Comrade Shvonder will operate on you!

The Maly Theater delighted its fans with the premiere of the play “Heart of a Dog” based on the play of the same name by Mikhail Bulgakov.

…Under the whistle of a December blizzard and the sounds of the march “It’s time for the working people to rise,” the viewer is transferred to the snowy Moscow of 1924. In defiance of the Bolshevik appeals, a completely different hymn is heard from the stage – the famous, student Vivat Academia! Vivant Professionals! Viva Academy! Viva professor! Two worlds, two philosophies came together in opposition. After the meeting, his colleagues say goodbye to the outstanding surgeon and professor Philip Philipovich Preobrazhensky. Each of the scientists hurries to his home. Preobrazhensky is heading in the usual way to his Obukhov lane. Lanterns are burning in the evening twilight, people are running past, it’s cold outside, it’s snowing. And Philip Philipovich accidentally loses his galosh – such a cute touch. It is brought in the teeth by a huge dog. In gratitude, the homeless Sharik gets a new owner, a new home and … a new destiny.

It is unlikely that among those who visit the Maly Theater there will be people who have not seen the famous film by Vladimir Bortko with Yevgeny Evstigneev in the role of Professor Preobrazhensky. The picture is so loved, so often shown on TV, that each of its scenes has been firmly imprinted in the memory of several generations of viewers. All the more difficult was the task of director Alexei Dubrovsky to stage a performance at the Maly Theater in such a way that the viewer would abandon involuntary attempts to compare with the film masterpiece and completely immerse himself in what was happening on stage. And if the viewer also experiences the pleasure of old characters in a new reading, this will be a complete victory! Looking ahead, I will say that the Maly Theater was able to do it.

Stage designer Maria Utrobina gracefully takes us to the professor’s house, to Preobrazhensky’s old Moscow apartment with seven rooms. Spectators see only a part of it – a dining room with antique furniture, a solid set table with beautiful service and crystal. The dining room at some point conditionally turns into a living room, then into an examination room, into an operating room.

In the house of Preobrazhensky, Sharik will have to go through an unprecedented experiment – the human pituitary gland will be transplanted to the dog. The results will exceed expectations – Sharik will turn into Sharikov, slowly regaining the features of the owner of the transplanted pituitary gland – lumpen Klim Chugunkin, who died in a drunken brawl.

In Bulgakov’s story, the viewer, of course, is most interested in the details. Sharik and Sharikov are played by the same artist Vladimir Tyaptushkin. He is charming, it is just right to create the image of Yesenin: a beautiful, open face with a shock of “straw hair”. In the role of Sharik, the artist moves on all fours, completely copying the dog’s habits and plasticity. Sharik’s thoughts float over the stage, giving a silent assessment of what is happening.

In the role of Sharikov Vladimir Tyaptushkin straightens to full height. The appearance of the artist contrasts so much with the image of an impudent dependent that the viewer, following Preobrazhensky, can only shrug, wondering “how such a human rubbish turned out of such a glorious dog.” The abyss between the kindest Sharik, rubbing against Philip Philipovich’s legs, and the aggressive Sharikov, who draws his revolver and aims it at the professor’s chest, is a wonderful visual transformation and a strong directorial move. The artist plays this transformation organically and talentedly.

Incredibly good, of course, is Philip Philipovich himself, performed by the eighty-year-old Vasily Bochkarev. The performance was staged for the anniversary of the grandiose actor. Bochkarev introduces completely new strokes, intonations, colors into the image already formed by the viewer. What is the only famous “I don’t want!” to the offer of “comrades” to buy a magazine to support starving children. He pronounces this “I do not want!” completely different from what Yevgeny Evstigneev did, with a different meaning. Behind Bochkarevsky’s “I don’t want to!” one can read a subtle and ironic attitude towards the “comrades” in overcoats, who impudently tumbled into his apartment. Through the hero of Bochkarev and the sadness of a prominent scientist who realized that he had gone the wrong way in his research. He sees in the depths of this complex nature the responsibility for his own decisions and actions, which he bears before God. The scientist does not recognize any other power over himself. Preobrazhensky clearly sees that the desire for pure experiment is not always accompanied by the ability of society to “digest” a successful result. Then why do we need an artificially made person? Why go against nature by speeding up processes? Bulgakov’s words are very carefully put into our brains by Preobrazhensky. Indeed, why go against it?

The real discovery in the performance was Igor Petrenko in the role of Dr. Bormental. We are somehow accustomed to seeing the artist in the images of physically strong men – the military, police officers, submariners, Cossacks. Here he plays an incredibly intelligent and grateful person, carefully keeping the peace of his teacher Philip Philipovich.

In the performance, of course, people’s artists of the older generation, the imposing porter Fyodor, performed by Vladimir Nosik, delight and attract attention. Expressive People’s Commissar (Viktor Nizovoy), to whom Preobrazhensky shouts into the phone that he will now “be operated on by Comrade Shvonder”, who is encroaching on the professor’s living space. The patient (the work of Alexander Ermakov) is beautiful, the one who “had not experienced anything like this for 25 years.” The patient is also magnificent, intricately trying to hide her advanced age (Lyudmila Shcherbinina). Good Zinaida (Maria Kriventseva) and Daria (Alena Okhlupina). And of course, Shvonder himself, performed by Mikhail Martyanov, is very good.

Among the frills of Maria Utrobina’s scenography, a huge tower is striking, strongly resembling the Babylon tower from the famous painting by Pieter Brueghel. The tower either rushes up like a rocket, or falls on its side – an interesting symbol, you can’t figure it out from the end. At its very top, the People’s Commissar gives orders from the high offices, soldiers and sailors with rifles march along the spiral paths. And somewhere at the base is the apartment of Preobrazhensky, who, despite the bold ups and downs of scientific thought, unlike others, firmly stands with his feet on the ground.

There are a lot of allusions, allusions, direct and indirect references in the performance. Philosophy and symbolism, classics and avant-garde famously united in its external form and internal structure. Plunging into the atmosphere that the Maly Theater creates so magnificently, leisurely, thoughtfully and in detail, one wants to carefully re-read the work again, watch the film and just stroll around the old Bulgakov Moscow, peering into the signs of the times. Walk under the whistle of a new blizzard. What was there in the Bolshevik anthem at the beginning of the performance? “The time has come for the working people to rise. Down with the shameful power of capital!” Well, the working people have risen. And we, the descendants, see the results of this process in a hundred years. “They hope in vain that terror will help them,” Preobrazhensky shakes his head. “With a person, you can only act with kindness.” The scientist was right. Terror did not help, we are again under the rule of capital. The circle is closed. With what they entered, they left with that. Although with that? Or are there some lessons learned and adopted? This is actually what the show is about.

Elena Bulova.

Photos provided by the press service of the theater