Gurney love letters. Gurney Love Letters Melissa and Andrew
Fragment of the review "Family Happiness" by Ksenia Larina in the newspaper "Novye Izvestia":
“Heroes - Andy (Vladimir Menshov) and Melissa (Vera Alentova) - live a whole life in an hour and a half of stage action: from carefree childhood to surging old age. The history of their complicated undulating relationship, which they stubbornly refused to recognize as love, consists of cute ridiculous details, random mismatches that gradually and inevitably pull the lovers along different edges of the abyss.<...>They do not coincide in anything - neither in relation to life, nor in its goals and meanings, nor in determining priorities and values, nor in ways of self-affirmation. And at the same time, there are no people in the world closer and dearer to each other than these two. They have been writing letters to each other for almost fifty years. Their physical intimacy will occur only after forty years after the first meeting. He will always believe in her artistic talent, she will laugh at his political ambitions. He will diligently build his earthly successful world in accordance with his own ideas of stability and success: a senator's chair, a house, a caring wife, three sons, Christmas cards, meetings with voters, a healthy lifestyle. But the only really important in his world will be only the mocking lines of letters from Melissa - the never-grown up girl from the school class, with whom he once hugged at a party.
A fragment of the review "Duet in the epistolary genre" by Irina Alpatova in the newspaper "Culture":
“They don't play themselves at all. And yet, probably, their own life conflicts cannot but leave an imprint on their current stage existence. This may be elusive and not always read by the viewer. But it gives some kind of internal “highlight” to the characters, forcing them to speak with a unique personal accent. And, perhaps, the most important directorial merit of Yulia Menshova is that she picked up the idea of her mother and achieved its embodiment on the stage of the Pushkin Theater. By the way, a few years ago, the acting duet of Alentova and Menshov already appeared on this stage - in the play "The Leaning Tower of Pisa". So for them, the current story did not become a debut, unlike their daughter, who ventured into theater direction for the first time.
Fragment of the review "Performance with the right of correspondence" by Roman Dolzhansky in the newspaper "Kommersant":
“Ten years ago, Yakovleva and Tabakov played this story on an almost empty stage. Each was given strictly half of the playing space, but if the actress still made some movements, then Tabakov did not get up from the table for the whole performance. It was, first of all, a dialogue of voices, and the actors looked at their characters as experienced people. If those "Love Letters" were an elegiac melodrama, then Yulia Menshova decided to make an eccentric melodrama.
ROBERT GURNEY
LOVE LETTERS
Translation from English by Sergey Volynets
Characters:
Andrew Makepeace Ladd gratefully accepts the invitation of Mr. and Mrs. Gilbert Channin Gardner to their daughter Melissa's birthday party on April 19, 1937 at 3:30.
Dear Andy! Thanks for the birthday present. I have a lot of Oz books, but I haven't had The Princess of Oz yet. Why did you choose this particular book? With thanks. Melissa.
About the book, when you came into second grade with that pouty nanny of yours, you looked like a lost princess.
I do not trust you. Surely my mother told your mother to give me this particular book. By the way, I like the pictures there more than the words. And finally stop writing me letters.
I will write the letter "b" longer than "g".
My “a” and “o” will be round.
My ponytail will be longer. Pass it on.
You're so funny!
Will you be my girlfriend for Valentine's Day?
Did you send the note asking if I would be your girlfriend?
Then I agree. Just don't kiss.
When it gets warmer, can I come swim in your pond?
No. I have a new nanny. Her name is Miss Hawthorne, and she says you'll give me infantile paralysis.
When it's recess, can you help me buy milk and cakes?
I'll help you if you promise not to ask me to marry you.
I will not write personal letters in class. I will not write personal letters in class. I won't...
Merry christmas and new year. With love. Andy Ladd.
I made this postcard myself. No, this is not Santa Claus. It's a kangaroo jumping over a glass of orange juice. Like? I really like you. Melissa.
Mom says I should write a letter of apology. I'm sorry for peeping into the girls' booth while you were changing into your bathing suit. Tell Miss Hawthorne I apologize to her too.
Here I drew you and me naked. Guess where you are and where am I? Don't show anyone. I love you.
This picture shows Miss Hawthorne without a swimsuit.
You have a talent for drawing.
Thanks for the cactus stuck in the donkey. The hospital sent me a lot of birthday presents, and now I write letters of thanks to everyone. I really don't like it here. In the place where the tonsils were cut out, it tickles all the time. They give me a lot of ice cream, but they measure the temperature incorrectly.
Merry christmas and new year. Why were you sent to a different school this year?
Merry Christmas. I was transferred to school
for boys.
You took my word that I would send you a postcard. There she is.
It is customary to write something very personal on postcards. Here are a few questions to help you learn how to write correctly. Do you like Lake Sarank? Do you like to visit your grandmother? Is it true that your parents are getting divorced? Can you swim where it's deep, or does Miss Hawthorne make you swim only where it's shallow? Is there anyone my age there? I mean boys. Please answer all these questions.
No. No. Yes. Yes. No.
Dear Melissa! Have you forgotten me yet? I'm Andy Ladd. I was sent to the camp, and here, too, there are only boys. It's quiet time now and we're writing letters home. I have already written home, so I am writing to you. There is a real Indian named Iron Crow here. He takes us on field trips and every day we memorize the names of six new plants. Everything would be fine, but he forgot about poison ivy. In the workshop I make a napkin ring. I'll give it to either mom or you. I hope you will answer my letter. When the mail arrives, we are called by name and told who the letter is from. It will be great if everyone knows that I received a letter from a girl.
Guard! Save! I can't write letters. It took several hours just to write “Dear Andy!” I write letters to my dad because I miss him terribly. But write to the boy! Instead of a letter, I am sending you a drawing of our cat. How is he to you? Of course, this is not an exact copy, but I tried. And I drew these wavy lines around the tail because often the tail behaves like a separate creature. I really like this tail. Something from this tail is in me. Yes, now the bad news. My mom married a man named Hooper MacPhail. Guard! Let me out of here!
I liked the cat. Is that the same cat you threw in the pond when we were playing in the garden?
No, that was a completely different cat.
Maybe I don't write very fluently, but I like to write. I like writing essays, writing letters. I like writing letters to you. I wanted to write that letter to your mother because I knew you would see it. It would be like talking to you in your absence. And you won't be able to interrupt me. My dad says to write letters as often as possible. This is a dying art. Dad says that writing is a way to present yourself to another person in the most favorable light. I agree with him.
You write exactly like your father. But I'm not going to argue with you by MAIL. Besides, I'm going skiing.
I was very upset when I learned that you broke your leg. Get well soon.
Mom said that I broke my leg on purpose, because I have a self-destructive spirit, and I went skiing without asking permission. Either way, I'd rather break my arm. Then I would have a reason not to write letters. I am sending you a drawing of a chamber pot. I AM NOT KIDDING. Isn't he adorable?
Andy Makepeace Ladd III gratefully accepts Mrs. R. Ferguson Brown's invitation to her granddaughter Melissa Gardner's birthday party.
I am writing a letter because I am afraid that if I call, I will burst into tears right into the phone. I'm terribly angry with you. Don't you know that when invited to dinner before a dance, you must dance at least twice with the person who invited you. I don't mean grandma. In fact, this is what dinners are for. I saw you dancing with Ginny Waters. And he never danced with me. It's just impolite. Look, Andy, how do you hope to achieve anything in life if you're being rude to the ladies? Well, to hell with you, Andy!
I didn't ask you to dance because I have a sprain in my groin. If you don't know what it is, look it up in a dictionary. I wanted to tell you myself, but I hesitated. I got a sprain last week while playing hockey. And I danced with Ginny only because she moves in small steps, and you always make me dance. I rehearsed the dance at home with my mom, and the pain was like hell. That's why I didn't dance with you. Now I'm applying a heating pad to the sore spot, and maybe next week you and I will dance.
I don't believe in this hockey story. It must have been Ginny Waters who sprained your groin. Just catch my eye, and I'll stretch your second groin.
Are you sure you know what a groin is?
Are you sure you can understand jokes?
Merry christmas and new year. Do you want news? I'm going to see a psychiatrist now. Mom thinks it will do me good. Just don't tell anyone. This is a terrible secret.
Merry christmas and new year. I want to ask you something, but please email me because every time you call, your mom is listening. And if not her, then my younger brother. Now the question is: when you go to a psychiatrist, do you talk about sex?
We are only talking about sex. This "pleasure" costs a lot of money, but I think it's worth spending.
If I were the psychiatrist, we would only talk about you. Seriously. I think about you very often.
Sometimes I think you only like me because I'm richer than you. You must love the pool and elevator at my grandma's house. And butler Simpson serving juice and cakes on a silver tray, you like it too. I think you like all this just as much as I do.
It's just that my mom keeps saying that you'd be the perfect match for me, that by marrying you, I'll be fine for the rest of my life. But I think I have a purely physical attraction to you. That's why I love riding the elevator with you at your grandma's house. Wouldn't mind doing it one more time.
Guard! Let me out of here! I was sent to a monastery. Somewhere on the edge of the world. We wear long blouses and learn to take all sorts of poses. Could you visit me on Sunday? We are allowed to invite the boys over for tea from four to six. Of course, all those Irish servants sit around and keep an eye on them, but if the weather is fine, we could take a little walk along the highway. They put me in a room with this fat, spoiled Cuban bitch. She has six pairs of shoes. Here the walls are painted the color of childish surprise, and nothing can be hung on them except school flags and family photographs. What photos?! Am I supposed to sit and stare at a picture of Hooper MacPhail? Save me Andy. Or at least WRITE. I so want the words spoken by the guy. Even if these words are on paper...
Just received your letter. They send me too. Your mom told my mom that I'm not a polished diamond, and it will only do me good. As soon as I am polished, I will write to you.
Dear diamond! So, so are you too? All right, I give up. Why do they bring us together, then breed us again? It seems to me that some old farts are engaged in our upbringing. Now I'll have to write letters again, and I can't stand that. Andy, don't let them grind you down. What I like most about you is that it's not polished. Better stay rude and uncouth. With love. I.
I became a good student. The performance index is posted on the wall every week. I have it 91.7. I received a letter from my grandfather. He writes that I should not try to be the first in the class, because only the Jews want to be the first. I wrote to him that I was not the first in the class, and besides, there were no Jews in our class. There are a couple of Catholics, but you can’t suspect them of a special sharpness of mind. In my opinion, an intelligent Catholic is a very big rarity... One feeling haunts me all the time. I miss my dog Porgy. Do you remember him? Black Cockeroo He wrote in the lobby when you stroked him.
In this photo, I am near the bus stop. I already decided to run away, but in last moment changed her mind. Pay no attention to my hair. I will change it. By the way, do you know this Spencer Willis? There's a girl here - Annie Abbott - she met him in Edgartown last summer and she says he's very cute. If possible, ask him what he thinks of her?
Spencer Willis says that Annie Abbott is a complete nymphomaniac. I hate to tell you this, but it's true.
Annie asks to tell Spencer that he is a complete loser. Tell me, she herself wanted to write it to him, but she was afraid that the whole letter would be in spit.
Are you released for Thanksgiving? We are not. It's all because of the war.
Everyone was released except for me. Caught with a cigarette. So I stay to gnaw on a bony turkey in the company of Cubans and Californians. Nothing, I'll get through it somehow. I was hoping to see my mom in New York, but she can't come because she's on her way to Reno to file a divorce from Hooper MacPhail. Hooray! He's a jerk, and if you want to know, sometimes he tried to hit on me when I was in bed.
Nice to see you for Christmas. But the most pleasant thing was hugging you in the general turmoil when we were visiting Watson. Are you willing to be my permanent girlfriend?
I don't believe in permanence. This is against my religion. Watson was amazing. All these pimply youths, this jerking to the music in the dark. If this is permanence, then I don’t need it for nothing. Mom says the more guys I date, the better. At least I can choose who to marry in peace. And less likely to be wrong. In the case of my mother, this principle did not work. Maybe it will work in mine?
When spring break comes, can we at least go to the movies together?
I don't know Andy. It's nice to meet you, but I don't feel like coming back home often. Mom drinks all the time, and when drunk, she starts these endless conversations. At the same time, her tongue is tangled, and it is absolutely impossible to understand what she is saying. The best time is Christmas at your home. It was so much fun to sing along to the piano, fluff up your socks with presents, help your mom make the sauce. How I loved it all! You may not have as much money as we do, but you have a better family. As for spring break, I'm going to visit my grandfather in Palm Beach. Though I sunbathe to my heart's content - and then thank God. Post-scriptum: Attached is a drawing of your dog Porgy. The nose did not turn out, but the eyes look similar to me.
It seems to me that I am doing quite well, but for some reason I am being transferred to a lower rank. I told our rowing coach, “Something is wrong here, Mr. Clark. What is taken into account is not whether you are good or bad, strong or weak, but something completely different, which has nothing to do with the case. And he told me: “This is life, Andy, and it’s not for you and me to change its rules.” I'm seriously thinking
study to be a lawyer.
Last time you wrote too much about rowing. By the way, you don't know this guy Steve Scully. I met him in Florida and he said he went to the same high school as you. Claimed to be the best rower on the team. Is this true, or was he lying? I think he lied.
Steve Scully lied. He can't row at all. If he tried to row, and even do it faster than others, the boat would simply capsize. By the way, he told me that he had already reached the semi-finals with you. This is true?
Steve Scully is a liar and a son of a bitch. So he and
Are you coming in summer? I got a job for the summer. I'll bring golf balls. Thank God, no camps this time.
I'm going to visit my dad in California. Haven't seen him for four years. He has a new wife and I have two stepsisters. It's like having a new family. I hope, I hope...
Do you like California?
Write to me about California. How is your second family?.. I'm back at school. I hope you're all right. Did you receive my letters in California, or do you have an evil stepmother who intercepts them?
I don't want to talk about California. Never. At first it seemed to me that I had two families, but now I know for sure that there is not one. I spoke to Mrs. Wadsworth. She teaches painting with us and says that I have a talent. And she wants to teach me how to work with ceramics. She says one day she will take me to her workshop in Hartford and together we will paint from nature of her naked lover. Do not laugh. She says art and sex
it's about the same.
Dear Melissa! I have four questions for you. So try to focus. First: will you come to the ball in winter? Second: If yes, can you come by train 1122 on Friday? Third: Should the rector's wife tell your headmistress where you are staying? Fourth: should she notify your mother about this?
The answer to all questions is yes, except for my mother. She does not care.
To put it bluntly, I'm fucking mad at you. I invite you to the first dance ball at our school, I meet you at the station, I buy you a creamy cocktail, I take you to school in a taxi. For you, I score two goals in a hockey game, I buy you a bouquet of jasmine for eight dollars ... So what? I learn that after the waltz, you left with Bob Bartram and kissed him in the dressing room. And yesterday at breakfast, Bob himself started talking about it. He said he French kissed you and touched both of your breasts. I wanted to punch him in the face, but Mr. Enbody held me back. I'm terribly angry, Melissa. I believe you betrayed everything that was so dear to me. And don't expect any more letters or calls from me. All the best.
Sorry Sorry sorry. I HATE Bob
Bartram. I hated him even when we kissed. I know you won't believe me, but it's true. You can get carried away by someone you really hate. You might not be able to, but I could. Yes, we kissed, but he did not touch my breasts. And if he says that he touched, then he should be hung by the balls. So tell him. Better during breakfast. Somehow, I fell in love with him, and I curse myself for it. I'm sorry Andy. And then... How should I say it? It's different with you. You are like a friend to me, like a brother. I never had a brother and I don't have many friends. So you are my friend and brother. Mom says you shouldn't say things like that to men, but I tell you, and it's true. Maybe if I didn't know you the way I know you, if we hadn't grown up together, if we hadn't written those damned letters to each other, I could kiss you like Bob. Please let's see you on spring break. Please. I really want this. I NEED you, Andy. With love... I heard you went to the movies with Gretchen Lassels. He hugged her and smoked. Ah, ah, ah, how embarrassing!
Back at school, but not for long now. Caught Bubbles Harriman and I drinking gin in the woods. Now I'm packing my suitcase, and tomorrow morning from here - bye-bye! Mom is digging all over the east coast for a new school Mrs. Wadsworth, my art teacher, says I should give up and go to Italy to study art. What do you think about this? Please contact me. PLEASE. I need your letters, your advice. Or are all your thoughts only about Gretchen Lassels?
Regarding Italy: I think you have not grown up to that yet. Mom said she had a roommate and went to Italy in the summer. And the Italians pinched her lower part all the time, from which she was terribly excited. So I think you need to finish school, go to college, and only then, if you are quite ripe for this, go to Italy. That's all my advice. It does not seem to cost much, given the nature of our current relationship.
So I'm at Emma Willard's academy for aspiring lesbians. Guard! Let me out of here. Are you going home in June? F going. Or are you still in love with Gretchen Lassels?
In case you're wondering, I don't go anywhere else with Gretchen Lassels. Namely, after my father caught us on the couch together. He said he didn't care what kind of girls I dated, but that they never showed up near my mom, even if mom was fast asleep. I understand Gretchen can be embarrassing for anyone, especially adults.
I miss you. I'm really sorry you didn't come to the gym party.
Dear Melissa! To the camp for the second shift
Sandy McCarthy came and he told me about this party at the sports club. He said that you were in a bikini, hitting on everyone and trying to push guys and girls into the pool. Do you like it all? He said the other girls were just furious. What, you don't want to be respected? Sandy said you let Buck Zeller stick a tennis ball between your legs. What are you, a nymphomaniac? Don't you like to just sit and have quiet conversations anymore? Sandy says you hang around guys' necks. Do you like having such a reputation? Crap! I thought there was some difference between you and Gretchen. I must have been wrong. Or do you think that you are so rich that you can start flirting with just about anyone?
I sent you a letter from New Hampshire. Did you receive it?
Are you mad at me?
Well, I'm sorry, I sometimes act like a complete idiot.
Damn you!
Cool Andy swears bad words?
You suck!
Who? Maybe you have?
I don't think you care who.
Don't believe everything you read in the papers.
Dear Andrew Makepeace Ladd! You are a beast! You hurt me very badly and I want you to know that. Now let's leave each other alone for a while. Good? Good!
Dear Melissa! Mom wrote to me that your grandmother had died. Please accept my deepest condolences.
Thank you for your condolences on the death of my grandmother, although sometimes she was a terrible bore.
I will be there.
Oh oh! Crap! I'm sorry, Melissa, everything's cancelled. Parents decided to visit me for the weekend, and parents, as you understand, are above all. At least they think so. Mom says she'd love to have you join us, but Dad thinks it's too much.
You and your parents! When you decide to grow up
Did you think you'd grow up playing Harvard?
Give me a chance. Maybe I will surprise you.
OK, let's try. Just know that I'm richer now than when you said I was rich. I'll drive up to the gates of Calhoun College in a brand new red Chrysler and sit there stark naked, drinking champagne and making eyes at all the freshmen.
I'll book you a room in one of the hotels. Most likely in Taft, because Duncan is such a dump.
Let it be Duncan. I heard that parents stop at Taft and keep track of who goes to whom.
Well ... "Duncan" so "Duncan".
Dear Andy. I should thank you for the weekend at Yale and Harvard. But I won't do it. You know why.
Dear Melissa! I often think about that weekend. Agree, I screwed up. I don't just mean "Duncan" but everything else. Something didn't work out for us. I had the feeling that you were always looking at someone over my shoulder. We both expected one thing, but everything turned out differently. Maybe we breathed too much sea air, but in my opinion there were too many people in that room. In short, I screwed up and I admit it. On Monday I went to the doctor and he said that this happens, especially if it is associated with a lot of stress. It doesn't affect women, but it's different for men. In any case, there was nothing like this with Gretchen Lassels. If you want, you can write to her and ask everything.
Do you know what I think is stopping us? These letters. Those damn letters! I know you better in letters than in real life. I was looking for a person who lived in these letters all these years. Or vice versa, who was never in these letters. In short, you are not at all what I imagined you from the letters. Or rather, not exactly like that. I do not want to say that in life you are dumber. Not at all. Sorry, but these letters ruined everything. They have become a bad habit. Because of them, we see each other not as we really are. Maybe then only two people were missing in the Duncan room: the real you and the real me.
Whatever the case, we're in serious trouble. I understand it well. But what are you supposed to do? Maybe put all your energy into dancing? We'll snuggle up to each other and get a little horny, but we won't pay cash every time, if you know what I mean. Think about it. Maybe that's what they sent us to the dance school for? Maybe dances were invented in general
for it?
At least we should stop writing letters. At least for a while. You can call back. My phone number at the hostel is 1-24-86.
When I called, you just hung up. Therefore, you have to write. Moreover, letters cannot be taken and thrown like that.
Letters can be torn. I am attaching snippets. Send them to Angela Atkinson at Sarah Lawrence College.
What the heck! What's the matter?
I heard a rumor that twice a week you write letters to Angela Atkinson.
Okay, I'm writing to Angela Atkinson, but only because I have to write to someone. I have to write to some girl. I told you that I feel better when I am alone and write down something on paper. I pick up a pen and immediately everything around me takes shape. I love to write. I love writing to my parents because in those moments I become the perfect son. I love to write essays because I feel like a real scientist. I love writing letters to the newspaper, notes to friends, Christmas greetings - in short, everything that can be expressed in words. But most of all I love to write to you, because in these moments I feel like your beloved. This letter, written by my hand, by my pen, in my manner, is only from me alone and from no one else. With this letter, I present myself to you. It's me, me! The one I would like to be for you. You can tear me up and throw me away, or you can leave it and read it today, tomorrow, any day, and so on until death.
Guard! Shut up! Shut up! Let me out of here!
I thought about it a lot. All the stupid things grown-ups told us when we were kids, absent parents, angry nannies, stupid rituals, patriarchal school... When I think about it now, I can't believe it was all real. deed. No, it was some kind of fantasy, a fairy tale about the Wizard of Oz. But they also showed us the way to Oz. We were taught to write. Maybe not so good at writing. And maybe we do not always write about the main thing. But we were taught how to sit down, put our thoughts in order and put them on paper. That's why I have to write letters. If I cannot write to you, then I will write to someone else. I'll probably never be able to stop writing letters... Can I visit you next weekend? Or maybe you will run away and come here to me? I created this problem and I have to solve it. Do you want me to book the same room at the Duncan? I promise to put down my pen and do my best to make you feel good.
The play by the American Albert Gurney "Love letters" appeared on Moscow posters more than ten years ago, then Olga Yakovleva and Oleg Tabakov himself played it at the Oleg Tabakov Theater under the direction of director Yevgeny Kamenkovich. However, one should be surprised not just that Gurney's play was staged again, but that no one remembered about it for so long: "Love Letters" is a win-win material for a benefit performance of two middle-aged celebrities. He and she, Andy and Melissa, have been writing letters to each other throughout their lives. The boy and girl met in childhood, decided to exchange letters - and followed this habit for several decades. Of course, they love each other, but there are not so many words about love in the play. "Love Letters" is an elegantly composed story of mismatches, a synopsis of two destinies that were not allowed to unite. A real romance of heroes, short and secret, which happened already in very mature years, led only to disappointment. All life fits into an hour and a half of stage time, and the brevity of earthly existence is one of Gurney's unconditional themes: the year that has passed between two congratulations on Christmas takes only a second pause between messages. There are no actual events on the stage, they are hidden between the hastily written lines: "I'm going skiing" - "It's a pity that you broke your leg." Ten years ago, Yakovleva and Tabakov played this story on an almost empty stage. Each was assigned strictly half of the playing space, but if the actress still made some movements, then Tabakov did not get up from the table for the whole performance. It was, first of all, a dialogue of voices, and the actors looked at their characters as experienced people. If those "Love Letters" were an elegiac melodrama, then Yulia Menshova decided to make an eccentric melodrama. Therefore, here Andy and Melissa, even in their retirement years, seem to retain the spontaneity of the boy and girl from the first episode, in which she stands in a puppet pose and naively looks into nowhere, and he is preparing to launch a toy airplane into the sky. Maybe that's why the play looks fresh. But not only for this reason: in the play "Snuffboxes" there were not only other intonations, but also other words. Now the heroes, especially Melissa, are not shy in expressions ("Go on ..." - he is angry. "Maybe on yours?" - she retorts), they talk much more frankly about sex - and there is no doubt that in The American original is just that. Returned to "Love Letters" and fragments related to Andy's political career - after all, the "right boy" eventually became a senator. While Melissa, not distinguished by strict morals in her youth, became an artist, but her career clearly did not work out. For an American play, these models of behavior, these ways of building one's biography are, of course, important - and in the new version they are not only voiced, but also revealed to the eye. The biography of the characters could be traced by the "talking" costumes of Victoria Sevryukova. The artist Timofey Ryabushinsky also did his best: the stage is framed by an arch of white shelves filled with things, among which life has passed. And behind the backs of the heroes, a white brick wall cracks and jerks apart during the action - behind it a view of the autumn garden and a dark abyss opens, into which Melissa, who ended her life in a psychiatric hospital, then leaves. In general, there are a lot of genre platitudes in the performance, such as letters falling from the grate and a white scarf fluttering in the wind in the hands of a lonely heroine. Or is there irony here?
http://www.audio.tv-on-line.eu/spisok-spektakli/3333-lyubovnye.html
Marina Davydova
By mutual correspondence
Olga Yakovleva and Oleg Tabakov in the play "Love Letters"
The very first and simple association that this premiere of "Snuffbox" evokes is the famous Moscow Art Theater performance "Darling Liar", staged in 1962 based on the play by the American Jerome Kilty. Actually, not even a play, but a literary composition made by the playwright from the authentic letters of Bernard Shaw and the famous English actress Stella Patrick-Campbell. The show was played by Anatoly Ktorov, Stella - by Angelina Stepanova.
The play "Snuffboxes" is also based on a play for two. Its author is also an American - Albert Gurney. And the characters also write letters to each other. Yakovleva and Tabakov, just like Stepanova and Ktorov once, are trying to draw the audience into the experience of the life and fate of the characters, captured in their epistolary. This is where the similarity ends.
The Moscow Art Theater luminaries turned, in general, Kilti's commercial play into a story about the whims of love and the gloomy secrets of non-existence. They felt the scale of the personality of their characters and became on a par with them. It is difficult to forget Stepanova-Stella's tragic monologue about the death of her son in the war, or how Ktorov read Shaw's letter about his mother's death. As a result, the appearance of the great playwright turned out to be firmly fused in the minds of Russian viewers with the slyly ironic Ktorov, and many still think about Patrick-Campbell that she spoke in Stepanova's arrogantly broken voice.
Unlike the Moscow Art Theater production of The Snuffbox, the viewer will not be struck by either psychological depths or tragic heights. What a shame. Of course, Gurney did not have such a marvelous literary foundation. But a talented artist, as you know, not like Gurney - will play the phone book in such a way that the audience will experience catharsis. And there is no doubt that Yakovleva and Tabakov are artists of remarkable talent. The trick, however, failed, because in addition to talent, it is necessary, so to speak, and some work of the artist on himself. It would be nice, for example, to come up with some characters for your characters, and not hope that a few intonations beloved by the audience will somehow take them to success. Meanwhile, the problem of reincarnation - in fact, for theatrical art is central - in "Love Letters" has clearly receded into the background. Ktorov and Stepanova played characters. Tabakov doubts himself nothing. Fortunately, the biography of the hero is suitable - a provincial boy who has made a dizzying career, but in his vanity under heaven is still not alien to genuine human feelings. In order to transform into such a hero, Tabakov does not need to make any efforts. He does not apply. I didn't even bother to read the text. Therefore, unlike Yakovleva, who paces around the stage, gesticulates and generally feels completely free, the director of two Moscow theaters sits on a chair for almost the entire performance, like an elderly Sarah Bernhardt, convulsively clutching her hero's letters. For greater importance, he holds a pen in his hands and sometimes writes something. Apparently, notes in the margins of their own letters. He gets up twice, but does not let go of the sheets with the text. That is, reading letters becomes in this case reading in the truest sense of the word. Even the phrase from the last letter, written after the death of his beloved, "I never loved anyone like Melissa," Tabakov, like Brezhnev from jokes, also manages to pronounce on a piece of paper.
Yakovleva looks much better - and she conscientiously learned the text and demonstrated the transformation of a perky girl into a woman with a difficult fate. But for an actress of such talent, this is also quite small. It's like a world champion swimmer demonstrating his prowess in a paddling pool. It should be recognized that even in this obvious hack-work, Yakovleva and Tabakov still manage to please the audience and in the finale break a storm of prolonged applause. But it is hardly worth deceiving yourself with this success. In the theatrical annals, despite the stellar cast, the performance is clearly not included.
It is difficult to make claims to the director of "Love Letters" Yevgeny Kamenkovich. In such performances there can be no spectacular mise-en-scenes or intricate decorations. They end up always at the mercy of the actors. Moreover, they are usually actors and are initiated. "Love Letters" is, in fact, a couples benefit performance. The genre is respectable, but dangerous. For the beneficiary cannot blame the failure on circumstances, poor direction, or a bad play. To such excuses, one can always answer him: "You yourself wanted it, Georges Dandin."
Izvestia, September 14, 2000
Alexey Filippov
Melissa and Andrew
The new premiere of "Snuffbox" was a benefit performance by Olga Yakovleva and Oleg Tabakov
"Love Letters", the latest premiere of Tabakov's Studio Theatre, (directed by Yevgeny Kamenkovich, produced by Oleg Tabakov), reminds us that the theater is first of all a living emotion, a feeling coming from the stage into the hall.
On "Love Letters" even a very sophisticated viewer catches himself that his eyes, it turns out, are in a wet place. And after the performance, he wants to talk about purely personal experiences.
Two actors read letters that their characters wrote to each other throughout their lives. Olga Yakovleva - for Melissa Gardner, a girl from a very wealthy family, a lovely creature who first became an artist and sculptor, and then an alcoholic and whore. Oleg Tabakov - for Andrew Ledd III, a serious and respectable middle-class boy who made a brilliant career, got into the Senate and loved his former classmate all his life.
A letter to a girl who came to class with a nanny and reminded him of the princess from Oz; a letter to a boy wishing her a Merry Christmas; drawing of a beloved dog; a letter with reproaches for the fact that he was visiting her, he danced with another. And a few years later, the heroine had an affair with his friend, and he found himself another girlfriend; in college, they finally retired to a hotel, but because of the great excitement, they did not succeed. Then the girl went to Italy to study painting, the young man went to serve in the navy and almost married a Japanese woman - and now both are already under forty, she has a divorce behind her, not a very successful exhibition in New York, several drinking bouts, two girls, who were sued by the ex-husband, and he successfully married and became a junior partner in a famous law firm. His life is orderly and clear, and he is no longer going to meet her - this is not a woman, but the embodiment of chaos: destroying her own destiny, she also cripples others. But the letters are not interrupted - she has nothing else in her life, he also needs her for some reason.
Everything with my wife, thank God, has improved, one son seems to have jumped off the needle, the other is being treated for stuttering - clarity and order are just a myth, and he has nothing but a successful career. Both are already well over forty - and they finally meet: the heroes of the Platonic novel turn into lovers. This time everything works out for them, and they are happy, but the established, settled life has its own inertia, and you can’t change it. New elections await him, she is the final madness with rare moments of enlightenment. Having learned that she "returned to the land of Oz", he was about to rush to her - but the heroine, having grown fat and lowered, begs not to do this, otherwise she will simply leave. And she really leaves, and he writes a letter again, this time to her mother, and tells her everything that he did not dare to say at the funeral: Andrew Ledd III finally realized that he loved her daughter all his life - and he has no idea, what should he do next ... And then the heroine, who came out from behind the scenes, for the first time looks into his face.
The theater has its own magic, its own secrets. In the age of the Internet, this art may seem archaic and too intimate, but what a real theater actor can do cannot be achieved by any editing tricks. Olga Yakovleva, who played Juliet in 1970, before our eyes becomes a little girl, a girl, a woman experiencing an unsuccessful marriage, a heavy, degraded old woman - and at the same time she hardly plays, rarely gets up from her chair. The theater that she creates here is saturated with internal psycho-emotional currents no worse than any esoteric performance: it is deeply spiritual, and this is its advantage over the spectacles of the computer age.
Yakovleva is divine, and Tabakov is very good - and for himself quite traditional. Tabakov is a master - he definitely, confidently, enjoying his own technique, "works the performance." But the performance, unlike the film, lives and develops: closer to the finale, Tabakov and Yakovleva played their roles on the same internal level. After a few performances, when they begin to feel better for each other and the audience, the ensemble should catch up ... But it's really not very interesting to talk about this.
Anyone who has watched "Love Letters" is more likely to remember their own problems and become sad, philosophize and chew on the past for the umpteenth time. And this is the essence and meaning of the real theater, the notorious Aristotelian "catharsis" (internal purification through fear and compassion), a rare guest both on today's stage and in today's life.
Novye Izvestia, September 14, 2000
Elena Yampolskaya
A Day in the Life of a Snuffbox
In the morning she opened the new season, and in the evening she showed the first premiere
Starting today and for at least a full month, funds mass media will pay increased attention to the person of Oleg Tabakov. The public had better come to terms with this inevitable prospect at once. The opening of the season at the Snuffbox and the premiere of Love Letters are just an introduction, an overture, or, at best, the first act. We’ll go to the code closer to the end of September, when Palych will for the first time gather the troupe of the Chekhov Moscow Art Theater as a new artistic director and give the go-ahead (or not give it, which, however, is unlikely) for the release of Cyrano de Bergerac, which was already completed without Oleg Nikolaevich Efremov . The storylines of the second plan will unfold around the release of two books - about the actors of Tabakov's "basement" (Tsentrpoligraf publishing house) and Tabakov himself (Gold Series of the Triumph Foundation). A light, cheerful finale promises to be played on October 9 on the stage of the Sovremennik Theater - a belated anniversary celebration will take place there.
"Be hard on yourself"
As the artistic director himself, who received a standing ovation at the gathering of his "basement" troupe, noted, "this already smacks of a cult of personality."
The first general meeting of the season at the Snuffbox is usually trumpeted cheerfully, with jokes and surprises. This time, though small, but real gold and silver commemorative signs were presented as a surprise - to veterans who “prudently joined the theater staff” 15 and 10 years ago, respectively. Among the gold medalists were Mikhail Khomyakov, Evdokia Germanova, Marina Zudina, Sergey Belyaev, Alexander Mokhov, Andrey Smolyakov. Silver went to Olga Blok-Mirimskaya, Alexei Zolotnitsky, Evgeny Mironov, Evgeny Mironov's mother (ticket operator) and artist Alexander Borovsky, who, in honor of his 40th birthday, was also rolled out on stage with a brand new lawn mower. Thus, almost the entire current backbone of the troupe, those on whom the repertoire really rests (excluding, of course, relatives) was covered with gifts and affection.
Silver was smelted with the calculation on Vladimir Mashkov, who arrived in his historical homeland - just in time for the wide premiere of the film “Russian Riot”. However, he was absent from the gathering of the troupe, because the questions of the future fate of this magnificent actor in his alma mater, as well as the details and results of Vladimir Mashkov’s protracted Hollywood riot - a riot, probably far from senseless, but quite merciless in relation to his native theater - “New Izvestia" will be dealt with in the near future, especially and biasedly.
The annual throne speech of Oleg Tabakov is favorably distinguished by the absence of social pathos. This year, almost every gathering of the troupe includes a separate speech about the submarine, the tower and Pushkinskaya Square. Tabakov did not mention them at all. Not because of cynicism, but because of professionalism. He knows that the mess in a mediocre country can only be countered by talent and hard work. And therefore, every time he speaks only about work and talent, for these topics are inexhaustible and do not need props from empty, irrelevant pathos. Concentrating on biting his nail, discarding a cute humorous tone, Tabakov briefly outlined the main danger that lurks a theater that seems to be prosperous in all respects: "Inertia of success." Holy words - that is, that is. From time to time this or that "snuffbox" premiere thoroughly rolls on this very inertia. “Be stricter with yourself,” the artistic director urged. A little more than two weeks will pass, and at the gathering of the already partially reduced Mkhatov troupe, he will have to make an even more impartial speech about inertia of failure. What can he say to the actors of the Moscow Art Theater? Probably: "Be stricter with yourself" ...
Epistolary tragedy
So, "Snuffbox", "having spent heavily on medals and bouquets," began a new, 15th season at two venues at once. The stage of the Mayakovka branch on Sretenka hosted the official premiere "Love Letters"- Tabakov in duet with Olga Yakovleva, American play playwright Albert Gurney staging Evgeny Kamenkovich, scenography Alexander Borovsky.
Two hours without intermission. A story about love, completely lost in words. Probably, one must once experience such a situation in order to fully appreciate her cemetery humor. Love, expressed exclusively in words, does not cease to be love, but moves away from real life, like a ship leaving the pier. Two good people - a girl and a boy - lacked some kind of main effort to pull their feelings into the material world. Or, on the contrary, the effort turned out to be so powerful that it immediately brought the satellite of their love into near-Earth orbit, into the rarefied layers of the atmosphere, closer to the gardens of Eden. And they themselves remained on the ground. Where both are damn bad. Because, as one modern song says, “Together it is impossible and apart in no way.”
The boy and girl get to us, the audience, in a rather shabby form of life, but the essence of this does not change. Both Yakovleva and Tabakov are great masters of charming infantilism. Civilized, educated children were explained at home how important it is to write letters, how useful it is to write letters, how the Lexicon and horizons expand in the process of writing letters ... So they write. Rave. Nightmare. Romeo and Juliet's date is not on the balcony, but on the Internet. By the way, now such love would be called virtual.
School, skiing, swimming pool, hockey, trips to the sea, visits to the doctor, divorce of parents... Cruel games of a little woman. Shy perseverance of the boy. He asks her so many questions that she is forced to answer, as in a referendum: yes, yes, no, yes ... The first jealousy. The first idea of betrayal. Chaotic accusations, the same apologies. The first risky jokes and not quite chaste confessions. Meetings less and less, letters more and more. The abyss is widening.
They grow up before our eyes, if I may, of course, put it that way, since it would be more accurate to say - in our ears. Wanderings, characteristic of adult life, add work to the postal departments. Hello from Hong Kong, goodbye from Florence, Merry Christmas from a dozen mismatched dots in space. Letters float in one direction, life flows in another
She has a loveless marriage, first child, number two child, painting.
He has the death of his father, Harvard, thoughts about politics.
She's divorced, he's having an affair. They do not coincide not only in space, but also in time.
He has a family, a career, the usual problems with his sons.
She has exhibitions and hereditary alcoholism.
He's a senator, she's got random bedfellows.
They are no longer people, but shadows of people who truly live only in letters.
Quite a simple story.
In addition to letters, they had several nights. All love profit - after almost half a century of waiting. And the talk of divorce was already cautiously started - the nights turned out to be too good, but ... Wife, children, party comrades, a scandal in the yellow press, elections are on the nose ... Good boys can also be cowardly. Without ceasing to be good.
Merry Christmas, my congratulations, my condolences, happy New Year, how are you? Where are you? .. - this is all that is left of them. Two over-bred children did not have the courage to shout: “We are losing each other!”, as they shout in the operating room, because a well-timed increase in voice can also reverse circumstances.
I don't know if Tabakov and Yakovleva play well. Didn't have time to notice, didn't have time to appreciate. I am equally at a loss with the utterance of clever words about directing Kamenkovich. The girl owns the left side of the scene, the boy - the right side. Actors never approach each other and for the first time join hands only on bows. She is flexible and fidgety, like a monkey, he is funny, chubby, in a baseball cap and with a pipe. The hall is alternately enveloped in cigarette smoke, then the aroma of good tobacco. That's the whole "artistic" solution. All I know is that "Love Letters" is a magnificent play, and it turned out to be a poignant, tender and hopeless performance. It is advisable to have validol and a handkerchief in your purse - the heart begins to hurt on Love Letters. Think about it: a lot of people who by nature are not able to understand what love is, live happily ever after, give birth to children, build houses, go to visit. And two, endowed with this rare talent - to love, lose their lives mediocre and thoughtlessly. It shouldn't be, it shouldn't be, it shouldn't be!.. - but it happens, unfortunately, at every step
Evening Moscow, September 15, 2000
Olga Fuchs
Without losing your posture
A. Gurney. "Love letters". Dir. E. Kamenkovich. Theater of Oleg Tabakov
The Snuffbox approaches the love theme very thoroughly and carefully. He does not climb to the top, he studies the approaches to this very peak - everything that accompanies, precedes or is a consequence, or even the reverse side of love. This can be seen even in the titles from the repertoire: "Sublimation of Love", or (on the other hand) "Sex, Lies and Video", or (already now) "Love Letters".
The director Yevgeny Kamenkovich staged “Letters” in accordance with the instructions of the author (American playwright Albert Gurney) recorded in the contract: “... an actor and actress of about the same age, sitting at a table (in our case, Olga Yakovleva and Oleg Tabakov) .. The actors don't look at each other until the very end, when Melissa can watch Andy read his last letter." And also in accordance with the priorities of Oleg Tabakov, who is dearer to all the clearly expressed, and even clearly protruding director's concepts, the interaction and interdependence of partners, their mutual donation.
“Love Letters” is a life-long story drawn with a large dotted line, epistolary love, a half-century test of sincerity, sentimentality. The two write letters to each other from the second grade (when friends get out on a whim and, as it turns out, for life) to the grave. Dependence on parents, rebellion against them, searching for oneself, mistakes of helpless youth, mutual insults and trust, loves, betrayals, children, problems, torments of creativity, career ups, respectable congratulations on Christmas and condolences in connection with the death of loved ones - and ever-growing confidence that the most important thing in life is in these letters. Who gave everything that was lacking in life. And who stole the meaning of everything that happened in life, devaluing its reality. Borges described a similar state of affairs in a sadly witty essay on the bifurcation "Borges and I" - one lives so that the other can write his books, and these books justify the one who lives.
Oleg Tabakov plays as if he deliberately put himself on the strictest diet, sharply limiting the audience in consuming all his juicy acting luxuries - concisely and sparingly. To match his hero - the disciplined American boy Andy, who hid deep inside the dream of love, but thereby kept it for life. He almost does not get up from his chair, buried in letters, but without losing his posture. Whereas Olga Yakovleva in the role of the elemental girl Melissa - eccentric, free, drinking, sincere, talented, unlucky - seems to find no place for herself: she jumps up, settles down on the table, hides under it, hangs from the chair. Throughout the performance, Tabakov emphatically and consciously performs what the ballet term "support" would fit - he keeps the structure and rhythm, serving as a cut for the "diamond" named Olga Yakovleva. And - since he understands diamonds - he enjoys it. Her game is most adequately translated into poetic language - “this is how diamonds play, this is how a river plays” (B. Pasternak), further in the text.
They read their letters at different ends of a long table, as if they exist on opposite energy poles. The artist Alexander Borovsky filled Andy's half with expensive writing instruments, and Melissa's half filled up with bottles, wine glasses, brushes and pencils, separating them with a curtain that gradually shifts like pebbled skin: intimacy grows, and life shrinks.
Kommersant, September 15, 2000
Roman Dolzhansky
Yakovleva and Tabakov exchanged "Love letters"
The theater under the direction of Oleg Tabakov opened the season with the premiere of the play "Love Letters" by American playwright Albert Gurney. The play was written for a duet of a frankly commercial nature. People go to such performances not because of the name, plot or interpretation, but simply to look at their favorite actors. In this case - on Tabakov himself and Olga Yakovleva, who have been playing two heroes all their lives.
Life fits in less than two hours of stage action, with no intermission. However, the word "action" to this performance, staged by Yevgeny Kamenkovich, can be applied with a big stretch. Oleg Tabakov and Olga Yakovleva sit on the sides of the stage, separated by a curtain, and read the letters that their characters begin to exchange since childhood. That is, from time to time she gets up and demonstrates her lazy, arrogant captivating gait, which has already entered the history of the theater. But he actually does not rise from his chair for the entire performance, rarely taking his eyes off the text of letters and for some reason scribbling in the margins of long-sent correspondence - either because he still does not know the text too confidently, or he is afraid to go against the known, as the program says , American playwright. Albert Gurney insisted that the play "works best if the actors do not look at each other until the very end." Yakovleva turns out to be not so submissive, she strives to shoot a glance. A woman is a woman.
It is not so much the author's ban that prevents them from looking into each other's eyes as the curtain. Obviously, it denotes the course of life, because during the performance it is going to the center of the stage in jerks, shrinking like shagreen leather. And on two tables stretched along the ramp, props are found, at Melissa Gardner it is mainly bottles, at Andrew Ledd III (he has such a name) - stationery. Which is also quite symbolic, because the heroine, an unsuccessful artist, eventually becomes an inveterate drunkard, and the hero, on the contrary, makes a political career and even becomes a senator.
By the way, their love letters can only be called in broad sense the words. There are very few words about love, the epistolary genre is simply a form for a fluent, without sensual pathos, but not without grace, a written synopsis of two parallel destinies. Each of the characters, of course, over the years have families, children and everyday problems, failures and successes, hopes and disappointments. And their latent romance, which began with the fact that the boy was peeping into the girl's locker room, turns into a real connection when the heroes are already fifty or so, and even then not for long. She soon falls completely, falls ill, dies, and now Tabakov is reading the very last letter - one, standing in front of the skin curtain returned to its original position.
What exactly cannot be defined with a shagreen metaphor is the stage charisma of both actors. It would seem that all the intonations needed for the "Letters" are known by heart, and the story is as old as the world, and they do not even pretend that they are playing. But no, the spectators for the final stretch their hands to their bags for scarves. They clap as if for the first time they thought about the transience of being. Well, nothing that looks like a radio theater. But the actors are still good, life is really short and there is no happiness in this world.
Culture, September 21-28, 2000
Natalia Kaminskaya
Lions in winter
"Love letters". Theater under the direction of O. Tabakov
Lion and Lioness. Oleg Tabakov and Olga Yakovleva. They play a successful Broadway play for two "Love Letters". Its author, the American Albert Gurney, who perfectly mastered the domestic dramatic tradition, is, of course, not Williams. But similar. At close proximity. With a strong one, another volume is immediately visible, without psychological abysses, without the painful underside of consciousness. But even with Gurney, life is fragile and tragic - as much as any story of unfulfilled love is sad. The plot of the play is painted with the iron hand of a professional - it is a love story in letters. They are written first by schoolchildren, then by students, then by young people making a career and family, then by mature people who have managed their lives in different ways. He writes the last letter not to her, but to her mother, for his permanent addressee is no longer alive. The fundamental difference between male and female nature in the play is also drawn with the firm hand of a literate American writer. Andy is narrow-minded and not subtle, his priorities are sports, official, and then a political career. And, of course, patriotism, duty to society and all that. Melissa, on the other hand, is heavily in debt - not financially, because she is rich, but socially: to her own family, career, and society. A crazy woman living with emotions, and the right man, the pride of the nation. The attraction of opposite electric charges to each other. According to the laws of physics, this mutual attraction gives the desired contact. According to win-win stage schemes - no less desirable guarantee of a dramatic development of events. In the old classical plays, the wedding crowned the action not without reason. About what happiness would have awaited the heroes after this radiant denouement, the viewer was obviously not supposed to know. Here, in a pure model situation, one hundred percent worked out by the best representatives of American literature of the twentieth century, the conclusion of a happy union is impossible a priori. Which is nice. This provides a powerful melodramatic effect. Letters-dialogues follow from point A to point B and back, in which all the vicissitudes of the unfulfilled, but always calling, are placed with mathematical precision.
Long live win-win dramatic schemes! They are beautiful already because they always have something to play for good artists.
Olga Yakovleva plays Melissa wonderfully. Born to embody Williams' fragile heroines, the actress easily pushes Gurney's more modest volumes. Mischievousness and defenselessness of the eternal girl, bleeding mental breaks, desperate throws towards happiness and palpable disbelief in its possibility - we have before us the richest watercolor palette of actress Yakovleva. For nothing that he plays a woman who paints.
Oleg Tabakov's performance in this duet is akin to high-quality ballet support. And here you can see the harmonious mathematical calculation of professionals, and in this regard, director Yevgeny Kamenkovich should be added to the acting pair. As soon as life path Andy is a solid climb to the social top, and Melissa is a steady derailment, their physical existence on the stage is painted like in a ballet score. The freedom of her movements, the extraordinary mobility in the half of the stage allotted to her are in constant contrast with his eternal sitting in his half. The mortal shells of souls, drawn to each other all their lives, seem to be made of different materials: heavy, stable and fragile, flying. Director Kamenkovich famously "dies" in the actors. In fairness, how can one not notice that this is now a rare skill, even when there is someone to "die" in. Artist Alexander Borovsky is another undisputed professional in this undertaking. Its scenery - a curtain and two tables with accessories characteristic of the characters - at least now take it to the same Broadway. Not difficult. Inexpensive. However, whoever says that the scenery is poor in meaning, let him throw a stone at me. The curtain creeps from two wings into the middle of the stage, tightly separating the characters from each other. From the correspondence accumulated over the life of the heroes, it becomes more and more narrow, and by the end it looks like a thin strip. Sentiment successively wins back all the new spaces of the stage until it overwhelms it entirely. And now Tabakov goes to the code. It turns out, in the literal sense of the word, close to the ramp. He "sends" the last letter to the mother of the deceased lover, where he admits that Melissa was the only true meaning of his life. The artist's voice trembles, moves down to dull timbres and breaks. Here in the hall - no options. As Pushkin said, "even a tear clouds clear eyes."
The summary and pulls to perform in pretentious tones. The new performance of the Snuffbox is a frankly commercial enterprise. So what? Will we continue to persist and hang a dividing curtain between commerce and art, like the one that the artist A. Borovsky composed? Will we order ourselves not to hear applause and not to see crowds of spectators at the entrance to the theater? Finally, do not admit to ourselves in the experienced pleasure? To hell! Wouldn't it be better to learn how to make good commercial performances?
Evening Club, September 22, 2000
Gleb Sitkovsky
Tearful Calligraphy Lesson
"Love Letters" by Albert Gurney, dir. Evgeny Kamenkovich. Theater under the direction of O. Tabakov
A turkey called "life" is such a bird, from which sooner or later only gnawed bones remain. In the new performance "Snuffboxes" Olga Yakovleva and Oleg Tabakov deal with this existential meal in less than two hours. they, in fact, sit throughout the performance as if they were going to have dinner - at long tables opposite each other, but not wielding knives, but reading letters. That is the story of your life.
The story is simple. The boy was friends with the girl. Friendship, of course, valued. The boy and the girl loved to write letters from childhood. At first, they just trained in calligraphy and drawing, then they got involved somehow. She is "dear Melissa", he is "dear Andrew". And so all my life.
Then dear Melissa left to study as a sculptor in Italy. and dear Andrew took up a career in law. Everyone had a marriage, children, work - everything was neatly reported in correspondence that stretched for years. She slowly becomes an inveterate drunkard, he climbs higher and higher up the career ladder, and now he is almost aiming for the presidency of all America. At the end of life - a little bit of love, and then - death, of course. The last letter in memory of "dear Melissa" Tabakov read out to the friendly sobs of the hall.
What can be said about the melodrama by the Broadway artist Albert Gurney, which the eponymous artistic director of the theater directed by Tabakov had looked after for himself long ago, while still somewhere on tour in Japan? The play is neither good nor bad. "Love letters" - what is commonly called "sure". In this score, it is pre-scheduled: a) when you laugh; b) when you quiet down, "reading your life with disgust"; c) when you reach into your pocket for a handkerchief.
Albert Gurney's play is an excellent example of theatrical calligraphy. These "Letters" must be played in the same way as they are written - competently and cleanly, and then success will be guaranteed. And Olga Yakovleva and Oleg Tabakov should not be taught theater prescriptions. Both of them are actors of such a high class that they make a little more out of the play than it is, and in their dispassionate reading one can sometimes even see what these gray-haired boy and girl were like in childhood.
Andrew-Tabakov, carefully avoiding coquetry and showiness, will sit motionless in his chair for almost the entire performance. Unlike Melissa - Yakovleva, who finds it difficult to sit still - she flutters around the stage all the time, often ending up on the table, then under the table. This is usually the case in ballet - the partner supports the partner while she performs complex steps.
When staging such a play, the director also requires a minimum of theatrical literacy, which, in fact, Yevgeny Kamenkovich demonstrated. Perhaps the only director's find is the curtain, gradually, jerkily opening to us first him, then her. The curtain will not open until the end of the performance - it will simply move to the middle of the stage, and at that moment life will end.
All the time of the performance it seemed at times that you were present at the demonstration performances of the figure skaters. They, in figure skating, rely on each athlete to complete the required number of technical elements on the ice - all sorts of double sheepskin coats, triple nelsons and God knows what else. If I represented the Russian Federation at such a competition, I would certainly give Olga Yakovleva and Oleg Tabakov the highest marks for both technicality and artistry. But I was aware of their excellent skills in the theatrical craft before. Two great actors showed everything that was expected of them. And they should have shown more.
General newspaper, September 21-27, 2000
Maria Sedykh
Wait for an answer
Olga Yakovleva and Oleg Tabakov in Love Letters.
Directed by Evgeny Kamenkovich
Whether you want it or not, everything that Oleg Tabakov says and does today is perceived in the context of the fate of the Art Theater entrusted to him.
So, at the premiere of Love Letters, staged in your native Snuffbox, you sit and involuntarily wonder what the price of the success of a new business will be, what it will consist of. And "success" is the key word in all the interviews that the artist gave after the announcement of the appointment.
Once upon a time, one famous Russian director began a rehearsal with an exclamation: “How will we surprise?” Today, it seems, the message is simplified: “How are we going to lure?” The full house of "Love Letters" by the third-rate American playwright Albert Gurney is provided in the Snuffbox by a duet of first-rate Moscow artists. Who is not interested in seeing Olga Yakovleva with Oleg Tabakov? Enchanted or disappointed, the public will find out later when it leaves the theater.
This way is reliable and has been tested more than once. Numerous rumors about the recruitment of "stars" of various sizes into the troupe of the Moscow Art Theater confirm the strategy of the new leader. There is only one catch here. The "founders", as you know, formed their theater exactly according to the opposite principle. "Stars" on the Russian stage and then it was not enough to become, but about the "mhatchiks" they said that they were not only "premiers", but even did not look like artists.
The heroes of "Love Letters" just look like artists only.
The story of a fragile, refined girl from a wealthy family and a timid provincial boy who made a dizzying career as a senator and, as usual, matured, fades into the background, giving way to the story of Yakovleva’s unfinished roles in the plays of Tennessee Williams and the “ordinary stories” played many times by Tabakov ".
Olga Yakovleva, of course, is more nervous, more dramatic, more diverse, because she strives to get what she hasn't given. Although at first she plays Arbuzov, who replaced Williams in her time. And Tabakov does not even pretend that the character is at least somewhat interesting to him. A character was given to us when there are two hours of a completely branded Oleg Pavlovich. And in a way he is right. This Andrew, or whatever it is, is so poorly, so flatly written that our artist will still be richer.
The new performance of the Snuffbox is neither good nor bad. Let's say it's boring in places, but in places it's fascinating. There is no aggressive vulgarity of entreprise in it and there is some worthy self-confidence that does not turn into complacency.
However, thoughts about MXAT (by the way, they say that Olga Yakovleva is also invited), perhaps inappropriate in this case, started thoughts and feelings that were not at all addressed to love letters.
Well, they will lure the audience to Kamergersky for new old or old new artists. Well, there will be a full house in the entreprise with the "Seagull" emblem ...
There is a well-known formula: if you work for success for half your life, then the second half - success will work for you.
However, the Moscow Art Theater has already lived several lives - it has grown old, renewed and grown old again. Who should now work for whom on this stage, within these walls big question. Or is it not a question at all?
Why is the success coming at the Moscow Art Theater (and Tabakov knows how to achieve his own) evokes sadness and almost Chekhovian longing? Yes, for the same reason, why is it a pity for a dilapidated estate surrounded by a cherry orchard, when you imagine how summer residents are located here.
We, the present, gaping those heroes better than the author of the play, find it difficult to mistake historical necessity for historical inevitability.
However, in "Love Letters" there is not a word about this, unless, according to the old habit, to read between the lines ...
