passionate nature of all secular art, and in particular the theater. Fourthly, in existence in a fictional world, when life on stage becomes more real than life in real life. Fifthly, in involving viewers in this unreal, false world, leading away from the main reality - the existence of the soul and the problem of its agreement with God.
Problem one: the ambivalence of the actor's personality. By creating one, tenth, hundredth image, the actor (if he is a real actor, and not a craftsman) must become the person that he embodies in the image and that the image itself carries. There is a loss of chastity - the integrity of the individual. This is sin, and misfortune, and disease. Chastity is one of the unconditional spiritual virtues that humanity has practically lost. This is a recent tragedy. “A man of two minds is unsettled in all his ways,” says the apostle James. Jesus Christ teaches: “No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be zealous for one and not care for the other. You cannot serve God and mammon” (Matthew 6:24). Adultery is forbidden immediately after the commandment “Thou shalt not kill,” for it is deadly for the soul to love a wife and a mistress. Deadly because it's impossible. You cannot serve God and mammon. Chastity, integrity, unity of personality - this is consonance with God, who is One. Lack of integrity leads to disintegration and chaos - to disappearance and death. The loss of the integrity of the personality, without any exaggeration, is the death of the soul. It turns out that the actors are these suicide bombers. It is unimaginably difficult for all of us in our corrupt world to maintain chastity, and it is probably catastrophically impossible for actors. And he is not arranged “in his ways”, and there is no salvation for him, and there is no place for him in the Kingdom of God ... And indeed, how many actors and actresses do we know who all the time (and in life) play someone, portray and They cannot understand one thing: where are they themselves. Who, then, will appear before God? Nobody? Nothing? Nothing? So it will be judged as a nonentity.
The second problem. Penetration of a personality, especially a negative one, into the personality of an actor. This problem is in some way a variation of the first and its consequence. But let us take the extreme and most dangerous case: the penetration into the personality of an actor of a negative personality. The Psalter begins with the words: "Blessed is the man who does not go to the council of the wicked, and on the way of sinners is not a hundred, and on the seat of the destroyers is not led." We, alas, beings of weak spirit, should avoid bad company. This is known to every mother: with whom her son will contact, he will be. "Tell me who your friend is and I'll tell you who you are." We all know cases when, for example, a nice young man with a good heart and other undoubted virtues turned into a selfish creature after marriage and several years of living with an envious and unkind wife.
What can we say about an actor who enters into deep, intimate contact with a person, let's say, Richard III - with an impious, sinful, destroyer? This intimacy is comparable in some ways to a very deep friendship or marriage. It is especially dangerous for talented, sensitive people. How can you "become different, while remaining yourself"? How to reconcile this voluntary acceptance of evil, often very evil, qualities into one's soul, this appropriation of other people's lowest sins with the existence of one's soul, which is by nature a Christian (according to the holy fathers)? With a soul that immanently rejects evil, but here it deliberately absorbs it into itself? I know actors who, feeling like Christians and fearing for their souls, refuse to play negative characters. Whether they act correctly and in a comradely manner is another question.
But positive images are not as safe as they seem. The fact is that we all have a fallen nature, there are no completely positive people. And since the world of God is full of diversity, we, creating the image of a positive person, inevitably assimilate his individual sins. And we would like to deal with our own. Here Stanislavsky's recipe itself is dangerous: “playing evil, look for where he is good; playing good, look for where he is angry. Well, suppose the first part of the phrase is not objectionable, but the second... Concentrating on the evil in a good person, we perceive that very fallen beginning of his nature and unite with him. We all know very well that evil is inculcated many times easier than good. And this move itself, proposed by Stanislavsky, is true in aesthetic terms, pushes the actor to some kind of damage to his soul. And is creativity possible without this damage?
Problem three. The passionate nature of art. In relation to the performing arts, this problem is especially dangerous in connection, again, with the inseparability of the image and the artist. The Church teaches to overcome passions, to be freed from them. Passion is synonymous with sin that has taken possession of the soul. Passion is the service of "the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life." Passion is service to the non-God in the world. Another synonym for passion is suffering. The church also rejected the theater for the reason that it is a "school of passions." However, the “truth of passions” is declared by Stanislavsky, following Pushkin, to be one of the main goals of dramatic art. Something mentally harmful is the goal of our creativity! And indeed, if we try to create a dispassionate theater, we, as sellers, will lose buyers - spectators. Our commodity will cease to be a commodity, there will be no demand for it. The fallen world demands passions. Without conflict, there is no drama. Without active action and a passionate desire to overcome obstacles to the desired goal, there is no conflict. If the actor does not have "extreme sensitivity", he is not suitable for creativity. One can compare the state of prayer, peace in the soul, reverent standing in the temple with the experiences of a stage character (both comedic and tragic), and the deep qualitative difference between the spiritual and soul-bodily being of a person becomes obvious. To be with God, one must sacrifice all earthly attachments - passions. But the poor actor, by the very specifics of his work, is, like chains, chained only to the mental and physical. And for this reason the way of salvation is closed to him?
Problem four. Existence in a fictional world. I think that creativity, which is impossible without the stimulation of fantasy and imagination, is a gift from God, and man, as the image of God, differs from all other created beings in this quality as well. Fiction is necessary for a person as a moral program, as a process of mastering the foundations of his spiritual and spiritual existence. However, the stage, unlike other arts, is so similar to ordinary life that in the mind of the actor (and most importantly, in the subconscious), the boundaries of the real and the fictional are blurred. Moreover, the stage gives a person those sweets that he does not have in everyday life: on the stage you can be born and die many times, love passionately, change, kill, be an executioner and a victim, a king and an outcast, etc. etc. And all this - with crowded attention to you and delight in relation to your person. Isn't all this more attractive than what happens in ordinary life, in which you have to be yourself - and nothing more?! And there is no applause from the crowd on this occasion. Yes, the illusory life turns out to be more attractive and sweeter than the real one. What's wrong with that? After all, no one from this is neither cold nor hot.
But there is bad. An illusion is almost equivalent to a lie. A lie is always punishable, because the Lord is the Truth. Living in an illusory world, a person ceases to be any citizen - of the world, of the Fatherland, of the clan, of the family. Nekrasov’s complaint “even poets are enough for us, but there are few, few citizens for us” is relevant at all times. And now, when television has enslaved humanity, turning it into a herd of biorobots, the urgency of the problem is super-obvious. However, this is not even the worst. Living in a false, illusory world that brings vivid emotions and pleasures, the actor does not hear the Word of God. Let's remember the parable of Christ. “... A sower went out to sow; and while he was sowing, it happened that ... something fell into the thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked the seed, and it did not bear fruit ”(Mark 4, 3-8). Further, the Lord explains: “Things sown among thorns means those who hear the word, but in whom the cares of this world, the deceitfulness of riches, and other desires, entering into them, choke the word, and it is without fruit” (Mark 4:18-19).
Existence in the illusory world is the existence in which the Word of God is completely drowned out by "the cares of this age." What is the conclusion? The saddest.
Problem five. Involving viewers in this unreal, fake world. This problem is akin to the fourth, but here you need to realize how great the guilt is, how deep the artist's sin is, because he tempts other people. “Woe to the world from temptations, for temptations must come; but woe to that person through whom the stumbling block comes” (Matt. 18:7). “And whoever offends one of these little ones who believe in me, it would be better for him if they hung a millstone around his neck and drowned him in the depths of the sea” (Matt. 18, 16).
This is how great is the guilt of the artist who leads the “little ones” into the world of illusions and lies.
Yes, a terrifying picture of the soul arises before the inner eye, if, being a Christian, you try to honestly look at the subject. What to do? Run! To escape from this hell, in which a well-known democrat urged to come and die in it. Some believers do just that, some of them become a priest, some are ready to play only certain roles, some just leave - and that's it. Some come back realizing that theater is some inevitable form of human communication. And someone stays and tries (often cunningly) to justify his tender and passionate love for the theater by serving a great idea...
Truly, only a great idea, a great super-task, which, by and large, can only be the realization of the commandments of God, gives the right to theatrical creativity.
Yes it is. But it is extremely important for me to find (not cunningly!) a way to solve those five problems that are associated with the phenomenon of acting. Find or at least outline guidelines, because the soul freezes at the thought that, perhaps, our cause is unpleasing and disastrous for the soul. But for some reason I want to defend the theater's right to exist. As if there is a subconscious certainty that the theater is very necessary, that without it it is impossible. But what theater? I will try to think along the same lines, in the same sequence as before.
Again, the first problem: fragmentation of the personality in connection with the creation of images, loss of integrity, voluntary schizophrenia.
Is it possible to avoid this danger? And if possible, how?
Let's ask some questions first.
Don't we, in our desire to understand another person, identify ourselves to a certain extent with him? Are we not able to feel someone else's pain as our own? Are we not able, putting ourselves in the place of another person, not only to deeply sympathize, but also to understand and forgive? And is it possible to love your neighbor as yourself, without having the qualities of understanding and sympathy?
The answers to these questions are obvious. Yes, the Lord has given us a great ability to be not an isolated person, but a person interacting and interpenetrating in relation to other personalities, a great ability to understand another person who is “the same pancake, only on a different platter”, as Gogol put it.
Thus, the ability to penetrate into other personalities is not sinful, but, on the contrary, it contains the seed of deliverance from selfishness and the fulfillment of the great commandment of love for one's neighbor. What is wrong? Where is the root of the danger in this case?
I think that the criterion is the preservation of the integrity of one's personality. You must not lose yourself. Penetration into another personality is necessary both in life and in art, as we have understood. But to what extent? It is clear that not until complete identity. Otherwise, the doctor who helps the patient must fall ill and will no longer be able to help. Obviously, the complete identification of the actor and the image is incompetent; otherwise the actor playing Othello must strangle the actress playing Desdemona. Diderot, as you know, solved this problem radically: lack of sensitivity with complete self-control, he argued, gives a brilliant actor. A.P. Lensky, opposing Diderot, gave a wonderful formula: extreme sensitivity in the absence of self-control, as well as complete self-control in the absence of sensitivity, testifies to the mediocrity of the artist; average sensitivity with average self-control produces an average actor, and a brilliant actor is possible with extreme sensitivity and complete self-control. Considering this problem from our perspective, you can already hear the answer in the very word "self-control". Possession of oneself, non-loss of one's "I", preservation of personality. If we talk about creating an image, then we need to question the wording: "become different, while remaining yourself." The goal is objectionable: to become different. Is it necessary?
I think it is appropriate now to recall the nature of stage experiences. It is obvious that they are unequal to life. B. E. Zakhava (as far as I know, not only him) pointed out that stage experiences are a special kind of feelings, similar to the emotions of memories. This wonderful idea already makes it possible to keep a distance between yourself and the image. However, what should an actor remember about a past that belongs to another being? Yes, all these moments - “what has passed, it became nice”, “passion for what is not, but what was” - are very good guidelines for the right stage emotion. But how can we remember what was not?
M. S. Shchepkin has an epithet referring to an actor, which somehow sounds fleetingly in our schools of acting. Shchepkin calls a true artist a sympathetic artist. Notice, not an artist of the "school of experience", but a sympathizer, that is, empathizing. It seemed to be close. But not really. There is a significant difference between "I worry" and "I sympathize." I am experiencing mine. I sympathize with someone else. The vectors of these emotions can be said to be qualitatively different. We were taught in drama school that in striving to "become different while being yourself," you need to understand that the first part of the formula is most important, since the mediocrity remains itself. And creating an image from oneself is an act of art. I dare say that one should not re-create oneself, but create “him”. Not "I", but "he". Intrusion into the personality to the degree of identity and identity is a mental shift, and to encourage such aspirations (namely them) is undoubtedly soul-damaging.
I will turn to my personal acting practice and compare two images created by me, but created according to two different principles. Not for self-affirmation, but for the sake of confirming the weight of my reasoning, I will say that both performances (“The Black Horse” and “Tsar Fedor Ioannovich”) were highly appreciated by the audience, both “ordinary” and specialists. For the production of "Tsar Fyodor" and the performance of the main role in the play, I received the title of laureate of Moscow. By this I emphasize a certain objective significance of the images I created, and not just a subjective one (important for me personally).
Two images. Two antipodes. Colonel Yuri Nikolaevich - Boris Savinkov's self-portrait. A man of powerful will, an ardent revolutionary, deeply worried about Russia, who personally committed a number of murders and pushed the people to mass bloodshed. A person who lives according to his own will, and not according to the will of the Lord.
Tsar Fedor is a locally revered Moscow saint on the throne, a man of prayer who does not need earthly tsar's power, whose heart belongs to another world. He is alien to earthly passions, the consequences of which are murders, betrayals and troubles. He is not fit for the royal mission, but for some reason it was the years of Fedor's reign that were marked for Russia by external and internal well-being ...
When I worked on the image of Yuri Nikolayevich, I simply did not think about the danger that threatens me. I honestly, according to the Stanislavsky school, strove to become my own character. This was probably greatly facilitated by the theme of the performance, which hurt me painfully. It also helped that our era and Savinkov's era are directly adjacent to each other, and the first follows from the second ...
In any case, in the process of my work, this happy, according to Stanislavsky, state of “I am” arose. The boundaries between me and the image disappeared, moreover, the image became dominant in me, obscured me, crushed me. His pride, strength, ability to shed blood for the sake of an idea, undoubted superiority over those around him, deep love for Olga, who carries a certain symbol of that Russia for which Yuri Nikolayevich is fighting, and a carnal feeling for the village Pear - all this entered me. Those demonic qualities that Savinkov had in himself were here too. I was pleased with myself. I did not understand then with my heart how terrible the invisible battle of the forces of evil and good is, how real is the main liar - the devil, who, as the apostle Paul said, walks like a roaring lion and is looking for someone to devour.
I did not see that it was within me that this battle was going on, that my soul might be trampled on, I self-confidently relied on my own strength: I would swim out! I did not understand then that creativity is a process taking place in the subtle world, and what entities take over - angelic ones? demonic? It's not easy to understand...
In fact, this image sounded strange to me. I am convinced that we, each of us, carry within ourselves the ideal of personality inspired and implanted into the subconscious, developed by the Renaissance and Enlightenment, which opposed Christian asceticism with a different understanding of freedom. The freedom of the individual was deified. Western society has become liberal (and still is). We adjoin Western humanity, and at the present time, it seems, we have almost agreed that the Western system of values is almost the only true one.
Liberalism, equating freedom with happiness, developed the concept of a free person. A truly free person is a person of seething passions, realizing the principle of his freedom - without borders, over the edge; bold, liberated, achieving everything desired, understanding self-restraint as a kind of spiritual slavery. This romantic image of a liberal person was a kind of ideal of Pushkin, Lermontov, Herzen, democrats, socialists and other revolutionaries. Rebel. Petrel. This image, which is basically satanic, opposes the Christian ideal based on humility and awareness of freedom as voluntary submission to the will of God.
Unfortunately, this ideal of a liberal personality has been appropriated by our subconscious. This is a godly ideal. And since the distance from God is perceived by the soul as misfortune, a person who has this ideal in himself is fatally unhappy. All romantic heroes (Werther, Demon, Don Juan, Yuri Nikolayevich) are lonely, disappointed, indifferent to life, but for some reason they are so attractive! They will resonate with satanic pride and that individual pride that sits in each of our separate hearts...
These are the impulses generated by my personal pride that stirred up the image of Yuri Nikolayevich. I became him, he became me. It seems to me that I needed to remove only a number of moral prohibitions (in the name of art!) - and here it is, the image. And a compelling image!
However, creating it, I morally fell. I brought into life, without realizing it, what I gave birth to on stage. I lived for a long time, keeping my hero's view of the world, I sinned like him. And it's scary, because I brought a lot of harm to my soul and the souls of those who are nearby...
"Tsar Fedor is not like that." Yes, this person evokes tenderness, bright love, trust, admiration and, in some ways, regret - and the more terrible is the social tragedy into which Fedor is drawn.
And the first impulse for the performer of this role may be a joyful desire to merge with the image, to become it. This, one might say, is a miracle - to become a holy king in your sinful life! Is there any negative point here?
Let's take a step to the side. Why does the Church protest or, in any case, is tense about the stage embodiment of the images of saints and categorically denies the creation of images of the Virgin and Jesus Christ?
It is not given to us to comprehend Christ and the Mother of God - this is beyond human capabilities. Therefore, any attempt to embody their image will be a fake, a distortion, a lie. A lie in relation to the most sacred is a fact that destroys the very phenomenon of art.
Comprehend the saint? Perhaps this task is somewhat up to the artist, because the holiness of a holy person is the result of a vigilant struggle with his sinful nature. No wonder every saint considered himself the greatest sinner. To rise to the saint, to become one - we are beyond our strength. But to reach out, touch and understand - I think it's possible. And there is only one way: compassion. Not "I", but "he".
If you follow the path of reincarnation and say in the end: “I am he,” then inevitably falling into delusion. Charm, according to Orthodox standards, is a lie (flattery is a synonym for lies) in the superlative degree (the prefix pre-). You can experience a kind of almost narcotic pleasure from the state of identity, but it will be nothing more than a hymn to your vanity and pride. And can a superlative lie (charm) become the basis of art, the main criterion of which is truth?
Creating the image of Tsar Fedor, I, thank God, did not follow the path of reincarnation. Communication with this image is joyful. His profound Orthodoxy is perceived by me as a wonderful, unattainable ideal.
After all, there is no contact with the negative, but, on the contrary, we fall under the influence of the super-positive. Fedor is very close and dear to me. But he always remained for me what can be called "he" and not "I". And the principle of interaction with him was precisely sympathy, and not experiencing for him and instead of him. How this happens, I do not fully know. I sincerely perceive all the trials that fell on the weak shoulders of the king, I cry with him, I am perplexed, I make discoveries, I do everything that my image does. I feel how the audience freezes, how they trust me, how they cry and shake with me, but I never (neither in the process of creating the image, nor in the process of his stage life) became him. Well, am I a pretender, an imitator? But, according to Stanislavsky, the actor of the performance school must experience in the process of rehearsals everything that the image has experienced. It didn't happen with me. And the image - I see, I know - is convincing.
How can I determine what I'm doing? I can say that I show through some signs what I think and feel about my hero. It is impossible to call this process insensitive, because I am touched by the image, admire it, support it, defend it - in a word, I sympathize with it. My relationship with him can be likened to that of a puppeteer and a puppet. The puppeteer animates the doll, but remains at a distance from her, he plays with her (that's why she is a doll) and can do the most incredible things. An actor who identifies himself with an image is one quality. But another quality is the puppeteer. Look how attentive he is to the doll, how he supports her, how he loves her. He is both a spectator and an artist at the same time. He lives in her, as a mother lives in a child and helps him walk, eat, study. Something similar happens with the director in relation to the artist. It can be much more interesting to look not at the stage, but at the director looking at the stage: how he helps, how he sympathizes with everything that happens. This phenomenon can be called the effect of a fan, which reveals his feelings much more clearly than a football player ...
The actor, identifying himself with the image, must tear himself to pieces, loosen his psyche, pour out this torn psyche on the viewer and bring him to ecstasy with his energy (which is now fashionable to talk about). When an actor writhes with passion, it's impressive, but how impressive? Isn't it akin to the ecstasy that we feel in stadiums or rock concerts? Ask the viewer after this collapse of emotions: why do you need this, what did you get? What will he answer? "I was crazy." Or: "I was shocked." But for what? To vent emotions? This, perhaps, is somewhat necessary in physiological terms. But where is art? One of my colleague-directors once said the following: “The most important task of the theater is, as Stanislavsky said, that the locomotive of feeling rolls along the rails of action.” But where is he going? And it can be extremely difficult for an actor to give an answer to this “where” because there is no really significant super-task, except for the super-task to like, to assert oneself, to bathe in emotions.
Yes, stage (acting and spectator) passions, unfortunately, probably fulfill the role of a laxative that Aristotle assigned to the theater. But, one must understand, they attract like a drug, and the theater turns into a very sinful institution - into a "school of passions", according to the definition of the holy fathers.
When I played Yuri Nikolaevich, I lost myself in the image, which is mentally harmful.
When I play Tsar Fedor, I experience a lot of bright emotions towards him. I love him not as myself, but as a neighbor. This is a different principle, the principle of sympathy, and not of experience, and, in my opinion, not only does it not contradict the Christian attitude to the world, but affirms it, because it is based on love for another being.
Again the problem is the penetration of the negative personality.
This problem, as I said, follows from the first. And already partially I tried to solve it. If we are able to treat the image as "him" and not as "ourselves", then the danger of penetration of primarily negative properties of the character is already reduced. However, you must understand that you are still in close interaction with another person, and not only you on her, but she also has a strong influence on you.
Take again an extreme case - the process of creating a negative image. What are the challenges? It is necessary to understand the logic of the aspirations of the image, regarding it as positive and seeing in it the image of God. To understand that no one (including him) does evil on purpose, because evil is harm primarily to oneself, one's soul, which is the greatest reality in a human being. To understand, as a result of what miscalculations, moral inaccuracies, weaknesses, little (or no) hope in the Lord, this person came to a crime. Understand but not accept. Understand what led a person to villainy, condemn villainy, but continue to love this person and feel great sympathy for him: the lower a person falls morally, the more terrible the state of his soul, the more terrible her fate after leaving for another world. No, do not become Godunov, Pechorin, Macbeth, but sympathize with their torment associated with remoteness from God, hate sin and love heroes. It is clear that this process is not available to everyone. Ordinary consciousness pushes to hate not a sin, but a scoundrel. Ordinary acting consciousness pushes the scoundrel to complete justification. Both of these are wrong.
I still have a silent argument with an actor who fully justified his negative hero and made sure that it was impossible to do otherwise than he did. The actor understands his hero well, acts logically on the stage, but... for some reason, there is a moment of inferiority of the image. I think that this is due to the inaccurate position of the artist. An actor should never justify evil and always love a person. Actually, love for one's neighbor (to everyone, including bad ones) is the key that can open the secret of comprehending any image.
Such a (very Christian!) approach is possible, of course, only if the actor has a spiritual maturity. And where is spiritual maturity in people floundering in a world that has fallen away from God?
However, if you understand your activity as a service to the glory of God, then this is possible. The Christian life is a struggle. And service to the stage requires a feat from a Christian actor. Individual overcoming of these difficulties is improbable. We need a different than the established acting school. I am becoming more and more convinced of this.
Again about the passionate nature of art. Let's look at this problem from a slightly different angle. What does the dispassion of Christian ascetics mean? What is this, relaxation? Is hatred of sin a sinful passion? What do the words of the psalm mean: “be angry, but do not sin”? Is apostolic, prophetic, even missionary service possible without passion?
What is the answer here? The word "passion" has more than just the meaning of "serving sin" or "suffering." Passion is a powerful, almost irresistible feeling. And if we passionately, strongly, irresistibly love God, passionately strive to bring good to our neighbor, passionately hate sin, then, I think, such passion is pleasing to God and serves to save the soul.
The impassivity of a Christian ascetic, of course, is not relaxation, but is peace in tension, peace and constancy in a passionate striving for God.
And who will be convinced, whom will the prophet or apostle convert, if he does not passionately serve God and people? I. A. Ilyin wrote: “... we know well that any movement on earth raises “dust”; that nothing great on earth is possible without passion; that the Lord alone is holy and perfect; and that one of the greatest joys in life is to find the imprint of genius in the dust of the earth and to see, to recognize in the flame of human passion the fire of divine inspiration that purifies it.
Thus, no human service can be carried out dispassionately. It is important that, firstly, the positive emotion should be as constant as possible and, secondly, that passion should not be a slave to sin. The profession of the Christian actor should ideally strive to become an apostolic, prophetic ministry. Ideally, I emphasize. The ideal cannot be achieved, but the pursuit of it is necessary.
In a world whose content is determined by passions, it is impossible to be heard in a language other than passion. Passions rule mankind. As Herzen wrote, "if reason reigned in the world, nothing would happen in it."
However, passions of a different, higher order are needed. How to get to them?
Most people are rather indifferent to faith. Until thunder strikes, that is, until a person feels unhappy, robbed, sick, miserable. The holy fathers say that when a person is not enlightened, the Lord leads him to himself through sorrows, that is, sufferings, that is, passions. What's the matter here? I think that the greatest danger to the soul is being in a state of warmth and coolness. It is known that the Lord condemns to death the one who is "not cold and not hot." Why, one wonders, does the shepherd leave the flock and go looking for the lost sheep? Why does the father greet the returned prodigal son so magnificently?
I think that all this happens for the reason that the lost sheep, the prodigal son, the one who is cold (and not warm), is much closer to God than those who, without deviating from the laws of the herd, do not have "poverty of spirit." The average state is much more dangerous than the extreme, even the negative one. Christ says that he came to call sinners to repentance, not the righteous. The general path (averaged) is to perdition. Few will be saved, so says the Lord, those who choose the narrow way. The poet's rebellion against the crowd, against the mob, is to a large extent heard by the prophetic ear of the poet and subjectively reinterpreted by the Word of God.
Graze, peaceful peoples!
The cry of honor will not wake you up.
Why do the herds need the gifts of freedom?
They must be cut or sheared ...
(A. Pushkin)
But half measures are hated...
There is chewing gum - and you are satisfied ...
(V. Bryusov)
What follows from all this? And the fact that staying in a passionless swamp of relaxation is the surest way to death. A person must struggle with passions, and it is in this struggle that he must choose with his heart, mind, “with all his strength” a passionate aspiration to God. Art here can be a very powerful tool, calling lost sheep, prodigal sons, sinners to repentance, to union in Christ.
At the same time, it is important that the goal of reproducing passions and their vibrations is not the desire to get drunk on these passions, to enjoy, for example, murder, that is, something that you cannot experience in real life. The purpose of the reproduction of passions should be to get rid of the passions of sin and to affirm a passionate commitment to God and people.
In art, a person is given a happy opportunity to overcome, to get rid of those passions that in real life would entail irreparable losses and irreparable sins - sorrows with which the Lord leads a person to Himself. Art has here amazing possibilities to give grief without irreparable losses and to arouse in the human soul a passionate protest against evil and a passionate desire for good. I think that this is the divine purpose of art. The apostle Paul said, "Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel." Woe to the artist if he does not preach the gospel: it means that he does not realize his destiny.
But what about an actor who, in order to be convincing, must experience these passions? I have already written about this, talking about the first problem: you need not to worry, but to sympathize, to treat the image not as "yourself", but as "him".
Again about the illusory world.
I have already said that fantasy and imagination are God's gift to man. There is a known difference in the approach to construction between bees and humans. The bee does not think about how to build honeycombs: it has a program for this construction, and it acts on it from generation to generation. A person, however, needs to create an image of the future house before the start of construction, which cannot be done without turning on fantasy and imagination. I think that those of the clerics who stigmatize these qualities of the human psyche have in mind "sinful dreams." Fantasy and imagination that build the temple of God are pleasing to God, but those who create a program of corruption on television are ungodly. They are not harmful in and of themselves. What makes them harmful is the purpose for which they act.
Intention is like an idea. So we plan to live hedonistically, striving to seize the maximum of earthly pleasures - and a world of fiction arises, that is, of that spiritual program that our lust is eager to implement. But here we are planning to live according to conscience, in a Christian way, and we inevitably imagine and fantasize how this should be done. The fiction factor increases when we want to teach someone else, such as a child. We must find a convincing form of expression. The soul of a person does not respond if we speak correctly, but flatly. It is known that the actor must speak "not to the ear, but to the partner's eye", that is, to convey his "visions". He must see for himself and make sure that his partner sees. However, this rule applies not only to an actor, to an artist, but also to any speaking person, and especially to a preacher.
The artistic, fictional world is necessary for a person, it is necessary as a complex, deep and subtle program of his mental and spiritual being. This fictional world is bad if the goal of the program is bad, and, conversely, it is good if the goal is good. I will make a reservation right away that, in addition to the lofty goal and content pleasing to God, there must be an aesthetic persuasiveness of the artist's statement. An unconvincing statement works against a good purpose; we, with good intentions, can pave the road to hell with them.
And of course, there is no sin for an actor who immerses the viewer in the world of his fiction in the name of serving God and neighbor, because - on the contrary! - he thus contributes to the viewer's conversion not to illusion and lies, but to higher reality.
Yes, I think that a Christian existence in the theater is possible - through overcoming hypocrisy and through consistent and ascetic service to a great goal.
"Love the art in yourself." But before art, love God and your neighbor. This commandment for a Christian actor should be the main criterion in deciding the question "do I have the right to go on stage?".
Only a sincere, unswerving desire to fulfill this commandment gives a person the right to go to the theater and die in it, the right to use a weapon of colossal power, turning it from a weapon of murder into a weapon of defense of our Heavenly Fatherland.
Mikhail Grigoryevich Shchepenko is the only professional director in Russia who has a theological education. He directs the Moscow Theater of Russian Drama and strives to combine the Orthodox faith with theatrical art.
Without God is a soulful way
- Once upon a time, acting was not in honor among the ministers of the church. Actors were even buried outside the church cemetery. What do you think of it?
- This is a huge question. Yes, the Church treated the theater negatively, at best, wary. -John Chrysostom said that the theater is a school of passions, identifying actresses with harlots. Now the priesthood is of the opinion that the theater of Stanislavsky, that is, the psychological theater, can be a school of life. Although John of Kronstadt, during whose time the Stanislavsky system already existed, still believed that the theater was the most dangerous thing for the human soul. And I am convinced that if a person does not have a super-task in his heart and in his work, which is directed towards the ideal, towards God, then this is a very soulful path. I even had a publication called The Sin of Acting.
- Does the priesthood have the right to criticize some creative work in the field of cinema, theater, painting?
- Why not? Another thing is that the Church does not have the prerogative to forbid something. Every person has the right to say what he thinks. Although I am personally a supporter of the need for censorship, and above all moral censorship. Because now any immoral person can do anything in art. And if he himself is censorship, then the result of his work can have a very negative impact on people, especially on young people with an unstable position in life. Censorship must act - this is a delicate issue, Pushkin spoke about it.
— How to combine theatrical work with faith in God?
— I never thought of theater for the sake of theater. That is, for many of today's artists, art is something like a deity. They believe that art is the limit, and in the end, the artist himself becomes an idol. Today we see the worship of the artist and art everywhere. It has become a kind of norm. And such neo-paganism, unfortunately, triumphs.
For me initially, even when I was not a religious person, art was not an idol. Somewhere in the depths of my soul there was a desire for some final truth, for unconditional truth.
When the mind is looking for a deity, but the heart does not find
- And what was your path to the Orthodox faith?
- Very difficult. For a long time I was in a position that Pushkin accurately described: "The mind is looking for a deity, but the heart does not find it." And then a path arose - unfortunately, typical for our intelligentsia - through the Eastern teachings. We walked along it with a group of like-minded people, which included my wife, actress, director and director of the theater Tamara Sergeevna Basnina, and other theater employees. It was a very serious hobby. At the Studio Theater on Chekhov Street, we put on performances in which our ideas were embodied. The performance "Jonathan Livingston Seagull" became our manifesto and was a huge success. We felt very keenly that in our production there is light, but cold. And it was disquieting. We tried to transform the performance in a Christian spirit, but failed. Only later, when they came to the Orthodox faith, they realized that they were in a state of delusion. And what is charm in a Christian way? “Flattery” in Church Slavonic is a lie; it turns out that “charm” is a lie in a superlative degree. Ultimately, it became obvious that it was impossible to combine Eastern teachings with Christianity. Since then, we have no other way but Christ.
Miracle in Sklif
- Have you ever felt the beneficial effect of prayer, a holy place?
- Certainly. Fifteen years ago we had an accident and miraculously survived. At high speed, a police Ford collided, it flew into the oncoming lane, with our Zhiguli. Everyone lost consciousness. My wife Tamara Sergeevna and the driver, who was in the hospital named after M. Sklifosovsky's consultation diagnosed him with a fracture of the spine and sternum. He was in intensive care. At that time, a very believing woman worked in our theater, whom we called Masha Blessed among ourselves. She brought Tamara Sergeevna holy water from the spring of Basil the Great. Tamara Sergeevna told her: “Take water to Vasya in Sklifosovsky. It's his saint." Vasily drank, and poured the rest on himself crosswise. In the morning he got up and went on his own. The doctors, of course, sent him for an x-ray, and the picture shows that Vasya has no fractures. Isn't it a miracle?! There were other cases in our life.
What holy places do you visit most often?
- Every year we order a bus and with our entire troupe we go to Sergius places. This is the Trinity-Sergius Lavra, and the source in Malinniki, and Radonezh, and Khotkovo. It so happened that the foundation of our theater was laid on October 7, 1974. We gathered for a vigil on the eve of the repose of St. Sergius of Radonezh. That is, Sergius of Radonezh for us is not only the hegumen of the Russian land, but also the heavenly patron of our theater. And, of course, we visit such places as Pereslavl-Zalessky, Borovsk, Maloyaroslavets, and many others.
And love will remain
Who are your spiritual guides?
- Many of our artists go to the Church of the Intercession of the Most Holy Theotokos on Lyshchikova Hill. With the advent of this temple, we have a long and warm interaction. Rector - Archpriest Vladimir Rigin. He tells us: "You are ours, we are yours." We celebrate holidays together, the parishioners of the temple are our spectators. Archpriest Valerian, his brother Nikolai Krechetov, who serves in the Church of the Transfiguration of the Savior on Bolvanovka, and many others are also very close and have had a great influence on us. We are also closely connected with Archpriest Alexei Baburin; From a church standpoint, he is conducting very important anti-alcohol and anti-drug work with parishioners today.
- Which of the biblical expressions is especially close and dear to you?
- For me, the 13th chapter of the First Epistle to the Corinthians of Paul is very significant - about love. No one spoke about love the way the apostle Paul did. Turgenev paraphrased this in his own way, writing: "... Everything will pass, only love will remain."
Interviewed by Irina Kolpakova
"The theater lulls the Christian life, destroys it, giving the life of Christians the character of pagan life",- wrote St. John of Kronstadt. It is known that until the revolution, actors were even buried behind the church fence. Where did this attitude come from and why has it changed? Has the theater suddenly become “pleasing to God” now? Has the Church compromised or has theater itself changed? What attitude does it deserve today?
About the world of theater, about acting, about art as such and about art in the light of faith, we decided to talk with the head of the Moscow Chamber Stage Theater, Honored Art Worker of Russia, Academician of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences, Professor Mikhail Grigoryevich Shchepenko.
From denial to loyalty
- Mikhail Grigoryevich, what attitude does modern theater deserve? Is there any official position of the Church on this matter?
– There is no official position, I think. There is a position that is set out in the Social Concept of the ROC. It reflects the ideas of our great philosopher Ivan Alexandrovich Ilyin: art should not take a person out of the world, but lead a person in this world. Ideally, culture is a transitional area of the existence of the human soul, leading it from the world to the temple. No wonder N.V. Gogol called art, theater a step towards Christianity. In any case, it seems to me that in today's most difficult social environment, which corrupts a person and plunges him into a semi-animal state, culture should be an obligatory step towards spiritual ascent. And jumping over, stepping over this step is a crime.
I think that the calling of a Christian in any field to be a missionary should be most characteristic of those who have in their hands such a powerful means of influencing souls as art.
– But some holy fathers spoke very sharply and categorically about the theater, although today it can be said that there is a loyal attitude towards it. How do you understand this, in your opinion?
– There are different positions among people belonging to the Church. The categorical position of the holy fathers underwent some changes, but still it was quite stable. For example, they say that under John Chrysostom, during the decline of the Roman Empire, the theater was an absolutely depraved spectacle, but now it is different. But the fact is that St. John of Kronstadt, being just a contemporary of K.S. Stanislavsky, a contemporary of the classical Russian theater, also had a negative attitude towards this phenomenon.
- Why? What is the catch here?
- Art and theater are originally a pagan phenomenon, so if we talk about theater as a phenomenon, then it must be denied from a spiritual standpoint. In my opinion, the theater can and should carry out a creative mission, carry out Christian service, but in most cases it does not even try to do this.
But even if there are such attempts, be that as it may, the acting profession is dangerous for the soul in itself. And rarely does anyone really feel this danger ...
Not all light is from God
What is the danger in the first place?
- There are several of them.
The first trap is the dilemma of choosing a source from which to draw inspiration. The fact is that true creativity without inspiration does not exist. But where does it come from, this inspiration, an obsession? ..
At the last festival of school theaters "Russian Drama", which we organize for the 10th year in a row, the play "Childhood ran away from me" about Nika Turbina was shown. Nike was given a brilliant gift, a heavy cross, a kind of poetic obsession that found and then ended: as a result, she had a series of suicide attempts and, in the end, she died ... The performer of the role of Nika, an 8-year-old girl, played, you can say congenial. But it was a little creepy, because there was a sense of creativity with a minus sign. It is terrible that she, this amazing girl, is also becoming a kind of obsessed. The problem is very serious...
Of course, the source of creativity is God, but then a terrible substitution can occur. F. Nietzsche also wrote about this: there is art from God, and there is art from the devil. Marina Tsvetaeva said: surrender to the demon and you are a poet, but no - that's it, you are not a poet.
There is something ambiguous in creativity - I think this is due precisely to the source of inspiration.
– But can the devil be a creator and a source of creativity?
– The devil is a monkey of God, he is not a creator, but he can, using the gifts coming from God, be that cloudy source from which art arises. And such art is fatal to the human soul.
In A. Blok we find the following lines about his muse:
“There are in the tunes of your innermost
Fatal news of death.
There is a curse of sacred covenants,
There is a desecration of happiness."
There is obviously a satanic element here.
What are the fundamental slogans of Satanism? There are two of them: "nothing is true" and "everything is permitted." These two ideas are attractive and tempting for the artist, because they supposedly give freedom for self-expression. But accepting these ideas, he finds himself in captivity of the so-called "his own truth", which excludes the absolute Truth, i.e. Christ. What and to whom such art serves is clear without comment. And the more talented it is, the greater its destructive influence.
– Mikhail Grigoryevich, have you had to deal with this danger in practice?
– When we were not yet consistently Orthodox people, we had a play called Jonathan Levingston Seagull. It turned out to be a manifesto of all Eastern teachings and was very interestingly solved scenographically. It was very difficult to get on it, tickets were instantly sold out. Even now, when we have not been playing a performance for 15 years, they call the theater and ask to resume it.
“The Seagull…” turned out to be a luminous performance, but it was a light of a completely different order - cold, luciferial, because not every light comes from God. We staged this performance with a warm message and did not immediately see that in the literary basis, the cult of the ego means coldness.
What should ideally be?
– Ideally, God should speak through creativity, through the artist. This is the fire of love.
Pitfalls of the profession
- Another danger in creativity, an inevitable temptation, which, probably, no one can withstand, is the temptation of arrogance. Curiosity is power over people and the enjoyment of this power.
The same Nietzsche said that everything in the world is a struggle for power. But if the power is political, the power of money is based on violence, coercion, then the artist has a special power, based on the voluntary submission of the viewer, reader, listener. That is, a person, oddly enough, wants such power over himself.
And this clarified power is sweet: one must think that the artist who says that fame means nothing to him will be dishonest.
This is a very serious temptation. When pop idols yell “I love you!” at concerts, what do they mean by that? Who do they love? This mass that radiates worship upon them. Here there is a situation of substitution, when God is no longer needed. The interaction between the “idol” and the crowd is a kind of parody of what is happening in the temple.
After all, the crowd is a terrible thing: it reduces a person to the level of an animal, a person in a crowd ceases to be smart and kind. So this danger is also mutual - for those who worship and for those who are worshipped.
– Are there any specific temptations that are specific to acting?
- Acting. This is a special topic.
We know that chastity, integrity of personality is not a quality that characterizes modern people. One Athonite elder was asked: what are the greatest losses of the present age? He replied: a feeling of gratitude and chastity.
This is a big problem, because if a person is not whole, he is dead - divide any thing into parts, and it will cease to exist.
The Christian feat consists in finding integrity. Life tempts us: we need to be like this in one place and like that in another. Who among us doesn't lie like that? It is difficult to do without this bifurcation, disarrangement ... And the actor, by virtue of his profession, has to bifurcate, disorganize, etc. A person may have a situation where he does not know who he is. For actresses, this is more typical than for actors: they continue to play Ophelia, Desdemona, etc. in life.
This phenomenon of reincarnation is actually very dangerous for the soul, especially when a person plays negative roles.
– How to deal with it? After all, no one can guarantee the actor that he will play only positive characters.
- I had this negative experience: the qualities inherent in my character - the criminal - began to appear in me. But when I began to play “at a distance” from my character, I felt that those negative qualities that had awakened in me in the process of working on the image had departed. Everything seems to be the same, but there was no such spiritual harm ...
There is also a related problem when a person himself lives in a virtual world: for him, what happens on the stage is much more important than life itself. The actor and others are attracted to this virtual world, leading away from reality.
And we must not forget that our art is passionate. Otherwise, we would be unconvincing, no one would watch it - the impact on the viewer is based on conflict.
I probably didn't even list all the dangers. They are quite real - you feel it especially when you have devoted your whole life to the theater.
In our profession there are pitfalls on which the soul can be shattered. The temptations are very great. But, in general, they are the same as in worldly, secular life, because the same stage exists in any activity. W. Shakespeare said not without reason that all life is a theater. Probably, the temptations of those who enter the stage are deeper, sharper, stronger.
“... Don't quit. Don't Forget God"
- It turns out that this work is especially mentally harmful, and it turns out that a believing person needs to run away from it - what is called, away from sin? ..
- For some, this dilemma turns into a tragedy for life. I agonized over these questions for a long time, at one time they were very acute for our team, we turned to the elders ... For example, Father John Krestyankin replied in a letter: “I am incompetent in this matter. Be with God."
It was a very interesting meeting with Blessed Lyubushka of Ryazan. We approached her after the service and told her that we were working in the theatre. She says: "Your work is bad, bad, bad." I asked then: “What, quit?” She thought about it and answered: “No, don’t leave, don’t forget God.”
- What did you conclude for yourself in the end?
– I realized that the theater is a very dangerous business for the acting soul, but if this work is based on the idea of service, if there is the highest demand on oneself, as a Christian and as an artist, then such a theater can be a thing pleasing to God. This is exactly the case when the spirit breathes where it wants. There is a purposeful impulse in the direction of unity with God and neighbor - I know this in practice. Art is a powerful weapon that can be used both for evil and for good, and it is wrong to give this weapon to those who will corrupt.
- But what about the dangers of the acting profession - are they inevitable? Even a Christian cannot avoid them?
“Our nature, alas, is fallen. But we have a longing for the good, the true, and the beautiful. So we need to courageously resist temptations, fight and with the help of God cope. If we have a secret desire for service, the desire to be with Christ, to be in tune with God, then we acquire this inner right to engage in theater.
Christianity vs neo-paganism
– Do you think that an actor who has come to faith should continue to play exclusively in, so to speak, spiritual theater, or can he work in an ordinary theater, drawing something good from there?
- This is a very difficult question, because the actor is a forced profession. And if the director is not a Christian, but a pagan, an atheist, this cannot bypass the actor. In general, the modern theatrical world is pagan or, rather, neo-pagan, mainly plays are staged, where the non-Christian element prevails. I know how painful it is for actors who come to Christianity, how they suffocate in this atmosphere. But in each specific case, this issue is resolved differently.
- Is there any spark of God left in modern theaters? In your opinion, are there worthy, meaningful performances that really make the viewer leave with a certain “burden”?
- I think yes. The fact is that our Russian culture, our art, one way or another, exists in the Orthodox tradition. We cannot get away from it. Soviet art still remains in line with this tradition, despite the fact that for more than 70 years it has been trampled, killed, and something completely alien has been introduced into it. But the soul of a people, its mentality, even in a century, is difficult to trample, especially a people like the Russian one, which has a great, profound culture.
Of course, this spirituality, depth is manifested today - both in the theater and in the cinema too. For example, the film Ascent by Larisa Shepitko, based on Vasil Bykov's story Sotnikov, made a tremendous impression on me. There was both a moral and a religious, cathartic influence, which is now extremely rare to find. Friedrich Schiller has this idea: the tragic, sublime in art is associated with receiving a strange pleasure when a positive hero dies. What is this pleasure?
St. John Shakhovskoy said that in the extreme version this is the Calvary sacrifice of Christ - i.e. when the hero dies, but the ideal remains. That's when the moment of special purification through suffering arises, and this is catharsis, as Schiller understood it. And I largely agree with him.
– Is catharsis an obligatory element in art?
- No, art is not an easy thing, anything can happen here. The main thing is that it should be a service to moral, Christian principles.
Nika Turbina (1974 - 2002). A modern poetess with an incredible and tragic fate. Her unusual gift was discovered even in early childhood: the girl wrote not at all childish, serious, sometimes cruel poems, as if dictated by someone. At the age of 11 she received the most prestigious poetry award "Golden Lion" in Venice, became known to the whole world. At the age of 16, Niki married a 76-year-old wealthy Swiss man and went with him to Lausanne, but a year later she returned to Moscow alone. She suffered from an addiction to alcohol. She died at the age of 27 after falling out of a 5th floor window.
To be continued…
