Kommersant, March 17, 2015

Uncle without rules

"An ordinary story" at the "Gogol Center"

The Moscow "Gogol Center" showed the first premiere on the big stage after several months of renovation - "An Ordinary Story" based on Goncharov's novel and directed by the theater's artistic director Kirill Serebrennikov. By ROMAN DOLZHANSKY.

Goncharov's classic novel about the formation and maturation of the provincial romantic Alexander Aduyev in the "Gogol Center" was recoded for the modern viewer. Instead of the century before last - today's Russia. Instead of St. Petersburg - today's Moscow. Instead of school literature from the bookshelf - the language that is spoken now. The theme of a provincial who has settled in the capital is not alien to artistic director Kirill Serebrennikov himself, and it also appears from time to time in the performances of the Gogol Center - there are a lot of young people in the hall and on the stage, so the problem is "how to dispose of your ideals." , is unlikely to seem too academic within these walls.

If we recall Kirill Serebrennikov's previous performances, then, in my opinion, there is a direct path to "An Ordinary History" from "Okolonol" based on the sensational novel by Nathan Dubovitsky. Here, as there, the most important is the image of the capital's Moscow society as a black hole, bending and devouring everyone who falls into its zone of attraction. Even literal analogies come to mind - the main elements of the design of "An Ordinary History" (the stage design here was invented by the director himself) are huge glowing holes-zeros, around which events unfold. And around - black, only a couple of red letters "M", denoting the entrance to the Moscow subway. So that there is no doubt, at some point the details add up to the word MOSCOW: for this, the second "M" is turned over, the section goes out in one of the zeros, and the S is played by the related dollar icon on the currency exchange rate board that appears from the street exchanger.

Uncle Aduev Jr. Peter operates in this city, apparently, with really big zeros. A middle-ranking oligarch, he claims that he produces light, but he looks more like the prince of darkness, even resembles Bulgakov's Woland: all in black, speaking from somewhere in a darkened corner, limping, and at first it even seems that his eyes are of different colors. A dryish, calculating businessman from Goncharov's novel was turned by Alexei Agranovich into a cynical and cruel functionary, into some kind of living corpse. Accurate in details, confident, saturated with invisible, but more than appropriate here humor, Agranovich's work condenses the image of his uncle to some kind of mystical concentrations. If Goncharovsky Aduev Sr. simply accurately predicts all the disappointments awaiting Aduev Jr., then the hero of the new play seems to have the secret power to independently send trials to people.

As for Aduev Jr., in the work of the young actor Philip Avdeev, reference points are still more important than the continuity of the process. The potential difference between the prologue and the ending is, of course, striking. In the beginning - a nice provincial rocker with an open smile and direct reactions, who leaves from a busy mother (Svetlana Bragarnik) to the capital: a plywood nest room falls apart, and the hero finds himself among the black Moscow. In the finale, Alexander is a self-confident, profitably married careerist, still young, but already "the master of life", ready, from old memory, to do good to his withered and aged uncle. By the end of the play, Kirill Serebrennikov seems to be changing the two main characters. Alexander Aduev, having killed all living things in himself, becomes a calculating schemer. Pyotr Aduyev, who a few years ago taught his nephew not to give in and not believe his feelings, is grievingly experiencing the death of his wife, whom he, as we now understand, deeply and sincerely fell in love with. And in the end, he even manages to grab a pinch of audience sympathy - perhaps even more valuable than those in which the charming Avdeev's character should literally bathe in the first part.

The genre that Kirill Serebrennikov chose, paving the way for "An Ordinary History", inventively balances between modern mystery and satirical comedy. The vocal cycle of Alexander Manotskov, "Five Short Revelations", which is woven into the action, on the text of "The Revelations of John the Theologian," seems to detach what is happening from reality, transforming the plot into a sublimely detached edification. But the director's caustic, merciless observation brings the performance back - as in the scene of Alexander Aduev's arrival in his hometown, where he meets his first love: a young woman pregnant with her third child sells flowers, and her husband steals goods from cemeteries and returns them on sale.

It seems that in the very title "An Ordinary History" one can hear the writer's call to humility before the law of life - every "nephew" is assigned to turn into a "uncle", and this rule should be accepted without anger. Kirill Serebrennikov also does not intend to rebel. He peers into the darkness with interest and curiosity, but nevertheless and with fright too - in any case, he himself is not in danger of becoming a theatrical "uncle".

MK, March 17, 2015

Marina Raikina

An ordinary requiem to your liking

"An ordinary story" became a sensation of the "Gogol Center"

The remarkable Russian writer Goncharov, who was included in the program of the Soviet school with just one novel, was like no one else in our time. Kirill Serebrennikov presented a staging of his outstanding novel "An Ordinary History" (created in 1847) at his Gogol Center. To the hot question - how to stage the classics today, so as not to offend the memory of the creators and the feelings of believers - the director replies with his premiere - to stage it harshly and well.

In Serebrennikov's staging, the storyline is not changed at all - from point "A" (one village in the Russian province) the boy Sasha Aduev (with a guitar, ideals and dreams) went to point "B" - the Russian capital with pure intentions to conquer the impregnable with his talent. There lives his uncle Pyotr Ivanovich Aduyev, a smart, respectable, but very cynical gentleman who douches his heated niece with his sobriety, like a cold shower. The clash of youthful idealism and experienced cynicism is the main conflict of Goncharov's novel, unchanged at all times. Only our time has given it a special acuteness and cruelty.

On the stage - only light and shadow in the literal sense of the word: the successful and wealthy Aduev Sr. turned out to be a monopolist in the lighting equipment market. It also becomes a decoration: three giant letters "O" hit the hall with cold neon and, in various combinations, break the gloomy space. That rare case when a scenographic solution becomes the most expressive metaphor (light and shadow, black and white), continuing in costumes (the author is Serebrennikov himself). Monochrome is boring, but stylish in Serebrennikov's work is so rich in semantic shades (more than 50?) That make it possible to avoid flat answers to flat questions: who is good / bad? who is right / wrong? and what values ​​are in use today?

In "An Ordinary History" the director did not begin to answer, as it turns out, ordinary questions: with the help of Goncharov, he considered the time and generations who lived or were born in New Russia... One went through the difficult circles of Russian business (from crimson jackets to expensive ones from Francesco Smalto or Patrick Helman), without lyrics, cynical, effective, smart as hell, but for some reason the mind brings its portion of grief. His antipode is a sweet lip-slap poet, impetuous, but childish and with an atrafied sense of responsibility. The director does not hide his sympathies - they are on the side of Aduev Sr. A serious investigation, similar to a duel with a sad end - no one was killed, but living, like the corpses of an uncle and nephew, sit on a cemetery bench and stare with dead eyes into the hall.

The interest in the almost three-hour duel (the audience does not breathe) is due to the acting. In the role of Aduev Jr., Philip Avdeev, but in the role of his uncle, quite unexpectedly for everyone, was Alexei Agranovich, who is known in Moscow primarily as the owner of his own company, producer, director of the opening ceremonies of the Moscow Film Festival. Surprisingly, it is Agranovich and his acting that give the action a special credibility, and as a result make Serebrennikov's performance more than successful. Not a picture painted in black and white, but a deep portrait of generations against the background of time. It seems that Agranovich does not even play in the proposed circumstances, but exists in them, since they are familiar to him. Having lived and cooked in a post-perestroika meat grinder, it seems that he is ready to subscribe to many of Goncharov's texts. Interview with the actor after the performance.

- Alexey, does it seem to me or do you really know the business environment that is discussed in the play so well?

- I know this drama in myself. Money - yes, an important thing, but I am familiar with the drama of a man who convinced himself that he was not given unique abilities from God, and he began to replace nature with common sense and efficiency. Life is a cruel thing, you are constantly faced with a choice that concerns not only work, but also your personal life.

- Still, make it clear: do you have an acting education? You have a wonderful stage speech, you feel so easy on stage.

- I was expelled from the third year of VGIK, I studied with Albert Filozov. I played in the play "The Seagull", did a little work for Trushkin, but that was 20 years ago, and since then I have not played in a drama.

- How did you get into this unusual story for you?

- I met Kirill Serebrennikov in different companies... And he once asked me if I knew an artist of such and such an age, with such qualities - in general, he described me. I told him a few, he said that he knew, but something didn’t work out there. "Would you like to try it yourself?" - he asked. I thought, I was not sure of myself and he was not sure of me. But then I decided that such offers would not be refused. I still have the feeling that I ended up in a bad / good American drama.

- We saw the recordings of that legendary performance with KO Zakov and Tabakov?

- No, I’ll say more, I haven’t read the novel before. I was afraid to look, now that they have already played, lookYu .

- And how do you solve the dilemma for yourself: murderous cynicism or irresponsible idealism?

- There is no truth here. There are two Aduevs living in each of us, and to remain one of them in its pure form means to be either an idiot or a complete cynic. We must trust God, fate - do what you must, and come what may. For me, in this performance, the ending that Kirill came up with is very important - this is such a requiem for the disappearing human species. New people came, but ... we raised them ourselves. Everything turns into nothing - this is the main merit and statement of Cyril.

In "Ordinary History", as is often the case with Serebrennikov, a new generation (the wonderful Philip Avdeev, Yekaterina Steblina) and actors of the former troupe of the Gogol Theater - Svetlana Bragarnik (she has two roles) and Olga Naumenko (the bride of Zhenya Lukashin from The Irony of Fate "). I must say that the latter has essentially one way out (not counting singing in the trio in the background), but one way out is worth a lot.

Petersburg theater magazine, March 17, 2015

Anna Banasyukevich

They are responsible for the light

An Ordinary Story. Based on the novel by I. A. Goncharov. Gogol Center. Director and artist Kirill Serebrennikov.

In the play by Kirill Serebrennikov, uncle Pyotr Ivanovich turned from a successful official into a successful businessman who owns a monopoly on artificial lighting in the capital. Aduev Jr., Sasha, from a poet to an amateur rock musician who came to conquer Moscow. Moscow in the "Ordinary History" of the "Gogol Center" is a few huge luminous zeros (to these three I instinctively want to add a couple more and remember the pompous Sochi Olympics, at which, for sure, more than one enterprising businessman was enriched) and the shining letter "M ", Indicating the metro.

Almost the entire first act of the play is a retelling of Goncharov's novel, adjusted in accordance with modern realities: first of all, it affected the language spoken by the characters. The language became simpler, quicker, absorbed Newspeak, lost its literary beauty, acquired urban rhythm and stinginess. The life circumstances of the heroes remained almost intact, the main conflict also - the poor idealist nephew, an enthusiastic puppy, comes to a rich uncle who has reached a strong and enviable position, devoid of any illusions and not inclined to sentimentality. The barrier in their emerging relationship in the play is even strengthened - Serebrennikov introduces the character Vasily, the bodyguard and assistant of Aduev Sr. As soon as Sasha, unable to cope with the impulse, rushes to his uncle, Vasily stands between them like an indestructible rock.

The attempt to adapt "An Ordinary History" to the modern way of life did not touch the deepest essences, and Sasha remained the same Goncharovsky barchuk, accustomed to mother's affection, to the vastness of the village, to the servility of courtyards. Of course, there are no courtyards in the play, there is only a mother (the charming "warm" role of Svetlana Bragarnik), bustlingly putting her son's things in a suitcase. But Sasha Philip Avdeev is still not like modern boys who come from the provinces to conquer Moscow - you still need to look for such neat guys, untouched by everyday life and street life. It seems that such a Sasha would have been killed in the very first doorway. Such Sasha would already be familiar with work, unskilled labor and low-paid. He would have been drafted into the army, maybe. Either way, he would have matured quickly. Sasha in this performance is completely childish, completely cut off from everyday life - light hair, hopelessly out of tune guitar, almost caricatured enthusiasm, a torn voice shouting bad pathetic verses into the microphone. However, inconsistencies in life with the image of time are leveled by parody intonation, which intensifies in the course of the performance. When Sasha is abandoned by the calculating girl Nadya, he sobs on his uncle's lap so desperately, so loudly that one can only smile. Sasha is not sorry - both the actor and the author of the play treat him too ironically. In the back of the stage, in the left corner, three women, like Macbeth's witches, prophesy evil for Sasha, predict mental death. In the finale of the play, Sasha changes suddenly, without a smooth transition: a disappointed broken boy disappears from the stage, so that fifteen minutes later a nondescript man with a stiff back, smooth face and slicked hair sat next to Peter Ivanovich, shocked by the death of his wife.

If Sasha seems to be an abstraction, a generalized image of a young idealist outside specific temporal and spatial coordinates, then his uncle Pyotr Ivanovich, in the restrained, mildly ironic performance of Alexei Agranovich, although not devoid of typeness, wins sympathy for his complexity, as opposed to the superficiality of his nephew. Thinking soberly, you think that the Russian mafiosi, who amassed capital in the 90s and ennobled in the 2000s, are hardly like that. Well, maybe with rare exceptions. But the theater is the theater, in order to convince the audience with the power of art, and not with the likeness of life. Agranovich in the role of uncle is charming, like Al Pacino from "The Devil's Advocate" or Clooney from "Burn Before Reading." In his stylish cynicism, in his mocking observation, in his not arrogant, not flaunting self-confidence, the depth of nature appears - a nature, in fact, passionate, living life with its diversity to the ground, sensually, strongly, mercilessly. Agranovich plays in such a way that when his uncle predicts family troubles for Sasha, you understand: this is not a fantasy of a playful mind, but life experience, the fruit of many disappointments. Swearing angrily on exhalation, Pyotr Andreyevich hastily leaves the stage, unable to listen to the poetic hysteria of his nephew drowning in tears - and here one can only smile sympathetically. After all, Sasha at this moment, despite all the sincerity, is simply tasteless and vulgar. Pyotr Andreevich, of course, is a bandit, but an esthete - and here the artistry of his nature, impeccable taste prevail over the initial circumstances. Theatricality triumphs over everyday life. Towards the end, the glowing zeros line up to form an MRI capsule. Pyotr Andreevich scurries in bewilderment around his dying wife Liza. This final chord - an almost silent readiness to save a loved one at any cost, defenseless confusion in the face of inevitable grief - again reveals a rich, contradictory nature. When in the very finale, the uncle and nephew are sitting next to each other, you think about how the elite grinded. Sasha's arrogance immediately breaks through with vanity - vanity that despises any grief, vanity that is not ashamed of its irrelevance. He eagerly sculpts ambitious projects, dreams of the promised chair of the minister of light, comes up with apocalyptic advertising slogans like "There is no other world better" and, in the spirit of today's aggressive churchmen, promises to flood the whole country with his light. Sasha is both funny and scary now. But if in Goncharov's novel the uncle was proud of his nephew, then here the hero of Agranovich is more perspicacious and therefore sad.

The second act of "An Ordinary History" follows the plot of the novel only in part - the line of Sasha and the widow Tafaeva, whom the uncle ordered to charm in the interests of the cause, becomes one of the main ones. If in the novel Tafaeva is still a young beauty, then Olga Naumenko plays a passionate elderly woman, sometimes cruel in her self-confidence, then naive in her self-revealing helplessness. The text in this slow, huge scene is sketchy, skidding. In the same way, the heroes stall, marking time in a strange dance. But it is precisely this scene that transforms the performance into a different quality - from parodic illustrativeness to a thick existential mix. A painful, viscous, hopeless feeling becomes the leitmotif, and the performance, unfolding in full force, becomes a statement about modern Russia... If Goncharov's "An Ordinary History" told about how the soul grows callous, how conformism triumphs over the liveliness of nature, then the play "Gogol Center", in many respects, is about the evil dehumanizing power of the city. If Goncharovsky Aduev wanders in thought, then Sasha Philip Avdeeva, drunk, is lying in the mountains of garbage, unable to connect even two words. If the hero of Goncharov returned home, as in a reliable parental nest, rejoiced in the fields and open spaces, then the current Sasha goes home only for his mother's funeral. No illusions - his former lover, once again pregnant and happy with life, sells flowers; her husband, a former friend and fellow in the group, helps her by stealing flowers from the graves and returning them to the shop. Such is the cycle. This scene, viscous, almost unbearable, brings to mind other performances by Serebrennikov - both the early "Plasticine" with its painful scene of Spira's funeral, and the recent "Thugs", in which main character dragged the coffin with his father across the endless wilderness of the indifferent deserted homeland. Here, in this scene, there is horror and despair precisely because of what Dostoevsky exhaustively formulated in his time: "The man is wide, I would narrow it down." Sonya (Maria Selezneva) and Sasha is sincerely glad, but her nobility is only in the fact that she warns her former lover: when you put on the grave, break the stems, or they will steal. She is surprised at his naivety, mince, but deftly grabs the thousand offered to her, justifies herself - Dutch, dear, so she took it. This deep horror is fully poured out in the monologue of Viktor (Ivan Fominov), the wife of Sonya, a man without age in a stretched T-shirt. Swearing and cursing, he itches and itches, heaping everything in a heap - and the philistine hatred of the notorious Dutch and their persistent flowers, and contempt for tight-fisted buyers, and indifference to close people, and triviality in half with total indifference. Here's a Russian bouquet.

Izvestia, March 17, 2015

Oleg Karmunin

Serebrennikov transferred "Ordinary history" to modern Moscow

The artistic director of the Gogol Center continues to defend the right to a non-standard interpretation of the classics

The booklet for the new play by Kirill Serebrennikov does not contain the usual annotation of what the director wanted to say. Instead of a story about the staging process, the artistic director of the Gogol Center criticizes school education, which, in his opinion, kills the vivid perception of Russian classics. He compares Ivan Goncharov's novel with bright modern prose and says that the classics at one time caused the same fierce controversy as today - the work of Vladimir Sorokin and Zakhar Prilepin. This text is like a challenge to the conservative theater and all the guardians of the classics, who are outraged at the modern interpretations of Russian literature.

Perhaps this is how Kirill Serebrennikov hints that he staged the play about himself. The performance is about not giving up, even if the generally accepted picture of the world or the situation changes not in your favor. Despite the endless stream of criticism from the defenders of theatrical traditions, the artistic director of the Gogol Center continues to bend his line: he is the same idealist as the protagonist of the novel An Ordinary Story.

The main character, 20-year-old Sasha Aduev, who came from a remote province to conquer the capital, at first has a rather naive idea of ​​peace, good and evil. To an acoustic guitar, he sings protest songs and dreams of eternal love. A cruel city where the laws of power and money rule, and people are ready to betray each other for personal gain, makes the young man reconsider his views on the world. Why do you talk about money all the time? - the young man asks his uncle, a cynical businessman, battered by the life of the capital. Pyotr Ivanovich Aduyev sighs heavily: "What a fool!", And the question hangs in the air.

Kirill Serebrennikov aggravates the conflict of the novel. The teenager, by virtue of his maximalism, sees the world in black and white colors. From a multi-colored village he finds himself in a black city, where everyone walks in mourning clothes and where only large fluorescent lamps in the form of zeros flicker with white light. In the play, they are used in different ways: zeros become furniture, decoration and the main symbol of the dark capital. For Serebrennikov, this is not St. Petersburg of the Goncharov era, but modern Moscow, but for a century and a half, as it turned out, the values ​​have not changed.

Young artist Philip Avdeev plays a hot-tempered young man who constantly rushes around the stage with burning eyes and tries to tell others about his stupid dreams. Uncle (Alexei Agranovich) imposingly and competently explains to the young man the laws of success in spiritless Moscow. “Hit first”, “the main thing is profit”, “do you know how many people like you come here?”. He speaks clearly, to the point, easily breaking all provincial stereotypes. His wife Liza (Ekaterina Steblina) at first tries to convince the young man that the world is not as harsh as it seems, but you cannot argue with reality - everything is black and black.

Uncle arranges Sasha at his plant for the production of energy-saving light bulbs, now and then dragging the young man into all sorts of unscrupulous adventures. One day, returning from work, Sasha meets his old friend, who rummages in garbage bags. “Don't come near, I stink,” says a friend. The conversation doesn't go well. There is nothing in common between them anymore. Sometimes a young man dreams of his mother. In these disturbing visions, she chirps casually that everything will be fine soon. This, of course, is not true, nothing can be changed - the clouds have thickened, and soon thunder will break out.

The front of the "defenders of the classics from desecration" is growing, and the "Gogol Center", headed by its artistic director, like the young Sasha Aduyev, is naive

Premiere theater

The Moscow "Gogol Center" showed the first premiere on the big stage after several months of renovation - "An Ordinary Story" based on Goncharov's novel and directed by the theater's artistic director Kirill Serebrennikov. By ROMAN DOLZHANSKY.

Goncharov's classic novel about the formation and maturation of the provincial romantic Alexander Aduyev in the "Gogol Center" was recoded for the modern viewer. Instead of the century before last - today's Russia. Instead of St. Petersburg - today's Moscow. Instead of school literature from the bookshelf - the language that is spoken now. The theme of a provincial who has settled in the capital is not alien to artistic director Kirill Serebrennikov himself, and it also appears from time to time in the performances of the Gogol Center - both in the hall and on the stage there are a lot of young people, so the problem is "how to dispose of your ideals." , is unlikely to seem too academic within these walls.

If we recall Kirill Serebrennikov's previous performances, then, in my opinion, there is a direct path to "Ordinary History" from "Okolonol" based on the sensational novel by Nathan Dubovitsky. Here, as there, the most important is the image of the capital's Moscow society as a black hole, bending and devouring everyone who falls into its zone of attraction. Even literal analogies come to mind - the main elements of the design of "An Ordinary History" (the stage design here was invented by the director himself) are huge glowing holes-zeros, around which events unfold. And around - black, only a couple of red letters "M", denoting the entrance to the Moscow subway. So that there is no doubt, at some point the details add up to the word MOSCOW: for this, the second "M" is turned over, the section goes out in one of the zeros, and the S is played by the related dollar icon on the currency exchange rate board that appears from the street exchanger.

Uncle Aduev Jr. Peter operates in this city, apparently, with really big zeros. A middle-ranking oligarch, he claims that he produces light, but he looks more like the prince of darkness, even resembles Bulgakov's Woland: all in black, speaking from somewhere in a darkened corner, limping, and at first it even seems that his eyes are of different colors. A dryish, calculating businessman from Goncharov's novel was turned by Alexei Agranovich into a cynical and cruel functionary, into some kind of living corpse. Accurate in details, confident, saturated with invisible, but more than appropriate here humor, Agranovich's work condenses the image of his uncle to some kind of mystical concentrations. If Goncharovsky Aduev Sr. simply accurately predicts all the disappointments awaiting Aduev Jr., then the hero of the new play seems to have the secret power to independently send trials to people.

As for Aduev Jr., in the work of the young actor Philip Avdeev, reference points are still more important than the continuity of the process. The potential difference between the prologue and the ending is, of course, striking. In the beginning - a nice provincial rocker with an open smile and direct reactions, who leaves from a busy mother (Svetlana Bragarnik) to the capital: a plywood nest room falls apart, and the hero finds himself among the black Moscow. In the finale, Alexander is a self-confident, profitably married careerist, still young, but already the "master of life", ready, from old memory, to do good to his withered and aged uncle. By the end of the play, Kirill Serebrennikov seems to be changing the two main characters. Alexander Aduev, having killed all living things in himself, becomes a calculating schemer. Pyotr Aduyev, who a few years ago taught his nephew not to give in and not to believe his feelings, is grievingly going through the death of his wife, whom he, as we now understand, deeply and sincerely fell in love with. And in the end, he even manages to grab a pinch of audience sympathy - perhaps even more valuable than those in which the character of the charming Avdeev should literally bathe in the first part.

The genre that Kirill Serebrennikov chose, paving the way for "Ordinary History", inventively balances between modern mystery and satirical comedy. The vocal cycle of Alexander Manotskov, "Five Short Revelations", which is woven into the action, on the text of "The Revelations of John the Theologian" seems to detach what is happening from reality, transforming the plot into a sublimely detached edification. But the director's caustic, merciless observation brings the performance back - as in the scene of Alexander Aduev's arrival in his hometown, where he meets his first love: a young woman pregnant with her third child sells flowers, and her husband steals goods from cemeteries and returns them on sale.

It seems that in the very title "An Ordinary History" one can hear the writer's call to humility before the law of life - every "nephew" is assigned to turn into a "uncle", and this rule should be accepted without anger. Kirill Serebrennikov also does not intend to rebel. He peers into the darkness with interest and curiosity, but nevertheless, and with fright too - in any case, he himself does not threaten transformation into a theatrical "uncle".

I would, of course, somehow find the opportunity to go to the "Ordinary History", but I was kindly presented with a ticket - not to refuse. At the same time, it seems, out of the best intentions, they deceived, assuring that it was bought for one and a half thousand (by the way, also a lot of money! I eat for a smaller amount for a month), but in fact, apparently, after all, for two and a half, because the girl, who changed her fifth row to my seventh, to sit under the barrel to the boyfriend, gave me a printed receipt, and there, at face value, without extra charges, there was a price of 2500 - if I knew in advance, I would most likely refuse such a precious gift. Despite the announced "full house" and the guests, the darkness was dark, and empty seats remained, including in the first row - where, of course, Pizdenysh settled in right away, and I, so as not to embarrass anyone with the presence, only moved after intermission (they also left ). However, in the seventh, in the fifth, in the first row - in the "Gogol-Center" from everywhere it is difficult to see. Suppose, in the former theater named after Gogol's performances were terrible, even worse than now - but for some reason, in the old hall, from the tattered chairs, you could see everything, and now from the chairs you can see only the heads in front of those sitting, from the very first row, the elements of the scenery brought to the foreground obscure the background. Well, it's not so important, it would be something to look at.

Like all other old and not so classics, Serebrennikov mechanically transposes "An Ordinary History" into a seemingly modern - but at the same time absolutely conventional - reality, and retells Goncharov's novel in the rough language of a poster. There may be some questions about the language of the staging, which is essentially an original play using only the plot motives of the original source. For example, I feel sorry for some very specific losses like the Aduevs' dialogue: “But to read such bitter truths to myself - and from whom? from my own nephew! "Do you imagine you wrote the truth?" - in the play, instead of “bitter truths” they say “truth”, and the difference between “truth” and “bitter truths” is not only stylistic, but even if you don’t dwell on lexical nuances, the damage to the poetics of the text is obvious. The worldview emphasis is even more displaced - both in the work as a whole and in the image of the protagonist: in Goncharov's work, young Aduev is full of aspirations not only sublime, but also public, state, he is burning with the desire to "serve", "benefit" - Serebrennikov, no matter how strange (it seems that the theme is just for the "Gogol Center") is focused mainly on the subjective experiences of the character. However, this is a deliberate move and, in principle, it is clear that Serebrennikov maximally simplifies not only the content, structure, but also the style of the material, for greater clarity. At the same time, conceptually, Serebrennikov's play is definitely more multi-layered than the novel underlying it - although “layering” does not guarantee either significant depth or genuine complexity.

Serebrennikov's narrative prose of Goncharov is disassembled into separate fragments, sketches, almost "clips", and genre-heterogeneous at that. Some scenes are made in the spirit of satirical interludes, close in format to KVN. Others lead away from realism and psychologism into the metaphysical and downright mystical realm. Only satire, and even more so metaphysics, are comprehended and presented at a level close to school amateur performances. Aduev senior in the play is an authoritative businessman, obviously from the 1990s, this is understandable from his worldview, seen from his manners, “heard” from intonations. But it is no coincidence that the nature of his activity is specified - he “sells light”. It is not completely clear how and what exactly, most likely, literally - it can be street illumination and electricity production. The symbolic aspect is more important, and it is not for nothing that in his secret notes Aduev Jr. notes that the uncle "limps like a devil." A lame demon carrying light - that's the home-grown Lucifer, the regional ruler of Darkness, is ready. Metaphor, to put it bluntly, not amazing novelty and originality, and most importantly, clinging to it, Serebrennikov carries this motive through the entire performance, obsessively (in the course of the action, the heroes will burn out the plugs, then short circuit), sometimes not disdaining frank tastelessness, or even borrowing, text (“better there is no other world "- from Pelevin) and visual (the sign of the Moscow metro" M ", turned upside down and turned into" W ", the emblem of Woland - from" The Master and Margarita "Sas in the Moscow Art Theater).

The role of Aduev Jr. is played by Philip Avdeev, who is also Hamlet in the unattainable-boring (by no means his personal fault) production of David Boba, and long before that - a cute blue-eyed plump (now lost weight and pumped up) boy from "Yeralash" , where his classmate in the "Seventh Studio" Alexander Gorchilin also starred, and other today's young professionals, and there, in all honesty, their individuality was often manifested much brighter: in the "Gogol Center" that Hamlet, that Sasha Aduev, that "Brothers", that "Idiots" - all about the same color, and for fans of the institution there is no better that color. In some episodes, Sasha looks charming and touching, but this charm is just as artificial and artificial (although Avdeev plays it quite adequately, taking into account the tasks set by the director), as his provincial demonism in the finale. With a special sinking heart, one has to observe how Aduev Jr., nakedly balancing Yulia Pavlovna (at the direction of his uncle, the nephew "falls in love" with an elderly official, whose signature is necessary for the "seller of light"), pulls on the pants presented by the old woman, forced to simultaneously cover the pussy with his palm and hold so as not to fall, the transmitter of the radio microphone (it's also good for Philip Avdeev to fit everything in one hand, otherwise some of Brusnikin's students in the Cavalry are in a similar position and barely enough for two). Mom is played by the prima donna of the theater. Gogol Svetlana Bragarnik - even two mothers. Moreover, in the role of Sasha's mother, an experienced actress, an undoubted master, she manifests herself as a star of a burned-out district theater released into circulation, with wringing her hands and rolling her eyes, and the next time she appears, in the image of mother Nadya Lyubetskaya, Sasha's capital bride, Bragarnik demonstrates such an exquisite sharp and stylish grotesque, which is hard to believe that a few minutes before that I saw the same performer, and grandiose achievements in the performances of Serebrennikov of such outstanding colleagues as Natalya Tenyakova in Les and Alla Pokrovskaya in Golovlevs Gentlemen arise in my memory. Probably, such a contrast, playing on two options, two hypostases of motherhood, "light" and "dark", is embedded in the director's intention, but nevertheless, turning Adueva into a caricature of a local mother from a humorous TV show is unnecessary, especially when in the second act the grown son leads an imaginary dialogue with a deceased parent - here it comes to tearful vulgarity and monstrous falsehood.

At the same time, an extremely unexpected, amazing actor's discovery happened in Serebrennikov's "Ordinary History". I remember that Fyodor Bondarchuk was supposed to play Aduev Sr. What didn’t grow together there, I don’t know, and now it doesn’t matter. Now Alexei Agranovich is playing - not unknown and not so much without stage experience (mostly in the role of a showman), but still not an actor and not a theater man in his main occupation and education (he graduated from VGIK, directs ceremonies to order) ... Last time If I don’t confuse anything, I came into contact with Agranovich’s work several years ago - I watched his independent theatrical production based on Pushkin’s “little tragedies”, the artistic quality of which after years is simply ridiculous to discuss. But what Aleksey Agranovich does in the role of Aduev Sr. proposed by Serebrennikov (how the role itself was invented and constructed in a directorial and dramatic manner is the second question), definitely deserves admiration. Both the experienced Bragarnik, who has seen the views, and yesterday's schoolboy Avdeev next to Agranovich seem to be amateurs! This also applies to the inner content of the character, and purely technical things, at least take the stage speech (with which the overwhelming majority of the graduates of Serebrennikov's course, and many of today's students of various theater universities, are far from brilliant). Another thing is that the actors, one way or another in the play, cannot turn around, they are built into this product of the conveyor assembly, like cogs: they hold on, spin - well, okay. In this sense, the roles of Sasha Aduev's mother and the Prince's dog, Yulia Pavlovna's dog, guarding her loneliness like a hellish Cerberus (another superfluous reminder of the "next world"), are the roles of Sasha Aduev's mother and the same status. The half-naked dog "Prince" in a leather mask with a chain from the second act, one should appreciate the director's wit (not present in abundance in this production), successfully "rhymed" with the Count, who - also in a leather mask for BDSM - in the first act becomes Sasha's happy rival in the struggle for the heart - and body - of Nadenka Lyubetskaya: their "no-no-no", perhaps, of all the small notions of Serebrennikov is remembered first of all.

The story of Sasha Aduev in Serebrennikov's version thus turns out to be not so "ordinary", but acquires a superhuman, Faustian dimension, and the performance claims no less than the status of a mystery (albeit a stylized one, partly a parody somewhere), where the process of entering into the world of adults, respectable uncles and aunts, a gradual withdrawal from adolescent illusions, the sad but inevitable result of growing up (according to Goncharov) is presented by Serebrennikov as a kind of "fall into sin", but what is there - the sale of the soul to the Devil, no more and no less. Rather, more, because in the final Aduev Jr., in addition to licked vortices on his head, bleached teeth and darkened eyes (in the Gogol Center they love such a special effect and not the first time they abuse it), he declares at the grave of Aduev Sr.'s wife, limping - on skis, he says, skated and fell. Well, well, he fell, how did we know such fallen angels - Sasha immediately invites his uncle to go to work for him at the Ministry of Light: his nephew is a minister, and his uncle, who was called to the ministry much earlier, is his deputy. Uncle Aduyev turns out to be, using Oleg Efremov's slip of the tongue, “responsible for everything and for light” - Faust, therefore, has outgrown Mephistopheles. And there was such a good boy ...

“The Ministry of Light” is a deliberate convention from the same series as, say, “Rubber Crap” in Bogomolov’s “The Ideal Husband”, only in Bogomolov an emphatically vulgar metaphor is flawlessly inscribed in the general dramatic style, while in Serebrennikov, where eclecticism is not stylistic move, but a manifestation of the director's laziness of the mind, organizational haste, if not a banal hack, it sticks out and annoys, like much else in this pretentious jumble. But, by the way, about our boy and the suffering of young Faust - the first act opens with a "song of protest", which Sasha Aduev sings with a friend to the accompaniment of a guitar before saying goodbye to mom and going to Moscow (and today Aduev can only go to Moscow, here and there is nothing to discuss). And in this song he shows himself to be a rebel-dissent to the fullest. And as soon as he put off the guitar - and he is already a mama's boy, naively believing in abstract "ideals of good" ("ideals of the beaver," as the authoritative uncle, who later ridiculed the "delusions" of a provincial relative, would put it). One could assume that the song is a self-sufficient musical number (and in the play there are many such numbers, both inscribed in the action, and passing in the background, and existing separately - from Manotskov's vocal cycle to the text of "The Revelation of John the Theologian" to semi-amateur rocker-bardic nonsense ), but the hero is a young musician in terms of the plot, he comes to the capital with a guitar, dreams of recording in a studio, and not just writing and publishing lyrics. Psychologically, the character of Sasha Aduev, that is, is not built at all - it is another matter that Serebrennikov does not pose such a task, but this still greatly impoverishes the role and the production as a whole. Here is just what Zhenovach from the set of sketches, to which, by and large, Erdman's "Suicide" is reduced, made a full-fledged dramatic performance, linking the action with a cross-cutting hero. Serebrennikov, being distracted by the context, actually loses the hero, reduces him to a flat shape-shifting scheme.

In general, when you observe how theatrical figures, who seem to be in much more "conservative" aesthetic positions, skillfully, courageously, dashingly work with classical, far from always grateful literary material, without disfiguring the original source, without intruding on the text, but building up their own ideas about life and theater - as Mindaugas Karbauskis, starting from the stupid materialism and love of the people of Leo Tolstoy, discovers in "The Fruits of Enlightenment" Magic world mysterious, rationally incomprehensible relationships between people and phenomena; or how Yevgeny Kamenkovich dramatizes a satirical pamphlet of the century before last, Saltykov-Shchedrin's Modern Idyll, without adapting it to current realities, but the words written in the 1880s sound like they were read yesterday on a website blocked by Roskomnadzor - all the more, it remains only to be surprised how deadly Serebrennikov's attempts to "bring" Goncharov closer turn out to be (instead of getting closer to Goncharov ... Well, either to Trier, or even, forgive, Lord, to Ovid - this is not a one-time action, this is, consider, an established industry, a conveyor belt) to the chronicle current events.

Serebrennikov's problem, it is clear, is not a lack of imagination and not a loss of grasp, but a distorted goal-setting: instead of composing, creating his own author's reality, as it happened in his best works, KS, and, apparently, this is the ideological position of the leader "Gogol Center" prefers (albeit out of good - out of good - motives) to influence the target audience with the most understandable means available to the latter. He thinks more about the viewer than about the performance, about the predicted reaction, and not about what causes the reaction - hence the predictable consequences. As for the notorious "enlightenment", it, too, predictably, turns into the fruits described by the old formula "shine, but not warm", while at the very end a real open fire bursts out of the neon tubes.

As soon as the heroes “sell light”, then on the stage, among other elements of scenography and the indispensable piano, there are three huge neon “O” on wheels, where O is both the letter and the number “zero”. OO - please, two zeros, latrine. Three "O" - and a hint of the trilogy of Goncharov, and the abbreviation "limited liability company". And if you take the "metro" sign for the initial "M", read the last inverted "M" as an English "double", extinguish the right segment of the middle O "and insert an exchange plate between the" C "remaining from it and the first, whole circle currencies with the dollar symbol, you get something like "MOSCOW", well, this is quite for fans of formal charades. In terms of content, such symbolism, again, is not particularly sophisticated, but these zeros, among other things, reminded me of an extremely important, as I think today, in hindsight, in the biography of Kirill Serebrennikov, and extremely underestimated in its time performance: abuse and praise for his address were equally committed and thoughtless, and practically no one could, did not want to, or did not have time to grasp the essence.

Meanwhile, it was in "Nearby", long before the current "Ordinary History", that Serebrennikov turned to similar problems, only in less well-worn, but more appropriate material. And while I was watching "An Ordinary History", I was "Near Column", where the very specificity of a by no means perfect postmodern text (both literary and theatrical) was built on the contradictions of literary conventions and harsh everyday, and more specifically, criminal-political realities, came to mind constantly ... In Goncharov's novel (I also thought about it through associations with "Near-Column") Serebrennikov, if he wanted to, could see, first of all, parallels with his own creative destiny. How to analyze them, evaluate them - whether through satire, through theatrical mysticism or in a realistic way - the choice is up to the artist, but the very personal story of Serebrennikov, in some ways ordinary, and in some ways incredible, would certainly be more interesting than a generalized to abstraction portrait “Typical representative” of some mythical “new generation”. And Serebrennikov casts a shadow over the fence, directing the searchlight in a completely different direction, and puts on a play about anything, but not about himself, a loved one, which means nothing. Sells light. Expensive.

But to the theater. Gogol returned the stop of the 78th bus. It doesn't matter to the target audience, judging by the number of cars, taxis and almost limousines at the entrance, but I'm pleased. Probably temporarily, while "Baumanskaya" is closed and "reinforced" land routes- Well, what is not temporary in this world? And for now, Baumanskaya will be opened ... The Gogol Center will be closed faster.