Alexander Amphitheater was born in 1862. Writer. Artist. Playwright. Mason. Legendary person. His life is an adventure novel.
An outstanding stylist, whose syllable and language was admired by Ivan Shmelev. The author of more than 30 novels, a journalist, a publicist (who wrote under the pseudonyms of Old Gentleman and Moscow Faust), a critic of all regimes - both royal (Amphitheater paid for his feuilleton "Lord of Deceit", which portrayed the royal family), and the Bolshevik. Fled from Petrograd in August 1921 by boat to Finland. Coming to rest in Levanto, in Italy, where his sons gained fame as prominent already Italian musicians. Maybe that is why in Soviet Russia such a writer never seemed to exist.
His play "Two hours in a noble family, or what the door creaked ..." was written in June 1909 on the Italian Riviera. That is, at the very beginning of the twentieth century, 108 years ago under the azure sky of Italy. And the time and place of the "Two hours ..." takes place even earlier - somewhere at the end of the nineteenth century in St. Petersburg on Sergievskaya Street (now Tchaikovsky), maybe even next to the Kochubei-Stroganov-Ignatiev mansion. On the street, which really was considered one of the most aristocratic streets of St. Petersburg.
And only at first glance, “Two hours ...” is just a light vaudeville piece, a thoroughbred comedy of positions, the heroes of which, for two hours of real time, only one question is hot to figure out - to whom, at night, through the master's living room, handsome handsome lackey Fedor.
First of all, it is a human comedy.
And the director and actor Yevgeny Baranov (who has already performed five performances on the stage of the Andrei Mironov Theater: The Freeloader, Midsummer Night Dreams, Robbery, Paola and the Lions, and Ordinary History) were seen in Two Hours. .. "exact parallels with today. This, it is recognized, was played by the Amphitheatrov and conquered it.