Report about the Russian folk theater Parsley. Parsley

FOLK PUPPET THEATER, ITS TYPES

The Russians knew three types puppet theater: a puppet theater (in which the dolls were controlled using threads), a Petrushka theater with glove puppets (the dolls were put on the puppeteer’s fingers) and a nativity scene (in which the dolls were fixedly fixed on rods and moved along slots in boxes). Puppet theater did not become widespread. The Parsley Theater was popular. The nativity scene was distributed mainly in Siberia and southern Russia.

Petrushka Theater is a Russian folk puppet comedy. Its main character was Petrushka, after whom the theater was named. This hero was also called Pyotr Ivanovich Uksusov, Pyotr Petrovich Samovarov, in the south - Vanya, Vanka, Vanka Retatouille, Ratatouille, Rutyutyu (tradition of the northern regions of Ukraine). The Parsley Theater arose under the influence of the Italian puppet theater Pulcinella, with which the Italians often performed in St. Petersburg and other cities.

An early sketch of the Petrushka Theater dates back to the 30s. XVII century This illustration was placed by the German traveler Adam Olearius in the description of his trip to Muscovy. Regarding the drawing, D. A. Rovinsky wrote: “... A man, having tied a woman’s skirt with a hoop at the hem to his belt, raised it up - this skirt covers him above his head, he can freely move his hands in it, display dolls on top and present entire comedies.<...>In the picture, on a portable skirt stage, it is not difficult to discern a classic comedy that has survived to our time about how a gypsy sold a horse to Petrushka." Rovinsky cited Olearius' remark that the puppet comedian was always with the bear leader; he also corrected the "positions" of the goat and clown. The skits, according to Olearius, were always of the most modest content 1

Later raised up women's skirt with a hoop at the hem was replaced by a screen - at least in descriptions of the Petrushka Theater of the 19th century. the skirt is no longer mentioned.

In the 19th century The Petrushka Theater was the most popular and widespread type of puppet theater in Russia. It consisted of a light folding screen, a box with several dolls (each

number of characters - usually from 7 to 20), from a barrel organ and small props (sticks or batons, rattles, rolling pins, etc.). The Parsley Theater did not know the scenery.

The puppeteer, accompanied by a musician, usually an organ grinder, walked from courtyard to courtyard and gave traditional performances of Petrushka. He could always be seen during folk festivals and fairs.

About the structure of the Petrushka Theater D. A. Rovinsky wrote: “The doll has no body, but only a simple skirt, to which an empty cardboard head is sewn on top, and on the sides there are arms, also empty. The puppeteer sticks it into the doll’s head forefinger, and in the hands - the first and third fingers; He usually puts a doll on each hand and thus acts with two dolls at once.”

Characteristic features of Parsley's appearance are a large hooked nose, a laughing mouth, a protruding chin, a hump or two humps (on the back and on the chest). The clothes consisted of a red shirt, a cap with a tassel, and smart boots on his feet; or from a clownish two-color clown outfit, collar and cap with bells. The puppeteer spoke for Petrushka with the help of a squeak - a device thanks to which the voice became sharp, shrill, and rattling. (The pischik was made of two curved bone or silver plates, inside of which a narrow strip of linen ribbon was fastened). For the rest characters The comedy puppeteer spoke in his natural voice, moving the squeak behind his cheek.

The performance of the Petrushka Theater consisted of a set of skits that had a satirical orientation. M. Gorky spoke about Petrushka as invincible hero puppet comedy, which defeats everyone and everything: the police, the priests, even the devil and death, but he himself remains immortal.

The image of Parsley is the personification of festive freedom, emancipation, and a joyful feeling of life. Petrushka's actions and words were opposed to accepted standards of behavior and morality. Parsley's improvisations were topical: they contained sharp attacks against local merchants, landowners, and authorities. The performance was accompanied by musical inserts, sometimes parodic: for example, the image

funeral under "Kamarinskaya" (see in the Reader "Petrushka, aka Vanka Ratatouille").

Folk theater is multifaceted and many-sided, but among its various types, the most striking and original is the Petrushka puppet theater. As a folklore performance, the Petrushka Theater has existed in Russia since approximately the 18th century. Its finished, classic look He didn’t buy it right away. Let us recall the history of the development of Russian folk puppet comedy. A. Belitsky sees the first, naive forms of puppet theater in ritual, “playing with a doll, dressing up, “Moscow culture.” The abstract form of mummery in the puppet theater is also noted by A.V. Gruntovsky.

It is known that the Parsley Theater was first described by the German scientist, diplomat and traveler Adam Olearius, who visited Russia twice in the forties of the 17th century. In his later published travel diary, Olearius describes the performances of buffoon-musicians who sang songs, danced, and performed various skits. puppet show. In addition to the puppet show, Olearius also describes “bear fun.” The leaders of the bears “had with them such comedians who, by the way, could immediately present some kind of trick or klutch (prank), as the Dutch call it, with the help of dolls. To do this, they tie a sheet around their body, lift its free side up and hold it above their head, thus forming something like a stage... with which they walk through the streets and show various performances with dolls.” Olearius' testimony is confirmed by an illustration that probably depicts a scene of a horse being sold. The puppet show described by the traveler was probably a prototype of the 19th century puppet comedy about Petrushka, although the hero of this show could have had a different name, and story line could have been different. In the 30s of the 17th century, puppet shows were based on elementary plot, served Starting point for numerous improvisations by puppeteers. Presumably at this time there were already folk puppet theater performances that were popular with common people and aroused the hostility of the authorities. Judging by the fact that these performances were shown in the programs of buffoon games, they were short-lived and consisted of one or several short scenes. The comedy of Parsley is often seen as a borrowed, puppet game brought from the cultures of countries Western Europe or East. Moreover, the time of borrowing is attributed to the end of the XVI - early XVII centuries (as V.N. Peretz believed), then by the beginning of the 19th century. (according to the assumption of A.F. Nekrylova). “No exact data has been preserved about the performances of Petrushka in the 18th century,” wrote V.D. Kuzmina, “but it is absolutely indisputable that such performances were and were a natural link between the comedy of Petrushka, which Olearius saw performed by buffoons XVII century, and folk puppet comedy of the 19th-20th centuries.”

The comedy and its hero have gone through an interesting, complex path, absorbing foreign and Russian features, reworking and specially mastering spectacular folklore, satirical genres of Russian folk art, achievements of democratic theater XVII– XVIII centuries and folk drama. V.N. Vsevolodsky-Gerngross in his work “Russian Folk Drama” noted that the ancient Russian puppet hero resembled, on the one hand, a passive young man from “The Tale of Misfortune,” and on the other hand, the enterprising Frol Skobeev and was different from Petrushka, who was well known from the performances of the 19th century. The core of the plot of the puppet comedy has also formed: a young guy decides to get married, start a household, and therefore the first thing he does is buy a horse from a gypsy. Having fallen from his horse, he turns to a charlatan doctor, unable to tolerate deception, kills him with a club and buries him. This story clearly shows a connection with folk games, which are based on parody: matchmaking, wedding, bargaining, treatment, funeral. TO 19th century Petrushka's comedy has passed its formation. Using the principles of improvised play, puppeteers began to present the simplest plots, which were based on certain proto-plots that were formed, as we have already mentioned, probably under the influence of folk pagan cults, rituals, and games: “walking with a filly,” “matchmaking,” “buffoonery.” treatment", "parody funeral", etc. Hence, the characters of the Petrushka Theater are in many ways similar to the characters of pagan mummers, such as an old man, an old woman, a gypsy, a priest, singers, and a dead man. The plot was also determined, which began to consist of a chain of scenes based on the motive of Petrushka’s meeting with different characters. The sequence of the main scenes was subsequently fixed by tradition. Usually the comedy began with a greeting, a conversation on a topical topic, an address to a musician, followed by scenes with the bride, buying a horse, and meeting with the doctor. Then, in varying order and quantity, came Petrushka’s encounters with various characters: a German, an officer, a soldier, a policeman, a gentleman, a blackamoor, a friend and others. Appearance characters “were given typical features by which one could easily recognize the hero - his social status, profession, nationality." .

But let's talk about the central character of the puppet comedy. Of all the versions about its origin, we will focus on the most famous. Perhaps our hero received the name “Petrushka” after the famous Russian jester of Queen Anna Ioannovna, Pietro Mirro (aka Pedrillo, aka Petrukha-Farnos, or simply Petrukha). There are other hypotheses about the origin of the main character of the comedy. Petrushka could have adopted his name from the name of one of his predecessors - the ancient Hindu jester Vidushak, whose appearance and behavior strongly resembled Petrushka. Other versions are possible. So in traveling actors-puppeteers early XVIII V. The name of Petrushka Ivanov is mentioned, and in the first half of the same century, puppeteer Pyotr Yakubovskoy gave performances in Moscow, so it is likely that the puppet hero could have borrowed his name from one of the puppeteers, whose performances were the most popular. There is another assumption that also has a right to exist. Beloved by the people comic characters often received nicknames from the names of various dishes and seasonings. So the European Gunstwurst, Jean Farina, Pickelgering, Jack Snack had funny nicknames– Ivan Sausage, Ivan Muchnik, Pickled herring, light snack. Vanka Ratatouille ("ratatouille" is the name of a French vegetable dish) probably appears in a similar way, which indicates the connection between the Russian puppet character and his European relatives. In addition, the name “ratatouille” is also known in Northern Russian dialects as “empty poor soup.”

In the first third of the 18th century, Petrushka was respectfully called nothing less than Pyotr Ivanovich (Petrovich) Samovarov, and in the 19th century he was also known as Pyotr Ivanovich (Petrovich) Uksusov. And finally, our hero may have gotten his name from his Italian brother, Pulcinella, whose name in Italian translates as “cockerel.”

So who is Parsley? social type, national character or a primitive person? IN folk theater the character's character was perceived as a given, as a collection of certain, unchangeable traits. This theater was not interested in a specific person; it was concerned with man in the most general manifestation, as “man in general.” “Petrushka alone stood apart: he had no prototype in real life, since he belonged to the family of European folklore jesters with general features in appearance - a huge nose, a hump or two humps (front and back), a protruding chin, a stupid cap on the head.” Another characteristic feature of Parsley is its special “musical” voice, created using a special device - a peep. This inhuman voice, as well as four fingers, indicate Parsley’s ancestral connection with the “otherworldly” world. And although in the comedy Petrushka tries on various social roles: gets married, buys a horse, gets sick, joins the soldiers, etc., he is in no way a social type. Seeing national character in a character who belongs to a family of folklore jesters, possessing not only a similar appearance, but also character traits, is a futile task, although Petrushka, like all of them, has become a favorite folk puppet hero in Russia.

As we can see, Petrushka is classified not only as a character that reveals national character, but is also correlated with a social type, and finally, with Homo Primitivus. Let us remember that Petrushka, like his brothers Pulcinella, Polichinelle, Punch, was born in the theater of mask convention, in art where naive metaphorical thinking dominated, in the realm of farce grotesque, rough folk reprise. Comic effect episodes in which the character participated were achieved using techniques characteristic of folk laughter culture: fights, beatings, obscenities, the imaginary deafness of a partner, funny movements and gestures, mimicking, funny funerals, etc. According to M.M. Bakhtin, laughter “stupefies”, “exposes”, returns the world to its original chaos and cleanses it spiritually, absorbing everything negative.

Modern researcher A. Gref argues that Petrushka himself is not a social type, not a satirical character, and in no case a national character, but a “primitive”, that is, Primary Man, Homo Primitivus, proto-man. Only from this point of view can we understand the antisocial behavior of our hero, which, first of all, is associated with numerous fights. It is known that the meaning of a fight in the primary theater is interpreted as a ritual battle with “evil forces.” However, over time, this value decreases to a fight with a variety of characters: a policeman, a policeman, a soldier, a doctor. All these characters do not pose a threat to our hero, and only a representative of the infernal world (a dog or death itself) takes his life. The end of the comedy is the end of Petrushka, which also means the end of the performance. But Petrushka is immortal! Death is ridiculed; with the resurrection of Petrushka, the comedy begins anew. As we can see, Petrushka was considered the main character of the Russian puppet theater. His image is “broader than the concepts of “negative and positive”: the people invented it for their own amusement and for the fear of the powers that be. He is negative, cruel, satirical and at the same time arouses some kind of poignant tenderness.” This is how many people remember him famous artists, composers, writers and poets who, in their memoirs, describe their childhood and youthful impressions of the Parsley Theater and the parsley workers. This is evidenced by the memoirs of F. Chaliapin, M. Gorky, A. Benois. N. Nekrasov (Poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'”) and I. Stravinsky in the ballet “Petrushka” conveyed impressions of meetings with Petrushka in their works. IN late XIX and the beginning of the 20th century, the comedy about Petrushka had no equal in popularity among other types of public art.

At the beginning of the 20th century, the popularity of this farcical hero fell. A new miracle appears in Russia - cinema and the merry and mischievous Petrushka was no longer able to satisfy the needs of the public. With the advent of new life realities, the image of the classic Parsley goes away. Against the backdrop of political changes in the country and the world, while continuing to remain part of the holiday entertainment, Parsley also changes, new characters and plots appear. After the revolution of 1917 he was transformed into a victorious proletarian. The new government quickly realized the propaganda potential of the people's theater and put forward the slogan: “Return the theater to the people!” Special meaning attached to the puppet theater. A. Lunacharsky wrote in his “Memorandum” to the People’s Commissariat for Education in 1918: “Easily feasible technically, closely connected by all its elements with folk art, it will serve as a touchstone for establishing the true folk repertoire and to develop those theatrical techniques that will lead to an inextricable merging of the stage with the public audience." The first enthusiasts of the new puppet theater were artists, it was from their light hand appear first State theaters puppets in Leningrad and Moscow. In addition to plays with Petrushka, there were dramatizations of I. Krylov’s fables. The performances of the puppet theater by N. Simonovich-Efimova became widely known in northern capital. She later recalled: “There was a reception on the occasion of my daughter’s name day in a family I knew, where poets and artists gathered. The owner of the house asked me to show her a puppet theater. By that time, “Sick Parsley” (which I invented for village children) had developed. I played it and two new fables. This is where my fantastic, arrogant thoughts about the Petrushka Theater began to be justified, because when I finished, Alexey Nikolaevich Tolstoy, who turned out to be among the audience, came up to me and asked: “Who wrote the text of Petrushka for you? You know that it is very, very well written”... He continued: “Stanislavsky has long dreamed of a puppet theater and ordered me a play. I know how difficult it is to write for Parsley, which is why I appreciated yours. You need to show your theater to Stanislavsky, I’ll arrange it”... And he arranged it. Two days later I played these plays to Stanislavsky at his home, and a few days later - at the Art Theater: for theater and studio artists." One of the first performances was a dramatization of A. Tolstoy’s fairy tale “Gelding”. Official support led to the fact that major masters of art began to work in the puppet theater; among them were composer Yu. Shaporin, artists V. Favorsky and young Kukryniksy. At first all these talented people relied on the experience of the old folk game. Petrushka, resurrected from oblivion as a hero of Soviet reality, did not at all seem like an anachronism or an insert number. The “Red Army Petrushka” doll, created by the Kukryniksys, created a sensation at the First All-European Exhibition of Theater Puppets in Brussels in 1930 and became the emblem of the All-Union Union of Puppeteers. On the days of celebrations (May 1, November 7) in the squares big cities platforms appeared, from the barriers of which Petrushka, well known to the public, in a red shirt, sprinkled salty political lines, causing general delight among those gathered. Next to him were “class enemies”: a priest in a cassock, a thick-bellied fist, a spick-and-span NEP man. The Petrushka Theater becomes, first of all, a theater of revolutionary satire, a political theater. This is how “Cooperative Petrushka”, “Petrushka-rabfakovets”, “Red Army Petrushka” appear. Puppet shows were timed to coincide with each of the numerous new holidays of the “red calendar”: International Youth Day, Red Army Day, Day of Education, etc. Recent opponents were also brought onto the stage - Kolchak, Denikin, Wrangel, and the leaders of bourgeois Europe - Lloyd George , Poincare, Curzon. The task of promoting the introduction of the “Soviet way of life” becomes a priority for the Petrushka Theater. Now it is considered as a theater of a workers' club, responding to any significant events in the life of a factory or plant. He was supposed to make fun of truants, hooligans, and bureaucrats from the enterprise administration. Petrushka often began to be assigned the role of a reasoner, introducing the viewer to the essence of the matter at the beginning of the performance and summing up the conclusion at the end. The new theater also needed its own authors. The Parsley Theater has become literary theater. “The writers placed Petrushka in modern Soviet life, where he acted as a dues ex machine, but also as an ordinary stage hero. And Petrushka not only did not look like an anachronism, did not destroy the integrity of the stage narrative, but also remained a kind of literary standard that determines the development of this art.” And here is an example of the title of one of the plays imitating folklore: “An amateur performance about the consumer business, about Nyurka, the merchant and clerk, the cheerful Parsley the storyteller,” author - M.D. Volpin, famous Soviet playwright, poet and screenwriter. Parsley begins to be perceived as one of the “world images” classical culture. M. Gorky spoke about this in his speech at the First Congress Soviet writers in 1934 He built a unique series of these images: “Hercules, Prometheus, Mikula Selyaninovich, Svyatogor, - then - Doctor Faust, Vasilisa the Wise, the ironic successor Ivan the Fool, and finally Petrushka, defeating the doctor, the priest, the policeman, the devil and even death.” Tolstoy’s new work “The Golden Key, or the Adventures of Buratino” brings to the stage a new, resilient puppet hero, Buratino, in whom the main features of Petrushka are so clearly manifested. New look fit entirely into the context of modern times. In all its manifestations, it strikingly resembles the usual fairground Parsley. So, Petrushka merged with Pinocchio, and for a long time remained exclusively a character children's theater. This Petrushka transformed, stopped being aggressive, “cultivated himself” and became just a cheerful little man. Over time, parsley began to appear at children's parties and New Year trees. Parsley was at work and was a true hero Soviet theater dolls until traditional art remained the only one. But when a new theater was born, built on the principles of conventional psychologism, Petrushka became a complete absurdity, he could not withstand the psychological load, and any attempts to build his image with the help of a psychologically based characterization ended in failure.” Petrushka did not take root in S. Obraztsov’s theater. Since the late 40s, Parsley disappeared altogether and was not remembered for almost 50 years.

But time does not stand still. As proof, in the 2000s, a play for children “Parsley at War” appeared in the genre of a farcical parsley show about how Pyotr Petrovich Uksusov became a Red Army soldier and defeated all fascist enemies. A performance in one act, based on Russian folklore, for children from 6 years old. The performance is based on mischievous folk humor and satire.

Unfortunately, living tradition folklore puppet theater has been lost in our country. Currently, one can count on one hand those who are engaged in the reconstruction of the Petrushka Theater in the form in which it existed in the century before last. A huge amount of work in this direction is being carried out by A. Gref’s “Wandering Den” theater in Moscow, V. Mizenin’s “Papmashenniki” theater and the “Balagan” theater in St. Petersburg. The theater of Tatyana Chunakova, who continues the traditions of the theater of N. Simonovich-Efimova, is also well known. Puppeteers give their performances in the open air: in Moscow on Arbat and in St. Petersburg on Nevsky Prospekt, in clubs and orphanages and, if invited, in apartments, reviving the tradition of the St. Petersburg theater by N. Simonovich-Efimova. “The Wandering Den” becomes a theater accessible not only to children, but also to adult audiences. Every year the theater gains not only many fans, but also people seeking to revive this type of puppet show locally, creating additional education, clubs have their own Petrushka Theater.

I. Stravinsky ballet “Petrushka”

The ballet “Petrushka”, the music for which was written by the young composer I. Stravinsky, became the highlight of the “Russian Seasons” in Paris in 1911. At that time, no one could have thought that Petrushka, with his characteristic clumsy plasticity and sad face will become a symbol of the Russian ballet avant-garde. But the brilliant creative triumvirate of composer I. Stravinsky, choreographer M. Fokine and artist A. Benois created a masterpiece that became one of the symbols of Russian culture. A riot of colors, expressiveness, National character, manifested both in music and in costumes, scenery, and choreography, led the audience into complete admiration and established a fashion in Europe for everything Russian.

• In the ballet, a street dancer twirls to the old song “Wooden Leg.” Her simple motive Stravinsky I heard it from an organ grinder on one of the streets of Nice. Subsequently, the author of the song appeared - a certain Spencer, and the court ordered the composer to pay him the amount of the royalty.
• At the first rehearsal of the orchestra in Paris, the musicians began to laugh out loud, they found the music of “Petrushka” so funny. Conductor P. Monto needed all his powers of persuasion to explain to his colleagues that Stravinsky’s music should not be perceived as comic.
• The role of Petrushka became key in the life and work of such dancers as V. Nijinsky, V. Vasiliev, M. Tsivin, S. Vikharev, R. Nureyev and others.
• It is believed that it is Diaghilev revealed Stravinsky's talent to the world. When he first heard the young composer, he did not even have a higher musical education.
• Mikhail Fokin considered Tamara Karsavina the best performer of the Ballerina doll. She, in turn, loved this role very much and danced it until the end of her ballet career.
• In 1993, a platinum coin dedicated to Stravinsky was issued. It features a relief image of the composer against the background of a scene from the ballet “Petrushka”.
• Contemporaries unmistakably guessed in the characters of “Petrushka” the real participants of the “Russian Seasons”. The image of the Magician was directly associated with Sergeev Diaghilev, who controlled his artists like a puppeteer controls puppets. Nijinsky was compared to Petrushka, seeing in him an artist who, by the power of his art, rose above the crowd.
• In 1947, Stravinsky created a second edition of Petrushka to be performed by a smaller number of musicians. Instead of a “quadruple” orchestra, the score was redone for a “triple” composition, and the music for “Petrushka” began to exist in two versions - as ballet and as orchestral.
• Based on the ballet “Petrushka”, the Russian cartoon “Christmas Fantasy” was created in 1993.
• Stravinsky skillfully wove motifs of famous Russians into the music of the ballet folk songs“In the evening of a stormy autumn”, “Wonderful month”, “Along St. Petersburg”, “Oh, you canopy, my canopy”, “It’s not the ice that’s cracking, it’s not the mosquito that’s squeaking”, “But the snow is melting”.
• Music from the ballet “Petrushka” is heard in the films “The Charming Prankster”, “The Vampire’s Kiss”, “Our Lady of Turkey”.

Petrushka Theater

Petrushka Theater

Parsley is a glove puppet, one of the characters of the Russian folk theater. Depicted in a red shirt, canvas pants and a pointed cap with a tassel. In V. Dahl's dictionary it is:

the nickname of a booth doll, a Russian jester, a jokester, a wit in a red caftan and a red cap; The whole clownish, puppet den is also called Petrushka.

The origin of this doll, which appeared in Russia in the second half of the 19th century, has not been reliably clarified. Although in Russia Parsley has been known since the 17th century. Russian puppeteers used marionettes (string puppet theater) and parsleys (glove puppets). Until the 19th century, preference was given to Parsley, by the end of the century - to marionettes, as parsley makers united with organ grinders.

Petrushka’s appearance is by no means Russian: he has exaggeratedly large hands and head, exaggerated facial features, and the face itself (carved from wood) is treated with a special plant liquid, which makes it look darker; large almond-shaped eyes and a huge hooked nose, completely white eyeballs and a dark iris, due to which Parsley’s eyes appear black. He inherited Parsley's appearance from the Italian Pulcinella. Many people mistakenly believe that Parsley’s wide-open mouth is a smile, but this is not so; being negative character, Petrushka constantly stretches her lips in a grin. He has four fingers on his hands (a possible symbol that Petrushka is not a person, but some character from another world).

A typical misconception is to revere Petrushka as an extremely ancient and primordially Russian hero, based on his archetypal character traits, which originated in the depths of human ideas about themselves. Parsley is the younger relative of the older ones: the Neapolitan Pulcinella, the French Polichinelle, the English Punch, the Turkish Karagöz, the German Hanswurst and Kasperle, the Spanish Don Cristobal and others - despite the fact that all of them are theatrical puppets and are controlled using threads. The only analogue of Petrushka in terms of driving technique is the Guignol glove doll, which appeared in Lyon in early XIX century.

The parsley screen consisted of three frames, fastened with staples and covered with chintz. It was placed directly on the ground and hid the puppeteer. The barrel organ gathered the audience, and behind the screen the actor began to communicate with the audience through a peep (whistle). Later, with laughter and reprise, he ran out himself, in a red cap and with a long nose. The organ grinder sometimes became Parsley's partner: because of the squeaker, his speech was not always intelligible, and he repeated Parsley's phrases and conducted a dialogue. The comedy with Petrushka was played out at fairs and booths.

In Russia, only men “drove” Petrushka. To make the voice louder and squeakier (this was necessary both for audibility at fair performances and for the special character of the character), they used a special squeak inserted into the larynx. Petrushka's speech had to be “piercing” and very fast.

There were main plots: Parsley's treatment, soldier training, the scene with the bride, buying a horse and testing it. The stories were passed from actor to actor, by word of mouth. No character in the Russian theater had the popularity equal to Petrushka.

According to a widespread but unproven version, plays with the participation of Petrushka were still part of the repertoire of buffoons and consisted of humorous scenes and dialogues. Each scene depicted a fight between Petrushka and one character or another (fights were carried out using fists, sticks, etc.).

Usually the performance began with the following plot: Petrushka decides to buy a horse, the musician calls the gypsy horse dealer. Parsley examines the horse for a long time and bargains with the gypsy for a long time. Then Petrushka gets tired of the bargaining, and instead of money, he beats the gypsy on the back for a long time, after which he runs away. Petrushka tries to mount the horse, but it throws him off to the laughter of the audience. This could continue until people laughed it off. Finally the horse runs away, leaving Petrushka lying dead. The doctor comes and asks Petrushka about his illnesses. It turns out that everything hurts. A fight ensues between the Doctor and Petrushka, at the end of which Petrushka hits the enemy hard on the head with a baton. “What kind of doctor are you,” shouted Petrushka, “if you ask where it hurts? Why did you study? You yourself should know where it hurts!” The quarterly appears. - “Why did you kill the doctor?” He answers: “Because he doesn’t know his science well.” After the interrogation, Petrushka hits the policeman on the head with a club and kills him. A growling dog comes running. Parsley unsuccessfully asks for help from the audience and the musician, after which he flirts with the dog, promising to feed it cat meat. The dog grabs him by the nose and drags him away, and Petrushka shouts: “Oh, my little head with its cap and brush is gone!” The music stops, signaling the end of the performance.

If the audience liked it, then they did not let the actors go, applauded, threw money, demanding a continuation. Then they played a small scene “Petrushka’s Wedding”. A bride is brought to Parsley, he examined her the way a horse is examined. He likes the bride, he doesn’t want to wait for the wedding and begins to beg her to “sacrifice herself.” From the scene where the bride “sacrifices herself,” the women left and took their children with them. According to some information, she used great success another scene in which a clergyman was present. It was not included in any of the recorded texts; most likely, it was removed by censorship. There were scenes in which Petrushka did not participate. It was dancing and juggling with balls and sticks.

Parsley defeated all opponents except one - Death. In the last, final scene, Death took Petrushka with him. However, since Petrushka was used in a farce theater, it is natural that the performance was shown repeatedly and in different places. Thus, Petrushka, who “died” for one circle of viewers, “resurrected” for another. This gives researchers reason to draw parallels between the image of Parsley and many different pagan gods who endlessly died and were resurrected.

At the beginning of the 20th century, “The Comedy about Petrushka” begins to collapse. Parsley plants began to appear at children's parties and New Year trees, the text of the scenes changed, losing its sharpness. Parsley stopped killing. He swung his club and scattered his enemies. He spoke politely, and the “wedding” changed, turning into a dance with the bride. The rude, common speech disappeared, and with it the individuality of the hooligan-joker, to whom both old and young came running.

Certain elements of the traditional “Comedy about Petrushka” (in particular, free “paradise” verse) were used by S. Ya. Marshak in the play for the children’s theater “Petrushka the Foreigner” (1927).

35. Raek. Device. Raeshny verse (definition, theme) artistic techniques.

People's theater consisting of small box with two magnifying glasses in front. Inside it, pictures are rearranged or a paper strip with homegrown images of different cities, great people and events is rewound from one skating rink to another. Raeshnik moves the pictures and tells sayings and jokes for each new story. These pictures were often made in the popular print style, initially had a religious content - hence the name “paradise”, and then began to reflect the most various topics, including political ones. Fair trade was widely practiced.

Rayoshnik or rayochnik - a storyteller, performer of a rayk, as well as a person visiting a rayon. In addition, the term rayoshnik (or rayoshny verse) refers to the rhymed prose spoken by the narrator and his characters.

PARADISE VERSE, PARADISE - oldest form Russian folk dismetric verse (free verse) with adjacent rhymes, determined by intonation-phrase and pause division. In short, it is a rhyming phrase book. Subjects and genres of R. s. the most diverse: from topical satire to cheerful jokes. Most folk theater plays and the texts of performances for the folk puppet theater (nativity scene, parsley, booth) were compiled in the form of a raika, unusually flexible in its structure and most suitable for improvisational performances on stage.

Example R. s. (from the book “Folk Poetic Satire”, Leningrad, 1960):

And here, gentlemen, is the lottery.
An oxtail and two fillets!..
The twelve stone clock is still being played
Yes, on three bricks.
Brought from non-farm goods on firewood!
Also played is a teapot without a lid, without a bottom -
Only one handle!..
Real Chinese porcelain!
Was thrown out into the yard
And I picked it up, yes I mean,
That you can also win porcelain in the lottery!
Well, guys, come on -
Buy up my tickets!..
Cigarette tickets will do for you,
And the rubles will move in my purse!..

In Russian literature R. s. was neglected for a long time, despite the fact that the most prominent Russian poets turned to this capacious folk form verse, for example, by A. Pushkin in “The Tale of the Priest and His Worker Balda,” in the spirit of the folk district:

Once upon a time there was a priest,
Thick forehead,
Pop went to the market
View some products.
Balda meets him
He goes without knowing where.
“Why, dad, did you get up so early?
What are you asking for?..”