Knyazev apologized, Domskaya accomplished a feat: “War and Peace” was played in Barnaul

I must say that nothing foreshadowed trouble: this is not the first tour of the Vakhtangov with the play “War and Peace” as part of the federal project “Big Tours”. But thirteenth in a row. However, no one attached much importance to such a detail. But in vain.

So, the Barnaul drama named after Vasily Shukshin, a solid theater both in size and repertoire, is packed to capacity. The performance begins. The first scene, the second, the so-called “children’s”, representing the Rostov family. It ends, and now Sonya and the youngest Natasha are taken away on the canvases, and then … What happened next, Irina Kupchenko, who plays Countess Rostova in the play, tells me what happened next: “I say:“ And here is my youngest, Natasha … “. I look around, but the youngest is not there! I don’t understand anything. Nobody understood anything.”

And here’s what happened. In that very ill-fated (but in fact transparent and bright, like a childhood memory) scene, Ksyusha Treister, who plays Natasha Rostova (a bright debut, for which she received the MK theater award), when she was transported on canvases, she felt as if burnt leg. And behind the scenes she saw that a huge, 20 centimeters, wooden splinter had torn her foot. There was not even blood, on one side of the foot a splinter entered – on the other it came out. Just like a “nail” in a hairpin, only wooden. Then an ambulance, a hospital, an operation to remove a foreign body …

Behind the scenes, everyone is in shock – the performance, which essentially did not have time to start, will have to be canceled. What to do? There is no replacement. Olga Lerman, the first performer of the role of Natasha, on the set in Moscow. And who will enter, and not even enter, but jump into the main role in 20 minutes? The minutes meanwhile melt away, and while the scene is going on, something must be decided. What I saw behind the scenes is happening like in a movie: Eldar Tramov, who worked with Rimas Tuminas on the release of War and Peace, rearranges the scenes on the go. Where Natasha is already in close-up, it cancels out altogether. But who can play Natasha?! In terms of texture, Maria Rival is very similar to Treister, small and touching in her femininity … No, in the first act she already appeared as Liza, the wife of Prince Andrei, and the viewer managed to see her in the scene with Andrei. And then … in a matter of minutes they decide that Natasha will be Vera, the eldest daughter of the Rostovs, such a silent creature with a noisy family. God, my head is spinning … of course, not Vera, but Asya Domskaya, who plays her, becomes Natasha.

I see how all the artists, all the services shrink, as if before a jump into the unknown: everyone concentrated, grouped. In the dressing room, the new Natasha Rostova-Domskaya sits in front of the mirror with a fixed look. On the right, the make-up artist is urgently putting Natasha’s hair and make-up on her, on the left are her stage brother and sister – Nikolenka (Yuri Tsokurov) and Sonya (Irina Smirnova). They quickly, point by point, go through the text. Asya learns her lines, looking at the phone screen – she has already been dropped the text.

Yura: “We’ll sing a song, we’ll skip it.”

Ira: “You can’t not sing, the stage will break.”

Asya: “Let’s still try.”

They try for three voices and agree: “Let’s sing.”

Meanwhile, the intermission ends. The first scene of the second act just begins with the Rostov family, gathering in a fuss for the ball. Right before going on stage, new Natasha and her mother, Irina Kupchenko, are rehearsing an explanation scene after the ball, after Natasha has fallen in love with Andrey. Two female profiles repeat and repeat the dialogue in a half-whisper. And already the way out … And the ball, and Natasha’s waltz in a white dress, and in the final – it’s the same, but only in black, mournful.

During the intermission, Ksyusha Treister was brought from the hospital with a certificate that a foreign body had been removed from her foot. She almost cries – she definitely can’t play War and Peace in Barnaul, but she has Onegin in Moscow, the main role. When will he be able to take the stage? Ksyusha is cheered together: “The baptism of fire on the stage all passes sooner or later.” Kirill Ivanov, who is in charge of the technical side of the tour, in the intermission, almost with a magnifying glass, examines the floor that so treacherously wounded the artist. After all, the floor is native, brought from Moscow, checked before the performance …

They immediately recall cases that every artist has a lot of in his luggage. And how Irina Kupchenko broke her collarbone at one performance: during the intermission in the hospital they put her in plaster and returned to the stage. Or how the wonderful Masha Berdinsky recently urgently entered the “War and Peace” for the role of Princess Marya instead of a sick colleague. But Masha still had almost a day to rehearse, and then half an hour and go. Well, Domskaya went – nervous, stressed, desperate. She would not forget the text, but she will forget, which means “I will improvise.” Partners caught her, helped as best they could (I saw this from behind the scenes). It was a faint, not a performance. Everyone, artists and services, was able to exhale only when the bows began.

I note that the audience did not react at all like the Moscow one, they applauded almost every remark. And in the third act, after the words of the heroine Rutberg, a female voice was heard from the audience: “Julia, Julia, bravo!” The audience would not have known about what had happened if, on a general bow, the people’s artist Yevgeny Knyazev (the amazing old Bolkonsky, for which he was awarded the MK theatrical prize) had not informed the hall, interrupting the applause and shouts of “bravo” with a gesture.

“You attended an unusual performance,” he said. – It was started by one actress, but she got injured and could not continue it. It was continued by another actress who never rehearsed the role of Natasha Rostova. This is a feat!

The audience gasped. She did not notice the “forgery”, although Asya is taller than Xenia, and generally different. They applauded the actress for a long time, filled her with flowers. And Lyudmila Maksakova said that Asya deserved a medal, and taking off her massive silver pendant on a chain, she handed it to the actress.

What happened to her that evening in Barnaul, in the drama theater, in my opinion, Asya did not fully understand. So she sat on the buffet table as if stunned. I asked her: “Did you hear how the audience screamed when they found out about you?” – “Not. Didn’t hear anything.”

That’s fate, I thought, because Asya, a talented actress, as it turned out, always dreamed of the role of Natasha Rostova and even discussed it with Rimas Tuminas when he started rehearsals. But then something didn’t work out. And suddenly… This strangely terrible word “SUDDENLY” decided her fate. Now she will play three more performances in Barnaul. But Olga Lerman was never released from the shooting. No matter how the director of the theater Kirill Krok asked for some very important producer on the phone.