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N. G. Chernyshevsky

Russian man at rendez-vous

Reflections on reading Mr. Turgenev’s story “Asya”

“Stories of a businesslike, incriminating nature leave a very difficult impression on the reader, therefore, while recognizing their usefulness and nobility, I am not entirely satisfied that our literature has taken exclusively such a gloomy direction.”

This is what quite a lot of people say, apparently not stupid, or, better to say, they said until the peasant question became actual subject all thoughts, all conversations. Whether their words are fair or unfair, I don’t know; but I happened to be under the influence of such thoughts when I began to read perhaps the only good new story, from which, from the first pages, one could already expect a completely different content, a different pathos, than from business stories. There is no chicanery with violence and bribery, no dirty swindlers, no official villains explaining in elegant language that they are the benefactors of society, no philistines, peasants and little officials tormented by all these terrible and disgusting people. The action is abroad, away from all the bad surroundings of our home life. All the characters in the story are among the best people among us, very educated, extremely humane, imbued with the noblest way of thinking. The story has a purely poetic, ideal direction, not touching on any of the so-called dark sides of life. Here, I thought, my soul will rest and be refreshed. And indeed, she was refreshed by these poetic ideals until the story reached the decisive moment. But the last pages of the story are unlike the first, and after reading the story, the impression left is even more bleak than the stories about disgusting bribe takers with their cynical robbery. They do bad things, but they are recognized by each of us as bad people; It is not from them that we expect improvements in our lives. There are, we think, forces in society that will put a barrier to their harmful influence who will change the nature of our lives with their nobility. This illusion is most bitterly rejected in the story, which awakens the brightest expectations with its first half.

Here is a man whose heart is open to all high feelings, whose honesty is unshakable, whose thought has absorbed everything for which our century is called the century of noble aspirations. So what is this man doing? He makes a scene that would put the last bribe-taker to shame. He feels the strongest and purest sympathy for the girl who loves him; he cannot live an hour without seeing this girl; his thoughts all day, all night draw her to him beautiful image, the time of love has come for him, you think, when the heart drowns in bliss. We see Romeo, we see Juliet, whose happiness nothing interferes with, and the moment is approaching when their fate will be decided forever - for this Romeo must only say: “I love you, do you love me?” - and Juliet will whisper: “Yes...” And what does our Romeo (that’s how we will call the hero of the story, whose last name was not given to us by the author of the story) do when he goes on a date with Juliet? With trembling love, Juliet awaits her Romeo; she must learn from him that he loves her - this word was not uttered between them, it will now be uttered by him, they will unite forever; bliss awaits them, such a high and pure bliss, the enthusiasm of which makes it barely bearable for earthly organism solemn moment solutions. People died from less joy. She sits like a frightened bird, covering her face from the radiance of the sun of love appearing before her; she is breathing quickly, trembling all over; she lowers her eyes even more tremblingly when he enters and calls her name; she wants to look at him and cannot; he takes her hand - this hand is cold, lies as if dead in his hand; she wants to smile; but her pale lips cannot smile. She wants to talk to him, and her voice breaks. They both were silent for a long time - and, as he himself says, his heart melted, and so Romeo says to his Juliet... and what does he say to her? “You are guilty before me,” he tells her: “you got me into trouble, I am dissatisfied with you, you compromise me, and I must end my relationship with you; It’s very unpleasant for me to part with you, but if you please, go away from here.” What it is? How she guilty? Is it what I thought his a decent person? compromised his reputation by going on a date with him? This is amazing! Every feature in her pale face says that she is waiting for her fate to be decided by his word, that she has given her whole soul to him irrevocably and now only expects him to say that he accepts her soul, her life, and he reprimands her for that she is compromising him! What kind of ridiculous cruelty is this? what kind of low rudeness is this? And this man, who acts so vilely, has been presented as noble until now! He deceived us, deceived the author. Yes, the poet made a very serious mistake in imagining that he was telling us about a decent person. This man is worse than a notorious scoundrel.

Such was the impression made on many by the completely unexpected turn in the relationship of our Romeo to Juliet. We have heard from many that the whole story is spoiled by this outrageous scene, that the character of the main person is not maintained, that if this person is what he appears to be in the first half of the story, then he could not have acted with such vulgar rudeness, and if he could have acted like that, then From the very beginning he should have appeared to us as a completely crappy person.

It would be very comforting to think that the author was really mistaken; but the sad dignity of his story lies in the fact that the character of the hero is true to our society. Perhaps, if this character were such as people would like to see him, dissatisfied with his rudeness on a date, if he were not afraid to give himself to the love that took possession of him, the story would have won in an ideally poetic sense. The enthusiasm of the first date scene would be followed by several other highly poetic minutes, the quiet charm of the first half of the story would rise to pathetic charm in the second half, and instead of the first act from Romeo and Juliet with an ending in the style of Pechorin, we would have something really similar to Romeo and Juliet, or at least one of Georges Sand's novels. Anyone looking for a poetically complete impression in a story must really condemn the author, who, having lured him with sublimely sweet expectations, suddenly showed him some vulgar, absurd vanity of petty, timid egoism in a man who started out like Max Piccolomini and ended up like some Zakhar Sidorich, playing penny preference.

But was the author really wrong about his hero? If he made a mistake, this is not the first time he makes this mistake. No matter how many stories he had that led to a similar situation, each time his heroes emerged from these situations in no other way than being completely embarrassed in front of us. In Faust, the hero tries to cheer himself up by the fact that neither he nor Vera have serious feelings for each other; sitting with her, dreaming about her is his business, but in terms of determination, even in words, he behaves in such a way that Vera herself must tell him that she loves him; For several minutes the conversation had been going on in such a way that he should definitely have said this, but he, you see, did not guess and did not dare to tell her this; and when the woman who must accept the explanation is finally forced to make the explanation herself, he, you see, “froze,” but felt that “bliss was running like a wave through his heart,” only, however, “from time to time,” but strictly speaking, he “completely lost his head” - it’s only a pity that he didn’t faint, and even that would have happened if he hadn’t come across a tree to lean against. As soon as the man had time to recover, the woman he loves, who expressed her love for him, comes up to him and asks what he intends to do now? He... he was "embarrassed." It is not surprising that after such behavior of a loved one (otherwise the image of this gentleman’s actions cannot be called “behavior”) the poor woman developed a nervous fever; It’s even more natural that he then began to cry about his fate. It's in Faust; almost the same in “Rudin”. Rudin at first behaves somewhat more decently for a man than the previous heroes: he is so decisive that he himself tells Natalya about his love (although he does not speak of his own free will, but because he is forced to this conversation); he himself asks her for a date. But when Natalya on this date tells him that she will marry him, with or without the consent of her mother, it doesn’t matter, as long as he loves her, when he says the words: “Know, I will be yours,” - Rudin only finds an answer exclamation: “Oh God!” - an exclamation more embarrassed than enthusiastic - and then he acts so well, that is, to such an extent he is cowardly and lethargic, that Natalya is forced to invite him on a date herself to decide what to do. Having received the note, “he saw that the denouement was approaching, and was secretly troubled in spirit.” Natalya says that her mother told her that she would rather agree to see her daughter dead than to see Rudin’s wife, and again asks Rudin what he intends to do now? Rudin answers as before: “My God, my God,” and adds even more naively: “So soon!” what am I going to do? My head is spinning, I can’t think of anything.” But then he realizes that he should “submit.” Called a coward, he begins to reproach Natalya, then lectures her about his honesty, and to the remark that this is not what she should hear from him now, he replies that he did not expect such decisiveness. The matter ends with the offended girl turning away from him, almost ashamed of her love for the coward.

But perhaps this pitiful trait in the characters’ characters is a feature of Mr. Turgenev’s stories? Perhaps it is the nature of his talent that inclines him to portray such faces? Not at all; the nature of the talent, it seems to us, means nothing here. Remember any good true to life a story by any of our current poets, and if there is an ideal side to the story, rest assured that the representative of this ideal side acts exactly the same as the persons of Mr. Turgenev. For example, the nature of Mr. Nekrasov’s talent is not at all the same as Mr. Turgenev’s; You can find any shortcomings in him, but no one will say that Mr. Nekrasov’s talent lacks energy and firmness. What does the hero do in his poem “Sasha”? He explained to Sasha that, he said, “one should not weaken in soul,” because “the sun of righteousness will rise above the earth,” and that one must act to realize one’s aspirations; and then, when Sasha gets down to business, he says that all this is in vain and will lead nowhere, that he was “talking empty talk.” Let us remember how Beltov acts - and in the same way he prefers retreat to any decisive step. Similar examples it would be possible to collect a lot. Everywhere, whatever the character of the poet, whatever his personal concepts about the actions of his hero, the hero acts in the same way with all others decent people, like him, derived from other poets: while there is no talk of action, but you just need to occupy idle time, fill an idle head or an idle heart with conversations and dreams, the hero is very lively; As the matter approaches to directly and accurately express their feelings and desires, most of the heroes begin to hesitate and feel clumsy in their language. A few, the bravest, somehow still manage to gather all their strength and tongue-tiedly express something that gives a vague idea of their thoughts; but if anyone decides to grab hold of their desires, to say: “You want such and such; we are very happy; start acting, and we will support you,” - with such a remark, one half of the bravest heroes faints, others begin to very rudely reproach you for putting them in an awkward position, they begin to say that they did not expect such proposals from you , that they are completely losing their heads, cannot figure out anything, because “how is it possible so quickly,” and “besides, they are honest people,” and not only honest, but very humble, and do not want to expose you to trouble, and that in general, is it really possible to bother about everything that is talked about out of nothing to do, and what is best is not to take on anything, because everything is connected with troubles and inconveniences, and nothing good can happen yet, because, as already it is said that they “did not expect or expect at all,” and so on.

These are our “best people” - they are all like our Romeo. How much trouble for Asya is that Mr. N. did not know what to do with her, and was decidedly angry when courageous determination was required of him; We don’t know how much trouble there is in this for Asya. The first thought that comes to her is that this will cause her very little trouble; on the contrary, and thank God that the crappy impotence of character in our Romeo pushed the girl away from him even before it was too late. Asya will be sad for several weeks, several months and will forget everything and may surrender to a new feeling, the object of which will be more worthy of her. Yes, but that’s the trouble, she’s unlikely to meet a more worthy person; This is the sad comedy of our Romeo’s relationship with Asya, that our Romeo is truly one of the best people in our society, that there are almost no people better than him in our country. Only then will Asya be satisfied with her relationship with people, when, like others, she begins to limit herself to beautiful reasoning, until the opportunity presents itself to start making speeches, and when the opportunity presents itself, she will bite her tongue and fold her hands, as everyone else does. Only then will others be pleased with her; and now, first of all, of course, everyone will say that this girl is very sweet, with a noble soul, with amazing strength of character, in general a girl whom one cannot help but love, whom one cannot help but revere; but all this will be said only as long as Asya’s character is expressed in words alone, as long as it is only assumed that she is capable of a noble and decisive act; and as soon as she takes a step that in any way justifies the expectations inspired by her character, hundreds of voices will immediately shout: “For mercy, how is this possible, this is madness! Give a rendez-vous to a young man! After all, she is destroying herself, destroying herself completely uselessly! After all, nothing can come of this, absolutely nothing, except that she will lose her reputation. Is it possible to risk yourself so insanely?” - “Risk yourself? That would be nothing, others will add. “Let her do what she wants with herself, but why put others in trouble?” What position did she put this poor young man in? Did he think she would want to take him this far? What should he do now given her recklessness? If he follows her, he will destroy himself; if he refuses, he will be called a coward and he will despise himself. I don't know if it's noble to bet on something like this unpleasant situations people who, it seems, have not given any special reason for such incongruous actions. No, this is not entirely noble. And the poor brother? What is his role? What bitter pill did his sister give him? He won't be able to digest this pill for the rest of his life. Nothing to say, my dear sister borrowed it! I don’t argue, all this is very good in words - noble aspirations, self-sacrifice, and God knows what wonderful things, but I will say one thing: I would not want to be Asya’s brother. I will say more: if I were in her brother’s place, I would lock her in her room for six months. For her own good, she needs to be locked up. She, you see, deigns to be carried away by high feelings; but what is it like to dispense to others what she deigned to brew? No, I will not call her action, I will not call her character noble, because I do not call those noble who frivolously and impudently harm others.” This way the general cry will be explained by the reasoning of sensible people. We are partly ashamed to admit, but still we have to admit that these reasoning seems to us to be thorough. In fact, Asya harms not only herself, but also everyone who had the misfortune of being related or lucky enough to be close to her; and we cannot help but condemn those who, for their own pleasure, harm all their loved ones.

By condemning Asya, we justify our Romeo. In fact, what is his fault? had he given her a reason to act recklessly? did he incite her to an act that could not be approved? didn't he have the right to tell her that it was in vain that she entangled him in an unpleasant relationship? You are indignant that his words are harsh, you call them rude. But the truth is always harsh, and who will condemn me if even a rude word escapes me, when I, innocent of anything, are entangled in an unpleasant matter, and even pester me so that I rejoice at the trouble into which I was dragged?

I know why you so unfairly admired Asya’s ignoble act and condemned our Romeo. I know this because I myself for a moment succumbed to the unfounded impression that remained in you. You have read about how people in other countries acted and acted. But realize that these are other countries. You never know what is being done in the world in other places, but what is very convenient in a certain situation is not always and not everywhere possible. In England, for example, spoken language the word “you” does not exist: a manufacturer to his worker, a landowner to the digger he hires, a master to his footman always says “you” and, wherever it happens, inserts sir in a conversation with them, that is, it’s the same as the French monsieur, and in Russian there is no such word, but it comes out as politeness in the same way as if a master said to his peasant: “You, Sidor Karpych, do me a favor and come to me for a cup of tea, and then straighten the paths in my garden.” Will you judge me if I speak to Sidor without such subtleties? After all, I would be ridiculous if I adopted the language of an Englishman. In general, as soon as you begin to condemn what you don’t like, you become an ideologist, that is, the funniest and, to tell you in your ear, the most dangerous person in the world, you are losing the solid support of practical reality from under your feet. Beware of this, try to become a practical person in your opinions and for the first time try to reconcile at least with our Romeo, by the way we are already talking about him. I am ready to tell you the path by which I reached this result, not only regarding the scene with Asya, but also regarding everything in the world, that is, I became happy with everything that I see around me, I am not angry at anything, I am not upset by anything (except for failures in matters that are personally beneficial to me), I do not condemn anything or anyone in the world (except for people who violate my personal benefits), I do not wish for anything (except for my own benefit) - in a word, I will tell you how I became a man from a bilious melancholic so practical and well-intentioned that I wouldn’t even be surprised if I received a reward for my good intentions.

I began with the remark that one should not blame people for anything or anything, because, as far as I have seen, the most intelligent person has his own share of limitations, sufficient to ensure that in his way of thinking he cannot stray far from society in which he was brought up and lives, and the most energetic person has his own dose of apathy, sufficient for him to not stray too far from routine in his actions and, as they say, to float with the flow of the river, where the water carries. In the middle circle, it is customary to paint eggs for Easter; at Shrovetide there are pancakes - and everyone does it, although some people do not eat colored eggs, and almost everyone complains about the weight of pancakes. This is true not just in trifles, but in everything. It is accepted, for example, that boys should be kept more freely than girls, and every father, every mother, no matter how convinced they are of the unreasonableness of such a distinction, raises their children according to this rule. It is accepted that wealth is a good thing, and everyone is happy if, instead of ten thousand rubles a year, thanks to the happy turn of affairs, he begins to receive twenty thousand, although, rationally speaking, everyone clever man knows that those things which, being unavailable with the first income, become available with the second, cannot bring any significant pleasure. For example, if with ten thousand income you can make a ball of five hundred rubles, then with twenty you can make a ball of a thousand rubles; the latter will be somewhat better than the first, but still there will not be any special splendor in it, it will be called nothing more than a fairly decent ball, and the first one will also be a decent ball. Thus even the sense of vanity with an income of twenty thousand is satisfied with very little more than with ten thousand; As for pleasures that can be called positive, the difference in them is completely imperceptible. Personally, a person with ten thousand in income has exactly the same corner, exactly the same wine and a chair in the same row at the opera as a person with twenty thousand. The first is called a fairly rich man, and the second is also not considered an extremely rich man - there is no significant difference in their position; and yet, according to the routine accepted in society, everyone will rejoice when his income increases from ten to twenty thousand, although in fact he will notice almost no increase in his pleasures. People are generally terrible routineists: you only have to look deeper into their thoughts to discover this. Some gentlemen will greatly puzzle you at first with the independence of his way of thinking from the society to which he belongs; will seem to you, for example, a cosmopolitan, a person without class prejudices, etc., and he, like his acquaintances, imagines himself like that from pure soul. But observe more precisely a cosmopolitan, and he will turn out to be French or Russian with all the peculiarities of concepts and habits, belonging to that the nation to which he is classified according to his passport will turn out to be a landowner or official, merchant or professor with all the shades of thought that belong to his class. I am sure that the large number of people who have the habit of being angry with each other, blaming each other, depends solely on the fact that too few are engaged in observations of this kind; but just try to start peering into people in order to check whether this or that person, who at first seems different from others, really differs in anything important from other people of the same position - just try to engage in such observations, and this analysis will be so captivating you will be so interested in your mind, will constantly deliver such calming impressions to your spirit that you will never leave him behind and very soon come to the conclusion: “Every person is like all people, in each - exactly the same as in others " And the further you go, the more firmly you will become convinced of this axiom. Differences seem important only because they lie on the surface and are striking, but beneath the visible, apparent difference, perfect identity is hidden. And why on earth would a person really be a contradiction to all the laws of nature? After all, in nature, cedar and hyssop feed and bloom, elephants and mice move and eat, rejoice and get angry according to the same laws; under external difference forms lies the internal identity of the organism of a monkey and a whale, an eagle and a chicken; one has only to delve into the matter even more carefully, and we will see that not only different creatures of the same class, but also different classes of creatures are constructed and live according to the same principles, that the organisms of a mammal, a bird and a fish are the same, that a worm breathes like a mammal, although he has neither nostrils, nor a windpipe, nor lungs. Not only would the analogy with other beings be violated by non-recognition of the sameness of the basic rules and springs in moral life every person - the analogy with his physical life. Of the two healthy people of the same age in the same mood, one’s pulse beats, of course, somewhat stronger and more often than the other’s; but is this difference great? It is so insignificant that science does not even pay attention to it. It’s a different matter when you compare people of different ages or in different circumstances: a child’s pulse beats twice as fast as an old man’s, a sick person’s pulse beats much more often or less often than a healthy person’s, someone who drank a glass of champagne beats more often than someone who drank a glass of champagne. who drank a glass of water. But here it is clear to everyone that the difference is not in the structure of the organism, but in the circumstances under which the organism is observed. And the old man, when he was a child, had a pulse as fast as the child with whom you compare him; and a healthy person’s pulse would weaken, just like a sick person’s if he fell ill with the same disease; and Peter, if he drank a glass of champagne, his pulse would increase in the same way as Ivan’s. You have almost reached the limits human wisdom, when they established themselves in this simple truth that every person is the same person as everyone else. Not to mention the gratifying consequences of this conviction for your everyday happiness; you will stop being angry and upset, stop being indignant and blaming, you will meekly look at what you were previously ready to scold and fight for; in fact, how would you become angry or complain about a person for such an act, which would be done by everyone in his place? An undisturbed, gentle silence settles into your soul, sweeter than which can only be the Brahminical contemplation of the tip of the nose, with the quiet, incessant repetition of the words “om-ma-ni-pad-mekhum.” I’m not even talking about this invaluable spiritual and practical benefit, I’m not even talking about how many monetary benefits wise condescension towards people will bring you: you will completely cordially welcome a scoundrel whom you would have driven away from yourself before; and this scoundrel is perhaps a man of importance in society, and good relations your own affairs will get better with it. I’m not even saying that you yourself will then be less embarrassed by false doubts of conscience in taking advantage of the benefits that come your way; Why should you be embarrassed by excessive ticklishness if you are convinced that everyone would have acted in your place exactly the same as you? I do not expose all these benefits, with the goal of pointing out only the purely scientific, theoretical importance of the belief in the sameness human nature in all people. If all people are essentially the same, then where does the difference in their actions come from? Striving to achieve the main truth, we have already found in passing the conclusion from it that serves as the answer to this question. It is now clear to us that everything depends on social habits and circumstances, that is, in the final result everything depends exclusively on circumstances, because social habits arose in turn also from circumstances. You blame a person - first look at whether he is to blame for what you blame him for, or whether the circumstances and habits of society are to blame, look carefully, perhaps it is not his fault at all, but only his misfortune. When talking about others, we are too inclined to consider every misfortune to be our fault - this is the true misfortune for practical life, because guilt and misfortune are completely different things and require treatment, one not at all the same as the other. Guilt causes censure or even punishment against the person. Trouble requires assistance to a person through the elimination of circumstances stronger than his will. I knew a tailor who poked his apprentices in the teeth with a hot iron. Perhaps he can be called guilty, and he can be punished; but not every tailor pokes a hot iron into his teeth; examples of such fury are very rare. But almost every craftsman happens to get into a fight after drinking on a holiday - this is not a fault, but simply a misfortune. What is needed here is not punishment of an individual, but a change in living conditions for the whole class. The harmful confusion of guilt and misfortune is all the sadder because it is very easy to distinguish between these two things; We have already seen one sign of difference: wine is a rarity, it is an exception to the rule; trouble is an epidemic. Intentional arson is a fault; but out of millions of people there is one who decides to do such a thing. There is another sign needed to complement the first. Trouble falls on the very person who fulfills the condition leading to trouble; guilt falls on others, benefiting the guilty. This last sign extremely accurate. A robber stabbed a man to rob him, and finds it beneficial for himself - this is guilt. A careless hunter accidentally wounded a man and is the first to suffer from the misfortune he caused - this is not guilt, but simply misfortune.

The sign is correct, but if you apply it with some insight, with a careful analysis of the facts, it turns out that there is almost never guilt in the world, but only misfortune. Now we have mentioned the robber. Is life sweet for him? If it weren’t for special, very difficult circumstances for him, would he have taken up his craft? Where will you find a person for whom it would be more pleasant to hide in dens in cold and bad weather and wander through the deserts, often endure hunger and constantly tremble at his back, awaiting the lash - for whom this would be more pleasant than comfortably smoking a cigar in quiet armchairs or play jumble in English club what do decent people do?

It would also be much more pleasant for our Romeo to enjoy the mutual pleasures of happy love than to remain a fool and cruelly scold himself for his vulgar rudeness with Asya. From the fact that the cruel trouble to which Asya is exposed brings him not benefit or pleasure, but shame in front of himself, that is, the most painful of all moral griefs, we see that he is not in guilt, but in trouble. The vulgarity he did would have been done by very many other so-called decent people or the best people of our society; therefore, this is nothing more than a symptom of an epidemic disease that has taken root in our society.

A symptom of a disease is not the disease itself. And if the matter were only that some, or, better to say, almost all of the “best” people offend a girl when she has more nobility or less experience than them, this matter, we admit, would interest us little. God be with them, with erotic questions - the reader of our time, busy with questions about administrative and judicial improvements, about financial transformations, about the liberation of the peasants. But the scene made by our Romeo Ace, as we noticed, is only a symptom of a disease that in exactly the same vulgar way spoils all our affairs, and only we need to look closely at why our Romeo got into trouble, we will see what we all like him, to expect from himself and to expect for himself and in all other matters.

Let's start with the fact that the poor young man does not understand at all the business in which he is taking part. The point is clear, but he is obsessed with such stupidity that he is unable to reason with the most obvious facts. We absolutely do not know what to compare such blind stupidity to. The girl, incapable of any pretense, not knowing any cunning, tells him: “I myself don’t know what’s happening to me. Sometimes I want to cry, but I laugh. You shouldn't judge me... by what I do. Oh, by the way, what is this story about Lorelei? After all, this is her rock visible? They say that she drowned everyone first, and when she fell in love, she threw herself into the water. I like this fairy tale." It seems clear what feeling awoke in her. Two minutes later, with excitement reflected even by the pallor on her face, she asks if he liked that lady whom, somehow jokingly, was mentioned in a conversation many days ago; then he asks what he likes in a woman; when he notices how well the sky shines, she says, “Yes, good! If you and I were birds, how we would soar, how we would fly!.. So we would drown in this blue... but we are not birds.” “But we can grow wings,” I objected. - “How so?” - “Wait and you’ll find out. There are feelings that lift us from the ground. Don't worry, you will have wings." - “Did you have them?” - “How can I tell you... it seems that I haven’t flown yet.” The next day, when he came in, Asya blushed; I wanted to run away from the room; she was sad and, finally, remembering yesterday’s conversation, told him: “Remember, yesterday you talked about wings? My wings have grown.”

Hero on a rendezvous with the only one true love in his life (Fedor Malyshev and Serafima Ogareva)
Photo by Vladimir Lupovsky

Anna Gordeeva. . The Pyotr Fomenko Workshop presented the first premiere of the season ( MN, 10/27/2011).

Maria Sedykh. . Why did two Moscow theaters turn to old-fashioned Turgenev at once ( Results, 11/14/2011).

Elena Dyakova. . “Fomenki” and “Satyricon”: two premieres as two moods ( Novaya Gazeta, 10/26/2011).

Olga Egoshina. . The capital's theaters turned to Turgenev's yearning heroes ( New news, 7.11.2011).

Olga Fuks. . New faces in the “Pyotr Fomenko Workshop” ().

Vedomosti, 11/30/2011 Grigory Zaslavsky. .).

"Russian man at rendez-vous" in the Workshop of Pyotr Fomenko ( NG, 12.12.2011).

Roman Dolzhansky. .

MN, October 27, 2011

Anna Gordeeva

Rendezvous with Turgenev

The first premiere of the season was presented at the Pyotr Fomenko Workshop

“Russian Man at a Rendezvous” is Turgenev’s “Spring Waters”, retold in the cheerful language of student sketches. The title, of course, was borrowed from Chernyshevsky (and the fact that this was the title of his article about another story by Turgenev seems unprincipled to the authors). A year ago, Pyotr Naumovich Fomenko invited theater interns to engage in “Spring Waters” - and from a series of local acting works this performance grew, united into a whole by director Yuri Butorin (Evgeniy Kamenkovich became the artistic director of the production).

Sad story the story of how a 22-year-old poor Russian nobleman fell in love with the daughter of a confectionery owner in Germany and quickly betrayed her when his married compatriot took him by storm is told on stage without that “reminiscence” intonation that is characteristic of Turgenev’s story. Yes, the play begins with a 52-year-old man finding a cross in the table, given to him 30 years ago, and ends with a return to the year 1870, when Sanin travels to Germany to find Gemma again. But in the middle - for almost three hours in a row - the year 1840 takes place, and everyone in it (the hero, his lover, the girl's official fiancé whom she leaves for the hero, the Russian seductress and her submissive husband) are young. And this feeling of youth, the brightness of life is broadcast in a series of scenes, each of which is equipped with some kind of cute gag.

If the owner of a candy store tells the hero about her late husband, then there he is, the husband - his mustachioed face crawls out above the door and sticks out there motionless (sort of like a portrait). If Sanin in Frankfurt examines the sculpture of Ariadne created by Johann Dannecker, then, hearing that he “didn’t like it much,” the sculpture turns around and slaps the tourist in the face. The artists, who are young and approach their profession with great enthusiasm, master the space of the theater - not only moving around the stage, but also passing over the heads of the audience on a metal structure (a trip to the mountains) and soaring above the stage on ropes (an excellent episode of Sanin’s horse ride and Mrs. Polozova, who “took him to work” - the actors sway above the ground, both the instability of such a journey and the precariousness of the hero’s love, which is now being tested, are conveyed). Another important “educational” and brightly theatrical moment of the performance is that the Italians who settled in Germany speak with classic southern expression, periodically switching to their native language, the Germans retain their intonations and return to Russian. In general, polishing professional skills and a source of wonderful comedy.

Each of the artists (except Fyodor Malyshev, who is given the role of Sanin) plays several roles.

Ekaterina Smirnova becomes both Gemma’s mother and Mrs. Polozova, Seraphim Ogareva becomes both Gemma and that same Ariadna who was indignant at the viewer who did not appreciate her, Ambartsum Kabanyan - both the heroine’s smug fiancé and the portrait of her dad. Transformations take place instantly, and one can only imagine what a thrill the actors felt at the moment when all this was invented during rehearsals, when ideas flew like fireworks - just as energy is now flying into the hall, which the actors have not yet learned to conserve. We haven’t learned to want to save - that’s more accurate.

Results, November 14, 2011

Maria Sedykh

Classic game

Why did two Moscow theaters turn to old-fashioned Turgenev at once?

Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev, despite his very rich dramatic and prose heritage, was never a repertoire author. Even in the last century, the author seemed outdated and patriarchal. And the current century, it would seem, has thrown him off the ship of modernity forever.

Well, just like in the sad old joke about a drunk who complains that Turgenev wrote “Mumu” and erected a monument to Pushkin. Great directors neglected him. And indeed, Chekhov, who is listed as one of the heirs, turned out to be closer in his toughness. Dostoevsky, who devoted many pages to poor people, is deeper and more tragic. Ostrovsky's everyday life is more picturesque. In fairness, we note that Turgenev himself, even during his lifetime, considered himself outdated and, without strain or lamentation, put up with the lack of demand, moreover, he was even sincerely surprised when performances based on his plays aroused the delight of the public. As a rule, it was not the productions that brought success, but the brilliant beneficiaries. And this season, two theaters turned to Turgenev’s legacy. The Mayakovsky Theater opened its, in all respects, new season with “A Month in the Country,” “P. Fomenko’s Workshop” with a staging of “Spring Waters.” Let us note in parentheses that interest in the premiere of “The Month...” was fueled by another scandal: the artistic director of “Mayakovka” Mindaugas Karbauskis refused to trust the director. Fomenkovites dubbed the play “Russian man at rendez-vous”, borrowing the title from Chernyshevsky, who dedicated famous article Turgenev's story "Asya". A reference to a very unfashionable social-democratic critic can only be afforded by Fomenkovites, who, not without reason, are confident in the loyalty of their viewer, who cannot be scared off by anything. But, to be honest, the title somewhat misleads the public with its claim to generalizations and social acuity. All you have to do after the performance is open an article that has not been re-read by anyone for a long time, and you will easily be convinced that its first lines have much to do with the production., than all the thoughtful discussions about the mentality of the Russian person: “Stories in a businesslike, incriminating manner leave a very difficult impression on the reader; Therefore, while recognizing their usefulness and nobility, I am not entirely satisfied that our literature has taken exclusively such a gloomy direction.” The performances of the “P. Fomenko Workshop” are invariably strong because they oppose the gloomy direction in our lives today.

However, in our audience memory there was still one production based on Turgenev, which became, if not a classic, then a standard. This is “A Month in the Village” by Anatoly Efros. Then, in 1977, many also thought it strange why the master of piercingly modern performances suddenly turned to the pastoral. Why do we, languishing under the weight of problems, need a gentleman's gift set, which is always included in the burden of this author: psychological lace, Turgenev's girls, extra people... We find the answer in the notes of the director "Rehearsal - My Love." Turgenev begins to “sound” when the people of the theater are tired of the “storm and stress”, of endless irritation and loud overthrows, when in the nervousness of the recent theatrical past they can already discern the “heightened susceptibility of a poor nature”, when the maturity of the spirit comes, the need for stability and objectivity arises , carelessness. It seems that the mentality of the stagnant 77th year of the last century and the 11th year of this century are somewhat similar. In any case, a feeling of fatigue. And then I remember the statement of another classic director - Nemirovich-Danchenko, who considered “A Month in the Country” an excellent material for exercising artistic subtlety.

Both Moscow premieres are exercises in theatricality, in each case in their own way. The only difference is that the Mayakovites laughingly part with their past, and the Fomenkovites smilingly swear allegiance to themselves. And if there is one thing that unites both performances, it is the charming, truly French sense of humor discovered in Turgenev, almost unnoticed by either our theater or our cinema. Both theaters ignored the social status of the characters. Both the directors and the actors absolutely do not care who they are - landowners, petty bourgeois, bourgeois or servants. Only them is interesting sensory world

The performance designers are not at all concerned with the signs of the times; they transform both the large stage of the Mayakovsky Theater (Tatyana Vidanova) and the small one in the old Workshop hall (Vladimir Maksimov) into a space for play. But both theaters have not forgotten that the great Russian writer most life loved his homeland from afar and was a European, because foreign languages

They play cheerfully and at ease. But main game , of course, there are passions around, and there are so many people here, so many shades of feelings. In A Month in the Country, everything revolves around Natalya Petrovna, who is delightfully played by Evgenia Simonova. I don’t even know what is more in her performance - female experience or acting restlessness. Just as her relationships with her husband, old friend, young lover and young rival-foster are varied, so are her circus and variety steps. The performance, staged by Alexander Ogarev, seems to me to be cleansing for this theater, mired in theatrical routine. It contains the very thing that Natalya Petrovna talks about: “Lace -, but a sip of fresh water on a hot day is much better.”

Cleansing and modern. And not at all because the heroes fly on loungers, emerge from a huge suitcase, engage in synchronized swimming, coming out of the water unscathed, and “dance” to the tune of clown servants, but because the psychological reactions and behavior of all characters without exception modern. Despite the fact that they don’t inject drugs, don’t snort cocaine, aren’t seen as gay, and don’t even swear. That’s why debutante Polina Lazareva (Verochka) is not a muslin Turgenev young lady, but a girl to match her teacher. The palette of colors used by director Yuri Butorin (director of the production Evgeniy Kamenkovich) is more delicate and, probably, closer to Turgenev. “Spring Waters” is performed not by the troupe’s regular actors, but by trainees who do not disappoint the expectations of the “Workshop” admirers, brought up on the theater’s Tolstoy performances. And although the Yasnaya Polyana hermit chuckled at Lutovinov’s Frenchman: “He plays with life,” on this stage they are authors from the same reserve. It may be unbearably stuffy in this small hall, but fresh air blows from the stage, as always. They even began to reproach the Fomenkovites with this “as always.” Thank God, they do not pay attention to these reproaches, but continue to open both authors and actors with their key. This time Ekaterina Smirnova, who performed several roles in the play, but the main one - Madame Polozova. Most likely, these Turgenev performances will not become the main hits of the season, but they will certainly enrich the sensory (not sensory) experience of the audience.

New Newspaper

, October 26, 2011

Elena Dyakova

Spring waters during the plague

“Fomenki” and “Satyricon”: two premieres as two moods

In Ryzhakov’s “Satyricon,” boys and girls in gray and ragged clothes replace each other at the microphone. They repeat endlessly, as if they are taking a test according to a script: “Oh, poverty, poverty! How she humbles our hearts!” Or, for example: “But you know, this black cart has the right to drive around everywhere.” And everything makes no sense. Including the most diamond stanzas.

One thing happened. “Mozart and Salieri” was played by Konstantin Raikin and Odin Byron, a native of Minnesota and a 2009 graduate of the Moscow Art Theater School.

The reader of “Little Tragedies” usually thinks: Mozart is young, Salieri is old. In Satyricon, Mozart is menacingly, slovenly, hopelessly gray-haired, and the polished Salieri is very young. The victim is wearing a frayed tweed jacket with tkemali stains. The killer follows the office dress code. His "What good is it if Mozart lives" with easy English accent so judiciously, as if we were talking about a corporate takeover with the closure of a couple of factories. And Salieri’s entire text fits the young yuppie like a glove.

And there is a lot of psychological truth in this distribution of roles today.

Ryzhakov's Mozart is tired of living. He knows his worth and knows: his time is over. Inconvenient, loud, completely inappropriate “in the world of measures” - in the finale Mozart - Raikin is similar to the line of David Samoilov: “Arap Hannibal is the negative of the aged Pushkin.” In the shine of dark mirrors, in the best outfit - a red camisole, gold shoes, lace sleeves - he makes faces at the audience, understanding Salieri perfectly. With the menacing sarcasm of a genius, he manipulates the “young wolf.” He himself leads to the “cup of friendship.”

We can explain the other noise on stage only through a hypothesis: the worthy director Ryzhakov in the worthy theater “Satyricon” did not stage Pushkin, but precisely the epigraph he chose. He illustrated a conviction - humanly understandable, common to many today: the choir for which A.S.P.

was the main character, died long ago. No matter what this choir is called (even by the Russian intelligentsia), the plague has mowed it down, a fashionable disease has finished it off.

Therefore, no one can read either the Song of Mary or the Song of Walsingham. That’s why Mozart and Salieri are greeted with the same fan-like howl: after all, both are stars.

Black and white computer graphics dance across the backdrop: some Uryupinsk City with all its skyscrapers is collapsing into nothingness, then a gilded frame pops up, covered in sovereign curls of plaster laurels. There is emptiness in her. Mozart, drink poison...

...At first the viewer is vigilant: well, the classic “Fomenki”, the Great style of the “Workshop”, already a little ossified in its charm. But after half an hour, the precision and tenderness of the performance wins out.

Are there any super-meanings here? I don’t know... But the story of a 22-year-old Tula landowner, who passionately fell in love with the Italian Gemma in Frankfurt, was ready to fight a duel over her, was ready to sell his estate and stand behind the counter of a pastry shop, history great love, which absurdly collapsed a week later, when Sanin was seduced by the millionaire lady Mary Nikolaevna, bored on the waters and unable to restrain herself... a love story that Sanin could not forget all his life - played with jeweler's precision.

Everything came to life: morocco bindings and silver shades, babble about Goethe and Garibaldi, early morning in the city garden, gray mantilla and garnet cross, backhanded by a Catholic woman to an Orthodox groom: “If I am yours, so is your faith - my faith!” Even Pushkin came to life! How can Sanin go to a duel without a couple of stanzas of Onegin?! And how does Fyodor Malyshev, a 2011 RATI graduate, read these stanzas...

In the Fomenko Workshop, as always, it seems: first they educate people here - and only then actors.

It would be impossible to play this ancient ardor without understanding it.

They are all good: tender Gemma (Serafima Ogareva) and greedy for life Mary Nikolaevna (Ekaterina Smirnova), capable of chanting on the boardwalk with such a lion’s tongue, “On a dirty week, they barely sat…” that the decorous public of Wiesbaden almost falls off the cliff in Main. And the polished groom-businessman Kluber (Ambartsum Kabanyan). And the husband of Mary Nikolaevna (Dmitry Zakharov), sensible to the point of cynicism, is also (in other scenes) the exalted old actor Pantaleone.

And all these faces are new to the viewer. All the actors of “Spring Waters” in the “Workshop of Pyotr Fomenko” are graduates of RATI in 2010 (workshop of Oleg Kudryashov). Or - graduates of RATI 2011 (workshop of Evgeny Kamenkovich and Dmitry Krymov).

The holy place is empty, the school is tightly locked?

The hypothesis, as Woland said, is solid and witty. But those who adhere to the opposite, no less solid and witty hypothesis, school their Turgenev girls and Pushkin duelists. By extracting them from boys and girls born in the 1980s. Where else?

New news, November 7, 2011

Olga Egoshina

Extra people

The capital's theaters turned to Turgenev's yearning heroes It has long been noted that the demand for certain authors is directly proportional to their consonance with the current moment. Thus, perestroika returned Ostrovsky’s comedies to the posters, giving relevance to his poor brides, crazy money, debts of honor, and suddenly rich nouveau riche. But the opposite is also true. Often theaters choose authors contrary to the spirit of the day. Turgenev's heroes with their feelings, tender as flowers, with their manic concentration on the slightest changes mental life

so untimely that the desire of theaters to show these types who have fallen out of life is understandable. Almost simultaneously, “A Month in the Village” was shown in Mayakovka, and “Spring Waters” was turned to at “P. Fomenko’s Workshop.”

The name of the play by Fomenok “Russian man on rendez-vous” was given by Chernyshevsky’s article dedicated to several stories and novels by Turgenev, primarily “Ace” (“Spring Waters” was not included in the analysis, since they were written many years later). Fortunately, in their production, the new “Workshop” trainees (recent graduates of the course of Dmitry Krymov - Evgeniy Kamenkovich) did not take as a basis the point of view of the famous critic, who considered Turgenev’s heroes to be the embodiment of mental flabbiness. “Well, Nikolai Gavrilovich, you, of course, are a snake, yes, thank God, a simple snake, but Dobrolyubov is a spectacled snake,” Turgenev joked sadly, while the two “snakes” united and successfully survived him from Sovremennik. In the play "Workshop" both the restless hero of Turgenev and the fatal summer of 1840 for him are seen through sympathetic and understanding eyes. Love, slightly tinged with irony, a precisely found distance with the author and the audience - all these signature “skills” of the Fomenka actors are presented in the play. How musical skills are presented (the heroes sing their souls out in song every now and then) and linguistic (the heroes easily equip their speech with German, Italian, and Ukrainian language). Those who state that “these are just old Fomenki” are right, and those who shrug their shoulders in disappointment are wrong. The ability to weave stage lace is a rare skill (not to say unique), and it is wonderful that it is passed on from elders to younger ones. How is the ability to be light and infectious on stage conveyed, to maintain a slight distance, a no man’s land, between oneself and the role? Maintain the well-being of the third person in relation to your hero: “At six o’clock in the evening, tired, with dusty legs, Sanin found himself in one of the most insignificant streets of Frankfurt. He could not forget this street for a long time.” Fyodor Malyshev (Sanin) sing the introduction phrases easy patter, slightly raising his shoulders, as if inviting him to be amazed at such impressionability of his hero.

The actors play almost their peers. Sanin is 22 years old, Gemma is 17, Marya Nikolaevna Polozova is 26. But performers are not looking for what brings them closer to heroes of Turgenev, but something that divides. It seems that the tuning fork of the production was Polozova’s words about Sanin: “But this is lovely! This is a miracle! I already believed that there were no more young people like you in the world.” Young people capable of living by love alone, and for the sake of it instantly abandoning all other plans and goals, were considered a rarity in Turgenev’s time, but now they have completely disappeared.

Maybe that’s why young actors are so enthusiastic about recreating all the nuances of an old story. How Sanin’s heart flared up when he looked at Gemma (Seraphim Ogarev), and how he suddenly wanted to chat and sing. And before he had time to look back, two days later he was already groomed and ready to sell his only estate and settle forever next to a pastry shop in Frankfurt. And how, just as quickly, in two days, he falls victim to skillful coquetry - and not only breaks up with his adored bride, but throws his whole life at the feet of a woman with an amazing body, ardent character and melodious Moscow speech.

Ekaterina Smirnova plays Marya Polozova with such brio that the heat from the sensual antics of the tax farmer's daughter reaches the very last row of the auditorium. Changes in intonation, quick movements, fire in every vein, like a stagnant horse - all this is conveyed easily, boldly and gracefully. And the unexpected low notes of the voice, the sung musical phrase will suddenly remind you of the fatal love of the author himself - the seductive Pauline Viardot (“I feel the kind weight of your beloved hand on my head and am so happy with the knowledge that I belong to you that I could destroy myself in unceasing worship,” - lines from Turgenev's letter main woman his life).

However, the theater is not at all carried away by the fact that “Spring Waters” is autobiographical. The performance is generally free from any conceptual overload. However, this fast-paced and joyful performance makes you think about things that are not at all joyful: about the impoverishment of life, from which the likes of Dmitry Sanin and Marya Polozkov left. About the fact that “extra people” (the definition given by the author himself) turned out to be so irreplaceable. The fact that it turns out that “Turgenev’s youths” is as real a concept as Turgenev’s girls. Well, finally, about the fact that passing the “rendez-vous” exam is much more difficult than passing any duel or debate.

Vedomosti, November 30, 2011

Olga Fuks

What's great for a Russian?

New faces in the “Pyotr Fomenko Workshop”

The Pyotr Fomenko Workshop staged the play “Russian Man at Rendez-vous” (staged by Yuri Butorin under the direction of Evgeniy Kamenkovich). The faces in it are new, but the techniques have long been familiar.

Chernyshevsky placed the title “Russian man at rendez-vous” above “Reflections on reading Mr. Turgenev’s story “Asya”. The trainees of the “Pyotr Fomenko Workshop” borrowed this name for the staging of “Spring Waters”, written later by “Asia”: they probably just like it better that way.

The faces are all new (and came from different masters: some from the course of Oleg Kudryashov, others from Evgeniy Kamenkovich and Dmitry Krymov), and the generic signs of the “Workshop” are right there. Whisper, easy breathing, trills of a nightingale (more precisely, a finch performed by Dmitry Zakharov), plucking of guitar strings, a fresh breeze of a piano passage, meticulous work with intonations and accents of almost all of Europe (Serafima Ogareva was especially successful in this: she imitates an Italian speaking German in Russian , but breaks down in a fit of emotion in her native Italian). Several circus tricks and, of course, the famous psychological laces: “Fomenki” of any convocation know how to skillfully weave them, but they will never get entangled in them, they will accurately mark the distance between themselves and the stage “handicrafts”. They don't try to bring it into the role own experience

(although they play peers), but delicately emphasize: we, nothing can be done, are different.

This handcraft is also visible in the scenography. In an emphatic rejection of technical innovations and super-expensive machinery. Portals and columns are moved manually.

For example, under mountain slopes, crossbars are installed above the heads of spectators. The prose text is divided into roles and organized around the main character - the young Russian nobleman Dmitry Sanin: Fyodor Malyshev in this role is light and charming. The rest of the actors each have several opposite characters - a technique that is as theatrical as it is pedagogical: it requires precision of impersonation, acting flexibility, and has been tested more than once within the walls of the Workshop. This theater does not like didactics, but prefers the romantic ideal to everyday life: unlike today's tourists, a Russian abroad of the 19th century. - a tuning fork of nobility and dignity, and his

cardinal sin

- hypertrophied sensuality. It seems that the public comes to the Fomenko Workshop for a reminder of this almost lost human and acting breed.

NG, December 12, 2011

Grigory Zaslavsky

Not like in a fairy tale

Glinka’s romance is also sung in “Spring Waters”. Turgenev's plot is sad. The hero, sorting through some old papers, suddenly stumbles upon a garnet cross, and it, as in another case, closer in time to ours, pulls a blue cup along with it.

This whole story, which for Turgenev begins in Germany, in Frankfurt, from which in a few hours Sanin should already leave for Berlin, is played out at the "Fomenki" on their old stage, with that ease, at the same time - with grace, ingenuity and simplicity, which In the memory of many, of course, the performances of the very first generation of “Fomenki” are evoked. Ah, not always, as in those poems, the spring waters fly by forever. And here - not a mechanical repetition, not an attempt to open new locks and different prose with the same keys - no, everyone is alive, and the joy from their play is real. And when you look at the clock at the end and see that it’s already half past ten, you are left wondering: in our time, to spend so long in the theater for more than three hours and without getting bored and waiting for the denouement to happen!..

Evgeny Kamenkovich is called the director of the production, the idea and musical design belong to a group of trainees who are now acting themselves, that is, they tried for themselves. Not in vain. Prose easily transforms into direct speech, and the story “from the author”, “remarks” do not interfere with a deep and detailed experience of what is happening, the “one-touch” game does not prevent you from suddenly “diving” into the thick of what is happening and the events described, so that in the next moment - emerge and for some time glide along the surface of the European adventure of the Russian hero-traveler.

You catch yourself thinking: “Fomenki” know how to play in such a way that you get carried away by the story, like a child who suffers when he learns that the fairy tale, contrary to his expectations, does not end happy ending. So it is with “Spring Waters”: how can this be? Why does he leave this beautiful Italian girl who trusted him, he was ready to sell his estate, and so sincerely - Fyodor Malyshev (Sanin) plays him so sincerely, it’s impossible not to believe him. He went to the duel and wasn’t afraid. Although he was perplexed: “He fell asleep only in the morning.

Instantly, like that whirlwind, love came upon him.” And there's a stupid duel ahead! “What if they kill him or mutilate him?” However, it’s coming! And suddenly he is confused, destroyed by another passion for the wife of his school friend Polozov (Ekaterina Smirnova). Here is a short digression from the plot. Looking at the young actors, you see that in several cases the roles were given not only for growth, but with anticipation of the second and third winds that have not yet opened, forces that are probably still dormant in young talents. So it is clear that Smirnova most likely has these capabilities of a fatal heroine. And the reflective Sanin is already what Turgenev’s story needs. Many have, as is customary in such prose adaptations, to play two or many roles., although, releasing Sanin at the end of the day on a new distant journey, Turgenev gives him forgiveness: Gemma, who is living out her happy life in New York, finds something to say thank you for to her Russian friend. However, Turgenev is not clear either: he is at the end of his life, but it is absolutely clear that these 52 years of his life are already the end, he has neither strength nor feelings, he sits and “already taught by experience, after so many years - he is unable to do anything.” I could understand how he could leave Gemma, whom he loved so tenderly and passionately, for a woman whom he did not love at all?..” I would not leave.

Kommersant, December 15, 2011

Russian man on deja vu

Performance based on the story "Spring Waters" in the "Pyotr Fomenko Workshop"

The Pyotr Fomenko Workshop Theater played the premiere of the play "Russian Man at a Rendez-vous" based on Turgenev's "Spring Waters". Under the direction of Evgeniy Kamenkovich, the production was carried out by the young director Yuri Butorin, and the performance is also performed by very young artists - workshop interns. Narrated by ROMAN DOLZHANSKY.

When classics are staged, the age of the characters rarely coincides with the age of the performers: experienced artists often have to look younger, while beginners have to imitate life experience. The main characters of the play, based on Turgenev’s story “Spring Waters,” speak about their age—twenty-two—seemingly without any pressure, but the numbers ring especially loudly because the studio members themselves are hardly older. The performance is literally infused with that very vital energy that is so lacking in academic theaters

. At the play "Russian Man at Rendez-vous" you can easily imagine how fun they rehearsed the play, how much they joked, how joyfully they came up with certain tricks - there were probably more of them, too many, and only the hand of the master, director and teacher Evgeniy Kamenkovich brought there is a required order in the performance. As the title of the performance, the studio members took the title of Chernyshevsky’s famous article, which was written by the fierce publicist, however, after reading a completely different story by Turgenev. However, young actors have nothing to do with Chernyshevsky’s social pathos. Just as they don’t care much about the important circumstance that all of “Spring Waters” are the memoirs of a middle-aged man who remembers how thirty years ago, while traveling around Europe, he fell in love with a girl, the daughter of an Italian pastry chef, but then, trying to get money for a wedding , became interested in another, his friend’s wife, and remembered about that love only now, realizing that he himself ended up with. In Turgenev's story, the sadness of fading is mixed with the tension of forgotten feelings - with those very “spring waters”. In the play "Fomenko Workshop" there are neither spring waters nor sadness, but there is the joy of stage acting.

The transformation of an aging hero into a young one is only the first of the game's nice metamorphoses.

Young people try not to miss anything, every bast into a line, or rather, every second line of Turgenev is transformed into some kind of stage “bast”. Both the statue that Sanin sees and Goethe, whose house he enters, come to life. And the Italian family into which he ends up turns into an inexhaustible well of gags - they speak in chorus, quarrel deliciously, slam doors, enjoy the Italian language. Other characters "enjoy" the German language. They even enjoy the duel scene, let alone the episode when Sanin and his new hobby, Maria Polozova, go to the theater. Everyone, except Fyodor Malyshev (Sanin), plays several roles, happily changing their appearance, however, not so much as to remain unrecognized.

It seems that a small stage (the play is performed in the old Workshop room, but thanks to the artist Vladimir Maximov, the uncomfortable space is very cleverly folded and unfolded into different places of action) is not enough for the entire invented game. With his first love, Sanin hangs in the air, in the doorway, with his second, he flies on ropes and presses himself on a narrow bridge hanging directly above the heads of the audience. It seems that the actors are simply bursting with pranks and that the performance itself always wants to take off like a balloon. There is no need to talk for long about the fact that “Fomenko’s Workshop” has its own special style - pretty and charming, reminiscent of a romantic walk through the autumn forest with leaves rustling underfoot. Some of the spectators have become quite tired of this style and seem to have exhausted themselves, others would give up all the other theatrical joys in the world for it - they come to the “Workshop” to take a break from dangers and surprises. It is important that the next “rendezvous” does not disappoint their expectations. Based on the story “Spring Waters” by I. Turgenev, duration: 2 hours 40 minutes with 1 intermission,
premiere October 21, 2011

Ticket prices range from 100 to 5000 rubles.
Author - Ivan Turgenev Idea and musical design - Dmitry Zakharov,, Serafima Ogareva Ekaterina Smirnova
, Artyom Tsukanov
Teacher - Yuri Butorin
Artist - Vladimir Maksimov
Lighting designer - Vladislav Frolov
Artistic selection of costumes - Valeria Kurochkina
Make-up - Anna Meleshko, Larisa Gerasimchuk, Svetlana Guguchkina, Marina Mikhalochkina, Victoria Starikova
Assistant director - Elena Lukyanchikova
Music teacher - Marina Raku
Speech teacher - Vera Kamyshnikova
Teacher Italian language- Monica Santoro
Editor - Maria Kozyar

Available subtitles

Upcoming execution dates

A young man walks carefree unfamiliar city, walks without looking back, meanders, often turns “wrong” - but, it seems, this does not entail any consequences. Life spins around him, at first like a colored carousel, a round dance of theatrical masks, deafening with multilingual chatter, and he has no strength to stop, to come to his senses. “Well, now life has turned around! And it’s so spinning that my head is spinning...” is all Dmitry Sanin has time to exhale.

The Russian person is weak and inert, the Russian person is at rendez-vous with life, in a situation where his own fate is being decided, is not able to make decisions, is not able to take an independent step. He just floats with the flow, looking around, not looking back, but not trying to see what awaits him ahead. This is how N. Chernyshevsky formulates in his famous article, after the title of which the play “Pyotr Fomenko’s Workshop” is named, the terrible diagnosis that Turgenev makes to Russian society.

The second generation of interns took up work on Ivan Turgenev’s story “Spring Waters” at the suggestion of Pyotr Naumovich Fomenko. Gradually, a performance grew from the excerpts shown at the traditional “Trial and Error Evenings”. The director of the production was Evgeniy Borisovich Kamenkovich. Working on the play was definitely a rewarding experience for the trainees, “ difficult experience“- not only professional, but also internal, human. The young actors misbehave and fool around, “playing theatre” with all their hearts, but this mischief only further accentuates the bitter thoughts about man. And yet there is such a ringing, infectious youth in this performance - you involuntarily succumb to its charm and want to believe that this young force will be able to somehow preserve itself in the “big water” of life.

Music in the performance: Bayrischer Landler (Bavarian Waltz), Yma Sumak Tumpa (Earthquacke), Rene Aubry Dare-dard, A. Alyabyev. “String Quartet No. 1 Es-dur, I. Allegro con spirito”, excerpts from G. Donizetti’s opera “Elisir of Love”, G. Rossini’s “Othello”, C. Weber’s opera “The Magic Shooter” and G. Purcell’s opera “Dido and Aeneas,” romances “Sarafan” (A. Varlamov, N. Tsyganov), “I Remember a Wonderful Moment” (M. Glinka, A. Pushkin), “The Night is Bright” (N. Shishkin, M. Yazykov), Italian folk songs , Russian folk song"On a dirty week"

ATTENTION! During the performance, performing the creative tasks set by the director and the author's remarks, the actors smoke on stage, and a smoke machine is used to create various stage effects. Please take this information into account when planning a visit to this performance.

In “Russian Man at Rendez-vous” there are all new faces, there is neither the first nor the second generation of “Fomenki”, and the performance itself based on Turgenev’s “Spring Waters” grew out of sketches of the new - second in a row - set of trainee group at the theater. However, seriously and for a long time, the printed program on durable cardboard and the very first minutes of the performance dispel possible doubts: this is “the same theater”, this is “Fomenki”. Their recognizable style, manner, spirit of playing, born from the spirit of music.
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This whole story, which for Turgenev begins in Germany, in Frankfurt, from which in a few hours Sanin should already leave for Berlin, is played out at the "Fomenki" on their old stage, with that ease, at the same time - with grace, ingenuity and simplicity, which In the memory of many, of course, the performances of the very first generation of “Fomenki” are evoked. Ah, not always, as in those poems, spring waters fly by forever. And here - not a mechanical repetition, not an attempt to open new locks and different prose with the same keys - no, everyone is alive, and the joy from their play is real. And when you look at the clock at the end and see that it’s already half past ten, you are left wondering: in our time, to spend so long in the theater for more than three hours and without getting bored and waiting for the denouement to happen!..
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You catch yourself thinking: “Fomenki” know how to play in such a way that you are carried away by the story, like a child who suffers when he learns that the fairy tale, contrary to his expectations, does not end with a happy ending. Grigory Zaslavsky, " Independent newspaper“In the play “The Workshop,” both Turgenev’s restless hero and the fatal summer of 1840 for him are seen through sympathetic and understanding eyes. The loving intonation of the story, slightly tinged with irony, the precisely found distance with the author and the audience - all these signature “skills” of the Fomenka actors are presented in the performance.
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It seems that the tuning fork of the production was Polozova’s words about Sanin: “But this is lovely! This is a miracle! I already believed that there were no more young people like you in the world.” Young people capable of living by love alone, and for the sake of it instantly abandoning all other plans and goals, were considered a rarity in Turgenev’s time, but now they have completely disappeared. Olga Egoshina, Novye Izvestia The performance is literally infused with that very vital energy that is so lacking in academic theaters. At the play “Russian Man at Rendez-vous” you can easily imagine how fun they were rehearsing the play, how much they joked, how joyfully they came up with certain tricks.
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It seems that a small stage (the play is performed in the old Workshop premises, but thanks to the artist Vladimir Maksimov, the uncomfortable space is very cleverly folded and unfolded into different places of action) is not enough for the entire invented game. With his first love, Sanin hangs in the air, in the doorway, with his second, he flies on ropes and presses himself on a narrow bridge hanging directly above the heads of the audience. It seems that the actors are simply bursting with pranks and that the performance itself always wants to take off like a balloon. Roman Dolzhansky, “Kommersant” But the story of a 22-year-old Tula landowner, who passionately fell in love with the Italian Gemma in Frankfurt, was ready to fight a duel over her, was ready to sell his estate and stand behind the counter of a pastry shop, the story of a great love that absurdly collapsed a week later when Sanina seduced bored on the waters, unable to restrain herself, the millionaire lady Mary Nikolaevna... the love story that Sanin could not forget all his life is played with jeweler's precision.
Everything came to life: morocco bindings and silver shandales, babbling about Goethe and Garibaldi, early morning in the city garden, a gray mantilla and a garnet cross, given backhand by a Catholic woman to the Orthodox groom: “If I am yours, so is your faith - my faith!” Even Pushkin came to life! How can Sanin go to a duel without a couple of stanzas of Onegin?! Elena Dyakova, Novaya Gazeta