BDT tour in Moscow

The Tovstonogov Bolshoi Drama Theater brought to Moscow the play Baptized with Crosses. It is based on an autobiographical novel by Eduard Kochergin. On the eve of his 85th birthday, the chief artist of the BDT specially came to the capital for the shows. In this production, Eduard Kochergin is the hero, the author of the text and the designer of the performance.

For the Moscow public, the meeting with the BDT production took place on the Sretenka stage of the Mayakovsky Theater. The hall was full, the arrival of the BDT is a big event, this should not be missed.

The genre of the novel is notes on the knees. “Between times, between my performances, between drawing costumes and in the subway, once on the train, somewhere at some meeting or meeting, I wrote all these things in a notebook,” said Eduard Kochergin about the process of creating a novel.

Eduard Kochergin invited Veniamin Filshtinsky to stage a play based on his novel. “When we do something, we generally study historical material, everyday material, human material, and here is this hero. You can ask this gray-haired man about the hero of this novel. It’s amazing. They asked eagerly, they asked him for all the details. And he told me that he literally lost something about someone, ”says director Veniamin Filshtinsky about the work on the play.

“Baptized with crosses” is an old expression of the inmates of the famous Russian prison-crosses. It was the password of thieves in law, in the neighbors of which in the Stalin years political people were imprisoned.

Why am I here? Why do I need such a show? After all, life is so scary. Here are the first thoughts that popped into my head at the show.

Five people on the stage and the author’s voice behind the stage, dubbed by the people’s artist Gennady Bogachev. There are almost no decorations, everything is concise and expressive to the limit. But there is an atmosphere, the horror of misunderstanding, childish pain. At some point, it became so lousy that the brain switched, and it seemed that it was just a terrible fairy tale. A kid surrounded by monsters and horror. Perhaps the director of the play, Veniamin Filshtinsky, himself pushed us to do this – the play began with the fact that we were reminded of the tale of the Little Thumb.

The actors play the main character alternately, constantly changing roles, endlessly reincarnating. The five of them show the huge evil world that surrounds the little hero. It is not even clear how many roles each played. A lot of space in the performance is occupied by music, the actors sing a lot and do it very expressively. That is a solo performance, and then other voices, as it were, are intertwined and capture the hall in the cycle of sounds.

It’s good that you can see, think, let through yourself. Art will save you, because it is not necessary to experience everything yourself, you can see, be horrified and realize.

Great cast, voices, music, scenery. I can’t say that this is for everyone, but definitely for those who go to the theater to think, and not just have fun.

It is also very powerful that both the author of the book and the director were at the play. They gave this action even more strength, and perhaps even hope. We knew and understood that the Kid will go through this many years of returning home, and will come to adulthood. The little hero, as he calls himself – “shadow, invisible” – will become a Man and tell all of us, the audience, about it.

Eduard Kochergin is the son of “enemies of the people”, who was brought up in orphanages and traveled by car from Siberia to Leningrad for 10 years. In his hometown, he was lucky to meet his recently released mother. All the memories of childhood, youth and maturity of the artist are reflected in his books, of which there are already eight today. Kochergin graduated from the production department of the Leningrad Theater Institute named after A. N. Ostrovsky and since 1972 has been the chief artist of the Bolshoi Drama Theater. Eduard Kochergin was a close friend and colleague of Georgy Tovstonogov. During his life, he designed more than two hundred productions in the theaters of the country, as well as in Finland, Poland, Hungary, France, Germany, the USA, Canada, and Japan.

Young actors: Ruslan Barabanov, Viktor Knyazhev, Alena Kuchkova, Rustam Nasyrov and Karina Razumovskaya, involved in the play Baptized with Crosses, were awarded the Golden Soffit Award in the Best Ensemble nomination.

Vladimir Sabadash and Anna Duhon.

Photo by the BDT press service.