BRAVO, THE VAKHTANGOV THEATRE!

Just before the opening of the 99th theatrical season, the Yevgeny Vakhtangov Theatre of Russia made a guest performance in Azerbaijan as part of the M.A.P. International Theatre Festival and as a foreign guest of the Big Tours programme organised by the Federal Centre for Support of Russian-Speaking Theatres in CIS and Baltic Countries (Russia). The programme of the theatre included Eugene Onegin staged by Rimas Tuminas on the stage of the Azerbaijan State Academic Musical Theatre, as well as two performances (Crawfish Cry and Medea) staged by Mikhail Tsitrynyak on the stage of the Samed Vurgun Russian Drama Theatre. The Russian team included Sergey Makovetsky, Alexei Guskov, Lyudmila Maksakova, Irina Kupchenko, Yulia Rutberg, Olga Lerman, Leonid Bichevin and others. The performances were in Russian with Azerbaijani subtitles.

Eugene Onegin

The genre of the play is a scene from the eponymous verse novel by Alexander Pushkin. But how can one adapt such a huge work to stage? Only the daring thought of a director like Rimas Tuminas could create something like that! 'Scenes from the novel' is a proof that Pushkin's famous heroes are still alive. This is a sort of unobtrusive proposal by the director to the audience: do not wait any longer but live your life today, here and now! You can, of course, play with your life endlessly but who will be the loser? And can everything be perceived as an encouraging reality?

In Tuminas's play, reality around Onegin is constantly moving and changing gradually turning into a distorted space. Where is the truth and where is the lie? The truth is somewhere between reality and its distorted image. But the protagonist does not even try to find it swimming in the course of life and entertaining himself with a game of life. The mirror backdrop in this performance is not a technical device to reveal director's thoughts, rather a character named Time. It is ruthless to Eugene and his memories. Onegin, by the will of the author of the play, is a narrator on behalf of the author, and a participant in the events of his own life. The hero of Makovetsky, remembering his life, as if living it anew, discovers in awe that playing with his "life" he stole his own reality. And the most real character in his fate was Tatyana, who is now "given to another and..."; Vladimir Lensky, who was shot by him, who, like an eternal reproach and a reminder of a grave sin (“there’s a lot of evil in the conscience of a tired man!”), appears in the performance both as a cheerful young man and a mature man, although the author, Onegin-Makovetsky, killed him in a duello. But it is precisely in Onegin’s view that Lensky could become if he remained to live. The phenomenon of a mature Lensky is not only the sick conscience of the aged Onegin. Such a staging move would be too simplistic for a director like Tuminas. The appearance of Lensky in the form in which Onegin represents him is the recognition of sin and the acceptance of punishment by total loneliness. Indeed, in fact, Eugene for the rest of his life never met a man whom he could call Friend. It is unlikely that between the Prince, whom the Author calls the friend of Onegin, and Lensky, we can put an equal sign. Eugene did not meet the Woman whom he could call the Beloved, because he had killed Love. He killed in the bud, when with his sixth sense he suddenly realized that he LOVED this village girl, that he managed to discern in her those character traits that his heart had responded to. And the director builds the mise-en-scene of Olga’s “seduction” on Tatiana’s birthday so that it becomes clear: Onegin is a player. But in this case, it is not the player’s excitement that pushes him to those actions and actions with which he offends the feelings of all those present on Tatyana’s name days, but Fear. Fear of losing yourself and your freedom, falling into dependence on a feeling of love. And, as if guessing that he was committing something sinful, the Author Onegin will try to justify himself with the Pushkin line: “Who should you believe? Whom to love? "And he will answer, with confidence and knowledge:" Love yourself! "

Russian roulette

Putting blame on circumstances is one of the methods that Onegin uses to defend himself. (Is it not a completely modern interpretation of the problem?) And so he plays with the feelings of Tatyana, whom he liked. He plays with the feelings of his friend, not realizing that in fact he is playing a Russian roulette that will drive him into a corner. And the bullet fired in Lensky literally but hitting Tatyana’s heart figuratively will hit his own heart after many years.

But for now Eugene (Leonid Bichevin) enjoys ruthlessly and arrogantly his power over the confused Olga, who is freezing with a sense of jealousy of Tatyana and the humiliating attitude of Onegin towards Lensky. He did everything to cut off his own path to Tatyana being sure that his friend Vladimir would challenge him to a duello. And the Author - Onegin (Sergey Makovetsky), “looking through” his past life, looks at this scene with sadness of an old man and only now understands the reason. At that time he did not need such a burden of responsibility as Love. He was a secular, such a metropolitan and handsome guy! What if a brighter prospect awaited him ahead? Would he need this rural girl with her feelings? One could call Onegin a swanky if not his innate nobility, which did not allow him taking advantage of Tanya's love. A socialite would never have missed such a chance. And now, in the end of this story, after three years, Onegin, outcast and defeated by the refusal of the married Tatyana, suddenly realizes with tragic clarity that he lost his Life. His life was not at the card table in the casino or at restaurants. He burned his life in anticipation of something that Eugene himself had a vague idea. Did he think that his trumpery lifestyle was a reality? No. Onegin is neither a poet nor a romantic. He is a child of his pragmatic time: moderately rational, moderately cynical, moderately cold, moderately cautious. But Rimas Tuminas does not give a slightest chance to the hero of Pushkin and the character of Makovetsky to justify themselves by blaming Time for their own bankruptcy. That would be too easy. Time has its own laws. Always. And it is ruthless to those who do not know how to appreciate its linear focus. The director brings the audience to the line of self-knowledge of the hero, who was able to find a criminal in himself. He understands that he had committed a crime no less serious than the murder of his own Friend. He killed his Love. One of the grave sins of mankind, a spiritual crime, a sin that cannot be atone for. Punishment is spiritual loneliness, spiritual emptiness and loss of the meaning of earthly existence. Real life turned out to be colder than Onegin. It punished him and, playing Russian roulette, left to live with a “bullet” in his heart.

Deep meaning

In fact, it was a revelation, a legendary play, which revived an interest in imperishable classics and convinced the audience that the problems of human in a society are as relevant as they had been before. Some may think that Tatyana Larina is the main character of the story now retold by the director on the stage. But it only seems so. Meticulously drawn mise-en-scene and the details of interplay between the characters, whose relations gradually develop in one of the Russian provincial towns, indicate the opposite. We are invited to listen to the story through the ears of the Author - Onegin – Makovetsky. Together we analyse the chain of events rethinking the past. And quite naturally Tatyana Larina (excellently performed by Olga Lerman) becomes the focal point of this thought process! She is the only one whom our hero directs his feelings and thoughts. She is the centre of attraction and, by today's standards of cynical time, a moral phenomenon. Can you imagine anyone in these days, when everything is drowned in the fashionable trends of moral substitutions, who can resist a temptation to love and be loved and nevertheless reject the beloved one with the words "I have been given to another and will be faithful to him forever"? Tatyana of Pushkin and Tatyana of Tuminas is the moral ideal of a Woman, which everyone is dreaming about but not everyone can hold. Alas. So, it turns out that life is nothing but a dance with a bear from Tatyana's chimerical dream, which became a prototype of her destiny. Apart from mirrors that control the physical space of the hero, the director uses snow. White, flying, soaring, twisting into spirals, it creates a feeling of cleanliness and cold, emphasizing the idea that cold, whatever it is, climatic or spiritual, can empty any space turning it into a lifeless one. And Onegin’s soul is like a snowy space. It is cold and empty, as in a snowy field on a winter snowy day...

Double 100th Anniversary and Significance

The Samed Vurgun Academic Russian Drama Theatre, which opened the 99th theatrical season in September 2019, will turn 100 years old in December 2020! And the centenary of the Yevgeny Vakhtangov Theatre will be in November 2021. Theatres are almost the same age, but their fates are different. Nevertheless, despite the biographical and historical background of the theatres, the main thing is that the Vakhtangov Theatre is well known and loved in Baku. It has toured in Baku back in the Soviet times, and in the critical period of our common history, as well as in the post-Soviet era. The creativity of actors was well known and loved by our national leader Heydar Aliyev. Prominent Russian actor Vasily Lanovoi, who had repeatedly visited Baku with performances and retained fond memories of his meeting with a legendary and extraordinary person, told us the following:

From an interview with the actor, People's Artist of the USSR Vasily Lanovoy, to Azerbaijani media: “We met Heydar Aliyev during one of the tours of the Yevgeny Vakhtangov Theatre. We stayed in Baku for about a week. I keep good memories of our communication with such an intelligent person. All the actors immediately felt this and took an active part in conversations.” In June 2011, Vasily Lanovoi performed on the stage of the Russian Drama Theatre again as one of the characters of Dedication to Eve based on Mysterious Variations by E. E. Schmitt. And now the Vakhtangov team is in Baku again.

Actress Julia Rutberg was awarded the Crystal Turandot Prize for the title role of Medea. Iason is played by Grigory Antipenko. In Crawfish Cry about Sarah Bernhardt, the partner of the actress was Andrei Ilyin. If earlier the Baku audience had known these popular actors only from their works in the cinema, now they can evaluate their professionalism on the stage.

All three performances were a kind of prologue to the upcoming 3rd International Theatre Festival scheduled for October 10-20 in Baku. Moreover, one of them has its own background narrated by Anton Prokhorov, General Director of the Federal Centre for Support of Russian-Speaking Theatres in CIS and Baltic Countries, at a press conference in November 2016. First Lady of Azerbaijan Mehriban Aliyeva was at the performance Eugene Onegin at the Vakhtangov Theatre, which she enjoyed a lot. "We had an opportunity to talk behind the scenes. And we came up with an idea to make a similar performance in Baku." Three years later the idea of Mehriban Aliyeva, now the First ​​Vice President of Azerbaijan, came to life. Thanks to this opportunity, the Bakuvites now can enjoy watching a truly cult performance in Baku!