FOR THE DISCERNING TASTE OF THE ST. PETERSBURG AUDIENCE

The team of the Russian Drama Theatre, which took part in the 18th theatre festival of CIS and Baltic countries dubbed "Meetings in Russia", has returned from St. Petersburg. After a seven-year break, the team performed Anna Potapova's production based on Calderon's play "Love is not a joke" for the St. Petersburg spectators and experts in modern theatrical art. The format of the festival this year was a little smaller than usual and was attended not by 15 theatres, but only by seven - from Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Russia and Estonia (the theatre from Uzbekistan did not turn up). However, the programme of the festival was tighter due to a master class on elocution for young theatre actors, as well as a number of other important events. These are conferences for representatives of the St. Petersburg mass media, the installation of a memorial plaque to A. G. Tovstonogov, meetings with Russian Deputy Minister of Culture and Tourism Aleksander Zhuravskiy, meetings in the Parliamentary Assembly, a "round table" in the Karelian living room of the Actors' House attended by representatives of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism of the Russian Federation, the Union of Theatrical Figures of Russia, CIS Interparliamentary Assembly Secretary for Culture Konstantin Pshenko, Russian State Duma deputy Yelena Drapeko and daily presentations of theatres participating in the festival.

Tourism and Culture

The Russian Drama Theatre decided that if Russia and Azerbaijan are developing their relations not only in the sphere of culture, but also tourism, then it would be logical to introduce a video that presents the history of the theatre as part of national theatre culture. This video also shows the attractiveness of the tourist routes of the country, which has nine climatic zones and an incredible amount of architectural monuments and national crafts. Then the theatre's chief director Aleksandr Sharovskiy addressed the St. Petersburg audience who had come to the presentation from the video screen with a welcome speech and a story about multiculturalism in Azerbaijan. The dialogue between the Baku theatre and the St. Petersburg audience turned out to be confidential and interesting. Listeners asked questions about the theatre, as well as about the Azerbaijani sanatorium Naftalan, which is popular among Russians. Two minutes before the start of the performance, the participants in this dialogue rushed into the auditorium of the Small Stage of the Baltic House Theatre. The hall was packed. The organizers even had to put extra chairs in both aisles. It was especially pleasing to the Baku delegation that among the audience was Deputy Secretary General of the CIS IPA Council - the representative of the Azerbaijani parliament, Aydin Cafarov, who always pays attention to the activities of the theatre.

Professionally interesting

Then, the group of experts represented by theatre critics from Moscow, St. Petersburg and Estonia analyzed the performance and recognized that despite some directorial shortcomings, theatre actors Oleg Amirbayov, Yegana Huseynli, Maria Dubovitskaya, Natavan Haciyeva, Maqsud Mam-madov, Murad Mammadov and Tima Rahimov are professionally interesting, emotionally compelling, beautiful and attractive. The last statement was unexpected since such evaluations had never been heard before. The experts also wondered whether the theatre had young actors and how many, asking them to come to the festival next year, but with a young and expanded team. They want to understand how high the professional potential of all young members of the troupe at the age of 25 to 35 years is.

Evaluation of the organizers

However, the final chord of the festival was the presentation of diplomas to our actors Murad Mammadov and Yegana Huseynli, who learned during the festival to understand the beauty of the culture and art of St. Petersburg not from the glamorous facade but from inside; comprehend the wisdom of the poetic lines of Akhmatova and Brodskiy; move around the city and take part in filming in the most unexpected places - basements, roofs, doorways, hidden courtyards, etc. The St. Petersburg of Dostoevsky, Andrey Beliy, Blok, Meyerhold and Vera Komissarzhevskaya appeared before their eyes, plunging them into the historical past - attractive and exciting. The words of the artistic director of the festival, Maria Aronovna Belyayeva, about Yegana and Murad were especially touching. She said she had never heard of such an unusual approach to the interpretation of Brodskiy's poetry and such a vibrantly passionate interpretation of Akhmatova. Besides, in her opinion, the actors are not just beautiful, but also very cinematic. Because the filming, in which our actors participated while working on poems, confirms it, and as she believes, opens their way into big-time cinema.

Afterword

The festival has ended. There is a lot of work ahead. And in these several days of April, there are new friends, good memories of enthusiastic spectators and also, the belief that we are professionally competent, emotional mobile and interesting not only to our own, but also to the St. Petersburg audience.