The Theater of the Moon staged “A Month in the Country” about life without air

The lindens, the buzzing of the bees overhead… What, in fact, life could be wonderful. “How long ago, it seems, everything was so quiet, so calm in this house … and suddenly … where did it come from! Really, we have all gone crazy, ”says Natalya Petrovna. And the young teacher of her son Belyaev says: “It’s stuffy here, I want to go outside.” Men leave for the unknown, leaving loved and unloved women, perhaps forever. “And how long are you leaving? “I don’t know … Maybe for a long time”, “Are you leaving? And you’re leaving?”

Pavel Safonov made a performance resembling a watercolor. Everything is light, sad and easy, even when clouds are gathering, and life becomes a prison, when, as he says, you want to run away to where there are no walls and rules, but there is summer with thick twilight, midges, mosquitoes and bees, where there are fish in the pond . Pavel Safonov tried to make the play written many years ago as hot and pure as at the time of its creation, so that relationships, energy and conflicts are today’s, when everyone knows too much, but feels little and rarely truly loves. The difficult summer of Turgenev, which became fatal for his characters, was filled with modern forebodings and drama.

There is nothing superfluous on the stage. The space is grey-blue and there is a feeling of timelessness. We are a little in the past, but more in the present. There is no landowner’s house, the estate is like a mirage.

There are a couple of columns on the stage, wicker chairs, a vase with dried herbs. Somewhere, beautifully crafted boards soar high. All from natural materials, fashionable, relevant, a little glamorous. The director himself was responsible for the scenography in tandem with the long-term chief artist of the Luna Theater Konstantin Rozanov.

Costume designer Tatyana Eshba, who created an excellent and completely independent collection, both for the podium, is known for her work at the Moscow Art Theater. Chekhov, “Workshop of Pyotr Fomenko”, based on “Crime and Punishment” staged by Konchalovsky at the Musical Theater, films “Queen of Spades” by Lungin and “Fathers and Sons” by Avdotya Smirnova. Suits made of natural fabrics in light gray-beige tones are watercolor muted and beautiful. Even the ridiculous Lizaveta Bogdanovna suddenly appears with an oriental fan and in a Japanese-style jacket.

Natalya Petrovna wears flowing dresses and modern cut trousers. Her gray cardigan looks like it’s from a boutique. In the airy capron of the headdress, she resembles the “slave of love” Elune Nightingale. The red velvet jacket in the finale becomes a bloody mark. It’s beautiful and appropriate.

A lot of things got mixed up in the ages of the characters. The one who is mature and even advanced in Turgenev’s age turns out to be young on stage. The main characters are slightly older than the characters, although what a person experiences at thirty does not always coincide with the feelings of forty-year-olds.

Olga Lomonosova is the only actress who does not have a replacement. Most likely, her husband Pavel Safonov chose the play based on her. And this is her first job at the Theater of the Moon.

Natalya Petrovna Islaeva is pretty, sensual and unaccountably insidious. She is unable to cope with the surging feelings, languishes for the time being, and then destroys herself and the inexperienced pupil with jealousy. Next to her is her husband Arkady Islaev (Mikhail Babichev) – loving, understanding a lot, ready to forgive and understand. They are usually not liked.

Another understanding friend of the family, Rakitin, lives in the house, experiencing for Natalya Petrovna the very love that it is difficult for her husband and friend to confess, but from which he is neither cold nor hot. He is well-built, handsome, calm, decent, finely arranged, but completely unsuitable for passion, and, as Natalya Petrovna says, he will never make her cry. And she wants change, a refreshing thunderstorm. Rakitin was also played by the guest artist Alexei Kondrakhov, who plays several more performances at the Luna Theatre.

From the phrase of Natalya Petrovna, said to Rakitin, that we are talking here, as if weaving lace, many images and associations arise. “Have you seen how lace is woven? In stuffy rooms, without moving… Lace is a beautiful thing, but a sip of fresh water on a hot day is much better, ”she says a monologue, and the audience reads it.

The 21-year-old teacher Belyaev (played by Dmitry Voronin) unwittingly becomes the force that will blow up the measured life. One can only guess what beautiful women saw in him – Natalya Petrovna and her 17-year-old pupil Vera, played by Veronika Lysakova, who lives like two lives during the performance. White makes a strong impression on Natalya Petrovna, and the explanation for this should be sought not in him, but only in her. There is nothing in Belyaev that could provoke this fire. While he was flying with a kite, there was at least some youthful energy in him, and then it dried up.

How is it with Chekhov? “Our life is not over yet. Will live! The music plays so merrily, so joyfully, and, it seems, a little more, and we will find out why we live, why we suffer … If only we knew, if only we knew!”

In “A Month in the Country” it sounds too loud, breaks into the action, but does not bring any sadness or pain. But all this is in the scene of the fiery wheel, which flares up, begins to rotate, and you feel that fragile balance that can be disturbed at any moment.

In the second act, the characters sit in the semi-darkness, one behind the other, forming a living ribbon, as if they set off with luggage into the unknown, they are running somewhere. Arkady Islaev pronounces the phrase: “Everyone flies away, who goes where, like partridges, and all because honest people … And all this at once, on the same day …”. It seems that these words were not written by Turgenev, just added by someone. And someone from the audience is ready to check their authenticity according to the original.