The world of Russian theater outside of Russia: modest enthusiast or agent of influence

It is clear that, according to the political agenda, Russian theaters from abroad will probably not come to Russia with their performances for a long time. Therefore, the fourth festival, which was actually planned to be held in Paris, had to be held online by its organizers. Nine performances from seven countries were announced on Zoom. The priority is Russian classics. The budgets of productions are the most modest, which not a single director of a Russian theater on state support, federal or municipal, will ever see in a nightmare. But the lack of money and other material troubles do not kill our compatriots’ desire to make a theater in Russian, in spite of everything and in spite of everything that is happening around.

With the most modest opportunities and penny budgets, many performances did not look like amateur performances, worthy of respect only for the desire to play in Russian – not at all. Their products were distinguished by a professional approach to business: for the most part, such studios and theaters are run by professionals – artists, directors, musicians. People who, due to various circumstances, left Russia at one time, but do not break ties with their historical homeland.

Here is the Synthese theater from Switzerland with the play “The House of Bernard Alba”. The style of need is minimalism, but so appropriate, tasteful and better than any rich stage production conveys the terrible tension in the human world, which Garcia Lorca laid in his play in the 30s of the last century.

Angelica Smirnova-Oberholzer opened the Synthese Theater (the first name was “Yes-Yes”) in the town of Uster, near Zurich. At first it was for Russian-speaking children and with modest productions, but after some time they swung at the musical with as many as 25 artists on stage. And then her small theater grew into a large one, where, along with Russian-speaking students, German-speaking students studied and played.

– In the studio, I taught actors according to my own system, it consisted of three – Stanislavsky, Chekhov and Grotovsky. That is, from each took the most effective and working.

The theater has its own rehearsal room, and the hall for showing performances is rented. They play in Zurich, in other cities of Switzerland. And there seems to be an audience – about 40 thousand Russian-speaking citizens live in the whole country. But in February, when the SVO began in Ukraine, performances and tours were temporarily canceled.

“But still, we returned,” continues Anzhelika, “because we are an international group playing in Russian, we are a unifying platform. After all, the theater is a prism that helps to see what is happening from different angles, to see and realize the motives and consequences of actions much more clearly. But the main thing is to understand the other person.

Angelica, like her colleagues, lives according to the well-known formula “saving the drowning is the work of the drowning themselves.” She is both a Shvets (director), and a reaper (artist), and most importantly – a player on the pipe (performer of the main role). Her role as Bernarda Alba, mother of five daughters, is amazing.

Each Russian theater abroad has its own history of birth and its own life. Olga Melnik 30 years ago went to her homeland with her Italian husband. Realizing quite quickly that she could not find work in the acting specialty, she did not wait for mercy from nature and literally the next year she created her own theater in Florence – an international one, where professionals and amateurs came from Switzerland, Korea, Israel, Russia. Over time, representatives of Russia and Italy remained in the Center.

In addition, the actress turned out to have an enterprising streak – she opened theater courses for adults and three years later graduates received a certificate of acting education – 26 people. There are about 40 people in her troupe now. Over the years, the Olga Melnik Theater has produced hundreds of performances.

At this festival, she presented her production of The Witch based on a Chekhov story. An amazing feeling from the work with the participation of three Italian artists who played Chekhov in broken Russian. But a foreign language did not prevent them from playing subtly and unhurriedly the life of the inhabitants of the church gatehouse – sexton Savely Gykin and sexton Raisa Nilovna. Where are they and where is the Russian outback with the winter cold? But watching their game in the gadget, I was once again convinced that the emotional nature of Italians is in many respects similar to Russian, maybe that’s why They are easier than others to convey Chekhov’s text.

— How does your theater exist? – I ask Olga Melnik after the show of her “Witch”.

Mostly on their own. When people in the theater ask me: “Is it possible to throw something away?”, I most often answer: “No, it can come in handy if repainted, redone or altered.” I understand that this is the condition of poor people. Yes, poor, very happy people. We understand that no one will give us anything.

Under the words of Olga Melnik, any of the participants in the World of Russian Theater can sign – from Hungary, two theaters from Israel, Canada. 22 years in Toronto, there is a Russian Youth Theater, directed by Alla Kartuzova. The theater was organized by opera singer Nikolai Cherkasov and musician Andrey Kartuzov who came to Canada. They staked on a children’s, fabulous repertoire. We started like all enthusiasts: we sewed costumes ourselves, built scenery. But later they even received several grants from the Canadian authorities for the production of Russian classics – Woe from Wit, The Inspector General. But that was at the best of times.

The Frog Princess was shown at the festival, and it can be proudly noted that the “theatrical product” of Russians from Canada outwardly differed little from the professional made in Russia. Costumes are made in folklore style, full-fledged scenery and the most important element is music. The performance, in which both adults and children participate, was staged by Valentina Suetova, an actress by education, she is also a theater artist, make-up artist and graphic designer.

Alas, politics has now been added to the financial problems of Russian-language theaters, which everyone copes with as best they can. Since the beginning of the SVO, they remember both the broken glass in the theater and the foreign artists who left the troupe in protest. Someone, out of fear that the theater would be closed, was forced to refuse to participate in the festival. All these are facts and a real page of the world of the Russian theater abroad, which, like a steadfast tin soldier, continues its work.

For example, “Aprelik” in Paris, which has been led by Lyudmila Drobich for many years. She is sure that the Russian theater is necessary, first of all, to create and preserve the space of Russian culture around it. “Children grow up, and this space becomes more interesting and deeper. – says Lyudmila – We are trying to make it truly Russian, to convey the “matrix” of the Russian soul.”

And in order for the “matrix” to work, she invites professional teachers of the Russian language and literature to her “Aprelik”, she was the first to combine the formats of theater and linguistic education. To do this, Drobich invited Professor Elizaveta Khamraeva from Moscow, who heads the Department of Linguistics and Bilingualism, and Maksim Mikhailov, an acting teacher. In “Aprelik” five teachers of Russian and literature and six directors from leading Russian universities, as well as French acting schools, work with children at the same time. Lyudmila Drobich’s dream is to implement the Master of the Russian Theater project, which includes productions by both venerable directors and graduates of theater universities.

A completely separate person at the festival – “too Russian an actor, although a Jew.” This is how Boris Kazinets, People’s Artist of Georgia, who directs the Theater of Russian Classics in the USA, says about himself. And now attention – Boris Mikhailovich is 92 years old, he worked in Georgia, in the Russian theater named after Griboyedov. Full of energy and strength, a complete optimist.

– My wife and I are not immigrants, rather, random people in this country in terms of stay. In 1991, a revolution began in Georgia, and I am such a person that I would definitely get into some kind of fight. To prevent this from happening, we were sent to America, on a creative business trip, until the revolution was over. I was not going to stay there for a long time, because the actor is too Russian. But the children who just stayed in Georgia begged us not to return, saying that everything was bad there.

They stayed, and the artist did not have time to blink an eye, as in New York he had already released “The Marriage of Balzaminov”, Yesenin’s poetry evening, “The Tale of Fedot the Archer”, “Forget Herostratus” and “Memorial Prayer” by Grigory Gorin. Kazinets even played in the American theater, where the grandson of the writer Babel organized the Stanislavsky Theater Studio. And Alexander Zhurbin played in the Wandering Stars Theater, where his partners were Elena Solovey, Boris Sichkin, Mikhail Kalinovsky. Collaborated with the Anna Varpakhovskaya Theater in Montreal.

A one-man show “A Drop of Honey” based on a poetic parable by Hovhannes Tumanyan (translated by Samuil Marshak) was shown by Boris Kazinets in Moscow. Against the backdrop of a professionally executed animated scenery (his student helped with this), the lines sounded as if written today, in hot pursuit.

… The whole country is on fire,

Noise, roar, blood, and scream, and groan,

And crying, and sorrow from all sides,

And in the winds

The smell of the dead is wafting.

And so it goes

Year after year:

Machines are silent

The crop is not compressed,

All the war bonfire is spreading,

After hunger comes pestilence.

He mercilessly mows down people,

And now the whole region is devastated.

And in horror among the graves

The living living asked:

“Why, where and when

Such a disaster?

A wise old man calmly reads what was written in 1919. And from the calm, measured voice of the reader, from the way he places accents, it becomes creepy – what the hell is the 21st century with its colliders and other quantum achievements, if the world of the human race happens only in pauses between wars !!! Can’t he do without them?

Chekhov’s stories charmingly, as if in a dance, were presented by the Budapest Theater (Russian Theater Studio), the “Association of Actors” from Israel showed a poignant mono-performance “War does not have a woman’s face”, but a rock opera (!!!) – Shaul Tiktiner Youth Theater , who has long and skillfully worked on the Promised Land.

Our meeting showed that the Russian theater abroad is alive, – summed up the festival president Valery Yakov. And his audience is not shrinking. Our motto, which we took from the very beginning: “The world of Russian theater is a world of good.”

I watched their performances – alas, on the screen, I talked to them – alas, not eye to eye. But even through the screen I understood and felt that they were people of the same blood type, with the same “diagnosis”: theater as a necessity, like water or air. And they are attracted to each other, like a magnet, no matter where they are on the Earth. And if this magnet is strong (like Boris Kazinets, Zinaida Sokolova-Zikherman, Shaul Tiktiner, Anzhelika Smirnova-Oberholzer, Olga Melnik, Lyudmila Drobich, Alla Kartuzova and others who did not make it to the festival), then the result is theater. Russian. And today, a very terrible day, it remains, in fact, the only one representing Russian culture abroad. In the current conditions, he is there – the only “agent of influence” of Russian culture. And it must be supported at the state level, develop contact with Russian theaters and bring it to a new level. But this is a topic for another discussion.