A: a very old woman; thin, domineering, arrogant, as can be at her age. Bright red nails, elegantly styled hair, makeup. Beautiful nightgown and peignoir.

B: resembles A at 52, dressed simply.

IN: resembles B at 26.

Young man: 23 or so; pleasantly dressed (jacket, tie, shirt, jeans, light leather shoes, etc.)

"Rich" bedroom in French style. Pastel colors, with a predominance of blue. A bed in the middle at the back of the stage with a small footstool. Lace pillows, beautiful bedspread. French painting of the 19th century. Two small armchairs beautifully covered in silk. If there is a window - silk curtains. The floor is covered with a bed-colored carpet. Two doors, one to the left, one to the right.

Archways leading to each of them.

At first, A in the left chair, B in the right chair, C on the bench by the bed.

Afternoon.

Silence.

A. (From nowhere to nowhere): I am ninety one.

B. (Pause) Really?

A. (Pause) Yes.

IN. (smiling): You are ninety-two.

A. (Longer pause; not very friendly) Let it be.

B. (to B) This is true?

IN.(shrugs; shows papers) It says so here.

B. (Pause.) Okay... What does it matter?

IN. Strange pettiness!

B. Everything is forgotten.

A. (Like before.) I am ninety one.

B. (with a sigh) Yes.

IN. (with a grin) You are ninety-two.

B. (indifferent) Oh... don't.

IN. No! It is important. Feeling of reality...

B. It does not matter!

IN. (About myself) For me it has.

A.(Pause) I know this because he says: "You are exactly thirty years older than me; I know how old I am, because I know how old you are and even if you forget how old you are, ask how old I am and you will find out. ( Pause.) Oh, he said that many times.

IN. What if he's wrong?

A. (Restrained; gradually flaring up; louder and louder) What?

B. It happens.

IN. (still to A.) What if he's wrong? If he is not thirty years younger than you?

A. (unexpectedly loud; rough) Imagine, he knows very well how old he is.

IN. No, I mean... what if he's wrong about your age.

A. (Pause) Nonsense. How can he not be thirty years younger than me if I am thirty years older than him. He talks about it all the time. (Pause) Whenever he comes to visit me. What is today's date?

B. Today (names the day that is in reality).

A. Yes?!

IN. (as for a child): Well, well, one of you may be wrong, and it is likely that it is not him.

B. (light smile) Oh, this He.

IN. (fleeting smile). Yes; I know I know.

A. Don't be smart. What today? What is today's date?

B. (Names the same day).

A. (shakes head): No.

IN. What is not?

A. Absolutely no!

B. Fine.

IN. What do you think the date is today?

A. (embarrassed) What number? What number do I... (Eyes narrow). Well, today is today, of course. What do you think? (turns to B; giggles)

B. Bravo girl!

IN. What nonsense! What nonsense...

A. Don't you dare talk to me like that!

IN. (Offended) I'm sorry!

A. I cry for you, don't I? You can't talk to me like that.

IN. Everything is relative.

A. In what sense?

IN. You don't pay me personally. You pay someone who pays me, someone who...

A. Doesn't matter. Don't you dare talk to me like that!

B. She doesn't speak.

A. What?

B. She doesn't speak in that tone.

A. (vacant smile) I don't understand what you're talking about at all. (Pause). Absolutely.

Silence. Then A cries. They don't bother her. At first out of self-pity, and then for the sake of the process itself, and, finally, with rage and disgust at what is happening. It lasts quite a long time.

B. (when it ended): Here you go. Now it is better?

IN. (whisper) Confess.

B. You will pay everything to the bottom and remove it as if by hand.

A. (Laughs; slyly): and if not to the bottom, then what?

She laughs again; B joins her.

IN. (shakes his head admiringly) Sometimes you are so...

A. (menacingly; sharp) Which?

IN. (little pause). Not really. I almost gave a compliment. But it doesn't matter anymore.

A. (Referring to B). What does she say? He mumbles something all the time.

IN. I don't mumble. (With annoyance at himself). None of this matters!

A. Anyone figure out what she's mumbling?!

B. (soothing). She just didn't finish her thought. But it does not matter.

A. (small triumph). I'm willing to swear I don't.

IN. (Persistent, but not rude). All I wanted to say is that you can be wrong about your age, especially if you have lost count for a long time, but why hide one year ...

B. (Wearily). Leave her. Let him think what he wants.

IN. I won't leave.

A. How do I want?

IN. Why hide one year? I can understand, or at least try, when they throw off a dozen. Well, okay - seven or five - cute, witty - but one?! Lie for one year? What strange ambitions?

B. Well , dispersed.

A. (Mimics): Dispersed.

IN.(pursing lips): Dispersed. I can understand ten, five, or seven, but not one.

B. It started.

A.(K V): rushed (K B) Where did you go?

B. She got carried away.

A. (Cheerfully): Yes; she got carried away!

IN. (Smiling): Yes.

A. (Suddenly, but not in a panic): I want to get out.

IN. Has it passed?

A. (persistently): I need to go out. I want to get out.

B. Do you want to go out? ( Rises). Vessel? Do you need a ship?

A. (Embarrassed to talk about it): No… N-e-e-e-t!

B. A- a. ( Refers to A). Clear. Can you do it yourself?

A.(Wailingly): I don't know!

B. Okay, we'll help you. Yes? (Pointing to a walker for the disabled). Give a walker?

A. (almost crying) I need to go out! I don't know! As you wish! I want to get out!

B. Fine!

B lifts A to his feet. We see that A's left arm is in a sling, inactive.

A. You hurt me! Hurt!

B. Fine! I'll be careful!

A. Yes, how!

B. Will!

A. You will not!!!

B. (Angrily) Will!

A. No, you won't! ( Standing on his feet, weeping, weaves with help B.) You hurt me on purpose. You know it hurts me!!

B.(TO IN. leaving): Be the hostess.

Holidays with the Theater on Malaya Bronnaya!
Dear guests of the capital, we are playing our best performances especially for you until June 21!

Under the direction of director Sergei Mayorov in 1945, a creative theater group, the Moscow Drama Theater, was born in Moscow. For the young theater, a building was determined on Spartakovskaya Street, 26.

Over the eleven years of its work, the team presented 45 premieres, among which there were many successful ones. But in 1957, the leadership received an accusation for not showing sufficient attention to Soviet dramaturgy. Mayorov was transferred to the Lenin Komsomol Theater.

The next director was Sudakov, who was one of the most gifted students of Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko. But the hopes placed on him were not destined to come true, a serious illness forced him to leave work. Andrey Goncharov took his place, whose work in the theater aroused interest both among critics and the public.

The building on Spartakovskaya seemed to be cramped for such a significant theater, and in 1962 it moved to Malaya Bronnaya, 4. This building previously housed the Satire Theatre, the State Jewish Theatre, the Concert Hall and much more. The place was never particularly empty and was very attractive to the public.

Significant lines in the history of the theater were written by A. Dunaev and A. Efros. With them, Romeo and Juliet, Sheksir's Othello, Chekhov's Three Sisters, N. Gogol's The Marriage, Don Juan and much more were staged. The performances were recognized as classics in the national theater, and the work of the directors received world-class recognition.

Since 2007, Sergei Golomazov began to head the theater, whose productions were noted by critics, awards and the love of the audience. During its existence, the Theater on Malaya Bronnaya was able to become one of the most popular in Moscow, attracting more and more new spectators, among whom more and more young people appear. The theater on Malaya Bronnaya occupies a well-deserved place in the top ten most popular theaters in Moscow. You can buy tickets for performances at the Theater on Malaya Bronnaya in Moscow online and without extra charge on the website

How to get to the Theater on Malaya Bronnaya: The theater is located in the central part of the capital. You can get to it using the subway. First you need to get to the Tverskaya or Pushkinskaya stations, which are located next to Pushkinskaya Square. Then you can either walk to Malaya Bronnaya in about ten minutes on the right side of Tverskoy Boulevard, or get there two stops by bus. In the first case, you can find the desired street at the third turn. In the second, you must get off at the Nikitsky Gate stop and go back a little in search of the right turn. Go to the end of the first house in the line on the right side and you will be able to find the right building.

Marina Zayonts

Old age is a joy

Edward Albee's play "Three Tall Women" was staged at the GITIS Theater

The theatrical boom that has arisen in the capital in recent years does not want to end. On the contrary, more and more often he finds himself in places quite unexpected. Here, one asks, what is this theater "GITIS"? Well, there is an educational theater of GITIS, now RATI, in Bolshoi Gnezdnikovsky Lane, graduation student performances are played there - a common thing. There was almost never any excitement around. And then suddenly it happened.

Oddities in the story of the "Three Tall Women" can not be counted. Judge for yourself. The play is played not as a comedy (they say that our audience is greedy for funny things, give them "Full House", and everyone will be happy), moreover, heavy, pessimistic, with philosophizing. At the same time, there is no advertising, even there are no posters in the city, it seems. Word of mouth alone works properly, according to the principle: look, tell a friend. The name of the director of the general public, as they say, is not well known. Sergey Golomazov is from that generation of directors who had to break through the asphalt, and not only talented ones, but rather assertive ones, crawled out to the surface. Golomazov is clearly not one of them. He teaches at the RATI, occasionally puts on performances - then at the Theater. Gogol, then in the theater of Armen Dzhigarkhanyan, literate, worthy, not too noticed by critics. In a word, the cash register cannot make his name in any way. And finally, the stars. In a private performance, it is impossible to do without them. And here, out of three actresses (Evgenia Simonova, Vera Babicheva, Zoya Kaidanovskaya - the daughter of Simonova and Alexander Kaidanovsky), only one can be considered a star, and even then with a stretch. Evgenia Simonova is undoubtedly a well-known actress, but still she doesn’t act in TV series that are now fashionable, she doesn’t flash on glossy covers - one asks, why break chairs here?

The chairs at the performance, of course, were not broken, but the applause was very stormy and somehow very heartfelt. As the name implies, at first there were three women - A (she is 92 years old), B (52 years old) and C (26 years old), and then it turns out that this is the same woman, so to speak, in different years of her long life . The first part of the play looks almost hilarious, where a 92-year-old senile old woman (Evgenia Simonova) shares her memories with a nurse (Vera Babicheva) and a lawyer's assistant (Zoya Kaidanovskaya). But then a stroke overtakes her, she falls into a coma, and three women dressed in white ball gowns finally find out that they have one life for all. Some kind of absolutely joyless, hopeless life in which, as soon as you are born, you start to die. And only in old age, in the face of death, do you feel absolutely free and even happy, surprisingly.

Evgenia Simonova played in this performance, of course, her best role. The role of a turning point, changing fate. The eternal ingenue, the charming and glorious princess from the old fairy tale, showed here a great dramatic talent and desperate courage. Whatever one may say, this is an event, because of which it is still worth breaking chairs.

Izvestia, February 18, 2004

Marina Davydova

Simonova played for three

The play of the living American classic was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1994. In our area, around the same time, the indefatigable Oleg Tabakov became interested in her, who dreamed that the main role - the role of an old woman - would be played in her by Maria Mironova. Nothing happened then. Years passed. And finally, Sergey Golomazov staged it on the stage of the GITIS educational theater. Of the three women, one was truly interesting - Evgenia Simonova.

I have always sympathized with Simonova, but I have never seen her on stage in all her professional glory. On the contrary, on different stages in different years, I saw her in something so inexpressive and indistinct, staged either by Ibsen, or by Strindberg, or by Pinter. Her obvious, very fragile kind of charm was exploited to no avail and inspiration - a grown-up princess, a grown-up princess again. In Golomazov's performance, Simonova finally appears in all the splendor of her talent. In addition to the charm in it, it turns out, there is a lot more.

The prolific and extremely successful Edward Albee managed to write plays adjoining the theater of the absurd (that is, designed for a very intellectual and sophisticated audience) and at the same time benefit (that is, quite suitable for commercial theatrical needs). "Three Tall Women" is an amazing example of such benefit absurdity.

The play begins as an everyday comedy. A wealthy old woman who has fallen into insanity, scrolling through her memories like a worn record, her tired and already indifferent nurse, a young energetic person who has some financial claims against the old woman. "Doctor, I have memory lapses." - "What failures?" - "Excuse me, doctor, what are you talking about?" Albee has this anecdote stretched out in time and decomposed into three voices. "Call Harry." "We've already said. Harry died 30 years ago." - "How did he die? Oh-oh-oh!". Toward the middle, everyday comedy turns into existential drama. More precisely, existential melodrama. It becomes clear that all three women of different ages (92, 52 and 26 years old, respectively) are only hypostases of one who lived long and unhappily. They are one in three persons. They have a common biography and a common destiny. It’s just that the younger one doesn’t know much, the older one has already put up with a lot, passions are still seething in the middle one. The comic dialogue turns into confessional monologues. The hopes of the young are shattered by the skepticism of the elderly and dissolved in the wise indifference of the old woman. The boundaries between "I" and "we" are blurred. Life, if you look closely, is no better than the memories of a senile, it also looks like a worn record and is known in advance. But you still have to live it. The closer to the finale, the more clearly the central motive of "Three Sisters" appears in "Three Tall Women": why do we live, why do we suffer?

It is easy to guess that in an ideal scenario, three stars are needed to stage this piece, each of which will lead its part in different keys or even registers. In the play Golomazov is busy alone. She plays an old woman.

In fact, such a move has become a direct path to success for some time now. How many Hollywood stars - from Nicole Kidman ("The Hours") to Charlize Theron ("The Beast") - were approaching the coveted "Oscars", bravely aging themselves, gaining weight or sticking a big gummous nose to a pretty face. Simonova surpassed them. She does not play an old person, but old age as such. Gently puts a handkerchief to watery eyes and the corners of his mouth, speaks in a loud, creaky, crackling voice - that's the record - in a confused smile, temperamentally shakes his small fist and wonderfully conveys the detachment of a person frozen somewhere on the way between this world and that.

Looking at her smart and technical playing, you remember the baroque singer Deborah York, who came to us a year ago as part of the Easter Festival. York's voice is not at all powerful, but she masterfully masters it. Talent is small, but what a cut! You look at the stage and understand: a very smart woman. All flaws can be hidden, all advantages - emphasized, all modulations - adjusted to the smallest detail. Do you think the most important thing for a singer is her voice? Deborah York proved that intelligence.

Two other actresses clearly serve as Simonova's backdrop. A perfect side dish for the main course. At the same time, one (Vera Babicheva) leads her part with dignity and without pressure, the other (Zoya Kaidanovskaya) is monotonous and false. But the real partner of the actress was, of course, the director. Sergey Golomazov has long been walking among us as unrecognized geniuses. Or at least talent. There are unconditional grounds for the last statement. The first part of the performance was done by him very skillfully. He competently goes to the crescendo, turns on the music in time and correctly explains to the actress where she needs to shout and where to whisper. In general, it skillfully balances on the verge between a performance for intellectuals and an entertaining spectacle. And everything would be wonderful if suddenly Sergei Golomazov did not remember that he, damn it, is not a bastard and has the right. Eh, it would be necessary to succumb to directing, as if he says to himself. And away we go - shadows begin to rush across the stage from nowhere, the artists whirl in a dance, disco light music floods the playing space, an existential melodrama turns into a melodramatic phantasmagoria.

The ending is especially disappointing. There are actually two of them. The first miracle is good. The woman, who has already fallen into a coma (this fourth hypostasis of hers lies motionless on the bed for the entire second half of the performance), and her prodigal son suddenly come to the fore. The action is transferred to the other side of earthly suffering and worries. He gently hugs her and rests his head on her shoulder. Passions are in the past. Forgiveness took their place. This very true and softly sounded chord should have completed the performance. There is nothing to add to it. So after the storm is blissful silence. But Golomazov adds, forcing the young man to start dancing around the stage with all the performers of the play in turn, and thereby giving the finale some kind of cafeteria shade. Not only does this cafeteria resist the very nature of his talent, as it seems, also chamber and quiet. It is resisted by the nature of the play, in which the whirlwind of life is replaced by what we all undoubtedly deserve - peace.

Kirill Metelny

"I renounce all of you"

"Three Tall Women" by E. Albee at the GITIS Theater

On Saturday, January 24, the GITIS Theater hosted the premiere of the play Three Tall Women by E.F. Albee, an American playwright, author of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? other things, successfully combining in his work the features of the European theater of the absurd with purely American realism (with elements of existentialism).

It should be noted right away that the play bears the cross of the playwright's autobiographical experiences: it was he who left his home at the age of 20, the reason for which was a break with his mother (this conflict is aggravated by the fact that Albee's parents are unknown, and he himself was adopted by the "Broadway" entrepreneur R .Albee; foster parents fulfilled any whim of the "son", thanks to their wealth, he received an excellent education).

The director who staged the performance is known (although not widely) for his work in various theaters - Petersburg and Dreyfus (named after N.V. Gogol), Killer Theater (directed by A. Dzhigarkhanyan), “ Dedication to Eve ”(named after E. Vakhtangov, together with S. Yashin). In addition, he staged plays in Riga, in Tel Aviv, in Lyon. Several of his works are also known by the GITIS scene. And finally a new one...

Sergey Golomazov, who, in turn, took up this play (it had already been staged on several stages in the capital), interprets it as “a story about female courage, which makes it possible to live this life wisely and with dignity” (read in the program). Casting is going well here. The famous Evgenia Simonova took on the main role of the old woman, very accurately and with great humor conveying through the details both the character of the elderly woman (or the allegorical figure "A"), and her age condition. In the image of deep (92 years old) old age, facial expressions, breathing, speech are actively used, and a little worse - the plasticity of the body. Gilda's coloratura aria "The heart is full of joy" (from "Rigoletto" by G. Verdi), constantly sung by her, embodies the image of a happy loving girl and emphasizes the passage of everything (in the mouth of a deeply elderly woman). In general, the melody of this aria accompanies the drama from beginning to end: its motive sounds both before the beginning of the action and after. Her nurse (or the allegorical figure "B") is played by actress V. Babicheva (V. Mayakovsky Theatre), who, according to the play, is 52 years old (from the program: "looks like" A "would look at 52 years old"). Babicheva brilliantly coped with her task in the first mise en scenes: her nurse got used to all sorts of whims and attacks of the "hostess". She is no longer intimidated by anything. All the quirks of the old crazy and a little feral grumbler are indifferent to her due to addiction. She can only be ironic and wave her hand away. But. She, who receives money for her work, of course, periodically plays along with her elderly "Ma'am". The third allegorical figure "C" and a lawyer's assistant ("looks like "A" would have looked at 26 years old") - Zoya Kaidanovskaya (the face strongly resembles the wonderful actor A. Kaidanovsky). Her character is a young person who has not known life, naive, ardent in her youth, tactlessly curious, asking a lot of "stupid" questions, ridiculously businesslike. So, we have three different women and, at the same time, according to the playwright, three different hypostases of one person (“A”, “B”, “C”; the dialogues in the text of the play sound like this from three characters “A”, “B” and "C").

The action takes place in the house of a 92-year-old woman, whose loneliness is disturbed by the nurse and assistant lawyer who came to her chambers. The latter came to the old woman due to the fact that she does not pay the bills sent, she does not sign the papers brought to her by the courier, and so on and so forth. True, the old woman does not give a damn about anything: I myself used to cope with everything, and what can I not do now? As a result of the unsuccessful attempts of the lawyer's assistant to start negotiations with the eccentric old woman, the three heroines begin mutual initiation into personal mental suffering and experiences, into their intimate experience. The main semantic center of this dialogue is the stories of a 92-year-old woman about her youth - love, marriage, betrayal, enterprise, however, quite ridiculously contrived, a conflict with her son, who once left home, but never showed up, and does not make itself felt to this day. Each of the three interlocutors has her own fate, and each interests the viewer almost equally: each of the actresses, in my opinion, manages to sufficiently captivate the story of her fate, they are equally interesting, and the eminent Simonova extremely rarely pulls the blanket of the audience over herself. interest. The sincere conversations of the three heroines are everyday (vital) and they are symbolized by the “white”, ordinary lighting of the heroes and the stage (light - K. Palaguta).

But then the old woman becomes ill and she falls into a coma - the blue-turquoise lighting of the characters and the scene is lit - this is the color of a dream, some kind of allegorical internal dialogue, the subconscious, possible or impossible desires. In the middle of the stage there is a bed on which we see an old woman in an oxygen mask (a student of GITIS A. Ibragimova), who is “danced” (quite plastically) in a fencing suit and with a rapier by her son (also a student of GITIS A. Frolenkov) - this is a kind of allegory repentance of the son before the abandoned, single mother. By the way, about the dance numbers (choreographer - I. Lychagin): it was not entirely clear whether this was pantomime or ballet steps. The dance numbers were successful only in places, but in general it looked rather hard (not only according to my observations).

In the next mise-en-scene, on the right of the proscenium, there is a bed on which the old woman continues to lie in a coma, and diagonally on high chairs (a rather direct metaphor, but not taking the viewer far from the quintessence of the play), our three "tall" women sit. They are dressed in angelic white fluffy dresses, like the angels of a kind of Last Judgment (after all, the old woman is dying) - a kind of conditional subconscious dialogue ("trialogue"). They start a conversation in the genre of "what if". Each of them declares its spiritual strength (height). Simonova here is slightly arrogant and ironic. Babicheva is inspired and somewhat straightforward, which reminded me of Joan of Arc from some historical film. Kaidanovskaya seemed to me about the same; the truth justifies her by the fact that she here embodies the young "I" of the main character - a dying old woman. She "swears" to him: "I will never be you."

The main goal of their trialogue is to find out "which place is better": which a woman occupies in her youth, when everything is still just ahead; which is occupied by a woman in maturity, when much is behind, but not everything is lost yet and there are chances for change, or which is occupied by an ancient elderly woman who has only ahead ... as I. Brodsky used to say: "Do you know how it all ends ?"... but now you can look at everything with ease and carelessness. The other two are her youth and maturity. In your youth, you think that everything will be fine, period. In maturity, you have a solid piece of the past and you are wise enough not to make mistakes, but old age looms ahead of you with its impotence and uncreative moralism, which can either frighten or push you to decisive action. Having heard enough as a participant and arbitrator of this conditional Last Judgment, the main character ("A") declares: "I renounce all of you!". Nevertheless, the whole trialogue turns into a scene in which an elderly woman suddenly wakes up, gets up and goes somewhere, but, unexpectedly seeing her son, she stretches out her arms to him and they embrace. Then they begin to slowly waltz, the pace speeds up, and now - they are already moving as cheerfully as young ones. Finally, the son “dances” first to seat his mother, then each age incarnation (26, 52 and 92 years old), and then sits himself on the bed where the dying mother recently lay.

This mise-en-scene, it seems, is somewhat long compared to others, that is, it is somewhat heavy (overloaded with declarations) and a little formal, and the viewer may not have a strong desire to look back at himself, but rather only tire him (especially since the whole play in general lasts where an hour fifty without intermission).

The whole action ends with a mise-en-scene of general reconciliation - all the participants in the performance smile at the viewer while sitting on the same bed (the white lighting of the last mise-en-scene after an allegory of internal reconciliation with his son leaves the viewer with a very real worldly hope). The play ends...

In general, the play "Three Tall Women" is humanistic and democratic. It is about the fate of an ordinary woman, an ordinary person, in fact, a "little man", only in the American, and not in the Russian version (she is not poor and not downtrodden). This play is about an ordinary woman. Contrary to the director's interpretation, I do not think that this is a play about "female courage". It is, after all, rather about women's loneliness, about "uncommunicative skills", about alienation and the meaninglessness of existence. The playwright tried to uncover the causes of this loneliness and portray a world that had lost its inner integrity. Golomazov, on the other hand, made a performance about a certain conditional strong woman ("wise and courageous"). This is his interpretation. Only him. Everything that we can hear from the characters very controversially leads to the Golomazov idea. But I do not presume to challenge the right of any artist to be subjective. Perhaps this production is original. Perhaps new. Maybe.

Russian courier, February 11, 2004

Alisa Nikolskaya

Ladies War

Evgenia Simonova met on stage with her daughter

At the GITIS Theater they showed a performance that had an indirect relationship to the educational institution. Edward Albee's play "Three Tall Women" was staged by Sergei Golomazov, once an actor of the Mayakovsky Theater, from time to time releasing nice chamber performances about human relations on different stages and at the same time teaching at the RATI. In "Women" two small family contracts are connected: Golomazov's wife actress Vera Babicheva plays here, as well as Evgenia Simonova and her eldest daughter Zoya Kaidanovskaya. But on the stage, in this case, not wives, daughters and mothers, but simply good actresses who made up a quite attractive trio.

"Three Tall Women" is staged much less often than other plays by the eccentric absurdist Albee. Right, in vain: in addition to an amusingly invented structure, where one female fate is divided between three heroines of different ages, and at first they exist separately and in earthly reality, and then they move somewhere into the fourth dimension and become a continuation of each other, the roles are perfectly written out here. To the credit of the ladies involved in the performance of Golomazov, they work honestly, and it is pleasant to look at them. Outwardly, the spectacle turned out to be very traditional, even ascetic: an empty stage, three auxiliary chairs, a piercing temperamental waltz that enhances the feeling of especially pathetic episodes. However, there are enough impressions even without the director's tricks. Evgenia Simonova looks especially curious, she has not appeared in new theatrical roles for a long time. In the first act, she portrays an ancient old woman: frozen watery eyes, a sunken mouth, an earthy face, a naughty body, a raspy voice. She examines those sitting opposite through binoculars, wipes her tears and drool and carefully folds a figure from the fingers of her broken hand - they say, you won’t wait. And along the way, he drives those around him to insanity - with his memories of the exploits of his youth, "jumps" of consciousness and, finally, a frantic, indomitable passion to live. In the second part, where all three ladies find themselves in a different dimension, becoming either angels or three parks, Simonova successfully embodies the wisdom that is always closely associated with cynicism. While the two younger comrades are still able to reflect, worry and ask questions, she can only pass judgment and state the facts. Here the natural rigidity of the actress came in handy, always giving a bitter tinge even to her "blue" roles.

Among other things, it is curious to observe the stage relationship between Simonova and her daughter. Zoya Kaidanovskaya, a stately blonde beauty, practically does not look like her mother. There is much more in her from her father, the legendary Alexander Kaidanovsky: a furious gloomy look, a sweeping, slightly masculine plasticity, a sharp voice and a frightening inner mobility that makes it possible to instantly jump from introspection to hysteria. And Kaidanovskaya plays in a completely different manner - more hysterically, a little sloppy. That even draws more attention to it. Kaidanovskaya got the task of playing the tragedy of youth, that period of a person's life when you want everything at once, but it turns out that pleasures will be strictly dosed for the rest of your life. The actress has already played something similar in Vladimir Mirzoev's TV play "Passionate and Sympathetic Contemplation", so here you can see, pathetically speaking, the beginnings of an "acting theme".

Another quiet, stylish performance has appeared in Moscow, where the qualities of a good ladies' novel and worldly philosophy intertwine. "Three tall women" leave a pleasant, tart aftertaste. When several people gather in a performance not to declare principles, but simply for the sake of pleasure, their emotions are transmitted to the auditorium.

Petersburg theater magazine, No. 37, May 2004

Grigory Zaslavsky

Women's stories

E. Albee. "Three tall women". Branch of the Theater Mayakovsky (Moscow). Director Sergei Golomazov, artists E. Yarochkina, N. Zholobova, S. Agafonov

Edward Albee in Russia is either lucky or unlucky, and in the first case it is difficult to name the reasons for luck, and in the second - to understand the reasons for theatrical indifference.

"The Case at the Zoo" was literally an all-Union success. A short one and a half hour story helped, for example, Boris Milgram to move from Perm to Moscow, but, perhaps, so far not a single performance of his has been honored with enthusiasm like those that fell to the lot of his own “Accident at the Zoo”. “The Ballad of a Sad Courgette” and “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf” are two famous performances of Sovremennik, in the first Tabakov brought a representative of sexual minorities onto the stage for almost the first time in the history of the Soviet theater, and this flaw in his hero was an addition to another, even more notable as he played the Hunchback. "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf" directed by Valery Fokin is a "pandemonium" of successful acting works (Galina Volchek, Marina Neelova, Valentin Gaft!) the same plays, where, by the way, not the last "their" actors played - Burton and Lauren. A few years ago, Victor Shraiman's performance in the Magnitogorsk drama with Saido Kurbanov and Farida Muminova became noticeable in Russia.

And "The Goat", one of Albee's last plays, - now, when it is possible about representatives of sexual minorities, and about anything! - it was not possible to stage Volchek, and she experienced this failure tragically, perhaps because the idea was already “clear and the theme was guessed”, the actors for the main roles were chosen in absentia, which they had to refuse after not without difficulty handled everything related to copyright. And Viktyuk did not stage it, although he was also going to and already had his own translation.

Before they played the current premiere, "Three Tall Women" had no luck in Russia for a long time: it had long been translated into Russian, and not even once. More than once taken to bet. For several years, plans were hatched to give the role of the old woman Maria Mironova. The last time the play was staged in Moscow was a year or two ago, with a well-known director and several famous actresses on the poster. But something like that did not add up, some kind of indistinctness began in the words and turned into a performance, which made it seem that something was wrong with Albee. Either their problems in America are foreign, or the success of the local public needs less than ours.

Perhaps the most mysterious thing about the fate of this play on the Russian stage is that the successful - happy - reading of it happened when the demands of our and the American public were closer than ever. Suddenly, a performance came out that made it possible to admire this play, its "non-commercial" history. And he came out - in an entreprise, it seems - in our time - alien to any kind of seriousness (in its overwhelming majority). For a month or two, from time to time, the performance was played on the stage of the GITIS theater, in a small basement hall in Gnezdnikovsky Lane. And only after a while, having carefully looked at the performance and recognizing in it not a stranger, but a relative, he was accepted into the poster of the branch of the Mayakovsky Academic Theater, close to the director Sergei Golomazov, and Evgenia Simonova, who played the role of a 92-year-old old woman in Tall Women . Both in terms of the level and composition of the performers, the performance, of course, deserves an academic stage.

Two more words about America and Americans. There is something that outwardly makes Albee's "Three Tall Women" related to Wilder's more famous play "Our Town": both there and here it is described, albeit restless, and even nervous, but equally measured and inevitable course of life, from birth to death. The playwrights seem to be playing with a time machine and give pictures of the childhood or youth of the hero (heroes), their maturity and the natural ending (how is it possible to see off a person whom you have known since childhood without tears?!). Both here and there, from the first remarks, one feels that the author is worried and sympathizes with his characters more than the writer is supposed to, because he is not talking about "A", "B" and "C", but about his parents and his own childhood. For those who know the story of Albee himself, the personal intonation is beyond doubt: like the son of the heroine of his play, he also left home in his youth, took the name of his adoptive father, and now, in his old age, he dedicated this play to the memory of his mother. This is the courage not of the heroine of the play, but of the playwright himself, who pays with the past in such a “makar”: in the play there are only three heroes, or rather, three heroines, and no one except them has a voice for self-justification. Wilder uses "linear" time, Albee - the possibility of its relative "interpretation". But both here and there, the authors find some circumstances that reconcile, albeit not with death itself, but with a change in age, which can be experienced even more painfully and more painfully than a “painless” death.

“Three Tall Women” by Sergei Golomazov, despite its title, which implies an acting trio, is a benefit performance by Evgenia Simonova, whose performance delights: first, with enchanting details in the image of a 92-year-old woman who is already losing not only her memory, but also her mind (all not yet an old woman!), and then - the amazing energy with which she defends the truth of her heroine. The playwright himself instructed the actress to emerge victorious.

For reference: Albee's play consists of two scenes, each with its own "life" dimension. In the first we see an old woman, her nurse and her lawyer's assistant, in the second all three appear as three hypostases and three ages of one heroine. In order not to get confused in the names, Albee simply indexed them - A, B and C. "C", Albee writes, looks like "A" would look at 26 years old (Zoya Kaidanovskaya), "B" - she is 52 years old (Vera Babicheva), "A" - looks like she looks at 92 (Evgenia Simonova).

In the translation of Alexander Chebotar, the story does not raise questions: this play is about the fact that each age has its own truth, and each has its own reasons for concern and resentment, and its own grounds for forgiveness. It is about the fact that there is no meaning, probably, like happiness, in the world. But there is peace and freedom. For the freest and strongest among them is the one who is 92 years old, the one who is the loneliest (here Olbee returns to the truths discovered by Henrik Ibsen). She came to the wisdom of earthly, but not yet eternal rest - a calm attitude to the past and to her loved ones, to the greatness of forgiveness.

In her understanding (first of all - in understanding herself) - there is no senile indifference, on the contrary, she remembers everything, but not always a good memory does not interfere with reason. She simply judges everything from the height of her age. It seems that a little more - and in this wisdom the coldness of the otherworldly look will come through. If you believe "A", it was by the age of 92 that she finally reached real happiness. Happiness, from which there is no hiding or running away.

Both happiness and old age Simonov plays using the most perfect acting technique (in consumer electronics, such perfection is called hi-end). Picking her nose, she examines her prey through binoculars, endlessly forgets that Harry's old lawyer died 30 years ago, asks about him again and again and experiences another reminder that he is no longer in the world, like a momentary grief, wiping the eternally watery eyes and drooling mouth. It turns into a reprise building a figure, which "A", in support of his words, folds from the fingers of a broken and chained in plaster hand with the help of poorly obeying fingers of the second, not broken and more or less healthy. Looking at her, you understand how quickly time must pass for old people in these endless worries. At the same time, "A" also sings, but in such a way that through the creak of her voice the words are barely distinguishable: "The heart is full of joy", arias from "Rigoletto". Simonova manages to play (transmit) the fading of consciousness, with a loss of interest in the environment and those around her, when she, like a snail, suddenly hides in an invisible shell, with transitions into “autonomous existence”, and instantaneous transformations of the heroine, who also suddenly returns to life. And turns into a grumpy and unsympathetic old woman.

Several times she begins to tell the same story, so that already some curiosity for this antiquity appears in the public (well, when, finally ?!). Albee plays with these audience expectations, and at the most crucial moment, instead of the long-awaited erotic scene, he gives out only “zilch”. According to the director's idea, age manifests itself in detail, every year it seems to clarify and refine the character, adding some clarifying trifle, a new intonation: therefore, Kaidanovskaya's acting is almost schematic (completely without "wrinkles"!), Babicheva - in more detail, and Simonova - made up of many small details.

If the director and the actress herself hadn’t slowed down and didn’t remember that the “main road” (in this case, the main story) is ahead, the role of Simonova would probably have drowned in countless “age” details. But Simonova is a smart actress. And Golomazov, which was evident from his previous performances, is a sensible director. He knows where to open the floodgates, and where to direct the acting energy in a different direction. With the exception of optional dance blotches, the director tries to make his presence invisible and, as they used to say in the old days, to dissolve into the hero-actors (or rather, into the heroine-actresses). On the stage there are three high chairs, like those that stand in front of the bar, on each chair there is an actress. The legs do not touch the floor: since the heroine is currently in a coma (as the hospital bed in the corner of the stage reminds), their state is the most suspended. Between heaven and earth they speak of life. About my life. That is, what connects them. For the director, their human stories are more important than any directorial self-manifestation, especially complacency.

The three monologues could be boring if they even resembled each other in any way. But Albee tells the same story in such a way that it is impossible to understand that it is about one person. We know about this, and the heroines themselves also know, although they don’t really want to put up with it. Even "A" is ready to give up the past, to say nothing of the fact that "C", who at twenty-six does not want to be either abandoned by her husband, or left by her son, or the one who easily converges with the groom in the stable. She does not want to be them, just as she does not want to die, and she does not believe in death.

Genre: Life Story.

The duration of the performance is 1 hour 50 minutes without intermission.

The cost of tickets for the play Three Tall Women in the theater on Malaya Bronnaya:

Parterre: 2700-4500 rubles.
Amphitheater, Mezzanine: 2000-3000 rubles.

Reservation and delivery of the ticket are included in its price. The availability of tickets and their exact cost can be clarified by phone numbers from the site.

The famous American playwright Edward Albee was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1994 for his play Three Tall Women. The performance of Sergei Golomazov "Three Tall Women" at the Theater on Malaya Bronnaya managed to present this work at a decent level. This is confirmed by tickets instantly disappearing from the box office, despite the fact that the performance is complex, philosophical, pessimistic, even tragic. Confirmation of this is the sympathy and attention of the audience, long, long, sincere applause at the end.

According to the plot of the performance, three heroines appear before the audience - these are three women, conditionally designated by the author as A, B, C. The first - A - is the oldest, she is ninety-two years old. The second - B - is younger, she is 52; the youngest of the women, S, 26 years old. As the plot develops, viewers understand that this is the same woman, just at different ages, in different life periods. The performance raises questions that can resonate in the soul of every person. Can we change our future when we are 26? Is it right to be ashamed of your past at 52? Is it scary - to die alone, having lived to be 92 years old? Three ages and three destinies merge into one, giving birth to life lasting almost a century. This is a performance about how courageous fragile women are, how steadfastly they overcome defeats, troubles and misfortunes, severe trials prepared by fate.

Three tall women - video

In the first part of the performance "Three Tall Women" there is a place for sincere laughter. In this part, the old woman shares her memories with a lawyer and a nurse. However, then comes a difficult period, the old woman is in a coma. All three heroines appear on the stage, dressed in evening dresses, and then the viewer understands that they have a common life, one for all, that they are all one and the same heroine. The life lived at first seems bleak and hopeless, as if all life is a continuous expectation of death. But in old age suddenly an amazing feeling fills the soul. This is a feeling of freedom and happiness, independence from circumstances and people. Three wonderful actresses, a talented director, a minimum of scenery and a philosophical story about life and destiny.

Actors and performers of the play:

A, a very old woman, 92 Evgenia Simonova
B, a carer, looks like A would look at 52 years old
C, assistant lawyer, looks like Zoya Kaydanovskaya would look like A at 26
Young man, 25 years old, later their son Mark Vdovin, Ilya Zhdanikov, Alexei Frolenkov
A, B, C in a state of coma Alena Ibragimova