Konstantin Bogomolov, director: biography, creative activity

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

Hardly any of today's theater-goers have heard the name Konstantin Bogomolov. He became famous for scandalous topical productions and cutting-edge reading of the classics. This is the very case when they go not to the performance, but to the director: this time he will try to shock the audience with what. Over 14 years of his theatrical career, Bogomolov staged more than 30 performances: The Karamazovs, Fathers and Sons, The Seagull, Gargantua and Patagruel, Lear, Iphigenia in Aulis and many others. In addition, Konstantin Bogomolov is the director of the film performances “Wolves and Sheep”, “The Ideal Husband. Comedy . As you can see, most of his productions are based on classical works, from Chekhov to Euripides, but the spectacle on stage will be very different from the calm classics.

Biography of Konstantin Bogomolov

The director was born in Moscow in July 1975 in a family of film critics. Few people know that Bogomolov tried his hand at the poetic path. He studied at the Cypress Casket literary studio, founded by the famous Soviet writer Olga Tatarinova. His poems were evenpublished: in the magazine "We", the collections "The Seventeenth Echo" and "Babylon".

After graduating from high school in 1992, it was decided to continue literary education at the Faculty of Philology of Moscow State University. Then, instead of studying in graduate school, the young man enters GITIS and successfully completes it in 2003. After that, Bogomolov, the director, became known to the general public. The performance "Much Ado About Nothing" brought him his first award: he became the winner of the prestigious theater award "The Seagull". Then there were the awards of the Living Theater, Oleg Tabakov and Oleg Yankovsky. With the "Golden Mask" Bogomolov was less lucky. The director has been nominated since 2010 with the performances Eldest Son, Wonderland-80, Lear, The Year I Wasn't Born, Ideal Husband. Comedy, but has so far only received the Critics' Award.

For a long time Bogomolov worked as an assistant director at the Moscow Art Theater. He staged 9 performances for the Oleg Tabakov Theater. The director collaborated with the Pushkin Theatre, the Theater of Nations, the Mayakovsky Theatre. He also worked abroad: in Poland and Latvia. For 2016, Bogomolov is the director of the Lenkom Theater (since 2014).

"Iphigenia in Aulis" (2005)

Konstantin Bogomolov staged one of his first performances in the foyer of the Theater Center "On Strastnoy". The director gave a new sound to the work of Euripides. The classic tragedy turned out to be something like a chamber psychological drama in the entourage of gangster films. Critics were very skeptical about this idea. It's not even that chewing gum and glossy magazines in the hands of actors are inappropriatefor ancient Greek tragedy, but that their use was not justified in any way. Bogomolov did not discover any new meanings this time, but simply brought the characters to show off in fashionable costumes - “poor, but clean.”

Much Ado About Nothing (2007)

Shakespeare's Comedy Bogomolov staged at the Theater on Malaya Bronnaya. After the first directorial works, the critics labeled him as an intelligent boy from a decent family, but with this performance he managed to shake up the classical theater. Bogomolov placed his troupe in Italy during World War II. The director built the whole performance on contrasts: funny and gloomy, lyrical and sinister, poetry and prose. However, here Bogomolov has not yet been able to completely get rid of the status of a budding director: he was too carried away by minor decorative details and expressive means.

Wonderland 80 (2010)

Dovlatov's autobiographical prose Bogomolov added a piquancy to Carroll's absurdity. Not every director will dare to cross these writers in one performance. Soviet life takes on a surreal flavor when the White Rabbit enters the scene in the form of a KGB officer. Slightly insane characters living "in the opposite direction" can neither break out nor change the era of stagnation, and are doomed to eternal descent. Bogomolov collides not only Carroll and Dovlatov, but also two cultures - modern and recently departed - in his performance. The director acted here as morea mature master, for which he was nominated for the Golden Mask in 2011. With Wonderland - 80, the glory of Bogomolov the brawler began.

Karamazovs (2013)

The Karamazovs is one of the most sensational performances staged by Bogomolov. The director turned the classic work on its head, not only moving the characters to modern realities, but also bringing the detective line to the fore instead of philosophical and religious searches. If Bogomolov's previous works were non-linear and fragmentary in the best traditions of postmodernism, here the original plot and dialogues have been little affected by the director's revisions. Despite this, The Karamazovs is not the kind of performance to which schoolchildren should be taken to show the classics in illustrations.

The Seagull (2014)

In this performance, the action also unfolds strictly according to Chekhov's text with a few director's remarks. The decorations are minimalistic. One of the main finds is a large screen in the middle of the stage, which sets the accents. On it, the viewer sees either the enthusiastic look of Nina Zarechnaya, or the anxious face of Masha, or the tense gesture that sets the tone. The transformation of the image of Zarechnaya is impressive: if in the first act she appears as a blooming girl full of life, then in the second act a dried-up old woman appears on the stage, from which life has drained all her strength. Like previous performances, "The Seagull" came as a surprise: precisely because the performance did not shock, but shocked the Bogomolov audience. Producersubordinated everything to a simple and strict Chekhovian narrative.

Prince (2016)

Staging based on Dostoevsky's Idiot is one of Bogomolov's last directorial works. Again, the performance is accompanied by a scandal, again the audience rises, without waiting for the end of the action, and leaves the hall. Such is the creative method of Bogomolov - outrageous. The character Tymyshkin appears on the stage, represented by the director himself: a compilation of Myshkin and Stavrogin. And again, a postmodernist collage awaits the viewer here: Bogomolov quotes not only The Idiot, but also The Karamazovs, The Possessed, Nabokov, and Mann. Bogomolov explores the classic work and invites the viewer to solve this puzzle and find their own meanings in it.

It is clear even without a detailed analysis of performances that Konstantin Bogomolov is not a director for everyone. But those who are tired of the classical productions of the Maly Theater for a long time will most likely like his provocative attacks. You can love it or criticize it, but you definitely won't be bored. The performances of director Bogomolov are a surprise every time. Pleasant or not very - it all depends on the point of view. Be that as it may, without Bogomolov, who does not justify his name at all, it is already difficult to imagine modern Russian theater.