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Ostrovsky's play the last victim summary. Alexander Ostrovsky, the last victim

Ostrovsky's play the last victim summary. Alexander Ostrovsky, the last victim

04.07.2020

This not the most popular play by Ostrovsky is very original. The characters are swapped. A rich old man dreaming of a girl turns out to be more honest than her young and handsome fiancé.

In the center of the play is almost a love triangle. The young and rich widow Yulia Pavlovna is claimed by two. Preference, of course, she gives brisk Vadim. True, the groom, taking advantage of her location, is rare, and gives cause for concern. However, Yulia loves him too much, does not want to “put pressure” on him, although everyone tells her that she needs to be stricter, otherwise she will completely stop respecting him. She has to constantly sacrifice herself.

Another candidate comes to visit - Flor, a serious man of age. The unfortunate is rejected...

Here Vadim asks the bride about the “last victim”: he urgently needs money, otherwise they will kill him. And Julia needs to ask Flor for money, but he does not want to help (her fiancé) and, in general, believes that money is not a woman's concern. A woman with money is prey for scammers. Julia has to beg. After receiving the money, she gives it to Vadim, who behaves like a swindler. And marry someone else!

At the last moment, Flor saves the situation - marries Yulia, demands money from Vadim. It all ends with the fact that the ashamed Vadim decides, having abandoned suicide attempts, to marry a millionaire.

Picture or drawing The Last Victim

Traders in the Moscow Art Theater

"Last Victim" turned out to be a good deal

The Chekhov Moscow Art Theater showed the premiere of "The Last Victim" by Alexander Ostrovsky - a great play about love and money. Oleg Tabakov, artistic director of the Moscow Art Theater, takes part in the performance, and it was this appointment that became decisive: the very rich merchant Flor Fedulych became the main character of the Moscow Art Theater evening. ROMAN DOLZHANSKY followed the metamorphoses of Ostrovsky's play.

Director Yuri Eremin decisively changed the time of Ostrovsky's play, and not only the era, but also the season. "The Last Victim" warmed up and rejuvenated. The change from summer to winter was necessary mainly for beauty: artificial snow in a rich academic theater always looks very expressive. When the actors go on stage, shaking off their hair and coats from white flakes, the state of the character is immediately clear: he got into the warmth from the cold, what other circumstances are needed. And if, against the background of black wings and a backdrop, a thick, generous street snowfall begins to the music, then wait for applause. So that the feeling of damp chilliness would not pass, they also provided a video projection: on the screen in the back of the stage they always show some kind of urban landscape with incessant snow.

The change of era (the action is moved from the seventies of the century before last to the beginning of the past) is more meaningful. The rejuvenation of the play by about thirty years pleases the viewer with Art Nouveau motifs in the design of the performance (Valery Fomin's set design clearly echoes the architecture of the Art Theater itself), and the characters of The Last Victim - with a cinematography session in a merchant club. However, the performance is no longer about the merchant, but about the industrial era, about the heyday of arts and industry in Russia. On this occasion, something had to be added to Ostrovsky, for example, the proposal of the rich man Flor Fedulych to inspect the new workshop. Something to delete. By the way, even then the mention of the singer Patti and the actor Rossi would have been blacked out: the great singer Adeline Patti by the beginning of the 20th century was no longer at the age to travel around with concerts, and the great actor Ernesto Rossi did not live to see the invention of cinema. In general, Ostrovsky's plays are very firmly rooted in their era, and if you decide to transplant them, then you need to act more boldly.

Yuri Eremin's performance itself cannot be classified as an outstanding theatrical work. There are a lot of banal, passing scenes in it, and the acting ensemble has not yet really formed. Although Ostrovsky's play is written in such a way that in it, except for frankly service ones, any role is a gift for the actor. If we talk about successes, then this is, first of all, the swindling troublemaker Glafira Firsovna performed by Olga Barnet. (And why did Mrs. Barnet in the Moscow Art Theater forcibly languish in heroines for so many years?) Young Roman Kirillov (Dergachev), as always organic Natalya Zhuravleva (old woman Mikhevna) and as always sweeping Igor Zolotovitsky (Salay Saltanych) are remembered. It's a pity that the unlucky Lavr Mironych (Valery Khlevinsky) and his daughter, the imaginary rich bride Iren (Daria Yurskaya), very funny written by Ostrovsky, came out in one color. But the most pitiful thing is that the player and rake Vadim Dulchin has not been decided by Sergey Kolesnikov in any way. But it is around him that spears break in the play, women go crazy for him, for his sake the young widow Yulia Pavlovna Tugina dares to make that very “last sacrifice”.

However, is it only a strong feeling that controls Julia? Actress Marina Zudina adds much more practicality and sober calculation to her heroine than is accepted by the tradition of playing the role. Roughly speaking, I thought of a deal with one man, but I had to conclude another, more profitable one. It happened, by the way, that, contrary to Ostrovsky, the play was generally interrupted at the fainting of Yulia, who found out about the betrayal of her fiancé, and thereby hinted at the death of the heroine, which the idealist directors seemed preferable to a forced marriage with a rich but unloved old man Flor Fedulich. In today's Moscow Art Theater, this couple not only does not look like a misalliance, but also looks just happy and successful.

The thing is that Flora Fedulych is amazingly played by Oleg Tabakov. It is his character that becomes the semantic center and hero of the entire history of the Moscow Art Theater. Not a colorful merchant, not an insidious spider, not an old voluptuary (what other possible interpretations are there?), But an educated, hard-working capitalist, standing firmly on his feet and keeping his finger on the pulse of a big efficient business. Finally, a respectable, courteous man, a music lover, a person with taste and artistic intuition, a collector of modernist painting. Oleg Tabakov plays a self-confident, successful master of life in a controlled, non-assertive, non-proprietary way. Whether director Eremin has worked, whether Mr. Tabakov himself has freed himself from his win-win, bold acting techniques, but the performance seems to fall into his hands, as money strives for other money.

It is all the more touching that his hero's passion for Yulia is sincere and deep. The plot played by Tabakov should be titled with another name from Ostrovsky - "Late Love". In the best scene of the play, the conversation with Yulia in the first act, it is clear that the almighty Flor Fedulych is overcome and confused by feeling. Nothing human is alien to him. But he knows how not to become a slave of passion, not to lose himself, to calculate a strategy for success and eventually win. Well, purely a hero of our time, an example to follow. It’s a pity that so far we don’t have enough of these, not enough for every woman worthy of such happiness.

Newspaper, December 17, 2003

Artur Solomonov

Tabakov and Zudina made the last sacrifice

In the Moscow Art Theater named after Chekhov, Yuri Eremin staged the play "The Last Victim" based on the play by A. Ostrovsky with Oleg Tabakov and Marina Zudina in the lead roles. This premiere is the success of the theatre.

"The Last Victim" is a solid performance, it breathes evenly, so to speak, with long pauses. Yuri Eremin, who a month ago released a disastrous premiere at RAMT, as if telling the actors "go there, I don't know where" (and they, of course, went), worked here qualitatively and distinctly. And everyone knew where they were going and what they were looking for - even in the crowd scenes.

As almost always with Ostrovsky, the main motive, the selfless (and often unrequited) passion of the characters is money. There are also remnants of the past that babble about love - in particular, the heroine of Marina Zudina, Yulia Tugina. And Pribytkov (Oleg Tabakov) is a big businessman who is in love with Tugin and knows very well what kind of capital is required to acquire happiness. He is not wrong. Eremin created a rigid structure - in terms of rhythm and appearance, and one feels in the performance not that the doom of all the characters, but the inevitable path that they have to go through, and the path is not fun. There will be no successful ones, there will be no happy ones - someone will not be able to sell themselves, someone will sell themselves cheaper than they expected, and if they manage to profitably invest their body, then there will be little joy. And the one who buys has already lost all sorts of illusions and simply powerfully and imposingly eats what causes appetite.

The only thing in the performance of the Moscow Art Theater reminds of spaces where it is not so stuffy - music. On the stage is either a restaurant, or Yulia Pavlovna's house, or Pribytkov's office (Oleg Tabakov). The director and actors did not philosophize. For example, when the heroine Zudina is informed about the betrayal of her fiancé, sad music sounds and after a pause, Zudina's voice is heard: "How is it?", all this affects the hall without fail. God bless them, with innovations, in the end, honest acting, non-narcissistic directing is almost an event. And when the door of Yulia Pavlovna's house opens, you can hear a blizzard outside the walls, and when they come from the street, they shake off the snow from their clothes. Above the stage on the right are photographs of snowy old Moscow, they change from time to time. These photographs, illuminating the wheels above the stage, and the abstract painting that hangs in Pribytkov's office are the only signs of a theater, to put it bluntly, of a conditional one. The rest is honest, clear and sincere. No fuss.

Oleg Tabakov plays the role of the master of life very convincingly. It couldn't be otherwise. Pribytkov's attraction to Tugina, however, sometimes knocks him out of the saddle: when she approaches him, he instinctively hugs her, she jumped back - and his hand catches her scarf. Although, of course, little space is given to sentiment in Pribytkov's life. Only on schedule, just out of courtesy. And so the moments when he suddenly obeys the impulse are impressive.

The interpretation of Oleg Tabakov is different than, say, that of Moskvin, who played Pribytkov on the stage of the Moscow Art Theater. He was a noble, aging gentleman, almost the savior of Tugina. In Eremin's performance, where there is an elegant and courteous mutual devouring, Pribytkov perfectly "rhymes" with the life that boils around: there is no dissonance, he simply performs the leading part. Around: Luka Dergachev (Roman Kirillov) - tiny and miserable, it seems that his place is in someone's bosom, but he is painfully unsightly, no one will take him by the bosom. Salai Saltanych (Igor Zolotovitsky) - a smaller fry Pribytkov, not the master of life, but rather the owner, but also not a miss. Vadim Dulchin (Sergei Kolesnikov) is a handsome man, heartthrob, rushing about in search of a rich wife. Irina Lavrovna (Daria Yurskaya), sincerely and passionately in love with Dulchin, but cooled down in a second, learning that the handsome man is not rich ... And some other empty-headed veils, lying aunts, widows in love - each, although not standing on stage for long, makes his own paint in the creation of this little world.

In this performance, we feel a special rock - of such a homely, kitchen quality, but no less powerful: you marry a rich (rich), and if you fail, you will bite your elbows, sobbing in front of people about your nobility. Or the conscience turns, it becomes somehow sickening to be a scoundrel, and in ten minutes - a guitar in your hands, a cigarette in your teeth, and the rebellion is over.

Meyerhold, who staged Ostrovsky in the twenties, freed the stage from everyday details also because he wanted to avoid justifying Ostrovsky's heroes by the age-old way of life, which would be expressed in the fitting of things to each other, their cohesion - they say, it didn’t start yesterday, it won’t end tomorrow, you are just a living figure among these cabinets and chairs. That is, he wanted, among other tasks, to destroy the analogy of "rock-life" (or "rock-way") and focus on the will of man. According to the latest performances based on the plays of Ostrovsky, including the performance of the Moscow Art Theater, one cannot say that the will is possible.

The endings of Ostrovsky's plays are often falsely happy. Heroes are suddenly showered with money rain; someone achieves a goal - low, but his own; or suddenly the conscience will seethe in the main character again, and he promises to be reborn to an honest life. But these endings are essentially as sad as, say, the endings of The Thunderstorm or The Dowry. An accidental rain of money could have spilled completely over other people, which means that somewhere these precipitations did not fall, and it is unnecessary to talk about happiness there. This kind of accident does not cancel the course of things, the alignment of forces, but only emphasizes it. Therefore, so often with Ostrovsky, the more joyful the ending, the sadder. The end of Eremin's performance is devoid of even this duality. Pribytkov and Tugin leave the stage, and on the screen we see their faces in close-up. Then - only the face of Tugina. She learned the truth, but, as they say, "the truth is good, but happiness is better." Tugina's last sacrifice is that she comes to terms with this truth of life. And her ex-fiance yells that he will continue the search for a rich bride. Will find.

Izvestia, December 17, 2003

Marina Davydova

Shadows of Unforgotten Ancestors

Ostrovsky's "The Last Victim" was played at the Moscow Art Theater

On Tuesday at the Moscow Art Theater, in Kamergersky Lane, they gave the premiere of Alexander Ostrovsky's play "The Last Victim". The artistic director of the theatre, Mr. Tabakov, played the role of the rich merchant Flora Fedulych Pribytkov, and his charming wife Marina Zudina played the role of the young widow Yulia.

There is in Tabakovo and in everything he does, a wide Russian scope. He - like no one in our world deprived of real merchant morality - knows how to help others, not to offend himself. So the Moscow Art Theater healed under Tabakov on a merchant's foot. It now has just enough - both scenes (three pieces), and invited directors (I can’t count), and premieres (we don’t have time to write articles). And who, if not Tabakov, who knows how to catch a crane in the sky, holding a tit in his hand, was to play the diligent, but generous, sedate, but amorous, caring about his reputation, but who knows how to play tricks on occasion, the businessman Pribytkov. Not deceived by the insidious lover, Yulia and not the rogue lover himself, repentant and immediately sinning again (Sergey Kolesnikov), but his degree Flor Fedulych becomes the main character of this performance. A positive, mind you, hero. The place of fine-hearted talkers, useless dependents, petty rascals, big thieves, and government officials who feed on these thieves should finally be replaced by conscientious and sharp-witted entrepreneurs who do not squander their own and other people's property and know what a word of honor is - this is the implicit, but readable meaning of this Mkhatov "Victims".

In the premiere performance, staged by a strong professional Yuri Eremin, there is, however, one more plot. No less curious. In addition to the Moscow Art Theater of today, led by Mr. Tabakov, there is present in it - and it is visibly present - also the Art Theater from the time of its foundation. And if the first plot is entirely at the mercy of Oleg Palych in the role of Flora Fedulych, the second is the work of the director.

The events of the performance compared with the events of the comedy are shifted by Eremin by at least twenty years - from the 70s (the time the play was written) to the very end of the century (the time the Art Theater was opened). It is not the usual merchants of Ostrovsky who operate in it - with bushy beards and echoes of bast-bast Rus in manners, but rather merchants of the era of modernity and patronage - sleek, dressed in the latest fashion there. The ladies are in outfits with a slight taste of secession (costume designer Svetlana Kalinina).

The flavor of the merchant's speech here is somewhat mixed. Some delightful phrases like the order of Lavr Mironych (Valery Khlevinsky): "Here, form a snack under the birch trees" - they are completely cut out. The characteristic "s" at the end of words, with which Ostrovsky's heroes sprinkle their speech, including Flora Fedulych, is mercilessly blacked out. In other words, these merchants were finally and irrevocably transferred by Eremin from the vile class to the higher. This is a completely new generation of Russian businessmen, the very ones whose efforts created the Tretyakov Gallery, acquired priceless canvases that now adorn the Pushkin Museum im. Pushkin, and without whose active participation the Art Theater itself would not have arisen. Allusions to the interiors and facade of the building rebuilt by Shekhtel in Kamergersky are clearly felt in the scenery of Valery Fomin. And at the very beginning of the performance, a voice-over with feeling and arrangement says: "The Moscow Art Theater presents Ostrovsky's comedy ..." That's right - the Moscow Art Theater. Opened and presents.

Of course, Flor Fedulych is not Mamontov or Morozov, but nobility in him is an abyss. Ivan Moskvin, who played Pribytkov in Khmelov's 1944 production, created a complex character. His Flor Fedulich, according to Elena Polyakova, first comes to Tugina to buy her for himself. This prudent and cold businessman "becomes different from one evidence of true female love." Tabakov's image of the hero does not undergo any changes. From the very beginning, he is not cold, but warm, knows how to appreciate the beautiful and even in small doses cannot stand vulgarity. Again interested in art. Acquired a gramophone. "Casta Diva" listens and listens. "Oh, grandfather has a new picture!" - exclaims the windy Irene (Daria Yurskaya), pointing to the wall. On the wall flaunts a tambourine abstract composition. "Sodom and Gomorrah," Pribytkov clarifies with pride. The self-respecting merchant Ostrovsky, seeing such a daub (you can’t tell where the top is, where the bottom is), would have spat and crossed himself. Flor Fedulych hung it up in a conspicuous place. Progressive person. (And Tabakov generally invited Kirill Serebrennikov to stage performances; I'm telling you - find five differences.) At the end of the first act, another merchant, Lavr Mironych, will entertain guests with a new overseas curiosity - a cinematograph. At the time of writing the play, as you know, it had not yet been invented, and the intensity of passions in the film shown on the screen casts an unexpected reflection on the melodramatic passions of Ostrovsky himself.

There are no acting discoveries in the performance - with the exception, perhaps, only Olga Barnet, who witty and sweepingly played the universal matchmaker Glafira Firsovna. Lord, you think, what a wonderful character actress, where did everyone look before? Other roles are played qualitatively, but predictably. Including Tabakov himself. And what kind of revelations can there be - a person plays himself. But the exact repertory choice (there is no doubt that Eremin's production will become one of the highest-grossing performances of the Moscow Art Theater) and a subtle game over time more than atone for the lack of revelations.

At the very end, a screen is suddenly lowered in front of the artists who have bowed out - and their figures for a moment turn into shadows on this screen. Shadows of our unforgotten, fortunately, ancestors. By their forces at the end of the century before last, Russia almost became Europe. I won’t say for the country, but these shadows wandered into the address at the Moscow Art Theater. Hope they stay for a long time.

Vedomosti, December 17, 2003

Oleg Zintsov

Millionaire

Moscow Art Theater Chekhov showed a positive image of the capitalist

The newest Moscow Art Theater performance "The Last Victim" is tempting to call it a social order. Not later than in the spring, the director of the Golden Mask, Eduard Boyakov, complained that we had few works with a positive image of the capitalist. "How little is that?" The theatrical figures became worried and remembered Ostrovsky's comedy. Here you are: Flor Fedulych Pribytkov, a very rich merchant, and S, performed by Oleg Tabakov, A man with a beautiful soul. Whether there will be more: after the Moscow Art Theater, "The Last Victim" is promised to be released by the Maly Theater and "Lenkom".

You don't have to meticulously check the theater poster to notice: Alexander Nikolayevich Ostrovsky has been on the top line in the repertoire rating of the Moscow stage for several years now. They value it differently. Who (for example, Sergei Zhenovach) loves the sincerity and strength of the way of life, and who (say, Konstantin Raikin) loves relevance in the broad sense that, no matter how you interpret these plays, no one in all of Russian dramaturgy wrote more and better about money.

Yuri Eremin, who staged "The Last Victim" at the Moscow Art Theater, tends to the second: he doesn't really bother with characters, draws a simple moral, and prefers cinema, telephone and gramophone to samovars and tea saucers. The action time C is not exactly today, but not the 19th century either. , and the beginning of the XX Since the era of primitive accumulation of capital. Flor Fedulych S is not a merchant, but a successful manufacturer, and if Ostrovsky says: there is a picture hanging on the wall, then in the Moscow Art Theater there are not just three bears, but modernism of the purest water.

The scenery of Valery Fomin is intricately arranged. The right side of the stage is empty except for a small movie screen on which a silent film is shown during the intermission. And the left one is occupied by a system of screens set in motion by large gears under the ceiling. On the first screen C is the petty-bourgeois interior in the room of the young widow Yulia Pavlovna Tugina (Marina Zudina), on the second C is the office of Flor Fedulych (Oleg Tabakov). When the screens are lifted one by one under the grates, the next ones again reveal the same room and office. This infinity is not at all bad, but it is somewhat puzzling: why was there so much fuss? Where, may I ask, are the savings?

After all, "The Last Sacrifice" can be read as a comedy about the benefits of prudent management of capital - whether it be money or beauty. The plot completely boils down to the fact that a young widow, having suffered from a fiancé who squandered all her fortune, in the end prefers a rich old man to him: he knows how to do business and build even cordial relationships on a basis that is beneficial to both parties.

On the Moscow Art Theater stage, the correctness of this choice is shown with some kind of anecdotal clarity. Here is Flor Fedulych Tabakov C, an example of intelligence, prudence and undoubted positive charm. And here is Mr. Dulchin (Sergei Kolesnikov), who almost says on his forehead that he is a vulgar, empty person and no last sacrifices are worth it. It's a simple matter to lower a few thousand and deliver a million torments to a beautiful girl. If the girl is also smart, she will quickly leave the torment. But from a million C and with such and such Flor Fedulych C, it is stupid to refuse. The frankness with which the performance presents this instructive conclusion is worthy, if not tenderness, then understanding - at least on the part of a respectable audience.

NG, December 18, 2003

Pavel Rudnev

No more sacrifices needed

People's artists save the premiere at the Moscow Art Theater. Chekhov

A bad boss scolds his subordinates. Good - redoes bad work himself. One can be sure that Oleg Tabakov, head of the Chekhov Moscow Art Theater, shares this truth. Otherwise, it would not have happened as in the last premiere of the theater: only the participation of Oleg Tabakov and Marina Zudina could save Ostrovsky's "Last Victim" from failure. Masters come on stage to literally protect - with their breasts and fame - the fragile vessel of the performance.

In the production of Yuri Eremin, they play close people who are destined to become legal spouses in the final. Unequal marriage is a remedy for shame: such is Ostrovsky's bitter philosophy here. Zudina got the role more difficult than ever - in an era of universal pragmatism, to play the sincere disinterestedness and naive blindness of a woman in love. To today's viewer it should seem that in this image Ostrovsky was generally changed by the gift of a writer of everyday life: the actions of the unfortunate widow look so implausible. Yulia Tugina allows herself to support the gigolo, reach the edge of the "living wage" and go to the merchant to kneel and pray for the "last victim" for the sake of her tormentor. And Zudina, it seems, finds a way out: she plays not a woman, but a girl who is in love not with a particular handsome man, but with love itself, and even more - with her sacrifice, with a mission. A widow, she seems to have only really begun to live after the death of her husband, still remaining an inexperienced child with the financial capabilities of an adult.

By the will of the director, who transferred the action of the play to the era of the emerging modern, Oleg Tabakov enters the stage not as a merchant of the first guild, but as an industrialist, commissioning a new workshop at his manufactory, as well as an enlightened art lover, theatergoer and music lover, lover of avant-garde painting (in the office hangs a kind of beige abstraction). He walks with his belly protruding, examines the area in a businesslike manner, jokes dryly and is ready to take everything into his hands that is badly lying - a business executive and an owner, in a word. He looks at Tugin with a loving, "cornflower blue" look, enveloping the woman with unobtrusive care, like a warm shawl: "If they take you away, I will cry." The emphasis in the last word is floating: will he pay? Or pay? But here is a simple scam, famously scrolled through figureheads, and the idol is defeated, and a chic woman falls into the arms of a businesslike old man.

And, in fact, there is nothing more to describe. Because the second and third plans of "Last Victim" ... They simply do not exist. As soon as Tabakov or Zudina (who played, let's not flatter ourselves, they are not at the limit of their abilities) go backstage, you sit and suffer. Why so slow? Why is the environment so untalented? Why a flat, inanimate decoration? Why photographs with views of abandoned factories? Why the unbending, uncharismatic Sergey Kolesnikov in the role of Dulchin, a lover-squanderer - with a rat-like appearance and the voice of an operetta dude who hardly has the ability to seduce women? Why again on the stage of the Moscow Art Theater in the wonderfully written role of Irina (Ostrovsky's ingenious definition is "a girl with a belated and too bold naivety") Daria Yurskaya - a dry, unvirtuoso, capricious actress with a raspy voice?

And everything happens because the decision to stage the next performance on the stage of the Moscow Art Theater comes before the idea of a new version of "The Last Victim", and by the time of the premiere no idea is found, even Russian maybe does not help. And it turns out that Ostrovsky's "actualization" consists only in creating a "stage version of Yuri Eremin" on the basis of the play. Namely, to swap the pages, transfer the action from the 1870s to the 1910s and, with an unwavering hand, write the relevant realities into the canonical text. We are not "keepers of the reserve" and we will not reproach Ostrovsky for trampling on Ostrovsky's letter, but again questions remain. Why did this story happen at the dawn of the 20th century with a major Moscow industrialist, although it could have happened in the 1950s with a senior party worker from Leningrad? Why does Igor Zolotovitsky play Salai Saltanych as a Tatar with a banal accent, and, for example, not a Jewish usurer or an Azerbaijani from the market? Why, finally, brother Pribytkov (Valery Khlevinsky) demonstrates to all the audience a new invention of mankind - a silent cinematograph, and not a computer game HalfLife-2, for example? Unjustified - do not believe.

Chekhov Moscow Art Theater hung. He sorely lacks luck and bright spots in the repertoire. The next two premieres are simply obliged to save the Tabakov theater from untimely extinction. The February "Petty Bourgeois" by Kirill Serebrennikov and the March "Days of the Turbins" by Sergei Zhenovach are the Mkhatov rear, its deposits. In order not to lose the war on the line of fire, you need to collect all the remaining resources here. And the fact that they seem to exist can be judged at least by how confidently and firmly Oleg Tabakov holds on as a business person.

Newstime, December 19, 2003

Alexander Sokolyansky

Long past present tense

Mkhatovskaya "The Last Victim" - the first big premiere of the season

“The old man, in love with a young widow, tries, under the guise of patronage and guardianship, to separate her from her beloved young man, in which he succeeds. A girl is set up for a young man, passing her off as a rich bride; he gets carried away and cheats on the widow. She, unable to bear the betrayal, goes crazy, and he, having learned about it and in a fit of despair, takes his own life. Thus, in 1874, Ostrovsky outlines a certain plot for himself in the future, partly re-arranging one of Gozzi's late plays for Russian life (as established by Inna Solovieva). Looks for names: "The Trustees"? "Victim of the century"? He will take up work only in August 1877, and by mid-October the play “The Last Victim” will be ready. Using the expressions of the then criticism - one of the "most important things" of Ostrovsky.

The Italian trace is easy to spot. The characters talk about the singer Patti and the tragedian Rossi, and their names are a marvelous fusion of Latin and Zamoskvoretsky. The heroine's name is Yuliya Tugina, the rich old man is Flor Pribytkov, and the young heliporter is Dulchin: here, of course, one hears not only the pampered dolce vita, but also our ordinary "muzzle". Having thought out and revived these people, Ostrovsky to some extent lost control of the plot, or, on the contrary, subordinated the plot to his ideas about a properly arranged life. In the course of the action, it turns out that Flor Pribytkov is not a depraved old man, but a very decent and well-mannered person; that the beautiful lover Dulchin is still a bastard; that in general all these romantic passions are a corrosive haze: the sooner you shake off yourself, the more whole you will be. And it’s not worth going crazy at all, isn’t it better to get married: Tugina with Pribytkov, and Dulchin, who also needs to be pitied, with a passionate, rich, albeit ridiculous merchant’s wife. He will have money, and the kind of romance that Dulchin wants is always on sale. Whether there are other varieties is a moot point for Ostrovsky. When this playwright is called a great realist, there is nothing to object to: a really great, really realist - only the strength and charm of Ostrovsky is not in realism, but, if you like, in "counter-romanticism": I could talk about this topic for a long time, but let's better return to the plot.

The intrigue of The Last Victim is more entertaining than any detective story, and the viewer is supposed to fidget from beginning to end: well, what about him? what is she? where is the money? etc. - and interest is growing, and the denouement is stunning. Having let slip how everything will end, I could do a disservice to any theater, but I didn’t hurt the Art Theater in any way. The only drawback of the performance, in many respects remarkable and, of course, the best in the current season, is the predictability of the behavior of the characters. Too fast guessing.

As soon as a person appears on the stage, be it Flor Pribytkov (Oleg Tabakov), his nephew Lavr (Valery Khlevinsky), Vadim Dulchin (Sergei Kolesnikov in line with Maxim Matveev), the old bawd Glafira Firsovna (Olga Barnet) and whoever , everything is clear about him: who he is, what he does and what he is worth. Director Yuri Eremin once remarkably knew how (probably still knows how) to bring the riddle of a person to the center of the action: to confirm this, it is enough to recall The Old Man and The Idiot, staged in the 1980s at the Theater of the Soviet Army. However, The Last Victim is a performance without riddles.

The time of action is shifted a quarter of a century forward: we are not in the seventies of the 19th century, but at the beginning of the 20th century: electricity, telephones and even a cubist canvas in the office of a capitalist, no longer a simple merchant Flor Pribytkov (artist - Valery Fomin). The decision is bold, but quite reasonable. It is justified by the comprehensibility of the beauties of Russian Art Nouveau. What kind of women's dresses, what kind of headdress did Svetlana Kolesnikova come up with for Yulia Tugina - even now bring it to a boutique and sell it for crazy euros! One can come up with a more profound justification: the time of Art Nouveau for the first time connected the fine arts with industrial production: that is, it was Tugin and Pribytkov. Finally, there is a purely theatrical justification: it is more convenient for the actors.

In life, you can do without excuses. In life, metro cars are pasted over with posters: a man who was going to become the mayor of Moscow, I don’t remember his last name, mourns the fate of the Voentorg on Vozdvizhenka: how, they say, can one demolish a monument of the great Art Nouveau architecture of the early 19th (nineteenth!) century. Nobody notices. The time that has passed between the Empire and Art Nouveau has somehow crumpled for everyone, has lost its internal boundaries. Turned into a homogeneous long-past time.

In the theater, the situation is somewhat more complicated. If only because good actors know that over time the structure of speech and the way of pronouncing words change. “I love you” under Ostrovsky and under Chekhov was pronounced differently, and the consequences of what was said rarely coincided. Historical realities - God bless them. In Eremin's performance, in a setting that unequivocally belongs to the early twentieth century, the characters regret that Patty will no longer come; whoever is funny, let him wipe himself. The brilliant singer Adeline Patti first came to Russia in 1869, and Ostrovsky's contemporaries went crazy over her; few people know that she gave her last concert in Russia in 1904, when she was already over sixty. I am reporting this not only for the good of the cause, but especially for the admirers of the great Luciano Pavarotti.

Early 20th century: everyone knows how to play it. Yuri Eremin came up with a wonderful thing: the characters do not even suspect that their time will be called "decadence". They live the way they live - in their own strength, loving as much as possible, or at least having fun. And also suffering, hating, fawning, taking advantage of the opportunity, etc. As, in fact, always lived.

The role of Yulia Tugina in this scenario becomes twice as complicated. The fact that Marina Zudina would play the heroine of The Last Victim was clear from the very beginning; it was not clear how she would play. The actress is now in that happy age state when everything is available: from Antigone to Ranevskaya. The role in The Last Victim was, if you like, a test of artistic flexibility and a great test of the seriousness of talent. He turned out to be serious.

Zudina's talent has special properties: she knows how to play fortissimo better than piano. In other words, the bright is more accessible to her than the subtle. She works out the first scenes very mediocrely. The breaks in his spiritual life - when he begs Pribytkov for money in the first act, when he falls into a hysteria dangerous for the soul in the second - Zudina-Tugina plays excellently. For her, the style of Art Nouveau is just a kind of elegant addition to her own data. It was very tempting to turn the heroine of Ostrovsky into a figure similar to the well-behaved martyrs from television series; the director, as I understand it, tried to bring everyone to the line and slow down in front of her. Thanks to Marina Zudina: she did not intercede.

And also - thanks to Olga Barnet. For the way her Glafira Firsovna snorts a glass, eats a snack, waits, shows off - everything is of the highest class. And thanks to Roman Kirillov, who plays Luka Dergachev - his character so touchingly, so helplessly pleases the evil Dulchin, that in the end it becomes insulting for him: what the hell is he doing, a sense of personal dignity ?! Meanwhile, it is clear where he is doing it: Kirillov managed to play not a plot, but fate.

As for Oleg Tabakov, in 1995 he played Kolomiytsev in Gorky's play The Last. It was a great role. I am not sure that the role of Flora Pribytkov can be called great, but in any case it deserves a separate description.

Novye Izvestia, December 19, 2003

Olga Seregina

Glamor Victim

The Chekhov Moscow Art Theater resurrected the classic play by Alexander Ostrovsky

The premiere of "The Last Victim" by Alexander Ostrovsky at the Chekhov Moscow Art Theater has become the most successful dramatic performance of the current season. The success of the project is largely due to the brilliant play of the first couple of the Moscow Art Theater - the artistic director of the theater Oleg Tabakov and his wife - prima theater Marina Zudina.

The phrase “Last Victim” at the Art Theater has long been associated with the production of 1944 with amazing scenery by Vladimir Dmitriev, with a stunning duet-masterpiece of the “first pair of the Moscow Art Theater”: Alla Tarasova (Tugina) and Ivan Moskvin (Flor Fedulich). The choice of a play for a new production, the choice for the main roles of the “first couple” of today's Chekhov Moscow Art Theater - Oleg Tabakov and Marina Zudina - provoked and set up historical comparisons. However, the director Yuri Eremin was not attracted by the idea to beat the history of the Moscow Art Theater. The experience of staging Nikolai Khmelev, if it was used, was only as a springboard for a "jump" in a completely different direction. Instead of carefully following "for Ostrovsky" in the new "Victim" - a free arrangement of scenes and replicas. Instead of a thorough recreation of the environment of the 80s of the end of the nineteenth century, with its established way of life beyond Moscow, with rituals of behavior, there is a luxurious modernity of the beginning of the twentieth century. In today's version of Ostrovsky, mansions with twisted lanterns are projected on a video screen. Fawn silk dresses, furs and amazing hats of ladies; stylized livery of the porter in the evening garden. Instead of a detailed interior, there are the wooden walls of the pavilion, marking either Yulia's room with a portrait of her husband in the center, or Pribytkov's office with a picture of the "latest art school" on the wall, or a living room with Dulchin's mirror. Instead of a lacy psychological game, there are local colors of either absolute virtue or black villainy, stylized as a black-and-white film of the beginning of the last century.

The visitors of the evening garden sit down to watch this film with wringing of hands, with uplifting of the eyes, with the glamorous beauty of each gesture. Yuri Eremin staged Ostrovsky in the spirit of a film drama: the mise-en-scene and poses are a little deliberately refined - they love beautifully, they suffer beautifully. Sad music plays in the background of mental turmoil. White flakes of theatrical snow cover the unfaithful handsome Dulchin (Sergei Kolesnikov), who embraced Irina Lavrovna (Daria Yurskaya). Deceived and abandoned, Tugina (Marina Zudina) wanders among the silhouettes of garden visitors.

Olga Barnet (Glafira Firsovna) plays superbly in the still very uneven cast of the performance. Her heroine is always chewing something anxiously, fiddling with something in her hands, arranging intrigues with some kind of gloomy persistence. Dergachev (Roman Kolesnikov) is good and reliable, a small, fussy little man sincerely reveres his handsome friend and tries in every possible way to save him. Colorful Salai Saltanych performed by Igor Zolotovitsky.

Ostrovsky's stylization proposed by the director led away from the historical train of the play (the loud trial of the jacks of hearts, which gave the playwright a lot for his Dulchin, the story of a rich old man who took the widow Bashkirova, who was robbed by a swindler, for maintenance). From her theatrical memory (say, from the Italian tragedy that gave Ostrovsky the plot of "The Last Victim"; from the interpretations of Fedotova, Yermolova, Savina, etc.). It is to be regretted that the director's intention straightened out many of the crooked "spiritual delays" of Ostrovsky's characters. Minutes of unpredictable psychological turns are too rare. Here is Flor Fedulych - Tabakov, running up, lifted Tugin, who was begging for money, from his knees and, already giving up on her request, asks: "How much?" - "Six thousand". What confusion of feelings possesses him: here is relief that he asks for so little; and annoyance that because of such a sum such a woman is on her knees, and of course - tenderness for this little fool who definitely does not understand life, and much, much more. At this moment, it is clear how unexpected the Moscow Art Theater Flor Fedulych could become, if Tabakov dare to move away from the usual win-win techniques, intonations, the mask of "a man of calculation and success."

However, with all the “buts” and regrets, the MAT production has clearly become a noticeable phenomenon and the most successful dramatic performance of the season that has begun. And ahead of us are waiting for the "Last Victims" in Lenkom and the Maly Theater.

Rossiyskaya Gazeta, December 19, 2003

Alena Karas

"The Last Victim" of the Moscow Art Theater

Oleg Tabakov returns viewers to merchant Moscow

"The LAST Victim" of Ostrovsky at the Moscow Art Theater was both conceived and rehearsed with the expectation of absolute box office success. Tabakov, releasing premiere after premiere on all three of his venues, never managed to get anything successful on the main stage. Director Yuri Eremin also needed success like air - he has not been very successful in performances lately. So they made a desperate forced march, crowned with a completely convincing victory.

The play "The Last Victim" at the Moscow Art Theater is a tasty and pleasant spectacle in almost every respect. To do this, the director and artist significantly redrawn the play, adding several new lines and shifting the entire plot from the merchant Moscow of the 70s to the new bourgeois capital of the beginning of the last century. Stylish Art Nouveau, screens, one after another opening the exquisite interiors of rich Moscow houses and restaurants, snow falling every now and then, the joyful feeling of Moscow winter evenings with their cheerful and nervous excitement, theatrical tours and the Slavic Bazaar, so accurately described by Bunin (artist Valery Fomin).

The main magician of this magically rich Moscow is Flor Fedulych Pribytkov, performed by Oleg Tabakov. He embodies the type of an enlightened, wise and reverent businessman of the turn of the century, a kind of Savva Morozov: a Bolshoi subscription holder, a collector of non-figurative paintings of the new time (a cubist painting hangs on the wall in his office), a connoisseur of vocal art, who listens with pleasure to records from Casta Diva on new gramophone. An educated person in all respects - even knows how to pronounce "phenomenon" correctly, with an emphasis on "o".

Eremin went even further, rhyming the melodramatic story of a lovely woman, an insidious seducer and a kind millionaire with the aesthetics of a cinematograph. An absurd lover of French novels, merchant Pribytkov (Valery Khlevinsky) demonstrates a new film, and the whole action of the play is accompanied by film images of snow-covered Moscow houses and factories. The bourgeois fever and the very atmosphere of the beginning of the last century gave the theater new opportunities to play with the current century.

But the acting capabilities of the lead actress were also taken into account. It is really easier for Marina Zudina to play a nervous modern woman with hysterical notes on a crescendo, with broken movements and coquettish intonations than an ingenuous woman of the 70s. Her feelings for men are a spicy mixture of spiritual dedication and subtle, secret calculation. Having fallen in love with the player Dulchin with all her passion, she still does not forget that there is capital behind him. But the motive of love, paid for by a serious fortune and a reasonable approach, appears most clearly in the game of Oleg Tabakov. He is the protagonist of The Last Victim. He loves tenderly and devotedly, insinuatingly and intelligently. In his feeling, he demonstrates humility and calculation.

Heartbroken and betrayed, the woman, who seems about ready to commit suicide, easily gives her heart to a new respectable admirer. There is no place for pure calculation in the way Zudina and Tabakov play their heroes. They joyfully demonstrate the main virtue of the new age - to love with calculation, to have a sincere feeling for someone who is useful. The pacified spectator surrenders sweetly into the arms of this new fairy tale. "Only services can win the favor of a woman." The sad and wise Ostrovsky gives today's theater an exceptional psychological outline of feelings in the realm of capital. It is no coincidence that theaters have taken on him with such gratitude and passion in recent seasons. Following the Moscow Art Theater, the Maly Theater and Lenkom promise the "Last Victim".

In Eremin's play, unexpectedly, a secondary, but subtly executed plot reveals itself to be a completely different love - love without calculation. So, at least, the young actor Roman Kirillov plays his hero, the miserable Luka Dergacheva. Humiliated to the last degree, he is capable of compassion and ultimate, true love for Vadim Dulchin. The insidious lover himself, performed by Sergei Kolesnikov, is an extremely stilted and flat figure. Nothing remarkable. Most remarkable of all is the terrible matchmaker Glafira Firsovna (Olga Barnet), who played the special cynicism of people who always make mistakes next to power and capital, serving them for a pittance - a kind of sophisticated "school of slander".

Under the softly falling snow, in a chic coat and hat, Yulia Tugina walks arm in arm with her future husband, Flor Fedulovich Pribytkov, a kind, wise, loving and very reasonable millionaire. The snow gently covers this couple, pleasant in all respects, and the happy face of the future millionaire Pribytkova appears on the screen in close-up. The justification of wealth was accomplished on the stage of the Chekhov Moscow Art Theater with bourgeois, good-quality decorum. With such a performance, you can celebrate the New Year.

New theater news, December 26, 2003

Polina Bogdanova

The last love of a business gentleman

At the Moscow Art Theatre. A. Chekhov is a high-profile premiere, which, undoubtedly, will be a great success for the audience. This is "The Last Victim" by Alexander Ostrovsky directed by Yuri Eremin. In the central roles - a star couple - Marina Zudina and Oleg Tabakov.

Director Yuri Eremin shifted the time of the play somewhat and transferred the events to the 20th century, at the time of electricity, telephones and cinematography. The era of graceful women in the Art Nouveau style and fatal beauties from silent films. And he acted out a story, a little bit ironic, stylized as those exciting cinematograph scenes, where the heroine wrings her thin beautiful hands with sad eyes and faints. And the fateful hero, spendthrift and gambler, who has spent all her fortune, is trying to shoot himself with a revolver. But the law of this new bourgeois entertainment is unequivocal: the public is supposed to be pleased, so everything must end well. So a gray-haired respectable gentleman appears, who becomes a true benefactor and savior of an unfortunate woman.

Marina Zudina plays the young widow Yulia Tugina, who fell in love with the scoundrel Dulchin (Sergei Kolesnikov). Julia belongs to the breed of those highly moral and truthful women who do not resort to coquetry or other ways of seducing a man, because they are driven by a genuine and deep passion. Only once Julia tried to use her feminine charm. When she decided to take a desperate and humiliating step for herself, she came to Pribytkov and asked him for money that was supposed to save Dulchin from the debt hole. But her flirtatiousness and playfulness dried up very quickly, crashing against a wall of polite but firm refusal.

Pribytkov Oleg Tabakov is not the kind of person who will allow himself to be led by the nose and use his generosity and kindness. He is very prudent, this gentleman of the new bourgeois era, well acquainted with political economy, in addition, he has a rational and disciplined nature, as well as considerable life experience. He sees through Julia, knowing full well that she is only a victim of a dishonorable and impudent deceit. He very subtly and cleverly, through figureheads, conducts his intrigue against Dulchin, which opens Yulia's eyes and heals her of a strong but humiliating feeling. To Julia herself, he treats with that cautious tenderness that is characteristic of a person who, in his declining days, has found his last love. Who knows how to appreciate this feeling in a way that the young could never.

Director Yury Eremin in this performance weaves the thread of relations between the characters in a very interesting and detailed way and amazes with the freedom and grace of the emotional score. Here there are bright grotesque sketches of images, and everyday truthfulness, and juicy characteristic types. Take Irene, played by Daria Yurskaya, who plays with inimitable brilliance and wit. She creates the image of a predatory, in her own way charming fool, inflamed with an "African" passion for the "rich man" Dulchin and deceived by him, but not broken. Because the healthy cynicism of her nature protects her in all delicate and dubious situations. The role of the aunt played by Olga Barnet is excellent. Also in his own way a predatory and mercenary person, ready to serve the wealthy and capable of generous gratitude Pribytkov with canine devotion. Her first appearance in Yulia's house turns into a separate performance, when she sits at the table and greedily, not having time to chew, gobbles up the food brought to her, washing everything down with vodka. Ostrovsky's play, which for us is the standard of everyday and psychological truth, Yuri Eremin "shifts" not only in time of action, transferring everything to the beginning of the 20th century, the already developed industrial era. But also a little by genre. In addition, he largely rewrites the text, removing some pieces and inserting others. He needs a story that is not realistic, especially a moralizing and edifying story.

And a beautiful melodrama from bourgeois life, stylized, as already mentioned, under the sentimental plots of a silent cinematograph. By the way, this art is really present here, silent films are shown on the back of the stage. And in the way the director builds a beautiful melodrama, there is a good taste and even a kind of grace. Here everything is slightly exaggerated, everything is presented in such a way as to produce an effect, to create an impression. And at the same time, there is a subtle irony in everything. After all, Eremin understands what he is doing and for what. He creates an example of a bourgeois theater that the public should like.

In accordance with all this, the final is built - beautiful and sentimental.

Results, December 23, 2003

Marina Zayonts

sentimental romance

"The Last Victim" by A. Ostrovsky staged at the Chekhov Moscow Art Theater

I don't know if you pay attention to the television ads for some competition called "Russian Plot"? The one where Alexander Kalyagin heartily and reverently calls on artists to create a positive image of the new Russia and tirelessly look for its heroes, the builders of capitalism with a human face. In any case, the creators of "The Last Victim" obviously did not leave this call indifferent. The plot, of course, was not invented by Alexander Ostrovsky today, but adapted to our modern needs by director Yuri Eremin, stage designer Valery Fomin, and, of course, Oleg Tabakov, not just the leading actor, but also to some extent its prototype. On a par, of course, with such famous people who increased the glory of Russian art at the turn of the 19th-20th centuries, such as P. Tretyakov, S. Mamontov, S. Morozov, etc.

This play is in great demand this season. In addition to the Chekhov Moscow Art Theater, Lenkom and Maly announced it, but Tabakov, accustomed to taking the bull by the horns, was ahead of everyone. Because it is high time to show the people that a person who turns a lot of money is not necessarily just a scoundrel and a swindler worthy of being in prison. You know, he has feelings, and a taste for the real, and the word "honor" for him is not an empty sound, not to mention business qualities that a mere mortal can only envy. All this, in the role of Flor Fedulych Pribytkov, is expressively presented to the public by Oleg Tabakov, armed as always with his irresistible and victorious charm. Eremin moved the action of Ostrovsky's play 30 years ahead, launched a silent film on the screen, did not let anyone sit down and weave psychological lace, made the action as dynamic as possible, turning the old plot into an instructive melodrama, about which one moved spectator at the premiere said, wiping her tears: " Very vital."

In Ostrovsky's play, Pribytkov's nephew Lavr Mironovich (Valery Khlevinsky) and his enthusiastic daughter Irina (Daria Yurskaya) are very passionate about translated novels. The current viewer is passionate about something else - television series. Yuri Eremin's performance is similar to both. The director told a simple, understandable story for everyone about how a good young woman Yulia Tugina (Marina Zudina) fell in love with the handsome scoundrel Dulchin (Sergei Kolesnikov), spent her fortune on him, was insulted and humiliated by him, but, thank God, was found next to her a worthy and rich man (Pribytkov-Tabakov), who did not leave her in trouble and gave her his love and patronage. Well, yes, of course, he is much older than her, but not at the age of happiness, the creators tell us, not in love frenzy and various heart failures, but in peace and dignity. When you can throw a fur coat over your shoulders, take your patron by the arm and go to the Hermitage Garden to listen to the opera. Theatrical snow is falling abundantly, on the screen is a close-up of Marina Zudina, the beautiful, calm face of a woman who has all the bad things behind her. And then the inscription: the end.

Culture, December 25, 2003

Natalia Kaminskaya

Very good capitalist

"Last Victim" Moscow Art Theater A.P. Chekhov

Flor Fedulych Pribytkov at Ostrovsky's is "a very rich merchant." Oleg Tabakov, by the will of the director Yuri Eremin, he is a very rich manufacturer. Several times during the performance, and obviously beyond what is written in the play, he talks about a new, just rebuilt factory shop. And he sends his unlucky nephew Lavra with his daughter Irina to watch not recently acquired art canvases, but a bright picture of capitalist construction. His servant, Vasily, recommends that Yulia Tugina familiarize herself with a freshly published work on political economy.

Do these additions change anything in the collision of the play? They don't change anything. Just as Pribytkov was a "money bag", who had his own, moreover, a very strong code of honor for a business person, so he remained in the performance. Just as young Julia was a victim of disinterested love for the rogue Dulchin, such remains. And in general, the alignment of characters according to the social and moral shelves here is in its purest form "islandish". There are people of action, to whom even the Asian Salai Saltanych (Igor Zolotovitsky) with his aphorism: "He beats himself who does not cleanly reap" can be attributed to. And there are moth hangers-on like Lavr Mironych with his daughter. There is also the classic Alphonse - Vadim Grigorievich Dulchin. However, Ostrovsky is not Balzac, and his social ladder is strewn with the mysterious matter of the Russian soul, where bestial cruelty is mixed with romance, and sin goes hand in hand with repentance. There are no words, the merchant Pribytkov is good and noble. However, saving Yulenka's honor and life, he buys them at the same time. Ugly Dulchin, who lives on the money of ladies in love, and when he says: “A rare woman loves me, only I didn’t know how to appreciate her,” you’ll spread your arms.

But back to the stage of the Moscow Art Theater. A.P. Chekhov. And on it - a solid modernist style. Enclosures with Shekhtel's squares on top, combinations of cold gray with warm terracotta, paintings in the Vrubel style on the walls, a gramophone with a telephone on the tables, fluffy boas and broken draperies of decadence on the ladies. And in addition - a movie screen, where scenes of action appear in the blurry outlines of cinema: either a mansion, or factory chimneys, or the roofs of Zamoskvoretsk tenement houses. This detail is long and persistently reminiscent of a television soap opera, where a change of scene is necessarily fixed by the panorama of the corresponding facade. However, in the finale, the live pair of Pribytkov - Tugin retires into the depths of the stage, and the cinematic close-up moves towards the viewer. Sprinkled with fluffy snow, dressed in cute styles of the early twentieth century, this couple evokes longing for the joys of the Silver Age, finally leaves the world of Ostrovsky and enters the era of Mamontov and Morozov.

The director is drawn to grope for a new national idea and throw a positive hero to the ingenuous viewer. Oh, what a wonderful capitalist this Flor Fedulych Oleg Tabakov! Very rich, very honest and very advanced. When he talks about Patti, about Rossi, about subscriptions to the opera or about furniture in the style of Pompadour, this does not at all feel the efforts of the nouveau riche. There is even a drop of slyness: here, they say, is a good life and its obligatory attributes, and now see for yourself: who deserves it and who does not. Tabakov absolutely reigns in this performance. In fact, he plays on top of the stated theme. Director and artist Valery Fomin send the characters on a journey through time, about 20 (against Ostrovsky) years ahead, in the era of capitalism that has taken shape in Russia. Thus, they probably want not only to get rid of tired beards, undercoats and other traditionally theatrical Zamoskvoretsky joys. They, most likely, are trying to emphasize certain ideals of the newest Russian time and compare them with the era that ended in the 17th year. But Tabakov, perfectly maintaining the declared style, nevertheless plays his own: both late love, and firmness of convictions, and a certain nobility, and cunning promiscuity in means, and the male reliability of this powerful world. The funny thing is that all this, despite the time jump, is absolutely in the spirit of the author of the play with his ironic romanticism and the absence of labels "positive" - "negative". Together with Marina Zudina, who plays Julia, they make up a chic stage couple, where fragility finds support in soft, unobtrusive hardness.

Olga Barnet also plays her own. Her Glafira Firsovna, having got rid of the traditional shawls, skirts and rich colors of the theatrical matchmaker, appears as a funny aunt, on her own mind, with a slight problem and an animal survival instinct. The couple Lavr Mironych and his daughter are also funny, who, however, are completely packed in the declared style. Daria Yurskaya plays a nervous fool of the era of decadence, and Valery Khlevinsky - a puffed-up turkey whose evolution does not depend on time at all.

The trouble, however, is with Dulchin (Sergei Kolesnikov). His straightforward "meanness", uncharismatic guitar passages and inelegant approaches to the ladies leave questions not only for Tugina, but even for the eccentric Irina: and what, really, can you fall in love with than be captivated by?

At the very end of the season of the Moscow Art Theater. A.P. Chekhov finally released a performance for which he is not ashamed. He is stylish in his own way, smart and, of course, will be a success with the audience. Director Yuri Eremin, after two pale Moscow premieres, seems to have regained an even creative breath. But the main charm of this "victim" is the artistic director of the Moscow Art Theater, who, fortunately, remains a brilliant theater artist.

Petersburg Theater Magazine, No. 35, February 2004

Marina Timasheva

Tretyakov... Pribytkov... Tabakov

A. Ostrovsky. "Last Victim" Moscow Art Theater Chekhov. Directed by Yuri Eremin, set design by Valery Fomin

The Chekhov Moscow Art Theater released The Last Victim. Both in the case of Anatoly Praudin's "Dowry" and in the new production by Yuri Eremin, the author of the work, that is, Ostrovsky, is not easy to recognize. Praudin deprived the play of romance and showed the masters of life in all their vulgar unattractiveness. Yuri Eremin went the way more accepted in recent years and justified rich gentlemen. To do this, he needed to change the time of the play. Now the events take place not in Ostrovsky's merchant Moscow, but in Moscow at the end of the 19th century. The performance turned out to be good, because the artists of the class of Oleg Tabakov, Marina Zudina, Natalya Zhuravleva and Olga Barnet can make the audience not notice its many shortcomings. "The Last Victim" was solved at the Moscow Art Theater as a melodrama, Ostrovsky here is not Chekhov's forerunner, he looks more like the author of a silent movie script. The very one that, at the will of the director, in the finale of the first act, the audience of the performance watches together with its characters. This film in the theater, along with the costumes of Svetlana Kalinina, allows you to specify the time of the action. Silent cinema came to Russia in 1896. Shortly before the Public Art Theater was created.

A screen hangs in the upper left corner of the stage, images of various Moscow houses are projected onto it - those in which the heroes of the play live. The images are black and white and it snows all the time on the screen. Ostrovsky has winter behind, but she is so beautiful. Snow falls on the stage, the snow is shaken off from the lush fur collars and shoes by the people entering the houses.

Stage designer Valery Fomin built a diagonal screen on half of the stage. At first they are transparent, and the performance begins with the effect of shadow theater. Gradually, the ghostly world is transformed into a real one. Lighted differently, the screens turn into the walls of rooms, each of which has its own life. Scene changes are marked by the fact that one screen crawls up and the next one is exposed. The screens replace one another until they completely disappear from the stage. They are set in motion by wheel mechanisms hanging from above and not hidden from the viewer's eye. On the one hand, functionally, on the other hand, you seem to see an element of those workshops that Flor Pribytkov is so proud of, which he loves to show to his guests (don't be surprised - we'll talk about the workshops a little later).

Flor does not cause much sympathy in the play, although he is a merchant, so to speak, “without a beard”, a representative of a new merchant formation. Rather, for reasons of prestige, he still listens to Patti's singing, goes to the theater on Rossi, acquires elegant furniture and paintings. But this civilized merchant weaves intrigues like your spider. And the feelings of other people are not particularly disposed to be considered.

This is where it becomes clear that the change in the time of the action serves not so much the beauty of the stage picture as semantic changes. The play was written in the 70s of the 19th century, and Flor in the remark is listed as a “very rich merchant” (what exactly he sells is not clear). At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, where Yuri Eremin moved him, Flor Pribytkov changed his occupation. He is no longer a merchant, but a major industrialist. You will not believe it, but the director introduced into the production Flora's reasoning about the workshops and the factory he owns, which are not in Ostrovsky's play. At the same time, he turned into a connoisseur of abstract art - a clearly avant-garde work hangs in his house (like a cubist portrait from Prince Florizel, in which everyone immediately recognized Checkered).

The question of why Eremin rewrote a not bad play without him, tormented me for quite a long time. The answer I found seems to be correct.

The image of a noble manufacturer is molded according to a social order, as in Soviet times - the images of Komsomol volunteers. The financial and nomenclature oligarchy of Yeltsin's call, having taken the so-called "real economy" under reliable control, willy-nilly forced to present itself as a creative force - one that will raise the economy, ensure industrial growth and advanced technologies. Accordingly, inspirational prototypes, real or mythological, are looked for in the past - it doesn't matter. The merchant is not appropriate here. The memories of the “buy-sell” of the 90s are too painful: alcohol “Royal”, disposable sheepskin coats, MMM candy wrappers. And the manufacturer - like just right. In order to adapt to the social order, it is not necessary to be aware of it at such a conceptual level. Enough instinctive orientation in space, the ability to distinguish, "where is the butter, where is the bread." Another thing is that Mikhail Khodorkovsky was arrested for the premiere, which gave the director's decision a completely unexpected meaning. In many reviews of the performance, Khodorkovsky appeared as "the last victim." In fact, the name of the play is explained in itself. The last victim refers to Tugina's visit to Pribytkov and the humiliation she inflicts on herself in order to get money for her loved one.

Yulia Tugina herself can be considered the “last victim”, forced to say goodbye to illusions and surrender to the mercy of an elderly millionaire. But to link the title with Khodorkovsky's arrest... the director hardly thought about it. And, except for associations with the disgraced oligarch, there is no special news in his interpretation. E. Kholodov, a researcher of the theatrical history of Ostrovsky’s plays, wrote: “When the same Pribytkovs sat in the front rows of the stalls, Flor Fedulych turned into a noble savior of the deceived Yulia Pavlovna. At other times, the words "very rich merchant" were translated into stage language as a very bad person. Then the heartless rich man proudly walked around the stage, insidiously weaving a network of intrigues. Based on the premiere performance of the Moscow Art Theater, you yourself can draw conclusions about the first rows of the stalls and, more broadly, about the social situation. By the way, Russian President Vladimir Putin visited one of the premiere performances at the Moscow Art Theater.

But let's finish with politics and return to the theater.

Oleg Tabakov plays great. His Pribytkov is a smart, efficient, progressive owner and a gentle, loving person.

Yulia Tugina performed by Marina Zudina (in the life of Oleg Tabakov's wife) is strikingly different from everyone else. Small, fragile, trusting like a child, completely blinded by love, at the same time she is ready for any trick and any humiliation, just to save the shameless Dulchin and marry him.

Half woman, half child, Marina Zudina's Julia Tugina is both sincere and cutesy, honest and deceitful, capricious and suffering, tender and arrogant. Flor Pribytkov, who had seen a lot in his lifetime, had never seen anyone like her, uncorrupt and selfless. The hero of Oleg Tabakov is driven by only one feeling - love. Already at the first meeting with Julia, when it turns out that she is going to get married, he loses all his gloss in seconds, the familiar smile slips from his face, he doesn’t really shudder, but his whole body leans to one side.

In another scene, when she comes to his house to ask for money, Flor hurriedly sends her relatives away, fussily rips off the armlets in which he worked, and tries to regain his former sedate look in a matter of seconds. And when, having achieved her goal, Julia kisses her benefactor, his hands, as if against their will, clutch behind her back. It becomes quite clear to everyone: no one has ever kissed Flora Fedulovich so sincerely, if anyone has ever kissed him sincerely. Sympathy for the passionately loving and suffering hero displaces very unpleasant traits of his character from the mind of the viewer. Something similar has already happened in the history of the Moscow Art Theater. Directed by Nikolai Khmelev in 1944. Then Ivan Moskvin played Pribytkov, and Alla Tarasova played Tugin. I will refer to Boris Alpers: “In his spiritual and external appearance, the hero of Moskvin resembled noble, magnanimous gentlemen with a graying head, who until the end of their days retain the purity of their soul and the glow of an ageless heart. In relation to the Taras heroine, such Pribytkov was the embodiment of devotion and self-denial. He was possessed by that all-consuming love for a young woman, which became at the same time his bitter happiness and constant, unfading torment. Moskvin's biographers know that at that time he was going through a difficult personal drama. And he gave something of his human feelings to Pribytkov, thereby changing his spiritual appearance beyond recognition. At that time, Alla Tarasova just left Ivan Moskvin for another person - this is what biographers mean by “personal drama”. So, in addition to his love for Marina Zudina, Oleg Tabakov brings theatrical history to the performance itself - a kind of bow to the production of the 44th year. And a more ancient story - about those people who helped the Art Theater survive at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries.

To be honest, in Flora Pribytkovo I saw not Mikhail Khodorkovsky or even Leonid Nevzlin, but Oleg Tabakov, the creator of the studio and the savior of the Moscow Art Theater, who himself can serve as an example of an ideal entrepreneur. When the theater failed to pay the artists' vacation pay on time, Oleg Tabakov pawned his own bills. When it came to the fact that the STD could not feed the St. Petersburg House of Stage Veterans, Oleg Tabakov allocated money from his Fund. I can give dozens of such examples, and Tabakov prefers not to advertise his charity. A living example of the well-being and disinterestedness of the possessor. He has almost nothing to do with the real Flora Pribytkov, but he points out that Tretyakov, Bakhrushin and Stanislavsky came from the environment of the Moscow merchant aristocracy. Our gentlemen, it turns out, have something to strive for.