Georgy Dronov began addressing the public before each show.
Photo: Larisa KUDRYAVTSEVA/EG
A post recently appeared on the Telegram channel “Heard in Anapa”: “Subscribers are outraged by the performance in Anapa.” We are talking about the play “Two on the Sea”, in which the popular Moscow artists Georgy Dronov and Elena Biryukova take part. They once starred together in the humorous series “Sasha + Masha”, and now they are playing in a non-repertoire sitcom.
“Two in the Sea” has been quietly rolling around cities and towns for three years. And suddenly a scandal broke out in Anapa. One of the spectators (hopefully real, not a bot) commented on what he saw: “Yesterday we visited the Rodina cultural center for the play“ Two and the sea ”. Outrage knows no bounds. Description on the poster: “The plot narrates the strange intertwining of the destinies of two people who were lost in life. By the will of a fatal combination of circumstances, they meet and become close, understanding and forgiving. Reviving to a new life, the characters of the play leave us with the hope that the point of no return has not yet been passed… But in reality, complete garbage!
This is a performance about how a gay man, who worked as a teacher, raped a student and went to prison. His friend, the second gay, played by the famous actor Georgy Dronov, goes out of his way to find funds to bribe the investigator. And her wife (the gay one, it turns out, she has it too, is played by actress Elena Biryukova) is ready to send her own son to beg in order to collect the required amount. In the process, the actors drink, smoke on stage and meet in a cafe with the eloquent name “Rainbow”… There are no words, only questions: what values does this performance bring?
This review ran through the Telegram channels like a substance known to the pipes. All social networks close to the theater unsubscribed saying that Sasha+Masha is no longer the same. Dronov and Biryukova “go around the country with a company about the difficult fate of sexual minorities.” Someone even advised to show a performance “with such an interesting plot” in the North Caucasus. But it turned out that the play had already been seen in the North Caucasus. The director of the production, Isabella Karginova, works at the Vakhtangov Russian Academic Theater in Vladikavkaz. It was there that the premiere took place three years ago. And the public loved it.
– If the performance was about LGBT propaganda, then in Vladikavkaz no one would allow PR on a scandalous topic, especially on the stage of an academic theater. Therefore, I am surprised by the reaction of the audience in Anapa, ”Izabella Karginova told KP. It is a comedy, but with a deep meaning. It’s about traditional family values, which our heroes come to in the end. We wanted to show that the point of no return has not yet been passed. It is not too late to return to normal relations between a man and a woman. And everywhere the audience correctly understood our message, with the exception of Anapa. Before that, we showed the performance in Krasnodar, Kaliningrad, Nizhny Novgorod, Vladikavkaz, St. Petersburg, Moscow … Everywhere there was a wonderful reception, with a bang. People appreciated that the problem is raised in this perspective. This is a deep social game, there are wonderful dialogues. This performance is not about perversions, but rather about the fact that all kinds of perversions are bad. And if someone in the audience sees it differently, these are questions for these viewers. We are trying to raise a problem in which society has drowned, and we have been accused of propaganda. If Raskolnikov killed an old woman with an ax and Dostoevsky wrote about it, is his novel about him propaganda for murder and violence? The statement of the problem is not propaganda for anything. By the way, during the performance in Anapa, no one left the hall, the audience watched to the end. And then this post. But we will not let ourselves be guided by anonymous reviewers.
On the one hand, it is difficult to disagree with the arguments of Isabella Karginova, on the other hand, the choice of a theme for the staging, especially in our current reality, is thin ice.
After the “full house” in Anapa, before each performance, Georgy Dronov began to address the public that there was a precedent, if something in the plot is shameful, it is better to immediately return the money for tickets.
– Our performance has existed for several years. When it was created, we were intrigued by the theme of the fight against… non-traditional forms of sexual life. As they say now, it is an LGBT problem,” said Georgy Dronov. – Recently, a law was passed banning LGBT propaganda. We find ourselves in a rather difficult situation. But our performance is actually talking about the unbreakable relationship between a man and a woman. And that is the only true relationship. Of course, the LGBT theme is touched on, but there is no propaganda. We promote only normal correct love…
In fairness, it should be noted that there are much more positive reviews. Note to Viewers: The original performance provokes a lot of thought and emotion. Good performance…
