The series “Actresses” and “Ballet” turned the theatrical world into a thriller

Production dramas are not the most popular genre among series creators, but behind-the-scenes theatrical dramas still have some potential. There is, however, a difficulty here. It is desirable to tell and show something that the public does not yet know about.

In serial scripts, episodes with certain celebrities are quite common. It can be actors, pop stars or bloggers. As a rule, they find themselves in some kind of scandalous criminal situation, during the promotion of which it is reported that the life of celebrities is not so simple, hence their bad character.

The authors of the series “Actresses” and “Ballet” proposed a similar plot. However, taking into account the fact that it had to be stretched over eight episodes, one idea about the specificity of the bohemian backstage is, of course, not enough. I had to wind up a serious drama and decorate it with all sorts of staged effects.

With the latter, by the way, everything turned out quite well. For the “Actresses” they came up with two original performances, and for the “Ballet” – a special choreographic production. Both series are full of an abundance of filming locations, rich nature, and if we add to this the dance and rehearsal episodes that directors of photography can certainly take into their resumes, then viewers who like to watch films mainly with their eyes received a spectacle that is at least curious, but sometimes even breathtaking.

The storylines aren’t all that great. The tabloids have pretty much ruined the life of screenwriters. So something, and the theatrical behind the scenes was many times peeped, invented and passed off as some kind of detective by secular chroniclers of an average hand. Of course, venerable screenwriters have some reason to consider themselves authors more capable than some yellow hacks, and they tried to prove it.

In “Actresses” this, however, did not work out very well. Behind the cool picture, by and large, is a set of theatrical horrors and tales. Three actresses, played by Svetlana Khodchenkova, Elena Nikolaeva and Polina Pushkaruk, are fighting for their careers. One, after seemingly finding peace of mind in the church choir, nevertheless returns to the big game, unable to resist the temptation to become the star of a promising performance. The second suffers from the lack of roles, the third gets the opportunity to move from the second plan to the first, poorly understanding the side effects of such a breakthrough.

Almost all the characters are drawn to be designated by the boring definition of “schematic”. Women are on the verge of a nervous breakdown, men are treated with alcohol, family relationships are cracking under the weight of ambition. Such situations are so well known to the public that, pronouncing them once again, it is more than naive to count on ardent interest. However, the family tandem of Paulina Andreeva and Fyodor Bondarchuk (the script was written by women’s hands, the responsibility for staging fell on men’s shoulders) turned out to be strong in society dust in the eyes.

The main divas of the series in a gambling race to Olympus sometimes clearly confuse the scene with ordinary life, and their lack of understanding where they are actresses and where women are in a tangle of everyday problems looks pretty funny. Office romances in their absurdity are very similar to the truth, theatrical cuisine is presented exactly the way the audience wants to see it, confident that the acting world is a collection of sick people.

There are good moments in the casting. Lolita, in the role of the director of the theater, appears before her wards either as a kind mother, or as an evil stepmother, and squeezes much more out of this role than is written in the script. And Svetlana Khodchenkova once again acts as an actress, who clearly does not spoil the series.

In the “Ballet” there is also someone to look at. The project was filmed back in peacetime, and the choreographer, who returns to Russia after a long life in America, was played by Ingeborga Dapkunaite. After the local film industry found itself in a new reality and the Lithuanian actress clearly did not fit into it, the scenes with Ingeborga had to be re-shot. As a result, the role went to the choreographer, director and acting teacher Alla Sigalova. After such an ideological rearrangement, one of the main characters, of course, lost in magnetism (here it is difficult to replace Dapkunaite), but Sigalova’s absolute immersion in the world of ballet gave additional weight to the storylines.

The other main characters of the Ballet have nothing to do with dancing, but it is still difficult to call these roles completely new for the actors who played them. The artistic director of the theater is another expressive villain in the filmography of Igor Gordin. A grasping, but completely indifferent to the ballet director – another polished and soulless top manager performed by Fyodor Bondarchuk. The head of procurement is a quite expected bitch, of which there are already many in the arsenal of Irina Apeksimova.

What distracts from some deja vu is that all the actors involved have where to turn around. Backstage here is not so much a defile of mannered prims as a space in which almost a detective story unfolds. Ballerinas flutter in the air, while millions rustle in sweaty fingers. The internal theatrical economy is represented by a large corruption scheme, and one of the consequences of its functioning is, for example, that buying a glass of sparkling wine in a buffet can be perceived as a serious investment.

There are also officials, lustful rich people and the already traditional trouble of local important art, where, as one of the theater soloists put it, it is necessary “that there be no scandals and that the priests with the FSB be satisfied.” Probably, there is much less provocativeness in Ballet than in the series Happy End by the same director Yevgeny Sangadzhiev, but if the director wanted to play a little on a different field, then the result is far from a failure.

In the context of “Actresses” and “Ballet” two sensational projects of Valery Todorovsky are recalled – the series “The Thaw” and the feature film “Big”. They are on a similar topic, but have a huge advantage. And all because they have humor, naive romance and some lust for life. Modern immersions in the sparkling and frightening theatrical world are completely devoid of this. Apparently, human feelings are now in a severe deficit.