Stage history of the comedy woe from wit message. The history of the creation of the comedy “Woe from Wit. general description of work

Comedy “Woe from Wit” by A.S. Griboyedova brought immortal glory to her creator. It is dedicated to the split in noble society that emerged at the beginning of the 19th century, the conflict between the “past century” and the “present century,” between the old and the new. The play ridicules the foundations of secular society of that time. Like any accusatory work, “Woe from Wit” had a difficult relationship with censorship, and as a result, a difficult creative fate. In the history of the creation of "Woe from Wit" there are several key points that should be noted.

The idea of ​​creating the play “Woe from Wit” probably arose from Griboyedov in 1816. At this time, he arrived in St. Petersburg from abroad and found himself at an aristocratic reception. Like the protagonist of Woe from Wit, Griboyedov was outraged by the craving of Russian people for everything foreign. Therefore, when he saw at the evening how everyone bowed to one foreign guest, Griboedov expressed his extremely negative attitude towards what was happening. While the young man was pouring into an angry monologue, someone voiced the assumption of his possible insanity. The aristocrats received this news with joy and quickly spread it. Then it occurred to Griboyedov to write a satirical comedy, where he could ruthlessly ridicule all the vices of society, which treated him so mercilessly. Thus, Griboedov himself became one of the prototypes of Chatsky, the main character of Woe from Wit.

In order to more realistically show the environment that he was going to write about, Griboedov, being at balls and receptions, noticed various cases, portraits, characters. Subsequently, they were reflected in the play and became part of the creative history of "Woe from Wit".

Griboedov began reading the first excerpts of his play in Moscow in 1823, and the comedy, then called “Woe to Wit,” was completed in 1824 in Tiflis. The work was repeatedly subject to changes at the request of censorship. In 1825, only excerpts of the comedy were published in the anthology “Russian Waist”. This did not prevent readers from getting acquainted with the work in its entirety and sincerely admiring it, because the comedy was circulated in handwritten copies, of which there are several hundred. Griboedov supported the appearance of such lists, because this way his play had the opportunity to reach the reader. In the history of the creation of the comedy “Woe from Wit” by Griboyedov, there are even cases of insertion of foreign fragments into the text of the play by copyists.

A.S. Pushkin already became familiar with the full text of the comedy in January 1825, when Pushchin brought “Woe from Wit” to a poet friend who was at that moment in exile in Mikhailovskoye.

When Griboedov went to the Caucasus and then to Persia, he gave the manuscript to his friend F.V. Bulgarin with the inscription “I entrust my grief to Bulgarin...”. Of course, the writer hoped that his enterprising friend would assist in publishing the play. In 1829, Griboedov died, and the manuscript that remained with Bulgarin became the main text of the comedy “Woe from Wit.” Only in 1833 the play was published in Russian in its entirety. Before this, only fragments of it were published, and theatrical productions of the comedy were significantly distorted by censorship. Without censorship intervention, Moscow saw “Woe from Wit” only in 1875.

The history of the creation of the play "Woe from Wit" has much in common with the fate of the main character of the comedy. Chatsky found himself powerless in the face of the outdated views of the society in which he was forced to find himself. He failed to convince the nobles of the need for change and a change in their worldview. Likewise, Griboedov, having thrown his accusatory comedy in the face of secular society, was unable to achieve any significant changes in the views of the nobles of that time. However, both Chatsky and Griboyedov sowed the seeds of Enlightenment, reason and progressive thinking in aristocratic society, which later bore rich fruit in a new generation of nobles.

Despite all the difficulties during publication, the play has a happy creative destiny. Thanks to her light style and aphorism, she was widely quoted. The sound of “Woe from Wit” is still modern today. The problems raised by Griboedov are still relevant today, because the collision of old and new is inevitable at all times.

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[...] A new production of “Woe from Wit” has been hanging in the air for recent years and has become inevitable.

During this time, the Alexander era, close to us until then only in “Woe from Wit”, in “Onegin” and in “War and Peace”, literary works depicting the same era - each from its own side - entered in a wide stream into Russian painting. The movement raised in St. Petersburg by Benois and Somov, reflected by Musatov in Moscow, made us intimately close to the beauty of the environment of the early 19th century. Previously, only characters and events were familiar to us in this era; now rooms, things, and dresses have become familiar. Even more than close, because it was precisely this era that all our sadness for Russian antiquity turned to. A new production of Woe from Wit, illuminated by this new feeling, has become historically necessary.

But the Art Theater had to not only follow the paths outlined by the artists, but also create itself. The detailed development of antiquity made by Somov and Benois related to

210 to Petersburg, not to Moscow. They gave only the method, and the Art Theater had to apply it in the Moscow era. This completely new picture of Moscow is the most important and real merit of the Art Theatre.

The main character here was an old, lordly Moscow house [...].

The setting of the first act surprises with its diversity [...] but still lacks inner integrity. Here the chiming clock, and the light cane fence that separates part of the room, and Famusov's striped silk dressing gown, and the shape of the furniture, and miniature portraits on the walls, are striking, but all this has not yet been united.

The setting of the second act immediately gives wholeness to all these disparate impressions. This is a long, narrow portrait room with a window in the back. Portraits hang along the walls, and two striped sofas face one another. Red chairs, white tiled stove. Outside the window, roofs covered with snow, and in everything - this is the feeling of a Moscow winter morning, a spacious warm room, morning hours until dinner, when somehow there is nothing to do and a little boring and very comfortable at heart.

The third act is a ball, the action of costumes par excellence. But its entire furnishings - white columns, two vases made of lapis lazuli, and a triple perspective opening through the doors of the living room to the dance hall, to the staircase along which the guests ascend, and to the room behind the balustrade of the staircase belong to the most ingenious architectural concepts .

The setting of the fourth act brings a lot of intimacy. This is a real Moscow antechamber - roomy, but not very wide. A staircase descends to the left from the second floor, and to the right, the entrance to the exit extends deeper into the interior, and through the double glass door a snowy dawn dawns, which gives everything that happens a special shade of some kind of excited fatigue after a sleepless night.

The characters in the comedy directly followed from the setting of the old house, and this achieved a new interpretation of many scenes. Their main feature was that they were all figures, but not characters. And this was not a drawback, but a great tact of the production. The classic production of “Woe from Wit” gave, first of all, characters and types. All the giants of the Russian stage created its characters in this comedy. The Art Theater understood perfectly well that it could not compete with them on this path, and modestly retreated before this task, thereby depriving us of the right to present our demands to it in this area.

When I say figures, I mean the costume and the face. The costumes in the Art Theater are a whole discovery. Chatsky's traditional tailcoat has been replaced by a long, high-waisted traveling caftan, with a wide, high collar that fastens

211 like the Hungarian. Chatsky appears in this caftan in the first act. In the third act he appears in a tailcoat, very tall, elegant and with a very modest flat frill. The third act is the apotheosis of the setting and staging.

The Art Theater treated with the greatest seriousness all the main and minor persons appearing in the third act, and tried to create a number of characteristic figures of the Alexander era, similar to the figures of War and Peace, and there is no doubt that Diaghilev’s exhibition of historical portraits had a decisive influence on the understanding of them 1 . The Moscow character was conveyed in all faces, manners and fashions. The eye, unaccustomed to such productions, was initially struck by the diversity and exaggeration of the ladies’ costumes. But then the Shchukin Museum of Russian Antiquity came to mind and the secret of the true Moscow style, which lies in taking all the trends and fashions of the West to the extreme, became clear 2 . Godlessly exaggerating and taking to the extreme limits the forms of European art, Moscow always created its own spirit and style in the wooden frills of the 17th century, and in the curled domes of St. Basil's, and in the Kremlin cathedrals, and in ladies' jewelry of the 18th century, and in the noble mansions of Alexandrovskaya. era, both in the building of the Moscow Historical Museum, and in today’s “decadent” houses, which, with all their cutting diversity, are already beginning to become part of the character of Moscow alleys.

The pretentious dresses and charming hairstyles of Moscow brides, their artificial coquetry and mannerisms (“They won’t say a word in simplicity - everything is done with a grimace”), the Asian diversity of fabrics, ribbons, lush old woman’s caps, the patriarchal luxury of all kinds of striped salops and fur coats when traveling, magnificent makeup old dignitaries and Moscow aces, from which Prince Tugoukhovsky (Mr. Vishnevsky) stands out with his deathly and solemn mask of an old nobleman, numb with old age, six princesses who all tremble and worry together with their single six-foot body, old woman Khlestova (Mrs. Samarova) in makeup and in the costume of Catherine II, Princess Tugoukhovskaya (Raevskaya), made up according to the portrait of Countess Lieven - all this has the character of the authenticity of an old painting and old portraits.

“Parade carriages in a train
They thundered; powdering your wigs,
Potemkin is equal in years,
The old aces have appeared
With very polite greetings...
Old ladies, state ladies of the former court" 3.

In the last act, after the solemn picture of the departure of all these Moscow antiquities, after these bent and clothed

212 in the golden liveries of old men and servants, the old house suddenly dissolved its hiding places and maidens’ rooms, and when Famusov went downstairs with a candle, the other side of the landowner’s house appeared from behind him - some men in shirts, women in white sundresses with scarves tied on their night around your head. It was as if the white ghosts inhabiting the old house really stood up.

"Woe from Wit" was once a satire. This was his original goal. But a true work of art continues to live its own life at a time when the goals and objectives of its author have lost their original meaning. For our time, “Woe from Wit” has ceased to be a satire and has become an everyday historical comedy. The Art Theater understood this and excluded from the third act the element of evil caricature, which was always emphasized in all productions.

Thanks to this historically calm look at these characteristic Moscow figures, a different and deeper meaning of comedy emerged here and there. The words “collect all the books and burn them” took on a tragic rather than a comic character. The figure of Repetilov (Mr. Luzhsky) unexpectedly reminded us that the action takes place in 1822, three years before the December catastrophe, and that in Repetilov’s mouth the echo of all Moscow conversations of this era buzzes and repeats, that this is an era of idealistic conspiracies and enthusiastic secret societies. The scene when Skalozub (Mr. Leonidov) leaves and Zagoretsky (Mr. Moskvin) is left alone opposite Repetilov and they look at each other, took on an unexpected, eerie meaning, as if two empty mirrors, placed one against the other, repeated each other ad infinitum and froze in horror, as if two empty ghosts suddenly recognized each other.

But in the midst of these historical figures stood one integral and complete character. It was Chatsky - Kachalov. Mr. Kachalov created a new and completely complete Chatsky. The role of Chatsky has always confused both its performers and literary critics. Thanks to his long monologues and accusatory tirades, Chatsky had a mixed character - both the reciting first lover and the moralizing Starodum of the play. For everyone and always, Chatsky spoke on behalf of the author, and this pathetic sermon in a circle of people who were certainly alien to him and stupid made him funny and made him doubt his own mind

Kachalov understood and played the role differently. His Chatsky is a very young man, almost a boy. He is nineteen or twenty years old. His verbosity, his ardor, his despair, his denunciations, funny in the mouth of a mature husband, as we are accustomed to seeing Chatsky on stage, are completely natural, sincere and evoke our deep sympathy in the mouth of this young boy.

To imagine the simplicity and correctness of such a solution to the question of Chatsky, we must remember who the heroes of that era, at the turn of two centuries, were. The kingdom of young people began at the end of the 18th century. [...] Life in this era began very early. At the age of fifteen or sixteen, teaching was already over and life was beginning. It began with admission to the regiment, as it was in the life of Chatsky. The first novels and the first tragedies of the heart also took place here, which, thanks to the youth and tenderness of the body, left deep and strong traces and took on the dimensions of Byron’s fatal passions. And now young men of this age harbor within themselves these Byronic impulses and passions, but they enter their gray life as a dream, and not as a reality, and literature is now in the hands of people who are older, more experienced and therefore less spontaneous. Soon after twenty years (sometimes earlier, sometimes later) that acute psychological and physiological turning point occurs in the life of a young man, which leads him to the very brink of death and poses eternal questions about life and non-existence. This turning point at that time coincided with the disappointment and satiety that set in after the first stormy years of life, and therefore led to a Wertherian or Byronic mood.

If we imagine all these gloomy heroes speaking solemn words in their true scale and age, then they will again receive for us the inexplicable charm of sincerity and youth. Thanks to this understanding, Chatsky, performed by Kachalov, becomes the most vital and attractive face of the entire comedy, as he should be. In the first scene, he bursts in joyful, laughing, excited about an expensive and long-awaited date. He talks like a boy. He has no malice, no malice, no denunciation. He is excited, he is joyful, he makes jokes, he remembers, he wants to seem very interesting. He himself nervously laughs at his witticisms. Only seventeen-year-old Sophia, who is even younger than him, can take his words seriously and say to herself: “Not a man - a snake.”

In conversations with Famusov, with Skalozub, in conversations at the ball in Chatsky, this joyful boy with sparkling eyes is always visible, who is childishly indignant at Moscow opinions, preaches his theories, and speaks insolence to his elders. This is his first day back in Moscow, and his verbosity is justified by his excitement and abundance of impressions. At the same time, it must be said that Kachalov knows how to read poetry. He is not looking for unnecessary realism. He does not try to hide the rhymes and dishevel the meter, he shades them a little, and in his mouth Griboyedov’s verse sounds in all its fullness, and the ear, sophisticated in modern harmonies, admires the beauty of these timeless rhymes.

The last action of Kachalov is carried out in a completely original way. It is felt that Chatsky is tired, and that he wants to sleep,

214 and that he is offended in a childish way, deeply, to the point of tears, that everything seems to him like some kind of wild and impossible dream, all these old men, sinister old women, Moscow diseases, Sophia’s love for Molchalin. And here are these dark vestibules of the old house, and the blue dawn outside the window, and the fatigue that closes the eyelids, and the heaviness that bows this sweet blond head.

The fact that Chatsky alone remained a character in the play, and all the others were figures, could be completely accepted. He is the only real person among these ghosts. But among the figures of this Moscow dream there were also those who left a feeling of dissatisfaction. That youth, which was so well understood in Chatsky, was not at all in Sofya (Ms. Germanova). This was not a seventeen-year-old girl who had just emerged from childhood, but a completely mature woman, about twenty-five, very experienced, striking with her somewhat heavy oriental beauty, suitable for the figure of Judith, but not Sofia Pavlovna.

Liza (Ms. Lilina) was made up according to Venetsianov’s paintings, and her face, her movements, her every pose were charming and certainly historical, but her tone, her realistic manner of speaking poetry hurt the ear. I wanted not to listen, but only to look and admire.

Famusov (Mr. Stanislavsky) evoked a very complex, but ultimately unsatisfied feeling. Mr. Stanislavsky, in his make-up of a tall, thin, gloomy old man and in his tone, grumbling and mocking, gave a figure reminiscent of the old man Yakovlev (Herzen’s father) with his caustic old man’s sarcasm. But, on the other hand, he was more of an official than a Moscow gentleman, and all the time he was in some kind of nervous, hysterical agitation. But in individual scenes and in individual words there was so much thoughtfulness and a completely new interpretation of various classical passages that it often made one forget the nervous grimace of the face.

In general, it is necessary to point out the extraordinary tact with which all the performers approached those parts of the text that became proverbs. Something new was invented for almost every place, and most of all this was in the role of Famusov. One has only to note how Famusov uttered his phrases: “I don’t listen, I’m on trial!” and “What will Princess Maria Aleksevna say!” - or as Chatsky said almost in a whisper to himself: “Carriage for me, carriage!” None of these phrases were spoken separately, as they are usually pronounced, they were all connected with the whole. In addition, the text has been successfully updated with inserts from the original versions. They brought surprise and freshness to the orderly demands of the remarks, known to everyone by heart.

The rest of the characters, like Skalozub (Leonidov), made up by Alexei Petrovich Ermolov, Molchalin

215 (Adashev), Platon Mikhalych and his wife (Gribunin and Litovtseva), Petrushka (Artem), Zagoretsky (Moskvin), Repetilov (Luzhsky) formed a completely integral and harmonious background of the play, an even ensemble for which the Moscow Art Theater is famous.

In the production of Woe from Wit, all his advantages and disadvantages were equally vivid. The lack of individualization of roles, for which the Art Theater is usually reproached, is limited and lies at the very core of its doctrine. And for a correct assessment of a work of art, it is necessary, as Goethe demands, to take the point of view of its creator, which is exactly what we wanted to do here. “Woe from Wit,” of course, could be even different and, probably, staged even better, but the production of the Art Theater made the old classical production in many of its main features no longer acceptable. The role of Chatsky received its new and, I think, final interpretation for our time.

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As a manuscript

COMEDY A. S. GRIBOYEDOV "Woe from Wit"

ON THE STAGE OF THE DOMESTIC THEATERXXCENTURIES: A LITERARY WORK IN THE THEATER PROCESS

Specialty: 10.01.01 - Russian Literature

dissertations for an academic degree

candidate of philological sciences

Krasnodar

The work was carried out at the Department of History of Russian Literature, Literary Theory and Criticism of Kuban State University

Scientific Secretary

dissertation council

Candidate of Philological Sciences, Associate Professor

GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF WORK

One great play - the comedy "Woe from Wit" - was enough for Alexander Sergeevich Griboyedov () to firmly enter the history of Russian literature and become an object of scientific study. Literary criticism and the stage shaped the image of the author, alternately offering his own view of dramaturgy, revealing the meanings of the text, its ideological and thematic connections with changing times, social circumstances, the level of philological science and the practice of performing arts. Life “Woe from Wit” in the twentieth century had its significant differences from the previous century. A fundamentally new relationship between the author of the work and interpreters arose. With the emergence of the figure of the director as an independent creator, the reputation of classical texts on the stage was largely revised. Stage versions deepened the author's ideas, argued dialectically with them, and even entered into open polemics with the author. The work was used for discussion, political and other purposes, sometimes not within the scope of the canonical text.

This process opens at the very beginning of the century - in 1906, the production of Vl. I. Nemirovich-Danchenko at the young Moscow Art Theater, it was preceded by painstaking textual work with different versions of the play. Throughout the twentieth century. “Woe from Wit” remained the repertoire priority of the Moscow Maly Theater. The experience of turning to the comedy of Vs. was controversial, but extremely interesting. E. Meyerhold in the theater named after him - GosTIM in 1928 and 1935. The comedy took a new breath in 1962 at the Leningrad Bolshoi Drama Theater. M. Gorky's production, it synchronized the efforts of the theater and mushroom studies of that period.

The evolution of understanding the images of Griboyedov and his protagonist Chatsky in the twentieth century took place, as we noted, in scientific classrooms and on the stage. Philological and theatrical consciousness developed in parallel; there was no obvious counter-movement between theater and science. However, philology cannot ignore the resonance generated by the appeals of directors of various historical and aesthetic schools to “Woe from Wit”, and their practical results. Likewise, stage practice must correlate its own manifestos with scientific thought. The combination of an effective psychological analysis of the play with an interdisciplinary approach to it allows us to delve deeper into the following areas of study of Russian literature: individual writerly and typological expressions of genre and style features in their historical development, as well as the interaction of literature with other types of art. (Clause 9 and 19 of the “Passport of specialty 10.01.01 Russian literature”).

Aware of the inevitable problem of choice, the author dwells in detail on dozens of stage interpretations at the stage, showing certain staging tendencies. At the same time, the dissertation author for the first time included in the analysis an impressive number of productions from peripheral theaters. They in their own way reflected the tendency to assimilate the experience of leaders, which gives grounds to more accurately judge the dynamics of the spread of Griboyedov’s idea and aesthetics on the scale of the domestic theater.

Relevance of the dissertation stems from the fact that “Woe from Wit” belongs equally to literature and theater, and, more broadly, to the spiritual culture of Russia. At the same time, the literary and theatrical existence of comedy still causes controversy in philological circles and the theater community. There is a need for a generalizing work that would summarize the accumulations of science and theater in understanding comedy in the twentieth century and would continue observations of the life of classical drama on the domestic stage and bring them to the present day.

Degree of knowledge of the problem

The beginning of the study of Griboedov's work was laid by a mass of lifetime critical responses to "Woe from Wit", which appeared in 1825 in the lists. The author's contemporaries spoke about him, and after them all prominent Russian writers, critics, scientists, artists from before. Among the classics, he stands out, who gave a conceptual look at comedy in the critical study A Million Torments (1871). The article became the starting point for subsequent mushroom studies. In the 20th century Woe from Wit has spawned an extensive scientific literature. Classical mushroom science as a whole developed by the middle of the century. Griboyedov's monographic volume “Literary Heritage” was published (1946). Works were published that made up the conceptual, scientific and factual base on the Griboedov issue. Studies of the writer's creative image, the problems and poetics of his writings were later summarized in multi-volume histories of Russian literature, dramaturgy, theater and criticism and received a fairly complete look in works and others. Theater experts have had their say: , . The collections "Woe from Wit" on the stage of the Moscow Art Theater (1979) and "Woe from Wit" on the Russian and Soviet stage: testimonies of contemporaries were of a generalizing nature.

In 1945, a scientific conference dedicated to the 150th anniversary was held at the State Institute of Theater Arts (GITIS), in November 1974, a scientific conference at the Institute of Russian Literature (IRLI) dedicated to the 150th anniversary of "Woe from Wit". Scientific collections and anthological books were published periodically. Thus, it can be stated that the literary and theater studies of the writer's work were thoroughly studied by the end of the 70s of the last century.

Life went on, new turns appeared in the study of Griboyedov, reflecting the modern relationship between the classic and his interpreters. The activity of scientists and creative figures in the last third of the twentieth century. did not weaken. New works and other researchers have appeared. As well as new stage interpretations of comedy, and this interest in comedy has not yet been generalized by our science. The last thirty years of the last century and the beginning of the current century seem important in terms of summarizing the results, and our work will, if possible, fill this gap.

Object of study becomes a set of achievements of domestic literary criticism and theatrical process, during which the comedy "Woe from Wit" was staged and interpreted in the twentieth century.

Subject of research- trends that emerged during this process.

Goal of the work: generalization of accumulated research and stage experience in the field of analysis and interpretation of Griboedov’s comedy and comprehension of the holistic picture of the existence of a literary work in the theatrical process of the 20th century.

Research objectives:

1. To trace the influence of socio-political, historical and artistic-aesthetic trends and processes of the 20th century on the formation of various incarnations on stage of a literary work that has the status of a classic text of undoubted artistic value.

2. To comprehend the typology of the main trends in the domestic theatrical art of the 20th century, the specifics of the production principles of different theaters, the influence of the concept of directing as authorship on the stage embodiment of a verbal work of art.

3. To trace the evolution of the image of the main character of the play “Woe from Wit” in the theatrical process, to identify the stage interpretations of Chatsky’s image that were decisive for the 20th century, the functions of the figure of the protagonist in various director’s concepts of “reading” the play.

4. To identify the problem of choosing between socially significant content and the psychological development of the characters of the play’s characters, to identify various ways and results of implementing such a choice on theater stages.

5. Correlate the complex problem-shaped complex of the literary text “Woe from Wit” with the ideological, aesthetic, cultural, professional intentions and trends of various theater schools in the dynamics of the theatrical space of the 20th century.

Methodological and theoretical basis of the study are the principles of historical-genetic, comparative-historical, comparative-typological methods, receptive aesthetics, structural and motive analyzes of works, as well as theoretical generalizations contained in the studies of the above-mentioned and other literary scholars (, etc.); theoretical works of masters of art (Vl. I. Nemirovich-Danchenko, etc.) and scientifically significant critical responses in the press.

The dissertation student used an integrated approach in studying the material: the science of literature and theatrical art are considered by him as equal sides of the process of learning the comedy "Woe from Wit". The author takes into account the huge role of the theater as a comprehending tool, capable of revealing the supra-theoretical spheres of artistic consciousness in a unique living form.

Scientific novelty of the research

For the first time, using a significant amount of material from stage interpretations of a classical literary text, an attempt has been made to periodize the process of theatrical perception of “Woe from Wit” in the 20th century, and to analyze frequency, quantitatively and qualitatively the theatrical appeals to the play.

For the first time, extensive information from the Bibliographic Department of the Union of Theater Workers of the Russian Federation on productions of “Woe from Wit” in the capital and peripheral Russian theaters and theaters of the former USSR is being introduced into scientific use as source materials. This makes it possible to create a wide panorama in more than a century (). It represents the general trends in the perception and artistic development of the text by different generations of interpreters.

Also published for the first time: a recording of a conversation with one of the theater masters and a bibliographic list, which has independent significance, in which materials on the topic are registered for the period from 1970 to the present.

The following provisions are submitted for defense:

1. Typological generalizations in stage interpretations of Griboedov’s comedy, structuring the artistic search and declaring the position of the Russian theater in relation to the classic over a long historical distance, allow us to identify four directions of such a search and its implementation: academicism – new academicism – modern intellectualism – left radicalism.

2. In the perception, experience and stage interpretation of the work, there is a shift in interest from “comedy” to “drama”.

3. The stages of scientific and stage development of a text in terms of choosing priorities between social and psychological are determined by a change of paradigms: , with their inherent transformations of ideas, images and structure of a dramatic work.

4. The correlation of quantitative indicators of productions of “Woe from Wit” and their chronology shows that the play periodically dropped out of the repertoire, temporarily losing its relevance, and returned to the repertoire at a new stage of Russian social history.

Approbation of the study

The dissertation was discussed at meetings of the department of history of Russian literature, theory of literature and criticism of Kuban State University. The main provisions of the work are presented by the author in reports at conferences: “Interaction of literature with other types of art” (International Conference XXI Purishev Readings at Moscow State Pedagogical University; April 8-10, 2009. The work was awarded a Diploma); “Innovation processes in higher education” (XV anniversary All-Russian scientific and practical conference. Krasnodar: State Educational Institution of Higher Professional Education KubSTU, 2009); “Continuity and discreteness in language and speech” (II International Scientific Conference. Krasnodar: Kuban State University, 2009). The materials of the speeches were published in collections based on the results of the conferences. The main provisions of the dissertation were used by the author at a seminar on criticism of the Union of Theater Workers: “Russian classics: past and future” (Tambov, Festival named after, 2011). While working on her dissertation, the author became a Laureate of the VI annual competition of the State Book Chamber among the best works on bibliography for the publication: “Creativity as an object of bibliography” (Moscow, 2009).

Practical significance of the dissertation. It will allow philological researchers to clarify some positions regarding the effective analysis of the play, ideological and semantic content, and ethical lessons. The dissertation can become a guide for lecture courses on the history of Russian drama for students of philology and students of other areas of humanities education, as well as for holding special seminars devoted to the study of Griboedov’s work. The collected and analyzed material can be used for further work of the modern theater on productions of “Woe from Wit” by Griboedov, will allow us to take a broader look at the historical production tradition, and discover new artistic resources of comedy.

Work structure

The dissertation consists of an introduction, three chapters, a conclusion, a bibliography and three appendices. The total volume of text is 209 pages. The bibliographic list contains 147 titles.

MAIN CONTENT OF THE WORK

In Administered the subject of the dissertation is determined, its purpose and objectives are formulated, the relevance of the chosen topic, scientific novelty and practical value are substantiated, the research methodology is outlined, the degree of development of the topic is revealed, and the sources used by the author are characterized. A detailed description of the main theoretical provisions of Russian literary criticism on the analysis of a work and its subsequent interpretation by different types of art is given.

This issue has been reflected in Russian science in the works of others. In relation to the play “Woe from Wit,” these provisions retain their significance, but have their own characteristics. The meeting of science itself with the play was preceded by a very solid history of theatrical interpretations, and literary criticism around “Woe from Wit” was faced with the need to correlate its own conclusions with the accumulated experience of interpreting a literary text using extraliterary methods.

The research and stage streams intertwined, in some periods they went in a consistent parallel order (e), and in others they diverged (1970-90). The literary study of “Woe from Wit” was carried out by a number of authors of different generations, had breaks, but in general relied on methods of description and analysis recognized and developed by science. The strictly analytical beginning of most works on the play “Woe from Wit” quickly outgrew the framework of their own attitudes and shifted to the sphere of interpretation, introducing the author’s own understanding.

The 20th century played a colossal role in the fate of Woe from Wit, because it formed around the play - through science and theater - a model of the dialectical interaction of tradition and innovation, academicism and periodic dispute with it. The problems of scientific knowledge of Griboyedov's play and its figurative implementation in the theater in this regard are seen as a triune task.

Firstly, attitude towards the time of the comedy “Woe from Wit” - already from the beginning of the twentieth century it was perceived as the past, and the directors were obliged, first of all, to determine their attitude to the bygone era (reproduce it sympathetically, ethnographically correct, socially defined, caricatured, etc. .). The scene inevitably actualizes the author's intention, summarizes the events and faces of the era in order to reveal modern features in the past. Often, the stage also ignores the most important components of the author's intention, defending independence, going away from the canonical text as the basis of the theatrical spectacle.

Secondly, attitude to the text. “Woe from Wit” is one of those Russian plays where textual problems remained unresolved for a long time. The theater did not immediately acquire a final (definitive) version that summarizes the ideological and artistic essence of the author’s intention, and more than once clarified its attitude to the text, reacting to each new stage of its scientific identification. First of all, this applied to academic groups: the Alexandrinsky Theater in St. Petersburg and the Maly Theater in Moscow; as well as to the young Moscow Art Theater, which was the first in the theatrical community to do textual work in relation to “Woe from Wit.” Subsequently, strict reverence for the classical text was violated. Sun. E. Meyerhold was the first in his generation to put his name on the playbill as “the author of the play” and thus opened a period of active appropriation by the director of the rights of co-authorship with the classic.

Third, factor of stage tradition transmitted along the historical chain. All the top appeals to “Woe from Wit” were firmly based on tradition, even when the directors declared the opposite. Radicalism in relation to “Woe from Wit” in the twentieth century, one can say quite definitely, did not take root. Postmodernist tendencies in the solution of Griboedov's comedy are episodic.

Griboedov's dramatic poetics contains objective prerequisites for stage interpretation. Such categories of aesthetic relations as the comic, tragic, sublime, beautiful, base are revealed not in the abstract and abstract, but in the animated, most concrete and at the same time figurative form of a theatrical performance. And subordinated aesthetic concepts - realism, romanticism, concept, composition, intonation, rhythm, color, melody, etc., through their interaction, create various genre and type constructs (tragicomedy, political pamphlet, vaudeville, musical, etc.). A single figurative whole in a theatrical performance is achieved by the addition of many components, which no longer lie only in the space of the author’s text, but extend into a wide field of historical, temporal, political, social and other vectors of influence.

The author traces, using specific examples from stage practice, the evolution of knowledge and mastery of Griboyedov’s comedy, bearing in mind the constant presence in the artistic process of the director, who has become a key figure in theatrical art.

1.1 Griboyedov and the Maly Theater School. In the academic art of the Maly Theater, the role of the director was reduced to a minimum and for a long time was perceived as secondary in relation to the actor, the acting ensemble, and in general - to the great concept of the School. There is nothing equal to the Maly Theater in conveying historicism, realistic authenticity and concreteness of the life content of the play to this day throughout the entire theatrical space. The review presents a reconstruction of the Maly Theater's productions of 1902, 1911, 1921, 1930, 1938, 1945, 1963, 1975 and 2000. The creative philosophy of all directors was based on the concept of “Woe from Wit” as the basic value of Russian literature and theater.

The 1938 production was an important milestone. It contained a synthesis of discoveries in the field of Griboyedov’s text, its ideological and artistic essence, its classical harmony and aesthetic uniqueness, which was fundamental for the history of Russian theater and philological science in the twentieth century. In general, the formation of the stage aesthetics of “Woe from Wit” at the Maly Theater was influenced by a multi-level complex of cultural influences and interpenetrations. It combines traditional attitudes, consciously or spontaneously fixed during the historical process, and the novelty of perception of Griboyedov’s text in a changing world. The theater still maintains a high standard in its relationship with the classics, which Russian science has more than once recalled as an unattainable ideal.

1.2 Comedy by Griboyedov in the Moscow Art Theater System. The concept of School in the sense and significance that it had in the history of the Maly Theater has been replaced in the practice of the Moscow Art Theater by the concept of System. And in it, the role of the Author of the theater was intricately combined with the artistic ideology and aesthetic principles of the new theater. In the twentieth century, they staged five productions: 1906, 1914, 1935, 1938 and 1992. Characteristic of all Moscow Art Theater productions of the first half of the century is the recreation of the integral world of a bygone era, the music of poetry and the general musicality of the performance. Reading any author through Chekhov's psychological experience has become the norm. It can be said that in all five cases, “Woe from Wit” was for this theater a means of establishing its own artistic ideology and its own theatrical experiences.

1.3 Sun. E. Meyerhold at work on the play “Woe from Wit.” In the theater named after itself - GOSTIM Sun. E. Meyerhold staged Griboedov's comedy twice: in 1928 and 1935. The contradictory result of the first appeal prompted a new edition. The director's concept in both cases was to identify and sharpen the acute social meaning of comedy and sympathetically depict Chatsky as an ideal lone hero, opposing the vulgarity of the world and a healthy, well-fed and even cheerful society. The director's handling of the comedy text was arbitrary. The text was rearranged, transferred from one character to another, addressed to people other than those in the comedy to whom the author addressed them; The physical action on stage almost never coincided with the text, but went perpendicular to it. A broad interpretation of the director’s rights to the text of the work being embodied, even eighty years after the premiere, seems to be an excessive and controversial position.

1.4 Experience of the Alexandrinsky and Leningrad Bolshoi Drama Theaters. The St. Petersburg Alexandrinsky Theater laid down its own traditions of performing “Woe from Wit,” strengthened them and also continued them in the twentieth century, already on the stage of the Leningrad State Drama and subsequently the Theater. . Productions 1903, 1914, 1918, 1921, 1932, 1941, 1947 were programmatically conservative, with small deviations towards greater freedom (1903, 1928) and a subsequent return to conscientious academicism, similar to the Maly Theater, in some ways even stricter than it. In general, the contribution of the Alexandrinsky Theater as a Russian acting academy to the interpretation of Griboyedov’s comedy is significant. Outstanding figures of the Russian stage - Samoilova, Aleksandrovskaya, Goryainov, played them at different times and thus preserved Griboedov's text intact in the 20th century, setting high standards of excellence.

A historical moment in the stage fate of the play was the production at the Leningrad Bolshoi Drama Theater. M. Gorky in 1962. Firm attitudes towards “voluntary captivity” and freedom of creative expression within the framework set by the classical text determined the direction and the very possibility of in-depth reading of “Woe from Wit”. The anthology has become a living, moving poetic structure. The artistic text, recreated on the stage, was congenial to the original source, showing its hitherto undiscovered semantic and philosophical resources. The critical debates about "Woe from Wit" in the BDT reflected not only the attitude towards Griboyedov's play, but also the attitude towards the time, the 1960s with their changed moral atmosphere in society, new tasks of science and art.

1.5 “Woe from Wit” on the music scene. The author examines in detail the only meeting of the play with the musical scene. In 1982, the director staged the musical "Woe from Wit" at the Minsk Operetta Theater. Mastering the musical genre and the possibility of a new interpretation of the textbook and eternally debatable play, the director perceived them as a single creative task. In the musical, the school of preliminary analytical work with dramaturgy and great staging experience affected, musicality, attention to the rhythmic and intonational sphere of the work manifested itself. These circumstances initially expanded the semantic space of the unusual performance. Musical means (the main ones in this production) affirmed the personal theme of the hero, attacked by the bacillus of mental illness and close to madness.

At the conclusion of this chapter, the dissertation author formulated the main ways of interpreting the comedy “Woe from Wit” by the Russian theater in the twentieth century. Almost all appeals to it in dozens of drama groups in the country, one way or another, were localized in several typological directions: classical academicism(Maly and Alexandrinsky theaters), new academicism(Moscow Art Theater), left radicalism(Meyerhold, Viktyuk) and modern intellectualism(Leningrad Bolshoi Drama Theater, Moscow Theater of Satire). These directions structured the artistic search and declared the position of the Russian theater in relation to its classics over a long historical distance.

Chapter two . From comedy to drama: the evolution of the main character in the play and on stage

Polemical tendencies in the perception of the comedy hero were revealed in the criticism of Griboedov during his lifetime. The political basis, social meaning, and the question of the effectiveness of satire were included in the thoughts of contemporaries. But their opinion was not as politicized as it would happen much later and reach its apogee in the Soviet period. Almost no work on Griboyedov’s comedy could be done at that time without reference to the political context of the Decembrist era, or at least a statement of this, as well as a vulgar rapprochement with it. And the leading motive of the “evil mind” was implied by different authors in completely different ways. Some had in mind the mind of the hero himself, from which he suffered. Others, following Griboyedov himself, connected the motive of the “evil mind” not with Chatsky, but with the hostile environment and its verdict.

In the twentieth century, Chatsky became an iconic figure and a literary and theatrical myth. The theater (in its best intentions) no longer had to find out whether Chatsky was right or wrong in his actions, who was more funny: he or those whom he ridiculed. It was more important to understand and feel the drama of a person, to some extent his personal drama. Deciphering the character, the entire problematic complex associated with it, became the work of more than one actor. The director set more complex, generalizing tasks that went far beyond the scope of a situational comedy game. The final goal of the performance was no longer limited to the hero himself as the only instrument of the author’s statement. Moreover, the hero lost his independence and often became dependent, since he fit into a certain director’s concept (tragic, lyricist, comedian, neurasthenic, reasoner).

The very concept of a hero in the theater of the twentieth century became mobile. The image appeared outside the classical norm; there was a mixture of colors: psychological, grotesque, tragicomic, vaudeville and even circus. The classical integrity of the character, thus, was shaken or completely disintegrated, but his internal contradictions decisively emerged, in particular, the opposition of the personal and the social.

Next, the dissertation examines the main scenic interpretations of Chatsky that defined the twentieth century, illustrating the evolutionary movement of the image and the new things that they carried. At the same time, in the groups outlined above - classical and new academicism, the left theatrical manifesto and modern intellectualism - their protagonists stand out, acting as authorized representatives of this typological direction.

2.1 Integrity of the hero’s image. Among the historical names, the example of Mikhail Tsarev in the understanding of “Woe from Wit” is extremely important. This is an example of integrity, which is only acceptable in the analysis of complex socio-historical, moral, ethical and lyrical-psychological phenomena, which is the hero. It contains a complex of problems and extreme characteristic manifestations. Accordingly, it should be understood comprehensively by the theater. But integrity is extremely difficult to achieve. On the contrary, as a rule, it is broken down into components during the implementation of a certain creative concept. In the further historical movement “Woe from Wit”, precisely this trend is gaining strength.

2.2 The concept of “mind” as a dominant of the lyrical image. The appearance of the intelligent Chatsky - Vasily Kachalov on the stage of the Moscow Art Theater - the theater of the Russian intelligentsia - was deeply symbolic and programmatic. “Woe from Wit,” having been subjected to psychological analysis, received a pronounced lyrical orientation among the “artists” and in the performance of their first actor.

2.3 Expansion of the hero’s functions. In the 1990s, “Woe from Wit” was shown in parallel in many theaters across the country, and in the capital’s consolidated playbill different Chatskys were placed side by side. Polyphony arises, and the fact becomes even clearer that Griboyedov’s comedy, a century after its appearance, continued to express basic human conflicts, to designate the self-determination of the artist and citizen in the spiritual and aesthetic cosmos of his time.

In the post-war and post-Stalin period, much in science and art was revised and a new Chatsky was born. It is not the era reflected in the play, not the problems of conveying historicism in the theater, not the individualization of opponents that is more occupied by the directors - but it is precisely the expansion of the functions of the hero as an exponent of modern consciousness and hopes. As a “hero of our time.” This was both strength and weakness. The hero easily became a tendentious bearer of the director’s idea imposed on the author, as long as it corresponded with the spirit of change and renewal; even better, it touched indirectly or in direct critical heat on everything that requires debunking or manifestation of moral resistance. Thus, Chatsky performed by Sergei Yursky (Leningrad Bolshoi Drama Theater, 1962) left a contradictory impression on his contemporaries, but became a symbolic sign of Russian liberalism of the sixties.

2.4 The problem of discrediting the hero. In the late 1980s - early 1990s - in new Russia, both the play itself and its hero underwent the last inversion in the 20th century. Civil liberties, which are talked about so much in Griboyedov's play, became a declared reality, and Chatsky's criticism of public institutions looked retrospective. This made adjustments to the director’s approach to the play - its problem areas were further narrowed, and the hero’s individual problems became more prominent. Time seemed to have taken away the lion's share of Chatsky's life content, and in some productions this resulted in the complete derogation of Chatsky as a hero. The path was opened for his final discredit as a person, and some narrow-minded theaters happily took advantage of this opportunity.

The dissertation author notes in this series the productions of the Moscow Art Theater (1992), theaters in Petrozavodsk (1985), Yekaterinburg (1992), Tambov (2008), Yaroslavl (2009). And also in two Moscow theaters: Sovremennik (2007) and the Taganka Drama and Comedy Theater (2007). Both illustrated not just the confusion familiar from the Moscow Art Theater performance (1992), but something more difficult and dangerous - the outright irritation of directors forced to reckon with the text as a given, with the entire problematic complex of the play, multiplied by new conditions of time and place, a different resonant space Russian classics. Unable to do the enormous intellectual work with the text, the creators of both productions reduced their task to deliberate radicalism.

2.5 The hero and methods of his typification. All the productions mentioned by the dissertation author in this chapter, created, sometimes, in opposing aesthetic systems, unanimously come to the same ending: from comedy to drama. Long-established methods of theatrical typification also make themselves felt in them: caricature and cartooning - for the Famus clan; aphorism, tragic irony and lyrical anguish - for Chatsky. All this is normativity in its purest form, from which Griboyedov moved away in the process of working on the essay. One quality, some unexpected feature, throws light on another, knocking down the expected connotation. Here a more complex ideological and aesthetic correlation is revealed, to which the comedy “Woe from Wit” itself calls for all who undertake it.

The theater of the 20th century, while resolutely attacking in one direction, turns out to be very conservative in another and, in essence, refuses close cooperation with the author. He stands either above it, or next to it, or uses it for the purpose of loud artistic provocation, not correlated with the author's will.

At the same time, accurate knowledge about the play has greatly expanded in the last twenty years, thanks to a number of important literary works (, etc.). The same integrity of understanding of “Woe from Wit” has not been demonstrated by the Russian theater over the years. In a strict sense, the author can name only one example of the achieved artistic synthesis: “Woe from Wit” by the Maly Theater (2000).

Chapter three. Social and psychological in the comedy “Woe from Wit” as a problem of theatrical choice

A noticeable shift in ideological and semantic priorities in the understanding of “Woe from Wit” in the twentieth century. caused by the radically changed socio-historical context of life in Russia. The need for social criticism and the fight against tsarism, serfdom, propaganda of the ideas of Decembrism, etc., disappeared. The universal and timeless have grown in their meaning. Literary studies and theater did not abandon the social-critical direction in their interpretations for a long time, and this gave rise to a lot of commentaries and performances, the authors of which continued to fight with the past. Since the middle of the twentieth century. The idea of ​​the deep humanistic and psychological foundations of “Woe from Wit” began to emerge more and more actively, which in turn resulted in a parallel and in many ways oppositional direction in the interpretation of the work. Thus, the social-critical and lyrical-psychological principles that formed the problematic axis of comedy largely determined the severity of the main aesthetic debate around “Woe from Wit” both in science and in the theater.

In the theatrical sphere, there were debates about realism and convention, techniques of portraiture and typification; to these were added the problems of artistic space and new stage aesthetics - that is, comedy was placed not only in a dynamic ideological and semantic context, but in dependence on the moving and developing tools of modern theater. In the scientific field, there were debates with varying degrees of activity, and there were enough discrepancies even on essential issues, such as the political engagement of the author, the ideological complex and the genre definition of the work.

In the absence of such unity and solidarity in relation to the author and his work, it would be unreasonable to expect or demand them from theaters. Despite a certain difference in skill in different theaters (metropolitan and peripheral), there is a fairly pronounced unity of ideological aspirations and stage aesthetics (especially in the first half of the twentieth century). Let this unity sometimes turn into political dogma, but it was there. The multinational theater of the former USSR and Russia in the understanding of “Woe from Wit” acted as a united front, there were practically no discrepancies. The groups, equidistant and independent from the center, isolated geographically, demonstrated almost complete coincidence in the ideology and aesthetics of the performances.

The dissertation author defines the stages of theatrical mastery of the text in terms of choosing priorities between social and psychological as follows: politicization – depoliticization – desemantization. In the reality of the theater, the boundaries between these concepts are transparent; within one period, directly opposite tendencies matured and made themselves felt. The dissertation author traces these trends using specific examples, including in the analysis the experience of a number of peripheral theaters in Russia and the former USSR.

3.1 Politicization trend. It is stated that until the mid-1930s, “Woe from Wit” was a completely repertoire play and was performed in Rostov-on-Don, Gorky, Sverdlovsk, Smolensk, Blagoveshchensk, Ivanovo, Stary Oskol, Barnaul, Voronezh, etc. The play was even staged in the theater at correctional institution of the Gulag system, in Medvezhyegorsk (one of the units for the construction of the White Sea-Baltic Canal). But the real boom is ahead. In 1937, “Woe from Wit” was staged simultaneously in Krasnodar, Stalingrad, Gorky, Rostov-on-Don, Ulyanovsk, Chelyabinsk, Vladivostok, and Petropavlovsk. In 1938 - Ryazan, Odessa, Arkhangelsk, Vologda, Novosibirsk, Kursk, Engels. The process is exciting. – Smolensk and Sverdlovsk – and fades away. Such a surge of interest in the play could not be accidental and was probably provoked by an “ideological newsletter” that we did not yet fully understand and was not tied to Griboyedov’s biography.

It should also be noted that in some places the play was played before, without any recommendation from above. Gorky, Yaroslavl, Saratov, Sverdlovsk, Ivanovo, Rostov-on-Don, Voronezh, Smolensk - in these theaters over twenty years, “Woe from Wit” was staged two to four times, which can be understood as a natural return to the play at a new stage maturity. There were also cases of new editions of earlier productions, and they apparently followed as an overcoming of the misconceptions of previous years - theaters had to correct themselves, get rid of “formalistic” approaches. There were directors who staged the comedy in several theaters.

The spirit of militant ideological intransigence permeated the performances in most of the listed places. The orthodox ideological basis for stage interpretations of the classics stemmed from current politics and the theater, as part of the state system, adopted it due to its subordinate position. This is how the unity observed in the panorama of productions of those years was achieved. The theater, driven by the predetermined criticism, spontaneously and as if at once approached the political issues of comedy. By putting forward the idea of ​​a critical attitude towards the past in the interpretation of Russian classics, theaters undoubtedly narrowed comedy and straightened its characters.

The aesthetic side of the performances was naturally oriented towards metropolitan examples and practically repeated them with one or another artistic result. In the performances described by the dissertation author (Krasnodar, Stalingrad, Smolensk, Sverdlovsk, Ivanovo, etc.) there is a direct adherence to the canons of the Maly Theater and the Moscow Art Theater, and individual techniques of the Meyerhold Theater. In peripheral performances, the semantic and stylistic trends coming from the leaders of the theatrical process were thus contaminated. Therefore, "Woe from Wit" far from the capitals rarely had its own expressed view of comedy or was distinguished by a tilt in one of the directions: social-critical, lyrical or vaudeville.

The work notes that a common feature of a number of performances is the problem of balance between two equal themes of comedy, its sides - social and lyrical. And finding balance in the fabric of a live performance, in action, was not so easy even for major masters. At the same time, it is specially emphasized that the play, despite external ideological directives, allowed itself to be interpreted from different positions, could, at the level of words and intonation, reveal different aspects of its own originality and at the same time remain an integral structure. Indicative in this regard is the experience of staging “Woe from Wit” translated by Maxim Rylsky at the Lviv Theater for Young Spectators in 1947, which in this work for the first time becomes the subject of scientific consideration.

An indisputable milestone in the history of the stage interpretation of “Woe from Wit” by the domestic theater was 1945. Starting in January, even before Victory Day over Nazi Germany, already anticipating the outcome of the great battle, theaters begin to restore previous productions, but mostly re-read the classics. “Woe from Wit” was staged in 1945 by: Armavir, Voronezh, Taganrog, Yaroslavl, Rybinsk, Kostroma, Gorky, Grozny, Ivanovo, Irkutsk, Kazan, Krasnoyarsk, Kurgan, Kursk, Murmansk, Novosibirsk, Orsk, Rostov-on-Don, Saratov, Tambov (1st production), Kamensk-Uralsky (separate scenes), Sverdlovsk (4th act), Arkhangelsk (renewal). In Voronezh, the play opened a theater building that had been restored after the bombing. In 1945, the Maly Theater gave the second edition of its masterpiece, the 1938 production.

And then the intensity of interest in the play gradually begins to fade. From 1946 to 1963, that is, during the first post-war twenty years, “Woe from Wit” was staged in: Magnitogorsk, Blagoveshchensk, Kiev, Chelyabinsk (twice), Lvov, Omsk, Cheboksary, Yaroslavl, Kineshma, Kansk, Voronezh, Kemerovo. An amazing transformation takes place: the play leaves the current political field and “falls silent” until its new finest hour.

3.2 Depoliticization trend. At a turning point for the country in the sixties, politicization gave way to depoliticization and a significant resonance of interests occurred - the old play and the new context for it. The performances of Moscow, Leningrad, Minsk and others turned out to be freer from the obligations of historical reference and more abstracted in the interpretation of the ideological composition of Griboedov’s comedy. a moment long awaited by her in modern stage language. As if from a heavy, centuries-old burden, she got rid of everyday life, accentuated journalism and any kind of order. Performances of a certain type became a reaction to this deliverance - in them the author's text, classical or modern, was presented through the filter of a modern director's vision, metaphorical or completely conventional. In this series of pressing problems, the author and playwright did not always turn out to be the main figure. Metaphor as a figurative means of stage language in the theater of the twentieth century, the more it began to crowd and challenge the ideological foundations of the canonical text - to challenge the author. The massive development of this process brings the author’s thoughts to the next stage, which he understands as the desemantization of the classical text.

3.3 Desemantization of the classical text. The semantic field of a literary work narrowed; in extreme cases, a complete destruction of the literary text occurred, from its ideological and philosophical foundations to the loss of the specific, author’s language. Striving for energetic self-realization, the director understood metaphor as a laconic reduction of meaning to the desired final result, looked for shocking techniques and inevitably schematized the complexity of the playwright’s thought and language. An important component of the underlying basis of desemantization is the fear of moralism; it pushed the director into a wholesale denial of all morality both within the work and within their own performance. This denial was sometimes marked by disgusting bravado and, in fact, everything is mixed up with it - from the appearance and behavior of the characters to the super task that crowns the production. The goal is to bring down the heroes from the pedestal, as they have been an eyesore for a century and a half. The previous tradition, stage and literary, is the object of a myth-making struggle that does not shy away from outright nihilism.

The chapter also shows that in the play “Woe from Wit” fell into another temporary gap, it was addressed very rarely: it was staged in Grozny, Ulyanovsk, Yaroslavl, Vladimir, Perm, Samara, Novgorod, Belgorod, and also became the property of Youth Theaters (theatres for young spectators): Sverdlovsk, Krasnoyarsk , Chelyabinsk, Sarapul. The dissertation author has observed the above-mentioned tendencies of desemantization in production practice since the 1980s. and to the present time. As examples, the author gives an analysis of a number of performances in Petrozavodsk, Yaroslavl, Tallinn, Moscow Sovremennik and the Taganka Drama and Comedy Theater.

3.4 Synthesis of the social and psychological in the play. It is also noted that an ironic contrast to such practice is the parallel efforts of scientists and historians who, in connection with the comedy “Woe from Wit,” are engaged in the study of the historical understanding of the mind - the titular concept that underlies everything in this play. And also the core personality of its creator - the largest Russian intellectual of his time, Alexander Sergeevich Griboyedov. On the mind, as on the ability to understand things and judge them sensibly, and at the same time on the mind, as on the mechanism of drama, a number of today's authors focus their reflections:, etc.

The author believes that in modern theater the values ​​of the literary text as the main container of the author's message cease to be the starting point for directors. Having consistently rejected historical, cultural and socio-political conditionality from the system of consideration of “Woe from Wit”, as well as to a large extent love, morality and reason, the directors fill the resulting vacuum with their own judgments, moods, dubious allusions and rhymes, and unresolved complexes. Under these conditions, of course, no conclusions about the interpretation of the classical text in terms of the relationship between the social and psychological principles in it are not revealed, or rather, they are not representative. There is no need to talk about this because the theater cannot cope with either the body of text as such or its thesaurus. There is no increment in meaning; the essence of theatrical appeal becomes desemantization.

From the correlation of quantitative indicators of productions and their chronology given by the dissertation author, it follows that “Woe from Wit” periodically dropped out of the repertoire, as if temporarily losing relevance, and returned to the repertoire at a new stage of Russian social history. There are several reasons here, including the fact that the writer was a hostage to the school curriculum for too long, the stamp of a textbook text always lay on him and this was avoided. On the other hand, only strong theater groups can perform “Woe from Wit.” Over time, the difficulties of interpreting “Woe from Wit” will increase. The play will move further and further away from the era of its creation, from aesthetics and original problematics. Its new problems will directly depend on spiritual realities, public interest, the state of the theater as an original, creative organism, capable of equally keeping the previous national culture in the circle of interests and finding a modern sound for classical texts.

By the beginning of the 21st century, accumulations in the field of theory and history of literature, analysis of drama, and experience in theatrical interpretations are impressive. The research flow continues. Recently, he brought not just quantitative indicators, but also gave final works on Griboyedov. The author includes among them: Encyclopedia “Griboedov” Eva (2007), Dictionary of the Language of Comedy (2007), the mentioned monograph “Griboyedov” (2003). Thus, these encyclopedic books and a number of those mentioned above create a reliable basis for future research and stage references to comedy.

In custody the results of the study are summarized and conclusions are drawn. Having examined a vast array of performances (more than 30) and comparing their appearance with the research stream on Griboyedov and his play “Woe from Wit,” the dissertation author comes to the following conclusions:

1. The overwhelming number of productions of the first half of the twentieth century. on the domestic stage they relied on the classical traditions of Russian realistic and psychological theater. Subsequently, with the emergence of the figure of the director as an independent creator, a fundamentally new relationship between the author of the work and interpreters arose, and the reputation of the classical text on the stage was largely revised. Some stage versions deepened the author's ideas, argued dialectically with them, and even entered into open polemics with the author. In other cases, the work was used for discussion, political and other purposes, sometimes not within the scope of the canonical text.

2. The play has known in its history periods of active circulation () and zones of oblivion (1950s, 1970-90), when it left the repertoire and lost its own relevance for some period.

3. The understanding of the play “Woe from Wit” and its role in the domestic theatrical repertoire were determined both by global socio-historical changes in the life of Russia, and by the subjective factor of the presence of a director in the creative process, who realized his rights of co-authorship with the classic. Consciously or forcedly, by affirming them, theaters are ambitiously editing the very foundations of Griboyedov’s dramatic work. Or they understand them narrowly - from the point of view of the development of their specific tools.

4. The stages of theatrical mastery of the text in terms of choosing priorities between social and psychological are determined as follows: politicization – depoliticization – desemantization. Chronologically they correspond to the following periods: from the beginning of the twentieth century. before the 1960s, 1960 – 1980, and 1980 to the present. time.

5. In artistic terms, the perception of “Woe from Wit” by the domestic theater and the directions of its stage implementations had a clearly expressed stage: academicism – new academicism – modern intellectualism – left radicalism. These directions existed and continue to exist regardless of a certain historical period, as well as simultaneously and independently of each other. In this respect, Woe from Wit is also a multicultural phenomenon.

6. Research flow and theatrical practice are not synchronized in the general cultural process and coexist in parallel. Cases of coincidence between the efforts of science and the stage, their common focus on results, are extremely rare.

7. Theatres, realizing their right to creative freedom and driven by the search for their own ways of mastering a literary text, put forward radical interpretations, as a rule, ignoring the ideological foundations of the author’s intention and the aesthetic nature of the work. In terms of mastering the content, the play has been repeatedly used as material for the actualization and manifestation of certain political and other aspects of the current moment.

8. The most noticeable transformation of “Woe from Wit”, which has become entrenched in theater practice, has become a genre one: in the vast majority of productions and in a sufficient number of scientific works, comedy is understood as drama, as psychological drama, satirical grotesque, sarcastic absurdity, etc. Original genre By the end of the twentieth century, the features of comedy were completely erased.

9. The theater predominantly replaces the concept of “mind”, which underlies the conflict of the play, with the concept of “feeling”. Over the past century, “mind” has almost never acted as the main means of evidence, the hero’s weapon, or argument in his ideological dispute with the enemy. Intellectual struggle as such rarely becomes the center of director's constructions.

10. Moving through time, “Woe from Wit” becomes more and more difficult to implement. In the course of the changing external cultural and historical context, it is necessary to solve a lot of internal problems of the play, problematic-characteristic and purely textual. The text, moving away in time, becomes darker and incomprehensible without commentary. Making it publicly accessible is becoming more difficult every time, and even very strong theater troupes and directors do not undertake this work.

11. The accumulated theatrical experience proves that artistic discoveries are possible exclusively within the framework of the canonical text, and not outside it. The author also considers the problem of identifying contiguous meanings, the problem of reception of Griboyedov’s ideas and images in Russian literature and drama (primarily in the legacy of Pushkin, Lermontov, Saltykov-Shchedrin, etc.) and their adequate stage development to be among the current tasks of Griboedov’s theater.

12. Despite the negative trends and not all optimistic conclusions, it should be noted that the highest reputation of “Woe from Wit” as a play for the theater and as an object of scientific consideration is still beyond doubt. It remains an eternal spiritual value of humanity, without losing its keen debatability. Her intellectual and artistic resources will be in demand among new generations of scientists and creative figures.

In the application a list of productions of “Woe from Wit” included in the review of the main section is presented; recording of a conversation between the author and the director; Bibliography "Woe from Wit". .

THE MAIN PROVISIONS OF THE DISSERTATION ARE REFLECTED IN THE FOLLOWING PUBLICATIONS OF THE AUTHOR

1. Creativity as an object of bibliography: [“Woe from Wit”: bibliography of the years] // Bibliography. 2009. No. 5. P. 67-75. (0.7 p.l.)

2. Alexander Chatsky: from mind to madness: [“Woe from Wit” on the music scene] // Musical life. 2009. No. 4. pp. 11-13. (0.4 p.l.)

3. The problem of artistic space in “Woe from Wit” by A. S. . Griboyedova // Cultural life of the South of Russia. 2011. No. 4. pp. 15-17. (0.4 p.l.)

In other scientific publications:

4. Semantic modulations of the demonic in Russian literature / Bulletin of the student scientific society: Kuban State. univ. Issue 9. – Krasnodar. 2007. pp. 157-161. (0.2 p.l.)

5. Reflection of a worldview debate in the language and culture of speech of a stage character: [On the example of “Woe from Wit”] / Problems of applied linguistics: International scientific and practical conference: Collection of articles. – Penza: Privolzhsky House of Knowledge. 2008. pp. 101-106. (0.3 p.l.)

6. The comedy “Woe from Wit” and its stage interpretations in the twentieth century: [Speech abstracts] / Interaction of literature with other types of art: International Conference XXI Purishevsky Readings at the Moscow Pedagogical State. university; April 8-10, 2009: Collection of articles and materials. - Moscow. 2009. P. 225. (0.1 pp.)

7. From Chatsky to Arbenin: the evolution of a literary type / Bulletin of the Student Scientific Society: Kuban State. univ. Issue 11. – Krasnodar. 2009. pp. 100-104. (0.3 p.l.)

8. The first Ukrainian translation of “Woe from Wit” and its stage fate / Linguistic and cultural contacts of different peoples: International scientific and methodological conference: Collection of articles. – Penza: Privolzhsky House of Knowledge. 2009. pp. 96-101. (0.25 p.l.)

9. : scientific understanding and experience of bibliography (technical aspect) / Innovation processes in higher education: Materials of the XV Anniversary All-Russian Scientific and Practical Conference. – Krasnodar: State Educational Institution of Higher Professional Education KubSTU, 2009. P. 147-148. (0.1 p.l.)

10. “Woe from Wit”: stage chronotope and transformations of meaning / Continuity and discreteness in language and speech: materials of the II International Scientific Conference. Krasnodar: Kuban State. Univ., 2009. pp. 152-153. (0.3 p.l.)

11. “There is no translation without sacrifices”: Alexander Griboedov – Maxim Rylsky: Ukrainian episode of the stage story “Woe from Wit”: [research] // Other shores. 2011. No. 1 (21). pp. 54-61.

Stage life "Woe from Wit"

Completed in 1824 and published during Griboedov’s lifetime only in fragments, the play was not allowed on stage for a long time. When in 1825 the production was prepared by students of the school in St. Petersburg, Governor M.A. Miloradovich intervened and the performance did not take place. In December 1829, after the death of the author at a benefit performance for actress M.I. Valberkhova played the 1st act of the play. Starting from the 7th phenomenon. On January 31, 1830, Act 1 of the comedy was performed at a benefit performance by M.S. Shchepkin at the Moscow Bolshoi Theater. The great actor played Famusov. In the same year, Act 3 was staged in St. Petersburg and Moscow. It was not until 1831 that the entire play was staged. But with censorship distortions. The play turned out to be unexpected and unusual for the stage. And beyond the stage the play lived. It began with Griboyedov himself reading the play multiple times in different houses. It began to spread across Russia in thousands of lists. The text of the comedy served the purpose of propaganda appeals. At the beginning of the last century, Vl. I. Nemirovich-Danchenko complains that they are playing Chatsky and overloading his image. Chatsky is the only heroic person in the comedy. Comedy as a dramatic creation faded into the background. Love experiences stopped only I.V. Samarin, who began playing this role in Moscow in 1839. In Samoilova's game, Sophia cleverly turns Chatsky's witticisms against him. In 1836, the ban on staging “Woe from Wit” in provincial theaters expired. But it was not respected. Kyiv productions 1831, 1838. Kazan 1836, 1840. Astrakhan 1841. Kharkov 1840, 1842. Odessa 1837. Tambov 1838. Kursk 1842. Such productions were accompanied by troubles. In Kaluga in 1850 the performance was banned. The collapse of the class-hierarchical system encouraged new thinking, a rejection of the principle of strict isolation of life phenomena from each other. And a theatrical performance was increasingly perceived as an integral organism with an internally obligatory connection between its “components.” Since 1863, the performance has been performed freely throughout the country. The director's score was published for the first time - V.I. Rodislavsky proposed his development of the third act of the comedy, where dancing was introduced into the movement of the events of the play. In 1864 the Maly Theater used this score. The 60s separated the pre-reform era from the post-reform era. The play was seen - the past. And there were demands to perform the play in ancient costumes. The first attempt was in 1870 in an amateur performance of the Noble Club. In 1866, costumes were created based on magazines from the early 19th century. In 1864, the Maly Theater emphasized Chatsky’s pretentiousness. Actor N.E. Vilde lasted for 1.5 months in the role of Chatsky. He was replaced by S.V. Shumskaya. He began to play the tragedy of unrequited love. In the center of the play are scenes of Sophia and Chatsky. Heroes were led only by their hearts. The integrity of man throughout the 19th century was defended by Russian classics. I.A. Goncharov spoke out in connection with the premiere of the play at the Alexandrinsky Theater for the integrity of the play. At the Art Theater in 1906, the play was staged by Nemirovich-Danchenko. A psychological analysis was launched. By this time, touring tragedians had established the tradition of playing the role of Chatsky “outside the everyday development, outside the plot.” This is how they played Chatsky M.T. Ivanov-Kozelsky, M.V. Dalsky, P.V. Samoilov. The Moscow Art Theater attached great importance to motivation for any action, even any movement of each of the characters. It was assumed that civic pathos would also gain new strength and ground. The path of the play was like a path of conquest and loss. By the end of the 19th century, reciting poetry from the stage degenerated into recitation or was neglected. The Moscow Art Theater production did not find a solution either. The history of productions later opens with the performance of V.E. Meyerhold 1928. In the theater named after him. Chatsky acted as an exposer of social evil. The author returned to the original title “Woe to Wit.” Chatsky read revolutionary conscription poems. Sophia decisively became closer to Molchalin. The role of Chatsky was played by E.P. Garin. Then K.P. Khokhlov. The closest production to us was in 1962 at the Leningrad Drama Theater named after G. A. Gorky. Tovstonogov. The comedy has not been shown in theaters for many years. And her return to the stage was announced strictly and solemnly. The performance was designed for direct contact with the audience. Chatsky, played by S.Yu. Yursky arrives in Moscow, full of hope. And then he saw his opponents. Chatsky addressed the audience for understanding. Performed by Molchalin by actor K.Yu. Lavrov explained a lot. Sophia became a dramatic face. She was placed at the center of the play. Performed by T.V. Doronina. Critics believed that such a play had lost its main conflict. There will be other productions of a different kind.

On the topic: methodological developments, presentations and notes

Stage production “What is good and what is bad”

The goal of this event is to show through satire and humor the negative impact of bad habits on a person’s health and moral character...

"The significance of the episode. The role of stage interpretation in revealing the image. Preparing for an essay - a discussion about the meaning of the episode. (Based on N.V. Gogol’s comedy “The Inspector General”: act IV, scenes XII - XV).”

It is especially difficult to retell a poetic or dramatic work. Behind Gogol’s laughter there is always thought, because with him the funny and the tragic are always nearby, inextricably. That's why we together...

“Technological map of the premiere lesson “Stage interpretation of A. N. Ostrovsky’s poetic fairy tale “The Snow Maiden” in the school theater “OXYMORON”

Of course, school will not teach you the meaning of life - it cannot be taught! – it must be found by each person independently. But “to set guidelines” - to teach knowledge...

Lesson on the basics of acting. Stage movement. "Flower - seven-flowered"

The lesson "Tsvetik-Semitsvetik" is an introductory lesson in the theater studio. The kids will know. what is theater, when did it appear, get acquainted with the variety of its forms....

Lesson on the basics of acting. Stage movement. "Fair"

“The “Fair” lesson is designed to practice stage movement. Children, trying to reproduce various images, learn to portray different types of people and animal characters. During the game, they develop...

Lesson No. 3 on the Fundamentals of Acting. Technique of stage speech. Role-playing game “Visiting the Tailor.”

The lesson is structured in the form of a role-playing game. The participants of the lesson act out a scene of townswomen coming with orders to the Tailor....

Send your good work in the knowledge base is simple. Use the form below

Students, graduate students, young scientists who use the knowledge base in their studies and work will be very grateful to you.

Posted on http://www.allbest.ru/

Introduction

The merits of the Russian drama theater are enormous in the development of the ideological and artistic merits of “Woe from Wit” by successive generations of society. Here the dramatic work receives an interpreter and propagandist, which the novel does not have.

From the 1830s to the present day, comedy has not left the repertoire of both capital and provincial theaters. Many artists became famous for playing roles in this play: M. S. Shchepkin, P. S. Mochalov, I. I. Sosnitsky, I. V. Samarin, V. N. Davydov, A. A. Yablochkina, O. O. Sadovskaya , V. N. Ryzhova, A. P. Lensky, A. I. Yuzhin, K. S. Stanislavsky, I. M. Moskvin, V. I. Kachalov and others. In the creation of scenery, furniture, costumes, makeup in different Over the years, artists M. V. Dobuzhinsky, I. M. Rabinovich, V. V. Dmitriev, D. N. Kardovsky, E. E. Lansere took part in collaboration with directors. Several of the most remarkable productions of “Woe from Wit” were of especially outstanding importance: at the Korsh Theater (Moscow, 1886), at the Alexandrinsky Theater (St. Petersburg, 1903), and the Moscow Art Theater (1906). The direction of V. I. Nemirovich-Danchenko, the scenery of Dobuzhinsky, the historical style of the entire production of the performance constituted an event in theatrical life. The later productions of the comedy in the theater by V. E. Meyerhold (Moscow, 1928) and his follower N. Volkonsky (Moscow, 1930), G. A. Tovstonogov (Leningrad, 1962) also caused heated debate. The productions of O. Menshikov (Tallinn, Chelyabinsk, 1998) and Y. Lyubimov (Moscow, 2007) attract with their modernity.

Griboedov's creation, with its high merits, enriched the Russian stage and contributed to the theater's turn towards the path of realism. However, it was difficult for the theater to master the aesthetic and ideological riches of the play, and they were mastered gradually. There were also certain ambiguities, difficulties, and even partial contradictions in the comedy text that made it difficult to translate on stage. When it first appeared on stage, “Woe from Wit” encountered old traditions that were alien or hostile to the playwright’s bold innovation. I had to overcome backwardness and inertia in staging techniques and acting. This struggle has dragged on to this day, and “I’m Burning from Wit” had to overcome styles foreign to realism - from classicism to expressionism. But the high talents of the best performers and directors revealed the treasures of the work of genius and gradually created a rich tradition of stagecraft.

Literary criticism, scientific literary criticism and theater studies contributed to the enrichment of the stage performance of “Woe from Wit”. They helped to reveal the ideological content, psychological richness, everyday features, dramatic structure, the high merits of language and verse, preserved and passed on to other performers and directors the accumulated tradition from the distant and recent past. The artists who designed the performances created makeup, costumes, scenery, and furnishings that contributed to the historical and aesthetic understanding of comedy.

However, the very text of “Woe from Wit” was not always protected from distortion by actors and directors. A painful yoke was the censorship distortion of the text, which took place during the stage performance of “Woe from Wit” for almost a whole century - until 1917.

1 . Earlyproductions

Having completed creative work on the comedy in 1824 and encouraged by the success of “Woe from Wit” in society, Griboedov dreamed of printing it and staging it on stage. But the play is filled with echoes of Decembrism; it was unthinkable to bring her on stage: in 1825 it would have been a political demonstration. Even an amateur performance by students of the Theater School, prepared with the participation of the author, was not allowed.

The year 1827 was also marked. In liberated Yerevan, “Woe from Wit” was staged for the first time, and in the presence of the author. Isn’t it surprising that it was not in Moscow or St. Petersburg, where the play was passed from hand to hand, by word of mouth, but on the outskirts of the empire?

It is known that Griboyedov’s request to stage the play in Russian theaters was not granted. And, a different situation developed in the newly annexed territories of Armenia. Highly educated officers, including exiled Decembrists, served in the Yerevan garrison, led by General A. Krasovsky. A period of peace and a break from hostilities made it possible to form a circle of avid fans of Melpomene. Acquaintance with the author of the immortal comedy, as well as longing for the young Fatherland, played a role. The performance took place in December, in the mirror hall of the Sardar Palace. its description is contained in Griboyedov’s travel notes from the time of his first visit to Yerevan: “The hall is large, the floor is covered with expensive patterned carpets... the convex ceiling represents a chaos of mirror pieces... on all the walls, in two rows, one on top of the other, there are paintings - the adventures of Rostom ".

Many contemporaries note the presence of Griboyedov at the first production of the comedy. Information about this is contained in the “History of the Erivan Regiment”, published in the newspaper “Tiflis Gazette” for 1832. An interesting recollection is placed on the pages of the magazine “Russian Antiquity” by Dmitry Zabarev, a participant in the government description of Transcaucasia, who played the role of Chatsky in Tiflis: “I forgot to say that the comedy “Woe from Wit” was played in 1827, in the presence of the author in the Erivan fortress, in one of the rooms of the Sardinian palace." The performers of the play invited the author to evaluate the quality of the work’s implementation, “what he will notice is successful and unsuccessful in the performance.” The proposal was accepted, "and he made sure to express his opinions."

The activities of the theater group were constant. The production of "Woe from Wit" was accompanied by an expansion of the repertoire, improvement of design, and an increase in the performing level. In the “Confession” of the Decembrist E.E. Lachinov, under the date February 7, 1828, it is noted: “Our theater is improving hourly: scenery is being added, a wardrobe is being built; and as for the actors, Moscow theater lovers would shout hurray more than once if had such."

The passion for theater was widespread. This is evidenced by the report of I.F. Paskevich dated March 17 to the chief of the main headquarters, Count I.I. Dibich. Reporting on the inspection, he, among other things, indicated: “A theater was established in Erivan, in which officers, during the guard post itself, played the roles of actors. Knowing that this was contrary to the regulations, he forbade it.”

The troupe's activities were stopped not only by the ban of Paskevich, but also by the outbreak of the Russian-Turkish war. Participants in the officer-Decembrist theater requested to join the active army. Theatrical passion and admiration for Griboedov’s work gave way to heated military battles: Gangeblov, Konovnitsyn, Lachinov and Colonel Koshkarev took part in the assault on the Kars fortress on June 23, 1828.

Only in 1829, the year of Griboyedov’s death, five years after writing, “Woe from Wit” appeared on the St. Petersburg stage - in an extraordinary environment: at a benefit performance of actress M. I. Valberkhova, December 2, 1829, in addition to the drama “John, Duke of Finland” was given “Theater foyer, or: Scene behind the stage, interlude-divertissement, composed of recitations, singing, dancing and dances.” It was announced that “in one of the interludes a scene from the comedy “Woe from Wit”, in verse, op. A. Griboyedov" - an excerpt from the first act, phenomena 7 - 10. Performed by: Chatsky - I. I. Sosnitsky, Famusova - Boretsky, Sophia - Semenova Jr., Lisa - a student of the Mongotier theater school. Thus, hidden in the divertissement, between singing and dancing, was this passage, one of the most innocent episodes of comedy. The entertaining nature of the passage helped him soon appear on the Moscow stage.

2 . FullproductionsVMoscowAndSt. Petersburg

In January 1830, M. S. Shchepkin wrote to I. I. Sosnitsky: “Do me a favor, my friend, do not refuse to fulfill my request. I have been promised a vaudeville performance for my benefit; but I see that he cannot be ready in any way; So, in order to replace it to some extent, I want to give a divertismen in which to place some scenes. And therefore, order me to write out as quickly as possible those scenes from “Woe from Wit” that you played and the benefit performance of Madame Walberkhova.” “And if they write it out,” Shchepkin prudently added, “then present it to your office, so that it can confirm that the scenes were performed at the St. Petersburg Theater.” On January 31, 358, 1830, at Shchepkin’s benefit performance, after Molière’s “The Miser,” an excerpt from “Woe from Wit” was performed in the divertissement instead of vaudeville, and Shchepkin played the role of Famusov in it. He wrote to Sosnitsky about the “great success” of this production. Instead of a vaudeville with dancing, the third act of the comedy slipped through the vigilant theatrical censorship at the benefit performance of A. M. Karatygina on February 5, 1830: the tragedy “The Death of Agamemnon” translated from French was given, and after it - “The Moscow Ball”, the third act of Griboyedov’s comedy “ with dances belonging to it.” The poster said: “The dancers will be: Mrs. Bartrand-Atrux, Istomina, Zubova and Alexis; Messrs. Alexis, Goltz B., Spiridonov M. and Striganov French quadrille; Mrs. Spiridonova M., Shemaeva B., Avoshnikova and Selezneva; Messrs. Shemaev b., Eberhard, Marcel and Artemyev Mazurku.” This ballet “tradition” passed through the 30s, 40s and 50s and was carried into the 60s. They danced a polonaise, a French quadrille, and a mazurka to the orchestra. Famusov and Shchepkin also got involved in dancing; Outstanding ballet dancers took part in them, and some dramatic artists, such as N. M. Nikiforov, became famous for their “inimitable” execution of “caricature steps.”

When in 1864, the Moscow Maly Theater tried to “cleanse Griboyedov’s immortal creation from all the vulgarities that distorted it on stage,” and above all from dances “in a caricatured form,” the St. Petersburg theater authorities ordered the dances “to be left unchanged,” since “ most of the public have become comfortable with them.” The dances neutralized and neutralized the satirical poison of the text. The theater management and directors, chasing success with the undemanding public, themselves encouraged this invasion of ballet into drama. Not only in the 60s or 359 80s, but also in the 900s and later, dance divertissement still existed in productions of “Woe from Wit”.

“Woe from Wit” had difficulty making its way onto the stage. Only a few months after the staging of the third act, on June 16, 1830, act IV was presented for the first time on the state stage in St. Petersburg. For a long time, the first act took place only in a legalized passage, without the first six “immoral” phenomena. The second act with monologues by Famusov and Chatsky was not allowed on stage. Only on January 26, 1831, at a benefit performance by Ya. G. Bryansky, in St. Petersburg, at the Bolshoi Theater, “Woe from Wit” was presented in its entirety for the first time, and, moreover, with a brilliant cast of performers: V. A. Karatygin - Chatsky, V. I. Ryazantsev - Famusov, E. S. Semenova - Sofya, A. M. Karatygina and Bryansky - Gorichi, I. I. Sosnitsky - Repetilov, etc. In the same year, on November 27, all four actions were presented at the Moscow Maly Theater, and also in a brilliant cast: Famusov - M. S. Shchepkin, Sofya - M. D. Lvova-Sinetskaya, Chatsky - P. S. Mochalov, Skalozub - P. V. Orlov, Repetilov - V.I. Zhivokini, Tugoukhovsky - P.G. Stepanov and others.

The first even fragmentary performances of “Woe from Wit” were a great success. About the first performance of Act III on the St. Petersburg stage in 1830, the theater reviewer of “The Northern Bee” wrote: “All lovers of dramatic art are grateful to Mrs. Karatygina for choosing this passage for her benefit performance... With what intense attention they listened to every verse in the theater, with what delight they applauded! If they weren’t afraid to interfere with the progress of the performance, then applause would be heard after every verse.” “During the entire act of applause, almost 360 people remained silent,” wrote a reviewer for the Northern Mercury magazine.

An enthusiastic private letter has reached us (I. E. Gognieva to A. K. Balakirev, dated July 1, 1830) about the same early performances of “Woe from Wit”: “No matter how often they play, they cannot quench the thirst of the public<...>Every week two or three times “Woe from Wit”! "Woe from Wit"! that was Griboyedov! such is his comedy! Only the last two acts are played: Moscow Ball and Departure after the Ball. Miracle! miracle! Oh dear, what a pity that I admire her without you. What revelry, what liveliness on stage! Laughter, joy, applause throughout the theater!.. That's joy! It’s such a holiday to look at all this!”

Professor and censor A.V. Nikitenko wrote in his diary on February 16, 1831: “I was in the theater at a performance of Griboedov’s comedy “Woe from Wit.” Someone sharply and rightly remarked that this play has only one thing left: it is so distorted by the fatal knife of the Benckendorff literary council. The acting of the actors is also not good. Many, not excluding Karatygin the Great, do not at all understand the characters and situations created by the witty and brilliant Griboedov.

This play is played every week. The theater management, they say, gets a lot of money from her. All the seats are always occupied, and already at two o’clock on the eve of the performance it is impossible to get a ticket for either boxes or seats.”1

The love for “Woe from Wit” in Russian society became a beneficial factor in stage history; in the fight against censorship and the administration for the production of “Woe from Wit,” theater workers have always relied on society, on spectators and readers. According to the successful definition of theater critic V. Maslikh, “the viewer was familiar with Griboedov’s comedy from numerous lists that were not touched by the censor’s red pencil, and the actors played from a copy that was mutilated by the censorship. For the viewer, the image of Famusov grew from the full text of the comedy, and the actor sculpted his image from the remnants of the text left by the censorship, devoid of many of the character’s most characteristic features” 2.

From Famusov’s famous monologue “That’s why you are all proud!”, containing 34 verses, censorship left only the first three verses, the most innocent ones, in the theatrical text; everything else was mercilessly thrown away. Meanwhile, this monologue is one of the foundations of the social and ethical characteristics of Famusov and, at the same time, of the “noble” nobility of Catherine’s time. Needless to say, how difficult this made the actor’s task, how many rich opportunities were lost for artistic embodiment in intonation, facial expressions, and in the entire performance of the actor. From Famusov’s remarks, theater censorship removed many other important and weighty words, for example:

Sergey Sergeich, no! If only evil could be stopped: Take all the books and burn them. Instead of the verse: "Try about the authorities, and nothing will tell you" - a meaningless phrase has been introduced into the text: "Try to speak, and you will say nothing." Large exceptions were made in Chatsky's remarks and monologues. And other roles suffered from the violence of censorship. The entire theatrical text of the comedy was mutilated. Not only was the socio-political satire softened or etched out, but even the psychological and everyday features were erased. Thus, the following self-characterization of Famusov was not allowed:

Look at me: I don’t boast about my build;

However, he was vigorous and fresh, and lived to see his gray hairs,

Free, widows, I am my own master...

Known for his monastic behavior!..

And the actor, who knew the original, complete Griboedov's text, was forced to choke on words in front of the audience.

The dismal state of the theatrical text "Woe from Wit" in the 30s - 50s of the 19th century. prevented the Russian drama theater from revealing the high realism of the play in stage performance.

But in the theatrical environment of that time there were internal limitations that prevented the innovative achievements of comedy from being revealed on stage.

Griboyedov was an innovator of dramatic creativity and a great realist. And in the Russian dramatic theater, classicism (or, rather, pseudo-classicism) still dominated in the tragic repertoire and performance, and in the comedy - “Moliereism”. In the conditions of political reaction, a passion for light comedy and vaudeville was noticeable.

“Woe from Wit” invaded the repertoire like a foreign body. “...For each role of “Woe from Wit,” wrote N. A. Polevoy in the Moscow Telegraph, “a new role is needed... For such roles there are no models, no examples, in a word, no French legends” . Even in Shchepkin’s performance of the role of Famusov, contemporary criticism found strong echoes of the Molière roles he played. “Mrs. Semyonova,” wrote the newspaper “Russian Invalid” in 1831, “resolutely did not understand the character of Sofia Pavlovna. She imagined a cutesy uniform mistress from some old printed comedy.” However, the critics themselves sometimes found themselves at the mercy of familiar old ideas and associations, admiring, for example, the fact that Karatygin in the role of Chatsky “was Agamemnon, looked at everyone from the heights of Olympus and read tirades - satirical attacks on our morals - as sentences of fate "("Northern Bee", 1830). The actor of the opposite direction, Mochalov, also turned out to be unsuccessful in the role of Chatsky: “He represented not a modern person, different from others only in his view of objects, but an eccentric, a misanthrope, who even speaks differently than others, and directly gets into a quarrel with the first person he meets.” "(Moscow Telegraph, 1831).

In the very text of "Woe from Wit", in the stylistic type of comedy, in its individual particulars, there were echoes of classicism; in the 30s of the last century they were perceived more vividly than now. The role of Lisa is related to the traditional classical role of the French soubrette; monologues are abundant (sixteen; eight of them belong to Chatsky). These rudimentary features, which are not essential in Griboyedov's dramaturgy, were more accessible to the understanding of the first performers of Woe from Wit and somewhat confused them. And later literary and theatrical criticism repeatedly returned to the interpretation of Chatsky as a reasoner, as an alter ego, as a porte-parole of the author, denying Chatsky vitality and truthfulness.

The stage embodiment of the bright typical characters of Griboyedov's comedy was extremely difficult. It was immeasurably easier to replace the creative task of stage typification with mechanical copying of 364 living faces, prototypes, originals, the search for which was then carried away, or to equate Griboedov's images with stereotyped "roles".

In the first years of the stage life of Woe from Wit, the production of the play was of little concern to directors and critics; the play was still "modern", and there was no question of costumes, make-up, setting, etc. The actors created their roles according to fresh tradition, partly from the author himself, through Sosnitsky, Shchepkin. In their game, they could directly copy one or another living typical Muscovite. The reviewers assessed only the degree of talent of the performers. Later, when the life depicted by Griboyedov began to recede into the historical past, the question of the tasks of staging a comedy became the next step; he inevitably associated himself with new reassessments of the entire comedy and its individual characters.

However, the deep realism of "Woe from Wit", the everyday and psychological truthfulness, the national identity of the comedy came into conflict with the dilapidated theatrical traditions and clichés. The entry of "Woe from Wit" on the stage marked a revolution in the history of the Russian theater. That high realism, for which the Russian theater became famous and entered the world history of art, begins with the productions of Woe from Wit. Through the power of its realism, “Woe from Wit” re-educated the actors. Mochalov, who initially interpreted Chatsky in the style of a Moliere misanthrope, later became softer, more lyrical, and simpler. The realistic performance of Famusov by Shchepkin had its own meaningful and long history. V. G. Belinsky in 1835 wrote about Shchepkin in the role of Famusov: “The actor deeply understood the poet and, despite his dependence on him, he himself is the creator” 3.

A huge victory for psychological realism was the performance of the role of Chatsky in the 40s by the famous Moscow actor I.V. Samarin. In his memoirs, actor P.M. Medvedev testified: “It was great. His first act and exit is perfection. The viewer believed that Chatsky was “in a hurry,” “flying,” “enlivened by the date.” In my memory, no one knew how to experience poetry and master it like I.V. did... The way he painted with Griboedov’s poems, he painted portraits of Moscow society! Youth, sarcasm, sometimes bile, regret for Russia, the desire to awaken her - all this was in full swing and covered with fiery love for Sophia.” Samarin-Chatsky's tour in St. Petersburg in 1846 exposed the dilapidated Karatygin traditions. The magazine “Repertoire and Pantheon” then wrote: “Samarin understood and played Chatsky in a way that none of our artists understood and played him ... All the former Chatskys, no matter how many we saw them, from their first appearance on stage took the appearance of almost tragic heroes, they spoke and ranted with all the importance of preachers... Samarin in the first act was cheerful, talkative, simple-minded, mocking. His acting and his conversation were extremely natural.” Naturalness, realism, psychological truthfulness - this is a whole revolution in the understanding of Griboyedov's hero, a revolution in stage creativity.

The creative achievements of Samarin, which influenced the St. Petersburg performers of Chatsky, were also perceived by theater critics.

In 1862, an article by V. Alexandrov (pseudonym of playwright V. A. Krylov) “Some of the faces of the comedy “Woe from Wit” in terms of stage performance” appeared in “Northern Bee.” Here, several 366 apt, original and subtle thoughts were expressed about the psychology and stage embodiment of the main characters of the play. He offers a new interpretation of the image of Chatsky, which emphasized heroic and tragic tones and did not show the intimate, love drama of the hero (“the actors playing the role of Chatsky, for the most part, pay little attention to his love, they are more busy with hatred,” although Chatsky “in his youth loves his nature more than he hates”); is indignant at the crude understanding of the types of Skalozub and Molchalin: “Mr. d. actors usually play these roles in such a way that in Skalozub we see a fruity soldier, a private who just can’t toss and turn according to all the rules of the military article; Molchalin comes off as such a vile, lackey person that Petrushka, with a canvas sewn on his elbow depicting a hole, seems like a gentleman in front of him.” The critic insists that Molchalin is “not only handsome, but even graceful,” since Sophia likes him. V. Aleksandrov’s comments on the staging of some group scenes, for example, the last phenomenon of the third act, are also valuable: “This scene should be played like this: after the first words of the monologue, Sophia sits down, and Chatsky is next to her. He speaks the monologue at first calmly, as a simple conveyance of a fact that has made him melancholy, and, as he speaks, he becomes increasingly heated. Guests must also remain on stage."

Made in 1864, at the height of the social movement, the attempt of the Maly Theater actor S.V. Shumsky to intimate Chatsky was not successful. But this idea could be based on Griboyedov’s text and it had its own fascination. Later, the same understanding of the image of Chatsky and his stage performance was developed by the critic S. Andreevsky. In an 1895 article about Griboyedov, he insisted that “the two heroes in the play should clearly appear before the viewer, as Polonsky aptly put it in his verse: “woe from love and grief from the mind,” because both of these griefs constitute the living content of comedy."

The famous theater critic and editor of the magazine “Intermission” A. N. Bazhenov paid a lot of attention to the stage production of “Woe from Wit” 4. He raised the question of the need for strict historical accuracy in the setting and costumes when performing “Woe from Wit”, about the release of Griboyedov’s creation from the “divertismento” glued to it. Later, another theater critic, S.V. Vasiliev (Flerov), devoted a lot of attention and work to the same issue. His extensive magazine articles about the characters of Molchalin, Sophia, Liza, Famusov are collected in the publication: S. Vasiliev. Dramatic characters. Experience in analyzing individual roles as a guide to their performance. Comedy "Woe from Wit". Vol. I -- IV. M., 1889 -- 1891. In each issue dedicated to an individual (Molchalin, Sofya, Liza, Famusov), the following are given: “Materials for characterization” - a selection of quotes from “Woe from Wit”; type parsing; full text of the role; notes on selected difficult verses and phrases and costume drawing. In analyzing types, the author shows excellent knowledge of the text, great thoughtfulness, psychological sensitivity, and close familiarity with the conditions of the scene. During his lifetime, S. Vasiliev did not have time to publish the fifth issue of his “Dramatic Characters,” dedicated to Chatsky, but he began to publish extensive works about this hero in the “Russian Review” (1894, No. 1; 1895, No. 1, 2, 10). All these works undoubtedly influenced the stage productions of “Woe from Wit” and theater criticism. Under the direct influence of A. N. Bazhenov, for example, there was a production at the Moscow Maly Theater in 1864. In the 80s, when private theaters were already operating, “Woe from Wit” was staged at the Pushkin Theater by A. A. Brenko in costumes of the era. A significant experience was the production of a comedy at the Korsh Theater in Moscow in 1886 with sets by the artist A. S. Yanov and in costumes of the 20s, with a brilliant selection of performers (V. N. Davydov - Famusov, N. P. Roshchin - Insarov - Chatsky, I.P. Kiselevsky - Skalozub, A.A. Yablochkina - Sofia, etc.).

The production of the St. Petersburg Alexandrinsky Theater in 1872 was analyzed by I. A. Goncharov in his article “A Million Torments”5. Goncharov demanded that each performer of any role in Woe from Wit comprehend the entire play and analyze his own role.

Vasiliev’s works are built according to the personal principle characteristic of that time. In accordance with the general tendency of the old Russian theater - to promote performers of the main roles and minimize the participation of the director - the critic's attention focused on the main characters.

“Woe from Wit” contributed to a change in the methods of stage creativity. The characters in the play were so artistically developed that the gifted actor was given the opportunity to highlight a “minor” or “third-rate” role. So the performers of the Gorich spouses advanced in the first performances, Repetilov - I. I. Sosnitsky, Skalozub - P. V. Orlov, later - the Countess-grandmother - O. O. Sadovskaya.

Another originality and brilliant innovation of "Woe from Wit" was the creation of a collective, complex, social image of the lordly Moscow society. In theatrical performances, therefore, the Moscow Ball immediately stood out and stood apart - the third act of the comedy. which required the active participation of the director.

It was a difficult and complex problem, which was solved gradually and piecemeal.

Since the beginning of the 1990s, P. P. Gnedich, a well-known figure in literature and theater, has shown much concern for the mount of Woe from Wit at the Alexandrinsky Theater. He developed his views on this subject in the article “Woe from Wit” as a stage performance. Project for a Comedy Production” (“Yearbook of the Imperial Theatres”, season 1899/1900) With his inherent taste, knowledge of the era, psychological sensitivity and stage experience, the author gives many indications about the external setting of the play, scenery, furniture, props, costumes, etc. , about the stage embodiment of individual images and group scenes.

P. P. Gnedich was interested not only in special stage issues, but also in the fate of the text of “Woe from Wit”. However, when his "project for staging a comedy" was being written, he could not yet have the editions of the Museum Autograph and the Gendre Manuscript. Therefore, he confidently quotes falsified monologues from the edition of ID Garusov 6 and embarks on the dangerous path of "corrections" of Griboyedov's text. Later this resulted in systematic directorial “corrections” of the text.

The etude of P. P. Gnedich influenced the productions of both state and private theaters.

However, it should be noted that P. P. Gnedich (like S. V. Vasiliev) is absorbed by the interest in the intimate drama of Chatsky - Sophia and in the picturesque picture of Moscow customs and life. Gnedich did not have enough attention and interest to develop a socio-political drama, to recreate Griboedov's brilliant satire. Like V. Alexandrov and S. V. Shumsky, he sought to intimate the role of Chatsky, and after that the entire production of Woe from Wit.

Gnedich's idea was most fully realized at the Alexandrinsky Theater and, above all, by Gnedich himself in the production of 1900.

The Moscow Maly Theater, which continuously staged “Woe from Wit” in previous years, in 1902 carried out a new production by A. I. Yuzhin. Famusov was played by A.P. Lensky, Sophia by A.A. Yablochkina, who showed the features of the future Khlestova in the young heroine; Lisa - V. N. Ryzhov. Of greatest interest were P. M. Sadovsky (junior), and then A. A. Ostuzhev in the role of Chatsky. After the death of Lensky, “Woe from Wit” temporarily disappeared from the repertoire of the Maly Theater, but in 1911 it was resumed in a new design by N. M. Brailovsky (director E. A. Lepkovsky). The performance was devoid of the shortcomings of the Moscow Art Theater performance, which transformed a satirical comedy into an intimate and lyrical drama (see below). Convincing images were created by M. N. Ermolova (Khlestova), A. I. Yuzhin (Repetilov) 7.

Following P. P. Gnedich, director of the Alexandrinsky Theater Yu. E. Ozarovsky published his work on the stage development of “Woe from Wit”: “Plays of the artistic repertoire and their staging on stage. A manual for directors, theater directors, dramatic artists, drama schools, and lovers of dramatic art." Issue II. "Woe from Wit." Edited by Yu. E. Ozarovsky, artist and director of the Russian drama troupe of the Imperial St. Petersburg. theaters Edition of M. D. Musina. St. Petersburg, 1905 (2nd ed. - 1911). This huge volume, richly illustrated, is truly a scenic encyclopedia of Woe from Wit. In the first of three sections, the editor sets out the principles that he followed in establishing the text of the comedy, gives an article on the “rhythmic meter and rhyme of the comedy verse,” prints the text itself and, in the notes, real, historical and other explanations of rare words and expressions. The second section contains five articles by I. A. Glazkov, outlining the biography and literary activity of Griboedov, productions of “Woe from Wit” on stage, a description of the era depicted in the play, and a bibliography of the comedy. In the third section, artistic and directing, the editor himself gives a number of articles - about the characters in the comedy (materials for characterization), about the motives of makeup, costume, furniture, props, scenery and mise-en-scène.

The editor did not want to reprint the usual text of “Woe from Wit” in his edition and was, of course, right, since many inaccuracies and distortions crept into it. But he combined his own edition from two handwritten texts: the earliest - the Museum and the latest - Bulgarinsky, completely ignoring Zhandrovsky - and this was a major mistake that adversely affected the stage text of both the Alexandrinsky and the Art Theaters. In addition, Yu. E. Ozarovsky 372 printed the text of the comedy in prose, without breaking it down into verse. The work of Yu. E. Ozarovsky is valuable not for the text of “Woe from Wit,” but for the huge amount of materials included in it: historical, literary, everyday life and others; Over 360 drawings are reproduced here: portraits, views, photographs from autographs, a long series of illustrations for the art and direction department, etc.

Under the direct influence of Ozarovsky, the most brilliant and talented stage re-creation of “Woe from Wit” turned out to be the production of the Moscow Art Theater in 1906. In the article by V. I. Nemirovich-Danchenko ““Woe from Wit” at the Moscow Art Theater” from the Museum's autograph.

Later, when the academic complete collection of Griboedov’s works appeared, V. I. Nemirovich-Danchenko accepted the original Griboyedov text established in it and did not stop at relearning the roles by the actors. However, later the text of the Art Theater was again complicated by some arbitrary insertions.

In later adaptations of the play at the Art Theater (especially in 1925), the sound of socio-political satire intensified, but the originality and integrity of the overall concept were violated. The 1938 production did not introduce major changes to the general interpretation of the play. But Chatsky, in a new interpretation by V.I. Kachalov, was enriched with traits of spiritual maturity and depth.

The revolutionary era posed the most difficult tasks for all drama theaters staging “Woe from Wit,” and for theater and literary scholars who theoretically and historically comprehend the problem of the stage embodiment of Griboyedov’s comedy. At first there were mistakes, deviations and harmful extremes, which were slowly and painfully eliminated.

3 . StagingtheaterIN.E.Meyerhold1928 year

Formalistic trickery and vulgar sociological perversions were manifested in their most extreme form in the production of Woe from Wit at the theater of V. E. Meyerhold (1928). The director allowed himself a willful attitude towards Griboedov's text and not only included fragments of the early edition (beginning with the title: "Woe to the Mind") into the final text, but also threw out phrases and whole speeches, passed the replicas of one character to another, introduced inserts that did not belong to Griboedov into the text etc. The harmonious four-act composition of the play was split into 17 “episodes”. Characters unknown to Griboedov (a guitarist, a tavern owner, an accompanist, a butler, a senator, Chatsky's seven friends, an old nanny, etc.) are introduced. Unusual scenes and interludes are inserted: a night squash, a dance lesson, a shooting range.

4 . StagingN.ABOUT.Volkonsky1930 year

On February 3, 1930, the premiere of "Woe from Wit" took place at the Maly Theater. The play was staged and designed by artist I. Rabinovich, new to the Small Theatre. Undoubtedly, this production was influenced by the play "Woe to Wit" by V. Meyerhold. On the one hand, the theater argued with this work, on the other hand, it tried to develop some of its qualities. The main thing that the director cared about was the strengthening of the social sound of the performance, the exposure of Famusov's Moscow.

The performance aroused mostly critical reactions. Critic I. I. Bachelis generally rejected the right of the Maly Theater to experiment. "The Maly Theater and the experiment are essentially incompatible concepts." The attempt to carry out the experiment, according to the critic, led to eclecticism. The performance included both vaudeville grotesque (the image of Skalozub), and lyrical sentimentality (Sofya), and psychological naturalism (Liza), and gloomy symbolism (Chatsky), but there was no creative unity 12.1.

Most of the actors also did not accept the performance. So, M. Klimov resolutely refused to play the role of Famusov. A. Yablochkina, who played the role of Khlestova, recalled with horror that, according to the director's plan, they carried her out in an armchair and carried her around the guests. To the words of Khlestova: “But I feel sorry for Chatsky,” all the guests, kneeling down, had to pray. Khlestova wore a huge hat with feathers on her head, held a staff in her hand, her dress was black trimmed with silver. The tren from the dress was equal to almost two and a half arshins. “He made me faint at every performance” 12.2

In the notes of contemporaries we find: “At Griboyedov’s, Liza suddenly wakes up, gets up from her chair, and looks around.” In Volkonsky’s production, “there is obvious naturalism: Lisa “stretches, yawns, groans, and rolls on the floor.” Next, in Griboedov’s production, Lisa climbs onto a chair and moves the clock hand. In the theater, she takes off her shoes, “climbs onto a chair, then climbs onto the hill where the clock stands."

In the play, Lisa pronounces the phrase “Well, an uninvited guest” while standing at the door of Sophia’s room. And it turns out that the uninvited guest is Molchalin. Lisa wore a shabby suit, but Famusov only says at the end of the play: “Go to the hut, march, go after the birds.” here she “already in the first act is dressed as if she lives in a hut.”

Griboyedov's Skalozub bares his teeth. “This is a wide smile, and not a roaring laugh. Did the very intelligent Famusov, in his own way, let his former sergeant major open his house? Skalozub is stupid, but well-mannered.” The countess-grandmother is non-Russian, she replaces “d” with “t”: “trug”, “saltata”, “that to the grave”, replaces “b” with a boovoy “p”: “ardor”, “s fell”, replaces “zh” "with the letter "sh": "losed", "skashi", "poshar". 12.3

N.K. Piksanov, one of the most famous researchers of Griboyedov’s work, recalling the performance he saw, said that the second act opened with the interlude “Famusov’s Gluttony.” “The guests appearing at the ball were twirling in some kind of ballet movement, some allegorical figures were moving to the forefront, Chatsky (played by Meyer) was presented not as a young man, a secular nobleman of the Decembrist orientation, but as a commoner, poorly dressed, alien to the life of the lord :close to Famusov's servants" 12.4

Photographs from the Theater Museum give an idea of ​​the mise-en-scène, scenery and costumes of the performance.

First act. To the left is a staircase leading to the mezzanine, in the center on a column there is a clock resembling a tower, similar to a tower, under the column there is a round bench. Deliberately ugly portraits of Famus’s relatives hang on the walls. Sophia, Molchalin, Liza are in the foreground, the servants are placed behind. Lisa (artist Malysheva) appears in the photograph as a healthy, cheerful village girl. In contrast, Sophia, played by S. Fadeeva, is clearly mannered. Molchalin - N. Annenkov is dressed in a uniform, with a spinner on his head. Skalozub-A.Rzhanov, the same big, almost clown-like cook, has sideburns on his face and raised eyebrows, which gives his face an expression of surprise. Repetilov - A. Otsuzhev wore a large white bow around his neck. Clearly eccentric Mr. D. - artist N. Soloviev, short, dressed in a uniform, with a ribbon over his shoulder, and Mr. N., on the contrary, with an elongated head - artist Erdok.

A. Lunacharsky wrote an extensive review about this production. First of all, the critic is convinced that the Maly Theater “more than any other is obliged, next to bright modern plays, to present for our new audience and for our youth the classical repertoire in the clearest and most artistic performance possible.” For Lunacharsky, the desire of the theater to move away from routine, the opportunity to interpret in a new way, in one’s own way, seems extremely important. And this is precisely why he is ready to support Volkonsky, despite the controversial nature of his production. Volklnsky wanted to find a psychological justification for every word and action of the characters. “In order to give the holiday of the ruling class (about the ball scene) genuine psychological content and make of it a terrible phenomenon into which Chatsky crashed on the very first day when he returned to sip the “sweet smoke of the Fatherland,” it is necessary to expressively caricature this entire act. This is what Volkonsky did. Therefore, I reject any accusations that he violated the unity of style."12.4

Lunacharsky also considers images. Wearing glasses and a baggy frock coat, V. Meyer (Chatsky) turned out to be “completely up to the task assigned to him. He is nervous, he is unhappy. Even the slow pace dictated by the “elaboration” of each word does not prevent the fervor of his intonations, their enormous suffering sincerity from reaching to the public."12.4 S. Fadeeva Sofya failed. “She didn’t even have “charm,” which would somehow explain Chatsky’s attitude towards her. This is the weak point of the entire production.” Famusov, performed by S. Golovin, was a disgusting and evil old man. “He is, first of all, a slut, a hypocrite, a hypocrite, a tyrant, a black reactionary. At the same time, he is a flatterer and a sycophant.... Golovin has a gentleman - a tyrant. But the lordly stylish, almost aesthetic evaporated, and the tyrant, Asian thing was conveyed with relief, sometimes even overpowering realism and falling into caricature. Add to this the wide variety of intonations and meticulous gestures, and you will understand that Golovin has had a good time."

It is difficult to understand about the image of Molchalin - actor N. Annenkov: “his hero is a stupid person or is it Tartuffe, who has long-term plans.”12.4

It is quite obvious that, when analyzing the performance, Lunacharsky was primarily concerned about the modern sound of the comedy, about strengthening its social potential.

In 1938, the Maly Theater returned from unconvincing delights and paradoxes to the path of real creativity. The principles of the new production of “Woe from Wit” are set out in a collective article by P. M. Sadovsky, I. Ya. Sudakov and S. P. Alekseev and in a later article by the director, P. M. Sadovsky 10.

The new performance featured lucky discoveries and successes, starting with the artistic design of Academician E. E. Lanceray. They found that the Maly Theater's production happily competes with the simultaneous new production at the Art Theater.

Nevertheless, here too there were many errors and excesses in the plans and inventions of the director. The theater allowed the earliest and latest editions of Griboyedov's text to become contaminated. The original Griboyedov script is overgrown with interludes and pantomimes, not predetermined by the author, slowing down the pace or reducing realism to naturalism. So, at the first raising of the curtain, there is a pantomime of the awakening of Liza, who stretches, yawns, groans, falls to the floor, while Griboyedov’s stage directions only say: “gets up from her chair, looks around.” When a rumor about Chatsky's madness spreads, one girl becomes ill, she is led to the front of the stage, seated in chairs, and again there is a sideshow around her. At Famusov’s ball at the Maly Theater there is so much noise, squealing, and laughter that it reduces the picture of the capital’s noble morals to the level of a provincial party. Maly Theater productions are characterized by exaggeration in facial expressions, intonations of internal experience, and hyperbolism of external expression. The gestures of many performers are extremely exaggerated; the performance often turns into grotesque and caricature. The protagonist of the play is Lisa, who captures the attention of the audience and tries to make them laugh. Having taken off her shoes, she runs around the stage in stockings, crawls on the floor, etc. Here the production method descends from high comedy-drama to light comedy and even to vaudeville.

The literary and stage history of the image of Sophia turned out to be complex. For many years and even decades, no actress was nominated for the role of Sophia, and this was not an accident. Seventeen-year-old Sophia must be played by a young actress, but skills, artistic maturity and thoughtfulness are required from the most experienced, elderly actress. According to legend, some actresses at first refused to play Sophia. The image of Sophia, which many authoritative connoisseurs of literature found unclear, contains a complex and difficult combination of three mental series: deep, strong, hot nature, external bookish sentimentality and corrupting public education. This combination made it very difficult to criticize both the directors and the performers.

The correct interpretation of the image of Sophia, based on the judgments of Goncharov, is found in P. M. Sadovsky: “Smart Chatsky loves the empty Sophia, in love with the insignificant Molchalin. This simplified interpretation of Griboyedov’s images, characteristic of a large number of productions, is the source of a number of absurdities. If Sophia is an empty and stupid, mannered and evil girl, doubt involuntarily arises in Chatsky’s mind... His love becomes natural if you stop seeing Sophia as a cold and empty coquette. Therefore, we deliberately remove the traits of cruelty and dryness in the image of Sophia, we humanize her.”

In January 1941, at the Leningrad Pushkin Theater, directors N. S. Rashevskaya and L. S. Vivien took into account extensive new experience and attracted such outstanding artists as E. P. Korchagina-Alexandrovskaya, V. A. Michurina to participate in the performance -Samoilov, nominated young performers: T. Aleshina (Sofya), V. Merkuryeva (Famusov). The performance was refreshed with some new mise-en-scenes. The production contains many episodes designed to approximate the high realistic style in which Griboyedov’s work itself was created. However, the Leningrad theater, in its desire to “refresh” the production, made many excesses.

In the anniversary year of 1945, about forty theaters responded with productions of Griboyedov’s comedy. The unique feature of the anniversary was the inclusion of a number of national theaters in this work.

5 . StagingG.A. Tovstonogov1962 year

In the traditions of V. E. Meyerhold, “Woe from Wit” was staged by G. A. Tovstonogov at the Leningrad Bolshoi Drama Theater named after M. Gorky (1962).

In contrast to Griboyedov’s four locations of action in G. A. Tovstonogov’s play, the play is played in one room of an indeterminate type (either in the hall of columns, or in the lobby). A rotating tablet delivers first one or another interior staging to the stage. The second and third acts are arbitrarily merged together. Griboyedov's focused script is interrupted by numerous interludes and pantomimes, buffoonery and stunts. For example, two Zagoretskys are released on stage at the same time to show the omnipresence of this character. Griboyedov's high realism - everyday, psychological, social - is being squeezed out of the play. The socio-psychological type of Chatsky, a young, Decembrist-minded nobleman, is replaced by the mask of some socially simplified, characterless character Moscow Taganka Theater entitled “Woe from Wit - Woe to Wit - Woe to Wit,” directed by Yuri Lyubimov. The premiere took place in September 2007. Lyubimov noticeably shortened Griboyedov's play; in the program we read: “Comedy in 1 act.” So, about the production.

All the girls are on pointe shoes and in fluffy ballet dresses. The scenery, invented by Rustam Khamdamov, is light, light, translucent: it is almost invisible furniture made of plastic and many narrow curtains-blinds, which either hide the heroes from us, leaving mysterious shadows from them, or swing open, presenting a spacious ballet hall, where eccentrics crowd Famusov's guests. Griboedov's characters can be easily recognized, although the director has endowed each with a whole bunch of oddities and comic twists. Prince Tugoukhovsky is an absurd doll with brightly painted lips and gauze instead of a face, Mr. D is a disheveled short crazy man, Natalya Dmitrievna is a beauty and a ballet prima (she is played and danced by ballerina Ilze Liepa), Colonel Skalozub is an overripe hussar with a twisted mustache, epaulettes and sword in sheath. Skalozub moves around the house exclusively by marching, using Denis Davydov’s hussar songs as his drill (“I love a bloody battle, I was born for the royal service, Saber, vodka, hussar horse, With you I have a golden age!”). He is still strong and young, a completely suitable groom for Sofia - this girl, exhausted from ballet steps, who fell in love with Molchalin due to the banal lack of men in secular society.

Papa Famusov - a big official, and not at all a senile person - has long noticed the sexual hunger of his daughter (he himself is a sinner, along with Molchalin, he actively harasses the plump maid Lizanka, but she is smart and strict). He guards Sophia at night, interfering with meetings with his pretty secretary, and at the first meeting he tortures Chatsky: does he want to get married, all he has to do is ask...

But Chatsky (Timur Badalbeyli) is by no means a romantic. Paramilitary clothing, green (in contrast to the black and white suits of the others) jacket, shaved head, glasses - from everything you can see a dry intellectual, a philosopher with a tough character. At the beginning he looks like a soldier who has just returned from the war, and then like some kind of auditor monitoring the morals of Muscovites. A love story or comedy with his participation is in no way possible. The play turns into social satire, dispassionate and strict, like a court verdict.

“What new will Moscow show me?” - Chatsky is interested in Wolandov at the beginning of the performance. He doesn’t fall at Sophia’s feet - oh, why are you so cold? - and looks into her eyes with the gaze of a skeptic: “Who are you in love with? Oh, Molchalin! What fun.” At the ball, Chatsky keeps aloof from everyone, on principle does not initiate passionate dialogues, and does not throw pearls before swine. In general, he doesn’t give a damn about everyone, including Sophia and Famusov. “My soul here is somehow compressed by grief, And in the crowd I am lost, I am not myself,” Chatsky notes quite calmly: there is no strain, no pain, no tears in his voice. “Get out of Moscow! I don’t go here anymore. Give me a carriage, a carriage,” Chatsky says to himself in the finale, sitting down on a chair as if on a horse. This is the point in his research: the mores of the capital are not to his taste. Everything here is self-serving, fake, and even the curls are made of plastic, fi!

Lyubimov worked very carefully with the word, although he greatly shortened the play. The actors either recite poems, setting them to the music of Chopin, Stravinsky, Griboyedov's waltzes, or they read them as if they were prose: then each word penetrates the consciousness anew, and does not blurt out into the air, as is usually the case when reading. And at the same time, the performance came out very modern. “Plastic chairs, illuminated umbrellas, like in professional photo studios, bald Chatsky and the song “Moscow, the bells are ringing!”, which Famusov and Skolozub suddenly start singing - all this is about us and about us, as it were "We did not deny the verdict. It is unlikely that you will be able to laugh at the performance, but you will certainly be able to experience intellectual and aesthetic pleasure from the timeless classics."

Conclusion

drama theater production of mushroom eaters

Many years of tireless work on the stage version of “Woe from Wit” allowed us to achieve valuable results. Currently, directors, actors, and theater artists have a rich heritage. First of all, the authentic, reliable, indisputable text of “Woe from Wit.” Through painstaking work of many decades, after a thorough search for the author's and authorized texts, after scrupulous textual work on every word and punctuation mark, after disputes and discussions, we received the original author's text, freed from impurities and distortions.

A thorough reading of a truly Griboyedov text provides, in itself, both the director and the actor with everything basic necessary for the stage embodiment of the play. The theater also has well-developed biographical, historical, historical, everyday, historical and theatrical materials. Special theater literature on “Woe from Wit” is as rich as any other special literature on productions of masterpieces of Russian drama. Now, each new performer of the role of Famusov, Chatsky, Sophia, Molchalin, Liza, Skalozub has a great heritage of theatrical experience and theatrical thought.

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