Drama for Contemporaries

This year, Moscow’s Sovremennik (Contemporary) Theater celebrates its 40th anniversary. But while the main festivities will be in the capital, provincial Russia and the CIS will also be marking the occasion — over the last four decades, the theater has been taking its productions all over the former Soviet Union.

On recent visits to Europe, Israel and the USA, the Sovremennik has also managed to charm Western audiences. In fact, at the Seattle Goodwill Games, the six-week run of labor camp survivor Yevgeniya Ginzburg’s play A Hard Route was a box office smash and had standing ovations every night.

For the last 20 years, the theater has been headed by talented actor and director Galina Volchek (pictured right). It is as popular as 40 years ago, and tickets for a hit or premiere are just as difficult to buy as they were then. Many spectators today include those who 40 years ago stood in line overnight to get a cherished ticket in the morning.

The Sovremennik appeared at a fateful time for Moscow and for Russia, the eve of the Khrushchev thaw. In 1956, the country was just beginning to recover from 30 years of Stalinism. The 20th Party Congress secret session, where Khrushchev exposed the horrors of the previous regime, had just happened, and its leaked contents caused a stir in Soviet society.

The nascent theater shook off the nightmare of the past and heralded a new, better life. Having won the right to talk about  contemporary problems and the people who embodied the ideals of the era, it became known as the Sovremennik.

It began as the studio of young actors from the Moscow Arts Theater school, headed by Central Children’s Theater actor Oleg Yefremov (bottom of right page). He had a keen sense of the age he was living in, and realized that the era of extravagant  productions and superheroes had past. The wave of public opinion created by the 20th Congress required creative people to talk to the viewer openly and provide answers to major questions.

Yefremov realized that  he needed to make his own productions to achieve this. His credo was as follows: “For me the theater is a commonwealth of people, breathing in one breath, preaching the same ideas. It is several dozen hearts, beating in unison, several dozen minds, searching for answers to the questions of life which affect each of us individually. It is a collective, which in its entirety is an artist.”

Yefremov created such a collective, whose members, like Oleg Tabakov, Yevgeny Yevstigneyev and Volchek herself, went on to become a new theatrical elite in Russia.

The first major production was V. Rozov’s play Eternally Alive, whose lyrical intonation and heroes’ passions won over the audience immediately. A play about human achievement and Christian moral values, it was well received despite the dominant climate of atheism.

As its name suggested, the Sovremennik built up a repertoire of plays on the most topical and global problems, both from the classics and from contemporary drama, including Chekhov and Tolstoi, Yevgeny Shvarts, Vassily Aksyonov and Ernest Hemingway.

The Sovremennik today can be compared to a person aged 40 — still young and full of energy, and at the same time enriched by the experience of four decades, and of fighting for its deserved place among Russia’s top theaters. May its life be a long and happy one.

At the beginning of November, Broadway viewers will for the first time be able to see two Sovremennik plays: The Three Sisters by Anton Chekhov and A Hard Route by Yevgeniya Ginzburg, featuring famous Russian actors like Valentin Gaft, Yelena Yakovleva and Marina Neyolova. These plays can be considered the calling card of Russian psychological drama. In fact, this is the first time a Russian drama theater has toured Broadway. Another Sovremennik production is planned for Atlantic City. George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion will be staged for a predominantly Russian-speaking audience, but anglophones are welcome as well.

Brief Items

The Latin-rooted name oktyabr replaced the old Russian name of listopad (still used in some other Slavic languages), meaning time of falling leaves (listy). In some areas of southern Russia, another name, pazdernik appeared in the 15th century (from pazderi — boon: in October people started braking flax and hemp). Folk names included pozimnik (approaching winter), gryaznik (time of dirt) and svadebnik (time for weddings). Photos from the Great Encyclopedia of Russia.

With its beautiful colors in fall, it seems only natural that the picturesque country estate of Abramtsevo near Moscow should be closely linked to October. Its two most famous owners celebrate their jubilees this month.

For most Russians, Sergei Aksakov (1791-1859) was primarily a children’s writer, producing fairy tales like The Little Crimson Flower and Family Chronicles. But he was also highly praised by contemporaries and successors for works like Notes of a Rifleman and Literary and Theatrical Reminiscences, which fellow-writer Ivan Turgenev called ‘milestones in Russian literature.’

Being a hospitable host, Aksakov entertained virtually all the major figures in Russian cultural life of his time in his Moscow house. Ivan Turgenev, Nikolai Gogol, the poet Yevgeny Baratynsky, the critic Vissarion Belinsky and many others were regular visitors. Aksakov was especially friendly with Gogol, who shared his Slavophile views. Aksakov bought Abramtsevo in 1843, which also became a center for literary and philosophical discussion. Fall in Abramtsevo probably contributed to Aksakov’s powers of description in such works as Notes of a Rifleman, of which Gogol said: “No Russian writer knows how to paint nature in such powerful, fresh colors as Aksakov.”

Born the son of a merchant in 1841, Savva Mamontov rose to fame as a genius in business and active patron of the arts, able to gather round him the most talented members of the Russian cultural elite. Many of these people owe to him the discovery and development of their talent. His Abramtsevo circle brought together the best artists of the day, like Viktor and Apollinary Vasnetsov and Ilya Repin. In fact, Mamontov himself was also a fine musician, dramatist, director and sculptor. Viktor Vasnetsov wrote of him: “God gave him the special talent of awaking the talent of others.”

One of many artists inspired by the beauty of Abramtsevo, though after Mamontov’s time, was Robert Falk, born 110 years ago. The author of dozens of fine portraits, landscapes and still lifes, he had a poor, tragic life — in 50 years in art, he had only a handful of personal exhibitions. Critics were mostly negative about his work, and world recognition came long after his death in 1958. In 1962, he was further discredited, as low quality portraits he had done on demand, just to keep from starving, were stolen from his attic and displayed in the famous Manezh exhibition of 1962, blasted by General Secretary Khrushchev (see Russian Life June story on Ernst Neizvestny).

Like Abramtsevo, Tsarskoye Selo (meaning Tsar’s Village — and home of one of Russia’s main royal residences) had an important place in the life of pre-revolutionary Russia. As such, 160 years ago it welcomed the country’s first railroad line. Although the ‘iron horse’ had been around in Britain and other countries for several decades already, it still had a novelty charm (or notoriety) in Russia. The poet P. Vyazemsky described the first steam engine as:

“A beast so monstrously huge,

Nothing but steam and fire...”