A theater where women's roles are played by men. Women's genre on the theatrical stage

In the last two decades, the profession of an actor has become less popular; today, for example, in Russia there is no such fantastic excitement when entering drama schools, as it was during the USSR. Nevertheless, many boys and girls continue to dream about theater, and especially about cinema, wanting to become famous in this form, at least throughout the country. (website)

Modern theater and film actors are respected people, and celebrities, especially in the USA and Western Europe, are certainly millionaires; the fame of them and their roles lives on for decades, or even more. But in the time of Shakespeare, and much later, theater actors They didn’t even bury them in a common graveyard, because they believed that these people served the devil and therefore were not worthy to lie in the ground with other citizens.

But that's not all. In the theater itself, say, in the 16th century - XVII centuries, the actresses were not recognized, therefore female roles men had to play. It may seem to us that this made the performances not entirely believable. But it's not that simple. The fact is that the female roles were always played by very pretty young men or boys. Moreover, at that time no one even invited these unfortunate people to the theater troupes; they were simply kidnapped - right on the street.

For example, as Oxford historians found out, during the reign of Elizabeth I, who was a big fan of the theater, even the profession of boy catchers for the theater appeared in England. Such “professional workers” wandered around London and looked for the most promising boys. And woe to that child, who was slim and good-looking, to meet these theater bandits. And there was no control over them, since Elizabeth I issued a decree that allowed “for the sake of art” to steal children, taking them away from their families. Moreover, mercilessly flog those of them who did not show theatrical activities due zeal. That is, stolen children practically became minor slaves of the owners of theater troupes.

Child actors are slaves of English theaters

Historians have even found a documented case where in 1600, thirteen-year-old Londoner Thomas Clifton, a very handsome fellow, was caught, shouldered and carried away. His parents, heartbroken, turned everywhere, even to court and with a petition to the queen herself - all to no avail. There was only one answer: their son must study diligently and be obedient, otherwise he will be mercilessly whipped. In those days, the owners of London theaters even boasted to each other who “collected more and better live goods from boys on the street.” Moreover, they were allowed to steal not only the child of a commoner, but also a boy from a noble family.

Formally in England it was believed that such stolen children served in the Royal Chapel, but in reality they played in ordinary theaters. The Queen was well aware of this, but not only did not interfere, but even encouraged this practice. Historians have found several caustic remarks by the great Shakespeare about theater productions where stolen children performed.

It is difficult to say what fate awaited these stolen teenagers when they matured. Perhaps some of them became, but the majority, judging by the documents found, simply served the theater as slave labor until fate smiled on someone with an unexpected release from this bondage. But what awaited the freedom of such a man who, thanks to his theater profession became an outcast from society?..

At this time only Shakespeare Theater was an exception. young men and boys also played in it, but these were voluntary students, not slaves.

And if so, then what is beauty?
And why do people deify her?
She is a vessel in which there is emptiness,
Or a fire flickering in a vessel?

When the film was released on big screens, Russian distributors were puzzled by the problem of luring viewers to a film that did not impress with its poster. No big names, no huge budget, no trendy theme. Moreover, the name is strange “Stage Beauty”, which can be translated as “Beauty on the stage”. As a result, by analogy with the then popular “American Beauty,” the film was called “English Beauty.” I believe that by distorting the title, the distributors only confused the audience.
And the film is worth watching. This is an interesting artistic interpretation real events, which took place on the stage of British theaters at a time when women were still prohibited from acting. All female roles were played by young men. This theme has already been raised in the charming, sparkling candy wrapper, Shakespeare in Love. Certainly a good, charming film, but very formal, superficial and celluloid. And there was more about Shakespeare than about actors.

In “Beauty in English” (we will call it that at the will of the distributors), unlike its predecessor, there is less pathos and beauty, but much more authenticity, sincerity and real passions that captivate the viewer. Despite the fact that the film is deliberately unkempt, the costumes are mint, the streets are dirty, the theater is shabby, all these details give authenticity to the atmosphere and events of the film. And how much love and passion there is in this film. Both hetero- and homosexual, but everything was filmed very carefully. You probably need to be careful with these topics; only a mature and morally prepared viewer will perceive some episodes adequately.

The film is multi-layered and delicious, like Napoleon cake.

A lot of wonderful dialogues, a lot of dressing up, a lot of interesting topics:
- actually theater theme, making up a coherent sequential plot,
- self-identification by gender of the main character filling in the plot
- love experiences (how could we live without them) add intensity to the plot?
- female beauty in the theater “What is beauty? "
- degree of authenticity acting(how to die on stage correctly), etc.

The main character Ned Kynaston was one of the last so-called. “boy performers” in the Restoration era: young actors who played female roles on stage. For Billy Crudup, the role of Kynaston is a real benefit performance, allowing him to demonstrate his talent and excellent acting capabilities, which he does brilliantly and with pleasure. I enjoyed watching his virtuoso playing. And what hands he has!

You can roughly estimate how many roles he manages to embody in the film’s not-too-long running time:
Man playing famous actor Ned Kynaston.
A man playing a man who wants to look like the perfect woman.
A man playing the role of Desdemona.
A man playing a woman playing Othello.
The man playing Othello.
A man playing a gay man.
A man playing a gay man who has fallen in love with a woman.
A man playing a woman with a dick (don't be alarmed).
A man playing a theater star cast down from Olympus.
Etc.
But in all guises a man!

Billy Crudup shines, he is beautiful and precise, evoking a whole range of feelings. This is truly “fire flickering in a vessel”!

Rupert Everett, who plays King Charles II, rocks the show. This amazing actor will make any episode look like candy. And here he has some "candy", and Everett amazingly plays a farcical role without the slightest falsehood or exaggeration.

It must be said that Claire Danes plays wonderfully, completely matching her partners. Her mental tossing and doubts look absolutely appropriate and natural, and the heroine herself is charming and sweet, arousing sympathy and empathy. Good actress, talented.

Ben Chaplin (Buckingham) is absolutely unrecognizable, incredibly handsome and plays a great duet with Crudup.

The film is very high level acting, which creates an “ensemble” that plays harmoniously and smoothly. There is not a single unnecessary or drawn-out episode, everything is appropriate and integrated into the overall picture.

There is also catharsis in the film. IN final scene with the scene (excuse the tautology) from “Othello”, the one where “did you pray to Desdemona for the night?”, my heart almost jumped out of my chest.

The director and actors, despite the passions and twists of the plot, managed not to lose measure and taste, and at the same time deftly hook the viewer's feelings. The film, in which, apart from sparkling witty dialogues and dress-up games, there is no action, special effects or beauty, it grabs you and doesn’t let go until the last minute.

Moreover, this is the case when the second and third viewings are no less interesting and allow you to savor the old ones and discover new ones. interesting details that might have escaped the first time.

I liked it very much. A good, interesting, adult film.

After women's novels In literature, women's performances have taken root in the theater." Female genre" took its place in theater posters, comparable to place women's literature on bookstore shelves.

Some sentimental stories move onto the theatrical stage directly from “women’s” bookshelves. This happened, for example, with the novel by Booker laureate Elena Chizhova “The Time of Women,” which was staged by Sovremennik. Despite the abundance of harsh everyday details communal apartment From the 50s, this play is more similar to the urban fairy tale about Cinderella - a mute orphan, whose care was taken by three old helpless fairies. The fairy tale turned out to be sad, but with happy ending, which quite suits the viewers who witnessed the harsh Soviet life in person or are familiar with it by hearsay.

But the play “Divorce the Female Way” at the Mayakovsky Theater is full of “not our lives” and seems to develop the theme of the television series “Sex and the City.” The action takes place in New York, but instead of the television four there are five American women, each of whom is looking for her own female happiness. In addition The main characters take the stage with a dozen more characters, all of them women! And they all love, leave, intrigue and fight for their men, who are present in their lives, but do not appear on stage.

But it would be wrong to say that the absence of male characters on stage is the main feature of a “female” performance. One of the main hits of the “female” repertoire stars six actors. This is Ladies Night, or “Only for Women”, performed on the stage of the Theater Mossovet. Six unemployed metallurgists decide to retrain as strippers and organize their own business. Not every woman dares to go to night club to an erotic men's show, but to the theater is another matter. Moreover, when the strippers are performed by movie and television stars - Gosha Kutsenko, Marat Basharov, Mikhail Politsemako, Vyacheslav Razbegaev, Viktor Verzhbitsky. Two star cast and every time it changes - those actors who are not busy filming that evening come out from behind the scenes. But the main intrigue always remains until the end of the performance - the audience is rewarded by seeing a stellar striptease show, which is impossible to get to in any nightclub.

The play has been running successfully in Moscow for ten years. The success of the play based on the play "Ladies' Night" broke attendance records not only in Moscow, but also in Paris, London, Milan, and Melbourne. In 2001, "Ladies' Night" received the highest theater award France "Molière" as best comedy, the plot of the play was used in the script English film, which received an Oscar in 1997 for best foreign film of the year. The project is presented by the production company "Independent Theater Project", which is staging three more plays in the female genre at several theater venues in Moscow (Teatrium on Serpukhovka, for example).

The plot of the play "Calendar Girls" is based on real story from the English countryside - several desperate housewives post-Balzac age, they unsuccessfully try to raise funds for a new sofa in an oncology clinic, where their friend spends nights at the bedside of her dying husband. Success comes to them only when, defying Puritan prohibitions, they pose naked for a calendar. The women raised £2 million, built a new clinic, and became... national heroines Great Britain, proving to himself that in life there is always room for heroism for the sake of a noble cause. The plot of the play formed the basis of a successful film with the stars of British cinema, breaking film distribution records in the UK and the USA. But the film adaptation does not reduce interest in the listed plays - the theater has its own special magic.

The play “Moulin Rouge Hospital” was also staged by the Independent Project shortly after its triumph on the Parisian stage, where it won three nominations for the French theatrical Oscar - the Molière Award. In Russia, the play is about the nurses from a French hospital during the First World War received no less success among the audience. The cruel meat grinder of war slows down for several hours on the eve of Christmas and the nurses get a short respite to gather strength after difficult trials and even organize a holiday for the wounded, performing an incendiary cancan. This performance is about the courage of women who maintain hope and faith in people who remain women under any circumstances.

"You are at the wrong address" - female comedy provisions of the French comedian Marc Camoletti. He wrote at least a dozen comedies, half of which were staged (and even filmed) in Russia. But it is “You’re in the Wrong Place” that can be called female, since most sitcom plots use women as a prize for a loving sly man (“Too married taxi driver", for example, has an affair with two, but this is not the limit of fulfilling a man’s dream). Here the women themselves run the show with the participation of Pierre Richard, Jean-Paul Belmondo, Louis de Funes and Gerard Depardieu.

For a long time, only men had the opportunity to play on stage. Until the 17th century, women were practically deprived of the opportunity to engage in theater. Women were also excluded from creating the performance itself - writing the text, staging it and organizing the space. Such a ban on the profession was due to “care” and the concept of morality.

Typically, in the literature, dedicated to history theater, there is a statement that women as actresses appeared on stage in the 17th-18th centuries. This is due primarily to the concept of Western European and Russian theater as professional, as opposed to folk or church. Although, in fact, for the first time women as actresses appeared on stage in the late Roman era: these were performances of a low genre (mimes), where they performed as dancers and acrobats. The actors of such genres were also “slaves, freedmen, or freeborn citizens of the Roman provinces, for example, Greeks, Egyptians, natives of Asia Minor.”

The first professional theater can be considered Italian comedy del arte (commedia dell "arte), in which three principles were formed, which subsequently reformed performing arts, namely: the actor as the main person, the troupe is a non-random living organism, action is the main driving task. Female characters here they are mainly presented in two images - the Lover and the Maid - and are played without masks. It is also possible to have a dancer and a singer in the troupe. Male characters was significantly larger, and they, unlike female ones, were active actors influencing the resolution of stage conflict.

Hannah Hoch. Untitled. 1930

Despite the fact that with the emergence of professional theater troupes and the appearance of female actresses in them, their participation in performances was not widespread and was used extremely rarely in some genres, such as mystery and morality plays. It is worth paying attention to the acceptable role range: women embodied only young characters (heroines and mistresses), while the roles of nurses, soubrettes, and old women were given to male actors.

Hannah Hoch. Staatshäupter (Heads of State). 1918-20

In Spain, female actresses appeared in the middle of the 16th century. At this time there were many different types theater organizations. In lower-level groups, women's roles were played by men, and in middle-level groups by women or boys. In associations of the highest type (for example, “The Farandula”, “Compania”) all female roles were played exclusively by women. In addition, in 1586 an attempt was made to hold separate performances for men and women, but it failed.

The first female actresses appeared on the English stage in the 17th century. However, it was a very unstable time: from the heyday of theaters at the beginning of the century to their complete closure and the outlawing of this activity. The situation changed only in 1660, when Charles II returned to England. In France, where he was in exile, women were already performing on stage - from now on this rule is taking root in England. In the 18th century, in addition to acting, women took the position of playwrights.

Hannah Hoch. Für ein Fest gemacht (Made for a Party), 1936

Interesting is the fact that women are excluded from Japanese theater. Thus, the art of Kabuki was started by the famous and successful at that time ( beginning of XVII century) by the dancer O-Kuni, whose performances were given a corresponding name, meaning “strange”, “outlandish”. She subsequently founded an all-female troupe, which was soon disbanded due to moral prejudices, and the actresses were replaced by pretty boys, which caused a "flourishing of homosexuality." In 1653, young men were also prohibited from performing on stage. At this time, the onnagata tradition began, i.e. performance of female roles by mature male actors.

Hannah Hoch. Untitled. 1929

Worth mentioning is the way in which the image of famous actresses is formed in the history of the theater. For example, " famous actresses of that time - Nell Gwyn, Moll Davis, Barry, Bracegardel, Oldfield and others - were famous not so much for their acting as for their feminine charms, and their position in the theater was determined by the high position of their patrons." Judging by such statements, we can conclude that personal relationships obviously influence a career through the possibility/impossibility of getting a role.

The path to joining professional troupes is also interesting, given the reputation that actors and actresses in particular had. The first known contract between French actress Marie Feret and the actor-entrepreneur L "Eperonier. The document read as follows: “To help him, L" Eperonier, perform every day for the specified time and as many times as he pleases, Roman antiquities or other stories, farces and jumps, in the presence of the public and wherever L'Eperonier wishes. Despite this wording, theater researcher S. Mokulsky finds this contract to be very diverse.

Hannah Hoch. Little Sun, 1969

Hannah Hoch. 1946

On this moment, it would seem that there are no official prohibitions and restrictions that would be barriers to acting. However, in practice, various barriers based on gender are present at the level of both theater institutes, so professional theaters. More details current situation will be presented in .