Eight dreams in Mark Zakharov’s Lenkom

Theater “Lenkom Mark Zakharov” delighted fans with the premiere of the play “Running” staged by People’s Artist of Russia Alexander Lazarev.

It happens that a worthy director, unnoticed by others, grows out of a good actor in the bowels of his own theater. Incredibly powerful production of one of the leading actors of “Lenkom”, People’s Artist of Russia Alexander Lazarev “Running” impressed the audience with its poignancy, relevance and, most importantly, the maturity of directing.

Once Andrei Goncharov, staging “Running” in the theater. Mayakovsky, used a metaphor to decorate the scene – the salary of the icon, from which the icon itself was taken out. Loss of God means “running in place”. And, in a certain sense, this is the essence of Mikhail Bulgakov’s play.

The name of Goncharov was remembered not by chance. In that legendary play “Running”, the parents of Alexander Lazarev Jr. played – brilliant artists Svetlana Vladimirovna Nemolyaeva and Alexander Sergeevich Lazarev. For their son, the performance became a theatrical shock that determines their future fate: Sasha Lazarev thought about connecting his life with the theater.

The heroes of Lenkom’s premiere performance “Running” run through the heat, cold and drunken fumes. It is not clear where they run through all the obstacles with the loss of human dignity. The theme of the loss of dignity of a person running from his homeland, from himself, turned out to be extremely popular and of interest to the audience today.

“How many of them have fallen into this abyss…”

And the fact that the rehearsals of the performance began long before the current political events, echoing Bulgakov’s, only emphasizes the ability of director Lazarev to catch the pulse of the times. The great Mark Anatolyevich Zakharov fully possessed this rare property, for which the audience, in fact, has always loved the acutely social Lenkom.

Bulgakov’s text, written almost a hundred years ago, today hits the viewer not in the eyebrow, but in the eye. At the same time, the director did not add anything from himself, completely preserving the historicity of the work, the events of which unfold in 1920-1921.

When staging “Running” Alexander Lazarev had to decide – whose, in fact, “dreams” will the viewer see? Eight dreams flash before us of the son of an idealist professor from St. Petersburg, Sergei Golubkov, and a young St. Petersburg lady, Serafima Korzukhina, two people who were ultimately saved by love. The director showed the characters’ path to themselves, the path to their homeland, and the nightmares of their “running” through snowstorms and the darkness of a foreign land.

The play takes place during the Civil War. The war closely intertwined the fates of the perfidious “Comrade Minister of Trade” Korzukhin (Andrey Leonov), his defenseless wife Serafima, abandoned by her husband to her fate (Yasmin Mamaeva), Privatdozent Golubkov, who fell in love with Serafima (Aleksey Polyakov), White General Charnoty (Maxim Averin ), the cruel and unfortunate front commander Roman Khludov (Igor Mirkurbanov). Each of the characters has their own pain, their own views, their own “skeletons in the closet”.

Spectators find themselves in the epicenter of the events of the Crimean evacuation. The play begins with the monastery scene. The statue of the Mother of God towering in the temple (stage design by Olga Nikitina) is perceived by believers as a symbol of hope and protection over the heroes, and by non-believers – as an abstract sculpture, which no one cares about in a time of hard times. The genre of the performance itself is somewhat gravitating towards the biblical parable: Bulgakov quite often quotes the Bible through the mouths of the characters. Yes, and the flight itself is an ancient action, reflected in the scriptures: people have always “fled” to where, as they thought, it would be better.

The dreams through which the characters make their way are significantly different from each other in appearance (and scenography). The change of dreams occurs through the appearance of a light curtain in the foreground – a blanket over the islands of memory of the heroes (light designer Evgeny Vinogradov). The outlines of the clouds float along the rays that create the curtain, what happens behind them, we do not see. But now the veil falls, and the stage turns into another nightmare.

One of these is the scene of interrogation in the counterintelligence of Sergei Golubkov. The space is flooded with scarlet color, as if on the canvases of Malevich’s completely delusional followers. This red light cuts obliquely through the beam – like a torture needle. The fear of touching the “needle” makes the hero sign a denunciation of his beloved and renounce her.

The intensity of passions reaches the limit in the dream scene, where General Charnota saves Seraphim from the hands of counterintelligence. After that, everyone runs wherever their eyes look. Together with the remnants of the white army, the heroes find themselves in stuffy Constantinople, living in misery, yearning for St. Petersburg and the snow of Karavannaya Street.

But to the Motherland – oh, how far! And in a foreign land you have to know all the charms of the life of outcasts. It is no coincidence that Bulgakov introduces a symbolic scene of cockroach races into the fabric of the work. Alexander Lazarev perfectly solves it with the help of figurative plastic dance (choreographer Mikhail Kolegov). People, like cockroaches, run, panting, now rushing forward, then lagging behind, each along his own path. They are unaware that invisible puppeteers-riders are watching them.

The luxurious and noisy eastern crowd with its eternal bazaar and characteristic attributes is remembered in the scenes of Constantinople. Flicker here and there already familiar faces of characters who have crossed in different ways to the Turkish coast. All of them are united by the fact that no one needs them here, they cannot find application either to their own strengths or talents. Emigrants are forced to drag out a miserable existence.

The fate of the heroes is also dramatic in the next dream – in Paris. True, luck still smiles at some here, and Serafima, together with Golubkov, decide to return to their homeland.

Four great characters stand out in the play.

The first is Roman Khludov, performed by Igor Mirkurbanov. The actor makes his hero a strong, smart, tough officer who understands that the war is lost. Honor does not allow him to lay down his arms. He must do his job, stop sabotage, give orders, hang those who interfere with the fulfillment of duty. He sees through people, including the white commander-in-chief (Sergei Piotrovsky), knowing for sure that the envelope he handed over contains an order to retreat. In the second part of the production, Khludov is already a mentally ill person who imagines the rebellious, innocently hanged messenger Krapilin (Alexander Karnaushkin), who boldly told Khludov the truth to his face. Khludov is sincere in his tragic delusions and is interesting for that.

The second character that immediately attracts attention is General Charnot in the brilliant performance of Maxim Averin, who finally appeared on the stage of his beloved Lenkom. His Charnot from a brave military general, whose chest was decorated with military awards, in exile becomes a miserable hawker. It was about such that the famous White Guard romance was written:

“Where is the cartridge that they left for themselves,
Where is “George” that painted your chest?
Was it not in Paris that they squandered it,
To fall asleep in a drunken stupor?
I know what you like, what is closer to you,
But, alas, I can’t help you.
You should not squander the cross in Paris,
And change to oak in the Crimea.

Charnota really ends up in Paris, having lost in Constantinople, and wins a huge amount of money at cards here. Then his trail is lost. But we know the fate of the prototype of this character, the Cavalier of St. George, Lieutenant General Sergei Georgievich Ulagai, who created a Cossack circus troupe of horse riders in Paris (which is how he earned his living). He died in Marseille, his ashes were reburied at Sainte-Genevieve-des-Bois. And on the grave is written “Eternal glory to the Russian Warrior.”

The hero of Maxim Averin in Paris meets his marching wife Lyuska (Anna Yakunina) – another character in the play worthy of admiration. The heroine Yakunina has only a few scenes, but thanks to the talent of the artist, the drama of her heroine’s life unfolds before us in a short time. Deeply in love with the impudent Charnota, the poor woman is so tired of fighting for her happiness that she agrees to marry the narrow-minded, vile, but rich Korzukhin.

Above all praise in this performance is the work of Andrei Leonov, who plays this same Korzukhin. The natural charm of Andrey Evgenievich surprisingly works for a vivid image, giving the character additional volume. Korzukhin, performed by Leonov, is a petty, dishonorable, mercenary, cowardly person, who, for all that, evokes an acute feeling of pity in the viewer.

The independent hero of the performance is the beautiful and powerful music of Nikolai Parfenyuk. The atmosphere of the performance’s scenes of various character is largely created by the composer’s talent.

The finale of the performance is expressive, in which the epigraph of the work “Rest, who has finished his run” is pronounced by the characters standing in puffs of thick white smoke, as if in clouds. They peer at us, the living, from their transcendental heights: have we learned at least any lesson from their tragic lives?

And I remember the words carved on the graves of the Russian cemetery of Sainte-Genevieve-des-Bois in Paris. Beautiful, backhanded: “Love Russia. There is nothing more beautiful than our Russia. We know this, we sleep in a foreign land”, “Russians, love Russia always, what it was, what it is, what it will be. Only then are you Russians.”

Elena Bulova.

The photo for the performance “Running” was provided by “Lenkom Mark Zakharov”