Aleksey Kazantsev knew how to light the stars

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

For the audience, the theater begins with a hanger, as the great theatrical genius Stanislavsky said. And no one argues with this. This is a temple of art, not a courtyard. But there was a man who dared to create a "passing theatrical yard." Director, playwright, actor, founder of the Center for Drama and Directing Alexei Nikolaevich Kazantsev is a representative of the "new wave" of Soviet drama. His creative heyday and formation fell on the "long seventies" and perestroika mess.

There were many professions

Alexey Kazantsev, whose biography is closely connected with Melpomene, was born in Moscow in the victorious but hungry year of 1945. Showing a craving for literature, he entered the philological faculty of Moscow State University. A year later, he went to the Drama Studio of the Central Children's Theater, which he successfully graduated in 1967, served as an actor in the Central Children's Theater. At the same time, he gained directing experience, directed the comedy Tarelkin's Death and the drama Crime and Punishment.

He studied directing inLeningrad (Tovstonogov's course), then at the Moscow Art Theater School (1975, Efremov's course). As a director, he worked at the Riga Drama Theater. Moscow City Council and others. An interesting talented director, an innovator, jumping out of the red flags of ideological censorship. He is cramped within the narrow confines of political enlightenment, although he was neither a dissident, nor an anarchist, nor a modernist.

Aleksey Nikolaevich reflected his attitude to reality in his work. The author's path became a matter of life, the writer gained fame in the world theatrical beau monde. For 32 years he wrote 10 plays. This is in addition to directorial work, the release of the Dramaturg magazine, the creation of a theatrical stage for young writers and directors, and touring activities.

Starting "entrance yard"

In 1998, Alexei Kazantsev and Mikhail Roshchin opened another theater in Moscow - independent of the state and censorship, the only one where young directors could show their strengths and talents. The writer saw and understood: everything is collapsing, from industry to space. There are no young playwrights. And if they appear, they don't even want to listen to them in reputable theaters.

Knowing the laws of the stage, Alexey Nikolaevich knew how to discover new names, felt talent and helped him. Its free theatrical space, the "entrance courtyard", opened the names of Kirill Serebrennikov, Olga Subbotina, Mikhail Ugarov and others. Yes, to see gold, you had to wash a lot of rock, but the game was worth the candle - an aspiring playwright or director got a chance if the editorial board of the CDR liked the plans and ideas.

He was not afraid to experiment, he could distinguish the husk from real art. So, for example, it happened with the play Claudel Models: they called for it with free invitation cards for several months. The public did not immediately appreciate it - several devastating articles in the press, two disastrous seasons. Now there are no tickets for Serebrennikov, the production receives awards, tours abroad.

Plays have a life of their own

As a director, Alexei Kazantsev created only five performances, one of them according to his own script in Riga. An attempt to put his "That This Light" (1992) in the BDT failed. Kazantsev, the author, never again allowed Kazantsev, the director, to stage his own dramas.

St. Petersburg friend and colleague Vadim Tumanov recalled his first meeting with the author. He was going to put in the "Theater of Satire" on Vasilyevsky "That this light." Distrustful, cautious, in a hare hat, Lesha looked like an angry bear cub, he was on his guard and did not believe in the idea. But when Tumanov managed to release the play (1995), he and Alexei became friends. Two years later, the play appears in the repertoire of the theater. Stanislavsky (1997). In the same year, graduates of the theater school "That Light" was shown in Kazan as a graduation work.

All the works of the theatrical writer were about the problems of morality, love, meanness, alienation and mercy. "Anton and Others" (1975) was staged at the Central Children's Theater only in 1981. “With spring I will return to you …”, - from this performanceFokin with students of GITIS, the history of the Tabakov Theater began. “And the silver cord will break …” - debut in 1982 at the Theater. Mayakovsky, the play was immediately banned from productions. The fate of other works was not easy either.

Best Story

Creative people often say that the best role has not yet been played, the picture has not been painted, everything is ahead. It so happened with Alexei Kazantsev that the main play was written under serial number 2. The story of the "Old House" is being played in more than 70 theaters around the world. You can watch it in different cities and countries, the "Old House" is the best monument to the Soviet era.

Local Romeo and Juliet appear in the scenery of a communal apartment arranged in a mansion where Leo Tolstoy once visited. Loving high school students in their closets are stretched by parents and circumstances. The first love through the efforts of adults was unhappy. Each participant in history carries a tragedy in his soul. Aplomb and envy, love and betrayal - nothing new, but the action clings to the living again and again.

He rejoiced in other people's success

For the creation of the CDR, the artistic director was awarded the prizes of the city of Moscow, Stanislavsky, "The Seagull". He led the team for nine years. On September 5, 2007, while preparing a tour to Bulgaria, at the age of 62, he died suddenly in Burgas. The dream of life, “Peer Gynt” by Ibsen, which he began to rehearse, was embodied by his wife, Natalia Somovayu, after the death of her husband. This is a famous artist, an associate in all mattersKazantsev. A photo of Alexei Kazantsev during the rehearsal of the action has been preserved. He rarely posed. Photos of a person's eventful life are offensively few.

But his work lives on, the Center works. In 2017, the new artistic director Vladimir Pankov launched his "Old House" on the author's home stage. For all the time he worked at the Central House of Artists, Alexei Kazantsev did not stage any of his plays. He thought about others, helped beginners, nurtured the young and rejoiced in their success, which is very rare among creative people.

Friends, remembering him, slow, clumsy, spoke of a gentle vulnerable soul, damn hard work and incredible intuition for real talent. He de alt with the future, but never cut the thread with the past. He was wounded by the collapse of a great country, he thought and wrote about the path of a person in this world, the problems of morality.