Brecht is a man from the Sezuan. Good man from Sichuan

You see, Lyovushka, no matter what happens, the main thing is to be able to remain human.
(E. Radzinsky "104 pages about love")

He knows how to do it - to be different, new, unexpected, while maintaining his unique author's style, which the Moscow public has passionately and truly loved for more than 10 years. This is his distinguishing feature. And he does not cement, does not stiffen in his remarkable skill - somehow remains alive, light, youthfully desperate and reckless, perhaps even progressing in this from performance to performance. And you can't create it artificially, it's from within, from yourself. Yes, probably, like this: he creates his performances in his own image and likeness and necessarily inhales a part of his soul into them, in the sense of his own. I feel it this way. And from performance to performance, he seems to push the boundaries of his capabilities - easily and confidently - and carries the viewer into a new space. He repeats in an interview: "The viewer is a friend and ally." Emotional exchange with the audience is the final touch, the last layer on each of his works - probably also why we love them so much and are included in them so much. He is completely restless, inexhaustible energy, ideas and plans. And theaters are tearing it apart. And I don’t understand how he manages everything and manages to do it brightly, extraordinary, qualitatively and powerfully. He is the best director of the country - Yuri Nikolaevich Butusov.

Just now, in October, in his Lensoviet Theater in St. Petersburg, he released the strongest, absolutely fantastic Macbeth (if the performance does not harvest prizes at the end of the season - the right word, all these awards are worthless), as in February, in Moscow Pushkin Theater - also unlike anything hitherto in his director's biography, the most complex and serious work on Brecht's "The Good Man from Sezuan" with marvelous original music by Paul Dessau, a live orchestra "Pure Music" on stage and songs performed live by artists in German (and since, in terms of stage techniques, Yuri Nikolayevich is, in a sense, a trendsetter, then expect a series of performances in Moscow with authentic music and songs in Japanese, Hungarian, Yagan or the Tuyuka language in the coming years). The play itself is very complicated and all inside is in hypertexts, but Yuri Butusov, of course, plowed over the Brechtian text and sowed it with his hypertext as well. Now all this will gradually (as all his works affect eyewitnesses) germinate and rise in our heads. In the meantime - only the first superficial impressions.

I almost forgot: the artist Alexander Shishkin and choreographer Nikolai Reutov helped him create the performance - that is, there is a full star team.

Again, I must say one thing. About my interpretation of the works of this director. I really like to understand them, or rather, I try to do it. His figurative thinking pushes me into the space of images, but if I get carried away, I can wander somewhere completely in the wrong place. In other words, Yuri Nikolayevich puts on performances about something about his own, and I watch them about something about my own. And I can’t imagine how often we intersect with him, and whether we intersect at all. Basically, don't take anything for granted.

So, "The Good Man of Sezuan." In Brecht's play, socio-political motives are unambiguously read, which, as they say, was emphasized in the famous (and which I have not seen) performance by Yuri Lyubimov on Taganka. Yuri Butusov, on the other hand, is much more (and traditionally) occupied with questions relating to the complex and contradictory nature of man, the human personality and the peculiarities of interpersonal relationships. As a matter of fact, this is the base, the foundation on which it is then built, incl. and a socio-political platform, and in general, whatever else you want. Man with his complex inner world is primary.

On the stage, as usual with Yuri Nikolayevich, there is not much, but all this is from his “director's backpack”. Macbeth (Magritte) door, gray boulder stones (from Duck Hunt) scattered all over the floor, at the back of the stage - a dressing room (from Seagull and Macbeth) - this is the house of Shen Te (who, while waiting for the client, will be dressed in a raincoat made of black "polyethylene" - Macbeth - and a black wig from the Seagull), planed boards (Lear) are nailed to the wall, in the left corner of the stage there is a bed (Macbeth, Richard, Lear, Seagull), figurines of dogs, more like wolves (Yuri Nikolayevich's dogs live almost in all performances), on the proscenium there is a small table-“stool” chairs everywhere, some overturned (loose, shaky, rotten world? think). Actually, everything. Before us is the poor quarter of Sezuan, in which the gods are trying to find at least one good person. For almost 4 hours of the performance, the set design will change very little (he knows how to fill the stage with something else: energy, acting, music, riddles), and, of course, each item that appears will not be accidental.
The aesthetics of the performance sends us back to Foss' Cabaret by associations (in fact, Zongs in German are obviously the same). Parallel. Foss's film shows Germany in the period of the birth of fascism, i.e. on the eve of the world catastrophe, in exactly the same way, on the eve of the catastrophe, the Brechtian world froze. Wang at the beginning of the performance will say harshly and with emphasis: "The world CANNOT remain this way any longer if there is not at least one good person in it." In the publicly available translation of the play, the phrase reads differently: "The world CAN remain so if there are enough people worthy of the title of man." Both phrases are about unstable balance - that the world has stopped at a dangerous line, beyond which there is an abyss. I don’t know German, I don’t know how the original phrase of the play sounds, but it’s quite obvious that the second phrase is that the world is still in front of the line, and the first one is that it’s already a spade, that’s it.
The same boulder stones associatively signal that “the time has come to collect the stones” (Book of Ecclesiastes). The expression “time to collect stones”, as an independent one, is used in the meaning of “time to create”, and in relation to Brecht's play, I would translate it as “time to change something”. Until it's not too late.
Or fine sand, which the water carrier Wang will pour first on the white matter in the forefront, and then on his own head. It's not sand. Rather, it is sand for God (sand is a symbol of time, eternity). For Wang, this is rain, water. Yuri Nikolaevich here conjures with water, as he knows how to conjure with snow. But now I will not go into detail about the props, there is much more to be said.

Surprises begin from the first moments of the performance. Yuri Butusov's three gods of Brecht turned into a quiet, silent girl (Anastasia Lebedeva) in a black long coat draped over sports shorts and a T-shirt. An inconspicuous quiet girl, but the holy fool - the water carrier Wang - unmistakably recognizes in her the messenger of the Wise, for holy fools are God's people, can they not recognize God in the crowd. And while the unfortunate Shen Te is courageously trying to bear the unbearable burden of the mission entrusted to her by the gods, Wang is watching what is happening and in dialogues (and, in fact, monologues) with the gods, he tries to answer the questions posed by Brecht in the Epilogue of the play, which Yuri Butusov logically omitted, since these questions are its essence:

Surely there must be some correct way out?
For money you can’t imagine - what!
Another hero? What if the world is different?
Or maybe other gods are needed here?
Or without gods at all? ..

As this tangle of questions is unwound and comprehended, Wang’s attitude towards the Gods changes - from blind enthusiastic worship (with kissing of the feet) through complete disappointment (then he will drag her onto the stage like a bag) to a conscious one .. I can’t find a word .. let it be "partnership". When disappointment in the gods reaches the limit, Wang begins to speak and behave like an ordinary person (without stuttering, cramped muscles) - as if refusing to be a godly person. And, perhaps, I will correct my assumption regarding the sand. Still, for Wang, this is also not water, but sand, a symbol of God. By the fact that he pours it on his head at the beginning, he denotes both his closeness to the Wise (as a holy fool), and their unquestioning worship.

Yes, it’s also important here, in my opinion, why Yuri Nikolayevich deprived the girl-God of almost all words, making her almost dumb at times. Whether God exists or not is a deeply personal, intimate question for each individual person, and this is not what we are talking about here (by the way, Gorky’s Luka in “At the Bottom” gives a wonderful answer to this question: “If you believe, there is; you don’t believe — no. What you believe in is what you are”). Here we are talking about this reciprocal silence. There is great benefit in silence: having reflected from it, the question returns to the one who asked it, and the person begins to deal with it himself, to think, analyze, weigh, draw conclusions. And this is what all the sages and philosophers seem to be talking about: the answers to all questions can be found in oneself. The silence of the girl-God in the play by Yuri Butusov allows Wang to answer questions that are important to him.
“..if you keep looking inward – it takes time – little by little you will begin to feel the beautiful light within. This is not an aggressive light; he is not like the sun, he is more like the moon. It does not sparkle, does not dazzle, it is very cool. He is not hot, he is very compassionate, very softening; it's a balm.
Little by little, as you tune in to the inner light, you will see that you are the source of it. The seeker is the sought. Then you will see that the real treasure is inside you, and the problem was that you were looking outside. You were looking somewhere outside, and it was always inside you. It's always been here, inside you." (Osho)

In the meantime, the finale is still far away, Shen Te, chosen by the gods as the savior of the world (an amazing work by Alexandra Ursulyak), gradually comprehends the bitter truth that a person, if he wants to live, cannot be ideally kind (which means it is impossible to complete the mission). Kindness, unable to repulse evil in order to simply protect itself, is doomed (“the predator always knows who is easy prey for him”). And in general it is impossible to be an exemplary carrier of any one quality. Even if only because (I know it's banal) everything in the world is relative. For ten people you are kind, and the eleventh will say that you are evil. And everyone will have arguments in favor of their opinion. You can even do nothing at all: neither good nor evil, but still there will be people who consider you good and people who consider you bad, and, by the way, they can change places. This world is a world of estimates. Subjective momentary assessments that instantly become outdated (I love this quote from Murakami very much: “The cells of the body are completely, one hundred percent, renewed every month. We are changing all the time. Even right now. All that you know about me is no more than your own memories"). What you really are, you don’t even know yourself, because in unforeseen situations you sometimes give out something that you didn’t even suspect in yourself. Or, on the contrary, you were absolutely sure that you would do something, but there comes a moment, and you are inactive. Every human action and deed (like every word, even casually thrown, because a word is also an act, moreover, a thought is also an act) like any coin has two sides, two opposite in sign results.

For example, Shui Ta, wanting to "fix" Sun Yang, provides him with the opportunity to work off the wasted money and generally find a permanent job and make a career. noble mission. Good deed. Yi Sun, in fact, gradually becomes the right hand of Shui Ta, but at the same time - the most perfect beast in relation to other workers, causing nothing but hatred towards himself. And also - he no longer wants to fly, he has lost his “wings”, which breaks with grief the maternal heart of Mrs. Yang, who knows what her boy is a first-class pilot, and remembers how happy he was in the sky, because he was created for him.

I can't resist.. It's about Chekhov's Black Monk. While Kovrin was not quite adequate and had conversations with a ghost, he was absolutely happy, believed in his chosenness and really showed great promise and was, perhaps, a future genius of science. But his loving wife, frightened by his state of mind, out of good intentions, put him on pills and took him to the village to drink fresh milk. Kovrin recovered physically, stopped seeing the Black Monk, stopped believing in his chosenness, lost the desire to work, went out, faded and became nothing, nobody. What is good and what is evil? What is the norm, what is the pathology? Megalomania raised in man a great scientist, able (and thirsty) to benefit humanity. The desire of a woman to save her beloved husband from illness led to the fact that she killed him.

A person learns about the Law of unity and struggle of opposites at school, before entering a big life. Opposite in meaning, the concepts “go in pairs” - everything is interconnected, interdependent, one cannot exist without the other and is rarely found in its pure form (if it occurs at all). Without its opposite, good is not good and evil is not evil - they are such only against the background of each other. Quote from E. Albee: “I realized that kindness and cruelty in themselves, separately from one another, lead to nothing; and at the same time, in combination, they teach to feel. And no matter how you weigh the facts, or subject them to spectral analysis, giving an assessment to something, you will almost certainly make a mistake, not in general, but in particular. We live in a world of misunderstandings and delusions and persist in them. “Do not rush to judge and do not rush to despair” - the translation of the phrase from one of the Zongs will be displayed on the electronic line.
There are no perfectly good people on earth. And in general, there are no ideal people, and if there were, what a longing it would be to be among them (on this topic - a person getting into some kind of ideal space according to his ideas - a lot of things have been written and filmed. it's really scary). And in vain, a tired God - a quiet girl in worn-out shoes - wanders the earth in search of an ideally kind person (on stage she will walk on a treadmill and ride a bicycle - it's all about her search). Her legs were bled (already in her first appearance), then she was barely alive (in Brecht’s text, one of the Gods had a bruise under the eye of “good people”, and this girl-God in bloody bandages had her hands, head, neck , belly) Wang will drag her to the forefront, and for the third time she will be carried out completely lifeless. God himself could not survive in the world, which he commanded to live according to his, divine, rules. People mutilated God, abused him (in the performance - not knowing that this is God (the townspeople do not recognize her at the beginning), but the deep meaning is that people do not need such a God with his commandments), and God died. And Wang contemptuously throws a handful of sand on a lifeless body, uttering a phrase that in the original of the play belongs to one of the gods (I use a publicly available translation of the play, and for the performance YUN specially translated the play again by Yegor Peregudov):

“Your commandments are destructive. I'm afraid all the rules of morality that you have established must be crossed out. People have enough worries to at least save their lives. Good intentions bring them to the edge of the abyss, and good deeds bring them down.”

Why is God here a girl? (I'm just guessing). Here it is necessary to summarize and name by name what I have been rambling on for a long time without a name above in the text. In "The Good Man from Sezuan" (as in "The Black Monk") one of the main themes is the theme of duality (man, phenomena, concepts, etc.). Yuri Butusov loves this theme very much - it sounds in all his works. Moreover, this term has many meanings, but for us, as non-specialists, it is most understandable (conditionally) direct and reverse duality. Those. in one case - a copy, in the other - the opposite, reverse, shadow side. If you look closely, almost every character in the play has his own double. And even not alone. Such a mirror labyrinth of twins. (Yuri Nikolaevich again drew such an ingenious pattern inside the performance - I can’t recognize everything). I didn’t track the video sequence well (you get carried away with the action and forget to keep your nose to the wind) - / the back wall of the stage, as well as the light curtain descending to the proscenium from above, from time to time act as a screen - the video projector creates a video sequence on them / - but two almost-twins of prostitutes (in black dresses, black glasses) against the background of the image of two little girls-twins (sad and smiling; this is a photo of Diana Arbus "Twins" (Diana Arbus - Identical Twins) I remember. And here they are, a pair of antagonists: childhood - adulthood; innocence - vice joy and sadness.
More. I thought: why did Alexander Arsentiev (Soon Yang) have red eyes. Red eyes.. “Here comes my mighty adversary, the devil. I see his terrible crimson eyes .. "And then -" Brodsky's "Elegy". Yes, it's Seagull. Former pilot Sun Yang is a "postal line pilot" who "alone, like a fallen angel, jams vodka." Fallen angel, Lucifer. Sun Yang's eyes are the red eyes of Lucifer, which the World Soul speaks of in Nina Zarechnaya's monologue. And then the dance of Lucifer with God is also about duality. And about the struggle and interaction of Light and Dark principles in a person. And this is Yang and Yin in the eastern symbol, in which each of the concepts carries the grain of its opposite. One gives rise to another and itself comes from this other .. And this is life (a red balloon, symbolizing first sparkling wine in Sun's glass, and then “turning” into the tummy of Shen Te and the God girl, although one became pregnant from a loved one , and the other was probably raped). And if we continue to develop the theme of Sun's Luciferism: after all, he (again conditionally) competes with God in the right to a Good Man, manipulates what for a woman is the energy of life, love. In general, Shen Te found herself in that very monstrous situation, when everyone needs something FROM you, but nobody cares BEFORE you. The only friend, Wang, again, trying to help her, eventually exposed her, declassified her secret. Throughout the play, no one asks her herself: what is it like for her, what she thinks about, what she feels, whether she feels good or bad. In fact, only God talks to her about her (the entire scene of the dialogue between Shen Te and Ms. Shin on the eve of Shen Te’s arrest is rewritten by Yuri Butusov under Shen Te and God, “I will be there when this happens,” God Shen Te says, this about childbirth, but you need to understand this much more widely).
More about doubles: Shen Te with her yet unborn son, Ms. Yang with her son, Mi Ju's double (when she is in black and cradles a birch log wrapped in a blanket). Yes, in fact, we are all mirrors and twins of each other.
And I didn’t finish talking about God-girl. The main and obvious pair of doubles in the play, of course, are Shen Te and Shui Ta (for such a double that hides in the person himself, Wikipedia suggested a sonorous German word - Doppelganger). But towards the end, when Shen Te is already 7 months pregnant (and when she has been in the "disguise" of her brother, "godfather" and tobacco king Shui Ta for a long time), she looks into the mirror, and her reflection in the mirror is a girl- God with the same 7-month-old tummy. Before Shen Te decides to take advantage of her brother for the last time, the God Girl will be dressed as Shui Ta (she told Shen Te to do this). She, the girl-God, will fold on the floor either a Chinese character (which one?), Or a house from empty cigarette packs that have spilled on her head as an indifferent rain. Shen Te, she is Shui Ta, the Godfather and the tobacco king - was a God in her tobacco kingdom, established her own rules there, introduced her own Decrees .. In general, the same scenario as the Gods with their rules and Decrees for the world in general (recursion, the process of repeating elements in a self-similar way). And everything is destroyed: the world that God built, and the tobacco empire that Shui Ta created.
Now a beautiful phrase came to mind: this performance is about God's search for Man and Man for God. Both girls, through torment and suffering, come to the conclusion that something needs to be changed in the “regulations of interaction” between God and Man.

Brecht left the play's ending open - questions were left unanswered. But Yuri Nikolayevich, despite Shen Te's call for help, nevertheless made the final closed and - giving hope, offering his own version of the answer to the question "what to do". A wonderful final scene (again - as I heard it, maybe I misunderstood it), in which poor Shen Te begs the gods to let her become cruel Shui Ta at least once a week: the God girl, smiling softly, allows (does not brush off in horror this permission, as if not wanting to hear anything, like Brecht's gods, but will say calmly and consciously: “Do not abuse it. Once a month is enough." Yuri Nikolayevich wisely did not begin to remake this world (because we ourselves create the reality around us, these are the fruits of our own labors and beliefs, and not someone else’s, and if they are “someone else’s”, and we continue to live in them, then they it’s just that they’re also suitable for us (“if you’re unlucky today, nothing, you’ll be lucky tomorrow; if you’re unlucky tomorrow, nothing, you’ll be lucky the day after tomorrow; if you’re unlucky the day after tomorrow, it means you just like it better”); so we’ll be redone, Yes, we will return everything anyway); did not change the hero, because Shen Te is, in fact, perhaps the best specimen of the human race; did not begin to abolish the gods (and everything that can be included in a group with such a common name, i.e. both internal and external concepts) in general, because, alas, without any restraining factors, a person very quickly unrestrains himself, plunging the world around him into chaos, and this is a direct path to self-destruction. Yury Butusov changed the Resolution. His God softened his requirements for a person, lowered an unreasonably high bar, allowing a person to be, within much broader boundaries, what he is by nature: different - good, bad, kind, evil, strong, weak, etc. And such a God is acceptable for Wang - they will leave, holding hands.

This, probably, is the “message” of Yuri Butusov to the world, which is now also dangerously approaching the line:
“Man, be a man, with all your human weaknesses, flaws and imperfections, but still try to be a Man, then this world still has a chance to be saved.”
“You can do it, Shen Te. The main thing is to stay kind."

Probably, it is not necessary to love all Humanity, it is very abstract and useless. You can focus on a narrower circle, for example, on those who are nearby. And if there is an opportunity to do something that will help another or at least just please him - why not do it? Sometimes just listening is enough. Such trifles and trifles can make a person happy - every time I am surprised, including myself. People are now terribly disunited, distant from each other, have lost mutual trust, are closed in themselves, the main nature of contacts is the mutual use of each other.
It's hard to live - everything is true, but if you observe, then it is those who have the hardest life, or who themselves experienced something terrible, for some reason, who are most capable of compassion and participation for another. When help was collected everywhere in the summer for Krasnodar drowning victims, old worn-out things - pensioner grandmothers - were carried to the collection points. It's not about the times. "Those are the times." The times are always the same (“Do not say: How did it happen that the former days were better than these? For it was not from wisdom that you asked about this.” - Prince Ecclesiastes). There is something wrong with ourselves.
(Abstracting from the inconsistency and ambiguity of concepts and using the usual understanding of terms): good, like evil, has a chain reaction (motorists know: if you let someone ahead of you on the road, then, as a rule, he will soon let someone ahead of him too ). I repeat: life is a difficult thing, but while we are here, we must somehow live it. In a world where there are more “good chains”, life is easier.
The heroine Doronina in the film “Once Again About Love” sent postcards to all her friends for the holidays: “People are pleased when they are remembered. There is not much warmth in life. She sent 92 postcards last New Year.”

And the last quote. Chekhov, "Gooseberry":
- Pavel Konstantinovich! said [Ivan Ivanovich] in an imploring voice. "Don't calm down, don't let yourself be put to sleep!" While you are young, strong, cheerful, do not get tired of doing good! Happiness does not and should not exist, and if there is a meaning and purpose in life, then this meaning and purpose is not at all in our happiness, but in something more reasonable and greater. Do good!

Honestly, this is a performance after which the Pushkin Theater is no longer discounted by any critic. The first powerful work after the death of Roman Kozak, who headed the theater from 2001 to 2010 and headed for a "serious" theater.

The premieres that came out in the theater before the "Kind Man ..." were by no means bad. All these were high-quality productions, but - what to pretend - with an entertaining message, mostly comedies. In this context, the tragic performance by Bertolt Brecht for the Pushkin Theater is a major milestone in history.

PLOT

In search of a good man, the gods descend to earth. In the main city of Sichuan province, no one wants to take them in for the night, except for the prostitute Shen Te. In gratitude, the gods give Shen Te some money - with them she buys a small tobacco shop. And then begins what is usually called "the road to hell is paved with good intentions." People take advantage of Shen Te's kindness. Business at the shop is going from bad to worse. To save herself from ruin, the girl dresses up in a man's suit and pretends to be her cousin Shui Ta, a cruel and prudent businessman.

Shui Ta is tough on business, refusing anyone who turns to him for help, and, unlike Shen Te, the "brother" is doing well. In a chain of fast-paced events, Shui Ta forces numerous freeloaders to work for Shen Te and eventually opens a small tobacco factory. It all ends with Shui Ta being accused of killing her cousin. The gods will judge him. This is in short.

ABOUT THE TIME

Brecht composed the play for 11 years - from 1930 to 1941. Although the location of events is designated as the Chinese province of Sichuan, Brecht in the remark explains that this can happen anywhere on the globe "where man exploits man."

Meanwhile, the following is happening in the world:

Benito Mussolini puts forward the idea of ​​a corporate state, that is, the idea of ​​the state as the power of corporations, representing and harmonizing the interests of all segments of the population (as opposed to parliamentary democracy as the power of parties). Fascist ideology originated in Italy in the late 1910s, the Italian Fascist Party came to power and established Mussolini's dictatorship in 1922.

The Spanish Civil War begins. As historians write, it was a battle test between fascism and communism. While the Republicans turned to the USSR for military assistance, the Nationalists were assisted by Italy and Germany. The Comintern began recruiting people into anti-fascist international brigades.

The Second World War begins. With the advent of the National Socialist Workers' Party led by Adolf Hitler in 1933, Germany begins to ignore all the restrictions of the Treaty of Versailles - in particular, it restores conscription and rapidly increases the production of weapons and military equipment. October 14, 1933 Germany withdraws from the League of Nations and refuses to participate in the Geneva Disarmament Conference. On July 24, 1934, Germany attempts to carry out the Anschluss of Austria.

March 7, 1936 German troops occupy the Rhine demilitarized zone. Great Britain and France do not offer effective resistance to this, limiting themselves to a formal protest. On November 25 of the same year, Germany and Japan conclude the Anti-Comintern Pact on the joint fight against communism. November 6, 1937 Italy joins the pact.

From 1939 to 1945, about 40 million people die in Europe - 2 million Western Europeans, almost 7 million Germans and more than 30 million Eastern Europeans and citizens of the USSR.

AUTHOR

Bertolt Brecht- German poet, prose writer, playwright, also known as a theater reformer and revolutionary. His work has always caused a lot of controversy, any premiere was accompanied by scandals. Nevertheless, Brecht's theory of the epic theater turned the theater of the 20th century upside down.

Brecht opposed his theory to the “psychological” theater (“the theater of experience”), which is associated with the name of K. S. Stanislavsky.

What is the point?

Combination of drama and epic.

The principle of distancing, allowing the actor to express his attitude towards the character.

The destruction of the so-called fourth wall separating the stage from the auditorium, and the possibility of direct communication between the actor and the audience (the latter is very firmly established in European theatrical culture).

Performance as a form of reflection of reality, including political.

Refusal to recreate the environment, conditional design, only the main signs of place and time.

The action is often accompanied by inscriptions that are projected onto the curtain or back of the stage.

Music as an effective element reinforcing the text (zongs).

Ragged rhythm as "a protest against the smoothness and harmony of ordinary verse".

The performance as a vocation to build a new world.

Plays are the main legacy of Brecht, which made him world famous. He wrote them on the topic of the day and, according to him, dreamed of the time when the world around him would change so much that everything he wrote would be irrelevant. Alas. “The Good Man from Szechuan” (translated as “The Good Man from Sezuan”, German: Der gute Mensch von Sezuan) is a play completed in 1941 in Finland, one of the most striking embodiments of the theory of epic theater. It was originally called "Commodity Love" (Die Ware Liebe) and was conceived as an everyday drama.

Brecht dedicated The Good Man to his wife, the actress Helena Weigel, and the main role was intended for her.

QUOTES

"Your world is cruel! Too much need. Too much desperation! You stretch out your hand to the poor man, and he pulls it out! You help a lost person - and you yourself disappear! .. Probably, there is some kind of falsehood in your world.

“Kind people / In our country they cannot remain kind for long, / Where the plates are empty, the eaters constantly fight. / Ah, the commandments of the gods / They do not help when there is nothing to eat. / Why don’t the gods come to our markets, / And don’t open the cornucopia for us with a smile, / And don’t allow us, refreshed with bread and wine, / From now on, to be friendly and kind to each other?

“I saw the need, / And the fury of the wolf filled my heart. Then / I realized that the transformation is inevitable - my mouth / Became a wolf's mouth, kind words / Burned my tongue, but still / I wanted to be an “angel of the suburbs”. From pleasure / I could not refuse to help. Just one / Happy smile - and I was already soaring in the clouds. / Judge me, but know that these crimes / I committed to help my neighbors / To love my beloved and / To save my own son from poverty. / I'm sorry, but to fulfill the divine plans / I, just a man, cannot do it. Help!"

DIRECTOR

Yuri Butusov graduated from the shipbuilding institute. In 1996 he graduated from the directing department at the Academy of Theater Arts in St. Petersburg. He staged his first performances with fellow actors: Konstantin Khabensky, Mikhail Porechenkov, Mikhail Trukhin. He made his debut at the Lensoviet Theater in 1997 with the play Woyzeck based on the play by Georg Buchner, including songs by Tom Waits. Today Butusov is the chief director of the Lensoviet Theatre, he also puts on performances not only on the leading stages of Russia, but also in Norway, Bulgaria, and South Korea.

Winner of the national theater award "Golden Mask", the highest theater award of St. Petersburg "Golden Soffit", theatrical award. K. S. Stanislavsky, the "Seagull" award.

Director's style: a penchant for the tragic farce genre, eccentricity, deliberateness, sensuality, audacity, hysteria, combined with a philosophical search. Experiments with theatrical form. Always a brutal soundtrack, a mix of pop, rock and jazz hits.

Scandal around Yuri Butusov: In the spring of 2012, Butusov had a sharp conflict with the then chairman of the Committee on Culture, Dmitry Meskhiev, who was trying to ban the director from working in other cities and abroad. Butusov threatened to leave the theater, he was supported by the theatrical community, and Meskhiev soon resigned.

Alexander Matrosov, the performer of the role of Wang:“Butusov is a man of utmost honesty with himself. We all have so much time for ourselves. And he is not. He never flirts, he spreads what he has. He doesn't feel sorry for you or himself. This is his strength and wisdom. At this stage of life - to hell with him, with this word - Butusov is my idol.

Alexander Arsentiev, performer of the role of Yang Sun:“Yuri Nikolaevich and I worked together on only one performance, and all these notions about a tyrant are a big theatrical myth. Yuri Nikolaevich is very vulnerable, just crystal inside. He is a highly educated, gifted director with an interesting mindset. And, most importantly for me, Yuri Nikolayevich is a creative person with a big heart. Everything he does, he does with his soul.”

“The theater is a convention. The general agreement is that there, on the stage, there can be castles, fields, another time, space - anything. The magic happens when we all begin to believe in these proposed circumstances. We are all united by a common desire for truth. It seems to me that in Yuri Nikolayevich this is the most important thing - the ability to discern the truth. Moreover, everything can be turned upside down on stage: a woman can play a man, an old one can play a young one, a young one can play an old one. Everything that happens in Butusov's performances is true.

5 REASONS TO WATCH THE PERFORMANCE:

A decisive and uncompromising directorial statement. Not at all about the social motivations of revolutions and the injustice of society. But about how badly the world works in general.

Grandiose acting work, especially Alexandra Ursulyak (who plays the roles of Shen Te and Shui Ta).

Non-attachment to the era and place.

Furious frankness with which the director reveals the terrible truth to the viewer: there is no hope and never will be.

Critics saw only one “flaw” in the performance. So, an accusation of "imperfect ensemble" was made against him. The reason is that most of the actors are used to playing comedies. They had a hard time adjusting.

Alexander Matrosov, performer of the role of Wang: “The performance has changed the consciousness of the artists who are involved in it. We have grown both as people and as professionals. If we take the Pushkin Theater as a phenomenon, I think we were ready for such a performance, since it happened. As athletes take their record, so do we. After “Kind man…” it is impossible to play badly. Even Evgeny Alexandrovich Pisarev noticed that we had become different. This is a taken bar, and we are starting from it.”

Alexandra Ursulyak, who plays the roles of Shen Te and Shui Ta:“This performance is a precedent and a serious statement. But this does not mean that the Pushkin Theater was green, and now it has suddenly become red. That doesn't happen. You can't build something good on bad soil. And our theater has always been good. We have a wonderful troupe, hardworking, real. I think that any director is pleased and interesting to work with us. Yuri Nikolaevich, we are very fond of

Alexander Arsentiev,performer as Yang Sun: “Nothing just happens. Roman Efimovich Kozak set a serious direction for the theater, and Yevgeny Alexandrovich Pisarev picked it up. And, apparently, the time has come for such a performance as “Kind Man…”, and we have “matured”: we have become older, more experienced. But no one set the task for the troupe to take the heights. To be honest, we did not expect success at all. We thought it was another experiment. But everything worked out the way it did. The performance was created by touch, on a whim. It was as if we were weaving a web that you can blow on - and it will break. Therefore, any detail in the performance and a healthy atmosphere inside is important for the “Kind Man…””.

WHAT CHANGED?

Butusov refuses criticism and social pathos. He fundamentally removed any hint of rebellion against the regime and focused not on the political component of Brecht's play, but on the universal one.

For each character, Butusov came up with a plastic "feature": the landlady Mi Tszyu (Irina Petrova) moves sideways, Ms. Shin (Natalya Reva-Ryadinskaya) constantly waves her arms, the water seller Wang becomes a cripple with cerebral palsy.

Divine challenge. Brecht wrote the play as a challenge to society.

Butusov did not include all the zongs in the performance, he refused frankly moralizing ones, including the final one. Brecht ended the play with the lines: "The bad ending is discarded in advance - it must, must, must be good."

MUSIC

Music in Butusov's play is a full participant in the action (according to Brecht). Chamber Ensemble of Soloists "Pure Music" by Igor Gorsky performs works by composer Paul Dessau. The sound is sharp, expressive, disturbing. And he is ubiquitous. Even when the zongs are not sounding, the ensemble continues to play.

Zongs are the anchor points of the director's concept. They sound in German (again, according to Brecht - the removal of the author). The interlinear is shown as a running line on a special screen.

ARTIST

Alexander Shishkin is Butusov's permanent collaborator. Among domestic theater artists one of the most sought after, productive and successful. Works mainly with directors of his generation - with Yuri Butusov, Viktor Kramer, Andrey Moguchiy, etc. Laureate of the theater awards "The Seagull" (2002), "Crystal Turandot" (2004), "Golden Mask" (2008), Stanislavsky Prize (2009).

Simultaneously with theatrical work, Alexander Shishkin continues to be an easel artist. He is engaged in both traditional painting and unusual digital painting, creating huge oil-like works with the help of a computer (in 2003, his exhibition was held at the Russian Art Festival in Nice). Shishkin's track record also includes performances: he staged great performances in Turin ("City Creatures Parade") and in Helsinki ("Pillar Incubator").

The scenery for The Good Man from Sezuan is sparse and symbolic. Before the viewer - a picture of the end of time. The stage is bare, the backdrop is a brick wall that serves as a video screen - portraits of heroes and modern video art are projected onto it. Boards and bags are scattered everywhere, an old rusty bed stands in the corner. There is a door, but it leads nowhere. In one of the scenes, bare dry trees descend from the grate.

The light is dimmed all the time. The costumes are concise and extremely simple.

Difficulty of rehearsals

There are legends in theater circles about how difficult it is to rehearse with Yuri Butusov. Some are sure that there is no more gloomy and silent director in the whole country. On this score, the performers of the main roles in the "Kind Man ..." express the exact opposite opinion.

Alexandra Ursulyak as Shen Te and Shui Ta:“Yuri Nikolaevich is a wonderful director, one of the brightest in our time. But there are situations when the director must overcome the acting fear, the artist's unwillingness to work or misunderstanding. Then Butusov uses more aggressive methods. He sometimes says himself: "I am in conflict with the artist." An uncomfortable situation for him is something like soil on which something can grow. We tried to be attentive to it in order to feel and understand the coordinate system in which it exists. The further we went into work, the more we felt the warmth from him. Yuri Nikolayevich is very restrained, he never demonstrates his attitude. But personally, what I feel is enough for me. You don't have to say everything out loud. He is silent, it's true. But he knows how to explain, believe me. And if he does not say something, then this also has intent. And sometimes his silence simply means that everything is fine. Because when it's bad, he speaks right away.

B. Brecht worked on the play-parabola about a kind person for a total of twelve years. The original idea dates back to 1930 - at that time the play was to be called "Commodity Love" ("Die Ware Liebe" - in German this combination is ambiguous, it can also be understood by ear as "True Love"). In 1939 in Denmark, Brecht returned to an old draft of five scenes. In May 1939, the first version was completed in Liding (Sweden). Two months later, in July, Brecht began to remake the first scene, followed by a radical revision of the text of the entire play. A year later, the playwright returned to her, hoping to complete the work in April 1940. But on June 11, he wrote in his diary: “For the umpteenth time, together with Greta, word for word, I am revising the text of The Good Man from Sichuan.” In August, Brecht begins to question the central spring of his drama: whether he has shown clearly enough "how easy it is for a girl to be kind, and how difficult it is for her to be evil." Six months later, the last verses were written, which were included in the text of the play: "Song of the Smoke", "Song of the Eighth Elephant", "Tercet of the Gods Flying Away on a Cloud". Yet Brecht did not consider the work completed. “You cannot be sure that a play is ready until you try it in the theater,” he remarked. Finally, in April 1941, Brecht, already in Finland, stated that the play was completed.

According to Brecht, he got the impetus to write the play after reading a newspaper article.

For the most part, Brecht retained the plot originally conceived, but objectified the water carrier's story, turning his explanations into a fabulous dramatic action. Thus, the play, originally conceived as an everyday drama, acquired the form of a dramatic legend, a fantastic parabolic play. Brecht dramatized the anecdotal incident in Sichuan, presenting it as if from the point of view of the water carrier Wang. For the correct perception of the parabola, the viewer must acquire this naive-poetic point of view.

The first production took place on February 4, 1943 in Zurich (Switzerland). The director is Leonhard Steckel, the artist is Theo Otto. Some time later, the play was staged by another Swiss theater in Basel, premiered on March 10, 1944. Director - Leonhard Steckel, artist - Eduard Gunzinger, composer - Frue. The role of Shen De was played by Friedl Wald. Only after more than eight years, the history of the German “Kind Man” began with a performance in Frankfurt am Main (premiered on November 16, 1952). The performance was staged by the director Harry Bukvitsa as a dramatic fairy tale, the artist is the same Theo Otto, who participated in the creation of the Zurich performance. Otto set up several high red poles on the stage, on which wicker square mats glided, they limited the various stages. Solveig Thomas played the role of Shen De with success, Otto Rouwel played Van, Arno Assmann played Jan Sun, and Ernswalter Mitulski played the barber. Theatrical criticism, noting the artistic integrity of the performance and the peculiar interpretation of a number of roles, in particular Wang the philosopher and the sinister comic barber, recognized the Frankfurt performance as one of the most significant theatrical events in the post-war years.

The most famous performances of other theaters in West Germany:

Wuppertal, 1955. Directed by Franz Reichert, art by Hanna Jordan. Cast: Shen De - Sigrid Marquard, Vana - Horst Tappert. The gods and the barber in this performance were wearing masks.

Schleswig, 1955 - a performance patronized, oddly enough, by the Evangelical Academy. Director - Horst Gnekov, artist - Rudolf Soyka. In the role of Shen De - Ilzelore Mene.

Hannover, 1955. Directed by Kurt Erhardt, art by Ernst Rufer. In the role of Shen De - Marilena von Bethmann. In the last performance, critics noted the well-known eclectic design (a combination of a conditional bamboo panorama with a naturalistic drainpipe where the water carrier Wang sleeps) and the non-Brechtian performance of Bethman, who was so naturally imbued with the gentle kindness of Shen De that she could not go over to the severity of her cousin.

An event in the theatrical life of Germany was the sensational production of "The Good Man" in the Munich Kammerspiele Theater, the premiere took place on June 30, 1955. The director of the play is Hans Schweikart (critic V. Kiyaulein wrote angrily in "Munichener Merkur" that Schweikart was so touched by what was happening on the stage, that sometimes he forgot to move the action further), the artists - Caspar Neher, whose design combined lyricism and naked convention (in the depths of the stage - the roofs of houses, over which stylized clouds floated - and a cloud carrying the gods, descending from the grate on open to the viewer thick ropes), and Lieselotte Erler (costumes). The role of Shen De was played by Ernie Wilhelmy, Yang Suna - by Arno Assman (who played the same role in Frankfurt), Yang Sun's mother was the famous actress Teresa Rize, one of the best performers of the role of Mother Courage, Wana - at that time already seventy-year-old Paul Bildt (it was one of the last and best roles of a major German actor who died in 1957). The production was advised by Brecht (see Abendzeitung report of April 3, 1955), who arrived in Munich with Helena Weigel. A controversy broke out in the press around the performance: Munchener Merkur condemned the "propaganda" nature of Brecht's dramaturgy and the production of "Kammerspiele", other newspapers refuted this biased point of view, noted the high poetic nature of the parabolic play, the penetrating play of Ernie Wilhelmy ("Frankfurter Allgemeine", 5 June) and the work of the director and artist (Bayerisches Yolksecho, 8 July).

The first production in the GDR was the performance of the Volkstheater in Rostock (April 1956), staged by Brecht's student Benno Besson in the ascetic design of Willy Schroeder, with Käthe Reichel as Shen De. Critics noted that as Shoi Da she was somewhat grotesque, reminiscent of Chaplin, but she played the girl with amazing cordiality (“Deutsche Kommentare”, Stuttgart, 1956, May 26). Her success was explained not only by the fact that she had gone through the Brechtian school of acting, but also by the deep lyricism of her performance (Nazionalzeitung, Basel, June 8). The Berlin Ensemble staged The Good Man after Brecht's death. The director is Benno Besson, the artist is Karl von Appen, with the participation of the same Kethe Reichel. In this performance (premiered on September 5, 1957), the social essence of the drama was emphasized - for example, in the picture of the tobacco factory, the entire stage was taken away by a high prison bar. The play in Leipzig (1957-1958, directed by Arthur Jopp, designed by Bernhard Schroeder, in the role of Shen De - Gisela Morgen) was designed in the style of a conventional theater and enjoyed considerable success. From 1956 to 1962 the play was staged in ten theaters in the GDR.

The Good Man also has a great stage history outside of Germany. Three years before the Frankfurt production, there was a performance staged by American students at the Kerneji College of Fine Arts in Pittsburgh (1949, translated by E. Bentley, directed by Lawrence Kappa). It was followed by student productions at the universities of Minnesota and Illinois. The New York performance at the Phoenix Theater (1957, artist Theo Otto) with Uta Hagen in the title role gained great fame (according to the critic, she “caught the poster character of the role and only after the disappearance of the gods gave vent to feelings”). In the scenery of the same Theo Otto, the play was staged in London in 1956. Directed by George Devine. Shen De is played by Peggy Ashcroft. Brilliant - according to the unanimous assessment of progressive criticism - was the performance of Milan's Piccolo Teatro. Premiere in February 1958. The director is the famous George Strehler, the artist is Luciano Domiani. The lead actress is Valentina Fortunata, and Van is played by Moretti. In this performance, the stage was almost completely empty, only some hints of a house or a tree replaced the scenery, and the gods descending on a cloud were dressed in bright silk clothes, like theater generals, with long white beards (see G. Singer's review in " Frankfurter Allgemeine, February 28, 1958).

In France, The Good Man was first shown by the Hakameri Theater from Tel Aviv (Israel) in Hebrew (1957–1958), which toured Paris. Later, in 1960, the National People's Theater (TIP) staged the play in Paris. The premiere took place in December. Translated by Genevieve Cerro and Jeanne Stern.

Directed by André Steiger under the direction of Jean Vilar, art by André Ackar. Performers - Michel Nadal (Shen De) Maurice Garel (Yang Sun), Gilles Léger (Van), This performance became a milestone in the history of one of the best theaters in France. In the program released by the theatre, each scene was accompanied by a moral. For example, to scene VIII: "Why not rise above others if they bend their backs?" or to scene X, the last one: "If the world is not fair, the only thing that is fair is to change it." The press unanimously noted the significance of the play and performance. The critic of the newspaper Lettres francaises of December 1, 1960 wrote: “... Andre Steiger, with all possible care, revealed to the viewer the true meaning of the play and managed to find means of expression that were as close as possible to those that Brecht considered the best for performing his dramaturgy. Steiger did this with deep understanding, trying not to copy, not to imitate, not to mechanically apply ready-made recipes, but to find the very spirit of Brechtian aesthetics. Jean-Albert Cartier wrote in the Beaux-Arts of January 20, 1961: “André Ackar kept the sets and costumes in wonderful brown. His share in the success of the performance is great.

As one of the last vivid stage incarnations of The Good Man, one should mention the performance staged on the stage of the Institute for the Study of Theater Arts at New York University (premiere - March 10, 1963) under the direction of Gert Weimann, who was formerly an assistant to such masters of the German theater, like G. Gründgens and B. Barlog. Cast with success were: Shen De - Diana Bart and Natalie Ross, Vana - David Frank and Eric Tavares, Yang Suna - Bill Berger and Frank Savino.

In the countries of people's democracy (Budapest, Warsaw, Belgrade, Ljubljana), the play "The Good Man" was played by numerous theater groups.

The most significant of the Soviet productions of "The Good Man" was the performance of the Leningrad Academic Theater. Pushkin. Premiere - June 1962, Russian text by Y. Yuzovsky and E. Ionova, verses translated by E. Etkind. Director - R. Suslevich, artist - S. Yunovich. The role of Shen De was played by N. Mamaeva, who, according to the unanimous opinion of the reviewers, found an accurate, concise picture of her role and with great naturalness moved from the kind Shen De to the cruel Shoi Da. N. Pesochinskaya in the article “Two People from Sichuan” noted: “All the stage behavior of N. Mamaeva is based on the fact that the actress consistently poses question after question to the viewer, forcing them to think deeply about their solution ... The magnificent plasticity, the accurate and economical selection of stage performances are striking. funds. The details in Mamaeva's game (when we have before us the affectionate Shen De, and when the resolute and arrogant Shoi Da) nowhere obscure the typical, the main thing. The feeling of life's truth never betrays the artist ”(“ Leningradskaya Pravda ”, 1962, August 21). The director and actress found an interesting solution for performing songs. Artists G. Kolosov (Shu Fu), E. Karyakina (Mi Ju's landlady), V. Tarenkov (Wang), A. Volgin (Yang Sun), E. Medvedeva (Ms. Yang Sun), V. Kovel (widow Shin), V. Yantsat, K. Adashevsky, G. Solovyov (gods), Y. Svirin (carpenter Ling To),

The work of the director and artist was noted as an achievement of Soviet theatrical culture. “The play “The Good Man from Sichuan,” wrote R. Benyash, “has its own consistency and integrity. She was especially evident in the guise of the performance. S. Yunovich's talented scenery delights with its organic correspondence to the nature of the work and the strict nobility of the idea. There is nothing superfluous on the stage. Mats and simple unplaned boards. Economical, but mood-accurate color. A lonely bare tree, a fragment of a cloud against a muted background. Accurately calibrated symmetry, creating a sense of unbiased truth. And now a strangely uninhabited, unkind world appears on the scene, where a person who is eager to do good is forced to buy this right with the evil he has done. One of Brecht's most tragic paradoxes" (Izvestia, 1962, October 3).

In the Academic Theater of Russian Drama of the Latvian SSR. Jan Rainisa (Riga) The Good Man was staged by director P. Peterson in 1960. Noting a number of the performance's merits, critics pointed to its authors' desire for external effects that were contraindicated for Brecht. Songs were not interpreted in a Brechtian way: “... the performer of the role of the groom put into the song the feeling of a desperate, lost person. He clenched his fists, rolled his pupils, threw himself on the ground, his groans came from the very depths of his soul, he seemed to demand that the audience sympathize with him, because he failed to rob Shen De and her well-wishers. All this is a sharp divergence from Brecht ... ”(A. Latsis, B. Reich, Soviet Theater and Brecht’s Legacy. -“ Literature and Life ”, 1960, September 25).

In 1963, the play was staged in Moscow by the Theater School. B.V. Schukina. Director - Y. Lyubimov. The performance is a great success. It combined a thoughtful and respectful attitude to Brecht's stage principles with Vakhtangov's tradition of bright semi-improvisational spectacle. True, in some cases - for example, in the interpretation of the role of the barber Shu Fu, this spectacularity was reflected in external effects that were not correlated with the concept of the play as a whole.

Konstantin Simonov in the article “Inspiration of Youth” (“Pravda”, 1963, December 8) wrote: “... a young team of graduates of the theater school, under the guidance of Yuri Lyubimov, who staged this performance, created a performance high, poetic, talented in acting and superbly rhythmic, made in in this sense, in the best traditions of the Vakhtangovites.

The main city of Sichuan province, which summarizes all places on the globe and any time in which a person exploits a person - this is the place and time of the play.

Prologue. For two thousand years now, the cry has not stopped: it cannot go on like this! No one in this world is able to be kind! And the worried gods decided: the world can remain as it is if there are enough people capable of living a life worthy of a person. And to test this, the three most prominent gods descend to earth. Perhaps the water carrier Wang, who was the first to meet them and treat them with water (by the way, he is the only one in Sichuan who knows that they are gods), is a worthy person? But his mug, the gods noticed, had a double bottom. A good water carrier is a scammer! The simplest test of the first virtue - hospitality - upsets them: in none of the rich houses: neither at Mr. Fo's, nor at Mr. Chen's, nor at the widow Su's - Wang can find accommodation for them. There is only one thing left: to turn to the prostitute Shen De, after all, she cannot refuse anyone. And the gods spend the night with the only kind person, and in the morning, saying goodbye, they leave Shen De an order to remain as kind, as well as a good payment for the night: after all, how to be kind when everything is so expensive!

I. The gods left Shen De a thousand silver dollars, and with them she bought herself a small tobacco shop. But how many people in need of help are close to those who are lucky: the former owner of the shop and the former owners of Shen De - husband and wife, her lame brother and pregnant daughter-in-law, nephew and niece, old grandfather and boy - and everyone needs a roof over their heads and food. “Salvation is a small boat / Immediately goes to the bottom. / After all, there are too many drowning / Greedily grabbed the sides.

And here the carpenter demands a hundred silver dollars, which the former mistress did not pay him for the shelves, and the landlady needs recommendations and a guarantee for the not very respectable Shen De. “My cousin will vouch for me,” she says. “And he will pay for the shelves.”

II. And the next morning, Shoi Da, Shen De's cousin, appears in the tobacco shop. Resolutely chasing away unlucky relatives, skillfully forcing the carpenter to take only twenty silver dollars, Prudently making friends with the policeman, he settles the affairs of his too-kind cousin.

III. And in the evening in the city park, Shen De meets an unemployed pilot Song. A pilot without a plane, a mail pilot without mail. What should he do in the world, even if he read all the books about flying in a Beijing school, even if he knows how to land an airplane on the ground, as if it were his own ass? He is like a crane with a broken wing, and there is nothing for him to do on earth. The rope is at the ready, and there are as many trees in the park as you like. But Shen De does not let him hang himself. To live without hope is to do evil. Hopeless is the song of a water carrier selling water in the rain: “Thunder rumbles and it rains, / Well, I sell water, / But water is not for sale / And it is not drunk in any. / I shout: “Buy water!” / But no one buys. / In my pocket for this water / Nothing gets in! / Buy some water, dogs!”

Yi Shen De buys a mug of water for her beloved Yang Song.

IV. Returning after a night spent with his beloved, Shen De sees the morning city for the first time, cheerful and giving fun. People are kind today. The old carpet merchants from the shop across the street lend dear Shen De two hundred silver dollars, enough to pay off the landlady for six months. Nothing is difficult for a person who loves and hopes. And when Song's mother, Ms. Yang, tells that for a huge amount of five hundred silver dollars, her son was promised a place, she happily gives her the money received from the old people. But where to get another three hundred? There is only one way out - to turn to Shoi Da. Yes, he is too cruel and cunning. But a pilot must fly!

Sideshows. Shen De enters, holding the mask and costume of Shoi Da, and sings “The Song of the Helplessness of Gods and Good People”: “The good people in our country / They cannot remain kind. / To reach the cup with a spoon, / Cruelty is needed. / The good ones are helpless, and the gods are powerless. / Why don't the gods say there, on the ether, / What time to give all kind and good / The opportunity to live in a good, kind world?

V. Clever and prudent Shoy Da, whose eyes are not blinded by love, sees deceit. Yang Sun is not afraid of cruelty and meanness: let the place promised to him be someone else's, and the pilot who will be fired from him has a large family, let Shen De part with the shop, besides which she has nothing, and the old people will lose their two hundred dollars and lose their housing , just to get your way. Such a one cannot be trusted, and Shoy Da seeks support in a rich barber who is ready to marry Shen De. But the mind is powerless where love is at work, and Shen De leaves with Sun: “I want to leave with the one I love, / I don’t want to think about whether it’s good. / I don't want to know if he loves me. / I want to leave with the one I love.”

VI. A small cheap restaurant in the suburbs is preparing for the wedding of Yang Sun and Shen De. Bride in wedding dress, groom in tuxedo. But the ceremony still does not start, and the bonza looks at his watch - the groom and his mother are waiting for Shoi Da, who should bring three hundred silver dollars. Yang Song sings "Song of Saint Never's Day": "On this day, evil is taken by the throat, / On this day, all the poor are lucky, / Both the master and the laborer / Walk together to the tavern / On Saint Never's day / The skinny one drinks at the fat one at a party . / We can no longer wait. / That's why they should give us, / People of hard work, / Saint Never Day, / Saint Never Day, / Day when we will rest.

“He will never come again,” Ms. Yang says. Three are sitting and two of them are looking at the door.

VII. Shen De's meager possessions are on a cart near the tobacco shop - the shop had to be sold in order to repay the debt to the old people. The barber Shu Fu is ready to help: he will give his barracks for the poor, whom Shen De helps (you can’t keep goods there anyway - it’s too damp), and write out a check. And Shen De is happy: she felt in herself a future son - a pilot, "a new conqueror / Inaccessible mountains and unknown regions!" But how to protect him from the cruelty of this world? She sees the carpenter's little son, who is looking for food in the garbage can, and swears that she will not rest until she saves her son, at least him alone. It's time to be your cousin again.

Mr. Shoi Da announces to the audience that his cousin will not leave them without help in the future, but from now on, the distribution of food without reciprocal services stops, and in the houses of Mr. Shu Fu there will be one who agrees to work for Shen De.

VIII. The tobacco factory that Shoi Da set up in the barracks is staffed by men, women and children. The overseer - and cruel - here is Yang Sun: he is not at all sad about the change of fate and shows that he is ready for anything for the interests of the company. But where is Shen De? Where is the good man? Where is the one who many months ago on a rainy day in a moment of joy bought a mug of water from a water carrier? Where is she and her unborn child that she told the water carrier about? And Sun would also like to know this: if his ex-fiancee was pregnant, then he, as the father of the child, can apply for the position of the owner. And here, by the way, in the knot of her dress. Has not the cruel cousin killed the unfortunate woman? The police come to the house. Mr. Shoi Da is facing trial.

IX. In the courtroom, Shen De's friends (Wang the water carrier, old couple, grandfather and niece) and Shoi Da's partners (Mr. Shu Fu and the landlady) are waiting for the hearing to begin. At the sight of the judges entering the hall, Shoi Da faints - these are the gods. The gods are by no means omniscient: under the mask and costume of Shoi Da, they do not recognize Shen De. And only when, unable to withstand the accusations of the good and the intercession of the evil, Shoi Da takes off his mask and tears off his clothes, the gods see with horror that their mission has failed: their good man and the evil and callous Shoi Da are one person. It is not possible in this world to be kind to others and at the same time to yourself, you cannot save others and not destroy yourself, you cannot make everyone happy and yourself with everyone together! But the gods have no time to understand such complexities. Is it possible to refuse the commandments? No never! Recognize that the world must be changed? How? By whom? No, everything is okay. And they reassure people: “Shen De did not die, she was only hidden. There is a good man among you." And to Shen De’s desperate cry: “But I need a cousin,” they hastily answer: “But not too often!” And while Shen De stretches out his hands to them in despair, they, smiling and nodding, disappear above.

Epilogue. The final monologue of the actor in front of the public: “Oh, my venerable public! The end is unimportant. This I know. / In our hands, the most beautiful fairy tale suddenly received a bitter denouement. / The curtain is lowered, and we stand in embarrassment - we have not found the issues of resolution. / So what's the deal? We are not looking for benefits, / So, there must be some right way out? / You can’t imagine for money - what! Another hero? What if the world is different? / Maybe other gods are needed here? Or no gods at all? I am silent in anxiety. / So help us! Correct the trouble - and direct your thought and mind here. / Try to find good for good - good ways. / Bad ending - discarded in advance. / He must, must, must be good!”

retold T. A. Voznesenskaya.

"The Good Man from Sezuan" is the performance from which Taganka began. Although many actors are no longer alive, the fact that this is a production by Yuri Petrovich Lyubimov is felt. The action of the performance is permeated with Lyubov's atmosphere.

"The good man from Sesuan." Plot

The gods do not want to believe that there are no good people left on earth and almost pilgrims travel the world. Why almost - because they seem so natural to themselves, but in fact an ordinary water carrier recognizes the gods in the satellites. Sezuan is one of the many cities that they came across along the way. Maybe someone will shelter them for the night?

I managed to ask for it only to a girl of easy virtue. The rest - with heavy - were adamant. And the one with the lung, she can't say no.

As they left, the gods thanked the girl. And then it all started...

eternal questions

• Is it easier to be kind if you have money?
• How long can you stay kind with money?
• Is it possible to be infinitely kind? Is there an inexhaustible source of kindness?
• Is it true that kindness should be with fists?
• Why do brains turn off when you love?
• What is more important - feelings or obligations?
• Is life easier for the good than for the evil, or is it more difficult?
• Kind people - simpletons? And why is it said that simplicity is worse than theft?
• What, in the end, is stronger - good or evil? Now, if two opposite people converge, will the bad one, in the end, become better or the good one worse?

If you decide to go to the play, your head will swell from such questions. And the heart will break with pity ... And despite all this, you will giggle at the jokes of the characters. Here is such a paradox.

How about this dialogue:

First god. "Most importantly, stay kind, Shen Te! Farewell!"

They turn to leave, nod goodbye to her.

Shen Te (frightened). "But I'm not sure of myself, wise ones! How can I be kind when everything is so expensive?"

Second god. "Here, unfortunately, we are powerless. We cannot interfere in economic issues."

Third God. "Wait! Wait a minute! If she had some means, it would probably be easier for her to remain kind."

Nothing has changed in our lives...

Author

When I used to try to feel the work of "The Good Man from Sezuan", reading about Vysotsky, and that the role of the unemployed pilot Sung Yang was his favorite, everything seemed incomprehensible to me. And the main character is one in two faces, and the strange names of the characters, clearly not existing in reality, clearly invented, made in the Chinese manner, but not Chinese - Shue Ta, Shen Te, and maybe Chinese - Mrs. Shin, pilot Song, brother Wong. In general, it seemed strange.

Then, after watching, there is a desire to "catch up" with information, you read about the author, and about his time, and about the history of the creation of the play. And you understand what Brecht is. And you penetrate. This quote is revealing:

Me-ti said: my deeds are bad. Rumors are spreading everywhere that I have said the most ridiculous things. The trouble is, absolutely between us, most of them I actually said.

actors

If you are our longtime reader, you might have noticed that we often visited Taganka. And some actors are already like close people for us. We are glad every meeting with them, and expectations are justified. Trifonov, Luchikhin, Radtsig, Ryabushinsky, Badalbeyli, Nechitailo, Gaaz, Kotov, Ushakov, Staburov, Sidorenko. They are certainly talented, and each new role they see reveals another facet of their talent.

The discovery this time for us was Maria Matveeva in the title role and - surprisingly - Marfa Koltsova. And her role is not a role, but a role, but HOW it is presented! Several days have passed, and her image is still before my eyes, and her raspy voice and phrases uttered like a broken record are heard in my ears.

Pleased. Each of the images - absolutely everyone - was remembered.

Bright bitchy Margot. In another cast, the housekeeper Mi Tzi is played by Anastasia Kolpikova, so it is very difficult to imagine her.

Enchanting extreme Timur. Just a barber-darling Shu Fu!

Dmitry Vysotsky opened from the other side. Like I didn't get it at all. And as a water carrier, he is incomparable.

The same story with Mikhail Lukin. Woland, in my opinion, he is so-so. Boring. And here - just a musician. But captivating, memorable. How to explain this phenomenon - I do not know.
Another musician Anatoly Vasiliev is a theater legend. I feel reverent delight in relation to those people who stood on the same stage with Vysotsky. And even then he was the same musician. Moreover, the music is his.

Music

Can you imagine a film or performance with Vysotsky without music? Yes, of course, "Dima Gorin's Career" or "The Cook". Or the same "Meeting place ...". You can remember if you want. But the same "Hozyan taiga" or "Intervention" is primarily remembered by songs.

"The Good Man of Cezuan" is filled with songs, and in addition, music often plays in the background, setting the mood and giving meaning to the scenes of the play.

Lyrics do not lose, unfortunately, over time, acute social orientation. Half a century has passed since the staging of the play in Taganka, a century has almost passed since the writing of the texts, but come on!

Sheep march in a row
The drums are beating
They give skin
The sheep themselves.

We can no longer wait.
That is why we must give
People of hard work
Saint Never's Day -
The day we will rest.

staging

The production is original, Lyubov's.

Taganka began with "The Good Man". And despite the fact that many of the actors of that time are now gone, the spirit of Lyubimov is felt, carefully, reverently preserved.

Minimalism of the props and simplicity of the costumes. The emphasis is on acting. Each character has its own character.

The portrait of Bertolt Brecht and some of the scenery seem to have survived from that time.

Impression

After all that has been said, talking about impressions, in my opinion, is superfluous.

"The good man from Sezuan" hooked. And it is not clear why, despite all the tragedy of the problem posed and the questions asked, it was easy and pleasant to watch it. Probably, this is the SKILL OF TAGANKA.