Dmitry Krymov: "Once my dad, Anatoly Vasilyevich Efros, putting his famous play" A Month in the Country, "wanted to take as an epigraph to him the poems of Pasternak:
Oh, if only I could,
Although in part,
I would write eight lines
About the properties of passion.
And Inna Natanovna Solovyeva, after learning that Masha Smolnikova plays Anna Karenina after her Mu-Mu, a ridiculous eight-year-old girl, absurdly dead before our eyes at the dawn of her love of theater and life, thought for a second and said: "Oh, it's understandable: both die because of love…"
We wanted to make "Anna Karenina", as the next Bunin "Sunstroke" - quickly, gently and terribly. But our play "Seryozha" is not "Anna Karenina". This performance is based on a great novel, even, I would say, for a long time. There is no Levin, Kitty, or Steve Oblonsky, there is no haymaking, kvass and sweat shirt, there are no appetizing sterlets and oysters in the restaurant and there is no stunning scene when Karenin came to a lawyer and maybe first experienced humiliation. There is no scene of races, Vronsky's fall and Frou-Frou's death, and the locomotive, in general, is also not ... except toy, small. In a word, it will all look like Tolstoy, but smaller, shorter. As if a fragment. And Seryozha is the son of Anna Arkadyevna Karenina, a boy, also eight years old, who stands at the center of this "Sunstroke" when everything is mixed, not only in the Oblonskys' house, but in general. "
The play is based on Leo Tolstoy's novel "Anna Karenina", as well as "Life and Fate" by Vasily Grossman and specially for this production written by Lev Rubinshtein, the text "Questions".
“ I liked the performance. White is beautiful in the image of a cuckold) Smolnikov is charming. Recommended for viewing for people with a well-developed sense of humor and open to experimentation.
“ This performance is difficult to call a performance, rather it is a number for a circus. Flexibility, acrobatics, the movement of actors - it's all great, but the theater is not built on tricks .... Staging at the Moscow Art Theater. A.P. Chekhov, and even on the main stage - this is sad. For me, re-disappointment in this theater. So many strong performances staged at the Moscow Art Theater. A.P. Chekhov for the soul, thoughts, moods ... This theater was part of my personal top three best theaters in Moscow, and when you don’t know where to go, but you really want to, you could always answer: "go to the Chekhov Moscow Art Theater, because everything is on the level"! !! Now, alas, I will not say that. The feeling during the performance was that you observe mentally unhealthy people. Show Anna, who constantly says some sort of nonsense, plus jokes of a primitive nature, but the audience laughs ... as the saying goes: "people havaet". But why take the greatest work of L. Tolstoy as a basis and cover it so much ?! It was possible to make the production without relying on such a great work, but then, perhaps, there was no such a full house and rush with tickets. Still, theater is a spiritual one. When you go and enjoy the games of the actors, the plot, the dialogues, the scenery, when there is the integrity of the performance, when leaving you mentally return to some fragments that catch you, have something to share, talk, think ... Unfortunately, the play "Serozha "- not about that. Age qualification 12+ ?! Are you seriously?! Well this is how much it is necessary not to love children, and just kill the interest in the great classic works. It's nice that people are very educated towards the actors and waiting for intermission to escape) but there are some people who perfectly close their eyes and see their dreams, and the performance is just a background element ... but when you ask these neighbors to let you out, do you hear how much you haven’t brought up ... For me it’s better to get up and leave - this is more honest than being in an atmosphere that depresses you, and not only that finances are spent, which is a pity .... waste time, not getting pleasure, it's a hundred times a pity.
“ Krymov with his team is always the same - fantastically beautiful. I have been to many of his performances. Not a single fake note, not a single moment of frustration. And I am constantly disappointed because I go to the theater often. You won’t take me with mothballs with the stars, shocking and even more so; you won’t be surprised with the combination of modern theater lotions - you have seen the "whisker". For me, the theater is not only alive, but also - extremely interesting, and therefore I spend a quarter of my salary on it. Running there after work and going to the gallery, I’m not expecting any holiday or there ... initiation to the beautiful ... p But it happens the same !!! Absolute perfection of form and depth. Being just a reader of the classics, and not at all an expert in it, I acquire a new vision for Krymov’s performances, for me she suddenly becomes important, like a wise thought that I finally “heard”, which came not earlier and not later, but - TIME . I understand people who can't be seen in Krymovsk Mu-mue Mumu, and in Seryozha-Karenina. Gradually, I learn difficult science not to be a snob: the ability to ask questions, including myself, and to hear the answers. Perhaps this is the merit of Krymov.