The genre of "Dolls" is defined as tragic farce. You can’t imagine more precisely: everything can be played on this material, from a tragedy that causes tears and catharsis to a farce that causes laughter. There was a feeling that in November a rather farce with unexpected elements of tragedy was presented (Pygmalion's look at Pomponina - "what will happen next?"). In December, they played a tragedy with elements of a farce. I'm not exactly versed in theatrical theory, but as far as I have enough of my classical education - after all, there are several approaches to the theater, one of which (if I don’t confuse anything, according to Stanislavsky), implies: the viewer must forget that he is in the theater, the stage and artists are in front of him, dissolve in action and completely “believe” in And there is an approach to the theatre, according to Bertolt Brecht – the spectator, on the contrary, needs to constantly remember that he is in the theatre.

So, I have no idea where I got such a perception from, but there was a strong feeling that in November I saw a performance made closer to the second version, and in December - to the first. It definitely didn’t fit in my head that I was seeing artists. Pygmalion, the Duke, Brandakhlyst were on the stage, and they didn’t play a performance in front of me, no, it was me who happened to be somewhere in Madrid and suddenly spied on the arrival of Senor Pygmalion with his puppets ...

It was different from the start. Very serious and intense entrepreneurs, and unexpectedly interesting actors. Usually their words somehow merged for me into one common "porridge", however, such a reading also took place. I finally caught where the "real" monologues of Lear, Hamlet and Othello turned into the text "about dolls". This time, the "actors" were able to convey not only the fact that they are, in general, average actors, but also convey a certain drama - "what about us, are we worse than puppets?"...

And then came Duke Alducar. Usually during the first act I take it easy on the duke, usually he is somewhat pompous theatrical (but this is rather necessary - without this there will be no brilliant contrast with "you are mine" in the second act). But this time, goosebumps ran out already at his first monologue: "Their faces were bright ..." Honestly, in his final I was seriously scared - but did something happen to Igor Olegovich Smelovsky? The play was indescribable: suffering and longing on Aldukar's face, a passionate desire expressed by a person of too high a rank to allow himself to speak about his passionate desires. "The dreams of youth have long since abandoned me." Such a self is not always admitted to itself, and it escaped by chance - in front of dissatisfied actors, in front of mundane entrepreneurs. Madness. And the incredible tenderness of Aurelia, who is still able to understand her husband ... Then it became more and more interesting ... If earlier there was a feeling that the tragedy of the Duke came rather from his inability and unwillingness to resist his own whims and passions, but yesterday everything happened because of inability to resist them. Amazing swings from: "Sell me a Pom Pom!!!" to "Well, it's not for sale, so it's not for sale..." It is impossible to describe in words everything that happened on the stage at the moment when the Duke took Pomponina away with him. Intoxicated ... frightening (only Pomponina does not notice this yet), he waved a torn tie and those who knew "what would happen next" could see here a hint of Pygmalion's whip.

Somehow, the antagonism of the Duke with Pygmalion was especially felt, although formally he was always present: several times they stand at different ends of the stage, the Duke will repeat his gestures after Pygmalion. As never before, it was felt that there was a struggle for a woman, for the right to possess, a clash of two owners.

The next version of Pygmalion (like most of the characters in this performance, Pygmalion is never the same twice) is also difficult to describe in words: there was an amazing strain in him, as if he, just appearing on stage and rejoicing at his successful joke, already knew that he was doomed. How much feeling there was in the monologue "You eclipsed everyone for me in the sublunar world" ... The moment was clearly visible when from a brilliant creator (a story about the presentation of dolls in Washington) he turned into a brilliant madman ("and then I decided - no, I won't stop there." I was ready to cry with him - that man in the theater and that boy ...

Problem: I'm supposed to be looking at the character in front of the stage, but I keep looking at someone else. During the performance of the song "Cuckoo's Children" I was suddenly distracted by Pygmalion ... He froze, he moves his hands, as if playing the keys, and ... he worries about them, his dolls, he wants them to succeed. .. The second time - when Pygmalion looked at Pomponina. He almost cried ... he had the look of a man in love, he could not say anything before that - we would all have understood about his love anyway. That's the difference: the Duke's feeling for Pomponina is a passion in half with tenderness, the strongest, because he already has "nothing to lose." Pygmalion's feeling is love, which eventually became a painful feeling. But who will doubt this love? After all, he understands everything that Pomponina is just a doll, his creation, that there are no reciprocal feelings, those that he would like to have. And yet... he hopes. After all, it could also be tears of hope...

Only this time I realized that Pygmalion's monologue about Pomponin raises more questions than answers. When did he realize that he was in love with his creation? He created it - and the feeling woke up? Or did he fall in love with the beautiful Pomponina in the making? (after all, it was not by chance that he gave her not just female name- but the name of a forest nymph). Or did he consciously want to make a doll, a woman that he would love?

How scary he was, really scary, when he caught up with "his creations." Here it was a real terrible and cruel tyrant and despot, where is Brandakhlyst ... Impeccably smoothed hair suddenly tousled ... It broke almost instantly, it was only necessary to shoot, and ... also a doll. The most perfect. A doll that did not know its essence ...

Giovanni Brandachlist. Like Pygmalion, yesterday he was different again. Half, as I saw this hero in September - creepy, frightening; half as in the October performance - he tried to provoke the audience. As a result, the image turned out to be thinner than usual, it was impossible to catch how it passed in it, flowed - together with amazing plasticity: from almost human to already puppet, from scary to funny, from smiles in the audience to goosebumps. There was somehow more mannerism in the voice, mimicking intonations, the character seemed to become even more cheeky (as he welcomed the entrepreneurs in the role of the false Pygmalion - “Good! Great!”), And at the same time, Brandakhlyst was tougher and angrier (if we compare with the previous show). And also - I was again very touched by the gesture - a hand raised to my face, a small scene without words (before the "night dashes"). A lot of thoughts flashed through this moment: does it cry, or does it seem, and can a mechanical doll cry at all, especially the cruel Brandakhlist?

The result is a kind of mechanical creation, both frightening and attractive.

And it also brings up a lot of thoughts. Why does he enjoy playing the role of the "first" Pygmalion so much? Perhaps because they take him for a person? With what pleasure Aurelia extends her hands to him for a kiss in the first act - and with what disgust she runs away in the second (“Where did you go?”). What does he really feel, because in fact he, Giovanni Brandakhlist, is a kind of "buffer" between Pygmalion and puppets. But he ... he probably gets the most. The tragedy of such a character as Brandakhlyst is a completely different category than the tragedy of Duke Aldukar or Pygmalion.

Separately - about resourcefulness. After all, all artists are probably afraid to forget the text. In the "press conference" scene, the false Pygmalion, Dmitry Erin, mixed up the answers, and to the question: "How many performances did you give?" answered "Nobody has complained yet", but it was the answer to the question not yet sounded "What percentage goes to entrepreneurs?" At the same second, Brandakhlyst twitched in a puppet writhing - he broke down, jammed the program. The spectators who were at the "Dolls" for the first time, probably, far from all understood what was the matter. Moreover, the press conference went on, as it should - when asked about the percentage, the false Pygmalion answered irritably: "Good! Normal!". But regular viewers, in any case, I admired how gorgeous the mistake suddenly became part of the image.

After this viewing, another scene sunk in, which had previously passed me by - probably because it was somewhat incidental in itself: in the foreground was the general dance of the puppets, and the Duke, Pygmalion were standing at the edge of the stage, and Brandakhlist was coming up to them. Suitable to find approval from his "creator and master." Even for a mechanical puppet, a "articulated creature", it turns out that this approval is so important and pleasant. And Pygmalion, as it turned out, can also be not only a "creator", not only a "tyrant", but also a "good master". For me, after this episode, some new colors were added to the characteristics of both Brandakhlyst and Pygmalion.

Pompomina. To some extent, the rest of the artists have it easier. They can only be compared with the troupe of the theater in the South-West, and even then it is difficult, our "Dolls" are so different. And only Pomponina always gets it: and because in the Comedy there are three actresses who play this role; and because at one time the Nizhny Novgorod public was spoiled by Karina Dymont. At three performances, I saw three different heroines, and now I can at least compare. Yulia Palagina tried to be different, to be “completely different”, Yulia Lykova seemed like a very young Pomponina (at some point even an association with Suok, “the doll of Tutti’s heir” surfaced in my head). Pygmalion's love for her is the love of a man who is older and wiser (but still powerless in front of the "beautiful Pomponina"). She wants to be given “flowers, sweets, anything” because it is pleasant. And I want to see "other continents" because she had never seen them before. Marina Zamyslova's pomponina seemed to me a more “adult” heroine, as if more “experienced”, and in her own way, in a doll way, knowing life. This Pompomina wants flowers because she knows she deserves them. She wants to see the continents because she needs to break out of the box. This Pomponina is strange, unusual, mysterious, in her almost human awareness and understanding of everything that happens constantly contrasted with puppet naivety - as a result, a very interesting version of the heroine turned out.

Aunt Hortensia - Teresita, a couple I adored from the very first viewing of "Dolls", was at their best. From the very first words of "aunty" it became clear that it would be chic. Dmitry Kryukov did something extraordinary. A wild, strange woman (namely, a woman, according to my perception, Matoshin in Moscow still plays some mysterious creature of a completely indefinite gender), passing from mannerisms to rudeness ("Sing!"), Such an emotional aunt, over whose intonations and remarks the whole audience laughs . Her niece wonderfully echoes her with her inimitable facial expressions and "creepy plasticity." And this time, how funny Teresita came out (“drive, bring us happiness!” - my favorite quote, probably from the whole performance), how terribly Krokhobor barked “needless erratic!”, I even shuddered.

All the dolls were good, and the special causticity of Balabol, and the romanticism (and facial expressions, of course) of Cherubim, Captain Mamon turned out to be unusually emotional in contrast to the usual severity, the wonderful beautiful dolls Marilonda and Dondinella (called "trrrrrrrrr!" and "who will I be, who I’ll be whoduyyyyyyyyyyy!”), Juan-Bolvn, able to tell a lot with just one “coo-coo!”.

Never before have there been so many different thoughts after a performance. I’m already wondering “what will happen next” ... that is, what will I see in January on “Dolls”. No doubt something completely new and different.

Indeed. A well-organized group of men in shorts and over the knee boots - this destabilizes the psyche of many people. Against homo-erotica (black color, latex or leather, a lot of cosmetics, cutouts where interesting) there are also few objections.
Spectacular, quite stylish, within the framework of a cheap public style, a bit ashamed.
And this is nothing. All this does not change the content. Some deep, some superficial.
Yes, the actors seem to be panties and generally revealing outfits, but excellent texts go to the flashing of bodies under short T-shirts, and they do not forget to pronounce them, and not even to pronounce, articulate, with temperament, almost preaching.

The introductory part was terribly interesting to me. All these witticisms and classic theatrical monologues are a super-warm-up. The actors who play the producers are brilliant and charming. So. warm-up of the living before meeting with the mechanisms and their manager - the puppeteer Karabas-Barabas. It seems that the Duke-Pinocchio is ready to give away the last shirt in advance. He,

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and touchingly mentions his love for the theatre. In addition, it is these dolls, a real miracle, and all that. They are beautiful, perfect, better than live actors, because they do not get tired (during the play, this is immediately refuted by the phrase - “Oh, you are tired! ..” and tramp-pum-pum), they don’t complain, and so on.

Their main desire is freedom, or rather, will (and peace? It will be for sure). Interesting, however. It's still interesting.

Wai, wai, bambino,
Vai vedrai, vai;
Wai, wai, piccino,
Vai vedrai, vai,
Vedrai.

Go, go baby
Go and you will see, go;
Go, go, little one
Go and you will see, go
You'll see.

Further, the duke acts according to the usual scheme - he chases the most attractive doll, steals it, not particularly interested in the consent of not only the owner, but also the victim himself. Pimpinona - against, she needs a company of dolls. But the Duke, apparently, is in the grip of sleep and passionate love. (to the theatre? yes, of course) He wishes her, an excellent quality doll, to possess alone. And the question immediately arises - what about maintenance? Before stealing, it would be necessary to take care of getting acquainted with the manual, the user manual. But no. Just to steal what is best. Oh, the aristocracy is the same everywhere, and incorrigible. Mine is all here. So why, then, does a lady with the magical name Aurelia love such an uncomplicated man, even a duke? For beauty, I guess. Love is a miracle, you can't explain it.

Dove manca la fortuna
Non si va più con il cuore
Ma coi piedi sulla luna,
Oh mio fanciullo
Vedrai, vai vedrai che un sorriso
Nasconde spesso un grand dolore,
Vai vedrai follia dell "uomo.

Madness,
Go and see what's behind the smile
Often there is a lot of pain
Go and you will see human madness.

In place of the Puppeteer, it would be necessary to take the duke into his team. Somehow pupate, and that's it. Cut off the leather pants to the very ... and forward to the stage. But the play has its own logic and ending. Simple. Everybody died. Those who seduced the living with all sorts of nonsense. There was a dream, haze and memories of the future. In complete frenzy from what they saw, shuffling boots in the snow, and thinking incomprehensibly about what, they left the theater.

Well, wow, performances happen in our city.
Pompomina-ahh, I want to go to the circus! This is madness?

Premiere performance of the Kaliningrad Regional Drama Theatre.
A play by Valery Belyakovich based on the tragic farce by Jacinto Grau "Señor Pygmalion".
Director and production designer - Vyacheslav Vittikh (Moscow).

The Kaliningrad public has probably never received such a theatrical shock.
So that the spectacle (rapid action, unexpected stunts, monologues and dialogues, individual plasticity and well-coordinated team play of actors, musical and lighting effects) electrifies and inspires the audience to such an extent - we don’t remember this since the victory of Russian football players over Holland with a score of 3: 0 .
Crowds of people were supposed to go out into the street and chant: "Our theater is a champion!"

Fortunately, theatrical performance- an exclusive thing, and not everyone can see it.
That's the only reason the city survived.

Honestly, I did not expect from the tired for last years theater of such energy power.
The magician, the master, just arrived, took out his wonderful and at the same time terrible dolls from the case - and they made a splash.

Basically, that's how it was. The director brought a precise, tough, well-thought-out stage solution - and embodied it (with the help of a talented and skilled Kaliningrad troupe and art and production part) into a breathtakingly beautiful performance.
At the same time, not forgetting to do something elusive and most importantly: to breathe the secret of life into your collective creation. More precisely - to breathe life and mystery ...

Well, how does Adam or Galatea turn out from ordinary clay?
It is unlikely that we will understand this, and it is unlikely that we will be able to repeat it.
Pygmalions are now rare.

The performance strikes with the courage and simplicity of the solutions found.
The curtain opens and trapeze artists soar above us like living puppets. The spectacle lasts a few seconds - but the feeling of childish delight has already entered the soul and lifted the audience.
Now they will believe in any conventions, because they have already found themselves in the world of theater, circus.

The stage is fenced in a circle, like an arena, with backstage columns, but when they are miraculously illuminated (light designer - Lyudmila Voronina), they rise, transparent boxes with puppets appear under them. Like crystal coffins-sarcophagi. And which one will come out? Is he alive or dead? Can he (or she) be trusted?
This question keeps the whole hall in suspense - and does not find an answer.

When the speaker's facial expressions do not coincide with the meaning of what was said, it becomes somehow uncomfortable, and the viewer laughs nervously.
The actress Marina Yungans brilliantly achieves the necessary tragicomic effect, creating the image of a doll named Captain Momona using grotesque clown plastics.
A huge gun - albeit a props, but who knows if a spring jumps off in the head ... Mechanisms, although they look like people, but they don’t know how to regret.

Other characters(a team of Spanish producers, similar to matadors) are positioned on the stage in such a way as to take the place of these mysterious dolls at any time. Strictly symmetrical arrangement of the group does not turn it into extras. Vice versa!
Each individual character, although they are all dressed according to the principle of “red and black” - people, “white and red” - dolls, is presented individually, dressed beautifully, recognizable and unique.

You can't take your eyes off Nadezhda Ilyina and Lyudmila Zinovieva. The roles are not the main ones, but the visual load is one hundred percent.
Three honored artists - Nikolai Zakharov, Volemir Gruzets, Yuri Kharlambov - deserve to be photographed next to them for money.
The infernal Pyotr Mutin, perhaps, would overshadow the great tragic actors in Pygmalion's monologue.
The charismatic figure of Alexei Pereberin is at the center of any composition.
What the plastic and comedic gifted Alexander Fedorenko and Anton Zakharov are doing is worthy of individual applause and an encore.

But the most amazing role went to Alena Kolesnik. To play such a role - and no Oscar is needed!
Of course, winning, dramatic music and insanely beautiful design help her, but the actress conveys the dual and dark essence of her character using her outstanding data, her skill and talent.
What is written (drawn) on her face is literally the duplicity of beauty,
finds convincing confirmation in every moment of her existence on the stage.
A deadly temptation comes from the image of Pompanina.
And we believe that even the Duke himself could not resist her destructive charm.

But we didn’t say anything about other dolls! About funny and scary characters at the same time, very accurately, in the genre of a tragic farce, played by wonderful young actors. Each of them is an individual. And together - a powerful, well-coordinated ensemble.
The theater managed the main thing - to emotionally convince the viewer that every character in this modern tragic farce is capable of suffering, "expiring with cranberry juice", and that all this is related to his own life.

No, those who have not seen it will still not understand.
How can a person who wants to sleep not understand the midnight delights of football fans.

Sleep in peace, man who has not seen the Theater!

The 1921 play “Señor Pygmalion” by the Spanish playwright Jacinto Grau was staged, with a plot about mechanical puppets, typical for the era of constructivism, and a premonition of globalization unprecedented for those times. American theater company director Pygmalion is terrorizing Europe with profusely publicized attacks of puppet shows that attract incredible sell-outs and force traditional theaters to close. Dolls made of artificial fibers are indistinguishable from people, they think, talk, interact, emotions are transmitted as an electric discharge. Their "carabas" Pygmalion - a violently mad artist, sublimating in his success the failures of his youth, when he was forced to exchange the world of people who rejected him for his "doll's house", - triumphs.

There are legends about the acting talent of Valery Belyakovich. The premiere of his troupe, he appears on the stage to express something significant, like the World Soul, which reveals itself to the world once every hundred years. In "Dolls" the actor for the title role is waiting for the whole performance as a special special effect. While his hero, the infernal master puppeteer, deceives the public twice, sends trained puppets instead of himself, in order to effectively exit for five minutes and close the theater, disappointed in the “plastic world” of his creations. The hoax ended in self-exposure without a happy ending. "The Suicide of Valery Belyakovich" - this performance should have been called.

What is Belyakovich talking about - clearly in his own name, bringing his experience closer to that of an obsessed puppeteer? About total devastation, about the fact that the idea of ​​the theater - to change the world with art - has gone into oblivion along with the enthusiasm of pioneering. The fact that Pygmalion is tired of waiting for the puppets to “talk”, and that he lets the actors go free, dedicating the theater to people, but not to puppets. “Then I was incinerated by the fire of the Creator, and now I am devastated,” Belyakovich refuses the idea of ​​a “director's theater”. There are real tears on his face - the credo of the Theater in the South-West has been exhausted, the theater as the author's idea of ​​the director has died, only a “theater for people”, a “living troupe”, a theater without violence, has turned into a performance factory. When, on a code note, the director begins to read Claudius' monologue “I have the seal of an ancient curse on me - the murder of my brother”, perhaps, it becomes completely uncomfortable. Exposing himself to the audience and his own troupe, Belyakovich confesses to the “murder” not only of his brothers-actors, but also of his own brother Sergei Belyakovich, who left the southwestern troupe. It is already quite clear that without the sudden death of Viktor Avilov so this show would not work.

Valery Belyakovich built the performance on doubts about his own art and committed a painful act - one of those that will definitely go down in the history of the theater. Never writing theatrical manifestos, Belyakovich turned into a bitter theater sage, who thought about the fragility of the theatrical idea and the question of the right of the director to power over people. But this is also an act of the teacher, who admitted that the thread of communication with the students was lost. The dolls are the cream of the troupe: Karina Dymont, Oleg Leushin, Valery Afanasiev, Anatoly Ivanov, Alexei Vanin, Vladimir Koppalov.

Damn interesting how this theater will develop further. Will Belyakovich's exhibitionistic monologue become a new creed of the Theater in the South-West and will the director be able to lead the theater out of the impasse if the question of the existence of a particular troupe is brought up for public discussion, for the audience's court? The resourceful Belyakovich turned the crisis of the theater into a theatrical event.

FILM REVIEW OF NATALIA SIRIVLY

EMPTY HOUSE

"Empty House" (another name is "Golf Club No. 3") is the fourth film by the South Korean director Kim Ki-duk, which was released in our rental in 2004. In this case, it is not the record-breaking fertility of the Korean that is striking - something, but the work of the Far Eastern people but the degree of perfection that Kim Ki-duk achieves with Mozartian ease in each new picture. "Empty House" he, according to rumors, shot on a bet in two weeks. The result is a masterpiece that draws only sighs of delight from critics around the world and blissful mooing: "Oh-oh-oh! Mmmm!!!"

There was a full house, a small hall was filled to capacity. They sat on side chairs and ottomans placed on the steps. But there was enough space for everyone, and the stage here is clearly visible from absolutely all points. Even if a tall person sits in front, it will be perfectly visible, since the rows go with a good elevation.

The "Dolls" interprets the eternal myth of Pygmalion, who created man and fell in love with his creation. The great puppeteer, Senor Pygmalion, creator of the famous puppet theater, whose dolls are almost indistinguishable from living people, comes straight from Broadway to Madrid.

Actors of local theaters, whose performances have been supplanted by guest performers, are outraged, but behind their indignation is fear: what if, in fact, these puppets are superior to them, live actors, and then they will no longer be needed and in demand, and this is the collapse of the acting profession, the end of the theatrical creativity.

Such is the conflict, and behind it there are new and new questions. Can live feelings and passions be replaced by their mechanical imitation? Can the creations of human hands be like the creations of God? Can a person, like God, create his own world and manage it? These are the difficult questions posed by Valery Belyakovich's play "Dolls" at the Theater in the South-West.

In our time, when robots have firmly entered life and replaced people in some areas of activity, the plot does not seem fantastic. However, the mystical moment of reviving the doll, investing life, consciousness, even the mind in it, exists. And the dolls created by Senor Pygmalion are beautiful, tireless and practically eternal. They do not age, do not get tired and require only energy supply for the work of their mechanical hearts.

The beautiful bodies and faces of Senor Pygmalion's dolls evoke passion in the audience. Some fans accompany the Puppeteer Theater on all its tours, just to be close to their idols. Each doll is unique, each has some kind of talent. One has a beautiful voice, only she is out of tune, the other dances like a real ballerina, but not like a ballet soloist, the third has the talent of a dramatic actress and imagines herself to be the queen of the theater. Unable to control his feelings, the sovereign seigneur, Duke Adulkar (O. Leushin) loses his mind and kidnaps little Pomponina (K. Dymont), who turned his head. They are pursued by the duke's wife, Aurelia (O. Ivanova).

But who could have imagined that all the other dolls of the Pygmalion troupe would rush to the rescue of their girlfriend! Mindless creatures, intended for the amusement of the public and the improvement of the well-being of their creator, suddenly flee from the theater on the eve of the performance and declare themselves free.

Photo from the website of the Theater in the South-West

Inimitable dances, movements, plasticity, somersaults, stunts and jumps in the light of multi-colored spotlights create the feeling that we are in one of the theaters of Madrid at the presentation of revived puppets. They appear from the mirrored doors of their boxes and do not let go of their eyes until the end of the action. You want to admire them and at the same time it's scary for them when the Dollmaker's scourge clicks. And when they lie down on the stage and calm down next to the murdered Pygmalion, all that remains is to cry. The girl next to me couldn't hold back her tears. But then they got up and the tears dried up.

And before that, we laughed merrily at the jokes told by the lips of the Brandachlyst doll and Madrid entrepreneurs, which were not at all medieval, but very relevant today. The actors of Madrid, at first offended by the appearance of the puppet theater and the cancellation of their performances, and then paying tribute to the skill of the Puppeteer, read real monologues from Othello, Hamlet, King Lear and it was clear that they were real dramatic actors. These monologues were woven into the action and gave it, as it were, greater authenticity. I especially liked Oleg Leushin as Duke Adulkar and miniature Karina Dymont as Pomponina. Female roles dolls Marilonda (O. Avilova) and Dondinella (I. Barysheva) were remarkably emotionally and plastically performed.

Photo from the website of the Theater in the South-West

There are many parallels in the performance, everyone will find something of their own here. I was shocked "to goosebumps" by the story of how Pygmalion came to create his theater. Starting from childhood, when he left Spain with his parents, with one wooden doll in his hands, he created his own troupe for 27 years. One of the parallels is the political regime. Here everyone laughs, but how correctly noticed. Imitating people, dolls create their own self-government bodies: "You will be the parliament, and you will be the people who are oppressed by everyone. And I will stay with Pygmalion and spy in your favor ...". In this case, dolls that are tired of the owner and want freedom can be associated with the tired people of some (not necessarily our) country, and Pygmalion, a millionaire who equates himself with God, can be represented as some kind of president. And when the dolls, tired of the "usurper" power of Pygmalion, decided to run away from him and build a new one, independent life, they die. As in life, the ending of the performance is predetermined.

Photo from the website of the Theater in the South-West

At the end, the real Pygmalion appears before the audience, and there are only three of them in the performance. The first is a false Pygmalion, who is actually a Brandakhlyst puppet (D. Nagretdinov), who played the theatrical figures of Madrid at the station. The second is Pygmalion (E. Bakalov), who died from a bullet, surrounded by dead dolls, their creator. And the third - Pygmalion (A. Vanin), who is reading the final monologue, pays tribute to the live actors, who immediately begin to read their monologues from Shakespeare, with which the performance began. Main refrain: "These are dolls!" it sounds different every time, and now Pygmalion himself doubts whether he is a man or a doll. And the dolls become human and experience feelings unusual for them.

The performance is very beautiful, the mirrored doors of the puppet boxes, transforming into mirrors of the theater of ancient Madrid, the play of light, which is either a solemn, festive light of a ramp, or a reflection of a swinging lonely lantern near an abandoned hut. And in this ghostly light, characters appear, reflect and disappear, dressed in intricate or minimally figure-hide clothing. The music is chosen perfectly, it either grows and pumps up the atmosphere, then it relaxes and calls for fun. And it sounds in those places where it is necessary, leading its part in the performance.
Video from the theater's YouTube channel:

The performance of Valery Belyakovich "Dolls" was included in the project " Cultural heritage RF: best performances". It was first shown in July 2004, a very difficult time for the Theater. Valery Belyakovich - a tireless inventor and experimenter - takes on the play by the Spanish playwright Jacinto Grau "Señor Pygmalion" and remakes it on topical topics. , for the last few year s creative activity then, after 13 years, it remained just as relevant and modern. Final monologue performed by Valery Belyakovich:

Many thanks for the opportunity to see this miracle to the theater team and for the invitation, special thanks to Anna atlanta_s . Subscribe to the community of bloggers in Moscow moscultura and you will be aware of all the most interesting events in our city.