Alexandrinsky Theater thanks Honored Artist of Russia Elena Nemzer
for creating the paintings presented in the performance
Maxim Gorky created the first version of "Children of the Sun" in the winter of 1905 in the casemates of the Peter and Paul Fortress, where he was imprisoned for a sharp protest in connection with the events of January 9. But the very idea of the text had arisen earlier. "Children of the Sun" was part of the general reflections of the new century, the reflections of the intelligentsia about the ideal man, but also about the severing of human ties. It is not by chance that it is "Children of the Sun" is often called "the most Chekhovian" of all Gorky's plays. However, in the stage history of "Children of the Sun" a wide range of interpretations, the play was seen as an acutely social.
On the stage of the Alexandrinsky Theater "Children of the Sun" were staged only in 1976, the role of Protasov played by Igor Gorbachev.
For Nikolai Roshchin "Children of the Sun" was the first, but far from accidental appeal to the dramaturgy of Maxim Gorky. As to the dramaturgy of exactly classical, purified from ideological layers, from the seal of the work of the "proletarian writer".
In Nikolai Roshchin's play, the role of Pavel Fedorovich Protasov is played by Ivan Volkov. Those who know the history of the theater, will be able to see in this double ommage, a double continuation of the theme. On the one hand, in Gorky's Pavel Fyodorovich Protasov is the literary heir to Leo Tolstoy's play The Living Corpse, a hero who develops the theme of Fyodor Protasov. On the other hand, it is artist Ivan Volkov who plays the role of Cyrano in Nikolai Roshchin's play Cyrano de Bergerac. And Gorky gave the name of his "scenes" in memory of his impressions of Edmond Rostand's play.
So the very logic of creativity, perhaps unexpectedly, but led Nikolai Roshchin to this play by Gorky. The circumstances of the cholera epidemic, during which the play takes place, give the play a strange, disturbing topicality. But most importantly, "Children of the Sun" by Nikolai Roshchin is a modern look at the dream of an ideal and the search for happiness.
Premiere - February 10, 2021
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Instead of a curtain, the audience is bombarded with paintings by Elena Nemzer - apocalypse, the doom of the world, what M. Gorky's play says and what comes true a hundred years later. This summary is stronger than Goethe's Faust, if not the paintings dreamt by Bosch. It's a blow under the breath. And the music reinforces the heavy feelings. It was composed by the actor Ivan Volkov, who plays (perfectly, with absolute understanding of what he wants to say) the main role - Protasov. Unexpressed feelings he put into notes and, like nails, hammered into that ship, which for us did not become an ark, but wrecked, pulling with it all the "children of the sun", idealists who lived in hope for the best.
Elena Alexeeva
The working people among themselves call Protasov a sorcerer. But already in the prologue he is working his magic on a not insignificant flask, turning it carefully, shaking it - and under the influence of the vapors the entire stage light is expressively malfunctioning. It is possible that the stupefaction reaches the parterre as well: what else can explain two hours of stage time that seemed like a moment?
Lydia Tilga
