Ticket price:
Balcony 1000-1500 rubles
Mezzanine 1000-2200 rubles
Amphitheater 1200-3000 rubles
Benoir 2500-3000 rubles
Parterre 3000-4500 rubles

Stage director - People's Artist of the USSR Yuri Solomin
Set Designer - Honored Worker of Culture of Russia Alexander Glazunov
Musical arrangement - People's Artist of Russia Grigory Gobernik
Director - Vasily Fedorov
Lighting designer - Honored Art Worker of Russia Damir Ismagilov
Assistant director - Honored Workers of Culture of Russia Vladimir Egorov and Gana Markina
Prompters - condemned worker of culture of Russia Larisa Merkulova, Honored Artist of Russia Larisa Andreeva

Actors and performers:
Prozorov Andrey Sergeevich - Honored Artist of Russia Alexander Bely
Natalya Ivanovna, his fiancee, then wife - Honored Artist of Russia Inna Ivanova, Irina Zheryakova
Olga, his sister - People's Artist of Russia Alena Okhlupina
Masha, his sister - Laureate of the Russian Government Prize, People's Artist of Russia Olga Pashkova
Irina, his sister - Varvara Andreeva, Olga Pleshkova
Kulygin Fedor Ilyich, gymnasium teacher, Masha's husband - People's Artist of Russia Valery Babyatinsky
Vershinin Alexander Ignatievich, lieutenant colonel, battery commander - Laureate of the Prize of the Government of Russia, People's Artist of Russia Alexander Ermakov
Tuzenbakh Nikolai Lvovich, baron, lieutenant - Laureate of the State Prize of Russia, Honored Artist of Russia Gleb Podgorodinsky
Solyony Vasily Vasilievich, staff captain - Honored Artist of Russia Viktor Nizovoy, Alexei Faddeev
Chebutykin Ivan Romanovich, military doctor - People's Artist of Russia Vladimir Nosik, Honored Artist of Russia Viktor Bunakov
Fedotik Alexey Petrovich, second lieutenant - Stepan Korshunov, Dmitry Marin
Rode Vladimir Karpovich, second lieutenant - Alexei Faddeev, Dmitry Marin, Maxim Khrustalev
Ferapont, watchman from the zemstvo council, old man - People's Artist of Russia Alexei Kudinovich
Anfisa, nanny, old woman 80 years old - Natalya Shvets
The maid in the Prozorovs' house - Daria Podgornaya, Anna Zharova
Orderly - Andrey Manke

The play by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov "" is not only a masterpiece of Russian (and world) literature, but also a work that has long been ranked first in the repertoire of the world's leading theaters. More than a hundred years have passed since the creation of the play, but not for a single year does it leave the stage of the theater, does not lose its relevance and the love of the audience. It has been staged over a thousand times, it has been translated into many Eastern and European languages, it has been repeatedly staged and filmed. The performance of the Maly Theater is one of the most interesting. Far from the first season, the play "Three Sisters" at the Maly Theater has been going on. Its director is Yuri Solomin, and brilliant and talented actors are involved in the main roles. Not only the metropolitan audience is delighted with Solomin's interpretation of the "Three Sisters". The Maly Theater always shows this performance on tour, and the foreign audience (and theater critics) invariably receive it with great warmth.

There is an opinion that the characters of the Prozorov sisters - Olga, Irina and Masha - were borrowed from the famous progressive Perm ladies of that era, Margarita, Evelina and Ottilia Zimmerman. The Zimmerman sisters made a significant contribution to the development of Perm, influenced the formation of education and culture of the city. For Chekhov, for many years, the issues of educational and cultural institutions were a matter of honor, and therefore the writer could not pass by the merits of these beautiful women. The thoughts that the writer put into the mouths of the Prozorov sisters - statements about the improvement of Russia in general and their native provincial town in particular - are the statements of their prototypes, the Zimmerman sisters. However, creating the characters of these wonderful female characters, the writer could not limit himself to only socio-cultural views. Young and unmarried sisters suffer not only from the suffocating and musty atmosphere of the province, not only from the lack of opportunities for self-realization, but also from uncomplicated love. The actresses of the Maly Theater, who play the roles of the Prozorov sisters, do an excellent job with this task; in their embodiment, Olga, Masha, and Irina are living, real girls with their own thoughts, feelings, and fate.

Solomin's performance "Three Sisters" at the Maly Theater is thorough and unhurried. Before the audience clearly appears a bygone era with signs of the times, with other ideas about life and relationships. An old clock is slowly ticking in a cozy living room, a lamp gently illuminates the room... An exquisite society gathers in the sisters' living room, but the prose of provincial life pursues the girls, they hate her with all their hearts, but live like this, realizing that there will be no other. The hopelessness of their situation is acutely felt by Olga, and Masha, and Irina, with despair and pain. Girls have dreams, plans and hopes, but they are not destined to come true. Days turn into weeks, weeks into months, their souls are tormented, exhausted by provincial melancholy. Perhaps that is why each of the sisters accepts failures in her personal life with dignity, and the famous words - “To Moscow! To Moscow!" - they say, like a magic spell that can be the only salvation ...

Marina Davydova

Freeze. Die. live on

Yuri Solomin staged "Three Sisters" at the Maly Theater

Actors often go into directing and rarely achieve anything in it. Yuri Solomin unexpectedly achieved. The "Three Sisters" released by him in the Maly were made and played with that solid simplicity, which the worldly-wise critics did not even dare to dream of.

It just so happened that for some time now there have been two strongholds of tradition in Moscow - the Moscow Art Theater and the Maly. And they have recently been headed by two outstanding artists - Tabakov and Solomin. The first discovered in himself the makings of an outstanding manager and, in accordance with the spirit of the times, turned the theater entrusted to him into a platform open to all directions and winds. The second, on the contrary, resisted the spirit of the times in every possible way, shied away from fashion trends and was known in theatrical circles as an incorrigible conservative. "Three Sisters" is the fruit of this very conservatism. An unexpected, frankly speaking, fruit.

Tradition is generally a vague word. With regard to the theater, and even more so to the Russian theater, it is subject to definition with particular difficulty. After all, the Maly and the Moscow Art Theater embody different traditions. And "Three Sisters" is not from Maly's repertoire. This is just from a completely different repertoire. To be historically and theatrically accurate, to play Chekhov in Maly in accordance with tradition means to play sweepingly, provocatively, with a certain bias in comedy, most likely in Ostrovsky's comedy. Sergei Zhenovach is the true heir to these traditions. The Three Sisters, meanwhile, were played at Maly in the Mkhatov way, not looking back at any particular production, but in obvious accordance with the hypothetical Mkhatov performance, which, in the words of one of Chekhov's heroes, "represents itself in dreams." The fact that Maly, and even with the help of his artistic director, undertook to solve such a problem deserves interest and respect. The fact that this task proved to be up to him in the end deserves close analysis.

Solomin has never been considered a real director. He, I think, did not count himself among them. He clearly did not have any striking depth and innovation thoughts about Chekhov's play. He was not going to say any new words in art. In general, in this case, he turned out to be not a director, but rather a medium, a conductor of that theatrical idea, in accordance with which one must trust the author as much as possible, honestly try to penetrate into the essence of each character and not deform the play with a concept. These prescriptions now seem as simple as a recipe for pancakes. But in my memory, the vast majority of such pancakes came out lumpy.

Here, let's say, some relative inexperienced in theatrical matters calls you and says: "I want to see Chekhov, but without avant-garde and any bad excesses. In a classical performance." You literally don’t know what to advise a person, because “classical performances” seem to be found, but they give off such falsehood, such a hopeless theatrical routine that it’s embarrassing to recommend them to anyone. When the hackneyed banality with scarves fluttering in the stage wind and the anguish pictorially played on the proscenium is passed off as fidelity to the tradition of the Russian psychological theater, one wants to run away from this tradition and its talkative adherents, like Maupassant from the Eiffel Tower. Indeed, in fact, such adherents destroy it with much greater success than all the radicals and subversives put together. Thus, a foolish guardian can harm the Christian doctrine more seriously than the most vehement atheist.

You leave the Maly performance in a good mood and with joy in your heart. It turns out that it is possible like this - without discoveries and breakthroughs, but also without wrongly taken notes. Without vulgarity and crap. These "Three Sisters" do not look like an anachronism for a single minute, although the entire gentlemanly set of a performance based on Chekhov seems to be in place - detailed interiors, a backdrop with a birch grove, costumes corresponding to the era. Here the sisters (Alena Okhlupina, Olga Pashkova, Varvara Andreeva) will suffer, Natasha (Inna Ivanova) will turn from a timid bourgeois into a hysterical housekeeper, Kulygin (Valery Babyatinsky) will be sublimely defenseless in his love for Masha, Solyony (Viktor Nizovoy) is ridiculous in his romantic claims. But I believe every one of them.

The troupe of Maly - you will be convinced of this once again - is one of the strongest and, most importantly, well-coordinated troupes in Moscow. Her artists rarely appear in serials and television gatherings over a cup of tea, but they do their job well. Of course, Eduard Martsevich in the role of Chebutykin, for a long time, unlike all the others, who has no illusions and hopes, shows a much higher class of acting than, say, Alexander Ermakov (Vershinin) or charming, but not very different this charm from Fedotik or Rode Gleb Podgorodinsky (Tuzenbakh), but not one of them can be reproached with narcissism, shamelessly dragging the blanket over himself.

Sitting in the Small, one surrenders to the measured flow of the play and the performance and discovers unexpected and precise passages in its quiet cantilena. Here Andrey Prozorov (excellent work by Alexander Klyukvin) delivers his next monologue in the last act on the topic “life is gone”, addressing it to Sofochka, who is lying in a wheelchair. And this absurd reasoning suddenly exposes Chekhov's tragedy stronger than any anguish. Or in the finale, loud music does not sound, which, it seems, should accompany Olga's monologue according to the remark, but the sound of measuredly falling drops is simply heard. And this, I must say, is one of the best "mood" scenes that I have ever seen.

Comparing Maly's performance with other "classical" productions, you suddenly begin to clearly understand how a correct answer to a complex question differs from a banal one. Banal - it is always borrowed. For the right one, the work of one's own brain and one's own soul is needed. There are theorems that will never become axioms. They have to be proven every time. In Maly's performance, the work of the soul and mind is visible, and it is able to replace everything that is customarily valued in the modern theater - both stylish scenery, and the unexpectedness of interpretation, and the courage of staged moves.

Somewhere, a tradition that was once inextricably linked with the Art Theater, but which has long since become public property, has died and turned into a dried-up mummy. Somewhere she froze in anticipation of new achievements. Somewhere, as in the Small, continues to live modestly, but with dignity. God bless her.

Rossiyskaya Gazeta, February 4, 2004

Alena Karas

Let's hit Chekhov

The Maly Theater again made an attempt to play the play of the great playwright

CHEKHOV'S zeal, timed to coincide with the anniversary of his death, entered its apogee. After Eymuntas Nyakroshus' terrible, full of confusion and disharmony, The Cherry Orchard, Iosif Reichelgauz spoke out, releasing the merry, trifling operetta The Seagull to spite everyone. The next two premieres - "The Cherry Orchard" at RAMT and "Three Sisters" at the Maly Theater - turned out to be much more solid.

The Maly Theater rarely takes on Chekhov. The centuries have passed, but the nature, the spirit of this theater is still alien to everything that is somewhat "Chekhovian". If at the end of the century before last "The Seagull" had not failed in Alexandrinka, it would have definitely failed in Maly. A clear, strong step, an open and powerful temperament, respect for the word, turning into pathetic recitation - this is the acting style of the Maly Theater, which over time, if it became smaller, never changed its nature. Vasily Rozanov, an enthusiastic admirer of the Maly Theatre, brought up by its great masters, forever retained the belief that "the theater cannot convey anything intimate, hidden, internal .... In general, strength and brevity, as it were, the impact of everything, is the basic law of the theater" .

As if having overheard these long-standing reflections of the Russian philosopher, the artistic director of the Maly Theater Yuri Solomin staged Chekhov's "Three Sisters" in the same way as Yuzhin-Sumbatov or Nemirovich-Danchenko were once staged here. "Hit" in his performance everything and everything. There is not a single remark that would be said quietly, unintelligibly or imperceptibly. The flow of life, its gray everyday life, the singer of which Chekhov was teased for so long, is not subject to the actors of the Maly. The quiet flickering of different plans, the multitude of every minute dramas, the polyphony of voices that, without merging, create an alarming and complex rumble of being - all that makes up such an intimate, inevitable part of Chekhov's poetics - is still an incomprehensible mystery for the Maly Theater.

Watching these torments of comprehension is even curious. The clock strikes, and Irina, approaching them, solemnly and pathetically proclaims: "And a year ago, the clock chimed exactly the same way." Every replica and every line is subject to pronouncement. The sounds on the river, the cries of officers, the rumble of the top, Chebutykin's "ta-ra-ra-boumbia", the noise of the samovar - everything and everything becomes Solomin's solo number. When the mummers are waiting in the Prozorovs' house, Russian folk songs sound like the Pyatnitsky choir lined up right here on the stage.

Actually, the actors themselves line up on the stage, like a folk choir, remembering that they should be seen and heard from everywhere. And if the sisters and all the inhabitants of the house are listening to Vershinin (Alexander Ermakov), who has run in for a minute, then they do it thoroughly, turning right at the viewer. Immediately evident, the general's daughters.

Solomin and the artist Alexander Glazunov, following Chekhov's productions of Efremov and Leventhal, build the Prozorovs' house on the stage in detail with rooms and passages, with a landscape and a birch grove.

But here, from the birch grove, the most interesting begins. Solomin tries to hear the tragedy from the first, cheerful chords of Irina's name day. The grove - the place where Solyony kills Tuzenbach - is constantly present in the figurative structure of the performance, like a dumb prophet and witness to future misfortunes. Yes, and the name days themselves - with a detailed feast, a samovar and a pie - are also read by Solomin as a harbinger. Unfortunately, the actors in the first act act as if all the most fatal outcomes of the play had already taken place.

The holiday begins with a wake. Guests of the Prozor House stand up to commemorate their father, who died exactly a year ago. And even earlier - in the prologue to the play - Solomin reads a fragment of Chekhov's letter to Knipper, where he talks about his heart tormented by unrequited love.

Actually, this intonation of commemorations, deadly portents and personal misfortunes is the main one in the performance of the Maly Theater. With each new breath, his breath becomes hotter, and in the fire scene it almost burns with the number of broken destinies and hopeless loves. Sisters crowded in one small room, Kulygin (Valery Babyatinsky) hiding behind a screen, Chebutykin drunk to smithereens (Eduard Martsevich's gentle and hopeless intonation - perhaps the most powerful impression of the performance), poor old Anfisa (Galina Demina), brother Andrey (Alexander Klyukvin) - Solomin concentrates the degree of suffering to the utmost degree. Perhaps only Masha, performed by Olga Pashkova, does not hear this desperate atmosphere. For her, neither love nor the happiness that suddenly fell upon her are insignificant, the actress easily skips the most important scenes of the play. And therefore her confession to the sisters about her illegal love is perceived as accidental and meaningless.

It is significant that Tuzenbakh (Gleb Podgorodinsky) loves Irina. It is essential that she does not hear this love, but is ready to put up with it. It is significant that Olga (Alena Okhlupina) suddenly accepts Kulygin as a person whom she - unlike Masha - could love. It is essential that he, too, would have been ready to fall in love with Olga if it were not for the weight of moral prohibitions. It is significant that he endures Masha's suffering in the play's finale and is ready to endure it further. It is significant that in the finale the music of the regimental band does not sound joyful and soothing at all, and Olga's words are drowned in desperate and hopeless silence. And it turns out that the Maly Theater sometimes naively and pompously, but still managed to play "Three Sisters" as the most desperate and hopeless Chekhov's play about unfulfilled love.

Russian courier, February 5, 2004

Alisa Nikolskaya

The Maly Theater got lost in three sisters

Performances staged "by the way" are not uncommon in Moscow today. Perhaps most of them should not be worth paying attention to at all. However, there are cases when a performance, staged only to make a certain play appear on the poster, touches the nerve either with an unexpectedly interesting result or with its complete inadequacy.

With the "Three Sisters" at the Maly Theater, everything was clear even before the curtain went up. A leisurely "waltz in the city garden", birch trees on the back, lacy chiaroscuro... You can look at polished furniture for a long time, study palm trees in tubs and guess what the cake on the birthday table is made of. However, at some point you start to pay attention to the action. And you immediately discover a lot of inconsistencies and oddities. At first, it seems that the director of the play, Yuri Solomin, took the most logical path for him and for the Maly Theater - he made a leisurely everyday spectacle out of "Sisters", where the artists walk around in costumes that approximately correspond to the era, and pronounce the text - sometimes with pathos, sometimes with tears and wringing of hands, sometimes calmly and casually.

However, as you progress, the thought comes that Solomin, on the contrary, decided to get rid of the traditional approach and tried to build not a habitually blissful, but a tough and nervous system of relationships. The heroes hate each other with terrible force, to foam at the mouth and gnashing of teeth. And the sisters and Natasha are just competing to see who gets angry with whom. Confused troublemaker Olga (Alena Okhlupina) yells in a bad voice, shouting the word "sweetheart" as if it were an obscene curse. Rustic Vershinin (Alexander Ermakov) talks about love so casually that it seems he is no stranger to such words. Arrogant Masha (Olga Pashkova) pouts her lips in disgust and turns up her nose. She has nothing to repent of before her sisters, and when the military leaves, she convulses like a small child who is not given a toy. The clumsy Baron Tuzenbach (Scheb Podgorodinsky) pronounces every word as if he is embarrassed, but when it comes to "philosophizing", he jumps to the forefront and appeals to the public worse than any other party leader. Apparently, the sleek secularism for this company is just an excuse not to advertise too much the mutual hostility that has accumulated over the years.

It would seem: hurrah, at last there was at least something new in the production of hackneyed classics. However, the longer you look, the more uncontrollably you yawn. "Sisters" is rather badly played: boring, unconvincing, flat. It seems that most of the artists do not understand what to do, and therefore either break into a scream, or simply rush around the stage, blurting out pieces of text. Hatred is portrayed, as they say, "at the level of the throat": they scream, but this noise is in no way justified. Only two people work decently: young Inna Ivanova (Natasha) and Viktor Nizovoy (Solyony). Their characters are the most alive. And about the rest, nothing was even invented. Considering that the Maly Theater considers it its primary duty to place the main emphasis on the psychological accuracy of the action, such inconsistencies are perceived especially strange.

Less significant, but "scratching" moments are also striking. For example, why is there a portrait of Alexander III hanging on the wall in the Prozorovs' house, but not a single icon? And when the heroes stand up to commemorate the dead father, no one crosses himself? For the first time, when Vershinin is a guest, the hosts hustle for a long time in the hall on one patch, although the most natural (both acting and human) would be to go to the rooms. And where, it is interesting to know, is the famous school of manners of the Maly Theater? Everyone's backs are bent, their gait is uncertain, people in their years jump like boys, and not a single gentleman knows how to kiss a lady's hand correctly - they grab it at random. And here's something else that's weird. The Maly Theater has always been famous for its colorful artists. So why is there not a single person in the "Three Sisters" that causes banal audience sympathy? ..

How often do representatives of the Maly speak in interviews about the preservation of the "traditions of the Russian theatre". But, judging by the majority of recent performances ("Three Sisters" is no exception), the very concept of traditions has become rather blurred. "What loses its shape ends," says Kulygin in the first act. I don't want this to sound like a prophecy for the Maly Theatre.

Culture, February 12, 2004

Irina Alpatova

Defector Quartet

Chekhov's cycle completed at the Maly Theater

The dead of winter gave the public a surge of interest in Chekhov's dramaturgy. Almost simultaneously, "The Cherry Orchard" appeared at the RAMT, the operetta "The Seagull" at the School of Modern Drama, two versions of "Three Sisters" - at the Maly and the Armen Dzhigarkhanyan Theater. It's like the change of seasons. Autumn was marked by a "new drama", some of whose representatives consider Chekhov obsolete. Winter, according to the natural balance of nature, presented the audience with four Chekhov performances.

During the life of Chekhov, the relationship between the Maly Theater and his dramaturgy somehow did not work out. All its subtexts, "undercurrents" and other nuances of the "new drama" of a century ago were out of tune with the acting traditions of the imperial stage, although it also yearned for reforms. In Soviet times, Chekhov in Maly was staged infrequently and without obvious openings. But in recent years, there has been a whole clip of Chekhov's productions, and Maly surpassed even the Moscow Art Theater, which bears the name of the playwright, having four titles in its repertoire: "The Cherry Orchard", "Uncle Vanya", "The Seagull" and "Three Sisters".

It is known that some advanced theatrical figures of our time propose to impose a moratorium on the staging of Chekhov's plays. For all the absurdity of the positions, one can still understand them, if only in the fact that Chekhov's super-popularity partly slows down the promotion of the "new drama" of the current model and the next "new forms". True, in fairness it is worth noting that this drama is not even capable of minimal competition. And as for the "new forms", the heroes of Chekhov's works today both sing and dance, and often behave like outrageous avant-garde artists. And by the way, the coolest of the current wave of young directors in their next premiere productions promise us a meeting not with their contemporaries, but with the same "cool" classics.

But today is not about them. At the Maly Theater, its artistic director Yuri Solomin presented to the public his version of the production of the famous "Three Sisters", which to this day have never been staged on the oldest Moscow stage. And here let me fall into banality for a moment. Still, the most textbook classical work is now staged not for its own sake (if the play has crossed the century line, it automatically proved its genius), but for the sake of its pairing with the painful points of today's reality. Yuri Solomin "Three Sisters" emphasized distanced himself from our time. Like the eternal from the vain, the present from surrogates. What he personally stated in the prologue and epilogue of his performance, where his "offscreen" voice sounds, telling that it is better where we are not. This voice clearly tunes in to the fact that we will see a story that happened a long time ago, ideal and single, which can be sympathized with, but very detached.

Meanwhile, the syndrome of "three sisters" still exists, and even in far from ideal modern Moscow, which the young ladies of the Prozorovs so aspired to and did not get. In a very aggravated state, provoked by not so distant social cataclysms. The small one preferred "beautiful far away". Yuri Solomin did not dare or simply did not want to compose any concepts, preferring the traditionally actor's interpretation of the play, deployed on the stage in the same traditionally beautiful set design. The artist Alexander Glazunov built a very remarkable scenery in itself, however, wandering from one Chekhov performance to another. Panorama of the manor park, trees, a pond, in the center - a rotating pavilion representing the interiors of the Prozorovs' house. The viewer, as usual, meets all this beauty with applause.

And then - in the text. Slow, detailed and confident. Solomin is not going to "surprise" anyone. But in the absence of anything else, it is assumed that the viewer should get the main pleasure from acting, which, according to unwritten laws, seems to be traditionally good at the Maly Theater. Anyone who watches the life of the theater with passion has long ago realized that it is good only if it is directed and cut in a directorial way. Even though the director in the old fashioned way "dies" in the actors. Remember at least the play "Truth is good, but happiness is better" by Sergei Zhenovach, recognized as the unconditional first "highlight of the season" of the past.

In Solomin's "Three Sisters" the famous acting ensemble paradoxically appears and disappears, breaking up into separate solo parts that are not always in harmony. The older generation of Maly actors is still on top, represented here by Galina Demina (Anfisa), Valery Babyatinsky (Kulygin) and Eduard Martsevich (Chebutykin). The latter is especially good, because it has its own personal "history", which pulls, without breaking the thread, from the past into the future, which, however, is very uncertain. Here he, usually always drunk, took root, almost the "guardian of the house", its foundations, lively, temperamental, spontaneous, able to hide his feelings and nervously, tauntingly, splash out emotions. Yes, and Kulygin - Babyatinsky, who is well aware of the duality of his position, demonstrates the same duality of existence: a narrow-minded and fussy "cracker", now and then dropping worn-out phrases, and a man hopelessly in love with his wife, capable of understanding and forgiveness.

The Prozorov family itself looks quite ordinary and ordinary. There is no need to talk about the subtlety of feelings, the fleetingness of nuances, and spiritual evolution. Unless the older sister Olga (Alena Okhlupina) tries to "live" on stage in the circumstances offered. The other two are desperately playing "tragedy", real and imaginary. And in different ways. Irina (Varvara Andreeva) brings her desire for childish immediacy to the point of absurdity. It seems that the name day of not a 20-year-old young lady, but a three-year-old baby is being celebrated, so she fusses, exaltedly shouting passages about work, rolling her eyes and wringing her hands. And what could truly direct, sincere and subtle Tuzenbach (Gleb Podgorodinsky) love here? Except its opposite. Masha (Olga Pashkova), on the contrary, does not remove the mask of arrogant contempt from her face, and the final hysteria therefore seems to be an absolutely false number, not too masterfully performed. Brother Andrei (Alexander Klyukvin) looks like an adopted child against their background, because he is much more calm and normal, at the same time accepting his unenviable fate, and doomedly rebelling against her. However, with a similar wife Natasha (Inna Ivanova), traditionally noisy, hysterical, arrogant and shameless, you won’t especially rebel.

You really look at all these familiar vicissitudes through the eyes of an outside observer, now laughing, now maintaining complete indifference. Only the aforementioned "old men" and the episode of Tuzenbach's farewell to Irina are touching. And then only from the position of the baron - Podgorodinsky, because you understand that it’s better to really touchingly part with life than to spend the rest of it in a brick factory with such an exalted, and even not loving person, like Irina.

True, based on the current theatrical situation, one involuntarily wants to be glad that in the performance of the Maly Theater Chekhov's heroes are at least mentally normal, demonstrate a natural orientation and express themselves in censorship.

Vedomosti, February 18, 2004

Victoria Nikiforova

The worst is the enemy of the good

"Three Sisters" staged by Yuri Solomin appeared at the Maly Theater

Difficult people live in the Prozorovs' house. Irina (Varvara Andreeva) in the first act laughs as if she had taken a massive dose of cocaine on her name day, and then the whole performance is sobbing, as if she were suffering from withdrawal symptoms. Masha (Olga Pashkova) says bad things to everyone. Olga (Alena Okhlupina) whines like a blizzard outside the window. There is only one good person here, and that Kulygin too.

The same bad anecdote happened to Chekhov's play that happens to all classical plays in a modern production. All positive characters turn out to be unbearable bores, all theatrical villains turn out to be handsome. In any "Hamlet" of recent years, Hamlet came out as an indistinct whiner, but Claudius was a sweetheart and a clever one. In "The Brothers Karamazov" at the Mayakovsky Theater, of the entire Dostoevsky family, only Fyodor Pavlovich with his cognac and "chicken" evoked sympathy from the audience. Exactly the same thing happened in "Three Sisters". The cuckold, the vulgar, the sycophant, the man in the case became the cutest character in the play. Along the way, he demonstrates delicacy, tact, kindness - all the signature properties of a Chekhov hero. In the finale, he holds a black umbrella over the sisters, covering them from the rain, and a simple metaphor works quite well: only worldly wisdom and common sense of Kulygin can save these absurd women.

Kulygin is played by Valery Babyatinsky. For the premiere, the theater published a newspaper where the actors speak about their heroes. So, Babyatinsky made the most sensible statement about the play: “It seems to me that Chekhov has a kind of smile that removes unnecessary pathos,” he argues. “He is slightly ironic, and this is his highlight.”

It seems that Yuri Solomin was thinking about something similar when he took on the "Sisters". In any case, he allowed Gleb Podgorodinsky to make a disgusting little man out of Tuzenbach, not even a little man, but some kind of Kafkaesque "insect creature." Podgorodinsky played Tuzenbach for the first time in such a way that it became clear why Irina could not decide to accept his proposal for five whole years. "One baron more, one baron less" - quite a worthy epitaph to this insignificance.

In his newspaper, Solomin, not without pleasure, quoted Chekhov's entry, so reminiscent of Lenin's verdict on the intelligentsia: "I do not believe in our intelligentsia, hypocritical, false, hysterical, ill-mannered, lazy." Probably, he was inclined to treat Chekhov's heroes with irony. However, here it was necessary to go to the end and stage the "Sisters" as they deserve it: as a black comedy about provincial hysterics and stupid military men, over whom the author openly mocks.

Solomin, unfortunately, was frightened of this. Or maybe he decided that in the academic theater such experiments with the classics are not allowed. As a result, almost all of his actors do not believe a single word they say. With well-trained voices, they deliver classic lines and romanticize their characters. But, despite all their efforts, the hydrochloric acid of Chekhov's irony corrodes rhetorical constructions about "the happiness of work" and "life in two or three hundred years." When the handsome, hefty military man Vershinin (Alexander Ermakov) says with anguish: "My wife has been poisoned again. Such a nuisance," the audience giggles: Chekhov's farce makes its way out, no matter how hard the actors try to ennoble it.

Chekhov's intellectuals today look like pure aliens. No amount of impersonation effort allows the actors to identify with these lazy, hysterical, irrational creatures. And when Chebutykin (Eduard Martsevich) informs the parterre with a slurring tongue: “Maybe I’m not a person, but I just pretend that I have arms and legs,” the parterre is inclined to believe him.

And only the clever, kind, law-abiding, conceited, high school teacher Kulygin, dressed in a sparkling uniform, seems to be the only living person among these strange creatures called "intelligentsia".

Premiere: 01/16/2004 Director: Yuri Solomin, artist: Alexander Glazunov,musical arrangement: Grigory Gobernik actors: A. Klyukvin, I. Ivanova, I. Zheryakova, A. Okhlupin, O. Pashkova, V. Andreeva, V. Babyatinsky, A. Ermakov, G. Podgorodinsky, V. Nizovoy, A. Faddeev, E. Martsevich, V. Nosik, S. Korshunov, A. Faddeev, D. Marin, A. Kudinovich, L. Anikeeva, D. Podgornaya, A. Manke Photos and information about the performance from the theater's official website: www.maly.ru

"Those who would like to find in the new performance of the Maly Theater "Three Sisters" by Chekhov Mkhatov will be disappointed. In the Maly - their own Chekhov. Brighter, simple-hearted, more diverse. Without much concern for observing Chekhov's tone (muted), style (nobly refined ), rhythm (slow). Without that wholeness, which was a miracle and a mystery in the old Moscow Art Theater." Vera Maksimova, Rodnaya gazeta, 02/27/2004

“Yuri Solomin finds very precise, dotted marks that are deciphered ambiguously and interestingly. So the festive feast began: Masha (O. Pashkova) got up with a glass and silently called on everyone to follow her - the first toast in memory of her father. Everyone understood, except for Natasha (And Ivanova), and Chebutykin (E. Martsevich) quietly whispered something in her ear. This scene lasts for several seconds, but how important, how symbolic it is! The year of mourning is over, hopes come to life, dreams of happiness, but here it is, this the beginning - the memory of death will never leave the sisters, wherever they may be. And almost the only one, Masha understands this soberly and cruelly. " Natalia Kazmina, Theatrical life, 06/28/2004

“Sometimes you wonder how long-familiar meanings are revealed anew, how the missed one is suddenly heard, which you never paid attention to before ... “Three sisters.” Irina is in a white dress, Olga is in gray, similar to her teacher's uniform, Masha We got used to this combination for so long, as if we ourselves dressed the Prozorov sisters in these clothes, without thinking why they were dressed that way. Natalia Staroselskaya, Theatrical Life, No. 3 2004

“The stage director of the play, Yuri Solomin, does not express himself at the expense of the play, does not impose his own concepts on it, but stages it as Dr. Chekhov ordered, simply and clearly. load of interpretations that have accumulated over a century and looks fresh and washed, as on a first date. And Chekhov’s words “it’s good where we are not”, sounding in the theater, standing in the very center of Moscow, where the unfortunate sisters so aspired to, give the production a note of sad sincerity" . Marina Shimadina,Personal time, 26.08.2004

“Chekhov’s intellectuals look like pure aliens today. No effort at reincarnation allows the actors to identify with these lazy, hysterical, irrational creatures. that I have arms and legs, "the parterre is inclined to believe him. And only the dexterous, kind, law-abiding, conceited, gymnasium teacher, wrapped in a sparkling uniform, seems to be the only living person among these strange creatures called "intelligentsia"". Victoria Nikiforova, Vedomosti, 02/18/2004

"At the Maly Theater, its artistic director Yuri Solomin presented to the public his version of the production of the famous Three Sisters, which to this day have never been staged on the oldest Moscow stage. And here let me fall into banality for a moment. Still, the most textbook classical work is now being not for its own sake (if the play crossed the century line, it automatically proved its genius), but for the sake of its connection with the pain points of today's reality. Yuri Solomin "Three Sisters" emphasized distanced from our time. Like the eternal from the vain, the present from the surrogates. " Irina Alpatova,Culture, 12-18.02.2004

"You leave the performance of Maly in a good mood and with joy in your heart. It turns out that you can do it like this - without discoveries and breakthroughs, but also without wrong notes. Without vulgarity and crap. These "Three Sisters" do not look like an anachronism for a single minute, although the entire gentlemanly set of the performance based on Chekhov seems to be in place - detailed interiors, a backdrop with a birch grove, costumes corresponding to the era... Here the sisters (Alena Okhlupina, Olga Pashkova, Varvara Andreeva) will suffer, Natasha (Inna Ivanova) will turn from a timid bourgeois into a hysterical housekeeper , Kulygin (Valery Babyatinsky) will be sublimely defenseless in his love for Masha, Solyony (Viktor Nizovoy) is ridiculous in his romantic claims. But I believe each of them. " Marina Davydova, Izvestia, 03.02.2004

Drama in 4 acts
The performance comes with one intermission.

The duration of the performance is 3 hours 20 minutes.

Compound:

Stage Director - People's Artist of the USSRYuri Solomin
Production Designer - Honored Worker of Culture of RussiaAlexander Glazunov
Musical arrangement - People's Artist of RussiaGrigory Gobernik
Director - Vasily Fedorov
Lighting Designer - Honored Art Worker of RussiaDamir Ismagilov
Assistant Director - Honored Workers of Culture of RussiaVladimir Egorov and Ghana Markina
Prompters - condemned worker of culture of RussiaLarisa Merkulova, Honored Artist of RussiaLarisa Andreeva

Cast:

Prozorov Andrey SergeevichPeople's Artist of Russia - A.V. KLYUKVIN, A.Yu.BELY

Natalya Ivanovna, his fiancee, then wife - Honored Artist of Russia I.V. IVANOV, I.A. ZHERYAKOVA

Olga - People's Artist of Russia A.I. OKHLUPINA

Masha - People's Artist of Russia, Laureate of the State Prize of Russia O.L. PASHKOVA

Irina - V.V. ANDREEVA

Kulygin Fedor Ilyich, gymnasium teacher, Masha's husband - People's Artist of Russia V.K. BABYATINSKY

Vershinin Alexander Ignatievich, lieutenant colonel, battery commander - People's Artist of Russia A.Yu. ERMAKOV

Tuzenbakh Nikolay Lvovich, baron, lieutenant - Honored Artist of Russia, laureate of the State Prize of Russia G.V. PODGORODSKY

Solyony Vasily Vasilyevich, staff captain - Honored Artist of Russia V.A. NIZOVOY, A.E. FADDEEV

Chebutykin Ivan Romanovich, military doctor - Honored Artist of Russia Vl.B. NOSIK, Honored Artist of Russia V.V. BUNAKOV

Fedotik Alexey Petrovich, second lieutenant - S.A. Korshunov, D.A. MARINE

Rode Vladimir Karpovich, second lieutenant - A.E. FADDEEV, D.A. MARINE

Ferapont, a watchman from the zemstvo council, an old man - People's Artist of Russia A.S. KUDINOVICH

Anfisa, nanny, old woman 80 years old - N.P. Shvets

The maid in the house of the Prozorovs - D.N. PODGORNAYA

Orderly - A.T.MANKE

The content of the performance "Three Sisters" of the Maly Theater of Moscow

His play "Three Sisters" A.P. Chekhov wrote in 1900, and for more than a century the performance of the same name has not left the stage, continuing to delight the audience with the story of three sisters, the story of dreams and unfulfilled hopes.

The scene of action is a provincial provincial town in which the Prozorov sisters - Olga, Masha and Irina - live. Their life is monotonous, monotonous and boring. And when a military garrison is located in the town, the sisters have hope for change.

The middle sister Masha falls in love with officer Vershinin, the younger Irina - with Baron Tuzenbakh. But the happiness that the sisters were waiting for turned out to be capricious: Masha's dreams will not come true, and Irina will lose her beloved forever. And then the regiment will leave the city, and life will go on as before, and the phrase "To Moscow, to Moscow!" will become a symbol of unfulfilled desires.

How to buy tickets for the performance "Three Sisters" at the Maly Theater

Buying tickets to the Maly Theater is easy if you think about buying in advance. The fact is that the performance of the Maly Theater "Three Sisters" is sold out, despite the fact that it has been going on for more than a year.

And if you decide to go to Maly for this performance, then you can leave a request right now by filling out the booking form on our website.

Review of the performance of the Maly Theater "Three Sisters"

Vera Maksimova ("Native Newspaper"):

“Those who would like to find Chekhov Mkhatovsky in the new performance of the Maly Theater “Three Sisters” will be disappointed. In Maly - his own Chekhov. Brighter, simpler, more varied. Without any special care to observe Chekhov's tone (muffled), style (nobly refined), rhythm (slow). Life is played in the Small, not hiding how painful and cruel it beats. Tragedies and dramas are repeated, desires do not come true, but hope does not die. Each act in a large, long performance ends not in collapse, but in the revival of hope.

Natalya Kazmina ("Theatrical Life"):

“It would seem that the traditions of the Maly Theater and Chekhov’s dramaturgy are two completely different views, two completely different points of view on the world around and inside the personality, but it so happened that in different epochs of its existence, the theater felt an unimaginable need for this particular author, with the help of whom he talked about what hurts, what does not give peace and harmony. And there were wonderful, albeit completely unexpected coincidences of the “blood type”, which made it possible to discern something hitherto unknown both in Chekhov's dramaturgy, and in the fate of the Maly Theater, and in our, the audience's sense of the world and ourselves ...

The performance “Three Sisters”, staged by Yuri Solomin (artist A. Glazunov, music by G. Gobernik), can be called without exaggeration one of such magical coincidences, when you see long-familiar artists with different eyes, as if with washed eyes, and with your soul you feel the shades that you almost missed before by heart of a familiar text, you build for yourself a different system of concepts.