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 VAMPILOV. PLAYS
After Alexander Vampilov’s writings “The Unparagoned Nakonechnikov,” “A House with Windows on the Field” and “The Crows’ Grove.”
Author: Alexander Vampilov
Director and author of the stage composition: Oleg ERYOMIN
Scenography and costumes: Alexander MOKHOV
The performance is accompanied by music of "Radiohead" and "Coil"
Assistant Director: Elena BORUNOVA
For his new performance Oleg Yeryomin chose a composition crated after early one-act plays by Alexander Vampilov: “The Unparagoned Nakonechnikov,” “A House with Windows on the Field” and “The Crows’ Grove.” Yeryomin linked three different writings through one general topic: an artist and his creations. The main character of the unfinished Vampilov’s play “The Unparagoned Nakonechnikov,” young hairdresser Mikhail Nakonechnikov, had suddenly discovered in him a talent of dramatist. As every beginning author, he is moved by contradicting aspirations: the thirst of glory and tormenting call for expressing himself, doubts in his own capacities and unbending faith in the exclusivity of his creations. In Oleg Yeremin’s performance he becomes the author of the two other Vampilov’s plays - “A House with Windows on the Field” and “The Crows’ Grove.” . It is as if Nakonechnikov is creating these stories right in front of the audience; in the beginning, he is doing this easily, as if playing a game, and later on, getting more and more involved with his own creation and his characters’ lives. And we can see as the very composition begins to live and develop by its own internal laws, subjecting the author’s fantasy to the logics of an artistic creation.
A beginning artist, Nakonechnikov, is, in the first place, excited by two topics: love and death. He creates “A House with Windows on the Field.” Oleg Yeremin’s performance is built on the grotesque juxtaposition of lyrics and phantasmagoria. The meeting of two lonely people in the “House with Windows on the Field,” their reverent and intimate conversation is accompanied by unexpected and sharp “intrusions” of a strange street ensemble of the village old-timers, who keep emerging and then shading away behind the huge window glass. These mock references to an antique chore turn into a counterpoint of the performance. Oleg Yeremin has intentionally changed the age of Vampilov’s plays’ characters: in this performance, Lidia Astafieva and Vladimir Tretyakov are mature persons, for whom their feelings in no way are a short-lived passion or an attempt to run away from their loneliness. This is a virtuoso duel of a Man and a Woman, in which their future fate is to be defined.
The second play produced by Nakonechnikov, “The Crows’ Grove,” is a story of life and death. Oleg Yeremin builds the action up on acute genre swings. The story that had started as a common life drama speedily turns into a farce and cuts off at an unexpected tragic note. The question if Nakonechnikov will actually turn into a real artist or his writings will remain only an episode, a bright flash of creativity in a hairdresser’s biography remains unanswered in the performance. According to director’s thought, only the time can verify importance of one or another author’s creation. Eryomin, a young director in quest of his way in the arts himself, is very much concerned with the topic of an author’s becoming, self identification and understanding of the providence.
Young artist Alexander Mokhov became co-author to the director. “Vampilov. Plays” was his debut at the Alexandrinsky Theater.
Cast in the order of appearance:
Part I. “Nakonechnikov”
Part II. “The House”
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Astafieva |
Distinguished Artist of Russia Elena NEMZER |
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Tretyakov |
Distinguished Artist of Russia Semyon SYTNIK |
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Chore |
theater’s actors |
Part III. “The Grove”
The performance was created with the support of the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation
Duration: 2 hours. The performance goes with one intermission
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