Russia (bbabo.net), - Sergey Garmash dreamed of playing the hero of "Krotkoy" for a long time. For five years he persuaded Yuri Bashmet to take up this story by Dostoevsky. To make the performance dramatic and musical.

Dostoevsky has an almost documentary history: the writer found a tragic, psychedelic plot in newspaper chronicles - at the same time he called it "fantastic". Reality often does not fit in the head. But all these events, which took place a century and a half ago, seem to be about today. Phantoms and self-deceptions are the same.

So, it happened: theater and the long-awaited premiere of the Winter International Arts Festival - "A Gentle One" staged by director Viktor Kramer. On the stage - Sergei Garmash, Yuri Bashmet and the chamber ensemble "Moscow Soloists". Music for the production - from the composer Kuzma Bodrov.

The prelude with which the play begins is deceptively tender. A nerve imperceptibly sprouts in it, itchy and disturbing. It grows with every beat, does not let you breathe. You are waiting for a respite, but when it is already completely unbearable, He appeared on the stage. The main characters of the story in Dostoevsky are without names. He is a moneylender. She, poor thing, is meek. There will be no pause to take a breath - all the two hours that the performance lasts, the duet of the actor and the orchestra, Dostoevsky and music, like a scalpel, cuts the hall.

The hero of Sergei Garmash leads a slow and painful dialogue with himself. He's all alone, in the middle of the room. What was left of her - "with a handful of blood" on the pavement under the window. What happened? Who's guilty? He sorts through his life, trying to understand - where did he go wrong? He was poisoned by classmates, then fellow soldiers treated him meanly, he resigned, no stake and no yard, he, a nobleman, wandered - until the opportunity turned up: suddenly an inheritance became a usurer and a wealthy man.

What is the point of money for him - if with their help he does not get even with the world for insults, does not repay humiliation and cowardice, does not assert himself and does not grow in his own eyes? All he needs is to save up 30,000, settle somewhere in the Crimea "with an ideal in his soul" and a beloved woman, fenced off from the vile world. It seemed that he was so close to this paradise, but the "system" he meticulously built failed. Why?

In the absence of love, "systems" collapse. "When they take her away tomorrow, what will I be?"

The meek one once said to him: "Oh, now you are a face - a financier!" - and smiled. He married something to her, as if in order to feel his generosity. And most importantly, so that she does not forget: if it were not for him, she would have disappeared. She, instead of reverence - about something about her own, about a girl's: "I wanted to love, I was looking for love."

He mentally returns to the day when she first appeared in his office, the "loan office" - to lay the old "image of the Virgin in a gilded riza." He rummages through the memory, sorting through the endless drawers of memories. These boxes are right there on the stage, high pillars go up to the ceiling. In one are her modest silver earrings, in the other is the medallion of the old woman-captain, because of which they first quarreled: the "meek" out of sympathy returned it to the mistress for nothing. He explained who was in charge here.

You sympathize with the hero of Garmash, you try to believe in his "generosity", you despise and even try to justify it. And then you desperately hate it when, like a man possessed, he keeps talking about his "sys-te-me."

But what about She? She is not here. Only a gentle voice, a completely childish laughter, flying around the hall. Or she runs past him with an elusive shadow, lightly touching the light coverlet. More precisely, six shadows. Six actresses, students of the Shchepkinsky school, as young as the heroine of Dostoevsky. Or here she is - frozen motionless and weak-willed doll. He still holds out his hands, and in response - his prudent silence (for months!) And the promenade according to the schedule. It shrinks to the tiny size of a chrysalis. She is ready to shoot him out of desperation, to surrender to temptations - to break through at least something.

He still had his sight: she forced him to kiss the marks of her feet. Something suddenly turned upside down in him: he shrunk and kneeled in front of her - she, on the contrary, becomes gigantic. But still weak-willed, like a marionette with cut strings. But it could all work out. "Just a few more words, two days, no more, and she would have understood everything..." It dawned on him why "everything is dead, and everywhere the dead." And because without love. "People, love each other" - who said that? whose testament is this?" Everyone decided the fatal five minutes. A step from the windowsill - and the image of the Virgin sadly bowed over them. Saving music brings forgiveness.

Who's guilty? She herself, she was the tyrant of his soul. But now - "her shoes are standing by the crib, as if waiting for her." Well, where is he now? In the absence of love, "systems" collapse. "When they take her away tomorrow, what will I be?"

Direct speech

Victor Kramer, director:

Our play is about love. About high and tragic love, passionate and absurd, about the monstrous power of self-destruction that is inherent in man. This is a story that even when the Lord, trying to pull us out of the void, gives us a chance and sends a miracle, we manage to almost consciously destroy it. This story combines the horror and beauty of an absurd and painful attempt by a person to subordinate the love miraculously bestowed on him to the “perfect” system he created. Isn't it about us today? Aren't we just as recklessly trying to systematize our life, to drive it into a convenient frame, to fit the person who is nearby, although this can destroy him? So Dostoevsky is always relevant.

By the way

After the premiere at theatre, "Krotkaya" will be presented in Sochi at the 15th Winter Arts Festival. At the end of spring, the production will take its rightful place in the playbill of the Maly. The performance will be on the main stage.

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