Translartion. Region: Russians Fedetion –
Source: Moscow Government – Government of Moscow –
On April 17, the premiere of the play will take place on the main stage of the MOST Theatre “Beep!”, dedicated to the legendary editorial board of the newspaper of the same name. Its employees at the dawn of their careers were Valentin Kataev, Eduard Bagritsky, Yuri Olesha and other famous writers. “Kultura Moskvy” talked to Evgeny Slavutin, director, teacher, founder and artistic director of the theater, about choosing a plot for a production, the importance of creative energy and the ability to stay young at any age.
— Evgeny Iosifovich, why did you decide to stage a play about young Soviet literature now? What makes this topic relevant?
— Our theatre is young — this is its indisputable advantage and feature, which we try to take into account when choosing material for productions. In this case, we took a certain historical moment into work: young Odessans of the 1920s, passionately interested in poetry, passionately dream of making it and move to Moscow for this purpose.
The age of our actors coincides with the age of their characters, and this is a good prerequisite for creating a live performance. We allowed the performers in the characters to look further, to go through their life’s journey to the end. This means that the performance will have an important psychological component that will be interesting to both the actors and the audience. Our task is to create a performance that penetrates the soul of the viewer, which will be relevant in its uniqueness. Relevance is not a task, but the result of the work.
And then, it’s just very interesting material! A completely unique case: all our heroes find themselves in the same editorial office, moreover, in the same premises of the newspaper “Gudok”. Here, an amazing atmosphere of humor and creative energy arises, with the help of which they transform routine, utilitarian work, filling it with the brilliance of wit, turning it into a unique school of literary mastery. They raced to amaze each other, thereby setting a certain trend of cheerful, mischievous, and most importantly, real literature. And at this takeoff, they begin to write their big books. They create them in a festive atmosphere, despite the recent Civil War, hunger and domestic instability. They compose works that will make a splash.
— You defined the genre of the play as a documentary phantasmagoria. What elements characterize it?
— The script is based on the memories of real people. But literary memories, which sometimes become documents, are one thing, and a performance in which directors and actors convey the living energy of events, passing them through themselves, is quite another. In our case, through the energy of youth.
Another important condition is the use of certain artistic techniques that involve the audience in the proposed events. Including a system of monologues built in the form of a direct appeal to the public. In short, this is a document, but played out and fertilized by the actor’s and director’s element.
— The legendary newspaper “Gudok” was distinguished, among other things, by its amazing sense of humor. Were its satirical nature transferred to the production? What techniques did you use?
— Satire is a reaction to topical moments in life. And despite the fact that our heroes wrote their newspaper articles brilliantly, the topic is a thing of the past. But a sense of humor is priceless, and we hope we managed to preserve it.
— The performance was also prepared with the help of the plastic director Vladimir Belyaikin and the director-choreographer Elena Ershova. Does this mean that the audience should expect many dance numbers?
— The theater requires an actor to demonstrate the ability to work with different capabilities. Not only intonation and voice, psychological expressiveness and authenticity are important, but also control of the body, which must be mobile and rhythmic. I have known Vladimir Belyaikin, winner of the Golden Mask award, for about 30 years. His works are amazing. Elena Ershova started in our theater as an actress, and now she is a candidate of pedagogical sciences, a dance specialist. But I would say that she is a co-director in the performance. Elena prepares dance and plastic numbers that express a certain essence of specific moments of the action. That is, the audience will see not isolated inclusions, but plastic solutions deeply connected with the course of the performance, in which not specially trained dancers take part, but actors.
— Among the heroes of the play are Valentin Kataev, Eduard Bagritsky, Yuri Olesha, Mikhail Bulgakov, Ilya Ilf and Evgeny Petrov — figures of incredible scale for Russian literature, bright, original. Was it difficult to choose suitable performers for these roles?
– No, it’s not difficult. We have a very large troupe – about 80 people – talented, charged with art, obsessed people who have gone through our school. Acting talent, in my opinion, consists of obsession with the material and the complex of tasks with which the artist goes on stage.
A wonderful coincidence occurred here: first we chose the actors, then we looked at photographs of the heroes of our play and were surprised by the striking resemblance.
— In collaboration with Alexander Vilkin, you once wrote the play “How It Was” based on the works of Ilf and Petrov. Did that experience help you to become even more deeply involved with the characters of the new production?
– Of course, it helped. Alexander Vilkin is a very talented person. At one time, the play “How It Was” was brilliantly performed at the Moscow Theater of Miniatures, so it was impossible not to use some of the techniques. But still, these are different plays, even in formal moments. In that one there were two hosts – Ilya Ilf and Evgeny Petrov, in “Gudok!” most of the narration is from the point of view of Valentin Kataev, and the story of Ilf and Petrov is just one of the lines.
— The ability to see and describe life like the characters in a play seems simple, but in reality, not everyone has it. What, in your opinion, will help develop it for those who would also like to become a great writer one day?
— I have been teaching acting all my adult life: first at the Lomonosov Moscow State University Theatre, and for the last 25 years at the MOST Theatre. And I can say for sure that an actor is born and raised in collective work. You can’t train a person in acting techniques — the same goes for literary creativity. There must be some groups in which interesting cross-pollination occurs. If Ilya Ilf, Yevgeny Petrov, Yuri Olesha, Eduard Bagritsky and Mikhail Bulgakov sit and work in the same room, then most likely something incredible is happening there. They influenced each other willy-nilly, it is no coincidence that all these characters burst into the country’s leading theatre at almost the same time.
— What is the essence of creativity and the main source of inspiration for you?
— Passion, youth (at any age) and non-pragmatism. Yes, Alexander Pushkin’s phrase is well-known: “Inspiration is not for sale, but a manuscript can be sold.” But a manuscript must first be born in a state of inspiration. A person must write because he cannot help but write.
And the source of inspiration for me is our actors. After all, these are people who are not crushed by their profession. People with talent, who unite in our acting school and then stay in the theater. We recruit study groups twice a year and literally after 12 classes we graduate artists who are free, easy and in love with their work. And the question of professionalism does not arise – all viewers note the special, bright energy and intelligent eyes of our actors. I attribute this to the fact that they are not only artists, but also physicists, biologists, journalists, that is, people living in a diverse, multi-tasking world, studying this world in its entirety. And working with such people, sometimes very difficult in the process of achieving those artistic goals that we are working on, endlessly inspires me.
The next performance will be on May 20 and 21. Tickets can be purchased at Mos.ru.
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