Bench comedy theater. The play "Bench": audience reviews. Can I have a specific example?

Moscow's New Opera Theater in October last year, serious steps were expected from the very beginning. He declared an ardent desire to reform the theater, which is impossible without fundamental personnel decisions. These followed six months after the appointment: Sibirtsev changed the regulations on the artistic and creative board, depriving the chairman's chair and the position of deputy director for creative issues of the chief choirmaster, the widow of the theater founder Natalya Popovich, who for ten years in this post actually headed the New Opera. The theater also parted ways with Igor Kolobov-Teslya, Popovich’s son-in-law, and her daughter Marfa Kolobova-Teslya, who held the position of head of the literary department, wrote a letter of resignation of her own free will. As a result, the internal conflict between the head of the theater and the family of its founder escalated into a loud public scandal. Dmitry Sibirtsev spoke about the need for tough measures, about changes - recent and future, as well as about the immediate plans of the New Opera in an interview with RIA Novosti. Interviewed Elena Chishkovskaya.

Dmitry, you began to reform the New Opera, but was it necessary to infringe on the rights of Natalya Popovich, who stood at the origins of the theater and, at the very least, kept it afloat for many years?

— When I came to the theater, the things that I would like to do in the near future were identified. Naturally, it’s impossible to do everything in six months, but... This includes the launch of the Mirror Foyer, and support for previously planned productions, and establishing contacts with stars of the first magnitude, whom we would really like to see in the theater, but with whom we need to negotiate in advance. For this purpose, a full-fledged international department was created, a PR department appeared, and much more. But in order for all this to work like clockwork, there must be a clear division of functions and a certain vertical line in the theater. I am the director of the theater, I was appointed by the department of culture. If the department is dissatisfied with my work, then after some time there will be a separation. But until this happens, I have the right to demand that each employee fulfill the tasks that I set. In “New Opera” there is such a thing as “historically developed”. This essentially means that people can do whatever they want and nothing will happen to them for it.

- Can you give me a specific example?

— In six months, I prevented a serious outflow of funds from the theater. A unique situation: the theater began to spend more on guest performers, on the purchase of instruments, but the money did not decrease, on the contrary, it increased. Because a normal supply department has appeared, which is looking for the most profitable options from a commercial point of view, and does not enter into agreements with some friendly companies. There was something like this in the theater, I abolished it, and it immediately became clear that it was contrary to how it “happened historically.”

Let's go back to Popovich. Which of the methods “historically established” during her artistic leadership of the theater did not suit you?

— Firstly, complete disrespect for the people who go on stage. I don't accept this. As soon as I hear screams and yells that a person with power begins to emit in front of his employees, it alarms me. Secondly, absolute rejection of the fact that repertoire policy can change. Thirdly, the habit of certain individuals to consider the theater their property. As soon as I began to change the image of the theater, it caused a storm of indignation: “How can you break the existing style in the theater?!” Yes, I'm breaking it. Because now “New Opera” is not improving in terms of popularity in the city. Look at our website on the Internet, which in theory should attract viewers. It looks like the website of the Institute of Meat and Dairy Industry, where all the heroes hang on the honor board with equally tense faces. This shouldn't happen.

And you decided to take a serious step - updating the artistic and creative board, which for many years was headed by Natalya Popovich in the status of, in fact, the artistic director of the troupe?

— In accordance with the theater charter, I changed the composition and regulations of the board. In fact, the people who worked in it will continue to work. It still includes all our conductors, the chief artist, the theater director and the chief choirmaster, that is, Natalya Popovich. The positioning of each person has changed. The founder of the theater was a conductor, and there is no problem that the artistic and creative board will be led by the current chief conductor, Jan Latham-Koenig. He will determine the musical policy of the theater, he will have two votes on the board. The rest have one each.

- You understand that you have declared war, right?

— And theater does not exist without conflicts. Moreover, a huge number of squabbles were provoked precisely by the policies of the past artistic leadership. There was a system of pitting people against each other, when one soloist could be deprived of a role, while another, on the contrary, was favored. If it were an LLC and there was a director or artistic director who would earn money himself and give it to the artists, there would be no problem. But the theater is not a private shop. It has a founder who pays money. By fighting me, people are fighting the department of culture, which pays their salaries. Their main argument is “we’re used to it.” I can't put up with this. There is no position of artistic director in the theater, and even more so there are no such positions as “Kolobov’s daughter” and “Kolobov’s son-in-law.” There is a head of the literary department and a deputy director. And they must fulfill their responsibilities.

- Well, they didn’t fulfill them?

“As for Marfa Evgenievna, when a spoiled child believes that everything is allowed to him and is confident that he is the rightful owner of the theater, then he must, figuratively speaking, be put in a corner. Our head of the literary department simply did not understand that even in her position she was obliged to obey so many people in the theater. After I held a meeting at which I announced that the main decisions would be made in the director’s office, Marfa came to me and said verbatim the following: “We put you here, we will remove you from here.” After this conversation, Natalya Grigorievna stopped coming here. I understand perfectly well what position Popovich occupies in the theater. There was never a time when I called her - we always called each other and agreed to meet when she wanted. Thus began an open conflict.

- As a result, you fired Popovich’s son-in-law.

— I tried to work with him. He was deputy director for general affairs, that is, deputy for nothing. This was some kind of fictitious position so that a person could receive money. At first I tried to overwhelm him with work. He coped with some things, but in others he showed not very serious literacy. But when a conflict situation arose, he stopped doing anything at all. Then I simply abolished his position.

Natalya Popovich responded to the changes in the artistic board with statements in the press, saying that she would fight for the theater.

— Yes, she wrote that she considered this board incompetent, and sent several letters to the department of culture. I do not exclude the possibility that she will refuse to attend board meetings, although I would not like this, because she is a very experienced person. But on the other hand, she has a certain nostalgia for what happened. You know, there are provincial theaters with metropolitan manners, and there are capital theaters with a provincial slant. I want us to be a truly metropolitan theater. Therefore, the board will meet and resolve current issues. I included invited specialists who are not required to attend every meeting. This is Alla Sigalova, opera historian Mikhail Muginshtein, baritone Boris Statsenko, artist Pavel Kaplevich. Their comments will be advisory in nature. People from the outside can always look at what is happening in the theater with a fresh look and give valuable advice.

- What did you not like about the repertoire policy? The audience seems to be happy, the hall is steadily filling up.

- A simple example. Our chief conductor Ian Latham-Koenig offered to perform Shostakovich's Thirteenth Symphony and Mahler's Songs of the Wandering Apprentice. An excellent program, but not for sale. The regular audience of the theater is accustomed to being constantly given “entertainment” - operatic divertissements, which are similar to one another. People in the same costumes, with the same numbers flow from one performance to another. And this is presented as new. They tell me: “Under no circumstances stage serious operas, people won’t come.” But we must educate the audience.

- Your opponents will reproach you for encroaching on the sacred - Kolobov’s heritage.

— Preserving the legacy of Evgeniy Kolobov is one of my tasks. We have performances that were staged under Kolobov, and there are performances that have his musical edition. In the latter case, the performance, which has become dilapidated due to time, needs to be updated and made attractive to the public. As for those operas that were performed under Kolobov, I can say that today more than half of what he did is not performed. Moreover, these are precisely the names that absolutely correspond to the phrase “New Opera”: “Pearl Finders”, “Walley”, “Mary Stuart”, “Hamlet”. Interesting, rare operas. But to restore them requires serious expenses. Making another divertissement is much easier. By abandoning this practice, we may initially lose some of the audience. But we must bring the theater to a state where the public will come here because there is something happening here that is not in other theaters. We must make our theater fashionable.

The premiere of Wagner's Tristan and Isolde is scheduled for May at the New Opera - far from a divertissement. Do you believe that the troupe will “lift” such a serious work?

— When I came to the post of director and heard about “Tristan,” then, knowing the composition of the troupe, which is focused on a different repertoire, I grabbed my head. This premiere was approved before my arrival, and, of course, it is incredibly difficult. But I am amazed at the efficiency of many of our artists, who, despite the fact that they are participating in the current repertoire, learn the parts, and work with all dedication. I remember on January 2 I came to the theater and saw Veniamin Egorov, who was assigned to the role of Tristan. He had a lesson, he was studying. I was glad to see how professional the person was about his work. This is something that I respect and intend to cultivate in the theater. I told him that if everything went well, if he mastered this material, then he would sing the first performance, although we would have to include guest performers for the premiere. In any case, the performance will be released, and I hope everything will be very worthy. Jan Latham-Koenig is a great expert in Wagner's music, he believes that the theater will cope. Well, the most important thing is that the interest of the audience is already very high. The first two performances are almost completely sold out, despite the beginning of the summer season. This means that “Tristan” attracts the public.

Met:

In the club, after winning the competition, they gave me a banana and a girl, and it turned out to be a dance with the girl demonstrating a blow job on a banana, which was between my legs as a penis, which I waved, looking at the audience. I lit it very well, the men then came up, shook hands, said into the microphone something like: “Thank you to everyone who was rooting for me.”

After the competition, a girl comes up, takes my hand, looks into my eyes, and says that she was rooting for me.
A little Latin dance with her, then she disappeared into the crowd.
I remember what I liked, I go looking for her, I find her on the sofa in the company of friends, some guys nearby.
I’m waiting for an opportune moment, half of the company goes to the dance floor, and I brazenly plop down next to her. I say: “It was cool to dance with you, you have such a nice waist, such a nose, such eyes.” Neutral reaction, polite blah blah blah. I say: “Give me the phone, let’s meet, let’s take a walk.”
- Well, I’m here with a guy in the company, I can’t do this, and all that.
- Come on, what are you doing! What do you have to lose, you'll see, I'm cool.
- (Breaks down) Okay, write it down.

I finished the prize bottle of champagne with a friend, left the club, at the entrance took the phone from the girl with whom I participated in the competition, 6 points, and offered to give me her phone number to her friend, 6.5-7. The friend smiled sweetly and chatted about something. Considering that before this, on the dance floor, in response to the remark with the pretentious non-verbalism of the princess, “I waved my arms here,” I said, “Go to hell,” a very nice result.

Called:

I decided to clear the list of phone numbers, I called her - they said some garbage, something like such a number does not exist. Well, I think, damn, I got it. Although it’s strange, everything seemed to be fine.
Since I remembered that the girl was standing, I did not remove the phone.
I called a month later, got through, was surprised, picked up the phone, conversation about nothing.
Scored.
I wake up one day in a closet on a balcony measuring 2 by 3 meters, surrounded by bookshelves, etc., cars making noise from the highway. The house is being renovated, bags of cement, dust, concrete and building materials are scattered around. It's sunny and spring outside!

I remember that today I have two free tickets to the theater, to the stalls for the opera.
I'm thinking about who to go with.
I open the folding phone and call the girls.
I called her, I remember. She picks me up, tells me how she went to the club, about some problems that happened, I listen to everything carefully, persistently suggest going to the theater, some excuses about how I feel, then he agrees. I myself think that I’m behaving like a pioneer, why did I give up listening to all this nonsense on the phone, then I think that I still need to behave like a human being and there’s nothing wrong with that. In general, at that time I was still captivated by stereotypes, which is why I thought so.
We agree to meet near the theater.

Date:

I arrived a little late. I see her and rejoice at her beauty. I take you by the arm and lead you into the theatre, we are a little late, we go through the central entrance, we approach the entrance to the stalls, the guard says: “This entrance is already closed, go through the central one.” We go to the central one, they close it in front of our nose. Bubulki don't let a damn thing into the hall. I somehow dispose of them, let them through, and sit in the back rows.

She’s suffering from a cough, she infected me too, we’re coughing in the whole room together, the people around us are grumbling.
During the entire first part of the performance we stumble, cough, we are ashamed, but we can’t help ourselves.

During the break, we go out to look around the theater, show her its beauty, go up to the balcony, chat about life, tell about herself, that she was in Japan and worked there for a long time at an interesting job.
I listen to her and look at her beauty, I rejoice. He acts a little smugly.

After the break, we move to the stalls, with the foreigners. There we are also coughing, the guard is ready to kill, finally some woman nearby gives me chewing gum with menthol. Let's quiet down for a while.

After the opera, we go out into the street, I load her with something, I try my best, I see that there is no progress, there is no return, I somehow get bored, I lose energy, I get to the subway, I tell her: “Bye.” She responded with an offer to continue communication and go for a walk around Moscow.

I agree, we go to Manezhnaya, then we sit down on a bench at the AC, hug her, tell her something about the birds, stroke her body, as I wrote. I see what is happening now, after some time I fall silent, I see from the reaction of the pupils that the moment of readiness has come, I suck it in.
We kiss for a long time, it blows my mind, and so does the girl’s. Then the kinesthetics become harsher, they get wildly excited, it’s already late, they accompany me to the metro, I see that they don’t want to let me go. I suggest she come to my house (despite the fact that there is someone at home and there are renovations, the shit is so bad).
— And often do you offer girls to go to your house on the first date?
“Honestly, this is the first time this has happened to me.”
She is very satisfied with the answer, but nevertheless does not agree.
I say goodbye to the thoughts that I could put the squeeze on.
While I’m driving home by taxi, I feel like everything was 100%, I’m tearing myself apart.

Seduced by:

The next day. I’m standing in the forest late at night, chatting.
Call: “La-la-la, I’m there now.” I say: “What did you forget there, take a taxi and come to me.” She: “Hurray, I’ll come to you now.” I make an appointment to meet near the house. I meet her, just for show, I walk her a little, we chat about nothing, then I take her home without telling her where we are going. I just wrap it in a zigzag. We go in, open the beautiful door, behind which there is simply horror. She has a trance from the situation. Until I’m completely stunned, I take her to the balcony, look at the dawn for a minute, go into the closet, light a candle. I gently pull her in.

Small stage for children

Project “Small Stage” at the Novocherkassk Drama Theater named after. V.F. Komissarzhevskaya continues! On the eve of International Theater Day, the premiere of the interactive performance “Theater from A to Z” for young spectators took place here. The younger generation received a unique opportunity to touch the mystery of the theatrical profession.
The cadets of “Private Shop” and I attended both the performance’s opening on March 25 and the first performance on March 26. And this is what the guys who had to be both spectators and actors tell.

"We watched"

“The theater is a place where things that the viewer never dreams of in their dreams come true.”
Peter Zadek.

Do you often go to the theater? How often do you take your children? I don’t think that many people are interested in this kind of art, especially in our city, but in vain. On March 25, I attended the performance of a play called “Theater from A to Z,” which was more intended for children, but, in my opinion, it was no less interesting for adults. The main idea was to talk about the people who play an important role in the creation of the production, but remain in the background of the spotlight. But they perform no less significant work than actors. To ensure that the image of each hero is complete, accessible and understandable to everyone, not just one specialist, but an entire troupe works on it.
The structure of the entire performance was interesting: it was like a production within a production. The story of how everything happens on stage began with the main person in the theater, the generator of ideas - the director. All creativity begins with the choice of a play, one that would inspire interesting decisions.
Then the director goes to the artist to tell him about the chosen play, so that he, in turn, thinks through the scenery and all the design. As soon as this is approved, then prop men begin to work - people who make anything from the most ordinary things (paper, polystyrene foam, plasticine): fruits, dishes, costume parts and much more: everything that is on the stage is their work. hands
Then the director goes to the costume designers. They sew costumes for the actors, all the clothes they wear - both rags and royal dresses - everything came from the needles of the costume designers.
It would seem that everything is ready, what else is needed for a perfect performance? Well, what about those wonderful people who turn ordinary actors into anyone: forest monsters, kings, who attach beards, noses, put on wigs, of course, these are make-up artists, without their work the audience would not always understand the hero.
The matter remains small. When everything is ready, the workers attach the scenery, arrange props, everything as the artist has drawn. An ordinary, gray stage turns into a wonderful world of theater and play!

They didn’t forget to tell us about those whom the audience never sees - these are the masters of light and music, without their work there would be no complete sense of the world where the actions take place. They can do everything: any season, weather conditions, night, day, battles and the sound of the sea - everything is subject to their hands and talents.

Thus, this, although short, but very meaningful performance says a lot about the fact that theater is not only the play of actors on stage, but a complex and fascinating process of creating a production in which a huge number of people are involved. All of them are involved in the scene and perform very important functions.

Alexandra Belik,
11th grade student
Lyceum No. 7,
Junior Correspondent of the “Private Shop”.

"We played!"

On March 26, we (7th, 9th, 11th grades of school No. 5) went to the theater. V.F. Komissarzhevskaya.
Even before the performance began, a journalist approached me and asked me a question: “What does theater mean to you?” I was even a little confused because I don’t often get the chance to talk about this. But I soon realized that it was an improvisation of my classmates; apparently, it was they who recommended me to the journalist, although why ME in particular remained a mystery to me. They promised to show the interview with me on TV channel 37.
But let's return to the performance, it was shown on a small stage.
The theater actors prepared a short performance for us dedicated to Theater Day. 6 actors took part in it. The main character of this performance was the Theater Fairy (actress Valeria Dyba). The fairy told what professions exist in the theater: author, artist, stage director, make-up artist, costume designer, installers, decorators.
For example, did you know that make-up artists work wonders... on the faces of performers - they come up with the image of an actor? Costumers sew costumes not only for people, but also “dress” animals, which actors also have to play. Having visited the costume designer, I learned that the main thing is that the clothes are made not according to fashion, but according to comfort. Installers create various pieces of furniture and household items on stage (cabinets, chairs, tables...), and decorators make wonderful products with their own hands: for example, from paper - various fruits, tools, equipment, and these objects are very difficult to distinguish from real ones. When the play begins, set designers are responsible for all the decorations on stage.

The work of a stage director, in my opinion, is the most difficult. Not everyone can be a director. The Theater Fairy told us how they begin to stage the play. First, the director must choose a good play, then he must go to the artist to tell the “picture” that he sees in his head, and the artist must depict this “picture” on canvas. The director must then select the actors who will play the characters in the play. And only when the scenery is in place, when the lights are on, when all the costumes are ready, only then can the performances begin.

And so, as soon as the Theater Fairy told us all the secrets about the theater masters, we began to stage the play. To my surprise, the actors performing this performance said that we (the audience) would participate in it! Since I was sitting in the front row, I was invited to participate in the play “Turnip”. I was Grandma. I showed my character so funny that the whole small hall laughed, and this gave me determination!

Anna Lopatina,
7th grade student at school No. 5,
Junior Correspondent of the “Private Shop”.

Photo: Mikhail Opalev (11th grade, Lyceum No. 7, junior correspondent “ChL”); Elena Nadtoka.