The rector of GITIS told what is the meaning of the new profession “playwright”

“But what about the Gorky Literary Institute and other creative universities,” the MK correspondent thought, and demanded that the rector of GITIS provide evidence.

“I, like you, am a journalist, and I’m not used to taking anyone’s word for it. Before saying this, I consulted with Alexei Varlamov, the rector of the Literary Institute, and Anna Glukhanyuk, the rector of the Yekaterinburg Theater Institute, where Nikolai Vladimirovich Kolyada now teaches, ”said Zaslavsky. – I learned about the situation a long time ago, when the meeting of the Presidium of the Association of Higher Educational Institutions of Art and Culture was held, at which grants for a second higher education were discussed. At the meeting, I started shouting: “Let’s, let’s connect the playwrights – the Literary Institute.” The rector of the Moscow Conservatory, Alexander Sokolov, who was sitting next to him, objected: “There is no dramaturgy there.” “Why not?” I protested. I’m recruiting Varlamov. I hear on the phone: “Yes, we only have a literary worker.”

In Yekaterinburg, by the way, they also let out only literary workers.

– The Russian theater is three and a half centuries old. And suddenly it turned out that there are playwrights, but there is no such profession?

– This is a very serious problem. While the author sits at home and writes plays – everything is fine, but as soon as he is invited to work as a playwright, a mismatch in classifications can interfere with employment. Plus, “self-taught” will not have the right to teach drama.

– On June 28, at a meeting of the Public Council under the State Duma Committee on Culture, Vladimir Malyshev, rector of VGIK, said that creative universities are recruiting future specialists “in the dark”. Is there really no way to determine how many and what kind of specialists a country needs?

– Now we are preparing hearings for the Public Chamber on the Zemsky Worker of Culture project. We hope to hold them in late August – early September

We would like the project to be launched, if not in 2024, then in 2025. This topic has been raised for more than a year, in 1922 they even planned to allocate limits for the program, but this did not happen.

– Why – if the whole sphere of culture depends on it?

– I assume that the launch is being postponed because there is no understanding why the program is needed. And I have an understanding – it should help to saturate small towns with creators.

– It turns out that now, contrary to the formula of Viktor Pelevin, creators are needed again, and not creators?

– This word seems to be simple, Yuri Mikhailovich Luzhkov used it in his time, but this is what we are talking about. The appearance in the city of a talented director, artistic director of the theater, choreographer, stage designer can change the whole cultural situation there. Actors will follow them – they are “dependent” people, they quickly react to the appearance in one place or another of a person who can ensure success.

– How will the “places” tell the universities of the “center” who they need?

– Before future hearings, we call the regional ministries of culture and ask them to send us their needs for personnel. Several oblasts and one national republic have already responded and sent quite detailed tables broken down by raions. In none of the answers we received, however, is there a playwright. But there are never many talented playwrights, and, in my opinion, there are not enough of them today.

– And even Moscow?

– Yesterday I was in a theater in the capital, where there is a play about Mayakovsky. Good actors, a good choreographer, in general, it turned out better than other premieres for the anniversary date. But the director does not understand that the viewer needs a story, not a retelling of a biography. That is, lack of dramaturgy.

– The training of personnel at the request of the regions will become a specific tool for “theatrical decentralization”, the need for which is discussed, for example, in the Union of Theater Workers.

– If a good play is written by a Moscow playwright, it will be in demand in the regions too, and vice versa. Leonid Zorin, Sergei Mikhalkov, Alexander Galin, Alexander Gelman, Mikhail Roshchin lived in Moscow, Vampilov in Irkutsk, Alexander Volodin in Leningrad. And this did not prevent theaters from staging their plays throughout the Soviet Union and around the world. The main thing is that this new word is written.

Of course, not all writers graduated from the Literary Institute, but among many successful writers there are many of its graduates. In the same way, we expect that some kind of success story will also accompany us.

– Why did the dramaturgical direction in GITIS not appear earlier?

– Every time I was stopped by the fact that there are no masters. I thought, who will teach? Alexander Isakovich Gelman, who lives next door? He is 90 years old, he will come to the master class, but he will not begin to gain a course. There was an idea to invite Alexander Mikhailovich Galin, but he refused.

Elena Isaev? (leading two-year magistracy of playwrights at the Shchukin Theater Institute, – I.V.). I am friends with her, but I didn’t want to “take away” her from Knyazev (the rector of Pike, – I.V.). But just Isaeva advised me to call the director and screenwriter Alexander Arkhipov. And he agreed.

In conclusion, we note that the educational initiative of Zaslavsky and his like-minded people is welcomed in the National Association of Dramatists, the first federal association of authors writing for the stage in the Russian Federation. The chairman of the Council of the Association, Yuri Polyakov, told MK the following:

– The Literary Institute has a department of dramaturgy, which is headed by the master of this genre Vladimir Malyagin, but when preparing a theater writer, connection with the stage is important from the very beginning, otherwise it turns out “Soviet English”: I know the words, but I don’t know how to speak. In this sense, the creation of such a faculty at GITIS is a wonderful thing. I really hope for the breadth of views of the rector, an excellent theater critic Grigory Zaslavsky. After all, if the new faculty becomes another incubator for Novodramov’s clumsiness, it will finish off the domestic theater.

The well-known Donetsk playwright Aleksey Kuralekh called the news from Moscow unambiguously positive: “In verbal creativity (especially in drama) there are also rules and laws, which, at least, will not hurt a writer to know. The craftsman will mechanically repeat these rules, producing more and more stamps, a gifted person will be able to build a new universe on their basis. I really hope to see my countrymen on the new course.”