“No matter how difficult the times may seem, for some reason it is especially interesting for me to read about the positive…”

“I write plays quickly. Rarely more than two weeks, maximum – three. Usually I don’t start for a long time, but when everything has already worked out in my head, I need to write quickly, quickly! I just have insomnia, I only think about it like a drunk.” The meeting with Valentin Krasnogorov, the author of over 80 plays, took place on the eve of the release of the new feature film Easy Acquaintance, based on the playwright’s play of the same name.

Krasnogorov’s work has been translated into many languages, and the total number of productions to date in the country and abroad has exceeded one thousand three hundred. Krasnogorov’s plays are very different in genre, theme and style. You might think that they were written by different people. It’s amazing, but Valentin Krasnogorov is also a prominent chemist, doctor of technical sciences!

Director-producer Alexander Krestnikov, working on the film version of the play Easy Acquaintance, said this about the film: “The motto of our film is – if you have been deceived a hundred times, for the hundred and first time – believe again! The film was shot in the genre of psychological melodrama – the most difficult genre in cinema, which is practically dying out today. Now it is much easier and less expensive to shoot a blockbuster than a movie in which every moment is filled with deep meaning and energy. The heroes of our film are successful modern people: He and She. They are very lonely, everyone has gone from being open to the world to being internally closed. What will be the finale of this intrigue – the viewer will see.

Valentin Krasnogorov, the author of the play on which the film Easy Acquaintance was based, answered our questions.

– Valentin Samuilovich, how do chemical formulas and an artistic flight of fancy correlate in your bright head?

– At the Tallinn Polytechnic University (it was still the Estonian SSR), I received knowledge in the specialty “chemical technology of fuel”, which I have been doing almost all my life. Two dissertations, a doctoral degree, several books, more than a hundred publications in scientific journals in Russia, the USA, England, Germany, a dozen patents for inventions. I think that the degree of PhD in most cases involves the ability to explore, to think, to bring into the system. The same, in fact, requires the profession of a playwright. So these two areas of my activity do not contradict each other.

– And yet chemistry or dramaturgy?

— I still can’t say what is closer to me by nature – the humanities or the exact sciences. I wrote my last scientific article in 2011. Our laboratory is gone now, and I am retired… I love logic, order and clarity in thinking, but at the same time I adore literature, history, music. All these are signs of a humanitarian mentality.

Since childhood, I have been fond of reading plays. It would seem that they should be watched, but, on the contrary, it was the reading of Shakespeare, Lope de Vega, Griboedov that attracted me … Everything is concentrated in the plays: only relationships between people and action! Waiting for what will happen next, and how it will all end.

– You once noticed that “dramatology is not only an interesting intellectual game, but also self-expression, an attempt to create your own world and tell others about it …”

— Of course, it was not in vain that Alexander Blok wrote about the importance of an artist’s awareness of his social duty. For me, it has always been very important to be in the thick of things. The work involved communication with different people, as well as numerous business trips. During such trips, you always meet something new, learn about some problems. Often on trains and planes there are conversations “for life” … These observations are very important for the writer. And at school I was fond of chess, in a year and a half I reached the title of candidate master. In my opinion, chess helps a lot to develop dramatic thinking. A chess game is, first of all, the calculation of options for many moves ahead and the choice of the optimal one – each time from dozens of possible ones. And this calculation is not one-time – it is resumed almost after each move. The same task faces the playwright. The difficulty of writing a play is that you are overwhelmed by the abundance of options along which the action can develop. Every time you have to look and choose the best!

– You caught the era when nuclear scientists, space engineers and geologists were musicians and artists, bards and poets. What period of time do you consider the most fruitful for domestic dramaturgy?

– This is, perhaps, the 70-80 years of the XX century. The names of Tovstonogov, Lyubimov, Efros, Akimov, Efremov are a whole era in art. And how many other brilliant directors there were! And they enjoyed fame not because of scandals and outrageousness, but thanks to high art, great productions and legendary theaters that they created.

What is the priority today?

– Autocracy of directors and commerce …

– You outlined your views on dramaturgy in the book “Fundamentals of Dramaturgy. Theory, technique and practice of drama. What is the most important thing in this kind of literary creativity?

“In drama, everything has to be lined up. In good plays, as a rule, there is nothing superfluous. It has been known since the time of Aristotle that there is nothing more difficult than drama.

For some time I was lucky to work with the outstanding director Georgy Tovstonogov. Unfortunately, now it is beginning to be forgotten. He was a great professional and a wonderful person. Before reading my book, he said, “I don’t really like drama theory. This is shamanism. I use a saber without any theory … “. But then, after reading it, he praised my work and even wrote an excellent preface to it. By the way, in your profession, in journalism, internal dramaturgy is also important. The reader may be interested in an article only when there is drama in it, and it should be even in the smallest note!

– Don’t you think that there is a lot of negativity in the press now?

– At the moment, this is exactly the case: there is a lot of “drama” in the media! And the authors do not even have to work hard. Report that the building collapsed, there was an earthquake, a flood, and everyone reads it. On the contrary, one still needs to take the trouble to tell about the fact that the bridge was erected in such a way that it is read, to find the “internal drama” in this event. For example, maybe no one believed that there would be a bridge in this place, the river tore the city apart, people left, factories stopped. But there was a man who said: “There will be a bridge here, and we will build it.” And, bypassing a bunch of instances, he achieved this. And here it is, the drama!

But no matter how difficult the times seem, for some reason it is especially interesting for me, as an engineer, and as a playwright, to read about the positive, that something was built somewhere, and also that something was invented. that’s new!

I know what a great work of people is behind this and what inner drama is unfolding in all this.

This is the movement of life!

Svetlana Yurieva.

Photo from the personal archive of the writer.