A STREEM CAR "DESIRE" - drama
Tennessee Williams
Duration: 3 hours with intermission
New scene
Mark Rozovsky about the play and performance:
And here is Tennessee Williams - with his sensuality and frankness, or rather, with sensual frankness. The play A Streetcar Named Desire is a psychological hit staged in New York in late 1947 with Marlon Brando (Stanley) and Jessica Tandy (Blanche), then turned into a stunning film in 1951 in which Stanley played all of is Marlon Brando, and Blanche is Vivien Leigh (directed by Elia Kazan). This is a classic of 20th century art. Its place today is “At the Nikitsky Gate” after many successful productions in Russian.
Yes, played precisely in Russian, this play was read by us in Russian, because thanks to its truth and humanity, perhaps, like no other, it appeals to compassion, empathy, sympathy, without which there is no real Russian art. In this sense, Tennessee Williams is the most Russian playwright among Americans, and I am not the first to note this. His closeness to Chekhov is undeniable, and I am not the last person to insist on this.
We were making a story about love, about the impossibility of love and happiness due to the dissimilarity of temperaments and destinies, because of the insurmountable difference between plebeianism, turning into bestial redneckness, and the desire for an elegant, but absurd life, prone to fruitless fantasy. Between these two ways of living is Stella, no less strong in nature than the main characters. And Mitch is a kind of Chekhovian-American “klutz”, powerless or weakened by the unexpected sinful feeling that surges from him. Through the trifles of everyday life, through quarrels and showdowns, through extremes of behavior, right up to rape, the main conflict of the play breaks through, in which there is no right and wrong, but there are inescapable, passionate erotic desires and enormous, piercing human pain.
Our performance required some forced cuts from the brilliant author's text, but this was done with the sole purpose of bringing our Actors to the fore, since A Streetcar Named Desire is exclusively an actor's play. One could object to this that any play is an actor’s play, but the audience who came to our performance, I’m sure, will understand what I’m talking about. We carried out the most detailed study of the characters, looked for deep motivations and subtle changes in the moods and behaviors of the characters, tried to discover the secrets of their unpredictable words and actions... Nowadays such meticulous work is rare, but we had to achieve filigree and precision in a consciously authentic game, convincing and infectious at the same time.
Our Actors, it seems, have coped with all the extremely high tasks that the great Author set for them. I only contributed to this to the best of my ability.
“They always say, say, say that my work is too personal; and I persistently counter this accusation, arguing that any real work of an artist must be personal, directly or indirectly, must reflect - and does reflect - the emotional state of its creator,” Tennessee wrote in “Memoirs” and added that he himself was hysterical “at that time.” the same degree as Blanche" and also that "she was a demonic creature, the intensity of her feelings was too high for her not to slip into madness."
And one more important quote for us:
“I realize how old-fashioned I am as a playwright in my desire for the classical form, but this does not bother me at all, since I feel that the absence of such a form is almost always as unsatisfying to the audience as it is unsatisfying to me.”
Golden words of a great American. We enjoyed working on his play, which was classic in form and meaning.
We hope that the audience will also enjoy our performance. “A Streetcar Named Desire is calling.
http://youtu.be/RA9kBpzQovY
Comments on the play A TRAMMAR "DESIRE" - drama
Thanks to actors Vladimir Davidenko and Nikolai Ringburg.| Left a comment: Yulia Isaeva (2019-04-19 at 01:49)
A Streetcar Named Desire| Left a comment: Irina Kurazh (2018-10-29 at 15:24)
Today I met the wonderful, very cozy theater “At the Nikitsky Gate”. And my acquaintance began with a psychological drama, emotionally rich, bright and, in some episodes, very scary - “A Streetcar Named Desire”, sometimes fulfilling the wrong dreams...
I return home very impressed. Now I understand why Vivien Leigh, after playing the leading role of Blanche in the film of the same name, had a nervous breakdown and for a very long time could not get out of the image of the heroine.
To play SUCH a role, on the one hand, you need a very stable psyche, and on the other hand, with a stable psyche, it is impossible to live on stage this eccentric image of a woman who really wants to be treated kindly and accepted.
I don’t know how this play is performed in other theaters - this theater has a very strong production and a wonderful troupe that they didn’t want to let go for a long time. I highly recommend it to real theatergoers.
Re: A TRAM "DESIRE"| Left a comment: Angelica Lukina (2018-09-26 at 16:26)
When a dream goes under the hammer
A few words about the play “A Streetcar Named Desire”| Left a comment: Angelica Lukina (2018-09-13 at 15:59)
When a dream goes under the hammer
A few words about the play “A Streetcar Named Desire” at the Nikitsky Gate Theater
Everyone should have the right to make mistakes and time to completely heal scratched memories. So that, when approaching the mirror, you can see a new person, or the same one who in childhood dreamed of good things, of how he would grow up and be... who the heroine of the psychological hit "A Streetcar Named Desire" by Tennessee Williams became, who started off so well own way? Blanche. Elder sister. An example to follow. Teacher. Standard of behavior. Wife. Acceptance in society. At some point on her way, her heel “broke” and she stumbled. And this is the reason for this story to become a classic of modern drama.
An ordinary apartment, now we would call it a studio, where the bedroom, kitchen and dining room are connected in a single space. A light curtain divided the room into two parts. In one of them there was a double bed, in the other there was a kitchen table, a cupboard with dishes, a bedside table, a sofa and a screen that barely covered half of the sofa. Somewhere behind the closet is the door to the bathroom. This is where Stella and her husband have been living for several years. Blanche first comes to her younger sister on... a tram called "Desire". It is the desire and hope to change her life, to become an older sister again - a role model, that brings Blanche to Stella, where she immediately begins to contrast with the established way of life. The white suit of a ruined aristocrat against the simple cotton dress of her sister. Hat. Gloves. Home bathrobe. Satin.
The director of the theater "At the Nikitsky Gate" Mark Rozovsky staged this play purely in Russian. Even the Pole Sten, performed by Vladimir Davidenko, looks somehow familiar. A kind of hard worker from industrial Novokuznetsk. Rude. Cutting. Man. In general, you should be afraid. Daria Shcherbakova in the role of his submissive wife Stella, in the simplicity of her soul, sometimes tries to command her husband, but quickly forgets about it, yielding to force. The younger sister showed her strength when she broke up with her family because of her love for a lower-class man.
We read this play in Russian, because thanks to its truth and humanity, perhaps, like no other, it appeals to compassion, empathy, sympathy, without which there is no real Russian art. In this sense, Tennessee Williams is the most Russian playwright among Americans, and I am not the first to note this. His closeness to Chekhov is undeniable, and I’m not the last one to insist on this,” Mark Rozovsky explains his choice.
The viewer, not familiar with the American play, who had not seen the film with Marlon Brando and Vivien Leigh, was fascinated by the first part and disappointed by the ending. But I liked the acting; I was especially touched by poor Mitch, played by Nikolai Zakharov, who stayed too long as a suitor and fell in love with the main character. I also remember Natalia Baronina’s Blanche (a hello from the past, when I myself portrayed a madwoman on stage). She wanted to believe. Feel with her. Empathize for that “broken heel” and all the consequences that played out on the stage of the theater “At the Nikitsky Gate”. Why is someone else punishing her for the mistakes of her youth? Who gives scoundrels the right to permissiveness and clouded morality? Uncouth Stanley is like a hippopotamus in a greenhouse, where they have just restored order after a pack of rabid dogs. Oh, how I long for peace and quiet when the “Dream” house has already gone under the hammer. Peace and quiet. And if the last close and dear person, alas, can no longer help you, you can only succumb to fate. Which is what the main character does, ending up in a madhouse. A curtain.
Thank you!!!| Left a comment: Margot Sokol (2017-12-02 at 00:52)
I couldn't hold back my tears! The accumulated emotions came out, and it couldn’t have been otherwise, looking at the magnificent performance of the actors. My companion, who categorically refused to go on a trip, was also fascinated by the game. Satisfied and grateful. Bravo!
Tverbul bull bull| Left a comment: Elena (2016-04-23 at 23:27)
In our everyday pickle
So many tears and so much pepper
This is the devil's swill
You need to drink it all down
Head hurts from pain
The heart is sad from longing
Endless hangover
With and without wine
In essence, this story is about how the “psychiatric ambulance” was twenty years late. It is clear that Tennessee Williams could hardly have composed a conflict, the source of which was anything other than the unconventional orientation of one of the characters (even if they died before the start of the performance) - in our time this would not traumatize us or even surprise us. But, taking an abstract wealthy family (Dubois planters) - and an abstract family from the remaining ninety percent of the population (so to speak, collecting Bentleys for the upper class and riding a bicycle at best - at worst on that same stolen Bentley) - taking them and replacing, say, the names... here live Stas and Sveta, Stas’s friends - Mitya with her sick mother, Vagiz and Boris... they live in a very poor province, their morals are the same as their entertainment - for which there is enough free time and scraps of salary ... I don’t mention education, because Stella, that is, sorry, Sveta, it doesn’t help at all in this wilderness - and cannot help: it was proven by Martin Eden (either factory work, or creativity, in any way).
And a dragonfly comes to them, to these ants... with a claim to moral superiority, by the way. This is what infuriates Stanley Kowalski the most: this claim is with a capital P. If he had not “dug up” anything on Blanche, he would have been furious, but he would never have touched her. But when a natural *** systematically calls you a cattle, you will agree, it is quite logical to take hostility. The heroine did not become a lady of unserious behavior because of an easy life. But show me where life is easy in a neighborhood where even the tram has a proper name instead of a serial number.
So I’m thinking... maybe, having gotten off on Pushkinskaya, it’s true that some should immediately turn onto Malaya Dmitrovka and enjoy the avant-garde and their own involvement in solving an urgent social problem (through applause at least) - while others, with their children and parents, should go to Tverskoy Boulevard, decorated clumsily and temporarily - so similar to cheap enterprises in which, unfortunately, even the most avant-garde creators do not hesitate to participate.
Walk like this - in different directions - without stopping to spit at each other.
We'll be more whole.
__________
Well done to the artists, of course. Daria Shcherbakova (Stella), Ivan Mashnin (Stanley), Nikolai Zakharov (Mitch) - special thanks.
A magnificent performance with talented actors| Left a comment: Irina (2015-10-26 at 12:00)
A magnificent performance, the actors are very talented, they got into their roles amazingly!
I wanted to watch Blanche (Natalia Baronina) with bated breath - she plays so brilliantly: both the state of nervousness and a shattered psyche at the beginning of the performance, and the deep emotions, self-deception and feigned gaiety later.
The entire cast (I. Mashnin, D. Shcherbakova, Yu. Golubtsov, S. Fedorchuk, N. Yuranov) are real virtuosos, everyone deserves to play the main role!
After watching the play “A Streetcar Named Desire,” you understand how scary it is to see from the outside the clash of people of different intellectual levels. It would seem that you can close your eyes to limitations and rudeness, but there remains a huge gap between people and primitive people on a subconscious level fiercely hate intellectually developed people!
Despite the fact that according to the script there are scenes with a showdown, thanks to the talented direction and excellent acting, they are not painful to watch.
Going to this performance is a real holiday, a bright event in the middle of the work week! I want to think about a lot after the performance.
Heartfelt!!!| Left a comment: Raisa (2015-10-23 at 12:27)
Thank you for the great production and excellent acting! Stunning Blanche (N. Baronina) is strange, vulnerable, delightful! I wanted to feel sorry for Kovalsky (I. Mashnin), hug and beat him at the same time! Mitch (Yu. Golubtsov) showed off his performance as always! Eunice (N. Yuchenkova-Dolgikh) seemed to appear little, but she was so memorable!!! Stella (D. Shcherbakova) tried very hard to convey her love to both her sister and her husband, while finding herself between two “fires”, and she succeeded !The performance is heartfelt, touches to the depths, and most importantly real, understandable, real! Thank you that there is such a theater “At the Rozovsky Gate” or “At the Nikitsky Gate”; rearranging the words does not change its essence! Every time after the next viewing, something warm, important, necessary, necessary remains inside!
Ronina, Natalya Kalashnik, Vladimir Davidenko, Nikolai Zakharov -BRAVO!
And a special THANK YOU and BRAVO to Mark Rozovsky for having such a wonderful
theater! Let's watch your performances
and we will be there again!
Kommersant, September 9, 2014
Towards wine
"A Streetcar Named Desire" at the Chekhov Moscow Art Theater
The Chekhov Moscow Art Theater opened the new season with a premiere prepared last season - “A Streetcar Named Desire” by the great American playwright Tennessee Williams, directed by the chief director of the Krasnoyarsk Youth Theater Roman Feodori. Narrated by ROMAN DOLZHANSKY.
Nikolai Simonov's set - a two-story wooden house with galleries installed on the turntable of the stage, somewhat similar, if not to a huge tram, then at least to a steam locomotive - went to director Roman Feodori, along with the great play by Tennessee Williams and the already made distribution: another director , who was going to stage “A Streetcar Named Desire” at the Chekhov Moscow Art Theater, refused to work shortly before the start of rehearsals. For the young director, who in recent years has become famous thanks to the performances he staged in Barnaul and Krasnoyarsk, the Moscow Art Theater rehearsals probably became a good school - when else can you get such bright acting personalities in addition to the circumstances proposed in the text.
Williams' play is seductive because its tightly written, Broadway-style plot leaves room for subtle nuances of characters - that's probably why "A Streetcar Named Desire" has not left the repertoire track for more than half a century all over the world. Everyone knows that the main theme of the play is the clash of fragility and brute, animal strength, the conflict of lonely human hopes and the everyday truth of life. But within the theme, different variations are possible.
The famous leading actors perform commendably in the new production, with full dedication, in accordance with popular ideas about how to perform a play that has been previously performed by good actors all over the world. In the Moscow Art Theater troupe, of course, the first person who comes to mind when thinking about Stanley Kowalski is Mikhail Porechenkov. He is absolutely convincing not only in his stocky male solidity and rough earthiness, but also in his hints that Stanley is not so simple, that he did not appropriate the right to be strong and ruthless, but earned it from himself. A completely different character is Mitch, whom Mikhail Trukhin is not afraid to sometimes make funny; The audience will always have time to feel sorry for him - well, at least when they hear that his courtship of Blanche is caused not so much by his fading male zeal, but by the desire to console his dying mother. Here, busy, noisy, selflessly immersed in family life, Stella Irina Pegova is an excellent illustration of the saying about the night and day cuckoos. The daytime cuckoo that has flown in is her sister Blanche, so different from Stella that it is difficult to believe that they are related by blood. Marina Zudina copies the image of Blanche from the best American icon - a model named Marilyn Monroe, adds inexpensive coquetry, uncertainty, nervous breakdown to suit her taste - and carefully carries the prepared mixture until the very end of the performance.
These characters met in the Moscow Art Theater play, but they could also meet in “Tram” on some other route. And the path that Roman Theodori wanted to continue is visible not so much inside as around the main plot. The director read especially carefully two passages in Williams' play - firstly, a poetic remark-prologue, which describes the outskirts of New Orleans, where Stella and Stanley live and where in the evenings the sounds of a broken piano can always be heard from around the corner. Secondly, Blanche’s confession is her memory of how she once caught her husband in bed with another man and how after that her husband shot himself at a noisy party.
The director brought three pianos back from around the corners of New Orleans straight onto the stage and generously layered the action with musical (composer Olga Shaidullina, by the way, sits at one of the instruments) and dance numbers. That same fatal party where beautiful young men and women dance, where puritanical standards of decency are rejected and everything is literally saturated with vicious temptations - the clothes on the heroes are becoming less and less, some men wear women's clothes, and in dance duets, on the contrary, they do without female - this party still haunts Blanche Dubois. On the heels of the heroine, even at her sister’s house, is the same unfortunate man whom she calls a boy: he remains a boy, invisible to those around him. And the sound of the shot sounds again and again, pretending to be other sounds.
So it is not the loss of her parents’ home, not the lack of money and not the reputation of a slut that haunts Blanche, but the boy’s suicide. It is from this memory, according to Theodori, that Blanche is running - and although the dress-changing heroine of Marina Zudina does not look like a victim of persecution mania, we understand that she has actually reached the last station in her terrible tram. Guilt is a terrible punishment for a person. So in the finale of Roman Theodori’s play, we see Stella howling alone at the moon, who, obviously, has finally gone crazy due to the fact that she handed her sister over to an insane asylum. And Blanche at this time, like a monument to the unconquered, towers over her in a white dress - perhaps from some other performance.
RG, September 9, 2014
Alena Karas
Theater. Flashlight. Tower
"A Streetcar Named Desire" was performed at the Moscow Art Theater
Tennessee Williams's play A Streetcar Named Desire was written at the end of the war and was published in 1947. It seemed that the world should rejoice - after all, a terrible war was over. On the contrary, the art of the post-war period seems to have made it even darker. Everywhere in Europe, especially in Germany itself, there was a powerful process of understanding what had happened. Soon Theodor Adorno would say his famous: “Poetry is impossible after Auschwitz.”
Tennessee Williams has always seemed to me the most apolitical author, certainly not writing about such global issues as the Second World War. She simply lived in it as part of a civilizational catastrophe. In some ways, the very Chekhovian motif of the loss of home, disunity and misunderstanding of loved ones, even relatives, locked in “solitary confinement” of their lonely existences, acquired in him such an expressionistic, hysterical character that Chekhov with his stoicism was not close to. Rather, Strindberg, in whose veins the blood of symbolism flowed, was closer to him. A tram named "Desire", running into nowhere, into the tragedy of hopelessness, acquired on the stage of the Moscow Art Theater. Chekhov also has a slightly symbolist look. The space, invented by Nikolai Simonov, is a huge locomotive house, which in the end unexpectedly turns into a camp area with an observation tower.
The expressionist tones of the play were perfectly felt by the young director Roman Feodori, for whom “Tram” was his debut on the Moscow Art Theater stage, and indeed his second performance in the capital. However, his “Mother Courage” from Barnaul, shown on the same stage as part of the Golden Mask, made a good impression. Perhaps it was then that Tabakov “set his eyes on him.” And now Feodori performs masterful turns, carrying along a complex ensemble of artists - Marina Zudina as Blanche, Irina Pegova as her sister Stella, and between them - Stella's husband, the wild Pole Stanley Kowalski, performed by Mikhail Porechenkov. Add to this Mikhail Trukhin in the role of the timid, complex Mitch, and you will appreciate the quite timid will of the director who led this tram.
As is typical for almost his entire generation, Theodori decisively abandoned the experience of previous incarnations of the brilliant play, although he walked through it with rare care. If Blanche, performed by Zudina, resembles anyone, then first of all - the images of Marilyn Monroe. A piquant, flirtatious and sophisticated blonde with a magnificent figure, she drags behind her not so much a massive wardrobe of dresses as a baggage of losses, among which the main one is her boy, her young husband, who shot himself at a party after she saw him in the arms of another. This "boy", an elegant young man in a tuxedo, will follow her everywhere, handing her a glass of whiskey or giving her a light. Every now and then he splits into two in her confused mind, merging with other ghost guests at that party she never left, and, finally, he presses a kiss on the other’s cheek - right before her eyes.
Several pairs of men and women, now and then dancing behind the wall of the house, are part of the same baggage. The loss of the house, which brings Williams's play so close to Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard, has almost nothing to do with it. But the deaths, coming one after another - husband, mother, father - become the main circumstance of her life falling into the abyss.
Her sister Stella - Irina Pegova - the owner of a remarkable bust and emotional health on the verge of stupidity, chose the same stupid husband Stanley - a guarantor of non-return to that point of existence where only loss and death reign. Her generosity of heart is just enough to accept her sister with her situation for a while, and then surrender her to the will of her scary husband.
Stanley Kowalski, as he appears in the guise of Mikhail Porechenkov, is a huge brute who has built his little world with difficulty and knows exactly its boundaries. Everything that goes beyond them, that does not fit into his idea of man and humanity, requires immediate rejection. He does not experience the unconscious passion for Blanche, which is sometimes played in this play, and even when his palm touches her bare shoulder, this is only a test of the beast hunting for its prey.
Together with Porechenkov, the performance includes the motif of simplicity, which is worse than theft - that simplicity for which any complexity is a reason for war and aggression. Actually, thanks to him in this performance, it becomes clear why Williams' play has indirect but strong connections with the confusion of the war generation, which tried to understand how such a ruthless extermination of people and entire nations became possible. The source of the tragedy lies in psychological, social and spiritual rudeness, intolerant of other living arrangements. Actually, this is how Blanche is destroyed. Under the bestial howl of her sister, under the drunken tears of Mitch-Trukhin, she is taken to the other side of the wall, to a madhouse.
Her last appearance is a figure crossed out with a cross on a guard “tower”, in the light of the “camp” lanterns.
Teatral, September 8, 2014
Irina Alpatova
Everyone - take a shower!
"A Streetcar Named Desire" Chekhov Moscow Art Theater
The new Moscow season got off to a fast start with performances by young directors. This is pleasing, of course, both in the quantity and quality of the sites where they get quite easily today. On the prestigious main stage of the Chekhov Moscow Art Theater, for example. True, in such a situation of open opportunities for young directors, one would like to talk about the fruits of their labors according to the Hamburg account. But it still doesn’t always turn out high, unfortunately.
The premiere performance of Roman Feodori “A Streetcar Named Desire” based on the famous play by Tennessee Williams is interesting as a new directorial experience for the director, but it is not yet ready to join the collection of his best achievements (such as “The Snow Queen” at the Krasnoyarsk Youth Theater).
Perhaps the fact is that turning to Williams’ rather complex drama was not the director’s personal desire. The material was offered by the theater, and who would refuse to try their hand at one of the best stages in the country? I had to immerse myself in this probably not entirely relatable story and try to correlate it with my worldview and theatrical principles. Feodori said in an interview that he would like to dive into the psychological depths of the play itself together with the actors and not impose any concepts on the author. The result was not quite the same. Probably, the director is still closer to the element of entertainment and play, in the techniques of which he has more than once produced very successful performances. And despite the fact that Williams’s play, with its dark, physiological and psychological nuances, was largely resistant to spectacle, Theodori tried to open it with precisely this key.
Perhaps, hoping that the endless plastic exercises of the extras and symbolic “red lights” will help the public, unfamiliar with the plot, to understand the situation faster than even the characters themselves. In fact, all this led somewhere very far and, it seems, in the wrong direction. It all looked too mannered and deliberate against the backdrop of the much rougher and more defined life of the characters in Williams’ play.
The theme of the approaching madness of one of the heroines of the stage quartet, Blanche Dubois, whose role went to Marina Zudina, was stated here from the very beginning of the performance. Having lost everything and everyone and gone to seek shelter from Stella’s sister, Irina Pegova, the heroine Zudina is accompanied everywhere by a strange young man, invisible to all other characters. Shows the way, gives objects, calls for you, and so on. And closer to the finale, when it is worth emphasizing the imminent catastrophe of Blanche’s consciousness, he also splits into two (fortunately, the Moscow Art Theater found twin actors Vladimir and Artem Panchiki). It turns out that this is Blanche’s revived memory of her husband, a “boy” with unconventional inclinations, who shot himself many years ago, and the sound of this shot accompanies the heroine and the audience throughout the entire performance. Well, the mentioned erotic extras, performed in the style of “this is something decadent,” probably illustrates the orgies in which the unfortunate Blanche took part in order to escape from loneliness.
Marina Zudina, however, is forced to play in this performance only one, external layer - a sophisticated, slightly tired woman who has retained her charm and elegance, which is even more striking against the backdrop of the earthly roughness of her surroundings. But that “background”, with the illnesses and deaths of loved ones experienced, endless funerals and losses, is hidden so deeply that it cannot be seen or felt. Unless the eternal desire to hide in the soul and wash away something “dirty” accompanies her throughout the entire performance. Blanche, with her luxurious outfits (costumes by Daniil Akhmedov), which are countless, certainly looks like a very recognizable image of a “bird of paradise”, who knows how she ended up on the sinful earth, of which she herself seems to be a part. But not here.
The space, invented by the artist Nikolai Simonov, makes its center a rotating structure, which turns either into a “home” side or into a street side with red lanterns that gradually “light up” everywhere. And as a lampshade for Blanche-Zudina’s lamp, she buys the same one for herself. The turntable rotates with three pianists (Olga Shaidullina, Ruslan Agishev and Anton Savchuk, who create a musical atmosphere - melancholic, drawn-out, sometimes meditative. Meanwhile, stage life goes on as usual, sometimes not too fitting into all the symbolic signs invented by the director.
But to the director’s credit, he still tried to isolate from the variety of themes and motifs of Williams’ drama something important for himself, which became a definite leitmotif of this performance. An irreconcilable contradiction between the “norm” – everyday, human, sexual, in the end – and that which challenges it. The norms, of course, are in the understanding of Stanley Kowalski, played by Mikhail Porechenkov. The director and artist do not insist on Stanley’s brutal sexuality (as happened in some versions), nor on his redneck rudeness. Porechenkov’s Stanley is a normal guy, accustomed to living according to simple and everyday “concepts”, a lover of drinking a glass and playing cards, tight-fisted, again due to his adherence to the principles. And there is no point in squandering common property, as “all so sudden” Blanche did. At times he even evokes sympathy here, and his fits of violence, when he destroys the table or swings at Stella - Irina Pegova, are played very carefully and even, it seems, ironically. It is clear that Blanche, who does not fit into any usual framework, only causes him irritation. No sexual attraction can be found here, and he even rapes his wife’s sister, it seems, just as revenge for his unrighteous lifestyle.
Their couple with Stella Pegova is as harmonious as the duet of two sisters is disharmonious. Not from an acting point of view, but from the perspective of both the appearance and behavior of the heroines. Although the director makes Pegova howl like a dog in the finale. Which probably means seeing the light. At that moment when the play ends with an overly “refined” finale - Blanche under another, eternal shower for her in the house of sorrow, and Stella crawling on the wet floor between the headboards of the beds placed here and there, looking like gravestones. As for Mitch, played by Mikhail Trukhin, he turned out to be here, in Chekhov’s words, as an “episodic face.” An absurd little brat and a typical “mama’s boy,” he might want to help poor Blanche with his love, but he hardly knows what it is, having been brought up in the same “norm.”
As a result, the whole story told from the stage of the Art Theater seems to go not so much in depth, as the director promised, but in breadth, into invented decorative beauties, plastic surroundings and musical background. Meanwhile, the acting potential for these roles is clearly visible. We can only hope that the number of performances played will smoothly transform into the quality and depth of the overall tone, which is only outlined so far.
Novaya Gazeta, September 8, 2014
Marina Tokareva
Partridges and antlered deer...
The Moscow Art Theater opened the season with the premiere of the play - and the monument
The Moscow Art Theater opened the season with the premiere of Tennessee Williams' play A Streetcar Named Desire.
THE PLAY is one of the most famous in the twentieth century, a classic of American drama. Plot: the older sister, Blanche, an aristocrat from the South, comes to New York to visit the younger, married Stella, in her modest, if not squalid, house. A strong antagonism arises between Blanche and her sister Stanley's husband: two classes, two realities, two cultures. Blanche tries (unsuccessfully) to open Stella's eyes; Stanley, realizing what is happening, delves into the details of the biography of his new relative. Her father’s house “Dream” was auctioned off, her husband shot himself, Blanche began to depend on “the kindness of the first person he met”... In the second act, Stella is taken to the maternity hospital, and Stanley rapes Blanche. Finale: a madhouse where her husband and wife surrender her. It is on such a rigid frame that a haze of text hangs in the air from different eras, beating with microcurrents of complex states. "Tram..." was filmed with the participation of Vivien Leigh and Marlon Brando. He, Brando, also played in the very first play, which went down in history, by Elia Kazan in 1947.
Since then, the conflict between a special person and a normal person, a fragile soul and vitality, sophistication and ordinaryness, inherent in the play, has bypassed the stages of the world. The play is about how tragic sensuality can be, how painful the collision of a receding aristocratic nature and advancing animal power is, about what a woman can be like in a complete dead end, about human vulnerability - and about a thousand other things that depend on the decision, that is, on the director .
DIRECTOR - Roman Feodori. I wonder how it became known that he can stage? It would seem that his recent experience on the capital’s stage - “The Taming of the Shrew” at the Theater of Nations, which even the participation of Chulpan Khamatova could not save, could inspire the management of the Moscow Art Theater to abandon the plan announced at the beginning of last season. But... As it is said in Marshak’s children’s poems, “...And what the daughter demands must be fulfilled, period!” - only the daughter in this case should be replaced with a wife.... Being the wife of an artistic director has always meant one thing: the right to the first roles. And Marina Zudina decided that she had already reached a class of skill that would allow her to play one of the most seductive dramatic roles of the world repertoire.
LEADING ROLE is a dangerous thing. After all, nothing reveals the actress’s abilities so much as the defenselessness of the first party. Blanche Dubois, if you play her without a supporting or third plan, is a brittle, self-obsessed hysteric, a mannered and deceitful playwright. For these qualities to form a character that confirms the complexity of life and evokes compassion, there must be a creature of a different breed and nature on the stage. This, say, was Olga Yakovleva’s Alma in Efros’s play based on Williams’ play “Summer and Smoke.” Marina Zudina is obviously an actress of strong will and willingness to spend herself, but this is not enough. In her mouth is Blanche's nervous, repeated question: "What do I look like?" - means only what it means. One of the heroine’s oddities is sitting in the shower for many hours, but if in other productions this was read as an attempt to wash away her past life, to erase traces from her body, like Lady Macbeth wants to wipe the blood from her hands, here it is simply a “traffic jam” in communal life inhabitants of the house with excessive consumption of water. Zudin's ending plays in such a way that the audience believes: she is being taken to a mental hospital for allegedly lying about rape - not because she is broken, crushed, driven crazy by what happened. No sophistication, no inner freedom, no vulnerability. The actress cannot do this role without a strong director.
PARTNERS. In addition to Zudina, the play stars Irina Pegova (Stella), Mikhail Porechenkov (Stanley), Mikhail Trukhin (Mitch). In the first act, Pegova pulls the “blanket” over herself: she is more precise, more natural, more charming. In the second act, naturalness is no longer enough, but the director does not provide any other colors, and the actress, unfortunately, does not find any. Porechenkov, it would seem, is not Stanley: a brutal dork with rude charm? But there is nothing in this Stanley - no power, no pain, not even sensuality. Once upon a time, the American critic G. Clerman wrote that people like Stanley create the ground for fascism, “if we consider the latter not as a political movement, but as a state of being.” Well, it’s extremely relevant. As well as the connection between the cruelty inherent in the character and his consciousness of a marginalized Pole with the laws of today's society.
But the Blanche-Stanley-Stella triangle looks so depressingly mundane that it seems: this is happening in a deep province, not at all of the spirit, but of craft. And Mitch, who at first seemed to show some human traits, becomes helpless and cardboard-like by the end of the play.
And the main thing here is the mimance actors. A large group of young artists, writhing, stretching across the stage, depicting shadows of the past - either the southern, touched by the decay of Blanche's happiness, or her dissolute past - in short, a kind of plastic decadence, naively illustrative to the point of being comical.
One of the effects of Feodori’s work is total déjà vu: someone has already had all this, once upon a time (Chinese lanterns, plank walls, plastic illustrations, “invisible” characters who look like twins) and when the director collects his own from other people’s techniques “Lego”, everything turns out to be completely banal, without a trace of uniqueness. Theodori does not stage the play, but constructs it from ready-made elements. Therefore, one of the best world plays of the twentieth century in his hands becomes a semblance of the stories that take place in “House-2”. Let us also note the obvious fact that to play an old play, already running in two theaters in Moscow, without introducing new meaning into it, in days when the country lives, argues and sheds tears thousands of kilometers from what is happening on stage, means voluntarily go to bed in the mud of days.
No season is like the other; their dissimilarity depends on the theater’s relationship with time and, sorry, art. At the Moscow Art Theater, the main premieres are scheduled for the second half of the season, closer to Oleg Tabakov’s 80th birthday. Among them is Mephisto by Klaus Mann, which will be directed by Adolf Shapiro. In addition, Konstantin Bogomolov returns to the Moscow Art Theater, they forgave him everything and allowed him to stage two performances: “Hamlet” (there is the role of Gertrude, if you remember) and a benefit performance for the anniversary of the artistic director - “The Jeweler’s Anniversary” based on the play by Nicola McAuliffe.
On the first day of the season, a monument to Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko was unveiled in Kamergersky. The “Bronze Statuary Group” represents two glamorous gentlemen, somewhat spent over the years, in bohemian twirled scarves, with strongly fixed mustaches, facing Tverskaya, with their backs to the theater and Chekhov. They rest on a certain stele or urn (perhaps with the ashes of the legend?), on which, on the back of the monument, is inscribed in Latin: “Homines, leones, aquilae et perdices, cervi cornigeri...”, that is, the famous “People, lions, eagles and partridges, horned deer..." Cast in Italy. Sculptor and architect Alexey Morozov.
Why, why antlered deer?! - one of the theater historians cried out, seriously upset. - They had wonderful, faithful wives!
A distant external similarity may be discernible, despite a profound lack of internal similarity. It turns out that the inside of the monuments is not just bronze. Well, where did the current Moscow Art Theater ultimately bring its own streetcar “Desire”? For execution. Everything - fame, money, power - happened. And - a monument...
NG, September 8, 2014
Olga Galakhova
Tram without desires
Marina Zudina and Mikhail Porechenkov in the premiere performance of the Moscow Art Theater. A.P. Chekhov
This performance would have been much shorter, which, frankly, would have made it better, if the actors had not been running around the two-story set so unnecessary, senselessly, for so long and inappropriately. The Kowalski family's housing inconvenience, indeed, lies in the fact that the shower, in which Stella's visiting sister Blanche Dubois will spend so much time, is on the second floor, although the family lives on the first floor. Perhaps it will seem to someone that this tiresome running around, obsessive stomping is a technique, but when the technique is persistently repeated in isolation from the action and the content of the dialogues, it becomes boring to watch this exercise of the Moscow Art Theater artists in the premiere performance of A Streetcar Named Desire.
The impressive scenery of the production workshops is both the house of New Orleans and at the same time the image of a tram hypercar. When this scenographic array turns 180 degrees in the finale, we will see the shower room from the back side. Only now this shower is in a psychiatric hospital: real water flows there and washes Blanche’s body. Her silhouette is illuminated by neon light. There are hospital beds on the front stage (set design by Nikolai Simonov).
The Moscow Art Theater production was staged on Marina Zudina - Blanche, but this role was never captured by the actress; rather, one had to guess what director Roman Feodori actually wanted from the actress. If, according to the plan, Blanche’s depravity destroys the lives of peaceful inhabitants of a southern provincial town, then to achieve this dubious task, which is very, very resistant to the author, it is not enough to drink whiskey from a liter bottle. Moreover, he not only stood firmly on his feet throughout the entire performance, but also very deftly rushed up the stairs of two floors, without ever stumbling from so much strong alcohol.
Looking at Blanche like this, you believe that she was a teacher, but it’s hard to imagine that, having drowned out morality in herself, she defiantly indulged in all kinds of bad things, so much so that she was expelled from her hometown for immoral behavior. Tennessee Williams has an explanation for this: she rejected morality because she broke down because of unhappy love, however, the playwright avoids a direct and clear answer to what actually happened in the life of Blanche, who made her body accessible to many. Did she witness the suicide of her lover in her youth, as Blanche herself says, inclined to write her own life, or did her husband turn out to be a scumbag, as her sister Stella says? Or maybe the bad reputation of his hometown that reached New Orleans is slander? Or did she become the partner of men at the Flamingo Hotel, known for its freedom of morals, for a day or two, and then she was passed from hand to hand? All these are questions of the director’s interpretation, to which there is no answer in the play, because there is no process, but there are assessments, therefore there is neither sympathy, as in Williams, nor decisive denial, as in the director’s plan, of a vicious American teacher who reveres Hawthorne, Whitman and Edgar Allan Poe, in fact, no. Blanche's past must also be played out.
She first appears in an expensive white suit at her sister’s house, as if she had arrived from a governor’s reception. However, Blanche arrives with all her things - she has nowhere else to go. She switches from one tram to another to get to the New Orleans quarter, and her glamorous appearance is good for a fashion magazine, but not for the ruined ex-estate owner in the play.
If the director is captivated by the idea of her depravity as a force that destroys the life of her sister Stella (Irina Pegova), and above all Mitch, a provincial fellow, as naive as he is narrow-minded, then the vice must also be played. It’s not enough to identify a plastic group of Flamingo regulars, depicting a dumping sin in the prologue. The actress herself, if a performance is being staged on her, could let into herself this dangerous sexual seductiveness, the charm of seduction, and then what would come out of the shower would be not a wealthy lady in an expensive silk robe, but a woman who is unable to stop her instincts. Then, in the field of her temptation, she would try to drag in, out of habit, her sister’s husband, this animal, this boor Stanley Kowalski.
In the play there is no relationship between them. It’s just that a sister with a dubious reputation has arrived, who washes herself too often and occupies the bathroom for a long time, which disrupts the simple way of life of the family. Let's come in large numbers here!
Stanley fought, after all, he is a sergeant, this point is emphasized in his biography. He was given orders for a reason. He not only knows how to beat his wife, he was taught to kill, so he doesn’t just break dishes in a family quarrel. He cuts the dining table in half with his hands. At this point, it looks like Stanley would beat anyone to death. However, the impressive performance of Mikhail Porechenkov is a role in itself. What's going on between him and Blanche? And if there is already a fashion show of vicious men and women, in which there must certainly be a naked man as a sign of the quality of modern theater, then why is the scene of Blanche’s rape by Kowalski so bashfully handled? And her rapprochement with Mitch is necessary only to show how Blanche destroys his life, but again there is not a single hint of how she envelops him, weaves a web of temptation, although Mikhail Trukhin is extremely reliable, playing a local man in the street with the pretense of being clumsy. gallantry, both gullible and ordinary.
When the doctors come for Blanche DuBois to send her to a psychiatric hospital, there will be no pity or indignation.
Tennessee Williams
A Streetcar Named Desire
Scenes from city life
Duration: 3 hours with 1 intermission
Cast: Marina Zudina, Denis Bobyshev, Artyom Panchik, Vladimir Panchik, Vladimir Kuznetsov, Vladimir Lyubimtsev.
A Streetcar Named Desire
The play A Streetcar Named Desire, based on the play of the same name by Tennessee Williams, debuted on the stage of the Moscow Art Theater on May 26, 2014. The director of the production, Vladic Nedelin, called his work “scenes from city life.” Perhaps it is precisely in order to witness these scenes again that audiences have been happy to buy tickets to A Streetcar Named Desire for four years in a row.
The plot of the play describes the events taking place in New Orleans. In essence, this is a domestic drama in which there are no main characters and at the same time all the characters are them. Before us is the tragedy of a strong man, Mitch, played by Mikhail Trukhin, and the broken hopes of a brilliant lady from high society, Blanche (Marina Zudina), and the delusions of Stella and Stanley Kowalski, who consider family life an ideal.
Blanche Dubois, once a socialite, comes to stay with her sister Stella. Blanche still clings to the past, lives in an illusory world of glittering receptions, rich men and crowds of admirers, but her stylish outfits have long gone out of fashion, and Tiffany diamonds can only be mistaken for real stones in very dim lighting. Stella, in contrast, stands firmly on her feet. She is married to a simple hard worker, Stanley (Mikhail Porechenkov). Even though Stanley is rude, likes to drink and play poker, and sometimes beat his wife, Stella Kowalski firmly believes that everyone lives this way, because stability is where real happiness lies. Viewers who buy a ticket to A Streetcar Named Desire will experience the downside of the classic American dream and even its complete collapse. The director strives to show how different happiness is for all of us and, alas, it will not work to bring it to a common denominator, average it and make it a mass product. He succeeds perfectly in conveying this deep idea to the viewer.
Worry-free theater tickets for A Streetcar Named Desire
Fans of theatrical art will appreciate the opportunity to purchase tickets to the Moscow Art Theater. A.P. Chekhov without leaving home. On our website you can not only view the current poster, but also book the best seats in the auditorium. There is no need to go to the theater to buy tickets: once you place your order, all you have to do is wait for our courier service employee, who will deliver it to the specified address at a pre-agreed time.
The play “A Streetcar Named Desire” is one of the most famous works of the famous playwright T. Williams. This is the first “serious” American dramatic story that has received recognition throughout the world. It reveals the conflict between attitudes and society. It clearly shows the detachment of the human soul from cruel reality events. A person unwittingly plunges into the illusion of his own thoughts. "A Streetcar Named Desire, a brief summary of which is presented in this article, will not leave any reader indifferent.
About the author
The future playwright was born in March 1911 in the USA. The author's real name is Thomas Lanier Williams; the man took the pseudonym at the dawn of his recognition in society. The playwright described his family in the book “The Glass Menagerie,” veiling the story of his childhood. Little Williams' father was a strict man and constantly reproached his son for his lack of masculinity. And the mother was overcome by pride from her importance in secular circles. Not wanting to do ordinary work in production, Williams decides to travel, which was the impetus for his creative activity. Filmmakers were often interested in his plays and filmed most of his works, including the acclaimed play A Streetcar Named Desire (a summary is described in this article). For this work, the man was nominated for an Oscar for best screenplay. Tennessee Williams died in February 1983 from accident. He dropped the cap of the runny nose spray into his mouth.
Author's worldview
Tennessee Williams wrote the play “A Streetcar Named Desire” in 1947. In it, the author wanted to convey to the reader the irony of the clash of different cultural values and preferences. He brought together people so different in spirit in one place. Each lives according to their own internal laws that dictate to them fate.
The author embodies this in the main characters of the play - Blanche and Stanley. “A Streetcar Named Desire” (a brief summary will help you understand the essence) takes the main character not at all to the place where dreams come true, but to where the doors to cruel reality open. It was not for nothing that Tennessee Williams chose the clash of two different worldviews. He chose the romantic South with with his refined manners and nobility and the calculating North with his cunning and composure.
Tram "Dream"
Blanche Dubois arrives at her sister's house from her family estate, which she had to give up for debts. New Orleans greets the girl with inhospitability and squalor. The tram under the symbolic name “Dream” brings you to the outskirts, where an atmosphere of depravity and dullness reigns. Tired of a series of failures in life, Blanche tries to find peace and comfort in her sister's house. Her entire aristocratic appearance is hard to miss. A white suit, hat and luxurious white gloves create the feeling that the girl is going to a dinner party in elite society.
Blanche's sister's house horrifies her; instead of luxurious apartments, she sees a squalid shack. A sister named Stella is very sympathetic to Blanche and tries in every possible way to support her, which cannot be said about her husband Stanley. He reacted with hostility to the arrival of his wife’s relative. Stanley is radically different from Blanche. It can be said that he is the complete opposite with a callous soul and brute strength. He is more like a caveman, to whom the suffering of other people is alien. He absolutely does not believe Blanche’s stories about a difficult life and insists that his parents’ house was sold. And with the proceeds she bought herself jewelry. Stanley becomes a real enemy in the eyes of the heroine, but she has no choice but to endure rudeness for the sake of her sister, who is expecting a child.
Happiness
Soon Blanche meets Mitch, a mechanic, a quiet and calm person. The girl immediately delights him. After all, she is so different from his environment in which he is used to being. She is educated and very sophisticated. Stanley, meanwhile, is watching Blanche. Having heard an unpleasant conversation between two sisters, where Blanche begged her sister to leave him, he begins to make inquiries about her.
After all, he is not the kind of person who can forgive insults, and Blanche could have a negative influence on Stella. Blanche DuBois's past turns out to be not so flawless. It turned out that after the death of her parents, the girl’s husband committed suicide through her fault. And Blanche, in search of understanding and love, visited many men’s hands.
Exposure
Blanche's birthday arrives. She was expecting her beloved for a festive dinner. She was preparing for the celebration, because Mitch was supposed to propose her hand and heart. Stanley, meanwhile, not without gloating, told Stella that Mitch refused to come because his eyes had finally been opened. That it was he who told Blanche’s lover about her indecent adventures. Stella was shocked by her husband's actions, because she perfectly understood how important the wedding was for Blanche.
The holiday began, but Mitch never came, the upset girl tried to call him, but no one picked up the phone on the other end of the line. At the most solemn moment, Stanley presented a gift for Blanche - a ticket to the city from which she came. Due to the tense situation, pregnant Stella begins premature labor. And Stanley accompanies his wife to the hospital.
Broken heart
When Blanche is alone in the apartment, Mitch comes to her. Being very offended, he mercilessly begins to sort things out, saying that he has figured out the girl and knows the whole truth. Blanche's age does not correspond to the truth, and the girl's integrity can be easily challenged. He himself made inquiries about her past, everything that Stanley said turned out to be true. The girl did not deny anything and admitted what after death her husband was very devastated and sought support and support from numerous partners. She is very sorry for what she did and thanked God that she had a man like Mitch. But the man was indifferent to lofty statements and mental anguish; he began to pester Blanche, thereby greatly humiliating her. The girl chases Mitch away.
Cruel reality
After her lover leaves, Blanche loses her peace and drinks heavily. When Stanley returns home from the hospital, the girl is no longer herself. In order not to lose any remaining dignity, she reports that Mitch came and brought her a basket of flowers. Angered, Stanley humiliates the girl and then rapes her.
After this, Blanche's mind becomes clouded. Stanley persuades his wife to take her sister to a hospital, and she agrees. A doctor comes for Blanche DuBois; the girl missed his gentleness and kindness so much that she meekly leaves after him, admitting that she has always depended on the kindness of the first person she meets.
Heroine
"A Streetcar Named Desire" is a play deeply imbued with the loneliness of the soul, which was not accepted in a cruel world. Williams does not idealize his heroine, but sympathizes with her spiritual simplicity and charm. Blanche DuBois, accustomed to beauty and wealth, arrives in a poor neighborhood to people who live like ruthless machines.The heroine appears in the image of an arrogant person, at the same time she is much more sensitive and brighter than other heroes.
Blanche is very lonely and defenseless against cruelty. And even the fact that she spent nights with countless gentlemen, not because of the depravity of her nature, but in search of a reliable shoulder and support, did not touch anyone. After everything she experienced, Blanche learned to live in reality. The play A Streetcar Named Desire, a summary of which you just read, does not lose relevance in the modern world. The heroine evokes sympathy.
The play A Streetcar Named Desire, the plot of which cannot leave anyone indifferent, has been staged on many stages around the world. It has a large number of fans. A Streetcar Named Desire, reviews of which are mostly positive, is highly appreciated not only by readers, but also by famous critics . This is a classic of American theater that still excites people's minds to this day.
