Igor Vernik played the dangerous Lermontov expert

For the drama, in which a husband poisoned an innocent wife whom he suspected of infidelity, the Moscow Art Theater in Kamergersky Lane acquired a huge screen. The screen is of a size that even Konstantin Bogomolov, a lover of close-ups of actors, but in combination with live close-ups on stage, did not use in his Moscow Art Theater productions. St. Petersburg director Pyotr Shereshevsky went further – he moved the leading actors to the back of the proscenium, and displayed their image in super close-up on the screen, and against its background the actors seem small and insignificant. Whether you like it or not, you will watch movies and become a moviegoer. What is shown at the Khudozhestvenny cinema?

To count on the fact that today there will be Lermontov in his pure form means to be completely naive and inexperienced. And to be a modern user means to understand that a pure reading of the classics does not allow such mothballs – after all, this is the 21st century, and not the dense 20th. And passions in their pure form are inappropriate here. Here is a reflection on the topic, digging into the subconscious in combination with scientific formulations like “we are in a discrete, fractal-separated information space…” – not from Lermontov or even from the Moscow Art Theater interpretation of him, but the author’s message is this, embodied in the updated title – “Masquerade with closed eyes.” Either a dream or reality. Either Lermontov’s Arbenin, or his modern incarnation, aggravated by the aggression and cruelty of time.

Philologist, university teacher Evgeny Aleksandrovich Arbenin and his wife Nina visiting the philanthropist of this educational institution, Adam Petrovich Zvezdich. Nina, gloomy in appearance, dressed in a clingy black dress that looks like a short slip, dances with the oligarch, lazily fending off his lazy advances. And at this time her husband, a philologist, at the table says to two students:

– So Lermontov wrote his “Masquerade” when he was 21 years old. What could he know about this sixty-year-old horseradish? That is OK! In general, what is all this about: Arbenin kills Nina because she cheated on him, then it turns out that she is innocent. He, poor fellow, is upset. What is this, huh? Didn’t you change? Didn’t you betray me? So you didn’t sleep with someone else? And if I slept with you, does that mean you can kill me?

The bridge to Lermontov is thrown against the backdrop of two decorative bridges, which are installed at an angle to each other in front of the screen. From time to time, heroes will rise on them, whose figures against the background of close-ups of the screen will be more noticeable than when they are on stage, because they are also in the light.

The philologist Arbenin, by the authors of the play “Masquerade with Eyes Closed” (Shereshevsky himself under the pseudonym Semyon Sakseev, Liza Savina), is immediately declared as a person with sadistic inclinations that have not yet been manifested, but the middle-aged teacher, not without pleasure in the company, relishes cases of reprisals by men against women, directly down to the details. I immediately remember the case of a history expert, professor at St. Petersburg University Sokolov, who dismembered his beloved student and tried to hide the traces of the brutal massacre in the Neva.

The text is composed on the basis of iconic classics, but not witty, as Konstantin Bogomolov does, but with the effect of a horror story, when fear is deliberately instilled. The documentary, but artistically designed line of Professor Sokolov will run through the entire action in the form of the surname Ptitsyn (that is, Sokolov), who was rescued by being pulled out of the river where he threw a bag with a severed female head. The realities of modern life here will be at every step – from everyday details (the voice assistant “Alice”, broadcasts of football matches on TV accompanied by beer and chips) to ideological discussions of different generations. She will be supported and costumed when, in the middle of the first act, to the ominous music in the red light, several gloomy groups with bird heads, but dressed in lionfish in the fashion of the century before last, are lowered from the bars onto the bridge. They are like a symbol of secret malevolence revealed to Arbenin in a masquerade. And pigeons at the moment of intercourse in documentary filming will support the line on the screen.

It is quite expected that the philologist Arbenin will switch from today’s text to Lermontov’s, becoming a real Arbenin, but still remaining a philologist. In some places, this line in Shereshevsky is drawn rather subtly, but as a technique it is often deliberately rude: the rudeness of modern life is deliberately emphasized to the detriment of the plot of Lermontov’s drama and the images of its heroes. In particular, the actions of exhibition curator Inessa Viktorovna Shtral (aka Baroness Shtral), who looks at her stepson Ilya Zvezdich (son of the oligarch Zvezdich) so much that all that remains is to wait for the seduction of the young man by an experienced lady. However, the banal affair is meaningfully given an epic character: the authors of the text will turn to Sophocles’ tragedy “Phaedra,” in which Phaedra seduces her stepson Hippolytus. But the strangest figure in the story composed according to Lermontov: Nina, his pure innocent soul, destroyed by the demonic passion of Arbenin. In the Moscow Art Theater version, Nina from the first scene to the final cannot be called a pure soul even conditionally – rather a cynical lady, tired of wealth, starting her morning with a bottle of champagne.

—Are you aristocrats or degenerates? — young Ilyusha Zvezdich asks Nina and her stepmother. And to their surprise: “What kind of formulation of the question?” – answers with a quote from a Soviet comedy hit: “In the morning, either aristocrats or degenerates drink champagne.” However, this is not the only quote used in the play. The director adds a TV screen to the huge screen, on which first there is an old Disney cartoon about Snow White, and then a Champions League football match. Moreover, the broadcast on the box is added to the big screen. On it you can observe all kinds of effects of video engineering and camera art. In some scenes, the word “art” is used without irony: an unexpected angle, the destruction of the image by sepia and other bells and whistles.

A spectacular picture on the screen takes the main focus of attention away from the figure of a living actor, who is essentially playing in front of the camera. If you accept these conditions for producing a play online, then you can simply applaud the actors of the Moscow Art Theater. First of all, Igor Vernik, who played a landmark role in his acting biography, once and for all closing his charming and smiling stage past – a powerful dramatic artist works in “Masquerade”. Unlike his predecessors in the role of Arbenin (Nikolai Mordvinov, Leonid Markov), Vernik does not have a sculptural texture of his face, he is thin, nevertheless, he develops his Arbenin (both as a philologist and as Lermontov’s hero) in detail, on nuances, irony, turning into sarcasm. He is angry, and drunk, and unsure of himself, and vulnerable – his states change before our eyes, which is what we see on the screen.

The absolute discovery of “Masquerade” was the young actor Ilya Kozyrev in the role of the younger Zvezdich. It’s a funny coincidence, but in last season’s play “New Optimistic” by Konstantin Bogomolov, Vernik and Kozyrev also played rivals. Here Kozyrev has the second most important role, and he copes with it brilliantly. Separately, he receives applause in the scene where, with the help of his voice, facial expressions and, importantly, being on the proscenium, he imitates copulation for a man and a woman.

Judging by other works, it is worth recognizing that the director managed to create an atmosphere conducive to the organic existence of the actors on the stage, which he essentially turned into a film set. Yulia Vitruk (stepmother and Baroness Shtral), Maria Fomina (Nina), Vladislava Sukhorukova, Sofya Shidlovskaya, Nikita Grigoriev (students) also easily exist.

However, contrary to expectations, the director changed the ending, preferring the murder scene to a discussion about the values ​​of the modern world and crime as a resource for black PR.