The Golden Mask, the country’s main theatrical prize, presented awards to its winners on April 22 and 23. By default, the main nomination for this award is considered to be the “Dramatic Performance of Great Form” category. He won the production, the authors of which had to be removed from the posters. Russian media’s special correspondent, Aleksey Krizhevsky, analyzes the context in which the prizes were awarded this season, which is very different from previous ones.
Zeitgeist Award
Last weekend in the atrium of the Musical Theater. Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko received the Golden Mask Award. Each time, it allows you to look back and look back at the past year. This time – for the 2021-2022 season, probably the most eventful, truly dramatic in the history of Russian theater. It was marked by departures, cancellations and layoffs, as well as the reformatting of a number of venues, about which Russian media has written extensively.
Serious dramas did not circumvent the “mask” itself. So, this year, the main theater award missed two nominations at once: the best director and the best playwright (and the latter was introduced quite recently).
Sergei Karpukhin / TASS
Some experts interviewed by Russian media attributed this to a high concentration of names of directors who left or condemned the hostilities in Ukraine: Dmitry Krymov, Rimas Tuminas, Yuri Butusov. In addition, far from comprehensible changes and replacements have taken place in the expert council of the price.
Feast of disobedience
Considering all of the above, the results of the work of the Prize Jury and the Award Ceremony turned out to be all the more surprising.
One of the first winners was the musical “Cabaret”. Based on the famous film by Bob Foss, it was staged on the stage of the Théâtre des Nations by the artistic director of the Théâtre. Pushkin Eugene Pisarev. Oleg Savtsov and Alexandra Ursulyak respectively received awards for the best male and female lead roles in this genre, and Elena Shanina for the supporting role. In addition, the work of the performance director has been recognized as the best of its kind.
Receiving the award, Pisarev spoke about the fact that sometimes it is necessary not to play high art, but to say what is needed here and now. And the production itself, the presentation of the award and the speech given by the director can be called great courage. The work based on the film about the last days of the Weimar Republic before the Nazis came to power could only evoke parallels with the present in public perception.
One of the “cancelled” directors, Dmitry Krymov, received a mention at the ceremony, although he was not on the list of nominees. Yevgeny Tsyganov, who came out to receive an award for his puppet show “I am Sergei Obraztsov”, spoke about him. He recalled that the production, which won Krymov a prize a year ago (“Mozart’s Don Giovanni. Dress rehearsal” in the PN Fomenko workshop), was later removed from the theater’s repertoire, and this is not is that thanks to the golden mask that it was projected in the cinema. as part of the special program of the festival. Tsyganov wished the nominees and winners that after a year their performances could still be seen on stage, and not just on the screen.
But another nominee and winner, Rimas Tuminas, was less fortunate. His name seemed to be the subject of an unspoken ban. “War and Peace”, which the Lithuanian director staged at the Theatre. Vakhtangov, won in many categories, including the main one.
The production received a special jury prize. Upon receiving the award, theater director Kirill Krok thanked the creators. “And, of course, our gratitude to the one without whom none of this would have happened,” the theater director said, saying the man would undergo serious surgery on April 24, and urging the public to wish him success and health. . Recall that Tuminas was removed from office by decision of the Ministry of Culture, which was preceded by a telephone conversation with the “pranksters”.
By the way, another Special Jury Prize became a sort of consolation prize for another injured director. He received the play “Mother’s Heart”, staged at the Bolshoi Drama Theater by its former conductor Andrei Moguchiy, who was removed from his post shortly before the ceremony.
Actress Nina Usatova (left) Anton Novoderezhkin / Kommersant
Artist Nina Usatova, who came to receive the award, spoke at length about how much veterans of this St. Petersburg venue and young artists enjoy working with the artistic director, whose contract was not renewed by the Ministry of Culture after almost 10 years of impeccable, inspired and commercially successful work.
The main appointment has become a real “party of disobedience”. The production “R”, performed at the theater “Satyricon” by Yuri Butusov, won there. This is a performance based on a staging of Gogol’s The Government Inspector by Mikhail Durnenkov. He claimed victory in 6 categories, including the work of actors, actresses and artists.
However, neither the name of the playwright, who significantly rewrote the classic play in a conditionally modern way, nor the name of the director was heard from the stage. Both are abroad, and they even drafted a protocol against Durnenkov to “discredit the armed forces”. However, he is no stranger – after all, a year ago he was removed from the play’s posters in order to “preserve the production”.
This action was the “first sign” of a process that began last year: the names of playwrights and directors began to disappear from the programs and posters of Russian theaters.
This happened with Boris Akunin at RAMT and the Alexandrinsky Theater, with Alexander Molochnikov and Kirill Serebrennikov at the Moscow Art Theater, with Dmitry Krymov at the Theater of Nations.
big revenge
At the Golden Mask, the talented production took a nice revenge on the whole past year. But for stage personalities fired, “cancelled” and condemned to oblivion in their homelands for their anti-war stance, it seems useful to introduce a separate nomination. After all, their account from last season already numbers in the dozens.
Suffice it to recall what happened just outside the walls of the solemn ceremony. The Maly Drama Theater hastily postponed Hamlet and Intrigue and Love, performances with the participation of its star Danila Kozlovsky. Vitaly Borodin, head of the federal anti-corruption project, wrote a denunciation against him (and received a lawsuit in response to protect honor and dignity).
Elizaveta Boyarskaya (Louise) and Danila Kozlovsky (Ferdinand) in a scene from Lev Dodin’s production of Intrigue and Love at the Maly Drama TheatreYuri Belinsky/TASS
Previously, the same Borodin asked the prosecutor’s office to check Alla Pugacheva, Valery Meladze. Leah Akhedzhakova, who was fired from the Sovremennik Theater, also understood this in this regard.
Already when the material was handed over and drafted, it became known that the Theater of Nations had canceled screenings of “The Tale of the Last Angel” – a production by Andrei Moguchiy with Akhedzhakova in the title role. It was the last performance in which the artist was busy in Russia.
The Petersburg Alexandrinka canceled the screening of Cyrano de Bergerac by Nikolai Roshchin, in which the watchful viewer saw the discredit of the troops. The Moscow Center for Drama and Directing has canceled screenings of the play “Mother” based on the play by Asya Voloshina, who left Russia.
The Golden Mask festival and award remain the main theatrical institution in Russia. Throughout the year, award experts travel around the country, watching and selecting performances. In this sense, the decision of the jury, including in the main nomination, commands respect.
Not afraid of the ongoing repression against not only dissidents, but simply victims of bureaucratic denunciations and persecutions, they chose not convenient, but dignified. Although with “holes” in the form of two nominations, the award found the strength to nominate the best, without turning against anyone.
It doesn’t change the fact that what’s happening is a bit like a party on the Titanic. It is quite possible that tomorrow many performances-winners, despite the award, we will not be able to see on the stages of the theaters that released them. As if Tsyganov’s wish did not come true exactly the opposite, and one should not go to legendary productions only in the cinema. And that’s the best.
The opinion of the author may not coincide with the opinion of the editors
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