Tickets for the Warsaw Melody Theater of Europe. "Warsaw melody" mdt - theater of europe

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"WARSAW MELODIA", L. Dodin, SMALL DRAMA THEATER, St. Petersburg, 2007 (8)

The director skillfully switches the register right in the course of the performance.
At the beginning, everything goes through the actors, the first part is played on young organics and charm. Doubts whether two yesterday's students would be able to keep the attention of the thousandth hall of the Maly Theater immediately dissipated, the hall turned on from the very first remarks, an experienced viewer “feels it with their skin”.
Then, when the plot becomes sketchy and by and large banal (a meeting 10 years later, a meeting 20 years later), and it is difficult to expect a full-fledged reincarnation from students in a different age, scenography comes to the fore.

« Warsaw melody» Zorina is one of the most popular Soviet plays, it has many advantages. Classical structure (love play for two actors); conjugacy private history with the Big History movement; bright and contrasting male and female images, and even with development; eventful plot plan(love story) and existential second bottom (human destiny).

But there are a couple of things that make the play more "popular" than "classical".

The duration of the action is divided into three segments: 1946-7, 1956, 1966 (for the first productions of the play, the last segment meant - "in our days", now it's all retro, three layers of archaeological excavations).
The first part, actually a love story with an unhappy ending, is excellently written, fresh, witty, it forms the dramatic core.
The two remaining parts - the afterword (10 years have passed) and the afterword (20 years have passed) - are schematic and, by and large, banal. But Zorin also has a third epilogue (50 years have passed) - the play "Crossroads" ("Warsaw Melody-98"), it was staged at the Yermolova Theater and there the dramatic tension completely subsides.

By the way, what I don’t like about Wong Kar-wai’s beloved film “In the Mood for Love” is the same banal literary ending (“and now they met again many years later”), such endings are very similar to each other and have long turned into a dramatic cliché.

In the performance of MDT, the director skillfully emphasized the merits of the play and tried to hide its shortcomings as much as possible.
The first part was played by young actors, yesterday's students, lively, sincerely, touchingly - as students can and should play.
And the directing here is not only “pedagogical”, here it is not “directing that is dying in the actors”, the first part is precisely “staged”.
Firstly, the love story is immediately taken into brackets, as a “memory” (the hero appears from the audience - an uncle in glasses, in a winter coat and a hat, and only then does he get younger, turns into himself 20 years ago).
And, secondly, the scenes are played exactly like memories, the episodes are not separated from each other, but float on each other, without breaks in time / place.

When staging the next parts, the theatrical interest is fueled by the fact that the actors are given the opportunity to play the age, but this time it did not work. The actors are playing. She is not very convincing in the role of a "star", charisma is not enough. And he has already played all the "age-related changes" during the first exit and is now chewing, solving a problem with an already known answer.
And here the director brings the scenography to the fore. He compensates for some subsidence of the acting duet with a more intense metaphorical plan.

Clouds are floating like piano notes

The scenography in the performance is meaningful, figurative, lively, dynamic. And after all, it was made literally from nothing, vertical music stands with notes and five horizontal pipes - musical lines.
The picture at the beginning of the performance is also good – “white on white” (white sheets of music against the background of the white material of the backdrop). A perfect backdrop for a love story that began at the conservatory and develops like a melody (from lyrical Chopin to dramatic Chopin). Melody - keyword in the title, the performance is staged as a melody. At the beginning, a melody of purely played notes appears in the acting duet. Then in the role of melody - stage space, scenery.
The further, the more, the background begins to move, play, sound. The musical staff rises to the sky. On the musical line, the heroine rises under the grates (leaves for Poland). Lovers swing on a musical line like on a swing. Active, dynamic scenography - branded, forte Dodinsk performances (from "House" and "Brothers and Sisters" to "Chevengur").
The idea of ​​this scenery belongs to David Borovsky, which refers to the clouds-cushions from the most lyrical performance of the Taganka Theater “Hope for a Little Orchestra”. At the climax, the white panel of the backdrop also begins to move, throwing off the props (this is how the clothes of drowned men slipped from the white sheet into "Chevengur") is a simple and transparent metaphor for the historical flow.

The first part of the performance was of particular interest to me, because the time of action, 1946-1947, is a special turning point in history. Unlike the well-known great break of 1929-1930, this break was implicit, closed, which is a big mystery. Both in the play and in the play, a closed fracture is shown. A victorious mood, a new geopolitical reality - a Polish student studying at the Moscow Conservatory, and a decree, fatal for a private love story, banning marriages with foreigners. State - external force, which first brought the heroes together, made their meeting possible, and then divorced, changed their fate. The ill-fated decree seems to me to be a landmark event for Big history, as one of the evidence of a closed fracture in the state, as a clear sign of weakness, cowardice, something unnatural (after all, it is so natural that the winners marry foreigners).
There was a moment of historical crossroads, for some time the country hesitated before making a choice, sufficient potential was gained for a breakthrough in order to jump out of the historical track set by the civil war, to close civil war, to cross it out with the Patriotic War. But it broke, broke, remained in a knurled track.
The cowardice of the state of the winner somehow rhymes with the male insufficiency of the hero, because his name is speaking - Victor, the winner.
For the first time love story interrupted because Big Story made a sharp U-turn, the ground went from under their feet, they could not resist. There is nothing to reproach the heroes with, they tried, but there is no reception against scrap. And apparently for that diligence they were given a second chance. After 10 years, when external obstacles were no longer insurmountable. But the hero did not take advantage of this chance, now there was not enough courage, the closed fracture made itself felt (Vysotsky did not have this “closed fracture”, his story proves the real possibility of another path).
When the third chance appeared, there were no external obstacles at all, but there was no desire left either. There are opportunities, but I don’t want to live (as old Kant said, “when I needed a woman, I didn’t have money for her, and when money appeared, I didn’t need her anymore” :).
In the fate of the hero there is a rhyme with the fate of the country, the closed turning point of 1946 has not been outlived, it manifested itself gradually, after many years, when the country gradually lost the desire to live and the instinct of self-preservation.

Thus, Dodin's performance is a great addition to "a complete course in the history of the USSR in 30 performances", Chapter 4 is exactly the same as chronological framework plays - 1946-1966.

Student of Kalinary College

And one more thing confuses me in the play - elitism, "an extraordinary story that happened to extraordinary people." The heroes are not simple, the professions are the most exotic and the social status is that of a general. Just a love story for a glossy magazine (from a series of Marilyn Monroe and DiMaggio, Edith Piaf and Marcel Cerdan).
The famous singer and PhD in winemaking looks even more exotic than the flight attendant and physicist in Radzinsky's 104 Pages About Love.
A winemaker is also not masculine (“a writer of bouquets”, almost a perfumer :), it would be another matter if the hero was from Moldova or Georgia, and Russia is not a wine-producing country.
The fact that the heroine becomes famous (posters, tours) enhances the dramatic effect (not only is she a Pole, she is also a star, an absolute “dream woman”). But the glamorous profession of the hero only weakens the dramatic tension, reduces the distance between the poles.
Only from the point of view of glamour, the exile to Krasnodar looks so dramatic (that's a bummer, it could be Warsaw, Europe, and here it’s almost Kryzhopol, complete Asia :), and his hitch in response to her question about his wife’s profession (will he really say - "she works as a senior economist at SMU number nine").
If afterwords are a dramatic banality, then elitism can be considered a kind of dramatic dope - in this case it is easier to answer the question about the character "who is he?", and it is easier for the playwright to write about "his circle". The playwrights of the first row knew how to do without such baits (we don’t know if Shervinsky became a famous singer, and Lariosik became an academician, or maybe they disappeared in the Cheka, or died of typhus, or became ordinary Soviet people).

It is very good that in the play MDT did not succumb to the temptation to play on the glamor of the characters and did not focus on winemaking. The hero does not look like a student of a Kalinary technical school at all. By and large, it does not matter at all where Victor studies - at the Food Institute, at the Chemical Technology Institute or at the Institute of Steel and Alloys. Both heroes look simpler and more natural here, without gloss. After all, she is not a “proud Pole”, Polish charm is present, but she has much more simplicity and naturalness, feminine weakness than ambition. Ursula Malka is a natural Polish woman, but it is not at all noticeable that she has to translate, and her accent is just right (maybe the words spoken to Gelena by her father also apply to the actress - learn Russian, it will come in handy).
Danila Kozlovsky is very convincing both in the role of a young front-line officer in 1946 (by the way, the actor graduated from the Kronstadt Naval Cadet Corps - and this can be seen), and in the role of an uncle with glasses in 1966 (but this had to be “played”, here the props are very helped - a hat-pie, astrakhan collar).

Having two such students on the course - a Polish woman and a graduate cadet corps, it is impossible not to put on the "Warsaw Melody".

"Warsaw Melody" is a touching story from the recent, but already well-forgotten Soviet past. This is a story about missed opportunities and bygone time, about the fact that love is a very fragile and priceless gift, over which time, it turns out, is not so powerless. For many years, theatergoers of different generations shed tears over the dramatic scenes of this play by L. Zorin, but today it sounds especially bright, reflecting the absurdity of the Soviet regime and its destructive influence on people's lives. A new reading of this story by Lev Dodin, together with Sergei Shchipitsyn, gave rise to a wonderful performance of Maly drama theater"Warsaw Melody": many families buy tickets for this production.

In fact, there have been many such stories in the past: a Russian guy falls in love with a foreigner. But they can't be together because of the stupid law that forbids marriages with foreigners. Only meetings remain in love - once every 10 years. Both of them are changing, each has their own life, and in the end it becomes clear that they simply don’t need to be together anymore, and do they even want to? Together with the audience who bought tickets for the Warsaw Melody MDT, Dodin reflects on the recent past, recalling at the same time the good things that were in it: music, youth, love ... And the scenery of A. Poray, weightless, as if from a magical dream -Koshitsa reinforce the impression that external realities are illusory and unsteady, and only true feelings are important.

Deep works about love are always relevant, so many directors turn to Leonid Zorin's play "Warsaw Melody", written back in the 60s. In the repertoire of the theater of Europe, the performance in new production L. Dodina appeared in 2007 and since then has been collecting full houses.
touching and sad story continues to excite the hearts of the audience. The audience sympathizes with the heroes, the lovers were separated by circumstances and boundaries, they managed to carry their feelings through the years, but never became happy. The next performance of the play "Warsaw Melody" at the MDT will take place in the spring and will allow you to touch the annals of two destinies again.

"Warsaw Melody" - performance

The new production grew out of a graduation performance by two talented students of director L. Dodin: Ursula Malka and Yevgeny Sannikov. Successful student work got stronger, crystallized and adorned the theatre's repertoire. The choice of material was not accidental, because the artist, like her heroine, came to study from Poland. Ursula plays superbly, striking with the naturalness of the image, and a slight accent is caught in her speech, which is so handy ...
The content of the chamber performance "Warsaw Melody" takes the viewer to post-war Moscow. There are only two characters in the play. He is a former front-line soldier with the name of the winner - Victor and came to the capital to study winemaking, she is a Polish Helena, a future singer, and now a student at the conservatory.

By the will of fate, they find themselves at a concert classical music, their chairs nearby. Chopin sounds, random glances, nascent feelings, developing into a stormy and passionate romance. Explanations, hopes, plans. And all this collapses in an instant: a law is passed prohibiting marriages with foreign citizens.
Victor and Helena meet again after ten years, they walk around Warsaw, immersed in memories. Both have families, successful careers, but are they happy?
Time flies inexorably, ten more years behind us. AND new meeting already in Moscow. Unhappy marriages have fallen apart, it seems that conduct is pushing them into an embrace. But everyone is dressed in their own way, afraid to change their established life. Sad ending, but so familiar to many in auditorium, which can be read in the reviews of the "Warsaw Melody".
The theatrical action goes on for two hours and a quarter. And all this time, the attention of those sitting in the hall of the MDT of St. Petersburg is riveted to the acting tandem of the play "Warsaw Melody", which holds them with the iron grip of talented acting.

Scenography of the production "Warsaw Melody"

There is a minimum of scenery on the stage: chairs, music stands with laid out scores. And a white wide strip hanging from the grate, symbolizing the time and the way of life. On it, the graphic designer A. Porai-Koshits placed theatrical footboards, they depict a musical staff, notebooks nestled in the role of notes.

According to the director's idea, the white fabric in the final part of the play “Warsaw melody in St. Petersburg stretches, destroys the placed attributes, just as the dreams and hopes of heroes in love once collapsed.
For the musical accompaniment of the theatrical performance, the music of Chopin, Vars, Fradkin was chosen.
According to the audience, the play "Warsaw Melody" at MDT is very lyrical with a touch of tender sadness. The fine acting and interesting stage design are highly appreciated.
You can buy tickets for the Warsaw Melody to see a wonderful performance in two clicks on our website.
The nearest metro stations from the stage are Dostoevskaya and Vladimirskaya.

L. Zorin. "Warsaw Melody". Maly Drama Theater - Theater of Europe.
Artistic director of the production Lev Dodin, director Sergei Shchipitsin, artist Alexei Porai-Koshits

“Ah, sir-panova, ah, sir-panova, there’s not a penny of heat ...”

Helena Velikanova sang the cult cycle of "Polish" songs by Bulat Okudzhava - Agnieszka Osiecka for the play "The Contemporary" "The Taste of Cherry" around the same 1960s, when the Polish singer Helena sang on many stages of the USSR in the cult "Warsaw Melody". IN different theaters various songs sounded, but all the “Warsaw melodies” (Yuliya Borisova in Moscow, Lyudmila Kryachun in Sverdlovsk…) protested against borders, totalitarian laws, Soviet careerism and male cowardice. Leningrad melody long years sounded, flowing and shimmering with the soft Polish “tshe” of Alisa Freindlich, who played legendary history love in those years when Lev Dodin began directing.

“What was, then swam away, you can’t return that ...” - Helena Velikanova sang. Today, forty years later, Dodin takes the stage with gray hair artistic director productions of his student Sergei Shchipitsin, who made a play with classmates.

“This play must not be played! What a condo text…” I hear the voices of my colleagues after the premiere. Like, the story about how the student of the conservatory and the future winemaker Viktor (the winner!) met at the Chopin concert and fell in love with each other, how the law was passed prohibiting marriages with foreigners, and how there were two more meetings with a difference of ten years - first in Warsaw, then at a concert famous singer Helens in Moscow. And How polish girl turned out to be a person capable of loving all his life, singing his “Warsaw melody” for many years, and the Soviet “winner”, to whom the bear stepped on the ear (read - the soul), made a career ... Is history outdated? In reality, it is probably difficult for today's young viewer to understand why a Soviet business traveler who arrived in Warsaw in 1957 is afraid to leave the hotel for the night with his beloved woman. But, I believe, today's successful winemaker, who arrived in the capital for a day from Krasnodar (the third act of the play), is quite capable of understanding the torment of a businessman who decides whether the business of the company or a nostalgic date? ..

Yes, it's not even that. The story of love and conformist betrayal, submission to circumstances that we do not choose is not outdated.

It is important which note to take in this melody, which plot to subtract, which score to play.

Photo by V. Vasiliev

Alexey Porai-Koshits (using the idea of ​​David Borovsky) said a lot with his design. On the thin-legged music stands, placed on the white "winter" stage, there are sheet music with different melodies - choose any one and play the music of your life. Music stands with notes also shine on thin rafters. Oscillating back and forth, they look like the "music of the spheres" or the starry sky above us (after all, the play is about the moral law within us...). You can sit on these yards, you can climb on them. And every time the thin-legged Helena, leaving Victor on the ground, rises up to go down after a different time. Not a pale girl in a brown dress, but an elegant Polish lady in a miniskirt and a hat (oh, “Zucchini 13 Chairs” of the same 60s - a black and white television window to Europe with fashionable panenki in exactly these costumes!). Not a fragile Warsaw celebrity, ready (“too badly!”) to give up all her well-being for the sake of love, but a strong, businesslike, tired “Anna Herman” in a concert dress, soberly looking at things, but ... again ready to run away.

And the cold morning will wake up. And no one will come back here ... "

The play was taken because Urszula Magdalena Malka, a natural polka, studied at Dodin's course. The accent does not need to be imitated. Malka leads her melody nervously and seriously. Only she was unlucky with a partner.

There were always problems with the Victors - the winners. “Now you, then me, then me, then you ...” Alisa Freindlich sang, but these swings (now she, now he) did not work, Freundlich’s partners only accompanied her amazing solo (Anatoly Solonitsyn became Victor only for a short time).

U. Malka (Gelya), D. Kozlovsky (Victor).
Photo by V. Vasiliev

I did not see Mikhail Ulyanov, on whom this role sat - like a jacket on the good back of the hero, and the current Viktor is Danila Kozlovsky, the new glamorous young hero of MDT, as if he had come not from the war, but from modern series about rosy-cheeked lieutenants, from the very beginning he takes a hopelessly false note and, to his credit, conscientiously pulls it to the end, without giving a single moment of authenticity to the role. It is as if he has no eyes, but only a mouth, intensively articulating words, which is no longer the first role. Drenched in sweat, which testifies to a colossal psychophysical clamp, Kozlovsky diligently, with the diligence of the first student, “starry” and thoughtlessly shows himself from the favorable side, believing that the advantageous side is not the profile, but directly the face with a strained “Hollywood” smile ... Conduct a dialogue , constantly wanting to turn his face to the audience, it is difficult for him ... Of all the feelings, Kozlovsky clearly broadcasts one thing - a feeling of joyful narcissism: he is young, it is believed that he is handsome. Narcissism, of course, can be a property of the character, Victor, but, alas, it refers to the performer. And it turns out that Urszula Malka is beating against a partner - like against a wall. At the same time, Kozlovsky does not feel like an accompanist, as Anatoly Semenov once did in a duet with Freindlich, he wants to be a soloist. Only he, like his hero, "the bear stepped on the ear."

And so they pull this melody: one nervously, uncertainly and cleanly, the other victoriously out of tune and not even bothering to change the “offered” ones: ten years have passed ... another ten ...

What are they singing about?

W. Malka (Gel).
Photo by V. Vasiliev

It is about the ability of an outstanding woman to love uncommonly, about the “transformation” of an ugly duckling into a beauty, about how the inner steel is tempered in every woman, about male pragmatism, which is useless to resist.

“Without love and warmth, nature is so bitter. The crowd at the beer stall thinned out ... "

He - presses the keys of some plotless scale, but the motive of internal actor's bewilderment involuntarily arises: what, in fact, is the problem? Actor D. Kozlovsky, as it were, reinforces the hero Victor with his own worldview: guys, what are we talking about? Everything was right! Life is good! He, Victor, succeeded, defended his doctoral thesis, she, Gelya, is in a tight tour mode, both are successful, doing their job, what more could you want? To bows for bouquets - in two jumps, almost a somersault! Winner!

Where does this intonation come from, this random turn that has become an interpretation? I think not from the original idea of ​​the young S. Shchipitsin, but from the general mood of the time, which is stronger than any idea, from the success of the theater, where there is a performance, in general, from the category of "success", corroding consciousness. Luck is synonymous with joy, success is synonymous with happiness, comfort is synonymous with love. Zorin wrote just about the fact that success has nothing to do with happiness, but ...

“But the end of the carnival is already looming. The autumn leaf flies like a messenger of separation ... "

"Warsaw Melody" is an old-fashioned play about "another love." In the performance of the new time, “there is no heat for a penny”, the audience often laughs at the cult melodrama of the 60s, which does not touch the heart. After all, if we proceed from today's pragmatic norms - everything is correct, there is nothing to regret - "what happened - it happened, you can't return it"!

« …It will be a long night on the cold ground. And the cold morning will wake up. And no one will come back...- Velikanova sang Okudzhava's poems.

Artistic director of the production Lev Dodin

Artist Alexey Poray-Koshits
(using the idea of ​​David Borovsky)

Directed by Sergei Shchipitsin
(5th year student of the workshop of Lev Dodin, undergraduate practice)

Gelya - Ursula Magdalena Malka

Viktor - Danila Kozlovsky

Funny, ridiculous girl talking to Polish accent, student of the conservatory, future great singer. And a young man who went through the war, a future winemaker, technologist, winemaker. They met at a concert where they played Chopin, sat side by side and suddenly this story began. Love story. They laughed, talked about life and forbade talking about the war, they learned to understand each other and invented "ideas" - they kissed in the museum behind the statues. They met together in 1947, he gave her the red shoes she dreamed of, and she gave him a tie, but before that he had never worn ties! They were together - Helena and Victor, dancing on chairs, walking on pantyhose, of which there are five, past the notes, to the music. And it seems that Victor is shouting correctly, how can this inhuman law prohibiting marriages with foreigners treat them! After all, they love ... But they are just students, and what can they do with the country, with the state, with Stalin and with the law? He leaves for Krasnodar, she goes to Poland. They meet in 10 years - Gelya and Vitek, in Poland. She - famous singer He is a talented winemaker. They have families, and life did not seem to end then, in 47. But what to do with the fact that she cannot live without him, that she remembers him every day, that she sees him at every concert - in the 4th row, what should she do with the fact that she cannot let him go? And he is a Soviet citizen and disciplinedly returns to sleep in a hotel, and does not go anywhere, does not go to spend the night - with her. And she flies back to her life - she leaves under the ceiling on a spandex.
And 10 years later they meet again - in Moscow. She has a concert, and he - in her dressing room gives her wine. She is divorced, his wife is now someone else's wife. But don't return anything. It's too late to change anything. He is no longer an impudent determined student, and she is not a straightforward naive girl. Life has inexorably changed them, and how can one enter the river that has already flown? "Time is never enough - and that's good" - says Victor, tearing up a piece of paper with her room number in the hotel. He will not call, will not come, and who needs it? Life ended for them then, in 1946, when the two of them listened to Chopin...

Music, scenery - everything is fine, everything is in tune with the performance, everything seems to be strained on the same string. But everything passed me by. It's just not my theatre, it's just not mine. The performance is wonderful. Urszula Malka plays surprisingly easily, gently, beautifully. Danila Kozlovsky left a strange impression with his style of play, but it cannot be said about him that he plays badly.
Just "not mine". An alien hall, a constant feeling of a "wall" between what is happening on the stage and the hall. Despite the fact that the action partially takes place between the rows. A purely Moscow approach to creating a performance. Not bad, no, just not mine. I'm closer to mine, native, St. Petersburg. It is not for nothing that the youth is called a real St. Petersburg theater. In any performance, the spectator is a participant in the action, along with the actors. In any performance - "flirting" with the audience, in the very good sense this word. And that's exactly what I love.
And "Warsaw Melody" is like a movie seen in a cinema. Beautiful, amazing, talented, but throughout the action you clearly understand that this is not real, it's just a game.
I am glad that I visited the MDT, that I watched this performance, that I saw what "Petersburg Fomenko" Dodin is. It's valuable. But left no emotion.