Margarita, who shows the hall a Fakuci, Woland and Pontius Pilate dressed in tracksuits, the Master in tattered jeans and the crowd in gray raincoats and jackets, as well as fluorescent lamps in modern office cubicles – in the latest performance of the Daile Theater Master and Margarita everything points to the fact that this production is not about Moscow a hundred years ago, when the action of Mikhail Bulgakov’s novel takes place. Here we are today in a European city, when the apartment issue is still relevant and people’s ability to sell themselves to Satan for pennies – everything, be it some devil of money or honor, fame, recognition – has not diminished.
Estonian blitz
Dramatization authors, directors, scenographers, costume and video artists, partners in theater and life Tits Ojaso and Ene Līsa Semper – for many years the “spiciest” of Estonian theater NO99 the creators have staged a tried-and-tested case on the Daile Theater stage. They staged the same dramatization of the novel five years ago at the Burgtheater in Vienna, and judging by the photos, the scenography and mise-en-scène were very similar, as was the duration of the performances – almost four hours. Such a partial transfer can probably be explained by the fact that the Estonian team’s plan to stage the historical drama in Daile Theater was already canceled during the work process. red prince, which would tell about Wilhelm von Habsburg, whose great love of life was Ukraine around the First World War. It is not known why this plan was not realized, but one piece of the repertoire was replaced in a flash by another – it appeared on the poster of the Daile Theater Master and Margarita. And although the production is in some ways a transfer, thanks to the titanic work of the actors and the energy that flows from the stage and the screens in torrents, this show is a success of the Daile Theater.
My relationship with Bulgakov’s novel Master and Margarita are very personal. I have read a lot, but what is your favorite book? – since I was sixteen years old, I always answer: Master and Margarita. The key to the popularity of the novel, which was written in the 20s and 30s of the last century, but only reached readers during the thaw of the 60s (in an incomplete version), is that its three lines of action not only appeal to a very different audience, but also give the reader the opportunity to read and emphasize something something completely different, as it has also happened to me. Meistara un Margaritas romantic love full of obstacles. The story of Pilate and the human Yeshua (Jesus). The ironic, somewhat homerically funny version of the trials (mostly with money and living space) of Muscovites of the 20s, especially writers and artists, imposed on them by the guest performances of Satan – Woland – and his entourage. So far, I have never encountered Meistara un Margaritas a stage or screen version that would be a little closer to the novel in terms of power.
However, the version of Titus Ojaso and Enes Leesa Sempere comes close – precisely because the two masters did not have a solemn respect for the novel, but neither did they have the desire to oppose it, to expose it in any way. Bulgakov’s text is a pure, beautiful source for creating an autonomous work of art. It begins and ends with the rhythm and structure set by the movement artist Jiri Nael – a crowd dressed in gray walks back and forth across the stage at different tempos. Someone faster, someone slower. Pious old women (in black up to their eyebrows) walk bent over as if praying to a goddess. Someone, whom we recognize as the later Pontius Pilate (Artūrs Skrastiņš), suddenly slows down and leans against the wall. An invisible weight is pressing down on his shoulders. Then he spills and walks smoothly again. And so several times. Hopefully, I won’t be too “spoilt” if I write that the show ends like that. Woland with retinue, Master and Margarita will have gone a long way, but the crowd will continue to stir as if nothing had happened. In addition, this movement is purposefully staged, especially as if each of the marchers had their own specific goal.
Close-ups in a sterile room
The performance takes place in a bright, sterile room with blinds typical of medical institutions around the perimeter. A long, open, smaller room is built in it, divided into even smaller cages, which is very reminiscent of a not-so-rich office setting under fluorescent lamps (and a bit reminiscent of the scenography in another Daile performance – Rhinos). They turn into the editorial office of the newspaper, in which another sleazy article is written about the Master’s performance. About the place where Berlioz, Ivan the Homeless and Woland meet in their unforgettable conversation about whether God and the devil exist or not. About the corridor where they see each other Master and Margarita (yes, of course, “she had yellow flowers in her hands”, and this is also the name of the exhibition arranged on the second floor of the Daile Theater). Turning to the other side – to Herod’s palace, where Pontius Pilate sits in a simple office chair with wheels. In a training suit, but of course in a white cloak with a blood red lining.
This space is complemented by a huge screen above it, while the cast is complemented by two operators whose cameras speak to the characters, sometimes completely forgetting about the audience’s existence, sometimes remembering them again. The screens, especially in the Daile Theater, are not only an element of alienation, but also a close-up element, because in the largest theater hall in Latvia, the faces of the actors are not clearly visible from the back rows, but they are very important in this performance. However, the predominance of the on-screen action over the directly addressed moments becomes depressing, especially since we hear the real (albeit microphone-amplified) sound, which is not completely in sync with the lip movements seen in the video. However, I highly appreciate the precision with which the obtrusive, sharp handheld cameras penetrate the faces of the actors, capture the smallest emotions, tears, smiles, and also the dexterity of the video operators, switching the cameras from one face or mise-en-scene to another on the screen.
Of course, the authors of the show have freely handled the scenes of the novel, changing them, discarding them, merging the characters (not always very skillfully, for example, in what context does Woland talk to the accountant about not very fresh fish in the buffet?). Instead of Koroviev’s spellbound singing office choir Pet Shop Boys songs It’s a Sin the Latvian version is sung by Ilze Ķuzule-Skrastiņa, while Woland’s entourage has only two androgynous, plastically expressive characters – Niklāvas Kurpniekas Korovjevs/Behemoth (there is no word from the cat) and Madaras Vilčukas Gella/Azazello (and again – the hunky red killer with a fang has not even walked past here). They dress up in various disco outfits and lead the wacky characters where fate has decided to lead them.
Not a single actress or actor in this show is half-hearted or half-hearted. Everyone has played their sometimes tiny characters in the small episodes like pearls: would it be the unfortunate Berlioz (not the composer) – it is significant that this role is played by Imants Strad, who nine years ago was the intellectually innocent interlocutor of the educated Berlioz, the poet Ivans Bezpajumtnieks, in Indra Roga’s production at the Valmiera Theater , – or Gints Grävelis’s mysterious, restrained reader of Pontius Pilate’s secret desires, Afranius, or Daiņš Gaidelis’ passionate Jewish priest Caiaphas, or Maynards Liepinas’ charming Judas… Also Katrina Grig’s beauty Niza, who cold-bloodedly leads her suitor to death, and Milena Miškevičas’s desperate Frida in Volanda’s satanic ball . Also Alda Silin’s bartender/accountant Sokovs, the little man who is predicted a nasty death. Tom Velichko’s novelist Poprykhin, who performs a set of convulsive movements similar to the dance of St. Vitus. And where is the melancholic soldier of Kaspars Dumburas – Marks Zhurkkavis!
All the actors are dedicated not only in their roles, but also in the silent scenes that run through the show, which I call charades. From time to time, the entire team – especially the office workers dressed in suits – freeze in grotesque poses with ecstatic grimaces and closed mouths, which are shown by close-up cameras until the last seal. In other words, the actors’ trust in the producers is immeasurable. Satan’s ball, on the other hand, is resolved with silent scenes – there are Jews bowing their heads at the Wailing Wall, Muslims kneeling in klans towards the east, silent scenes from a Goya painting with the shooting of a family, and more, and more. Sinners and victims are interchangeable.
The main four
In 1941 in the film You’re in the Army Now actors Jane Wyman (by the way, Ronald Reagan’s first wife) and Regis Toomey shared a kiss lasting three minutes and five seconds. It was a cinema kiss record until 1988. I really don’t know how long the kiss of Mārtiņš Meiers Meister and Ieva Segliņa Margarita lasted soon after they met, but it was definitely a Latvian stage record. Ieva Segliņa’s Margarita is a sad, but strong woman who, in her boots, is able not only to seduce, but also to destroy the home of the critic who destroyed her beloved. Something seems to be smoldering in him all the time. On the other hand, Mārtiņš Meiers in this show, like Ivo Martinsons in Valmiera, is both the wandering philosopher Yeshua, who is crucified because of Judas’ betrayal and Pontius Pilate’s cowardice, and Margarita’s beloved Master, who wrote this novel about Yeshua and Pontius Pilate.
Recently, Mārtiņš Meiers already played one creative spirit, which is destroyed by the intrigues of his contemporaries, in the performance of composer Emīla Dārziņš in the theater of Valmiera I’m not a piano player (director Varis Brasla). However, his Master is not related to him, nor to the betrayed Jázep from Ines Michule’s play Jázep and his brothers in Valmiera. Mārtiņš Meiers plays the broken, mentally unhealthy and neurotic author of an immortal work in one case and the unbreakable, even physically destroyed, Yeshua in the other.
However, the centers of the play, on which the whole message is based, become Artur Kruskop’s calm, ironic Woland, who is able to turn himself into a clown at a psychiatric hospital, and Artūrs Skrastins’ headache-ridden and guilt-ridden Roman prosecutor Pontius Pilate, who, for political reasons, sentences people to death against his will. punishment for Yeshua – the only self-respecting interlocutor. Both actors rely on the camera, acting for outwardly laconic but internally tense means. The scene in which Woland sees Margarita, the only person he has met so far, who is ready to sacrifice for others, is stunning. The look full of respect, admiration and unmistakable mutual attraction with which they measure each other can be measured in duration by the kiss of the Master and Margarita.
There is no shortage of dark jokes in the play, just like in the novel. For example, Pilate and Afranius watch the scene of the assassination of Judas while munching on popcorn. But in general, after the show, which ends with a broken, never really started Grebenshchikov song, one feels that the peace that the Master and Margarita strive for is unattainable, that war and satan’s pleasures will always continue somewhere, while elsewhere the people dressed in gray are busy running in their business.
MASTER AND MARGARITA
in the Fine Arts Theater on 13.IV at 18, 14.IV at 15, 26.IV at 19, 11.V at 18, 28 V at 19
Tickets sold
2024-04-07 12:58:08
#Sinners #victims #Review #Master #Margarita #play #Daile #Theater
