29 March 2024

Friday, 01:38

THE 25-YEAR-OLD THEATRE OF A MAN

On his birthday, the actors of the State Pantomime Theatre took an oath to serve the art of the present always

Author:

01.06.2019

It has been a while since the Baku Theatre for Young Spectators had such a large crowd of people in front of it. But this May evening, everything looked like in the good old days, when the members of all theatres could come to visit each other on the days of premiere performances or a test performance, which is the first performance before the premiere for fellow actors, relatives and friends. This good ol' tradition is lost today. So, it's good that there are anniversaries that allow us to get together and enjoy the success of our colleagues. That evening they congratulated the State Theatre of Pantomime, which turned 25 years old! Congratulations where the creative and professional activities of the team began in the Youth Theatre. The Minister of Culture of Azerbaijan, Abulfaz Garayev, in his welcoming speech said that the Pantomime Theatre over the years has managed to fit into the general context of modern art not only in our country, but also abroad.

 

History and Founder

Pantomime Theatre was created in 1994 by Bakhtiyar Khanizadeh as a pantomime studio called Bunch of Madmen under the auspices of the Theatre of Young Spectators. In 2000, the studio received a title of a state theatre, and in 2005 — its own premises in the building of the former Shafag Cinema. Since 1996, the team has been actively touring visiting twelve countries around the world. During this time, the team has staged over 50 performances; more than 50 people - students of the University of Culture and Arts took the necessary skills under the leadership of Bakhtiyar Khanizadeh, which allowed them to master their skills and find their own path in the culture and art of Azerbaijan.

Bakhtiyar Khanizadeh is a veteran actor who does not need an introduction: a theatre and cinema actor, People's Artist of Azerbaijan, associate professor at the University of Culture and Arts, film director and theatre artistic director, and the creator of a unique phenomenon: the Pantomime Theatre. In 1978, he graduated from the Azerbaijan State Institute of Arts. Then he worked in the Ganja State Drama Theatre, then in the educational Theatre of the Institute of Arts and J. Jabbarly Film Studio. He has been teaching since 1983. In 1987, he graduated from the Leningrad Institute of Theatre of Music and Cinematography. Author of several books on acting and libretto of theatrical productions, Bakhtiyar was awarded a title of the Ministry of Culture, Honorary Worker of Culture.

 

About repertoire

The repertoire of the Theatre includes performances based on literary works of world classics, national epics, author’s libretto by the artistic director and the actors of the theatre.

 

Teacher and students

For two hours on the Theatre stage, to the applause of the audience, they appeared, replacing each other, the actors, graduates of the Bakhtiyar Khanizadeh school of acting. Nevertheless, they were all actors on that day. Actors standing next to their teacher and master, who first appeared on the stage to play his own role - the role of Bakhtiyar Khanizadeh: artistic director and mentor.

 

In the beginning was...

Neither a word nor an action, but a thought that became the dream of actor Bakhtiyar Khanizadeh. A dream came true. This is how the performance begins: a Woman in orange clothes holding a Tree in her right hand sits in the lotus position on the empty stage. The tree is dry. There is not a single leaf on it. Lack of Life. The absence of a higher Idea. The Holy Void seemed frozen in anticipation. What? On the other side of the Tree is a Thinking Man. He is in search of an Idea that can liven up space by filling the void with Creativity. This is Bakhtiyar. Finally, the Idea, as a revelation from above, descends upon the Thinking Man, and he, clothed in khirka (the clothing of Sufi-dervishes), sets out on the Path. But, as we know, only the slow and steady win the race! And on this Path, four more people join him, ready to accept the Idea and carry it like a khirka on their shoulders for the rest of their days.

 

From the memoirs of Bakhtiyar Khanizadeh

“There were four of them, and they were the first - Rovshan Isakh, Siyavush Huseynli, Asad Ismayilov and Elman Rafiyev. They believed in me and followed me. We did not know then what was waiting for us ahead; we did not think about it. We thought only about creativity, about the great Idea of ​​great Art and believed that only the path of honest, confessional service to the chosen profession can fill our lives with meaning: today, tomorrow and forever. Drummers was our first performance that we performed at one of the festivals. It is still in our repertoire, but performed by other actors. Then came the other guys. There are more of us. Life goes on…"

Khirka is not just a semiotic sign of the Sufi dervishes. This is a sign of belonging to the highest spiritual caste. In the play, it means belonging to a caste of people professing real, genuine Art, and not a replacement, installation imposed by the culture of the streets and underground. In this battle for “real and authentic,” and not for a replacement, the veteran actors of the Pantomime Theatre and those who enter the Theatre today will perform. They carry khirka on their shoulders, which connects the ideals of the past with the ideals of the present. Those who, in spite of everything, will remain in eternity - love, kindness, compassion, moral purity, traditional relations of the sexes, the cult of the Woman: mothers, sisters, beloved.

Then the characters find in the old suitcase the 25th volume (in the 1989 edition there are only 9 volumes!) of the legendary Konstantin Stanislavsky, who is performed by People’s Artist of Azerbaijan Ramiz Hasanoghlu. He is reading aloud a newspaper called “World Culture News”: “News from Broadway, Chekhov Festival,.. Hmm, Mingachevir Theatre is 90 years old… Pantomime Theatre is 25 years old”. Certainly, Mr. Stanislavsky could not help but respond to the latter and presented the team with a bilateral miracle robe in green and pink flowers. Bathrobe with magical properties! It turned out that if you say the spell, then the green colour of the robe will transfer to the past, and pink - to the future. Then the veteran actors of Bakhtiyar Khanizadeh's Theatre, whom his character Khudruk provokes to constant creativity, training and work on himself, take Stanislavsky to a time travel. Here they are, at the beginning of the Theatre, then - in the period of its status definition. And today. In the course of these flashbacks, the audience can see a beautiful duet of girls who performed in the purest Russian language an unpretentious song to the lyrics by Pavel Gandelman "In Cape Town Port". And the audience will understand that, in the context of the action, this text is not really about sailors stepping from ship to shore, but about Art people who rushed to search for lost ideas and meanings, wandering through the back streets of false truths, looking for their own way and only. Then the magic dressing gown will transfer them, and at the same time and us, to the future. There, the People of the Future will talk about the Theatre, in which neither women, nor animation, nor the search for meaning are needed, because the meaning will fit into primitive things and objects that do not require rethinking. The Theatre of the Future is the Theatre of Primitive, the Theatre of Emasculated Thought, leading to intellectual degeneration, the destruction of Love, as the highest gift of heaven to Humanity. And the actors of the Pantomime Theatre, who saw such a Theatre in the future, are returning to the present today, giving themselves an oath not to allow the degeneration of the Theatre as an art form, as a means for moral and philosophical dialogue between actors and spectators.

 

Memorandum

Invented, staged and performed by Bakhtiyar Khanizadeh, the proclamation performance, memorandum is made so that everyone could look at and analyse their lives from a side and rethink that Art is not patient to vanity and hypocrisy. We live in the times of substitution. We are witnessing how the mass culture of the streets, breaking into the stage, destroys the ideals of past achievements. It has become fashionable to reject and blame the past as a relic of old times. By the way, those who have never read and do not know about the achievements of Stanislavsky, Mayerhold, Piskator, Turabov, Barro, Cartel of Four, Mehdi Mammadov, etc. shout loudest about it. They shout about it because they are afraid to be exposed in their own ignorance and arrogance, presenting lack of taste and professional helplessness as a new word in art, when in fact it is not Art either. But there is a strong desire for being classy, behind which is the powerful destructive force of the imposed superficial ideals, which is a product of underground scene and street flash-mob currently on stage. It is good that the aesthetic ideals of the Pantomime Theatre oppose this, without changing their humanistic views, without changing the philosophy of Theatre for People.

Bakhtiyar Khanizadeh: “Art must educate, including morally. Theatre was born to speak with a man about him. About a human. Theatre is a form of art that can help a person take the path of self-knowledge. Theatre is like a faith that you choose once and for all. Therefore, I do not welcome the desire of actors to work in several theatres at once. Because each theatre has its own aesthetic platform, its own way, its own direction and its own audience. Aesthetics from abroad does not give anything good. On the contrary, brought in from the outside, it destroys. You can make a movie. This process is temporary. Theatre is constant. Therefore, I suggest that actors choose what is closer to them. Pantomime or drama, it's up to them to choose. So simple.”

Bakhtiyar was honest with us. In fact, everything is transparent for him: production ideas, aesthetics of theatre, microclimate in the team, where everyone adheres to these unshakable rules; where the 20th century directing practices are not thrown into a trash bin, aesthetic views of the classics are the essence of the Ideas of Art, where the law of sacrificial love for the chosen work comes first, and the formula “Bless you or go away!” is not mocked or replaced by a more pragmatic one: “All for the sake of money and for the sake of cash!” Therefore, in the finale of the performance, when Tree and Woman reappear, like Mother Earth, as the Progenitress of authentic Art, Bakhtiyar comes out and hangs big green living leaves on the branches. First, second, third, fourth... Then the actors come out and do the same. Now the tree is covered with a lush crown of vibrant green. Art is alive. And the Theatre is alive, whatever those who destroy it by thoughtlessness and lack of education or indifferent connivance say or do.



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