Golden Mask Theatre Festival, 28 February – 14 April 2011
The annual Golden Mask Theatre Festival showcases the best productions of the Russian theatre season; the main programme comprises works nominated for the Golden Mask national theatre award. The rest of theatre productions featured at the festival have been chosen as an attempt to provide an exhaustive overview of the current Russian theatre scene: while these works are quite obviously not as powerful or polished as those included in the main programme, they do offer a different vantage point on the potential of the theatre language.
Among the nominees, the experts from the Russian Teatr Magazine recommend the Moscow Art Theatre production of The Precipice (Obryv), based on Ivan Goncharov's novel of the same title and directed by the ex-Rigan Adolf Shapiro, starring the legendary Russian actress Olga Yakovleva as the grandmother Tatiana Markovna Berezhkova. The power of the piece lies in its radical unfashionability, involving serious exploration of the human soul and leaving the viewer deep in thought and consumed by emotions long after the curtain has dropped for the final time. The initial reaction of confusion and bewilderment by the Russian theatre critics was eventually replaced by gradual recollection and, in fact, rave reviews. The production is nominated for the Russian national theatre award as the most outstanding large-scale work of drama theatre. Alongside Shapiro's powerful example of ensemble theatre, Muscovites mention the Vakhtangov Theatre production of Chekhov's Uncle Vanya (directed by the Lithuanian director Rimas Tuminas) as a piece worthy of some serious attention.
Another highlight of the festival programme is Dmitry Krymov's experimental piece titled Tarabumbiya. Prior to taking up stage directing, Krymov had worked as a set designer for many years, and his productions are born of and developed in visual thinking. His inimitable works stand out as quite unusual against the backdrop of the general Russian theatre scene. Dmitry Krymov, one of the few contemporary artists invited to work at the Russian stage genius Anataloy Vassilev's School of Dramatic Arts School theatre, continues to sustain high artistic standards at the company after Vassilev left the country. Taramumbiya is rarely performed and therefore worth catching at the Golden Mask Festival.
Andrei Moguchy, a powerful representative of the visual theatre, is bringing his production of Izotov (at the St Petersburg Alexandrinsky Theatre) to the main programme of the Golden Mask Festival; incidentally, the director has also been nominated for this year's Europe Prize for New Theatre Realities.
Among the opera productions featured at the Golden Mask Festival, the one deserving a special mention is definitely the Moscow Bolshoi Theatre production of Alban Berg's Wozzeck, directed by Dmitry Tchernyakov.
Since the main programme, an attempt to feature the most interesting developments on the theatre scene throughout Russia, not only on the Moscow and St Petersburg stages, is truly enormous, another, much more compact programme called Russian Case has been compiled, aimed at the international viewer; this year's Russian Case, providing an overview of the most vivid experiments and events of the previous theatre season in Russia, is running from 8 April through 13 April 2011.
The festival also features a number of themed programmes. The Polish Theatre in Moscow presents a selection of works by some of the most prominent Polish stage directors, from the old master Krystian Lupa who is bringing his latest production - Persona. Merilin - to Moscow, to the most famous name of the middle generation Krzysztof Warlikowski and his (A)pollonia, a unique blend of the most tragic pages in the history of the ancient world and the 20th century - a show that has, by now, toured practically half the world.
Another programme running simultaneously has been given the title of New Drama; it is focusing on the latest examples of dramatic texts. The hosts take a particular interest in Master, a play by the 37-year old Lithuanian playwright Marius Ivaškevičius. Staged in Vilnius by the director Rimas Tuminas, the production may well turn out to be the main attraction of the programme. The special pride of the Moscow theatre world is One Hour Eighteen (Chas Vosemnadtsat); a Teatr.doc production, it is an outspoken protest against the current policy of the Kremlin.Another production that should not be missed is The Schooling of Bento Bonchev at the Krasnoyarsk Theatre; it has earned high praise for the intellectually inspiring dramatic text by Maxim Kurochkin and the work of the director Oleg Rybkin, the only one among the disciples of the great Pyotr Fomenko who is attempting to develop a theatre of his own, having left Moscow for the province.
The Golden Mask Festival also features three productions from Latvia: 36 Brīvības Street, staged by Laura Groza at the Latvian Art Theatre - a piece dealing with the people from the 'tent village' in front of the Latvian Government building; Grekov's Hanana directed by Dž.Dž.Džilindžers at Liepāja Theatre and Mārtiņš Eihe's The Battle Of.... For the third year running, the Premieres of the Mariinsky Theatre programme showcases the latest opera and ballet productions from St Petersburg.
Programme: www.goldenmask.ru
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