The tendency in recent years has been for theaters to start their seasons later and later in September. That trend has continued this year. Several major venues – including the Satirikon, the Sovremennik and the Theater Yunogo Zritelya – will not open their doors till October. But since when did the absence of something to say ever stop a theater critic from getting in his two bits?
One reason for the even later start this year is a large number of tours. An enormous Russian season in Brazil began in July and will run through mid-October. This has taken several local theaters out of commission for weeks. The Mossoviet Theater is undertaking tours to Yekaterinburg and Chelyabinsk. The Chekhov Moscow Art Theater has had a busy itinerary taking it from Brazil to St. Petersburg, Rostov-on-Don, Tver and Khanty-Mansiisk. The Maly has visited Minsk. The Theater Yunogo Zritelya, aside from participating in the festival in Brazil, has taken or
Still, get out your pencils and datebooks. You'll soon be scrambling to fit all the new shows into your schedule.
The Vakhtangov Theater is offering one of the first premieres of the season in Martin McDonagh's "The Beauty Queen of Leenane". It next plays Saturday and Sunday as an entry in the New Drama Festival. This is the first staging in Moscow of the Irish playwright, whose dark, even grotesque, dramas have become hits all over the world since they first began appearing in the late 1990s. "Beauty Queen", a gritty tale about a 40-year-old spinster combating her impossible mother, stars Alla Kazanskaya as the meddling matriarch and Yulia Rutberg as her daughter.
McDonagh will also be represented in a production by Irina Keruchenko, a graduate of Kama Ginkas' directing class at the Moscow Art Theater. She presents the first new show of the season at the Meyerhold Center – McDonagh's "The Cripple of Inishmaan". This wild tale about a suffering outcast trying to escape his cruel village by going to Hollywood opens Oct. 10 and 11.
Sergei Zhenovach's new theater, the Studio of Theatrical Art, has officially been with us for a year now. It wasn't until the tail end of last season, however, that Zhenovach unveiled his first new production for the group, a meticulous version of Nikolai Leskov's novel "A Family in Decline". This show is already in rotation and next plays Wednesday and Thursday on the stage of the Meyerhold Center. But it has also been joined by another new show, an adaptation of Ivan Goncharov's classic 19th-century novel, "Oblomov". Under the title of "Ob-lo-mov-shchina", Zhenovach recalibrated this former student production as another vehicle for showing off his talented crew of young actors. "Ob-lo-mov-shchina" next plays at the Mayakovsky Theater affiliate on Oct. 17 and 18.
Not much has been heard from Vladimir Mirzoyev in recent seasons, but he is currently putting the final touches on a major new theatrical extravaganza. In connection with the 110th anniversary of the birth of playwright Yevgeny Shvarts, Mirzoyev is staging a modern version of Shvarts' mystical and allegorical comedy, "The Dragon". The show stars Yekaterina Guseva, who rose to fame playing the lead in the "Nord-Ost" musical. "The Dragon" opens Sept. 30 and Oct. 1 at the Theatrium Na Serpukhovke.
Two of the season's earliest blockbusters, both based on plays by Shakespeare, come almost simultaneously during the first week in October. Yury Butusov tackles "King Lear" at the Satirikon; Kirill Serebrennikov takes on "Antony and Cleopatra" at the Sovremennik.
"Antony and Cleopatra", opening Oct. 2, 3 and 8, is offered as a modern remake by Yekaterinburg playwright Oleg Bogayev. He has admitted feeling great trepidation before the task of "rewriting" the Bard, but the encouragement of Serebrennikov, one of Russia's hottest directors, was more than enough to assuage his fears. The title roles will be performed by veteran Moscow star Sergei Shakurov and the omnipresent film and theater star Chulpan Khamatova.
Butusov's relationship with the Satirikon has emerged as one of the most fruitful of any in recent times. His productions of Eugene Ionesco's "Macbett" and Shakespeare's "Richard III" have been among the best the city has to offer. "King Lear" almost begs to be called a classic even before it opens. It stars the scintillating Konstantin Raikin in the lead, thus combining my choice for Russia's best actor with my choice for the greatest of Shakespeare's plays. I find it hard to believe I am the only person in town who can hardly wait for this show to go public on Oct. 6, 7, 8 and 15.
Early October will also bring significant new shows from the Maly Theater and the Et Cetera Theater. At the Maly, Yury Solomin will finally unveil his take on Nikolai Gogol's classic comedy "The Inspector General". This show was set to open last spring, but was postponed at the last minute. It now opens Oct. 6 and 10. At the Et Cetera, Vladimir Pankov continues to develop his self-proclaimed genre of "soundrama" with a dramatization of Mikhail Bulgakov's story "Morphine", the tale of a doctor who becomes hooked on drugs and ends up committing suicide. "Morphine" plays Oct. 3, 4, 5, 18 and 24.
Since it opened in 1998, the Playwright and Director Center has only occasionally presented the classics, as opposed to the work of new writers. But Vladimir Ageyev, an unorthodox director who takes a distinctive approach to every play he directs, has gone back to the year 1905 for his latest opus – Paul Claudel's "Break of Noon", the account of an unhappy love affair. It opens Oct. 15 at the Vysotsky Center.
As October draws to a close, Sergei Artsibashev will unveil his latest at the Mayakovsky Theater, a rendition of Edward Albee's Pulitzer Prize-winning "A Delicate Balance". This wickedly comical exploration of one family's vain attempt to avoid pain and suffering will star the theater's leading actors, Yevgenia Simonova and Mikhail Filippov. It is scheduled to premiere Oct. 27 and 28.
Numerous noteworthy events await us as the season continues to unfold. Pyotr Fomenko has big plans for his Fomenko Studio. The artistic director himself expects to stage three shows based on the writings of such varied authors as Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Alexander Pushkin and Alexander Ostrovsky. Also at the Fomenko Studio, Yevgeny Kamenkovich is rehearsing a dramatization of Mikhail Shishkin's novel "Maidenhair". At the National Youth Theater, Alexei Borodin continues preparations for one of his venue's biggest events ever -- the Russian premiere of Tom Stoppard's "The Coast of Utopia". It is slated to open in April 2007.
Several playhouses are in the throes of reconstruction and will be working in new or renewed spaces by the end of the season. The Fomenko Studio and the Playwright and Director Center both plan to move into new digs, the former into a rebuilt building on Taras Shevchenko Square, the latter into the renovated hall at the Sokol metro stop that used to house the Pokrovsky Musical Theater. The Chekhov Moscow Art Theater is staying put, although it is conducting major reconstruction of its main stage. While the work is under way, the theater will perform primarily at the Theatrium Na Serpukhovke.
The Theater Na Maloi Bronnoi has made a change of a different kind. It hired Leonid Trushkin as its new chief director in August. Trushkin, who in 1990 founded the Anton Chekhov Theater, has spent the last 16 years working in the sphere of independent commercial theater.
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