MOSCOW, September 13 - RIA Novosti, Natalia Kurova. International K.S. Stanislavsky in the year of the 150th anniversary of the great director and reformer of the theater begins a new project called "The Cherry Orchard" - in the Lyubimovka estate near Moscow, a presentation of the project will take place on Saturday, which will become a kind of OFF-program of the international theater festival "Stanislavsky's Season", RIA Novosti was informed in the press fund service.

The Lyubimovka estate, located on the banks of the Klyazma River in Korolev, Moscow Region, occupies a special place in the national theatrical culture - it was here in the home theater that Stanislavsky made his acting and directing tests. Anton Pavlovich Chekhov visited here with Olga Leonardovna in 1902 and began writing his last play. The inhabitants, guests and neighbors of Lyubimovka became the prototypes for the characters in The Cherry Orchard. And now the revived estate will become a space where a new generation of theater will take its first steps in the profession.

“We have long dreamed of turning Lyubimovka into an international cultural center,” Zeinab Seid-Zade, vice president of the Stanislavsky Foundation, told RIA Novosti. “And now here, in the newly equipped Theater Pavilion and in the Home Theater, the works of young Russian directors, produced by the Stanislavsky Foundation, as well as creative laboratories, master classes, trainings for leading foreign directors.

According to Seyid-Zade, the first international laboratory in Lyubimovka was held in 2011 by the outstanding Lithuanian director Eymuntas Nyakroshyus, which resulted in the stage dulogy based on Dante's Divine Comedy. This year, at the presentation of The Cherry Orchard, the results of the director's laboratory of the English director and head of the Vanishing Point theater company Matthew Lenton will be presented. During the week, together with the actors of his company, students of the National Academy of Theater Arts in Beijing, as well as graduates of Russian theater universities, he worked on sketches based on ancient Chinese short stories.

"Great Britain, China and Russia are participating in the new project - three countries with rich cultural traditions. The theme of their joint work is caring for the elders, to whom we pay so little attention today. This is a serious ethical and moral problem. Today, the ecology of consciousness is very important, a return to eternal values, reliance on age-old traditions that do not become obsolete as long as a person exists," Seyid-Zade believes.

As part of the project, on September 21 the Municipal Drama Theater "Nash Dom" (Khimki) will show the performance of the actor and director Sergei Metelkin "Doctor. The First Year", based on the early stories of Mikhail Bulgakov "Notes of a Young Doctor". This production became a laureate of the Festival of Theaters of Small Towns of Russia.

The Cherry Orchard will continue with a performance by GITIS graduate Kirill Vytoptov (workshop of Oleg Kudryashov), a young director who has already managed to create several notable productions on the capital's stage. Together with the students of GITIS, on September 27, he will present his performance "Judas Iscariot" based on the story of the same name by Leonid Andreev.

In Lyubimovka's "Home Theater" an exhibition of graduates of the art faculty of VGIK "Look from the outside. A film artist in the theater" will open, where sketches of scenery and costumes will be presented.

The 9th International Theater Festival "Stanislavsky's Season" will be held this year from October 26 to November 13. Theater groups from Austria, Germany, Lithuania and Russia will take part in it.

At Stanislavsky's estate near Moscow, Lyubimovka is now actively preparing to receive the first guests. Lighting equipment is being installed in a spacious two-level rehearsal hall. Mirrors are hung in the men's and women's dressing rooms. The finishing touches are being put on in the guest house, where Eymuntas Nyakroshus and young directors, recent graduates, will be accommodated with their troupe. During the week, a master class will be held here, which, according to the organizers of the festival, should set the bar for the future. As festival director Zeynab Seyid-zade explains, "the best theatrical forces of the world, masters who continue his work should gather at the Stanislavsky estate."

For fifteen years, the Stanislavsky Foundation has been reconstructing the estate of the great theater reformer near Moscow, which was badly damaged by time and ownerlessness. Everything had to be done almost from scratch: to revive the preserved buildings from a “ruined” state, to supply sewerage, heating, etc. Moreover, it is characteristic that everything was done without any state support and state funds, exclusively with the money of sponsors and proceeds from the sale of festival tickets Seasons of Stanislavsky. Fund Director Zeynab Seyid-zade tells the construction chronicle of Lyubimovka in the manner of the heroic Icelandic sagas, where a priori there are no trifles: the struggle for every meter of cultivated area is worth a truly titanic effort. The subject of special pride is the fruit-bearing cherry orchard (the cherry is exactly as the classic says, juicy and fragrant) and the summer theater stage under sprawling trees, where Pyotr Fomenko has been rehearsing for several years in a row with his actors, who come to live and work in Lyubimovka for a week or two .

On the eve of the 150th anniversary of the Stanislavsky Foundation, he was finally promised state assistance in the construction of the unpreserved main house on the site - a special room with an equipped stage where festival performances, meetings with world stars, etc. can take place. The fund director dreams of opening this hall with the world premiere of Meno Fortas, the main headliner of the Stanislavsky Seasons festival.

This year the festival program includes the grandiose "Hamlet" by Eymuntas Nyakroshyus (see "NI" of February 20, 2004). Due to the large number of applicants, who sold out tickets for Hamlet at the box office in a few days, the organizing committee decided to give an additional performance (after that, talk about the fact that Muscovites love mainly entertainment genres).

Next to him is the recent premiere of 2011 New Theatrical Reality laureate Kathy Mitchell. British director, who works a lot in Germany, Kathy Mitchell is coming to Moscow for the first time, where she will show her recent Cologne premiere - "The Waves" based on the novel by Virginia Woolf. And her countryman Tim Crouch will show a play based on Shakespeare's "Twelfth Night" - "I, Malvolio".

The Latvian director Alvis Hermanis, who has become a regular participant in Stanislavsky's Seasons, will show his premiere of The Young Lady from Vilko based on a novel by Yaroslav Ivashkevich (filmed by Andrzej Wajda in the early 1970s). The performance is staged with young Italian actors and we are promised that we will see a completely “new Hermanis”.

Belgian director Jan Lauers will show his production at the Vienna Burgtheater - "The Art of Entertainment: Needcompany plays the death of King Michael." The genre of the new production is defined in the program as a "black cynical comedy", but the director himself insists that his performance does not fit into certain genre boundaries. As Lauers assures, "this performance has no specific genre." "The Art of Entertainment" is a synthesis of different genres and types of art. Lauers' production is structured like an unfolding TV show, with all the elements of vulgarity, glitches, musical interruptions and all sorts of "entertainment" inherent in the genre, from the clownish antics of the chef and his assistant to the well-planned surprise - the murderous doctor's nervous breakdown. And the most important sacrament of life - the meeting with death has been turned into another theatrical trick and a macabre joke.

The festival opens on October 17 with a performance by the President of the Foundation Mark Zakharov - "Peer Gynt" (see "NI" dated March 29, 2011).

Yesterday at the Baltschug Kempinski Hotel the winners of the Stanislavsky Theater Prize for the 2004-2005 season were announced.

The presentation of the Stanislavsky Prize, established more than ten years ago by the foundation of the same name, today has become as much a sign of the approaching winter as the first snow. Every year the jury, which includes Mark Zakharov, Petr Fomenko, Oleg Tabakov, Lyudmila Maksakova, Yevgeny Mironov, Alexei Bartoshevich, Vidmantas Silyunas, Nina Agisheva, Roman Dolzhansky and Zeynab Seyid-zade, chooses directors, actors, theater teachers and researchers, worthy to be marked by the name of the founder of the Art Theatre. The rules of the award are well known to everyone: the list of nominees is kept secret, and the names of the laureates are announced a few days before the ceremony, the prize is a facsimile of Stanislavsky and $3,000. victors.

In the nomination "For contribution to the development of theatrical pedagogy" the long-term artistic director of the Youth Theater Alexei Borodin and Sergei Zhenovach, who opened his own Dramatic Art Studio this year, were awarded. The award for contribution to the development of theatrical art went to art critic Alla Mikhailova for books on scenography and participation in the creation of the magazine "Scena" and director Adolf Shapiro for staging Russian classics. The productions of the Hungarian director Arpad Schilling (his "The Seagull" was shown at our NET festival) and the Canadian Robert Lepage (the performances of this director, the author of many hours of sagas and epics, have never been brought to Moscow, but The Chekhov Festival promises to do this in the near future).

The award for the best male role will go to Alexander Zbruev, who played the merchant Pribytkov in Lenkom's play "Va-bank". The journalists asked the jury that he won in a fair fight with Boris Plotnikov, who performed the same role at the Maly Theater. But Natalia Tenyakova, who brilliantly played the landowner Gurmyzhskaya in Kirill Serebrennikov's "Forest", seems to have had no real competitors.

A small intrigue unfolded around the nomination "Director's Art". It first featured Dmitry Bertman, noted for modern interpretations of classical operas at the Helikon Theater, and Adolf Shapiro. But at the last moment, the jury realized that the list of laureates lacked actual actors in the theatrical process. And Adolf Shapiro "moved" to the honorary nomination "for his contribution", and next to Dmitry Bertman appeared the name of Kirill Serebrennikov, the director who worked most interestingly and fruitfully last season. The fact that the theatrical process today cannot do without Mr. Serebrennikov is indirectly evidenced by the reservation of Zeynab Seyid-zade, who said that he would also direct the award ceremony. In fact, this year's ceremony will be directed by Viktor Ryzhakov, director of Oxygen and Genesis #2. And it will take place on December 2 in the atrium "Balchuga".

MARINA Y-SHIMADINA

Eymuntas Nyakroshus: "I don't understand how you can be on stage at all"

A series of premiere screenings of "The Cherry Orchard" directed by Eymuntas Nyakroshyus has ended in Moscow. This project can be safely called the project of the year. We have been waiting for this event for many years. The Stanislavsky Foundation and its vice-president Zeynab Seyid-zade managed to do what no one has yet managed to do, although it seemed logical and necessary for many to do - to organize a face-to-face meeting between Russian artists and the great Lithuanian. How it happened - God knows. Immediately after the premiere, Marina DAVYDOVA met with Eymuntas NAKROSHYUS. Here is what we managed to learn from him in an exclusive interview for Izvestia.

Negotiations with Nyakroshus were carried out by Oleg Menshikov (he was talking about Hamlet), Mark Zakharov and Alexander Abdulov (he was talking about King Lear), and various other not-so-recent people. But every time he slipped out of his hands. It is generally not easy to deal with the greats, it is almost impossible to deal with Nyakroshus. This brilliant autist lives in his rich inner world and hardly makes contacts. He cannot be persuaded, he can only be bewitched. He doesn't like chatter. Doesn't favor interviewers. Questions are usually answered with "yes" or "no". For those questions that cannot be answered "yes" or "no", he prefers to answer "I don't know". Communicating with him, it is hard to believe that it is he who is the creator of that grandiose stage world, seeing which you immediately fall ill with the theater and then live with this lofty disease for the rest of your life.

Let's start with simple questions.

Let's. I don't like difficult questions.

- Have you ever played in the theater yourself?

- And which of the directors would you like to play?

Don't even know.

- Would you like to have yourself?

Yes you! Not for any award. I do not understand how you can be on stage. From the mere consciousness that the viewer is looking at me, it’s already scary. I can't even imagine myself in the shoes of an artist. How is everything in his head? I sometimes ask an artist: how did you play it. He starts to explain, and I'm terribly interested. There is a difference between us, like between a composer and a pianist. I can write notes. And how to play them - with the first finger and the fourth or the first and fifth - this is only the performer can feel.

- Well, how did you work with our artists?

Actually, it's not easy. Precisely because we staged Chekhov. They know the material well, they know the tradition of Chekhov's productions. Our people always take my word for it. And then I had to prepare for unexpected questions.

- That is, Lithuanian artists do not ask questions?

Ask, but more superficial. Although, you know, it's always hard to start. With everyone. While you find a common language, while grinding is in progress, this is a painful process. The first rehearsals are always mutual exams. It just seems like you take them from artists. In fact, you yourself also rent them. The scariest thing is when a scene is approaching and you don't know how to solve it.

- And often you do not know?

I almost always know. I always make things at home.

Is it true? When you watch your performances, you get the feeling that stage images are born spontaneously. That this is a whim of the richest imagination, which you yourself do not always control.

It just seems so. At the rehearsal, everything should be very clear and logical. Otherwise, it is impossible to work with artists. They will stop believing in you. They must understand the path they are on. It is then, along the way, that some boundaries are erased. The logic becomes less obvious. There is a semantic volume. Somewhere you can put not a dot, but an ellipsis, leave some question open ... But at a rehearsal, everything should grow from very specific things. Without it, there will be chaos. Metaphors can be invented a lot. Fantasy by itself means nothing.

If you were asked to recruit an ideal troupe of Russian artists, those whom you have ever seen at all, including Smoktunovsky or Leonov, who would be included in it?

Don't know. This is a difficult question.

- But acting school is important for you?

No, absolutely. For me, the personality of the artist is more important. His character. Well, talent, of course. The difference between a talented artist and an untalented one is huge, but between a talented one and a very talented one, perhaps no less.

- But very talented artists, these are usually artists with a name, and therefore, with ambitions. Do you need it?

Don't know. Why not?

- In Italy, you staged "The Seagull" with students. And they say it worked out great.

These were not students, but simply acting youth. By the way, the "Cherry Orchard" as a whole is also quite young. But you see, the years spent on stage mean a lot too. Talent does not replace experience.

- And how do you like the Russian public?

It's the same with her as with artists. She knows Chekhov well. On the one hand, it is dangerous for me. On the other hand, it allows viewers to appreciate innovation. Don't follow the story. The Russian public is generally very well-read. It is much more educated than Swiss or German.

- And what kind of audience is the most emotional?

Italian. Italians are very temperamental. They sometimes give a standing ovation, but they can also boo. And the Russians will not be indignant. They just slowly leave.

- And often you booed?

Never me. The reviews were scathing. And even backstage sometimes people burst indignant. In Rome, a man came up to me after the performance and terribly waved his fists. What he did not like, I did not even understand.

You are usually very loose with the classics. Remove characters you don't need. Shorten the play, rearrange the scenes. In this case, you treated the text very carefully ...

I thought that if I put it in Russian and in Russia, then I should treat the author with respect.

But you didn't have the feeling that Chekhov's text was tired. That it is impossible God knows what time to pronounce from the stage. Did he interfere with you?

I even told the actors: it's time to give Chekhov a rest. All world theaters should come to an agreement and stop staging Chekhov. He's been exploited too much. Especially the last 30 years. But on the other hand, where can you get away from it. To say that the text bothered me would be an exaggeration, it just made the task more difficult.

- What was the problem?

Perhaps - a small venue (the performance is played in the recently opened Theater and Cultural Center STD. - "Izvestia"). I'm used to working for the big one. And even tight deadlines. Everything was going very fast. There was no time for reflection, for trial and error. There was no time for disappointment.

As far as I know, from September the performance will be played in the building of the "Commonwealth of Taganka Artists". Are there any other changes expected? Are you going to shorten the show? It still goes on for more than six hours.

It's not for me to decide, but for the administration.

But are you happy with what happened?

Don't know.

Zeynab Seyidzade, Vice President of the Stanislavsky Foundation:

This project has cost you dearly. Both in terms of nerves and in terms of money. Including your personal ones. Why did you put so much effort into inviting Nyakroshyus to Russia, and not Luke Bondy, for example. Also, by the way, the winner of the Stanislavsky Prize.

Nyakroshus is genetically linked to Russian culture. He studied in Russia. He knows the Russian theater well. And, in my opinion, he - very indirectly, of course, and in a peculiar way - inherits the Stanislavsky system. More precisely so. What he does is his answer to our school, our theatrical world. And it was important for me that this answer be heard here, in Moscow.

Another important thing: as part of our project, he returned many artists who seemed to have completely devoted themselves to cinema, to the theater. Such a film has been removed from them. Their imagination and internal reserves have expanded. They themselves - both Apeksimova and Vladimir Ilyin - say that for them, working with Nyakroshus was something like postgraduate or doctoral studies. I don't know of another director who could have worked with them as deeply.