Performance three sisters in small. “Three Sisters”: which version to choose
(MAIN SCENE: Teatralny Proezd, 1 (Teatralnaya metro station) and ORDYNKA SCENE: Bolshaya Ordynka St., 69 (Dobryninskaya metro station))
Drama in 4 acts (3 hours)
A.P. Chekhov
1200 - 4000 rub.
Performance THREE SISTERS
Ticket prices:
Balcony: 1200-2000 rub.
Mezzanine: 1500-2500 rub.
Amphitheater, boxes: 1800-3000 rub.
Parterre: 2300-4000 rub.
The cost of one ticket includes reservation and delivery services.
For exact prices and availability of tickets, please call the website. Tickets are available.
Review of "Theater Afisha"
“This is a furious author” - this is how Armen Dzhigarkhanyan understands Chekhov. He found an early, uncorrected version of the play for this production - and he was not mistaken with his choice. But even the author’s usual remarks are unrecognizable here. They hurt the ear, get stuck in the brain, they excite, anger, amaze.
The author of “Three Sisters” is a doctor, and he makes an unmistakable diagnosis for his characters. And there is no in the textbook “to Moscow, to Moscow!” There is no hope for any of them, there is no future. Only migratory birds are still flying somewhere above the Prozorovs’ house, and will fly “until God reveals the secret to them.”
The Prozorov sisters (Olga, Masha and Irina) are grieving in one of the provincial towns of the Russian province, where a military garrison is temporarily located. Against the backdrop of this immense provincial boredom, the relationship between the middle of the sisters, Masha and officer Vershinin, and the youngest, Irina and Baron Tuzenbach, unfold. Masha will never find her happiness, Irina will forever lose her loved one. The regiment will leave the city. The sounds of the military band fade away. Long, long days will drag on... “To Moscow, to Moscow!” - will remain an eternal symbol of the unfulfilled hopes of all the heroes of this drama by A.P. Chekhov.
Production director - Production designer - Alexander Glazunov
Musical arrangement - Grigory Gobernik
Director - Vasily Fedorov
Premiere: January 16, 2004.
Duration of the performance is 3 hours.
Prozorov Andrey Sergeevich People's Artist of Russia
Natalya Ivanovna, his fiancee, then his wife
Honored Artist of Russia
I.A.ZHERYAKOVA
Olga
People's Artist of Russia
A.I. OKHLUPINA
Masha
People's Artist of Russia
Laureate of the State Prize of Russia
O.L. PASHKOVA
Irina
V.V. ANDREEVA
Kulygin Fedor Ilyich, gymnasium teacher, Masha’s husband
People's Artist of Russia
VC. BABYATINSKY
Vershinin Alexander Ignatievich, lieutenant colonel, battery commander
People's Artist of Russia
A.Yu. ERMAKOV
Tuzenbakh Nikolai Lvovich, baron, lieutenant
Honored Artist of Russia,
laureate of the State Prize of Russia
G.V. PODGORODINSKY
Soleny Vasily Vasilievich, staff captain
Honored Artist of Russia
V.A. GROSS-OUT
A.E. FADDEYEV
Chebutykin Ivan Romanovich, military doctor
People's Artist of Russia
E.E. MARTSEVICH
Honored Artist of Russia
V.B. SPOUT
Fedotik Alexey Petrovich, second lieutenant
S.A. KORSHUNOV
Rode Vladimir Karpovich, second lieutenant
A.E. FADDEYEV
YES. MARIN
Ferapont, watchman from the zemstvo council, old man
People's Artist of Russia
A.S. KUDINOVICH
Anfisa, nanny, old woman 80 years old
L.S. ANIKEEVA
Maid in the Prozorovs' house
L.S. ANIKEEVA
D.N. PODGORNAYA
Soldier
A.T.MANKE
Marina Davydova
Freeze. Die. Move on with your life
Yuri Solomin staged "Three Sisters" at the Maly Theater
Artists often go into directing and very rarely achieve anything in it. Yuri Solomin unexpectedly achieved. “Three Sisters”, released by him in Maly, was made and played with that kind of simplicity that seasoned critics no longer dared to dream of.
It just so happened that for some time now there have been two strongholds of tradition in Moscow - the Moscow Art Theater and the Maly. And they have recently been led by two outstanding artists - Tabakov and Solomin. The first discovered the makings of an outstanding manager and, in accordance with the spirit of the times, turned the theater entrusted to him into a platform open to all directions and winds. The second, on the contrary, resisted the spirit of the times in every possible way, shunned fashion trends and was known in theatrical circles as an incorrigible conservative. "Three Sisters" is the fruit of this very conservatism. An unexpected, frankly speaking, fruit.
Tradition is generally a vague word. In relation to the theater, and even more so to the Russian theater, it is subject to definition with particular difficulty. After all, Maly and the Moscow Art Theater embody different traditions. And “Three Sisters” is not from Maly’s repertoire. This is just from a completely different repertoire. To be historically and theatrically accurate, to play Chekhov in Maly in accordance with tradition means to play in a sweeping, playful manner, with some slant towards comedy, most likely Ostrovsky’s comedy. Sergei Zhenovach is the true heir to these traditions. Meanwhile, “Three Sisters” was played at the Maly in the Moscow Art Theater style, without looking at any specific production, but in obvious accordance with the hypothetical Moscow Art Theater performance, as it, in the words of one of Chekhov’s heroes, “is imagined in dreams.” The fact that Maly, and even with the help of his artistic director, undertook to solve such a problem deserves interest and respect. The fact that this task was ultimately up to him deserves close analysis.
No one has ever considered Solomin a real director. I don’t think he counted himself among them. He clearly didn’t have any strikingly deep and innovative thoughts about Chekhov’s play. He did not intend to speak any new words in art. In general, he turned out to be not a director in this case, but rather a medium, a conductor of that theatrical idea, according to which one must trust the author as much as possible, honestly try to penetrate into the essence of each character and not deform the play with the concept. These instructions now seem as simple as a pancake recipe. But in my memory, the overwhelming majority of these pancakes came out lumpy.
Let’s say, some relative who is inexperienced in theatrical matters calls you and says: “I would like to see Chekhov, but without avant-gardeism and any bad excesses. In a classical performance.” You literally don’t know what to advise a person, because “classical performances” seem to be found, but they smack of such falsehood, such hopeless theatrical routine that it is ashamed to recommend them to anyone. When a buzzed-about banality with scarves fluttering in the stage wind and a breakdown depicted picturesquely on the proscenium is passed off as loyalty to the tradition of Russian psychological theater, you want to run away from this tradition and its talkative adherents, like Maupassant from the Eiffel Tower. After all, in fact, such adherents are destroying it with much greater success than all the radicals and subverters combined. Thus, a stupid guardian can cause more serious harm to the Christian faith than the most ardent atheist.
You leave Maly’s performance in a good mood and with joy in your heart. It turns out that you can do it like this - without discoveries and breakthroughs, but also without hitting the wrong notes. Without vulgarity and crap. These “Three Sisters” don’t look like an anachronism for a single minute, although the whole gentlemanly set of the Chekhov production seems to be in place - detailed interiors, a backdrop with a birch grove, period-appropriate costumes. Here the sisters (Alena Okhlupina, Olga Pashkova, Varvara Andreeva) will suffer, Natasha (Inna Ivanova) will turn from a timid bourgeois into a hysterical housekeeper, Kulygin (Valery Babyatinsky) will be sublimely defenseless in his love for Masha, Solyony (Viktor Nizovoy) is ridiculous in his romantic claims. But I believe each of them.
The Maly troupe - you are convinced of this once again - is one of the strongest and, most importantly, well-coordinated troupes in Moscow. Its artists rarely appear in TV series and television gatherings over a cup of tea, but they do their job well. Of course, Eduard Martsevich in the role of Chebutykin, who has long, unlike everyone else, not harbored any illusions or hopes, shows a much higher class of acting than, say, Alexander Ermakov (Vershinin) or charming, but not very different this charm comes from Fedotik or Rode Gleb Podgorodinsky (Tusenbach), but none of them can be blamed for narcissism, shamelessly dragging the blanket over themselves.
Sitting in the Maly, you surrender to the measured flow of the play and performance and discover unexpected and precise passages in its quiet cantilena. Here Andrei Prozorov (excellent work by Alexander Klyukvin) pronounces in the last act his next monologue on the topic “life is lost,” addressing him to Sofochka lying in a stroller. And this absurd reasoning suddenly reveals Chekhov’s tragedy stronger than any strain. Or at the end there is no loud music, which seems to be supposed to accompany Olga’s monologue according to the stage directions, but the sound of steadily falling drops is simply heard. And this, I must say, is one of the best “mood” scenes I have ever seen.
Comparing Maly’s performance with other “classical” productions, you suddenly begin to clearly understand how the correct answer to a complex question differs from a banal one. Banal - it is always borrowed. To do it right requires the work of your own brain and your own soul. There are theorems that will never turn into axioms. They must be proven anew every time. In Maly’s performance, the work of the soul and mind is visible, and it can replace everything that is usually valued in modern theater - stylish decoration, unexpected interpretation, and bold staging moves.
Somewhere, a tradition that was once inextricably linked with the Art Theater, but which has long since become a common property, has died and turned into a dried-up mummy. Somewhere she froze in anticipation of new achievements. Somewhere, like in Maly, he continues to live modestly but with dignity. God bless her.
Rossiyskaya Gazeta, February 4, 2004
Alena Karas
Let's hit Chekhov
The Maly Theater once again attempted to perform a play by the great playwright
CHEKHOV's zeal, timed to coincide with the anniversary of his death, has reached its apogee. After the terrible, full of confusion and disharmony “The Cherry Orchard” by Eimuntas Nyakrosius, Joseph Raikhelgauz spoke out, releasing the cheerful, trifling operetta “The Seagull” to spite everyone. The next two premieres - "The Cherry Orchard" at the RAMT and "Three Sisters" at the Maly Theater - turned out to be much more thorough.
The Maly Theater rarely takes on Chekhov. Centuries have flown by, but the nature and spirit of this theater is still alien to anything remotely “Chekhovian.” If at the end of the century before last “Chaika” had not failed in Alexandrinka, it would definitely have failed in Maly. A clear, strong gait, an open and powerful temperament, respect for the word, turning into pathetic declamation - this is the acting style of the Maly Theater, which over time, if it became smaller, never changed its nature. An enthusiastic admirer of the Maly Theater, Vasily Rozanov, educated by its great masters, forever retained the belief that “the theater cannot convey anything intimate, hidden, internal.... In general, strength and brevity, as if the emphasis of everything, is the fundamental law of the theater.” .
As if having overheard these long-standing thoughts of the Russian philosopher, the artistic director of the Maly Theater Yuri Solomin staged Chekhov’s “Three Sisters” the way Yuzhin-Sumbatov or Nemirovich-Danchenko were once staged here. In his performance they “hit” everyone and everything. There is not a single line that is said quietly, unintelligibly or imperceptibly. The flow of life, its gray everyday life, the singer of which Chekhov was teased for so long, are beyond the control of the actors of Maly. The quiet flickering of different plans, the multitude of minute-by-minute dramas, the polyphony of voices that, without merging, create an alarming and complex hum of existence - everything that constitutes such an intimate, inevitable part of Chekhov's poetics - for the Maly Theater still constitutes an incomprehensible mystery.
It’s even interesting to watch these torments of comprehension. The clock strikes, and Irina, approaching it, solemnly and pathetically proclaims: “And a year ago the clock struck in exactly the same way.” Every replica and every line is subject to proclamation. Sounds on the river, screams of officers, the hum of a top, Chebutykin's "ta-ra-ra-bumbia", the noise of a samovar - everything and everyone becomes a solo number for Solomin. When mummers are expected at the Prozorovs’ house, Russian folk songs sound as if the Pyatnitsky choir were lined up right here on the stage.
In fact, the actors themselves line up on stage like a folk choir, remembering that they should be seen and heard from everywhere. And if the sisters and all the inhabitants of the house are listening to Vershinin (Alexander Ermakov) who has run in for a minute, then they do it thoroughly, turning straight to the viewer. It’s immediately obvious that they are the general’s daughters.
Solomin and the artist Alexander Glazunov, following the Chekhov productions of Efremov and Leventhal, build in detail the Prozorovs' house on stage with rooms and passages, with a landscape and a birch grove.
But here, with the birch grove, the most interesting things begin. Solomin tries to hear the tragedy from the first, cheerful chords of Irina’s name day. The grove - the place where Solyony kills Tuzenbach - is constantly present in the figurative structure of the play, like a silent prophet and witness of future misfortunes. And the name days themselves - with a detailed feast, a samovar and a pie - are also read by Solomin as a harbinger. Unfortunately, the actors in the first act act as if all the most fatal endings of the play have already happened.
The holiday begins with a wake. Guests of the Prozorovsky house rise to remember their father, who died exactly a year ago. And even earlier - in the prologue to the play - Solomin reads a fragment of Chekhov’s letter to Knipper, where he talks about his heart tormented by unrequited love.
Actually, this intonation of remembrance, deadly omens and personal misfortunes is the main one in the Maly Theater performance. With each new breath, his breath becomes hotter, and in the fire scene it almost burns with the number of broken destinies and hopeless loves. Sisters crowded together in one small room, Kulygin (Valery Babyatinsky) hiding behind a screen, drunken Chebutykin (the gentle and hopeless intonation of Eduard Martsevich is perhaps the most powerful impression of the performance), poor old Anfisa (Galina Demina), brother Andrei (Alexander Klyukvin) - Solomin concentrates the degree of suffering to the utmost degree. Perhaps only Masha, performed by Olga Pashkova, does not hear this desperate atmosphere. For her, neither love nor the happiness that suddenly befalls her is insignificant; the actress easily skips the most important scenes of the play. And therefore, her confession to her sisters about her illicit love is perceived as random and meaningless.
It is significant that Tuzenbach (Gleb Podgorodinsky) loves Irina. It is significant that she does not hear this love, but is ready to come to terms with it. It is significant that Olga (Alena Okhlupina) suddenly accepts Kulygin as a person whom she - unlike Masha - could love. It is significant that he, too, would be ready to love Olga, if not for the severity of moral prohibitions. It is significant that he endures Masha’s suffering at the end of the play and is ready to endure it further. It is significant that in the finale the music of the regimental orchestra does not sound joyful and soothing at all, and Olga’s words are drowned in desperate and hopeless silence. And it turns out that the Maly Theater, sometimes naively and pompously, still managed to play “Three Sisters” as the most desperate and hopeless Chekhov play about unfulfilled love.
Russian Courier, February 5, 2004
Alisa Nikolskaya
The Maly Theater got lost in three sisters
Performances staged “by the way” are not uncommon in Moscow today. Perhaps most of them would not be worth paying attention to at all. However, there are cases when a performance, staged only to ensure that a certain play appears on the poster, touches a nerve either with an unexpectedly interesting result or with its complete inadequacy.
Everything was clear with “Three Sisters” at the Maly Theater even before the curtain went up. A leisurely “waltz in a city garden”, birch trees in the backdrop, lacy chiaroscuro... You can look at the polished furniture for a long time, study the palm trees in tubs and wonder what the cake on the birthday table is made of. However, at some point you begin to pay attention to the action. And you immediately discover many inconsistencies and oddities. At first, it seems that the director of the play, Yuri Solomin, followed the most logical path for both him and the Maly Theater - he turned “Sisters” into a leisurely everyday spectacle, where the actors wear costumes approximately corresponding to the era, and pronounce the text - sometimes with pathos, sometimes with tears and wringing of hands, sometimes calmly and casually.
However, as we progress, the thought strikes us that Solomin, on the contrary, decided to get rid of the traditional approach and tried to build not the usual blissful, but a tough and nervous system of relationships. The heroes hate each other with terrible force, to the point of foaming at the mouth and gnashing of teeth. And the sisters and Natasha are simply competing to see who can be mean to whom. Confused busybody Olga (Alena Okhlupina) screams in a bad voice, shouting the word “darling” as if it were an obscene curse. The simple-minded Vershinin (Alexander Ermakov) talks about love so casually that it seems he is no stranger to such words. Arrogant Masha (Olga Pashkova) pouts her lips in disgust and turns up her nose. She has nothing to repent of before her sisters, and after the military leaves, she convulses, like a small child who is not given a toy. The awkward Baron Tuzenbach (Scheb Podgorodinsky) pronounces every word as if he is embarrassed, but when it comes to “philosophizing”, he jumps to the forefront and appeals to the public worse than any other party leader. Apparently, the sleek secularism for this company is just a reason not to advertise too much the mutual hostility that has accumulated over the years.
It would seem: hurray, finally there is at least something new in the production of a well-worn classic. However, the longer you look, the more uncontrollably you yawn. "Sisters" is played rather poorly: boring, unconvincing, flat. It seems that most of the artists do not understand what to do, and that is why they either break into a scream, or simply rush around the stage, blurting out chunks of text. Hatred is portrayed, as they say, “at the level of the throat”: they shout, but this noise is in no way justified. Only two work decently: young Inna Ivanova (Natasha) and Viktor Nizovoy (Soleny). Their characters turned out to be the most alive. And nothing has even been thought up about the rest. Considering that the Maly Theater considers its primary duty to place the main emphasis on the psychological accuracy of the action, such inconsistencies are perceived as especially strange.
Less significant, but “scratching” moments are also striking. For example, why is there a portrait of Alexander III hanging on the wall in the Prozorovs’ house, but not a single icon? And when the heroes stand up to remember their dead father, no one crosses themselves? For the first time receiving Vershinin as a guest, the hosts huddle for a long time in the hall on one spot, although the most natural (both actorly and humanly) would be to go into the rooms. And where, it’s interesting to know, is the famous school of manners of the Maly Theater? Everyone’s backs are bent, their gait is uncertain, older people jump around like boys, and not a single gentleman knows how to properly kiss a lady’s hand - they grab it at random. And here's another strange thing. The Maly Theater has always been famous for its colorful artists. So why is there not a single person in “Three Sisters” that evokes banal audience sympathy?..
How often do Maly representatives speak in interviews about preserving the “traditions of the Russian theater.” But, judging by most recent performances ("Three Sisters" is no exception), the very concept of tradition has become fairly blurred. “What loses its shape ends,” says Kulygin in the first act. I don’t want this to sound like a prophecy for the Maly Theatre.
Culture, February 12, 2004
Irina Alpatova
Defector Quartet
Chekhov's cycle completed at the Maly Theater
The height of winter gave the public a surge of interest in Chekhov's drama. Almost simultaneously, “The Cherry Orchard” appeared at the RAMT, the operetta “The Seagull” at the School of Modern Play, and two versions of “Three Sisters” - at the Maly Theater and the Armen Dzhigarkhanyan Theater. It's like the changing seasons. Autumn was marked by the “new drama”, some representatives of which consider Chekhov obsolete. Winter, according to the natural balance, presented the audience with four Chekhov performances.
During Chekhov’s lifetime, the Maly Theater’s relationship with its dramaturgy somehow did not work out. All its subtexts, “undercurrents” and other nuances of the century-old “new drama” were at odds with the acting traditions of the imperial stage, although it, too, longed for reform. In Soviet times, Chekhov was staged in Maly infrequently and without obvious discoveries. But in recent years there has been a whole rash of Chekhov productions, and Maly has surpassed even the Moscow Art Theater, which bears the name of the playwright, having in its repertoire as many as four titles: “The Cherry Orchard,” “Uncle Vanya,” “The Seagull” and “Three Sisters.”
It is known that some advanced theater figures of our time are proposing to impose a moratorium on the production of Chekhov's plays. Despite all the absurdity of the positions, it is still possible to understand them, at least in the fact that Chekhov’s super-popularity partly hinders the promotion of the “new drama” of the current model and the next “new forms”. True, in fairness it is worth noting that this drama is not even capable of minimal competition. As for the “new forms,” the heroes of Chekhov’s works today sing and dance, and often behave like reckless avant-garde artists. And by the way, the coolest of the current wave of young directors in their upcoming premiere productions promise us a meeting not with their contemporaries, but with the same “cool” classics.
But today is not about them. At the Maly Theater, its artistic director Yuri Solomin presented to the public his version of the production of the famous “Three Sisters,” which to this day had never been staged on the oldest Moscow stage. And here let me fall into banality for a moment. Still, the most textbook classical work is now staged not for its own sake (if a play has crossed the century mark, it has automatically proven its genius), but for the sake of its connection with the pain points of today's reality. Yuri Solomin pointedly distanced “Three Sisters” from our time. Like the eternal from the vain, the present from surrogates. This is what he personally stated in the prologue and epilogue of his performance, where his “off-screen” voice sounds, telling that it is better where we are not. This voice clearly suggests that we will see a story that happened a long time ago, ideal and isolated, which we can sympathize with, but very detachedly.
Meanwhile, the “three sisters” syndrome still exists, and even in the far from ideal modern Moscow, which the Prozorov young ladies so aspired to and did not end up in. In a very aggravated state, provoked by not so distant social cataclysms. The little one preferred “the beautiful is far away.” Yuri Solomin did not take the risk or simply did not want to create any concepts, preferring a traditionally actor's interpretation of the play, unfolded on the stage in the same traditionally beautiful scenography. The artist Alexander Glazunov built a very remarkable set in itself, although it wanders from one Chekhov performance to another. Panorama of the estate park, trees, pond, in the center - a rotating pavilion representing the interiors of the Prozorovs' house. The viewer, as usual, greets all this beauty with applause.
And then - according to the text. Slowly, in detail and confidently. Solomin is not going to “surprise” anyone. But in the absence of anything else, it is assumed that the viewer should get the main pleasure from the acting, which, according to unwritten laws, at the Maly Theater seems to be traditionally good. Anyone who biasedly observes the life of the theater has long ago realized that it is good only if it is directed and polished by the director. Even though the director, in the old fashioned way, “dies” in the actors. Just remember the play “Truth is good, but happiness is better” by Sergei Zhenovach, recognized as the unconditional first “highlight of the season” of the past.
In Solomin's "Three Sisters" the famous acting ensemble paradoxically appears and disappears, breaking up into separate solo parts that are not always in harmony. The older generation of Maly actors is still at their best, represented here by Galina Demina (Anfisa), Valery Babyatinsky (Kulygin) and Eduard Martsevich (Chebutykin). The latter is especially good because it has its own personal “history”, which pulls, without breaking the thread, from the past to the future, which, however, is very uncertain. Here he, usually always drunk, took root, almost the “keeper of the house”, its foundations, lively, temperamental, spontaneous, able to both hide his feelings and nervously, sarcastically, throw out emotions. And Kulygin-Babyatinsky, well aware of the duality of his position, demonstrates the same duality of existence: a narrow-minded and fussy “cracker”, every now and then dropping well-worn phrases, and a man hopelessly in love with his own wife, capable of understanding and forgiveness.
The Prozorov family itself looks quite ordinary and ordinary. There is no need to talk about the subtlety of feelings, the fleetingness of nuances, or spiritual evolution. Unless the older sister Olga (Alena Okhlupina) tries to “live” on stage in the proposed circumstances. The remaining two are desperately playing “tragedy”, real and imaginary. And in different ways. Irina (Varvara Andreeva) takes her desire for childish spontaneity to the point of absurdity. It seems that they are celebrating the name day not of a 20-year-old young lady, but of a three-year-old baby, as she fusses around, exultantly shouting passages about work, rolling her eyes and wringing her hands. And what could the truly spontaneous, sincere and subtle Tuzenbach (Gleb Podgorodinsky) love here? Perhaps its opposite. Masha (Olga Pashkova), on the contrary, does not remove the frozen mask of arrogant contempt from her face, and the final hysteria therefore seems like an absolutely filler number, not very masterfully performed. Brother Andrei (Alexander Klyukvin) looks like an adopted child compared to them, because he is much calmer and normal, at the same time accepting his unenviable fate and doomedly rebelling against it. However, with a wife like Natasha (Inna Ivanova), traditionally noisy, hysterical, arrogant and shameless, you won’t be particularly rebellious.
You really look at all these familiar twists and turns through the eyes of an outside observer, sometimes laughing, sometimes remaining completely indifferent. The only things that are touching are the aforementioned “old men” and the episode of Tuzenbach’s farewell to Irina. And then exclusively from the position of the baron - Podgorodinsky, because you understand that it is better to part with life touchingly than to spend the rest of it in a brick factory with such an exalted, and not yet loving, person as Irina.
True, based on the current theatrical situation, one can’t help but want to rejoice at the fact that in the Maly Theater’s performance, Chekhov’s characters are at least mentally normal, demonstrate a natural orientation and express themselves in censored ways.
Vedomosti, February 18, 2004
Victoria Nikiforova
The worst is the enemy of the good
"Three Sisters" directed by Yuri Solomin appeared at the Maly Theater
Difficult people live in the Prozorovs' house. In the first act, Irina (Varvara Andreeva) laughs as if she had taken a massive dose of cocaine on her name day, and then she sobs throughout the entire performance, as if she were going through withdrawal. Masha (Olga Pashkova) says nasty things to everyone. Olga (Alena Okhlupina) whines like a blizzard outside the window. There is only one good person here, and that one is Kulygin.
The same bad anecdote happened to Chekhov's play that happens to all classical plays in modern production. All good heroes turn out to be unbearable bores, all theatrical villains turn out to be handsome. In any “Hamlet” of recent years, Hamlet came out as an inarticulate whiner, but Claudius was sweet and smart. In “The Brothers Karamazov” at the Mayakovsky Theater, of the entire Dostoevsky family, only Fyodor Pavlovich with his cognac and “chicken” aroused the sympathy of the audience. Exactly the same thing happened in Three Sisters. The cuckold, the vulgar, the sycophant, the man in the case became the most sympathetic character in the play. Along the way, he demonstrates delicacy, tact, kindness - all the signature properties of Chekhov's hero. In the finale, he holds a black umbrella over the sisters, protecting them from the rain, and the simple metaphor works quite well: only worldly wisdom and Kulygin’s common sense can save these absurd women.
Kulygin is played by Valery Babyatinsky. For the premiere, the theater published a newspaper where the actors spoke about their characters. So, Babyatinsky has the most sensible statement about the play: “It seems to me that Chekhov has a kind of smile that removes unnecessary pathos,” he argues. “He is slightly ironic, and this is his highlight.”
It seems that Yuri Solomin was thinking about something similar when he took on “Sisters”. In any case, he allowed Gleb Podgorodinsky to make a disgusting little man out of Tuzenbach, not even a little man, but some kind of Kafkaesque “insect creature.” Podgorodinsky played Tuzenbach for the first time in such a way that it became clear why Irina could not decide to accept his offer for five whole years. “One baron more, one baron less” is a completely worthy epitaph for this nonentity.
In his newspaper, Solomin, not without pleasure, quoted Chekhov’s entry, so reminiscent of Lenin’s verdict on the intelligentsia: “I do not believe in our intelligentsia, hypocritical, false, hysterical, ill-mannered, lazy.” He was probably inclined to treat Chekhov's heroes with irony. However, here it was necessary to go to the end and stage “Sisters” the way they deserved it: as a black comedy about provincial hysterics and stupid military men, whom the author openly mocks.
Unfortunately, Solomin was afraid of this. Or, perhaps, he decided that such experiments with a classic are not permissible in the academic theater. As a result, almost all of his actors don't believe a word they say. With well-trained voices, they deliver classic lines and romanticize their characters. But, despite all their efforts, the hydrochloric acid of Chekhov’s irony corrodes rhetorical constructions about “the happiness of labor” and “life in two or three hundred years.” When the handsome, hefty military man Vershinin (Alexander Ermakov) angrily says: “My wife has been poisoned again. Such a nuisance,” the audience giggles: Chekhov’s farce breaks through, no matter how hard the actors try to refine it.
Chekhov's intellectuals look like pure aliens today. No amount of effort at transformation allows the actors to identify with these lazy, hysterical, irrational creatures. And when Chebutykin (Eduard Martsevich) slurring his tongue tells the parterre: “Perhaps I’m not a person, but I’m only pretending that I have arms and legs,” the parterre is inclined to believe him.
And only the clever, kind, law-abiding, vain, gymnasium teacher Kulygin, dressed in a sparkling uniform, seems to be the only living person among these strange creatures called “intelligentsia”.
Ticket prices:
Balcony 1000-1500 rubles
Mezzanine 1000-2200 rubles
Amphitheater 1200-3000 rubles
Benoir 2500-3000 rubles
Parterre 3000-4500 rubles
Stage director - People's Artist of the USSR Yuri Solomin
Production designer - Honored Worker of Culture of Russia Alexander Glazunov
Musical arrangement - People's Artist of Russia Grigory Gobernik
Director - Vasily Fedorov
Lighting designer - Honored Artist of Russia Damir Ismagilov
Assistant directors - Honored Cultural Workers of Russia Vladimir Egorov and Gana Markina
Prompters - honored cultural worker of Russia Larisa Merkulova, Honored Artist of Russia Larisa Andreeva
Characters and performers:
Prozorov Andrey Sergeevich - Honored Artist of Russia Alexander Bely
Natalya Ivanovna, his fiancee, then his wife - Honored Artist of Russia Inna Ivanova, Irina Zheryakova
Olga, his sister - People's Artist of Russia Alena Okhlupina
Masha, his sister - Laureate of the Russian Government Prize, People's Artist of Russia Olga Pashkova
Irina, his sister - Varvara Andreeva, Olga Pleshkova
Kulygin Fedor Ilyich, gymnasium teacher, Masha’s husband - People’s Artist of Russia Valery Babyatinsky
Vershinin Alexander Ignatievich, lieutenant colonel, battery commander - Laureate of the Russian Government Prize, People's Artist of Russia Alexander Ermakov
Tuzenbakh Nikolai Lvovich, baron, lieutenant - Laureate of the State Prize of Russia, Honored Artist of Russia Gleb Podgorodinsky
Soleny Vasily Vasilievich, staff captain - Honored Artist of Russia Viktor Nizovoy, Alexey Faddeev
Chebutykin Ivan Romanovich, military doctor - People's Artist of Russia Vladimir Nosik, Honored Artist of Russia Viktor Bunakov
Fedotik Alexey Petrovich, second lieutenant - Stepan Korshunov, Dmitry Marin
Rode Vladimir Karpovich, second lieutenant - Alexey Faddeev, Dmitry Marin, Maxim Khrustalev
Ferapont, watchman from the zemstvo council, old man - People's Artist of Russia Alexey Kudinovich
Anfisa, nanny, old woman 80 years old - Natalya Shvets
Maid in the Prozorovs' house - Daria Podgornaya, Anna Zharova
Batman - Andrey Manke
Anton Pavlovich Chekhov's play "" is not only a masterpiece of Russian (and world) literature, but also a work that has long occupied first place in the repertoire of the world's leading theaters. More than a hundred years have passed since the creation of the play, but not even a single year has it left the stage of the theater, nor has it lost its relevance and the love of the audience. It has been staged over a thousand times, translated into many Eastern and European languages, and repeatedly dramatized and filmed. The Maly Theater's production is one of the most interesting. This is not the first season that the play “Three Sisters” has been running at the Maly Theater. Its director is Yuri Solomin, and the leading roles involve brilliant and talented actors. It’s not just the capital’s audience that is delighted with Solomin’s interpretation of “Three Sisters.” The Maly Theater always demonstrates this performance on tour, and foreign audiences (and theater critics) invariably receive it with great warmth.
There is an opinion that the characters of the Prozorov sisters - Olga, Irina and Masha - were borrowed from the famous progressive Perm ladies of that era, Margarita, Evelina and Ottilia Zimmerman. The Zimmerman sisters made a significant contribution to the development of Perm and influenced the development of education and culture of the city. For Chekhov, for many years, issues of educational and cultural institutions were a matter of honor, and therefore the writer could not ignore the merits of these wonderful women. The thoughts that the writer put into the mouths of the Prozorov sisters - statements about the improvement of Russia in general and his native provincial city in particular - are the statements of their prototypes, the Zimmerman sisters. However, when creating the characters of these wonderful female characters, the writer could not limit himself to only socio-cultural views. Young and unmarried sisters suffer not only from the suffocating and musty atmosphere of the province, not only from the lack of opportunities for self-realization, but also from unfulfilled love. The Maly Theater actresses playing the roles of the Prozorov sisters do an excellent job with this task; in their embodiment, Olga, Masha, and Irina are living, real girls with their own thoughts, feelings, and destiny.
Solomin’s performance “Three Sisters” at the Maly Theater is thorough and leisurely. A long-gone era with signs of the times, with different ideas about life and relationships, is clearly presented to the audience. An antique clock slowly ticks in a cozy living room, a lamp softly illuminates the room... An elegant society gathers in the sisters' living room, but the prose of provincial life haunts the girls, they hate it with all their souls, but live like this, realizing that there will be no other. The hopelessness of their situation is acutely felt by Olga, Masha, and Irina, with despair and pain. Girls have dreams, plans and hopes, but they are not destined to come true. Days turn into weeks, weeks into months, their souls are tormented, tormented by provincial melancholy. Perhaps this is why each of the sisters accepts failures in their personal lives with dignity, and the famous words - “To Moscow! To Moscow!" - they say, like a magic spell that can be the only salvation...
This is truly one of the most wonderful plays of the world repertoire, one of the most complex plays by Chekhov (I already said once that “Uncle Vanya” for me is his most beautiful, most harmonious play, and “Three Sisters” is perhaps the most difficult his most disharmonious story). This is a whole layer of life, snatched by Chekhov, rubbed with his individuality, imagination, acute sense of illness, his skeptical-optimistic attitude towards life, which sometimes goes on independently of us and sometimes against our desires and aspirations; a life that you have to fight, a fate that you have to fight, even if you know that it will defeat you. Chekhov speaks earnestly about the beautiful hopelessness of our lives, about the tragic discrepancy between desires and reality, about how important it is to remain true to oneself and human dignity.
“Three Sisters” is a play about people, about people with ideals, maybe they can be called the intelligentsia, although I think that there are people with ideals in all layers of society, just as in all layers of society there are people without ideals or with lost ones ideals. I think that this topic is understandable to many people, especially today. All over the world today, people understand very well what unfulfilled hopes are, what failed plans are, lost illusions, unfulfilled loves, the harsh language of life in which one must preserve oneself and in which one must maintain dignity no matter what.
Lev Dodin
“Three Sisters” in the Maly Drama Theater is a very modern and deep reading of Chekhov’s text. Precisely reading, since our theater has almost forgotten how to read the author’s text. Dodin managed to penetrate amazingly deeply into the history of human destinies. This is a tragic performance, at the same time full of compassion, and also, if we talk about the light that is contained in this performance, then this, no matter how pompous it may sound, is the light of art. Because the tragic outcome of the play is played at the level of artistic perfection. For me, the play “Three Sisters” is not only a theatrical, but also a life event.
professor, doctor of art history
Alexey Bartoshevich
St. Petersburg theater magazine
...the legendary MDT director Lev Dodin manages a seemingly impossible trick - he amazingly combines the existential and the human in his performance. As is often the case with great European ensemble companies, the acting is almost frighteningly rich and nuanced. Sometimes you just want some of the heroes to get more time in Dodin’s all-encompassing broad focus. This is a performance of great beauty, full of sympathy and despair.
Time Out London
Great Britain, London
The legendary Maly Drama Theater from Russia gives us a performance based on Chekhov's play, full of dark sympathy
Andrzej Lukowski
The moments of outstanding directorial skill are endless and organically coexist with a troupe of artists who seem so rooted in the world of the performance that you believe that they themselves grew up on this ungrateful soil, in this unforgiving climate. And Dodin’s main and final achievement, of course, is that he created the performance not in the pure genre of comedy or tragedy, but managed to make the flow of the production and feelings in it as natural as breathing.
Internet portal Artsdesk
Great Britain, London
"Three Sisters" MDT at the Vaudeville Theater - Chekhov of crystal clarity
Tom Birkeno
Surprisingly attentive to the characters, the famous director Lev Dodin’s production of Chekhov’s play “Three Sisters” abandons luxurious scenery in favor of focusing on the main themes of the work: unrequited love and unfulfilled hopes.
Great Britain, London
"Three Sisters" at the Vaudeville Theater - a heartbreaking, surprisingly attentive performance
Dave Hollander
What Dodin’s artists do especially well is to play the sharp, sometimes absurd contradictions that coexist within each Chekhov’s hero in such a way that these contradictions seem absolutely natural to us. Dodin tore away the veil of melodic whining from Chekhov's play and showed us the inconsolable cruelty of life.
Telegraph newspaper
Great Britain, London
Chekhov's melodic masterpiece as an existential theater of horror
Claire Alfrii
The acting is distinguished by the richness and depth characteristic of the best in Russian theater. All the actors not only act, but live in their roles as if it were their second skin.
Guardian newspaper
Great Britain, London
A stunning Russian production of Chekhov's classic play
Michael Billington
This performance is an impeccable portrait of lives frozen forever in the amber of fate.
Times newspaper
Great Britain, London
THREE SISTERS
MDT, Lev Dodin: real people in psychological theater (the most masterly performance) Behind each character is a huge story, and looks, gestures, facial movements are just the tip of the iceberg. The unsaid is no less eloquent than the spoken. Dodin shows his heroes not as exalted intellectuals, but as ordinary people who are not colored by some of their actions (the sisters ironize Andrei unkindly and look down on Natasha - it is not surprising that she begins to take revenge!). This approach introduces a non-Chekhovian element of sensuality into the action and adds to the spiritual longing for a better life, a completely physical longing for love...
Online magazine Porusski
Such different sisters. Which one do you like?
Alena Moroz
The performance is full of surprises - it turns out that in the characters whom we are accustomed to consider meek, shabby creatures, an inner fire is bubbling. All the couples here - and unfulfilled loves are Chekhov's specialty - are incomparably more explosive and emotionally exhausting than I have ever seen in other productions. Even Irina's final embrace with Baron Tuzenbach, her fiancé, manages to first raise and then immediately kill our hopes. Forget everything you are sure of: with Dodin, a kiss is never just a kiss, it is a whole multi-volume novel in miniature.
Broadway World
Unforgettable, explosive “Three Sisters” at the Maly Drama Theater at the Kennedy Center
Andrew White
Believe me, thanks to the entire ensemble of the performance, a whole community of people appears before us, every moment of whose lives is worked out to the smallest detail, and it is precisely these details that a real theatergoer marvels with gratitude at: how can one fit so much life into such the smallest units of time.
DCMetroTheaterArts
USA, Washington
Unbending: “Three Sisters” of the Maly Drama Theater on the stage of the Kennedy Center
Robert Michael Oliver
Dodin builds up the tension slowly, giving his characters, representatives of the upper middle class (who yearn so much about the future, as if anticipating that very soon everything will change radically) to marinate in their own despair for three and a half hours - but it’s such a meaningful three hours that you don’t really you don't want to rush the time. The acting is magnificent, the voices are invariably magnificent - whether these actors throw abrupt words of anger at each other, or burst into romantic melancholy monologues.
Washington Post
USA, Washington
Nelson Presley
...watching MDT’s strict and bewitching production of “Three Sisters” directed by Lev Dodin, which is now playing at the Cutler Majestic Theater, you can’t help but feel that you are in the world of Chekhov, that you are hearing his voice.
Boston Globe newspaper
Trapped far from Moscow: Arts Emerson presents "Three Sisters"
Don Icoin
This performance - in Russian with English subtitles - is not quite a classic version, full of raging passions and humor, it is not like the more ordinary, restrained, static productions of this play.
Internet portal "Southern Critic"
“Three Sisters” from ArtsEmerson: all sisters have a passion
Jack Crabe
There are no small roles here. Each actor or actress on their own can confidently stay in the foreground - and at the same time, they know how to perfectly fit into the numerous general pictures of relationships that Dodin created. These amazingly beautifully constructed and illuminated pictures of people’s relationships are like museum portraits, they live in your memory long after the end of the performance.
Online magazine "Art-Fuse"
"Reasons to love "Three Sisters" of the Maly Drama Theater"
Helen Epstein
The result was as exciting and exciting as life itself, thanks in no small part to the exceptional actors. This play by Chekhov is still a heartbreaking spectacle, but now lost illusions, faded dreams, impossible and lost love, lost in the sands of modernity or a life destroyed by evil fate - all this acquires truly unprecedented power.
Le Monde
(World)
“Three Sisters” as read by Dodin
Fabienne Darge
Staged by him with a surprisingly organic mixture of delicacy and courage, Lev Dodin’s performance is marked by emotionally multifaceted, precisely and detailed performances of almost all the main roles. ...the acting in this performance often rises to a piercing intensity, completely refuting the clichéd idea of Chekhov's heroes as timid sufferers...
USA
Just try to believe: life will get better
Charles Isherwood
This is a close-up performance. All the feelings in him are brought to the forefront. All events are for human judgment. All hopes are in the palm of your hand. The concentration of mental pain there is maximum. Because it's all about us. About our anxieties, fruitless searches for happiness and the inevitable finding of the end. About the ability to hope and the talent not to be disappointed. Even if at the very beginning of life there is not a single illusion left... In Dodin’s “Three Sisters” they love desperately and contrary to all common sense. They know how to think, but are not afraid to feel and speak openly about their feelings. And most importantly, they have a need to love.
Russian newspaper
In two hundred to three hundred years: What do Lev Dodin’s “Three Sisters” dream about?
Irina Korneeva
Dodin is still interested in human life. Being. Subtleties of relationships. And – the opportunity (or need) to remain alive when everything in the world around us contradicts this.
They always kiss the wrong ones
Alisa Nikolskaya
Three Sisters" - Dodin's further comprehension of Chekhov on a new, deeper level. The performance is conceptual. Chekhov has long been proclaimed one of the founders of the theater of the absurd, but in the theater, at least in the domestic theater, this feature of Chekhov’s poetics was first embodied by Lev Dodin.
Drama in 4 acts
The performance has one intermission
The duration of the performance is 3 hours 20 minutes.
Compound:
Stage director - People's Artist of the USSRYuri Solomin
Production designer - Honored Worker of Culture of RussiaAlexander Glazunov
Musical arrangement - People's Artist of RussiaGrigory Gobernik
Director - Vasily Fedorov
Lighting designer - Honored Artist of RussiaDamir Ismagilov
Assistant directors - Honored Cultural Workers of RussiaVladimir Egorov And Ghana Markina
Prompters - a condemned cultural worker of RussiaLarisa Merkulova, Honored Artist of RussiaLarisa Andreeva
Cast:
Prozorov Andrey Sergeevich People's Artist of Russia - A.V. KLYUKVIN, A.Yu.BELY
Natalya Ivanovna, his fiancee, then his wife - Honored Artist of Russia I.V. IVANOVA, I.A.ZHERYAKOVA
Olga - People's Artist of Russia A.I. OKHLUPINA
Masha - People's Artist of Russia, Laureate of the State Prize of Russia O.L. PASHKOVA
Irina - V.V. ANDREEVA
Kulygin Fedor Ilyich, gymnasium teacher, Masha’s husband - People’s Artist of Russia V.K. BABYATINSKY
Vershinin Alexander Ignatievich, lieutenant colonel, battery commander - People's Artist of Russia A.Yu. ERMAKOV
Tuzenbakh Nikolai Lvovich, baron, lieutenant - Honored Artist of Russia, laureate of the State Prize of Russia G.V. PODGORODINSKY
Soleny Vasily Vasilievich, staff captain - Honored Artist of Russia V.A. Nizovoy, A.E. FADDEYEV
Chebutykin Ivan Romanovich, military doctor - Honored Artist of Russia Vl.B. NOSIK, Honored Artist of Russia V.V. BUNAKOV
Fedotik Alexey Petrovich, second lieutenant - S.A. KORSHUNOV, D.A. MARIN
Rode Vladimir Karpovich, second lieutenant - A.E. FADDEYEV, D.A. MARIN
Ferapont, watchman from the zemstvo council, old man - People's Artist of Russia A.S. KUDINOVICH
Anfisa, nanny, old woman 80 years old - N.P. Shvets
Maid in the Prozorovs' house - D.N. PODGORNAYA
Batman - A.T. MANKE
Contents of the play “Three Sisters” at the Maly Theater in Moscow
His play “Three Sisters” by A.P. Chekhov wrote in 1900, and for more than a century the play of the same name has not left the stage, continuing to delight audiences with the story of three sisters, the story of dreams and unfulfilled hopes.
The scene is a provincial provincial town in which the Prozorov sisters live - Olga, Masha and Irina. Their life is monotonous, monotonous and boring. And when a military garrison is located in the town, the sisters have hope for change.
The middle sister Masha falls in love with officer Vershinin, the youngest Irina falls in love with Baron Tuzenbach. But the happiness that the sisters were waiting for turned out to be capricious: Masha’s dreams will not come true, and Irina will lose her beloved forever. And then the regiment will leave the city, and life will go on as before, and the phrase “To Moscow, to Moscow!” will become a symbol of unfulfilled desires.
How to buy tickets for the play “Three Sisters” at the Maly Theater
Buying tickets to the Maly Theater is easy if you think about purchasing in advance. The fact is that the Maly Theater’s play “Three Sisters” is sold out, despite the fact that it has been running for several years.
And if you decide to go to Maly specifically for this production, then you can leave a request right now by filling out the booking form on our website.
Review of the Maly Theater performance “Three Sisters”
Vera Maksimova (“Native Newspaper”):
“Those who would like to find Mkhatovsky’s Chekhov in the new Maly Theater production of “Three Sisters” will be disappointed. Maly has its own Chekhov. Brighter, more simple-minded, more diverse. Without much concern for maintaining Chekhov's tone (muted), style (noble and refined), rhythm (slow). In Maly they play life, without hiding how painfully and cruelly it hits. Tragedies and dramas are repeated, desires are not fulfilled, but hope does not die. Each act in a large, long performance ends not in ruin, but in the rebirth of hope.”
Natalya Kazmina (“Theater Life”):
“It would seem that the traditions of the Maly Theater and the dramaturgy of Chekhov are two completely different views, two completely different points of view on the world around and inside the individual, but it so happened that in different eras of its existence the theater felt an unimaginable need precisely for this author, with the help of whom he talked about what hurts, what does not give peace and harmony. And remarkable, albeit completely unexpected, coincidences of “blood type” occurred, allowing us to discern something hitherto unknown in Chekhov’s dramaturgy, and in the fate of the Maly Theater, and in our spectator’s sense of the world and ourselves...
The play “Three Sisters”, staged by Yuri Solomin (designer A. Glazunov, music by G. Gobernik), can be called, without exaggeration, one of those magical coincidences, when with others, as if with washed eyes, you see artists you have known for a long time, in your soul you feel shades that were almost missed before by heart of a familiar text, you build for yourself a different system of concepts.”
