In Yaroslavl they are looking for Ostrovsky’s connection with his contemporaries

Volkovsky, like a theatrical canvas, this time has a metropolitan frame: “The Wise Man” (“Simplicity is enough for every wise man”) was opened by the Moscow Provincial Theater, and will also close with a production from Moscow – “Wolves and Sheep” by the Pyotr Fomenko Workshop.

Both productions belong to the luminaries of the national theater: “The Sage” was once made by Oleg Tabakov for his basement theater, and his student Sergei Bezrukov transferred his Gubernsky to the stage.

“Wolves and Sheep,” which Pyotr Fomenko staged with his students thirty years ago and, in fact, the theater began with, is now being performed by a new generation of “Fomenkos.” It is symbolic that the first performers introduced young people to their roles.

It was clear that in the year of the 200th anniversary of Alexander Ostrovsky, the current Volkov Festival would be held under the sign of the great playwright, whose greatness should never be questioned – he is like the number Pi for Russia. Using it, one can now study the mentality of Russian people, each time becoming convinced of its immutability.

So the festival program, in addition to the frame Moscow performances, includes Ostrovsky from Kaluga (“How Misha Balzaminov Went for Happiness”), from Donetsk (“Liquid Apples”), and from Izhevsk – a game of lecture “Alexander Nikolaevich Ostrovsky. Extracurricular reading”. The real lecture, and a more than fascinating one, will be given by Nina Shalimova, the greatest connoisseur of Ostrovsky’s work.

“Yes, our festival is held under the motto “Ostrovsky: contemporaries and modernity,” confirms the artistic director of the Theater. Fedora Volkova Valery Kirillov. He took charge of the theater after the death of Sergei Puskepalis, and for him, as a director, this is the first festival. – When forming the program, we did not want to compete with the Maly Theater or the Kostroma Theater named after Ostrovsky, there is no point.

I wanted to find my own sound, so Ostrovsky and his immediate circle arose, which he influenced and which influenced him – Gogol, Goncharov, Dostoevsky.

We tried to understand who influenced whom more, how often they crossed paths. What is Dostoevsky in Ostrovsky’s life and how many points of contact they had. This is a puzzle that is interesting to understand. If we had a huge wallet, we would invite to Yaroslavl those performances based on Ostrovsky, the action of which takes place not in Moscow, but in the provinces, that is, the provincial Ostrovsky. Heroes who could roam our streets, pray in our churches.

Well, let’s say that Ostrovsky’s characters – merchants and young ladies of marriageable age – will still appear in Yaroslavl: here they are waiting with interest for the street program. In the meantime, spectators are watching performances that visiting theaters perform at various venues in the city. Volkovsky expanded his locations: the recently opened Actor’s House, which now bears the name of Sergei Puskepalis, and the Great Concert Hall were added to the traditional ones.

On the stage of the First Russian Theater itself, the theater on Trubnaya (which is now, alas, the name of the Raikhelgauz School of Contemporary Play) has already performed, showing the play “Tolstoy Is No” with Irina Alferova in the title role and directed by the chief director of the Volkovsky Theater Alexander Sazonov. The actress played Tolstoy’s wife.

And directly on the Historical stage in a completely empty hall of the Youth Theater named after. Bryantsev from St. Petersburg performed “Adolescence” based on Lev Nikolaevich’s trilogy “Childhood. Adolescence. Youth”. It was empty, because the audience was seated on the stage, and the hall was given over to the invisible world of consciousness of the teenager Nikolenka Irtenyev. Playwright Yaroslava Pulinovich quite subtly retold the classic story, written in 1854, and director Ivan Orlov in an interesting way played it almost at the feet of the audience on the turntable of the main stage against the backdrop of a echoing empty hall.

The deceased mother of the Irteniev children, whom Tolstoy only mentions on the pages of 27 chapters of his “Adolescence”, as an accomplished tragedy in the family, accompanies Nikolenka quite visibly in the play. She is in dialogue with her husband, who desperately lost her fortune at cards, which, however, does not cause her reproaches – only forgiveness. She is with the children who cling to her, and everyone feels good because they are together and under their mother’s protection.

She consoles her youngest, the most vulnerable Nikolenka, when the family moves to Moscow and lives with her grandmother. She leaves through the door, simply installed between the stalls and the amphitheater of the hall, when the youngest, having been seriously ill, suddenly realizes that a different, not at all a child’s life is coming.

When Tolstoy wrote his “Adolescence”, basing the hero on himself, the term “puberty” and everything connected with it were not in use. But the subtlety with which the torments of this puberty were conveyed made the work incredibly popular in society. And the main thing is that playwright Pulinovich with his new play and director Orlov managed to preserve Tolstoy’s intonation in the production, conveying the trepidation of Yura’s soul, the painfulness of reflections, similar at this age to open wounds.

And this was not at all hampered by the modern design – in Nikolenka’s costumes (black wide pants and a hoodie), in elements of scenography (plastic chairs). And even an unobtrusive video projection in the form of a white hare rushing across the auditorium, covered with a white cloth, like endless fields of snow.

These elements only add to the imagery of the production where there is a measure. Where it is broken, then immediately there is a destruction of that fragile organicity that is present both in the atmosphere and in the performance of the artists. Fortunately, there were only one or two such scenes: for example, the appearance of a Moscow grandmother on the name day of Grapa with her son Ilenka. This couple, both visually and in terms of acting, looked like strangers in this wonderful and strong production.

The pair of Irteniev brothers is very good – Volodya and Nikolenka (Danila Lobov, Semyon Topov). For Topov, who has just been accepted into the theater, this is his first role, and already such a noticeable one. Without saying it out loud, he very accurately plays the state described by Tolstoy like this: “Rising higher and higher, something suddenly began to press in my chest and take my breath away; but it lasted only one second.” It’s as if he’s on the verge of fainting, losing consciousness, but the young actor doesn’t deliberately convey his feelings. During the bows, the audience, without hiding their tears, shouted: “Bravo, Nikolenka!”

To be fair, it should be said that other artists also deserved admiration – Anna Slynko (Mother), the legendary Irina Sokolova (grandmother), Dmitry Tkachenko (father), Danila Lobov (Volodya), Yulia Korzh (Lyubochka).

Moscow-Yaroslavl