A play based on Gogol was shown at “Directing Lessons”
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Akaki Lugansky turned out to be a woman
The “Directing Lessons” festival is gaining momentum. At “Et Cetera” during the day Elizaveta Boyarskaya gave a master class, and in the evening the Lugansk Academic Russian Drama Theater presented the play “Akaky” based on Nikolai Gogol’s story “The Overcoat”.
The Russian stage has seen so many “Overcoats”. So the People’s Artist of Russia Avangard Leontiev, who came to see the work of his colleagues from Lugansk, still plays Akaki Akakievich. And after the show he even spoke out, expressing his complaints, but not to the creators of the play. However, more on that later.
The young director Sergei Vasin, in choosing a performer for the main role, followed the path once trodden in Sovremennik by Valery Fokin. Marina Neyolova worked for him as Akaki Akakievich on another stage of the theater, made up as a sexless creature, as if extraterrestrial. I don’t know whether Sergei Vasin saw that performance (you can watch it on the Internet), but he appointed actress Natalya Butko as the titular adviser for his “Overcoat”. Without any makeup (except for glasses), she alone played for everyone in “The Overcoat.”
The first image she presented was that of a woman who had given birth to a boy before our eyes. In a fairy-tale chant, the mother begins to tell the baby a story: how they chose the name, and such a melodious name – A-ka-kiy, and what began to happen to him next. And then in the first part of the performance, the actress quickly tries on images, becoming either a village woman in a white headscarf, or a modern official with a position, but it is not entirely clear which one.
The director built a multi-figured and multi-action structure for her, in his fantasies and passions clearly gravitating towards puppet theater. The actress in the role of the titular adviser did not let her director down at all: her little man Akaki, like a magician, suddenly pulled out a small doll head from his pocket and, having placed it on his finger, was already playing with the Akaki doll. In the next scene, she herself, like a puppet, was hanging on three harsh ropes that had been lowered. And when a huge overcoat, or rather its front part, also descended from above, the actress deftly found herself inside. The overcoat looked eerily like a bell and was ready to ring for poor Akakiy, who among the Lugansk residents seemed more romantic and dreamy than humiliated and self-deprecating.
It was interesting to follow the development of the director’s idea and its acting implementation. It wasn’t boring, although at some point the fantasies seemed excessive. Gogol’s beautiful text sounded, and from time to time he himself appeared on the screen as a graphic image in profile and full face (artist Daria Krasnoshtan). The pictures themselves are worthy, but they did not add anything new, and sometimes distracted from the variety of images and actions that the actress offered in the foreground. Very professional, interesting and, apparently, brave. But the current agenda for the performance was based on the classic video with the faces of deputies – either from Lugansk, or from the Rada, but they were deputies exactly before the special operation. Well, the snout, and the angles! Some of those present at the performance later claimed that they were all former.
“Akakiya” was played in an hour, and, as the director explained, this is now the standard timing for performances in areas where there is turbulence. After all, the premiere was played in early October 2022. “To what extent did the events of that time complicate the production of the play and make it dangerous?” – I asked during the discussion and heard in response that the male part of the troupe had been mobilized, there were almost six men left in the theater. The performance grew out of independent work, and then entered the repertoire.
The director and actress, when answering questions, did not exaggerate when talking about the current moment, and with their answers they tried to show that they continue to work, as in peacetime. And Avangard Leontyev, speaking about their performance, emphasized that the role of a titular adviser turned out to be so difficult for him that he still has questions for himself and is not satisfied with himself.
Newspaper headline:
Akaki Lugansky turned out to be a woman
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