The last victim summary read. Alexander Ostrovsky “The Last Victim” (1878)

Act one

Characters

Yulia Pavlovna Tugina, young widow.

Glafira Firsovna, Yulia's aunt, an elderly, poor woman.

Vadim Grigorievich Dulchin, young man.

Luka Gerasimych Dergachev, a friend of Dulchin, a rather nondescript gentleman both in figure and in costume.

Flor Fedulych Pribytkov, a very rich merchant, a ruddy old man, about 60 years old, clean-shaven, carefully combed and dressed very cleanly.

Mikhevna, Julia's old housekeeper.

A small living room in Tugina’s house. In the back is the entrance door, to the right (from the actors) is the door to the inner rooms, to the left is a window. The drapery and furniture are quite modest, but decent.

First appearance

Mikhevna at the front door, then Glafira Firsovna.

Mikhevna. Girls, who called there? Vadim Grigoryich, or what?

Glafira Firsovna (entering). What a Vadim Grigoryich! It's me. Vadim Grigoryich, tea will come later.

Mikhevna. Oh, mother, Glafira Firsovna! Yes, there is no Vadim Grigoryich; That's what I said. Sorry!

Glafira Firsovna. It slipped off the tongue, there’s nothing to do, you can’t hide it back. What a shame, I didn’t find it myself! The place is not close to you so you can travel for nothing; but I still haven’t got enough money for cab drivers. And they are robbers! For your money, he’ll shake your heart out, and, look, he’ll whip your eyes out with the reins.

Mikhevna. What should I say! Either it’s your own business...

Glafira Firsovna. What, yours? Legs, or what?

Mikhevna. No, horses, I say.

Glafira Firsovna. What's better! But I still have mine at the Khrenovsky plant; I can’t get around to buying everything - I’m afraid I might make a mistake.

Mikhevna. So you're on foot?

Glafira Firsovna. Yes, as promised, there is seven miles of jelly. Yes, not at once; Apparently, I'll have to go back to the same ones without feeding.

Mikhevna. Sit down, mother! She must be back soon.

Glafira Firsovna. Where did God take her?

Mikhevna. I went to the party.

Glafira Firsovna. I began the pilgrimage. Has Al sinned a lot?

Mikhevna. Yes, mother, she is always like this; Since the dead man passed away, everyone is praying.

Glafira Firsovna. We know how she prays.

Mikhevna. Well, you know, just know! And I know that I’m telling the truth, I have no reason to lie. Would you like some tea? We have it instantly.

Glafira Firsovna. No, I’ll just wait. (Sits down.)

Mikhevna. As you wish.

Glafira Firsovna. Well, what's your plaizir?

Mikhevna. How, mother, did you want to say? I didn’t hear enough...

Glafira Firsovna. Well, what is a more polite way to call him? A winner, dear friend?

Mikhevna. I don’t understand your conversation, the words are painfully tricky.

Glafira Firsovna. Are you playing a fool, or are you ashamed of me? So I'm not a young lady. Once you live like me, but in poverty, you’ll forget all the shame, don’t doubt it. I’m asking you about Vadim Grigoryich...

Mikhevna (putting hand to cheek). Oh, mother, oh!

Glafira Firsovna. Why did you groan?

Mikhevna. Yes, it's a shame. How did you know? And I thought that no one knew about this...

Glafira Firsovna. How did you know? You yourself just told me his name: you called him Vadim Grigorich.

Mikhevna. I'm so stupid!

Glafira Firsovna. Yes, besides, I heard from people that she lives a lot of money with her friend. Is it true?

Mikhevna. I don't know the right one; Why, why not live! What would she regret for him!

Glafira Firsovna. That’s why her husband, the deceased, was shrewd; His heart felt that the widow would need the money, and he left you a million.

Mikhevna. Well, what a million, mother! Much less.

Glafira Firsovna. Well, my account is like this: I count everything in millions; I have more than a thousand, then a million. I myself don’t know how much money is in a million, but I say this because this word has become fashionable. Before, Mikhevna, the rich were called thousandaires, but now they are all millionaires. Nowadays, say about a good merchant that he has gone bankrupt for fifty thousand, and he will probably be offended, but say straight up a million or two, and that will be true. Before, the losses were small, but now the bank over there is missing seven million. Of course, you rarely see more than half a ruble in both income and expense; and I’ve taken it upon myself to be so bold that I count other people’s money into millions; I talk about them so freely. A million - and the Sabbath! What about her: does she give him things or something, or money?

Mikhevna. I don’t know about money, but he gets gifts every minute, and they’re all expensive. He never lacks anything, and everything in the apartment is ours: then she will buy him a new inkpot for the table with all the equipment...

Glafira Firsovna. The ink is new, expensive, but there’s nothing to write about.

Mikhevna. What writing! when to him! He doesn't even live at home. And he will change the curtains on his windows, and all the furniture again. And as for the dishes, linen and so on, he doesn’t know how everything is new for him - it all seems to him that everything is the same. Yes, even just a little: tea with sugar, and that’s where it comes from us.

Glafira Firsovna. It’s still not a problem, you can bear it. There are different types of women: the one who gives things to her lover will probably save his capital; and the one with money, well, ruin is certain here.

Mikhevna. I feel sorry for sugar: they have a lot of it... Where should they go?

Glafira Firsovna. How did this happen to you, how did she manage to put such a collar around her neck?

Mikhevna. Yes, this whole dacha is damned. How we lived then, soon after the deceased, at the dacha - we lived modestly, ran around people, rarely went for a walk, and then to nowhere; And then it hit him like a sin. Wherever we leave the house, everything will meet and meet. Yes, young, handsome, dressed like a picture; horses and carriages. But the heart is not a stone. Well, he began to get married, she was not averse: what else, the groom is no matter how rich. They just put it in such a way as to postpone the wedding until winter: my husband was not yet a year old, and she was still in mourning. Meanwhile, he comes to us every day as a groom, bringing gifts and bouquets. And so she trusted in him, and became so comfortable that she began to consider him just like her husband. And he, without ceremony, began to dispose of her goods as if they were his own. What is yours and what is mine, he says, is all the same. And this makes her happy: “It means, he says, that he is mine, if he does this; Now, he says, it’s a small thing for us, just to get married.”

Glafira Firsovna. Yes, little by little! Well, no, don't tell me! What's next? Mourning is over, winter has come...

Mikhevna. Winter has come and gone, and another one is coming soon.

Glafira Firsovna. Is he still listed as a suitor?

Mikhevna. Still in grooms.

Glafira Firsovna. For a long time. It's time to decide something, otherwise shame people!

Mikhevna. Why, mother! How do we live? Such and such silence, such and such modesty, I must say, just like there is a monastery. There is no masculine spirit in the plant either. Vadim Grigoryich travels alone, to be honest, and even he travels mostly in the twilight. Even those who are his friends don’t come to us. He has one of these, his nickname is Dergachev, he poked his head in twice.

Glafira Firsovna. Would they like to treat you with something?

Mikhevna. Well, of course, the man is poor, lives from hand to mouth - he thinks about having a snack and drinking wine. That's how I understand them. Yes, mother, I scared him. We are not sorry, but we are careful: men, no, no, under no circumstances. This is how we live. And yet she prays and fasts, God bless her.

Glafira Firsovna. What is the reason for this, why should she?..

Mikhevna. To get married. This is always the case.

Glafira Firsovna. But I think that God will not give her happiness. She forgets her relatives... If she decided to unwind her capital, it would be better with her relatives than with strangers. You could even take me; at least, and I would live happily in my old age...

Mikhevna. That's her business; and I know that she has a goodwill towards her family.

Glafira Firsovna. Something is unnoticeable. If you stay away from your family, don’t expect anything good from us, especially from me. I'm not an evil woman, but I have a nail, I can be friendly. Well, thank you, that’s all I need: I learned everything from you. What is it, Mikhevna, when two women get together, they will talk so much that you can’t write it in a big book, and they will say things that, perhaps, are not necessary?

Mikhevna. Our weakness is that of women. Of course, out of hope you say that nothing bad will come of this. And who knows: you can’t get into someone else’s soul, maybe with some intent you are asking. Yes, here she is, and I’ll go about the housework. (Leaves.)

Included Yulia Pavlovna.

Second phenomenon

Glafira Firsovna, Julia.

Julia (removing the scarf). Oh, auntie, what fate? What a joy!

Glafira Firsovna. Full, full, as if you’re happy?

Julia. Yes indeed! Of course I'm glad. (They kiss.)

Glafira Firsovna. She abandoned her relatives, and you don’t even want to know! Well, I’m not arrogant, I came myself; I’m really glad, I’m not glad, but you won’t kick me out, because you’re also dear.

Julia. Yes you! I am always glad to see my family; Only my life is so solitary, I don’t go anywhere. What should I do, I’m like that by nature! And you are always welcome to me.

Glafira Firsovna. Why are you, like a bourgeois, covering yourself with a scarf? Just like an orphan.

Julia. And even then an orphan.

Glafira Firsovna. You can still live with such orphanhood. Oh, those who have no one to pity are called orphans, but rich widows will have sad people! Yes, if I were you, I would, not only in a scarf, but also make a hat the size of an arshin, lounge in the stroller, and just roll! Look, they say!

Julia. You won’t surprise anyone these days, no matter what you wear. Yes, and I had nothing to dress up for and it was out of place - I went to vespers.

Glafira Firsovna. Yes, there’s no one here to dress up like a parrot, especially on weekdays. What's taking you so long? Vespers are a long time ago.

Julia. Yes, after Vespers, the wedding was simple, so I stayed to watch.

Glafira Firsovna. What have you not seen, my dear? A wedding is like a wedding. Tea, they circled us and drove us away, which is not uncommon.

Julia. Still, aunty, it’s interesting to see someone else’s joy.

Glafira Firsovna. Well, I looked, envied someone else’s happiness and was satisfied. Are you watching weddings like we sinners? Our eyes are so wide that we can count all the pins, not just the diamonds. Moreover, we can’t believe our eyes, so we can feel the dresses and blondes of all the escorts, are they real?

Julia. No, auntie, I don’t like people: I watched from afar; stood in another aisle. And what a case! I see a girl come in, stand at a distance, there is no blood in her face, her eyes are burning, she is staring at the groom, she is trembling all over, as if she is crazy. Then, I saw, she began to cross herself, and tears began to flow in three streams. I felt sorry for her, I went up to her to talk to her and take her away as quickly as possible. And I’m crying myself.

Glafira Firsovna. What are you talking about, haven’t you heard?

Julia. We started talking: “Come on, I say, let’s talk dear!” Aren’t we superfluous here with tears?” - “You, I don’t know, he says, but I’m superfluous.” She looked at the groom for a minute, nodded her head; whispered “goodbye”, and we left with tears.

Glafira Firsovna. Your tears are cheap.

Julia. This word “goodbye” is very difficult. I remembered my deceased husband: I cried a lot when he died; and when I had to say “goodbye” - for the last time - I died myself. What does it feel like to say “Farewell forever” to a living person? After all, this is worse than burying.

Glafira Firsovna. How sad you are for these misguided ones! God bless her! Everyone should know that only God’s strength is strong.

Julia. That’s right, auntie, if you love a person, if you put your whole soul into him?

Glafira Firsovna. And where does such ardent love come from in you?

Julia. What should we do? After all, this is what is given to anyone. Of course, whoever does not know love, the easier it is to live in the world.

Glafira Firsovna. Eh, what do we care about strangers! Let's talk about ourselves! How's your falcon?

Julia. What is my falcon?

Glafira Firsovna. Well, what do you want me to call you? Is there a groom there? Vadim Grigoryich.

Julia. But how?.. But where are you from?

Glafira Firsovna. How did you know? The earth is full of rumors: even though the trumpets are not being blown yet, the conversation is going on.

Julia (embarrassed). Yes, now soon, aunty, we are having a wedding.

Glafira Firsovna. Full, right? He is not reliable, they say, and he is very wasteful.

Julia. Just the way it is, that’s how I like it.

Glafira Firsovna. I would like to hold it a little.

Julia. How is it possible what you say! After all, not a wife yet; How dare I say anything? If God bless you, then it’s a different matter; and now I can only caress and please. It seems that I would be glad to give everything, just so as not to stop loving her.

Glafira Firsovna. What are you, be ashamed! A young, beautiful woman, but go broke on a man! not an old woman after all.

Julia. Yes, I’m not going bankrupt, and I didn’t think about going bankrupt: he himself is rich. But still, you need to tie it down with something. I live, auntie, in the wilderness, I lead a modest life, I can’t keep track of him: where he goes, what he does... Sometimes he doesn’t go for three or four days, so you can’t change your mind; I'm glad God knows what to give away, just to see something.

Glafira Firsovna. Don’t know what to tie it to? What's the use of fortune telling! There is nothing else to be had in Moscow but this goodness. Such drugs are known and tried. I know four ladies who practice this skill. Vaughn Manefa says: “With my word, at the end of the world, in America, I will reach a person and there I will make a person feel sad and dry. Give me twenty-five rubles, I’ll bring them back from America.” You should go.

Julia. No, what are you talking about! how is this possible?

Glafira Firsovna. Nothing. And then there is one retired secretary, hunchbacked; So he casts spells, and plays the piano, and sings cruel romances - how sensitive it is for lovers!

Julia. No, I won't cast a spell.

Glafira Firsovna. But you don’t want to cast a spell, so here’s another remedy for you: if it takes a little while for him to come to you, now he, God’s servant, is in remembrance for his repose! If you feel some kind of melancholy, it will fly in instantly...

Julia. None of this is needed.

Glafira Firsovna. Are you afraid of sin? It is definitely a sin.

Julia. Yes, and not good.

Glafira Firsovna. So here’s a sinless remedy for you: you can, for your health, just put the candle upside down: light it from the other end. How it works!

Julia. No, leave it alone! Why!

Glafira Firsovna. And best of all, here’s our advice to you: leave him yourself before he leaves you.

Julia. Oh, how possible! what do you! Even if I put my whole life on the line... I won’t stay alive.

Glafira Firsovna. Because we, kindred people, don’t want to endure the shame of you. Listen to what all your relatives and friends are saying!

Julia. What do they care about me! I'm not touching anyone, I'm an adult.

Glafira Firsovna. And the fact that you can’t show up anywhere, there are polls and ridicule everywhere: “What is your Yulinka? How is your Yulinka?” Look how upset Flor Fedulych is because of you.

Julia. And Flor Fedulych?

Glafira Firsovna. I saw him recently; he himself wanted to be with you today.

Julia. Oh, what a shame! Why is he doing this? Such a respectable old man.

Glafira Firsovna. I brought it on myself.

Julia. I won't accept it. How will I talk to him? You will burn with shame.

Glafira Firsovna. Don't be too afraid. Although he is strict, he is quite lenient towards you young women. A single man, no children, twelve million money.

Julia. What is this, auntie, it’s too much.

Glafira Firsovna. I’m saying this for happiness, don’t be alarmed: my millions are small. But just a lot, a lot, passion, so much money! Someone else's soul is darkness: who knows to whom he will leave the money. All his relatives are subservient to him. And you shouldn’t upset him either.

Julia. How related I am to him! The seventh water is on jelly, and even then according to her husband.

Glafira Firsovna. If you want, you will be more like relatives.

Julia. I don’t understand this, auntie, and I don’t want to understand.

Glafira Firsovna. It’s very simple: fulfill his every wish, every whim, so he will make you rich during his lifetime.

Julia. You need to know what his whims are! You won’t agree to fulfill other whims even for your twelve million.

Glafira Firsovna. Cranky old people are nice to anyone, of course. Yes, he’s a wonderful old man here: he’s old, but his whims are young. Have you forgotten that he was your husband’s first friend and benefactor? Before your death, your husband ordered him not to forget you, to help you with advice and deeds, and to be in your father’s place.

Julia. So it wasn’t I who forgot, but him. After my husband’s death, I saw him only once.

Glafira Firsovna. Is it possible to demand from him? How much business does he have without you? All this time his thoughts were occupied with other things. He had an orphan in his care, a beauty, much better than you; but now he gave her away in marriage, his thoughts were freed, and he remembered you, and it was your turn.

Julia. I am very grateful to Flor Fedulych, but I don’t want any guardians for myself, and he is in vain to worry about himself.

Glafira Firsovna. Don't push your family away, don't push them away! If you live to the bone, where will you go? You'll come running to us.

Julia. I won't go to anyone; My pride won’t allow it, and I don’t need to. Why are you prophesying poverty for me! I’m not small: I can manage both myself and my money.

Glafira Firsovna. And I heard other conversations.

Julia. There's nothing to hear about me. Of course, you can’t protect yourself from gossip; they talk about everyone, especially the servants; such a good, respectable person is ashamed to engage in such nonsense.

Glafira Firsovna. Like this! She said how she cut it off. That's how we'll know.

Included Mikhevna.

The third phenomenon

Yulia, Glafira Firsovna and Mikhevna.

Mikhevna. The tea is ready, would you like it?

Glafira Firsovna. No, tea, God bless him! What a miracle is happening to me, listen! When this hour comes, he begins to call me for something to eat. And why did this happen?

Julia. This is how you can submit it.

Glafira Firsovna. Why submit! You, after all, I have tea, have a cabinet where all this is observed - and you can skip a small one and have a snack! I am not arrogant: to me a cucumber is a cucumber, a pie is a pie.

Julia. There is, auntie, how could it not be!

Glafira Firsovna. So we will join him. I'll have a small snack, but it's time for me. I stayed too long with you, and I still have to march through all of Moscow.

Julia. Is it really that far to walk? Auntie, if you are not offended, I would offer you a cab. (Takes out a ruble note.) How about pawning the horse?

Glafira Firsovna. I won't be offended. I’ll be offended by someone else, but not by you, I won’t be offended, I’ll take it from you. (Takes a piece of paper.) When should I put a horse here?

Julia And Glafira Firsovna go through the door to the right, Mikhevna goes after them. Call.

The fourth phenomenon

Mikhevna, Then Dergachev.

Mikhevna. Well, it’s Vadim Grigoryich, I hear it on the phone. (He goes to the door and Dergachev meets her.) Oh, for you!

Dergachev (important). I want to see Yulia Pavlovna.

Mikhevna. Well, you never know what you want. Father, men don’t come to our house. And who let you in? How many times have I told the girls not to let me in?

Dergachev (shrugs shoulders). Here are the morals!

Mikhevna. Well, yes, morals! Let you in, so you'll get into the habit.

Dergachev. I didn't come to listen to your nonsense. Report, dear, to Yulia Pavlovna.

Mikhevna. Yes, honey, you can't.

Dergachev. What nonsense! I need to see Yulia Pavlovna.

Mikhevna. Well, it’s not really necessary!

Dergachev. I have a letter to her.

Mikhevna. And the letter, so give it here and go with God.

Dergachev. I must put it into my own hands.

Mikhevna. And I have my own hands, not someone else’s. What are you afraid of? I won't eat it!

Included Yulia Pavlovna.

Fifth appearance

Dergachev, Mikhevna, Yulia Pavlovna.

Julia. What kind of conversation are you having here? Ah, Luka Gerasimych, hello!

Dergachev. I have the honor to bow. Here's a letter from Vadim. (Hands over the letter.)

Julia. I humbly thank you. Don't need an answer?

Dergachev. There is no need for an answer, sir; he'll come by himself.

Julia. Is he healthy?

Dergachev. Thank God, sir.

Mikhevna. Don't hold him, let him go quickly, what's good?

Dergachev. Can I wait for him here, sir?

Julia. Luka Gerasimych, excuse me! I'm waiting for a relative, an old man, you know?

Mikhevna. Yes, Gerasimych, go, go!

Dergachev. Gerasimych! What ignorance!

Mikhevna. Don't blame me!

Julia. Don't be angry with her, she's a simple woman. Goodbye, Luka Gerasimych!

Dergachev. Goodbye, Yulia Pavlovna! No matter how great my friendship is for Vadim, I will not accept such orders from him, sorry, sir! I suggested it to him myself! I was thinking of spending time...

Mikhevna. Well, what other talk did you start?

Julia. What to do, this is not accepted among us. (Bows.)

Mikhevna (Julia). Glafira Firsovna left?

Julia. Gone.

Mikhevna (To Dergachev). Let's go, let's go, I'll take you.

Dergachev bows and leaves. Mikhevna behind him.

Appearance Six

Julia, Then Mikhevna.

Julia (opens the letter and reads).“Dear Yulia, I’ll definitely be with you today, even if it’s late, but I’ll still stop by.” That's nice of him. (Is reading.)“Don’t be angry, my dove”... (Repeat.)"My darling". How well he writes. How can you be angry with such a pigeon! (Is reading.)“All these days I haven’t had a free moment: I’ve been busy and busy and, admittedly, not very successful. I am more and more convinced that I cannot live without your love. And although I am subjecting her to rather severe tests and today I will demand some sacrifice from you, you yourself spoiled me, and I am sure in advance that you will forgive everything to your crazy and madly loving Vadim.”

Included Mikhevna.

Mikhevna. Someone drove up, no way Flor Fedulych?

Julia (hides the letter in his pocket). So go and sit in the front room and take a good look! If Vadim Grigoryich arrives, show him around and ask him to wait in the coal room. Tell me, they have an uncle.

Mikhevna leaves. Included Flor Fedulych.

At the Theater. Lensovet performed the play “The Last Victim” based on the play of the same name by A. N. Ostrovsky. But in the pre-premiere interviews, there were so many curses from the artistic director of the production, Tatyana Moskvina, against “the director’s evil spirits who imagined that they were smarter than the author,” that, in addition to the plot about the love of a rich widow for an unscrupulous player, another parallel theatrical plot emerged. It was impossible not to take it into account when going to the performance.

Actually, Roman Smirnov is listed as the director of the production, but just before the premiere he kept increasingly silent. And it is true that his position was extremely strange and awkward. The appearance of a production director under a professional director is not an exceptional case. It is often found, for example, in Lev Dodin’s Maly Drama Theater, when performances are staged by the master’s students. There it is quite understandable: an experienced teacher shifts responsibility from the fragile shoulders of a beginner, who has the right to make mistakes, onto his own shoulders, covers him up, fences him off from biased judges. Appointing theater critic and fiction writer Tatyana Moskvina to this role, even if she has a number of studies of Ostrovsky’s work in her arsenal, is the same as assigning a veil to the role of a hero in the strict system of roles that Ostrovsky loved so much, or vice versa. In modern theater this happens all the time, but it only works in the presence of radical directorial decisions, of which Ms. Moskvina is a fierce opponent.

Ostrovsky's play "The Last Victim", written in 1878, a year before the famous "Dowry", touches on an ultra-modern topic: the theme of money, cold-blooded calculation on the one hand and an unaccountable hot feeling that defies calculation, but also the chances of survival in the world of checks and has no bills - on the other hand. About five years ago, Moscow fell ill with this play - it was staged in two of the capital’s most popular theaters: Tabakov’s Moscow Art Theater and Zakharov’s Lenkom. Oleg Tabakov even went on stage himself and instead of the oily-bearded merchant prescribed by Ostrovsky, whom Yulia Tugina, chosen by her beloved, marries in the finale, he played a polished, satin oversleeved manufacturer of the early 20th century, a skillful owner and philanthropist. And he brought so much charm into the character that Mrs. Tugina (who was also played by Oleg Pavlovich’s wife Marina Zudina) turned from an unfortunate victim into a bride who finally achieved complete happiness. Mark Zakharov proposed a fundamentally different interpretation: for him the action took place in a traffic jam of lacquered carriages, and the merchant Pribytkov (Alexander Zbruev) was a natural Mephistopheles and in no time took into his hands both the “devil” Dulchin, the lover-player, and Yulia, who was walking get married, saying goodbye forever to your pure soul.

It is absolutely impossible to guess what attracted the creators of the St. Petersburg premiere to the play. None of the characters on stage are composed with such a degree of detail and volume that I, as a viewer, would be interested in his fate. The heroine Yulia Tugina (Elena Krivets) walks from one corner of the stage to another, sighs, waves her arms and with the typical aspirations of Tatyana Moskvina - I don’t know where they came from, but they sound quite comical - reads with expression (except without a book in her hands ) text by the playwright about love experiences. And I immediately have a lot of questions that I obviously have to ask the director Roman Smirnov, a student of Georgy Aleksandrovich Tovstonogov, an outstanding master of effective analysis. How does this young woman live? How pious is she? Did she go to church by chance this morning or does she regularly atone for her sins there? And in general, does he consider it a sin that an unmarried woman lives with a dashing young man? And what about the fact that you haven’t gone to your husband’s grave for a long time? And the matchmaker (Svetlana Pismichenko), who appears on stage before the main character - why did she suddenly come to the house? There is such a great effective verb: to inquire. When one character extorts something from others, striving, of course, to remain undisclosed, the tension in professional performances arises in the same way as in a game of chance. There is nothing like this on the stage of the Theater. The Leningrad City Council is not happening. The impression remains that the characters, most of whom (in particular, Yulia and the matchmaker) are related by blood, are seeing each other for the first time and met by chance.

Perhaps the creators of the play set themselves the task of conveying to the viewer the text of the classic in an untouched form. Organize, so to speak, not a performance, but a reading (as is done with modern plays) in order to return Ostrovsky to his originality. But then, excuse me, any conventions prick my eyes: the mysterious Pribytkov (Vyacheslav Zakharov) in elaborate clothes, with the intonations of Dzhigarkhanyan and with the habits of a dishonest master of life. The question of what such a hero could trade, who had his eye on a swan, what would console him in his old age, certainly arises and remains unanswered. Perhaps this hero is the only one worthy of observation: although he is not much larger than the others, he leads his simple and not very worthy performance from scene to scene, consistently. However, about the unworthy acting - I read this from Ostrovsky, the creators of the play are not determined on this matter.

Player Dulchin (Sergei Peregudov) turns out to be an uncharming child. Would anyone answer me, why is this soft-bodied whiner, mean-spirited and colorless, who reacts sluggishly even to the news of a rich bride, so loved by women? And why does he have a bathtub in his office? Let’s say that the knights of the Russian psychological theater suddenly realized that expressing themselves in metaphorical language in the theater is possible and even quite appropriate and modern. But what kind of image is hidden in that bathtub that is located a meter from the table, what is it hinting at? I encourage readers to tell fortunes with me. At the same time, you can ask the artist Marina Azizyan - actually one of the best in the city - why did she need to light up the stars in the backdrop and instead of trees, densely populate the garden in front of the club with mannequins? Here, however, an involuntary image is born: the heroes of the play, in their plane, are not too different from these same garden figures.

Poor Irina Pribytkova (Nadezhda Fedotova), the niece of a wealthy merchant, has turned into a Barbie doll, repeating with the only enthusiastic intonation throughout the entire performance about her African passion. Her father (Alexander Solonenko), a lover of French novels, perks up twice during the performance: when he discovers that his daughter has fallen in love and it looks like a novel (French, of course), and when he studies the restaurant menu with exquisite names.

There is a joke in theater circles about how one either the artist or the choreographer of the play asked the director what he would stage the play about, and he answered him: “Read the play, everything is written there.” The director of this, fortunately, was fired long ago. What I mean is that, contrary to the verbal manifestos of the artistic director of the production, things cannot be done without interpretations in any case. As the great philosopher of the 20th century Merab Mamardashvili said: “We cannot think of something without thinking it differently, otherwise we would turn into parrots.” And this statement has the most direct relation to the theater. With the caveat that theater requires not a spontaneous interpretation of the author’s text, but a deeply meaningful and structured one. When the viewer internally freezes at every word, as if from a dangerous trick. And if there is no verified structure of action, clear tasks for the actors and a coherent image of the performance, the subconscious comes to the fore. The story told by the Theater. Lensovet, it turns out that all men in the world are characters in unfunny jokes, and all the women who love them are incredibly stupid. And in general, love is something so shameful and meaningless that it is pleasant to ridicule it in farcical reprises performed by young and gifted artists Margarita Ivanova and Oleg Abalyan. And which look much less forced than the entire four-hour opus.

Of course, no one can prohibit theater managers from inviting non-professionals to productions; the only trouble is that artists are accustomed to trusting whoever calls themselves the “director” and working with full dedication. But in the end, it is the artists who are left alone with the audience and take the rap for everyone. I have had to write about this more than once, but the current case of pathological love for the “Russian psychological theater”, from which the artists of one of the best troupes in the city suffered, is absolutely outrageous.

In honor of Cinema Day on August 27, I want to remember the wonderful film by Pyotr Todorovsky based on the play by A.N. Ostrovsky - "The Last Victim". In my opinion, this is one of the masterpieces of Soviet cinema: the selection of actors, the music of Evgeny Schwartz, the picturesque sequence of the film - everything corresponds to the play and the spirit of the time.

It is impossible to forget Margarita Volodina’s incredibly touching Yulia Pavlovna - aging, loving, sacrificial, deceived.

Volodina did not act much and became famous for her role as a commissar in the film “Optimistic Tragedy.” But for those who haven’t seen it, I advise you to watch a wonderful film about love, where there are only two heroes and two actors - Volodina and Mikhail Nozhkin - “Every Evening at Eleven” - and you will find out how your ancestors coped in the era of the absence of mobile phones! And another good film, where she, however, has a cameo role as a drinking wife - “Late Meeting” based on Yu. Nagibin with A. Batalov in the title role.

Vadim Dulchin is played by Oleg Strizhenov - it is for him that Yulia Pavlovna makes the final sacrifice: she humiliates herself, offers herself, begs, orders, kisses - everything to get money for her lover, who simply “burns money” by losing it at cards.

And, finally, the third main character - Frol Fedulych, performed by Mikhail Gluzsky: oh, good! So good that if I were in the place of the main character, without hesitation I would exchange the shabby and lying Dulchin for - albeit not a young one - but an intelligent, subtle, educated and rich merchant, and even if he has eyes like Gluzsky!

The rest of the characters are also good: nephew Lavr Mironych (Leonid Kuravlev), a kind of Russian Monte Cristo, but without his millions, and Lavr Mironych’s romantic daughter “Iren” - Olga Naumenko.

A wonderful scene between her and Strizhenov, when Dulchin discovers Irina Lavrovna in his bachelor bed: lucky man, did you want African passion? You will get it! But suddenly it turns out that a necessary component of African passion is money, which Dulchin does not have, and there is only one thing left for him - “to dance Hungarian dances in taverns”, nor for Irina - Uncle Frol will not give a penny for such a groom! How dare you demand African passion if you don’t have a penny to your name! - “Iren”, who is feverishly dressing, is indignant, and Dulcin melancholy remarks: Well, let’s say, anyone can desire African passion...

No, I'll just retell the whole movie! I remember it almost by heart: here’s another episode when Irina kisses Frol Fedulych in gratitude for some gift, and he, Pomakov, remarks: No, that’s not it. Not that! THAT kiss is worth a lot! THAT one - what Yulia Pavlovna gave him.

And finally, about the music: Evgeny Schwartz created a surprisingly gentle sound image of the film, I especially like the song at the beginning:
Grass doesn't grow in winter...
Water - don't water...
He won't come back...
Remember - don't remember...

I can’t vouch for the accuracy of the words, but that’s the meaning. This song immediately sets a piercingly sad note. And also - the romance “In our old garden...”!

And we must definitely mention the extraordinary accuracy of the interiors, costumes and Moscow landscapes: Yulia Pavlovna’s house was filmed on a street near Ilya Obydenny, next to the Park Kultury metro station.

P about the play of the same name by A.N. Ostrovsky.

A fragment of an article by Roman Dolzhansky “Traders in the Moscow Art Theater” in the Kommersant newspaper (2003):

“Director Yuri Eremin decisively changed the time of Ostrovsky’s play, not only the era, but also the time of year. “The Last Victim” has become warmer and younger. The change from summer to winter was necessary mainly for beauty: artificial snow in the rich academic theater always looks very expressive. When the actors go on stage, shaking off white flakes from their hair and coats, the character’s state is immediately clear: he has found himself warm from the cold, what other circumstances are needed. And if, against the background of black scenes and backdrops, thick, generous street snow begins to fall to the music, then expect applause. To prevent the feeling of damp chilliness from passing away, they also provided a video projection: on the screen at the back of the stage they constantly show some kind of city landscape with continuous snow.

The change of era (the action is moved from the seventies of the century before last to the beginning of the last) is more meaningful. The rejuvenation of the play by about thirty years pleases the viewer with Art Nouveau motifs in the design of the play (Valery Fomin’s set design clearly echoes the architecture of the Art Theater itself), and the characters of “The Last Victim” with a cinematic session in a merchant’s club. However, the play is no longer about the merchant era, but about the industrial era, about the heyday of arts and industry in Russia.<...>

Flora Fedulych is played amazingly by Oleg Tabakov. It is his character that becomes the semantic center and hero of the entire Moscow Art Theater history. Not a colorful merchant, not an insidious spider, not an old voluptuary (what other possible interpretations are there?), but an educated, hard-working capitalist, standing firmly on his feet and keeping his finger on the pulse of a large, effective business. Finally, a respectable, courteous man, a music lover, a man of taste and artistic intuition, a collector of modernist painting. Oleg Tabakov plays the self-confident, successful master of life in a controlled, unassertive, non-proprietary manner. Whether the director Eremin has worked, or Mr. Tabakov himself has freed himself from his win-win, fat acting techniques, but the performance seems to fall into his hands, like money strives for other money.”

A fragment of Marina Timasheva’s article “Tretyakov... Pribytkov... Tabakov...” in the St. Petersburg Theater Journal (2004):

“Yulia Tugina, performed by Marina Zudina (in the life of Oleg Tabakov’s wife) is strikingly different from everyone else. Small, fragile, trusting, like a child, completely blinded by love, she is at the same time ready for any cunning and any humiliation, just to save the unscrupulous Dulchin and marry him.

Half-woman, half-child, Julia Tugina by Marina Zudina is at once sincere and cutesy, honest and deceitful, capricious and suffering, tender and arrogant. Flor Pribytkov, who has seen a lot in his life, has never seen someone like her, unselling and selfless.”

A fragment of Polina Bogdanova’s article “The Last Love of a Business Master” in the publication “New Theater News” (2003):

“Director Yuri Eremin in this performance weaves the thread of relationships between the characters in a very interesting and detailed way and amazes with the freedom and grace of the emotional score. There are bright grotesque sketches of images, everyday truthfulness, and rich characteristic types. Take Irene, played by Daria Yurskaya, who plays with inimitable brilliance and wit. She creates the image of a predatory, charming fool in her own way, inflamed with an “African” passion for the “rich man” Dulchin and deceived by him, but not broken. Because the healthy cynicism of her nature protects her in all delicate and dubious situations. The role of the aunt played by Olga Barnet is excellent, also in her own way a predatory and selfish person, ready to serve the wealthy and capable of generous gratitude to Pribytkov with dog-like devotion. Her first appearance in Yulia’s house turns into a separate performance, when she sits at the table and greedily, without having time to chew, gobbles up the food brought to her, washing it all down with vodka.”

And a beautiful melodrama from bourgeois life, stylized, as has already been said, to resemble the heart-warming plots of a silent cinematograph. By the way, this art is really present here; silent films are shown in the back of the stage. And in the way the director constructs a beautiful melodrama, there is good taste and even a kind of grace. Everything here is slightly exaggerated, everything is presented in such a way as to produce an effect, to create an impression. And at the same time, there is subtle irony in everything. After all, Eremin understands what he is doing and why. He creates an example of bourgeois theater that the public should like.”

The last victim. Chekhov Moscow Art Theater. Press about the performance. Few words

Kommersant, December 18, 2003

Traders at the Moscow Art Theater

"The Last Victim" turned out to be a good deal

The Chekhov Moscow Art Theater presented the premiere of “The Last Victim” by Alexander Ostrovsky, a great play about love and money. The Moscow Art Theater artistic director Oleg Tabakov is participating in the performance, and it was this appointment that became decisive: the main character of the Moscow Art Theater evening was the very rich merchant Flor Fedulych. ROMAN DOLZHANSKY followed the metamorphoses of Ostrovsky’s play.

Director Yuri Eremin decisively changed the time of Ostrovsky's play, not only the era, but also the time of year. “The Last Victim” has become warmer and younger. The change from summer to winter was necessary mainly for beauty: artificial snow in the rich academic theater always looks very expressive. When the actors go on stage, shaking off white flakes from their hair and coats, the character’s state is immediately clear: he has found himself warm from the cold, what other circumstances are needed. And if, against the background of black scenes and backdrops, thick, generous street snow begins to fall to the music, then expect applause. To prevent the feeling of damp chilliness from passing away, they also provided a video projection: on the screen at the back of the stage they constantly show some kind of city landscape with continuous snow.

The change of era (the action is moved from the seventies of the century before last to the beginning of the last) is more meaningful. The rejuvenation of the play by about thirty years pleases the viewer with Art Nouveau motifs in the design of the play (Valery Fomin’s set design clearly echoes the architecture of the Art Theater itself), and the characters of “The Last Victim” with a cinematic session in a merchant’s club. However, the play is no longer about the merchant era, but about the industrial era, about the heyday of arts and industry in Russia. On this occasion, I had to write something to Ostrovsky, for example, an offer from the rich man Flor Fedulych to inspect the new workshop. Something to cross out. By the way, they would have erased the mention of the singer Patti and the actor Rossi: by the beginning of the twentieth century, the great singer Adeline Patti was no longer at the age to travel with concerts, and the great actor Ernesto Rossi did not live to see the invention of cinema. In general, Ostrovsky’s plays are very firmly rooted in their era, and if you decide to transplant them, then you need to act more boldly.

Yuri Eremin’s play itself cannot be considered one of the outstanding theatrical works. There are a lot of banal, pedestrian scenes in it and the acting ensemble has not yet really developed. Although Ostrovsky’s play is written in such a way that, except for frankly service ones, any role in it is a gift for the actor. If we talk about success, then this is, first of all, the swindling busybody Glafira Firsovna, played by Olga Barnet. (And why was Mrs. Barnet forced to languish as heroines at the Moscow Art Theater for so many years?) Young Roman Kirillov (Dergachev), as always organic Natalya Zhuravleva (old woman Mikhevna) and as always sweeping Igor Zolotovitsky (Salay Saltanych) are memorable. It’s a shame that Ostrovsky’s very funny portrayals of the unlucky Lavr Mironych (Valery Khlevinsky) and his daughter, the imaginary rich bride Irene (Daria Yurskaya), turned out to be monochromatic. But the worst thing is that Sergei Kolesnikov has not decided on the player and rake Vadim Dulchin. But it is around him that the spears break in the play, women go crazy for him, for his sake the young widow Yulia Pavlovna Tugina dares to make that very “last sacrifice.”

However, is it only a strong feeling that controls Julia? Actress Marina Zudina adds much more practicality and sober calculation to her heroine than is customary in the role. Roughly speaking, I was planning a deal with one man, but had to make another, and more profitable one. It happened, by the way, that, contrary to Ostrovsky, the play was completely interrupted when Julia fainted when she learned about her fiance’s betrayal and thereby hinted at the death of the heroine, which the idealistic directors seemed preferable to a forced marriage with a rich but unloved old man Flor Fedulych. In today's Moscow Art Theater, this couple not only does not look like a misalliance, but also looks simply happy and successful.

The thing is that Flora Fedulych is played amazingly by Oleg Tabakov. It is his character that becomes the semantic center and hero of the entire Moscow Art Theater history. Not a colorful merchant, not an insidious spider, not an old voluptuary (what other possible interpretations are there?), but an educated, hard-working capitalist, standing firmly on his feet and keeping his finger on the pulse of a large, effective business. Finally, a respectable, courteous man, a music lover, a man of taste and artistic intuition, a collector of modernist painting. Oleg Tabakov plays the self-confident, successful master of life in a controlled, unassertive, non-proprietary manner. Whether the director Eremin has worked, or Mr. Tabakov himself has freed himself from his win-win, fat acting techniques, but the performance seems to fall into his hands, like money strives for other money.

It is all the more touching because his hero’s passion for Julia is sincere and deep. The plot that Tabakov plays could be titled with another title from Ostrovsky - “Late Love”. In the best scene of the play, a conversation with Yulia in the first act, it is clear that the almighty Flor Fedulych is overwhelmed and embarrassed by feeling. Nothing human is alien to him. But he knows how not to become a slave to passion, not to lose himself, to calculate a strategy for success and in the end to win. Well, purely a hero of our time, an example to follow. It’s a pity that we don’t have enough of these yet; there isn’t enough for every woman worthy of such happiness.

Newspaper, December 17, 2003

Arthur Solomonov

Tabakov and Zudina made the final sacrifice

At the Chekhov Moscow Art Theater, Yuri Eremin staged the play “The Last Victim” based on the play by A. Ostrovsky with Oleg Tabakov and Marina Zudina in the leading roles. This premiere is a success for the theater.

“The Last Victim” is a solid performance; it, so to speak, breathes evenly, with long pauses. Yuri Eremin, who a month ago produced a disastrous premiere at RAMT, as if telling the actors “go there, I don’t know where” (and they, of course, went), worked here efficiently and clearly. And everyone knew where they were going and what they were looking for, even in crowd scenes.

As almost always with Ostrovsky, the main motivating motive, the selfless (and often unrequited) passion of the heroes is money. There are also relics of the past who babble about love - in particular, the heroine of Marina Zudina, Yulia Tugina. And Pribytkov (Oleg Tabakov) is a big businessman, in love with Tugina and who knows very well what kind of capital is required to acquire happiness. He's not wrong. Eremin created a rigid structure - in rhythm and appearance, and in the performance one feels not so much the doom of all the characters, but the inevitable path that they will have to go through, and the path is not fun. There will be no successful people, no happy people - some will not be able to sell themselves, some will sell themselves cheaper than they expected, and even if they manage to invest their body profitably, then there will be little joy. And the one who buys it has already lost all illusions and simply powerfully and imposingly eats what causes appetite.

The only thing in the Moscow Art Theater performance that reminds us of spaces where it’s not so stuffy is the music. On the stage there is either a restaurant, then Yulia Pavlovna’s house, or Pribytkov’s (Oleg Tabakov) office. The director and actors did not hesitate. For example, when the heroine Zudina is informed about her groom’s betrayal, sad music sounds and after a pause Zudina’s voice is heard: “How is this?”, all this has an unfailing effect on the audience. God be with them, with innovations, in the end, honest acting, non-narcissistic directing is almost an event. And when the door of Yulia Pavlovna’s house opens, you can hear a blizzard outside the walls, and when they come from the street, they shake the snow off their clothes. Above the stage on the right are photographs of snow-covered old Moscow, they change from time to time. These photographs, illuminating the wheels above the stage and the abstract painting that hangs in Pribytkov’s office, are the only signs of the theatre, let’s say roughly, conventional. The rest is honest, clear and sincere. No fuss.

Oleg Tabakov plays the role of the master of life very convincingly. It couldn't be any other way. Pribytkov's attraction to Tugina, however, sometimes knocks him out of the saddle: when she approaches him, he instinctively hugs her, she jumps back - and his hand catches her scarf. Although, of course, little place is given to sentiment in Pribytkov’s life. Only on schedule, only out of politeness. And that’s why the moments when he suddenly obeys an impulse are impressive.

The interpretation of Oleg Tabakov is different than, say, Moskvin, who played Pribytkov on the stage of the Moscow Art Theater. He was a noble, aging gentleman, almost Tugina’s savior. In Eremin’s performance, where there is an elegant and courteous mutual devouring, Pribytkov perfectly “rhymes” with the life that is boiling around: there is no dissonance, he simply plays the leading role. Around: Luka Dergachev (Roman Kirillov) - tiny and pathetic, it seems his place is in someone's bosom, but he is too unsightly, no one will take him for his bosom. Salai Saltanych (Igor Zolotovitsky) is a smaller fry than Pribytkov, not the master of life, but rather the owner, but also not a failure. Vadim Dulchin (Sergei Kolesnikov) is a handsome man, a heartthrob, rushing about in search of a rich wife. Irina Lavrovna (Daria Yurskaya), who is sincerely and passionately in love with Dulchin, but cools off the moment she learns that the handsome man is not rich... And some other empty-headed veils, lying aunties, widows in love - everyone, even though they stand on stage for a short time, contributes their paint into the creation of this little world.

In this performance, you can feel a special kind of fate - such a homely, kitchen quality, but no less powerful: you marry a rich man, and if you don’t succeed, you will bite your elbows, sobbing in public about your nobility. Or your conscience will begin to stir, you will somehow feel sick of being a scoundrel, and after ten minutes, a guitar in your hands, a cigarette in your teeth, and the riot is over.

Meyerhold, who staged Ostrovsky in the twenties, freed the stage from everyday details also because he wanted to avoid justifying Ostrovsky’s heroes by the age-old way of life, which would be expressed in the alignment of things with each other, their cohesion - they say, it didn’t start yesterday, it won’t end tomorrow, you are just a living figure among these cabinets and chairs. That is, he wanted, among other tasks, to destroy the analogy of “rock life” (or “rock way of life”) and place emphasis on the will of man. Judging by the latest performances of Ostrovsky's plays, including the Moscow Art Theater play, one cannot say that expression of will is possible.

The endings of Ostrovsky's plays are very often falsely happy. The heroes are suddenly showered with money; someone achieves a goal - not high, but theirs; or suddenly the main character’s conscience will begin to stir again, and he promises to be reborn to an honest life. But these endings are essentially as sad as, say, the endings of The Thunderstorm or Dowry. A random rain of money could have fallen on completely different people, which means that somewhere this precipitation did not fall, and there is no need to talk about happiness there. This kind of accident does not cancel the course of things, the balance of power, but only emphasizes it. That’s why so often in Ostrovsky, the happier the ending, the sadder it is. The end of Eremin's play is devoid of even this duality. Pribytkov and Tugina leave the stage, and on the screen we see their faces in close-up. Then - only Tugina’s face. She found out the truth, but, as they say, “truth is good, but happiness is better.” Tugina’s final sacrifice is that she comes to terms with this truth of life. And her ex-fiancé screams that he will continue to search for a rich bride. He will find it.

Izvestia, December 17, 2003

Marina Davydova

Shadows of unforgotten ancestors

Ostrovsky's "The Last Victim" was performed at the Moscow Art Theater

On Tuesday, at the Moscow Art Theater, on Kamergersky Lane, the premiere of Alexander Ostrovsky's play "The Last Victim" was given. The role of the wealthy merchant Flor Fedulych Pribytkov was played by the artistic director of the theater, Mr. Tabakov, and his charming wife Marina Zudina played the role of the young widow Yulia.

There is a broad Russian scope in Tabakov and in everything he does. He, like no one in our world devoid of real merchant morality, knows how to help others without offending himself. So the Moscow Art Theater began to live like a merchant under Tabakov. It now has plenty of everything - scenes (three of them), guest directors (I can’t count them), and premieres (we don’t have time to write articles). And who else but Tabakov, who knows how to catch a crane in the sky, holding a tit in his hand, could play the zealous, but generous, sedate, but amorous, caring about his reputation, but who knows how to be cunning on occasion, businessman Pribytkov. It is not Julia, deceived by her insidious lover, and not the rogue lover himself, who repents and then sins again (Sergei Kolesnikov), but his dignified Flor Fedulych becomes the main character of this performance. A positive, let us note, hero. In place of beautiful-hearted talkers, worthless dependents, petty scoundrels, big thieves and government officials who feed on these thieves, conscientious and shrewd entrepreneurs who do not squander their own and other people’s goods and know what a word of honor is - this is the implicit but readable meaning of this Moscow Art Theater "Victims".

In the premiere performance, staged by the strong professional Yuri Eremin, there is, however, another plot. No less curious. In addition to the Moscow Art Theater of today, led by Mr. Tabakov, it also contains - and is visibly present - the Art Theater from the time of its founding. And if the first plot is entirely left to Oleg Palych in the role of Flor Fedulych, the second is the work of the director.

The events of the play, compared to the events of the comedy, are shifted by Eremin by at least twenty years - from the 70s (the time the play was written) to the very end of the century (the time of the opening of the Art Theater). It is not the usual Ostrovsky merchants - with thick beards and echoes of bast Rus' in their manners - who act here, but rather merchants of the era of Art Nouveau and philanthropy - sleek, dressed in the latest fashion there. The ladies are completely dressed in outfits with a slight flavor of the Secession (costume designer Svetlana Kalinina).

The coloring of the merchant's speech is somewhat mixed here. Some delightful phrases, like the order of Lavr Mironych (Valery Khlevinsky): “Form a snack there under the birch trees” - were completely cut out. The characteristic “s” at the end of the words with which Ostrovsky’s characters, including Flor Fedulych, pepper their speeches, is mercilessly erased. In other words, these merchants were finally and irrevocably transferred by Eremin from the vile class to the higher one. This is a completely new generation of Russian businessmen, the very same ones through whose efforts the Tretyakov Gallery was created, priceless paintings were acquired that now adorn the Pushkin Museum. Pushkin, and without whose active participation the Art Theater itself would not have arisen. Hints of the interiors and facade of the building rebuilt by Shekhtel in Kamergersky are clearly felt in Valery Fomin’s sets. And at the very beginning of the performance, the voice-over with feeling and arrangement says: “The Moscow Art Theater presents Ostrovsky’s comedy...” That’s right - the Moscow Art Theater. Opened up and presents.

Of course, Flor Fedulych is not Mamontov or Morozov, but there is an abyss of nobility in him. Ivan Moskvin, who played Pribytkov in the 1944 performance staged by Khmelov, created a complex character. His Flor Fedulych, according to Elena Polyakova, initially comes to Tugina to buy her for himself. This calculating and cold businessman “becomes different from one testimony of true female love.” Tabakov’s image of the hero does not undergo any changes. From the very beginning he is not cold, but warm, knows how to appreciate beauty and even in small doses cannot stand vulgarity. Again interested in art. I bought a gramophone. "Casta Diva" listens and is heard. “Oh, grandpa has a new painting!” - exclaims the flighty Irene (Daria Yurskaya), pointing at the wall. A tambourine abstract composition adorns the wall. “Sodom and Gomorrah,” Pribytkov clarifies with pride. A self-respecting merchant of Ostrovsky, having seen such a daub (you can’t tell where is up and where is down), would have spat and crossed himself. Flor Fedulych hung it in a prominent place. Progressive man. (And Tabakov actually invited Kirill Serebrennikov to stage plays; I say, find five differences.) At the end of the first act, another merchant, Lavr Mironych, will entertain the guests with a new overseas curiosity - a cinematograph. At the time of writing the play, as we know, it had not yet been invented, and the intensity of passions in the film shown on the screen casts an unexpected light on the melodramatic passions of Ostrovsky himself.

There are no acting discoveries in the play - with the exception, perhaps, of Olga Barnet, who wittily and sweepingly played the universal matchmaker Glafira Firsovna. Lord, you think, what a wonderful character actress, where was everyone looking before? Other roles are played well, but predictably. Including Tabakov himself. And what revelations can there be here - a person is playing himself. But precise repertoire choice (there is no doubt that Eremin’s production will become one of the Moscow Art Theater’s highest-grossing performances) and subtle play over time more than compensate for the lack of revelations.

At the very end, a screen suddenly lowers in front of the artists who have taken their bows - and their figures momentarily turn into shadows on this screen. Shadows of our fortunately unforgotten ancestors. Through their efforts, at the end of the century before last, Russia almost became Europe. I can’t speak for the country, but in the Moscow Art Theater these shadows wandered into the right place. I hope they stay for a long time.

Vedomosti, December 17, 2003

Oleg Zintsov

Millionaire

Moscow Art Theater named after. Chekhov showed a positive image of a capitalist

The newest Moscow Art Theater performance, “The Last Victim,” is tempting to be called a social order. Just this spring, the director of the Golden Mask, Eduard Boyakov, complained that we don’t have enough works with a positive image of a capitalist. “How little is this?” The theater workers became worried and remembered Ostrovsky’s comedy. Here you go: Flor Fedulych Pribytkov, a very rich merchant and S played by Oleg Tabakov S is a man of a beautiful soul. Or maybe it will happen again: after the Moscow Art Theater, “The Last Sacrifice” is promised to be released by the Maly Theater and “Lenkom”.

You don’t need to meticulously check the theater poster to notice: Alexander Nikolaevich Ostrovsky has been occupying the top line in the repertoire rating of the Moscow stage for several years now. They appreciate him for different things. Some (for example, Sergei Zhenovach) appreciate the sincerity and strength of their way of life, and some (say, Konstantin Raikin) appreciate relevance in the broad sense that, no matter how you interpret these plays, no one in all of Russian drama has written more or better about money.

Yuri Eremin, who staged “The Last Victim” at the Moscow Art Theater, is inclined to the second: he doesn’t bother too much with characters, develops a simple moral, and prefers cinema, the telephone and the gramophone to samovars and tea saucers. The time of action C is not exactly today, but not the 19th century either. , and the beginning of the 20th century is the era of the initial accumulation of capital. Flor Fedulych S is not a merchant, but a successful manufacturer, and if Ostrovsky says: there is a picture hanging on the wall, then at the Moscow Art Theater there are not just three bears, but pure modernism.

Valery Fomin's set design is intricate. The right side of the stage is empty, except for a small movie screen on which a silent film is shown during intermission. And the left one is occupied by a system of screens driven by large gears under the ceiling. On the first screen C there is a bourgeois interior in the room of the young widow Yulia Pavlovna Tugina (Marina Zudina), on the second screen C the office of Flor Fedulych (Oleg Tabakov). When the screens, one after another, are lifted under the grate, the next ones reveal the same room and office again. This infinity is not at all bad, but it is somewhat puzzling: why was there so much fuss? Where, may I ask, is the savings?

After all, "The Last Victim" can be read as a comedy about the benefits of wise management of capital - be it money or beauty. The plot completely boils down to the fact that a young widow, having suffered from a groom who squandered her entire fortune, ultimately prefers a rich old man to him: he knows how to take care of business and even build cordial relationships on a basis beneficial to both parties.

On the Moscow Art Theater stage the correctness of this choice is shown with some anecdotal clarity. Here is Flor Fedulych Tabakov, an example of intelligence, prudence and undeniable positive charm. But here is Mr. Dulchin (Sergei Kolesnikov), who almost has it written on his forehead that he is a vulgar, empty person and is not worth any last sacrifices. It’s a simple matter to spend a few thousand and give a beautiful girl a million torments. If the girl is also smart, she will quickly leave the torment. But it’s stupid to refuse a million C and with such and such Flor Fedulych C. The frankness with which the performance presents this instructive conclusion is worthy, if not of tenderness, then of understanding - at least from a respectable audience.

NG, December 18, 2003

Pavel Rudnev

No more victims needed

People's Artists save the premiere at the Moscow Art Theater. Chekhov

A bad boss scolds his subordinates. A good one redoes bad work himself. You can be sure that Oleg Tabakov, head of the Chekhov Moscow Art Theater, shares this truth. Otherwise, it wouldn’t have happened the way it did in the theater’s last premiere: only the participation of Oleg Tabakov and Marina Zudina could have saved Ostrovsky’s “The Last Victim” from failure. The masters go on stage to literally protect - with their breasts and fame - the fragile vessel of the performance.

In Yuri Eremin's production, they play close people who are destined to become legal spouses in the finale. Unequal marriage is a remedy for shame: this is Ostrovsky’s bitter philosophy here. Zudina got a role that couldn't be more difficult - in an era of universal pragmatism, to play the sincere selflessness and naive blindness of a woman in love. It should seem to today’s viewer that in this image Ostrovsky’s talent as a writer of everyday life was completely changed: the actions of the unfortunate widow look so implausible. Yulia Tugina allows herself to support a gigolo, reach the edge of the “subsistence level” and go to the merchant on her knees to beg for the “last sacrifice” for the sake of her tormentor. And Zudina, it seems, finds a way out of the situation: she plays not a woman, but a girl, in love not with a specific handsome man, but with love itself, and even more so - with her sacrifice, with her mission. A widow, it seems she only began to truly live after the death of her husband, still remaining an inexperienced child with the financial capabilities of an adult.

By the will of the director, who transferred the action of the play to the era of the emerging modernity, Oleg Tabakov appears on stage not as a merchant of the first guild, but as an industrialist commissioning a new workshop at his manufactory, as well as an enlightened admirer of the arts, a theatergoer and music lover, a lover of avant-garde painting (in the office there is some kind of beige abstraction hanging). He walks with his belly hanging out, surveys the area economically, jokes dryly and is ready to take over everything that is in bad shape - a business executive and owner, in a word. He looks at Tugina with a loving, “cornflower blue” gaze, enveloping the woman with unobtrusive care, like a warm shawl: “If you are robbed, I will pay.” The emphasis in the last word is floating: will he pay? Or will he cry? But then a simple scam, cleverly carried out through dummies, and the idol is defeated, and a gorgeous woman falls into the arms of a businesslike old man.

And, in essence, there is nothing more to describe. Because the second and third plans of “The Last Victim”... They simply don’t exist. As soon as Tabakov or Zudina (who played, let’s not delude ourselves, is at the limit of their capabilities) goes backstage, you sit and suffer. Why so sluggish? Why is the environment so untalented? Why flat, lifeless decoration? Why photographs with views of abandoned factories? Why the stiff, uncharming Sergei Kolesnikov in the role of the spendthrift lover Dulchin - with a rat-like appearance and the voice of an operetta whip, who hardly has the ability to seduce women? Why again on the stage of the Moscow Art Theater in the wonderfully written role of Irina (Ostrovsky’s brilliant definition is “a girl with a belated and too bold naivety”) Daria Yurskaya - a dry, non-virtuoso, capricious actress with a squeaky voice?

And everything happens because the decision to stage the next performance on the stage of the Moscow Art Theater comes earlier than the idea of ​​​​a new version of “The Last Victim”, and by the time of the premiere no idea is found, even the Russian language maybe doesn’t help. And it turns out that Ostrovsky’s “updating” consists simply of creating a “stage version of Yuri Eremin” based on the play. Namely, swap the pages, move the action from the 1870s to the 1910s and, with an unwavering hand, write the corresponding realities into the canonical text. We are not “guardians of the reserve” and we will not reproach Ostrovsky for trampling on Ostrovsky’s letter, but again questions remain. Why did this story happen at the dawn of the 20th century with a major Moscow industrialist, although it could have happened in the 1950s with a senior party worker from Leningrad? Why does Igor Zolotovitsky play Salai Saltanych as a Tatar with a banal accent, and not, for example, as a Jewish moneylender or an Azerbaijani from the market? Why, finally, does Pribytkov’s brother (Valery Khlevinsky) demonstrate to all those gathered a new invention of mankind - a silent cinematograph, and not the computer game HalfLife-2, for example? You don’t believe the unjustified.

The Chekhov Moscow Art Theater is frozen. He sorely lacks successes and bright spots in his repertoire. The next two premieres are simply obliged to save the Tabakov Theater from untimely extinction. Kirill Serebrennikov's February "Bourgeois" and Sergei Zhenovach's March "Turbin Days" are the Moscow Art Theater's rear, its deposits. In order not to lose the war on the line of fire, you need to gather all the remaining resources here. And the fact that they seem to exist can be judged at least by how confidently and firmly Oleg Tabakov holds on in the role of a business man.

Vremya Novostei, December 19, 2003

Alexander Sokolyansky

Long past present tense

Mkhatovskaya "The Last Victim" - the first big premiere of the season

“An old man, in love with a young widow, tries, under the guise of patronage and guardianship, to separate her from the young man she loves, and succeeds. A young man is set up with a girl, passing her off as a rich bride; he gets carried away and cheats on the widow. She, unable to bear the betrayal, goes crazy, and he, having learned about this and in a fit of despair, takes his own life.” So in 1874, Ostrovsky sketched out a certain plot for his future, partly adapting one of Gozzi’s later plays to Russian life (as established by Inna Solovyova). Looking for titles: “Trustees”? "Victim of the century"? He will begin work only in August 1877 and by mid-October the play “The Last Victim” will be ready. Using the expressions of the criticism of that time, it is one of Ostrovsky’s “most capital things.”

The Italian mark is not hard to spot. The characters talk about the singer Patti and the tragedian Rossi, and their names are a wonderful fusion of Latin and Zamoskvoretsky. The heroine’s name is Yulia Tugina, the rich old man’s name is Flor Pribytkov, and the young helipad’s name is Dulchin: here, of course, one can hear not only the pampered dolce vita, but also our ordinary “dula.” Having thought out and revived these people, Ostrovsky to some extent lost control of the plot or, on the contrary, subordinated the plot to his ideas about a properly organized life. As the action progresses, it turns out that Flor Pribytkov is not a depraved old man, but a very decent and well-mannered person; that the beautiful lover Dulchin is still a bastard; that in general all these romantic passions are a corrosive nightmare: the sooner you shake yourself off, the healthier you will be. And it’s not worth going crazy at all, wouldn’t it be better to get married: Tugina with Pribytkov, and Dulchin, who should also be pitied, with a passionate, rich, albeit absurd merchant’s wife. He will have money, and the kind of romance that Dulchin craves is always on sale. Whether there are other varieties is a moot point for Ostrovsky. When this playwright is called a great realist, there is nothing to object to: truly great, truly a realist - only Ostrovsky’s strength and charm is not in realism, but, if you like, in “counter-romanticism”: I could talk on this topic for a long time, but let’s better return to the plot.

The intrigue of “The Last Victim” is more entertaining than any detective story, and the viewer is supposed to fidget from beginning to end: well, what about him? what about her? where is the money? etc. - and the interest is growing, and the denouement turns out to be stunning. By letting it slip how it would all end, I could have done a disservice to any theater, but I did no harm to the Art Theatre. The only drawback of the performance, which is wonderful in many ways and certainly the best of the current season, is the predictability of the characters' behavior. Guessing too quickly.

As soon as a person appears on stage, be it Flor Pribytkov (Oleg Tabakov), his nephew Lavr (Valery Khlevinsky), Vadim Dulchin (Sergei Kolesnikov in line with Maxim Matveev), the old bawd Glafira Firsovna (Olga Barnet) and whoever , everything is clear about him: who he is, what he does and what he’s worth. Director Yuri Eremin once remarkably knew how (probably still knows how) to bring the mystery of man into the center of the action: to confirm this, it is enough to recall “The Old Man” and “The Idiot,” staged in the eighties at the Soviet Army Theater. However, “The Last Victim” is a performance without mysteries.

The time of action has been shifted forward by a quarter of a century: before us is not the seventies of the 19th century, but the beginning of the 20th century: electricity, telephones and even a cubist canvas in the office of the capitalist, no longer a simple merchant, Flora Pribytkov (artist - Valery Fomin). The decision is daring, but quite reasonable. It is justified by the ease of understanding of the beauties of Russian modernism. What kind of women's dresses, what kind of headdress did Svetlana Kolesnikova come up with for Yulia Tugina - even now take it to a boutique and sell it for crazy euros! You can come up with a more profound justification: the time of Art Nouveau for the first time combined fine arts with industrial production: that is, it was Tugina and Pribytkov. Finally, there is a purely theatrical justification: it’s more convenient for the actors.

In life, you can do without excuses. In real life, metro cars are plastered with posters: a man who is going to become the mayor of Moscow, I don’t remember his last name, mourns the fate of Voentorg on Vozdvizhenka: how, they say, can one demolish a monument to the great Art Nouveau architecture of the early 19th (nineteenth!) century. Nobody notices this. The time that passed between Empire and Art Nouveau somehow became crumpled for everyone and lost its internal boundaries. It turned into a homogeneous long-past time.

In the theater the situation is somewhat more complicated. If only because good actors know that the structure of speech and the way of pronouncing words changes over time. “I love you” was pronounced differently under Ostrovsky and under Chekhov, and the consequences of what was said rarely coincided. Historical realities - God bless them. In Eremin's play, in a setting that clearly belongs to the beginning of the twentieth century, the characters regret that Patty will not come again; whoever finds it funny should wipe it off. The brilliant singer Adelina Patti first came to Russia in 1869, and Ostrovsky’s contemporaries went crazy about her; few people know that she gave her last concert in Russia in 1904, when she was already over sixty. I am telling you this not only for the benefit of the cause, but also especially for fans of the great Luciano Pavarotti.

Early 20th century: everyone knows how to play it. Yuri Eremin came up with a wonderful thing: the characters do not even suspect that their time will be called “decadence”. They live the way they live - to the best of their ability, loving as much as possible, or at least having fun. And also by suffering, hating, fawning, taking advantage of the opportunity, etc. As, in fact, we have always lived.

The role of Yulia Tugina in this situation becomes twice as complicated. The fact that the heroine of “The Last Victim” will be played by Marina Zudina was clear from the very beginning; It was unclear how she would play. The actress is now in that happy age state when everything is available: from Antigone to Ranevskaya. The role in “The Last Victim” was, if you like, a test of artistic flexibility and a great test of the seriousness of talent. He turned out to be serious.

Zudina's talent has special properties: she can play fortissimo better than piano. In other words, the bright is more accessible to her than the subtle. She performs the first scenes very mediocrely. The fractures of mental life - when he begs Pribytkov for money in the first act, when he falls into a soul-dangerous hysteria in the second - Zudina-Tugina plays superbly. For her, the Art Nouveau style is just a kind of elegant addition to her own data. It was very tempting to turn Ostrovsky’s heroine into a figure similar to the well-behaved sufferers from television series; the director, as I understand it, tried to bring everyone to the line and slow down before it. Thanks to Marina Zudina: she didn’t intervene.

And one more thing - thanks to Olga Barnett. For the way her Glafira Firsovna sips a glass, eats a snack, waits on her, shows off - everything is of the highest class. And thanks to Roman Kirillov, who plays Luka Dergachev - his character so touchingly, so helplessly pleases the evil Dulchin that in the end it becomes offensive for him: what the hell has he done with his sense of personal dignity?! Meanwhile, it’s clear where he’s going: Kirillov managed to play not the plot, but fate.

As for Oleg Tabakov, in 1995 he played Kolomiytsev in Gorky’s play “The Last”. It was a great role. I'm not sure that Flor Pribytkov's role can be called great, but in any case it deserves a separate description.

New news, December 19, 2003

Olga Seregina

Glamorous victim

The Chekhov Moscow Art Theater revived the classic play by Alexander Ostrovsky

The premiere of “The Last Victim” by Alexander Ostrovsky at the Chekhov Moscow Art Theater became the most successful dramatic performance of the current season. The project owes its success largely to the brilliant performance of the first Moscow Art Theater couple - the theater's artistic director Oleg Tabakov and his wife, the theater's prima Marina Zudina.

The phrase “The Last Victim” at the Art Theater has long been associated with the 1944 production with amazing scenery by Vladimir Dmitriev, with a stunning duet-masterpiece of the “first couple of the Moscow Art Theater”: Alla Tarasova (Tugina) and Ivan Moskvin (Flor Fedulych). The choice of the play for the new production, the choice of the “first couple” of today’s Chekhov Moscow Art Theater – Oleg Tabakov and Marina Zudina – for the main roles – provoked and set up historical comparisons. However, director Yuri Eremin was not attracted to the idea of ​​​​playing on the history of the Moscow Art Theater. The experience of Nikolai Khmelev’s production, if used at all, was used only as a springboard for a “leap” in a completely different direction. Instead of carefully following “Ostrovsky” in the new “Victim” there is a free arrangement of scenes and cues. Instead of a careful recreation of the environment of the 80s of the end of the nineteenth century, with its Zamoskvoretsk established way of life, with rituals of behavior, there is a luxurious modernism of the beginning of the twentieth century. In today's version of Ostrovsky, mansions with twisted lanterns are projected on a video screen. Fawn silk dresses, furs and amazing hats for ladies; stylized livery of a doorman in the evening garden. Instead of a detailed interior, there are wooden walls of the pavilion, outlining either Julia’s room with a portrait of her husband in the center, or Pribytkov’s office with a painting of the “newest art school” on the wall, or the living room with Dulchin’s mirror. Instead of a lacy psychological game - local colors of either absolute virtue or black villainy, stylized as a black and white film from the beginning of the last century.

Visitors to the evening garden sit down to watch this film with wringing of hands, raising of eyes, with the glamorous beauty of every gesture. Yuri Eremin staged Ostrovsky in the spirit of a film drama: the mise-en-scène and poses are a little deliberately refined - they love beautifully, they suffer beautifully. Sad music plays in the background of emotional turmoil. White flakes of theatrical snow fall asleep on the unfaithful handsome Dulchin (Sergei Kolesnikov), who hugged Irina Lavrovna (Daria Yurskaya). Deceived and abandoned, Tugina (Marina Zudina) wanders among the silhouettes of garden visitors.

Olga Barnet (Glafira Firsovna) plays superbly in the still very uneven acting ensemble of the play. Her heroine is constantly chewing something anxiously, fiddling with something in her hands, arranging intrigues with some kind of gloomy insistence. Dergachev (Roman Kolesnikov) is good and reliable, a small, fussy man who sincerely reveres his handsome friend and tries in every possible way to save him. Colorful Salai Saltanych performed by Igor Zolotovitsky.

The stylization of Ostrovsky proposed by the director took away from the historical background of the play (the loud trial of Jacks of Hearts, which gave the playwright a lot for his Dulchin, the story of a rich old man who took in the support of the widow Bashkirova, who had been robbed by a swindler). From her theatrical memory (say, from the Italian tragedy that gave Ostrovsky the plot of “The Last Victim”; from the interpretations of Fedotova, Ermolova, Savina, etc.). One may regret that the director’s plan straightened out many of the crooked “mental wires” of Ostrovsky’s heroes. Moments of unpredictable psychological turns are too rare. Here Flor Fedulych - Tabakov ran up, picked up Tugina, who was begging for money, from her knees and, already giving in to her request, asked: “How much?” - "Six thousand". What a confusion of feelings he has: there is relief that he asks for so little; and annoyance that such a woman is on her knees because of such a sum, and of course - tenderness for this little fool who absolutely does not understand life, and much, much more. At this moment, it is clear how unexpected the Moscow Art Theater Flor Fedulych could become if Tabakov dared to move away from the usual win-win techniques, intonations, and the mask of “a man of calculation and success.”

However, with all the “buts” and regrets, the Moscow Art Theater production has clearly become a notable phenomenon and the most successful dramatic performance of the season that has begun. And ahead of us awaits “The Last Victims” at Lenkom and the Maly Theater.

Rossiyskaya Gazeta, December 19, 2003

Alena Karas

"The Last Victim" of the Moscow Art Theater

Oleg Tabakov returns viewers to merchant Moscow

Ostrovsky's "THE LAST Victim" at the Moscow Art Theater was both conceived and rehearsed with the expectation of absolute box office success. Tabakov, who releases premiere after premiere at all three of his venues, has never managed to get anything successful on the main stage. Director Yuri Eremin also needed success like air - he had not been very successful with his performances lately. So they made a desperate forced march, which culminated in a completely convincing victory.

The play “The Last Victim” at the Moscow Art Theater is a delicious and enjoyable spectacle in almost all respects. To do this, the director and artist significantly reshaped the play, adding several new lines and shifting the entire plot from merchant Moscow of the 70s to the new bourgeois capital of the beginning of the last century. Stylish Art Nouveau, screens, one after another revealing the exquisite interiors of rich Moscow houses and restaurants, snow falling every now and then, the joyful feeling of Moscow winter evenings with their cheerful and nervous excitement, theatrical travel and the “Slavic Bazaar”, so accurately described by Bunin (artist Valery Fomin).

The main magician of this magically rich Moscow is Flor Fedulych Pribytkov, performed by Oleg Tabakov. He embodies the type of enlightened, wise and reverent entrepreneur of the turn of the century, a kind of Savva Morozov: a season ticket holder at the Bolshoi, a collector of non-figurative paintings of modern times (there is a painting by a certain cubist hanging on the wall in his office), a connoisseur of vocal art who enjoys listening to records from Casta Diva on a brand new gramophone. An educated person in all respects, he even knows how to pronounce “phenomenon” correctly, with the emphasis on the “o”.

Eremin went even further, rhyming the melodramatic story of a lovely woman, an insidious seducer and a kind millionaire with cinematic aesthetics. An absurd lover of French novels, the merchant Pribytkov (Valery Khlevinsky) demonstrates a new film, and the entire action of the play is accompanied by film images of snow-covered Moscow houses and factories. The bourgeois fever and the very atmosphere of the beginning of the last century gave the theater new opportunities to play with the present century.

But the acting capabilities of the leading role were also taken into account. It is indeed easier for Marina Zudina to play a nervous modern woman with hysterical notes at a crescendo, with broken movements and flirtatious intonations, than a simple-minded woman of the 70s. Her feelings for men are a spicy mixture of spiritual dedication and subtle, secret calculation. Having fallen in love with the player Dulchin with all passion, she still does not forget that there is capital behind him. But the motive of love, paid for by a serious fortune and a reasonable approach, appears most clearly in the game of Oleg Tabakov. He is the main character of "The Last Victim". He loves tenderly and devotedly, insinuatingly and intelligently. In his feelings, he demonstrates humility and calculation.

A woman, heartbroken and betrayed, who seems ready to commit suicide, easily gives her heart to a new respectable admirer. There is no room for naked calculation in the way Zudina and Tabakov play their heroes. They joyfully demonstrate the main virtue of the new century - to love with calculation, to have a sincere feeling for someone who is useful. The peaceful viewer sweetly surrenders to the arms of this new fairy tale. “Only through services can you win a woman’s affection.” The sad and wise Ostrovsky gives today's theater an exceptional psychological outline of feelings in the realm of capital. It is no coincidence that theaters have taken on it with such gratitude and passion in recent seasons. Following the Moscow Art Theater, “The Last Sacrifice” is promised by the Maly Theater and Lenkom.

In Eremin's play, unexpectedly, a secondary, but subtly executed plot reveals itself to be a completely different love - love without calculation. That’s how, at least, the young actor Roman Kirillov plays his hero, the pathetic Luka Dergacheva. Humiliated to the last degree, he is capable of compassion and extreme, true love for Vadim Dulchin. The insidious lover himself, performed by Sergei Kolesnikov, is an extremely stilted and flat figure. Nothing remarkable. Most notable of all is the terrible matchmaker Glafira Firsovna (Olga Barnet), who played the special cynicism of people who always make mistakes next to power and capital, serving them for a pittance - a kind of sophisticated “school of slander.”

Under the quietly falling snow, in a chic coat and hat, Yulia Tugina leaves arm in arm with her future husband, Flor Fedulovich Pribytkov, a kind, wise, loving and very reasonable millionaire. The snow gently covers this couple, pleasant in all respects, and the happy face of the future millionaire Pribytkova appears on the screen in close-up. The justification of wealth took place on the stage of the Chekhov Moscow Art Theater with bourgeois, good decorum. You can celebrate the New Year with such a performance.

New theater news, December 26, 2003

Polina Bogdanova

The last love of a business gentleman

At the Moscow Art Theater. A. Chekhov is a high-profile premiere, which will undoubtedly be a great audience success. This is "The Last Victim" by Alexander Ostrovsky, directed by Yuri Eremin. The central roles are played by the star couple Marina Zudina and Oleg Tabakov.

Director Yuri Eremin slightly shifted the time of the play and moved the events to the 20th century, to the time of electricity, telephones and cinema. The era of graceful women in the Art Nouveau style and fatal beauties from silent films. And he played out a story, a little ironic, stylized like those exciting cinema scenes where the heroine, with eyes full of sadness, wrings her thin beautiful hands and faints. And the fatal hero, a spendthrift and gambler, who squandered all her fortune, tries to shoot himself with a revolver. But the law of this new bourgeois entertainment is clear: the public is supposed to be satisfied, so everything must end well. So a gray-haired, respectable gentleman appears who becomes the true benefactor and savior of the unfortunate woman.

Marina Zudina plays the young widow Yulia Tugina, who fell in love with the scoundrel Dulchin (Sergei Kolesnikov). Julia belongs to the breed of those highly moral and truthful women who do not resort to coquetry or other methods of seducing a man, because they are driven by genuine and deep passion. Only once did Julia try to use her feminine charm. When she decided to take a desperate and humiliating step for herself, coming to Pribytkov and asking him for money that was supposed to save Dulchin from the debt trap. But her coquetry and playfulness very quickly dried up, crashing against the wall of polite but firm refusal.

Pribytkov Oleg Tabakov is not the kind of person who will allow himself to be led by the nose and take advantage of his generosity and kindness. He is very calculating, this gentleman of the new bourgeois era, is well acquainted with political economy, in addition, he has a rational and disciplined nature, as well as considerable life experience. He sees right through Julia, well understanding that she is only a victim of dishonest and blatant deception. He very subtly and cleverly, through dummies, carries out his intrigue against Dulchin, which opens Julia’s eyes and cures her of a strong but humiliating feeling. He treats Julia herself with that cautious tenderness that is characteristic of a person who, in his declining days, has found his last love. Someone who knows how to appreciate this feeling in a way that a young person could never do.

Director Yuri Eremin in this performance weaves the thread of relationships between the characters in a very interesting and detailed way and amazes with the freedom and grace of the emotional score. There are bright grotesque sketches of images, everyday truthfulness, and rich characteristic types. Take Irene, played by Daria Yurskaya, who plays with inimitable brilliance and wit. She creates the image of a predatory, charming fool in her own way, inflamed with an “African” passion for the “rich man” Dulchin and deceived by him, but not broken. Because the healthy cynicism of her nature protects her in all delicate and dubious situations. The role of the aunt performed by Olga Barnet is excellent. Also, in her own way, a predatory and selfish person, ready to serve the wealthy and capable of generous gratitude to Pribytkov with dog-like devotion. Her first appearance in Yulia's house turns into a separate performance, when she sits at the table and greedily, without having time to chew, gobbles up the food brought to her, washing it all down with vodka. Yuri Eremin “shifts” Ostrovsky’s play, which for us is the standard of everyday and psychological truth, not only in terms of the time of action, transferring everything to the beginning of the 20th century, an already developed industrial era. But also a little bit by genre. In addition, he largely rewrites the text, removing some parts and inserting others. What he needs is not a realistic, much less a moralizing and edifying story.

And a beautiful melodrama from bourgeois life, stylized, as has already been said, to resemble the heart-warming plots of a silent cinematograph. By the way, this art is really present here; silent films are shown in the back of the stage. And in the way the director constructs a beautiful melodrama, there is good taste and even a kind of grace. Everything here is slightly exaggerated, everything is presented in such a way as to produce an effect, to create an impression. And at the same time, there is subtle irony in everything. After all, Eremin understands what he is doing and why. He creates an example of bourgeois theater that the public should like.

The ending is built in accordance with all this - beautiful and sentimental.

Results, December 23, 2003

Marina Zayonts

Sentimental novel

"The Last Victim" by A. Ostrovsky was staged at the Chekhov Moscow Art Theater

I don’t know if you pay attention to the television advertising of a certain competition called “Russian Story”? The one where Alexander Kalyagin soulfully and reverently calls on artists to create a positive image of the new Russia and tirelessly look for its heroes, the builders of capitalism with a human face. In any case, the creators of “The Last Victim” clearly did not remain indifferent to this call. The plot, of course, was not invented by Alexander Ostrovsky today, but it was adapted to our modern needs by director Yuri Eremin, set designer Valery Fomin, and, of course, Oleg Tabakov, not just the leading actor, but also to some extent its prototype. On a par, naturally, with such famous people who increased the glory of Russian art at the turn of the 19th-20th centuries, such as P. Tretyakov, S. Mamontov, S. Morozov, etc.

This play is in great demand this season. In addition to the Chekhov Moscow Art Theater, Lenkom and Maly announced it, but Tabakov, accustomed to taking the bull by the horns, was ahead of everyone. Because it’s high time to show the people that a person who spends a lot of money is not necessarily just a scoundrel and a swindler worthy of being in prison. He, you know, has feelings and a taste for the present, and the word “honor” is not an empty sound for him, not to mention business qualities that a mere mortal can only envy. All this in the role of Flor Fedulych Pribytkov is expressively presented to the public by Oleg Tabakov, as always armed with his irresistible and winning charm. Eremin moved the action of Ostrovsky's play forward 30 years, launched a silent film on the screen, did not allow anyone to sit back and weave psychological laces, made the action as dynamic as possible, turning the old plot into an instructive melodrama, about which one touched viewer at the premiere said, wiping away tears: " Very vital."

In Ostrovsky's play, Pribytkov's nephew Lavr Mironovich (Valery Khlevinsky) and his enthusiastic daughter Irina (Daria Yurskaya) are very passionate about translated novels. The current viewer is passionate about something else - television series. Yuri Eremin's performance is similar to both. The director told a simple story, understandable to everyone, about how a good young woman Yulia Tugina (Marina Zudina) fell in love with the handsome scoundrel Dulchin (Sergei Kolesnikov), spent her fortune on him, was insulted and humiliated by him, but, thank God, was found next to her a worthy and rich man (Pribytkov-Tabakov), who did not leave her in trouble and gave her his love and protection. Well, yes, of course, he is much older than her, but happiness does not lie in age, the creators tell us, not in love madness and various heart failures, but in peace and dignity. When you can throw a fur coat over your shoulders, take a patron by the arm and go to the Hermitage Garden to listen to an opera. Theatrical snow is falling abundantly, on the screen there is a close-up of Marina Zudina, the beautiful, calm face of a woman for whom all the bad things are behind her. And then the inscription: the end.

Culture, December 25, 2003

Natalia Kaminskaya

Very good capitalist

"The Last Victim" Moscow Art Theater named after. A.P.Chekhova

Ostrovsky's Flor Fedulych Pribytkov is a "very rich merchant." Oleg Tabakov, by the will of director Yuri Eremin, is a very rich manufacturer. Several times during the performance, and obviously beyond what is written in the play, he talks about the new, newly built factory floor. And he sends his unlucky nephew Lavra and his daughter Irina to look not at recently acquired artistic canvases, but at a bright picture of capitalist construction. His servant, Vasily, recommends that Yulia Tugina familiarize herself with the newly published work on political economy.

Do these additions change anything in the conflict of the play? They don't change anything. Just as Pribytkov was a “money bag” who had his own, and at the same time, very strong code of honor as a business man, so he remained so in the play. Just as young Julia was a victim of selfless love for the rogue Dulchin, she remains so. And in general, the layout of the characters along social and moral lines here is purely “Ostrovsky”. There are people of action, to whom even the Asian Salai Saltanych (Igor Zolotovitsky) can be included with his aphorism: “Whoever does not reap cleanly beats himself.” And there are butterfly hangers-on like Lavr Mironych and his daughter. There is also the classic Alphonse - Vadim Grigorievich Dulchin. However, Ostrovsky is not Balzac, and his social ladder is covered with the mysterious matter of the Russian soul, where bestial cruelty is mixed with romance, and sin goes hand in hand with repentance. There are no words, the merchant Pribytkov is good and noble. However, saving Yulenka’s honor and life, he simultaneously buys them. The disgusting Dulchin, who lives on the money of the ladies in love, and when he says: “A rare woman loves me, but I didn’t know how to appreciate her,” you’ll throw up your hands.

But let's return to the stage of the Moscow Art Theater. A.P. Chekhov. And it is completely modern. Fences with Shekhtel squares on top, combinations of cold gray with warm terracotta, on the walls - canvases in the Vrubel style, on the tables - a gramophone with a telephone, on the ladies - fluffy boas and broken draperies of decadence. And in addition - a movie screen, where scenes of action appear in the dim outlines of cinema: now a mansion, now factory chimneys, now the roofs of Zamoskvoretsk apartment buildings. This detail is long and persistently reminiscent of the technique of a television soap opera, where a change of scene is necessarily recorded by a panorama of the corresponding facade. However, in the finale, the live couple Pribytkov - Tugina moves into the depths of the stage, and the cinematic close-up moves towards the viewer. Sprinkled with fluffy snow, dressed in cute styles of the early twentieth century, this couple evokes nostalgia for the joys of the Silver Age, finally leaves the world of Ostrovsky and enters the era of Mamontov and Morozov.

The director is tempted to find a new national idea and give the simple-minded viewer a positive hero. Oh, what a wonderful capitalist this Flor Fedulych of Oleg Tabakov is! Very rich, very honest and very advanced. When he talks about Patti, about Rossi, about season tickets to the opera, or about furniture in the Pompadour style, there is no sense of the nouveau riche in this at all. There is even a drop of slyness: here, they say, is a good life and its mandatory attributes, and now see for yourself: who deserves it and who doesn’t. Tabakov absolutely reigns in this performance. In fact, it plays on top of the stated theme. Director and artist Valery Fomin send the characters on a journey through time, about 20 (versus Ostrovsky) years ahead, into the era of capitalism that took shape in Russia. Thus, they probably want not only to get rid of tired beards, underdresses and other traditionally theatrical Zamoskvoretsky joys. They are most likely trying to emphasize certain ideals of modern Russian times and compare them with the era that ended in 1917. But Tabakov, perfectly maintaining the declared style, still plays his own: late love, and firmness of convictions, and a certain nobility, and cunning unscrupulousness in means, and the male reliability of the powerful of this world. The funny thing is that all this, despite the time jump, is absolutely in the spirit of the author of the play with his ironic romanticism and the absence of labels “positive” - “negative”. Together with Marina Zudina, who plays Yulia, they make up a chic stage couple, where fragility finds support in soft, unobtrusive firmness.

Olga Barnett also plays her part. Her Glafira Firsovna, having gotten rid of the traditional shawls, skirts and luscious colors of a theatrical matchmaker, appears as a funny aunt, on her own, with a slight quirk and an animal instinct for survival. The couple Lavr Mironych and her daughter are also funny, who, however, are completely packaged in the declared style. Daria Yurskaya plays a nervous fool from the era of decadence, and Valery Khlevinsky plays a pompous turkey whose evolutions do not depend on time at all.

The trouble, however, is with Dulchin (Sergei Kolesnikov). His straightforward “meanness”, uncharming guitar passages and inelegant approaches to the ladies leave questions not only for Tugina, but even for the eccentric Irina: what is there, really, to love than to be captivated by?

At the very end of the Moscow Art Theater season. A.P. Chekhov finally released a performance for which he is not ashamed. He is stylish, smart in his own way and will certainly be a hit with audiences. Director Yuri Eremin, after two lackluster Moscow premieres, seems to have regained a smooth creative breath again. But the main charm of this “victim” is the artistic director of the Moscow Art Theater, who, fortunately, remains a brilliant theater artist.

St. Petersburg Theater Magazine, No. 35, February 2004

Marina Timasheva

Tretyakov... Pribytkov... Tabakov

A. Ostrovsky. "The Last Victim" Moscow Art Theater named after. Chekhov. Director Yuri Eremin, set design by Valery Fomin

The Chekhov Moscow Art Theater released The Last Victim. Both in the case of “Dowry” by Anatoly Praudin, and in the new performance by Yuri Eremin, the author of the work, that is, Ostrovsky, is not easy to recognize. Proudin deprived the play of romance and showed the masters of life in all their vulgar unattractiveness. Yuri Eremin followed the more accepted path in recent years and acquitted the rich gentlemen. To do this, he needed to change the duration of the play. Now the events take place not in Ostrovsky’s merchant Moscow, but in Moscow at the end of the 19th century. The performance turned out well, because artists of the class of Oleg Tabakov, Marina Zudina, Natalya Zhuravleva and Olga Barnet can make the audience not notice its many shortcomings. “The Last Victim” was filmed at the Moscow Art Theater as a melodrama; Ostrovsky here is not the forerunner of Chekhov, he is more like the author of a silent film script. The same one that, by the will of the director, in the finale of the first act, the audience of the play watches along with its characters. This film in the theater, along with the costumes of Svetlana Kalinina, allows us to clarify the time of action. Silent films came to Russia in 1896. Not long before the Public Art Theater was created.

There is a screen in the upper left corner of the stage; images of different Moscow houses are projected onto it - those in which the characters of the play live. The images are black and white and it snows all the time on the screen. Winter is behind Ostrovsky, but it is so beautiful. Snow falls on the stage, snow is shaken off the lush fur collars and shoes of people entering their houses.

Scenographer Valery Fomin built screens diagonally across half of the stage. At first they are transparent, and the performance begins with a shadow theater effect. Gradually the ghostly world is transformed into the real one. Lighted differently, the screens turn into the walls of rooms, each of which has its own life. Changes in scenes are marked by the fact that one screen slides up and the next one is revealed. Screens replace one another until they completely disappear from the stage. They are driven by wheel mechanisms hanging from above and not hidden from the viewer's eye. On the one hand, it’s functional, on the other, you seem to see an element of those workshops that Flor Pribytkov is so proud of, which he loves to show to his guests (don’t be surprised - we’ll talk about the workshops a little later).

Flor does not evoke any special sympathy in the play, although he is a merchant, so to speak, “without a beard,” a representative of the new merchant formation. Rather, for reasons of prestige, he still listens to Patti’s singing, goes to the theater in Rossi, and acquires elegant furniture and paintings. But this civilized merchant weaves intrigues like your spider. And he’s not particularly inclined to take other people’s feelings into account.

This is where it turns out that the change in the time of action serves not so much the beauty of the stage picture, but rather semantic changes. The play was written in the 70s of the 19th century, and Flor in the stage directions is listed as a “very rich merchant” (what exactly he trades is unclear). At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, where Yuri Eremin moved him, Flor Pribytkov changed his occupation. He is no longer a merchant, but a major industrialist. You won’t believe it, but the director introduced into the production Flor’s thoughts about the workshops and the factory he owned, which are not present in Ostrovsky’s play. At the same time, he turned into a connoisseur of abstract art - clearly avant-garde work hangs in his house (like the cubist portrait from “Prince Florizel”, in which everyone immediately recognized Checkered).

The question of why Eremin rewrote a good play without him tormented me for quite some time. The answer I found seems correct to me.

The image of a noble manufacturer is sculpted according to social orders, just like the images of Komsomol volunteers in Soviet times. The financial-nomenklatura oligarchy of Yeltsin's call, having taken reliable control of the so-called “real economy”, willy-nilly is forced to present itself as a creative force - one that will improve the economy, ensure industrial growth and advanced technologies. Accordingly, they look for inspiring prototypes in the past, real or mythological - it doesn’t matter. The merchant is inappropriate here. The memories of the “buy and sell” of the 90s are too painful: Royal alcohol, disposable sheepskin coats, MMM candy wrappers. And the manufacturer seems to be just right. To adapt to the social order, it is not necessary to understand it at such a conceptual level. Instinctive orientation in space, the ability to distinguish between “where the butter is and where the bread” is enough. Another thing is that at the premiere, Mikhail Khodorkovsky was arrested, which gave the director’s decision a completely unexpected meaning. In many reviews of the play, Khodorkovsky appeared as the “last victim.” In fact, the title of the play is explained in the play itself. The last victim refers to Tugina’s visit to Pribytkov and the humiliation to which she exposes herself in order to get money for her loved one.

Yulia Tugina herself can be considered the “last victim,” forced to say goodbye to illusions and surrender to the mercy of an elderly millionaire. But linking the title with the arrest of Khodorkovsky... the director hardly thought about this. And, apart from associations with the disgraced oligarch, there is no special news in his interpretation. E. Kholodov, a researcher of the theatrical history of Ostrovsky’s plays, wrote: “When the same Pribytkovs sat in the front rows of the stalls, Flor Fedulych turned into the noble savior of the deceived Yulia Pavlovna. At other times, the words “a very rich merchant” were translated into stage language as a very bad person. Then a heartless rich man proudly strode across the stage, cunningly weaving a web of intrigue.” Based on the premiere performance of the Moscow Art Theater, you can draw your own conclusions about the first rows of the stalls and, more broadly, about the social situation. By the way, one of the premiere performances at the Moscow Art Theater was attended by Russian President Vladimir Putin.

But let's finish with politics and return to the theater.

Oleg Tabakov plays superbly. His Pribytkov is an intelligent, efficient, progressive owner and a gentle, loving person.

Yulia Tugina, performed by Marina Zudina (in the life of Oleg Tabakov’s wife), is strikingly different from everyone else. Small, fragile, trusting like a child, completely blinded by love, she is at the same time ready for any cunning and any humiliation, just to save the unscrupulous Dulchin and marry him.

Half-woman, half-child, Julia Tugina by Marina Zudina is at the same time sincere and cutesy, honest and deceitful, capricious and suffering, gentle and arrogant. Flor Pribytkov, who has seen a lot in his life, has never seen someone like her, unselling and selfless. The hero Oleg Tabakov is driven by only one feeling - love. Already at the first meeting with Yulia, when it turns out that she is going to get married, he loses all his luster in seconds, the familiar smile slides from his face, he doesn’t so much as flinch, but his whole body leans to one side.

In another scene, when she comes to his house to ask for money, Flor hastily sends his relatives away, fussily tears off the armbands in which he worked, and tries to regain his former sedate appearance in a matter of seconds. And when, having achieved her goal, Julia kisses her benefactor, his hands, as if against her will, clasp behind her back. It becomes absolutely clear to everyone: no one has ever kissed Flor Fedulovich so sincerely, if anyone has ever kissed him sincerely. Sympathy for the passionately loving and suffering hero displaces very unpleasant traits of his character from the viewer’s consciousness. Something similar has already happened in the history of the Moscow Art Theater. Directed by Nikolai Khmelev in 1944. Then Pribytkov was played by Ivan Moskvin, and Tugina was played by Alla Tarasova. I will refer to Boris Alpers: “With his spiritual and external appearance, Moskvin’s hero resembled noble, generous gentlemen with graying heads, who until the end of their days retained the purity of their souls and the warmth of their ageless heart. In relation to the Tarasov heroine, such Pribytkov was the embodiment of devotion and self-denial. He was possessed by that all-consuming love for the young woman, which became both his bitter happiness and constant, undying torment. Moskvin's biographers know that at that time he was going through a difficult personal drama. And he gave something of his human feelings to Pribytkov, thereby changing his spiritual appearance beyond recognition.” At that time, Alla Tarasova had just left Ivan Moskvin for another person - this is what biographers mean by “personal drama.” So, in addition to his love for Marina Zudina, Oleg Tabakov brings theatrical history into the play - a kind of bow to the production of 1944. And a more ancient story - about those people who helped the Art Theater survive at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries.

To be honest, in Flora Pribytkov I saw not Mikhail Khodorkovsky or even Leonid Nevzlin, but Oleg Tabakov, the creator of the studio and the savior of the Moscow Art Theater, who himself can serve as an example of an ideal entrepreneur. When the theater was unable to pay vacation pay to the artists on time, Oleg Tabakov pledged his own bills. When it came to the fact that STD could not feed the St. Petersburg House of Stage Veterans, Oleg Tabakov allocated money from his Fund. I can give dozens of such examples, and Tabakov prefers not to advertise his charity. A living example of the well-being and selflessness of the wealthy. He has almost nothing to do with the real Flora Pribytkovs, but points out that Tretyakov, Bakhrushin and Stanislavsky came from among the Moscow merchant aristocracy. Our gentlemen, it turns out, have something to strive for.