Igor Sklyar played a restaurateur with the aroma of roasted peppers

The play “Light from the Sky” was staged in Moscow for the first time, staged in St. Petersburg by Andrzej Buben with Igor Sklyar and Svetlana Shchedrina in the leading roles. Food is being prepared on stage, red peppers are being fried in a frying pan. Everything is just like in life and reminds us of the forgotten taste of ancient performances, when the smell of food in the stalls seemed something outlandish.

The performance is based on a play by British playwright and director, Oscar and Golden Globe nominee David Hare. He participated in the creation of scripts for the films “The Hours” and “The Reader” by Stephen Daldry, “Nureyev. The White Raven” by Ralph Fiennes. Daldry staged The Light from the Sky in London, and we were able to see the film version of the play on the big screen. And in Russia the play was first performed at the Lenfilm pavilion more than a year ago. It was translated into Russian specifically on the initiative of Andrzej Buben. Hare’s other plays were not translated or staged here, but the prose was published.

It has long been noted that English drama is much easier for Russian artists than French. They are more organic in it, they don’t look like mummers. “Light from the Sky” is quite convincing in the Russian version.

Three heroes are in the chamber space of an apartment, over which hangs the figure of a caryatid. It resembles the bow of a ship in distress, which is quite consistent with how the characters feel. A red refrigerator, a kitchen with a real stove, a table, chairs, stacks of notebooks… The space, invented by the artist Elena Dmitrakova, is detailed, with many details, but at the same time there is air.

Restaurateur and wealthy Mr. Tom Sejant and now school teacher Kira Hollis are former lovers. They haven’t seen each other for several years. A year ago, Tom was widowed, had a hard time with the death of his wife, who died of cancer, and is now ready for a new relationship.

The past life that connected this couple has long ceased to exist for Kira. She deliberately cut herself off from it. The only thing I sometimes remember is breakfasts in the house of the Sejant couple – with a white tablecloth, silverware, exquisite table settings, crusty bread. Kira was 18 when she met Tom’s late wife, and she immediately took her to work, and a couple of hours later entrusted her with running the affairs of the restaurant because unforeseen dramatic circumstances had occurred.

The level of trust in the girl from the street was unprecedented. Then Kira had an affair with Tom, and his wife knew about it. He himself put a lot of effort into this. And then Kira disappeared.

The teacher’s modest apartment is located on the outskirts of London. As Tom will say, her owner differs from other inhabitants of the unpresentable area in that she is trying to adapt to this environment, to extract her joy, while others dream of leaving there as quickly as possible. Kira seems to be deliberately torturing herself, going to work to the other end of the city, and for some reason traveling huge distances. . First, Tom’s 18-year-old son Edward (Alexander Titenko) appears in her modest apartment without warning. He nervously moves his shoulders, talks about the death of his mother, the intolerability of his father, who plunged into a depressive state, withdrawn into his respectable home. Edward is at odds with him; he earns his own living by selling sausages, the smell of which is saturated through and through.

Following him, his father will appear in the pencil case of a gray corridor resembling a coffin. He is like a ghost, a changing shadow. The easiest way is to slam the door in front of him and never see him. Igor Sklyar is no longer the same “radiant boy” who was loved by millions of viewers after the release of the film “We are from Jazz” and for the carefree song “I’ll go to Komarovo for a week before the second.” Someone still imagines him as he remembered from “Brothers and Sisters”, other epoch-making performances by Lev Dodin, with whom Sklyar studied, worked at the Maly Drama Theater, from which he left almost twenty years ago. Many people wanted freedom. Dodin is difficult to work with. But few people achieved anything without him. The Dodin mark is forever.

Sklyar is 65. His hero is 50. He is neither old nor young, he has experienced a lot, suffered, tormented those around him, but is still fit for life. Tom giggles idiotically all the time. A smile creeps across his face. If not for this wild habit, he would have looked quite decent.

Kira was played by the charming actress of the Vasilievsky Theater Svetlana Shchedrina. She worked with Andrei Buben back when he was the main director there. Svetlana actively and widely acts in films, worked with the magnificent Georgian Nana Dzhorzhadze in “The Rabbit’s Foot,” where Pierre Richard became her partner, with Sergei Ovcharov and Dmitry Svetozarov, starred in “Secrets of the Investigation,” where she was still a student, and a television project “Opera. Chronicles of the homicide department.”

It’s a rare artist in St. Petersburg who hasn’t gone through the crucible of police TV series. The cinematic experience gave its effect – minimalism, internal restraint, lack of theatrical redundancy. Only once will a pair of former lovers break into a scream to the detriment of themselves and the performance. This is some kind of obsession. Directors simply cannot refuse heart-rending screams on stage, which cause nothing but irritation.

A slightly tired Kira returns from work, brings red pepper from the store, and fries it in a frying pan for a long time. The slightly rancid smell of the oil spreads throughout the ground. She cooks the spaghetti, adds the sauce directly to the pan, and stirs vigorously. But the proposed dinner together will not take place.

Everything will go into conversations, memories, clarification of relationships. Igor Sklyar and, accordingly, his hero will leave the stage hungry. And then the dish of spaghetti will be brought out to the guests, those who were invited to the Moscow premiere. Surprisingly, the spaghetti will turn out to be quite edible, although it was hard to believe it while watching the process of their preparation from the auditorium. And there, it turns out, everything was for real.