Yuri Lyubimov: Thirty Years at the Taganka Theatre
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YURY LYUBIMOV Contemporary Theatre Studies A series of books edited by Franc Chamberlain, Nene College, Northampton, UK Volume 1 Playing the Market: Ten Years of the Market Theatre, Johannesburg, 1976–1986 Anne Fuchs Volume 2 Theandric: Julian Beck’s Last Notebooks Edited by Erica Bilder, with notes by Judith Malina Volume 3 Luigi Pirandello in the Theatre: A Documentary Record Edited by Susan Bassnett and Jennifer Lorch Volume 4 Who Calls the Shots on the New York Stages? Kalina Stefanova-Peteva Volume 5 Edward Bond Letters: Volume I Selected and edited by Ian Stuart Volume 6 Adolphe Appia: Artist and Visionary of the Modern Theatre Richard C.Beacham Volume 7 James Joyce and the Israelites and Dialogues in Exile Seamus Finnegan Volume 8 It’s All Blarney. Four Plays: Wild Grass, Mary Maginn, It’s All Blarney, Comrade Brennan Seamus Finnegan Volume 9 Prince Tandi of Cumba or The New Menoza, by J.M.R.Lenz Translated and edited by David Hill and Michael Butler, and a stage adaptation by Theresa Heskins Volume 10 The Plays of Ernst Toller: A Revaluation Cecil Davies Please see the back of this book for other titles in the Contemporary Theatre Studies series YURY LYUBIMOV AT THE TAGANKA THEATRE 1964–1994 Birgit Beumers University of Bristol, UK harwood academic publishers Australia • Canada • China • France • Germany • India Japan • Luxembourg • Malaysia • The Netherlands • Russia Singapore • Switzerland • Thailand • United Kingdom Copyright © 1997 OPA (Overseas Publishers Association) Amsterdam B.V. Published in The Netherlands by Harwood Academic Publishers. This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005. “To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.” All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Printed in India. Amsteldijk 166 1st Floor 1079 LH Amsterdam The Netherlands British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Beumers, Birgit Yury Lyubimov: at the Taganka Theatre (1964–1994).— (Contemporary theatre studies; v. 21) 1. Lyubimov, Yury—Criticism and interpretation 2. Taganka Theatre 3. Theatrical producers and directors—Soviet Union I. Title 792a. 0233a 092 ISBN 0-203-38123-8 Master e-book ISBN ISBN 0-203-38819-4 (Adobe eReader Format) ISBN 3-7186-5875-5 (hardcover) Cover photograph: The Taganka Theatre by Aleksandr Sternin CONTENTS Introduction to the Series viii List of Illustrations ix Preface xi Introduction Yury Petrovich Lyubimov: a child of the October Revolution? 1 Lyubimov as a theatre theoretician 3 Form and content 5 Part I Agitation in the 1960s: Society as a Generator of Change 1 The Development of a Poetic Theatre 9 Epic theatre: The Good Person of Szechwan 9 Prose adaptation: A Hero of Our Time 12 Poetic montage: Antiworlds 16 Revolution as a spectacle: Ten Days that Shook the World 17 War poetry: The Fallen and the Living 22 Restoration of original versions: The Life of Galileo 25 Homage to a poet: Listen! Mayakovsky! 27 Historic documentation: Pugachev 31 2 1968 and After: the Crushing of a Repertoire 35 Put on ice: The Tough (Fedor Kuzkin) and The Suicide 36 A press campaign: Tartuffe 47 “Soviet” classics in the grip of censorship: The Mother and What is to be Done? 51 The problem of improvisation: Protect Your Faces! and Under the Skin of the Statue of 57 Liberty Part II The Tragic Dimension of the 1970s: the Individual and Society vi 3 The Individual in the Present and in the Past 74 The individual’s responsibility: But the Dawns Here are so Calm…and Crossroads 74 The individual isolated from society: Hamlet 79 The loss of traditional values: The Rush Hour, The Wooden Horses and The Exchange 84 The individual conscience: Crime and Punishment and The House on the Embankment 94 The creativity of the individual: homage to Pushkin, Ostrovsky, Gogol, Bulgakov 106 4 Individual and Artist in Crisis The search for form: Work is Work, In Search of a Genre, Fasten Your Seat Belts 119 Left in the air: Turandot and Theatrical Novel 122 Homage to Vladimir Vysotsky 124 A new stage: Three Sisters 127 Part III The 1980s in the West 5 In Exile Lyubimov’s “Crime” and “Punishment” 162 The Possessed 164 6 Lyubimov at the Opera Towards a new opera (1974–1983) 169 Social conventions versus the individual (1982–1988) 171 Religion as refuge? (1985–1990) 173 Part IV Musical Visions for the 1990s 7 The Return of the ªMasterº 182 8 Musical Harmony and the Doomed Individual Boris Godunov and conscience 185 The Feast during the Plague and death 190 Elektra and forgiveness 195 Zhivago and doom 197 Conclusion 203 Notes Introduction 1 vii 1 The Development of a Poetic Theatre 205 2 1968 and After: the Crushing of a Repertoire 209 3 The Individual in the Present and in the Past 212 4 Individual and Artist in Crisis 217 5 In Exile 219 6 Lyubimov at the Opera 220 7 The Return of the “Master” 221 8 Musical Harmony and the Doomed Individual 221 Conclusion 223 Appendices 1 THE REPERTOIRE (i) List of Productions 225 (ii) Production Histories 229 (iii) Repertoire Statistics 1964–1994 230 (iv) Evaluation of repertoire statistics 231 2 LYUBIMOV, THE TAGANKA AND THE SYSTEM (i) Chronology 235 (ii) Actors and Artistic Council 243 (iii) The State and Party Apparatus 250 Select Bibliography 253 Index 263 INTRODUCTION TO THE SERIES Contemporary Theatre Studies is a book series of special interest to everyone involved in theatre. It consists of monographs on influential figures, studies of movements and ideas in theatre, as well as primary material consisting of theatre-related documents, performing editions of plays in English, and English translations of plays from various vital theatre traditions worldwide. Franc Chamberlain LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 1. The Good Person of Szechwan, finale 2. Ten Days that Shook the World, Scene 26: “Shades of the Past” 3. Ten Days that Shook the World, Scenes 7–9: “Meeting of the US Senate Commission”, “W.Wilson’s Song” and “Music-hall Singers” 4. The Fallen and the Living 5. The Life of Galileo, Galileo: Vysotsky 6. Listen!, the five Mayakovskys: Zolotukhin, Nasonov, Khmelnitsky, Smekhov, Shapovalov 7. Listen! 8. Pugachev 9. Pugachev, Khlopusha: Vysotsky 10. The Tough, Kuzkin at court; Kuzkin: Zolotukhin, village people: Radunskaya, Politseimako, Vlasova, Grabbe, and children 11. The Tough, Kuzkin: Zolotukhin, Angel: Dzhabrailov 12. The Tough, Angel: Dzhabrailov, Dunya: Slavina, children, and Kuzkin: Zolotukhin 13. The Suicide 14. Tartuffe 15. Tartuffe 16. Tartuffe, seduction scene 17. The Mother 18. What is to be Done? 19. Protect Your Faces! 20. Under the Skin of the Statue of Liberty 21. But the Dawns here are so Calm…, arrival of the detachment in the truck, Vaskov: Shapovalov 22. But the Dawns…, sauna scene 23. But the Dawns…, woods 24. But the Dawns…, the staircase in the foyer after the performance 25. But the Dawns…, programme 26. Hamlet, close-up of curtain 27. Hamlet, set design 28. Hamlet, Hamlet: Vysotsky 29. The Rush Hour 30. The Wooden Horses, Milentevna: Alla Demidova (Act I) 31. The Wooden Horses, Pelageya: Zinaida Slavina (Act II) 32. The Exchange 33. The Exchange, programme 34. Crime and Punishment, the murdered women 35. Crime and Punishment, dream sequence x 36. Crime and Punishment, foyer 37. Crime and Punishment, set design 38. The House on the Embankment, programme 39. The House on the Embankment, set design 40. The House on the Embankment 41. Comrade, believe… 42. The Gala, programme 43. Inspectorate Fairy Tales: The Portrait 44. Inspectorate fairy Tales 45. Inspectorate Fairy Tales 46. The Master and Margarita 47. The Master and Margarita, Bezdomny’s admission to the asylum 48. The Master and Margarita, finale: homage to Bulgakov 49. Work is Work (Daughter, Father and Guitarist), finale: Viktoriya Medvedeva, Dmitry Mezhevich and Yury Medvedev 50. Turandot 51. Vladimir Vysotsky, funeral scene 52. Vladimir Vysotsky, Pioneer scene 53. The premises of the Taganka Theatre A. early 19th century: merchants’ stores and houses B. 1917: cinema Vulkan and administration (1–3); residential buildings (4–10) C. 1972: theatre (1); storage (6–7); restaurant (2–3); residential buildings (4–5, 8–10) 54. Variations of transformation of the new Taganka stage (black areas: stage) 55. The New Stage 56. The Old Stage 57. Plan of the ground and the first floor of the new Taganka theatre ( new walls;=old walls) 58. Three Sisters, set 59. Three Sisters, audience and auditorium in side mirrors 60. Three Sisters, open-side stage with brass band 61. Boris Godunov, riding scene 62. Boris Godunov, the pretender (Zolotukhin) by the fountain 63. Boris Godunov, Vorotynsky and Shuisky 64. Boris Godunov, finale: Yury Belyaev, Elena Gabets, Yury Lyubimov, Nikolay Gubenko, Feliks Antipov, Rasmi Dzhabrailov 65. The Feast during the Plague, Dona Anna: Alla Demidova and Don Juan: Valery Zolotukhin 66. Elektra, Elektra: Alla Demidova 67. Zhivago, Zhivago: Valery Zolotukhin and Tonya: Lyubov Selyutina 68. Zhivago, Strelnikov: Aleksandr Trofimov and Zhivago: Valery Zolotukhin 69. Zhivago PREFACE “The most interesting thing in art is the unconscious process. Analysis starts later…” Yury Lyubimov, 8 August 1988 The first production I saw by Yury Lyubimov was The Possessed in London in 1985. At that time I was an undergraduate, fascinated by theatre in general, obsessed with Dostoevsky, and about to become possessed by the idea of investigating the career of this director, who had been filling the newspapers for several years with entirely non-artistic headlines, when he was first stripped of his post, then of his Party membership, and finally of his Soviet citizenship.