WHAT WAS HIDDEN AT THE RUSSIAN DRAMA THEATRE?

An ironic proverb compared refurbishment and relocation to a fire, because even when you simply refurbish your flat, so many things come up - problems and things that were lost a long time ago… When you move out, there are too many problems as well, but instead things start getting lost. And when it is total refurbishment and when it is a theatre, not a flat, that is being relocated, in this case, these two "calamities" create loads of interesting situations. And it is the "home front" that gets the first blow - the administration of the theatre that works almost in an emergency regime in these cases.

To all four corners

Almost five major theatres of our country are being totally refurbished by the state. Of course, this is great, although it inevitably causes temporary inconvenience. But for journalists this period is also interesting because theatre now starts not from the wardrobe and not even from behind the scenes, but from the storeroom, for example, or from the accountant's office, or the director's office. It turns out that unblinking bureaucratic documents "from behind the scenes" can be no less interesting than emotional interviews with actors and producers.

So let's enter a theatre from the back entrance and see what it is like from inside and what people are doing if their professions sound so tedious - "director", "administrator" and so on. And let's do it on the example of the Russian Drama Theatre which staged its last performance in its old premises last November. Now this building with unique architecture is being completely renovated - after the refurbishment it will not just get a fresh appearance, but also brand new and modern "stuffing" - from the interior and purely theatrical machinery to an air conditioning system. Its inhabitants are experiencing the same temporary difficulties for the time being…

The relocation has literally thrown the Russian Drama Theatre "to all four corners". Its archive and library, which weigh five tonnes (!), have been temporarily placed at "Axundovka" - the largest library of the country. Its assembly, costume, property and make-up rooms have settled at the cultural centre of the capital's Xatai district. The administration, accountant's office, the human resources department and the settings office (properties and decorations room, as well as the sewing room) have had more difficulties (in terms of transport) - they were placed in specially rented premises on the outskirts of the city - in the settlement of Bakixanov (formerly Razin).

The management and staff of the Russian Drama Theatre are temporarily "living" at the culture house of Caspian sailors - KASPAR has lent the theatre its club with a wonderful stage in the city centre. With such a generous gesture, the shipping company supported the theatre so that it does not lose its fans - any theatre, no matter what it is, should be located in the city centre. Offices in the culture house - make-up rooms, other rooms and the corridor underneath the stage - were specially refurbished for the Russian Drama Theatre. The "sound" and "light" equipment in the new place had to be mounted differently - the stage at the club is smaller than the one at the theatre.

An extra-ticket to the first row

The audience did not immediately get used to the new place, but things gradually got better. Does it matter if you get used to it or not, tickets are bought in advance, you would say? It turned out that this is not quite right: No more than 50 tickets are sold one month before the performance, because most of the viewers buy tickets literally 15 minutes before the performance (of course, we are not talking about a premiere, complimentary tickets there are worth their weight in gold) - people just walk around in Torgovaya, pass by the theatre, see a poster and approach the ticket office to spend their evening in a cultural atmosphere. The funniest thing is that in this case, you have a chance to take the best seats in the hall - the first row is always "reserved" for visiting VIP persons from ministries and so on. Tickets for these seats are put on sale no earlier than half an hour before the performance. It is quite paradoxical…

The director of the theatre, Marat Ibrahimov, assured us that the theatre's pricing policy will not change in the near future although it is almost unprofitable: "No-one can provide a recipe on how to attract viewers, but it is clear that ticket prices are very important. "Tabakerka", for example, has been working without tickets for many years so that people, as it were, "blaze the trail". The same happened in our country as well - for example, Yug did the same in the first five years of its existence. We do not increase ticket prices, although they are ridiculous: one manat for a children's performance and two manats for adults. And we do not have price gradation for prestigious and comfortable seats in the hall."

The director recalled that he and the administrator of the theatre, Ilham Mammadov, invented methods of spreading their tickets in the difficult 1990s - for example, they handed out fliers on children's performances near schools and among parents. There were opposite cases as well - when, on the contrary, they had to hold back a crowd at the entrance to the theatre, especially during premieres (the hall is not dimensionless!). It turns out that arts require sacrifices not only from actors, but also from the administrative staff. For example, once ladies from the first rows of a crowd trying to get into the theatre managed to tear to pieces Ilham Mammadov's leather jacket as he tried to stop them (he had been saving money for a long time and had bought it a few days before that ill-starred premiere).

Nevertheless, even such a poor theatre as the RDT had something to share with their colleagues. The thing is that the long-awaited refurbishment will give the theatre new equipment and other property. But since the old and worn-out equipment is still usable, it was handed over by the Russian Drama Theatre to various institutions of culture and arts free of charge (various instruments, including several pianos, ballet training aids, decorations and other special stuff). The residual cost of all this equipment is about 11,000 manats. Among the institutions that received "humanitarian aid" from the Russian Drama Theatre are the Azerbaijani Union of Theatre Artists, the Nizami Poetry Theatre of Ganca, the Sumqayit Music and Drama Theatre, the Xizi district music school, Iravan Drama Theatre and so on.

Surprise from the archive

As we said, a specific feature of any refurbishment is that old things which seemed to have been lost such a long time ago that people forgot about them suddenly surface. The Russian Drama Theatre has the same problem. Before sending the archive of the theatre to "Axundovka" for temporary storage, it was totally sorted out. As a result, many interesting documents were found, including 37 manuscripts by the Azerbaijani composers - Qara Qarayev, Fikrat Amirov, Tofiq Quliyev, Xayyam Mirzazada, Aqsin Alizada, Sultan Hacibayov, Leonid Weinstein and so on. Not all these works are valuable from a purely musical point of view. Most of them are small specific pieces that future masters - the then beginners - had created for performances at the Russian Drama Theatre. But at the same time, these manuscripts are valuable for us like the autographs of people who became a legend of Azerbaijani music in the second half of the last century. The Russian Drama Theatre handed over all these works to the Music Culture Museum free of charge.

So relocation and refurbishment are difficult, but useful. We've got to hand it to the RDT - it got used to the new realities really quickly. In the middle of January this year, the first performance was staged in the new place - at the culture house of sailors, and since then its walls have seen more than 50 performances by the RDT. The theatre expects new premieres, and the first one will be the performance "My wife's name is Maurice" based on a play by R. Shart (directed by Irana Tagizada). This producer also plans to stage the children's fairy tale "Morozko" based on a play by I. Tokmakova. Boris Lukinskiy will present the viewers with his premiere after the summer break in September - "The lie detector" (V. Sigarev). The main producer of the theatre, Aleksandr Sharovskiy, has planned two performances for this year - "Butterflies are Free" (L. Gersh) will be shown in June while the other one - "Leaving nature" - based on a play by Cingiz Abdullayev - in November. In a word, the theatre lives and will live.