Russia's Vakhtangov Theater edition of the play "Yevgeny Onegin" was staged as the opening play at the Wuzhen Theater Festival two years ago, and it was a sensation with its stunning stage aesthetic and epic temperament. Two years apart, "Evgeny Onegin" has returned to China and will be performed four times in a row at SAIC Shanghai Culture Square starting May 9. Due to the show's previous word-of-mouth, all four shows were sold out a few months earlier. On the night of the premiere, the play once again surprised the audience, and after the performance, it burst the circle of friends.
The director of this play, Rimas Tuminas, has become familiar to many Chinese theater audiences in recent years. Just in these two days, the director also has a work "Chincha Minister" to Shanghai to participate in the performance of Jing'an Modern Drama Valley, which will be performed twice at the Daning Theater from May 10. The troupe is from the Lithuanian State Theatre of vmt, founded by Rimas Tuminas himself.
It is also the pinnacle of Russian literature, one is Pushkin's poetic drama, full of romance, sadness and poetry; the other is Gogol's comedy, full of irony, ridicule and absurdity. Although the two plays are completely different under the interpretation of different troupes in two countries, the poetic things in the plays from Rimas Tuminas, the things that praise the beauty of life, said in an interview before the shanghai performance: "What is the mission of the theater, I often think about this question. In my opinion, the theater is a territory of peace, and its mission is to bring harmony to the world with love. The meaning of art is to extend values and virtues and make the world a brighter place. ”
Director Rimas Tuminas Photography: Don Zhuoren
Tuminas: A Lithuanian director at the top of Russian theater
Born in Lithuania in 1952, director Rimas Tuminas began his theatrical career in Vilnius, Lithuania, after which he came to Moscow, the theatrical destination of his heart, and was deeply influenced by Soviet theater.
Tuminas was the chief director of the Lithuanian National Drama Theatre and the artistic director of the Lithuanian State Theatre vmt. In 2007, he took over as artistic director of the Vakhtangov Theatre and became the first foreign artistic director of the theatre's history, and in the same year, Tuminas's Uncle Vanya won the Golden Mask, the highest award of the Russian National Drama. Tuminas has rehearsed the works of Russian literary giants many times and paid great attention to digging into the deep connotations of these literary works. For many years, he and the Wakhtangov Theater were regarded as "the pinnacle of Russian theater".
A native of Lithuania, Tuminas, in addition to working at the Vakhtangov Theatre in Russia, has recently established its own state theatre in Vilnius, Lithuania.
Having worked at the Vakhtangov Theatre for almost 12 years, Tuminas and this theatre with its deep artistic tradition have a profound influence on each other. Founded in 1922, the theater was founded by Evgeny Wahtangov, the proud protégé of the famous director and theater theorist Stanislavski. Wakhtangov inherited and developed the teacher's artistic ideas, and founded the performance concept of "fantasy realism", emphasizing the expression of art into visual, figurative, and other intuitive and perceptible forms, and the expression of works is more imaginative on the basis of realism.
Adhering to the aesthetic tradition of "fantasy realism", Tuminas has created his own unique style, and in his works, the boundaries between fun and drama, the real and the mysterious are completely broken.
As the successor to the artistic director of the theater, Tuminas also inherited the spiritual tradition of Vakhtangov's "festival theatre". In a lecture before his performance in Shanghai, he said: "What Vakhtangov advocates is to interpret the drama as a festival, which is not only a festival for the actors, but also a festival for the audience, a common celebration, a common ceremony. The festival drama he created is actually a celebration and praise of life, we can not understand it as an entertainment, it is not only a song and dance on the stage, but also a celebration of the essence of life. ”
"Although there is a lot of sadness and melancholy in my plays, there is always an element of a festive celebration. The festival is far away, and it's hard for us to reach, but it's there. This festival is a fictional concept, and what is important is that what we present on the stage of the drama is the road to the festival, no matter what that festival is, it presents the process leading to the festival. ”
For most of his work adapted from the classics and with a timeless poetic meaning, Tuminus said, "Whenever I feel that life is very difficult, resulting in such a malice, I will read the classics, such as Chekhov and Tolstoy, and then I will find that my inner anxiety disappears, is removed, I become calm, I can feel that life is a gift, and thus I can accept life." It seems to me that classic works, whether poetry or prose, are poetic. ”
Stills from Evgeny Onegin
Evgeny Onegin: Contemporary creations that bring together Russia's top cast
In Evgeny Onegin, all the artistic presentations seem to be the best footnotes to Theatrical ideas of Tuminas.
A gray and cold wall, a huge mirror embedded in the back of the entire stage, dozens of swings swirling upwards, the snow drifting slowly, the blond hair of the girls, the dancing of a brown bear, the solemn dark tones of those tragedies, the women who flutter like fairies in white on the swings, build a solemn and pathetic, warm and poetic aesthetic on the stage.
Referring to the creative process of Evgeny Onegin, Tuminas said: "I wanted to break stereotypes and seek a harmony of meaning, trying to capture the harmony of emotion and music in the original, while also avoiding over-exaggerating sensibility. In this general "Yevgeny Onegin", the director does not completely copy Pushkin's poetic novel, he chooses the theme of Tatyana's love story with Onegin, and focuses his pen and ink on the heroine "Tatyana".
"In fact, this work can also be called 'Tatyana', I love women, this is my 'weakness'," Tuminas said, "Pushkin used all his energy to shape the Tatjana throughout, is the soul and character of Russia." It can be said that through the character of Tatyana, we have completed the transformation process from literature to drama. ”
And the stage presentation is also originally divided into past and present, reality and imagination. There are two Onegin on the stage, one is the elderly Onegin who recalls the past, and the other is the young Onegin who personally experiences these memories, and the elderly Onegin makes a judgment and reflection on the stage to the other self, the young Onegin. The two complement each other and intersperse each other, completing an interesting stitching of text and dramatic presentation.
Of course, the astonishment of this version of "Evgeny Onegin" is not entirely due to the director.
The actors in the play bring together the top actors in the Russian contemporary theater industry, including a number of national treasure actors who have won the title of State Artist of the Russian Federation and the Russian State Award, as well as many outstanding young actors from the famous Russian drama academy , the Boris Strğkin Drama Academy.
The main creators brought together a national treasure from Lithuania, including the chief designer of the Lithuanian National Youth Theatre, Yadoms Tykovsky, as the stage designer, the director of the Lithuanian National Theater, Fostas Ratnas, as the composer, and one of Lithuania's most famous choreographers, Angelica Sholina, as the choreographer.
It can be said that this work concentrates on the contemporary beauty of Russian literature and art, and more than 180 years after pushkin's Russian literary masterpiece came out, this drama can make people jump out of reality, with its magnificent and profound stage drama aesthetics, let the audience feel a kind of light and heat of literature and art. According to Tuminus's own words, "Evgeny Onegin is light and beauty. ”
Chancellor Chincha: Considered one of the best comedies in the history of Lithuanian theatre
Compared to Vakhtangov's grandiose productions, the Lithuanian State Theatre of vmt, founded by Rimas Tuminas himself, seems to be a little lighter. So far this year, the troupe has been invited to perform in Jing'an Modern Drama Valley for three consecutive years.
This year, the troupe brought "Chancellor chincha" directed by Tuminas. This famous play of Gogol is a monument in the history of the development of Russian theater. In this comedy, the writer portrays the appearance of an ugly Russian aristocratic bureaucrat. Previously, the Russian Alessandrina Grand Theater had performed a version directed by Valery Fokin at the Shanghai Grand Theatre in 2015, which received numerous praises.
Stills from "The Chancellor of Chincha"
This version of Tuminas' Chancellor of Chincha is considered one of the best comedies in the history of Lithuanian theatre. On the stage of the director, "Chincha Chancellor" gives a new interpretation and interpretation of this classic work in a new and original perspective: in a barbaric, backward, and sinful township, the only symbol of civilization is the telephone pole in front of the stage, and the money is stored in a cellar buried by potatoes. A servant in a tavern took the wrong bill and was immediately beheaded with an axe. Thunder rumbles, torrential downpours, abandoned churches frantically make circular motions in the air, trying to sweep away all objects and people in the town...
Tuminas wants to put aside all social, political or religious contexts in this classic repertoire, "I think that today, no one needs those tragic plots to expose reality, and no one cares whether anyone is behind it." In the present, I hope to explore human beings, with the purification of human nature as the main line of the play; perhaps this evolution is obtained from the pain and entanglement that plague the protagonist's life."