The XIV Russia’s Small Town Theatres Festival Came to a Close

This time the prestigious forum initiated by the Theatre of Nations was hosted by the city of Volsk of the Saratov Region. And it was clear that such a festival was a festive occasion for the city’s residents. It was especially palpable on the opening day: Volsk’s main street became transformed into a true theatre road that stretched from the Antiquity to our times. Greek gods and heroes made way for skomorokhs, bonded theatre actors – for representatives of “Theatrical October”, an entire photo gallery was dedicated to the pillars of Russian theatre – from Shchepkin to Stanislavsky and Meyerhold. Public festivities became especially enlivened with the arrival of star guests: festival opening was attended by Oleg Tabakov, Yevgeny Mironov, Olga Ostroumova (chairman of the current jury), and waiting in the wings of the city’s drama theatre was Konstantin Khabensky, who performed his one-man show “The Double Bass”, staged by Gleb Cherepanov at the Chekhov MAT. Incidentally, from everything we’ve seen at the current festival as well as in our numerous travels across theatre backwoods, we can say that small town theatres have long become part of the context of the Russian theatre process. They have famous directors working there, actors whose skill is often on par with big city masters, these theatres are not afraid of experimenting and searching for new theatre language. As a result, their productions have time and again taken part in the most prestigious Russian festivals, including the Golden Mask and the New-Siberian Transit, and have frequently become winners at those festivals. The current festival’s playbill included 13 productions from Naberezhnye Chelny, Kamensk-Uralsky, Rybinsk, Glazov, Volsk, Yelets, Lysva, Novokuybyshevsk, Kudymkar, Sovetsk, Norilsk, Tobolsk, and Minusinsk. It’s not hard to appreciate the geographical scope of the festival by simply going through the list of cities – from Russia’s westernmost borders to beyond the Arctic Circle, from its temperate zone to the faraway Siberia. The visiting productions, meanwhile, were staged based on the most textbook of classics as well as on works by young playwrights. The productions were designed to either “take on” great halls or to get as close as possible to the audience with a chamber space, where any and all psychological nuances can be noticed and appreciated. In that sense Denis Husniyarov’s production of “The Rabbit Hole”, which was staged at the Masterovye Russian Drama Theatre from Naberezhnye Chelny (the Republic of Tatarstan), was not so lucky. The production opened the festival and found itself somewhat lost within the large space. The actors and the director didn’t bother hiding their disappointment. Nevertheless, the work’s psychological subtleties were noted by both the audience and the jury, and actress Marina Kulyasova managed to earn the Best Female Role award against a most fierce competition. Galina Polishchuk’s “The Boatman” from the Drama Number Three Theatre out of Kamensk-Uralsky was performed under similar conditions, yet it managed, albeit with some difficulty, to fit into the unfamiliar dimensions. The production won the audience over with its complex, semi-mystical but highly emotional story of Anna Yablonskaya and the amazing performance of Ivan Shmakov, whose character was placed into this vacant and constantly changing world. The burning issues of fathers and children based on a contemporary play sizzled in the productions of “The Quiet Rustle of Retreating Footsteps” by Dmitry Bogoslavsky and Artem Teryokhin from the Lysva Drama Theatre, “How I Became...” by Yaroslava Pulinovich and Yuliya Aug from the Yershov Drama Theatre of Tobolsk, “Zoya” by Svetlana Bazhenova and Elizaveta Bondar from the Tilzit Theatre (Sovetsk). And it so happened that in those quite complex stories the truth was on the side of the “fathers”, most notably thanks to the terrific older generation actors Alexander Mironov, Oleg Isakov and Irina Nesmiyanova. Vladimir Gromovikov, who played the father in Radion Bukayev’s curious production of “The Villain”, presented by the Benefit Theatre of Yelets, found himself within the same context. Meanwhile with Tatiana Voronina’s “The Echelon” (the Komi-Permyatsky National Drama Theatre of Kudymkar) it was the cast – powerful and polyphonic – that ended up being the centre of the production. Two of the theatres “set their sights on Shakespeare”, and in each case the play was radically redone and it was the now slightly modified plot presented an interesting performance and gave food for thought. The Volsk Drama Theatre presented “Passions Based on Macbeth” –Shakespeare’s tragedy in Oleg Zagumenny’s stage version and production with Anton Tarasenko in the lead role. Here the text is abridged, the infanticide is cast aside, and vengeance is afforded to completely different characters. The second Shakespearean production is “Hamlet” at the Norilsk Polar Mayakovsky Drama Theatre. Director Anna Babanova not only synthesized two of the translations of this tragedy – the one by Lozinsky and the one by Pasternak, but also took into consideration A. Barkov’s version, where the greatest villain and schemer is Horatio, who turned out to be Claudius’s son. The production with Femistokl Atmadzas’s large-scale, functional stage design became a true “mousetrap” for not only the audience but the characters as well, who were doomed a priori. Nevertheless, it was one of the festival’s most exciting productions, where even an experienced critic was forced to solve riddles and the plot’s new twists and turns. And Sergey Rebriy (Claudius), newcomer Oleg Kornyliev (Hamlet) and Anna Bogomolova (Ophelia) were above all praise. Petr Orlov’s director’s reading of “Zoyka’s Apartment” (Rybinsk Drama Theatre) amazed the audience with its daring and originality. A large number of Chinese mannequins clearly hinted at the “changing of landmarks”, at the advent of “others”, the coming of another civilization, foreign to all the characters. The suitcases with small lit up windows that hung under the gridiron distinctly pointed to a life “suspended” – everyone who is still alive but is unlikely to ever get to the coveted Paris. And it is impossible to forget the nervous, shaking hands of Obolianinov played by Sergey Sharagin, the hands that seemed to be absent-mindedly striking the keys of an old, out of tune piano... The wrenching note of the passing time and of life going rapidly downhill was very strong in that production. Meanwhile, director Damir Salimzyanov from Glazov’s Paraphrase Theatre managed to achieve virtually the impossible with his production of “The Trial”: “to make Kafkaesque a reality.” To keep true to the original but insert it into our recognizable reality, to get rid of the abstruse significance but weave bitter and at the same time comic episodes into the production’s delicate fabric. Vladimir Lomayev as Josef K. appeared to play against all rules and canons of acting, without overdramatizing or overemphasizing, he played one of us, who are, sadly, likely to end up on some such “trial” for no reason whatsoever. And he was so convincing and authentic that he earned the award for the Best Male Role. In addition, the Theatre Critics Association presented the production with a special award. The highlights of the festival’s program were two productions that became both small and large format winners. Both productions, incidentally, took part in the last Golden Mask competitive program. The Gran Theatre Studio out of Novokuybyshevsk and director Denis Bokuradze have long stopped needing introductions. His theatre was already awarded for the production of “TanyaTanya.” “The Ship of Fools”, a production based on medieval French farcical plays which was shown in Volsk, became the director’s latest victory and a confident step forward, although in a completely different direction. For this comic production Bokuradze created a most delicate score of flexible movements intonations, rhythms and music, where everything – every look and gesture – was pre-structured. By changing their costumes and makeup, actors Daniil Bogomolov, Yuliya Bokuradze, Alina Kostyuk, Alexander Ovchinnikov, Sergey Pozdnyakov, and Lyubov Tyuvilina were becoming unrecognizable, virtually “getting into their characters’ skin” but also treating them with a fair dose of humor. And it seems that Yelena Solovyova’s costumes deserve a special mention – they are works of the highest level of culture and of most exquisite imagination. In the Minusinsk Drama Theatre’s production of “A Lullaby for Sofia” director Alexei Pesegov read Yevgeny Zamyatin’s novel “The Flood” in the language of stage for the first time. Pesegov is one of author’s theatre’s most prominent representatives, who takes the tradition of Russian psychological stage to a near existential level. The story of a family in a small abandoned town is told in a language that isn’t mundane but rather emotionally flexible and is inscribed into the poignant, powerful swells of music by Irina Belova and Yevgeniya Teryokhina. There are very few words here, in fact: it is the body, the gestures, the looks that speak instead. Time expands palpably one moment and compresses the next, streaks by in a series of events that overlap one another. Olga Smekhova’s performance of Sofia is impressive. The production’s cast maintains that this concept is more timely now than ever. That is why the jury’s decision was unanimous: “A Lullaby for Sofia” earned the festival’s Grand Prize by all accounts.