In the “Workshop of Pyotr Fomenko” Mayakovsky split into two, becoming Lenin and Lilya Brik

For the 130th anniversary of the poet, Fyodor Malyshev staged a play with a naked piano

Performances for the 130th anniversary of Vladimir Mayakovsky appear one after another, and this is a very rare case of such a friendly response to the date. Fyodor Malyshev staged the literary and musical composition “Mayakovsky. Listen.” On an empty stage there are two actors and the director himself at a bare piano. They will need a little more than an hour to talk about the poet’s life.

Fyodor Malyshev is an actor, has been a member of the theater troupe for ten years, and during this time he managed to play many roles, including Treplev in “The Seagull”, Glumov in “Modern Idyll” based on Saltykov-Shchedrin. Koroviev in “The Master and Margarita,” which he himself directed together with his wife and actress Polina Agureeva. And this is not his only performance in the “Workshop…”. There was “Funny Man” by Dostoevsky, “Knight. Mozart. Feast” based on Pushkin’s “Little Tragedies”, fortunately the artistic director of the theater Evgeniy Kamenkovich allows the actors to “test their pen” in directing. And Fedorov studied on the course of Kamenkovich and Krymov at GITIS, and recently graduated from the Higher Courses for Scriptwriters and Directors, the workshop of Vladimir Fenchenko and Pavel Finn.

A cramped hall where “big” performances were once staged, staged by Fomenko. Now it’s hard to imagine – such an intimate space, barely able to accommodate three people. The column has a piano with an open frame, so you can see the hammers hitting the strings. On the screen are black and white photos and frames. They show Mayakovsky, Lilya and Osip Brik, and other heroes. The video sequence acts as a background and does not draw attention to itself and does not interfere with the action.

According to Mayakovsky’s biography, we are trotting along with actors Anatoly Antsiferov and Pavel Yakovlev – both Shchukinites, from the theater’s trainee group. They are in black casual clothes, trousers with pulled down suspenders and resemble Meyerhold’s servants of the proscenium. Life is like this – everything is laconic, brief, like in a telegram channel. Poems and fragments from Lily Brik’s correspondence are heard. She is “your Pussycat”, Mayakovsky is “your Puppy”. Following the autobiography “I Myself,” we recall the poet’s Georgian childhood, the early death of his father, who passed away due to a needle prick and subsequent blood poisoning. Next – moving with his mother and sisters to Moscow, studies, art school, Butyrka prison, where Mayakovsky spent several months and wrote poetry, the beginning of the war, the agenda, meeting David Burliuk, foreign trips, the discovery of America…

Mayakovsky is in two minds. Young – Anatoly Antsiferov, adult – Pavel Yakovlev. They are two in one, in constant dialogue, dialogue with oneself. Portrait resemblance is zero. The poet rather resembles Vladimir Lenin and, as a result, finally transforms into him under the lines: “I cleanse myself under Lenin.” Lenin then transforms into Lilya Brik – unattractive, with a circle of male fingers above her head, always demanding foreign gifts. The actors change their faces, becoming a variety of characters with whom Mayakovsky was brought together by fate. The audience laughs from Gorky, who is crying bitterly (and how else!), buried in Mayakovsky’s pants. And the poet himself is either “not a man, but a cloud in his pants”, or the Budutlyansky strongman from the opera “Victory over the Sun”.

And now the elder Mayakovsky takes on the image of Oleg Bayan from “The Bedbug”, teaches the younger: “And you, Comrade Prisypkin, with a light reconnaissance, find the bra and, as if for relaxation, rest your thumb, and the lady’s sympathy will be pleasant, and you will feel relieved… “I remembered Andrei Mironov in this role at the Satire Theater, how grandly he played this scene in his concerts around the country. And this divertissement still evokes a strong reaction from the audience. Mayakovsky is alive.