The playwright Andrei Stadnikov organized the artists’ memoirs into a three-part action. As a result, the work “The House Was Here” acquired harmony and intelligibility. In the prologue, the audience is sitting inside a communal apartment: a “grandmother’s” closet, obsolete toys, a satellite dish… The call signs of the “Good morning!” program are heard over the loudspeaker. and the cheerful voice of the announcer. Oh, few people know that this announcer, Galina Novozhilova, was also an actress in RAMT.
Competing actors begin to remember signs (more precisely, objects) of their childhood and youth: how they saw the first KVN TV, how the shortage came to them, what toys they played with. All this is reminiscent of the images of the once popular television show “Old Apartment”, with its restoration of the collective memory of a generation.
But the second act of the play is completely different. Fragments of the landscape covered in white blankets are like pale ghosts of the past. The artists take turns appearing among themselves and talking about themselves. How intricately their biographies were twisted before time brought these people together into a creative group!
Kiev resident Vladimir Vasilenko experienced his first cinematic fame at the age of 13: he was invited to participate in the film “The Tale of Malchish-Kibalchish.” In his hometown, the intelligent and artistic boy was not at all ignored: how many powerful people of this world presented bouquets on the stands: from General de Gaulle to Nikita Khrushchev!
Native Muscovite Alexei Blokhin spent his childhood looking at Trubnaya Square. By his own admission, he, “a mama’s boy, grew up like a cactus on the windowsill”: his grandmother sewed a mattress, and on this mattress the boy observed such a varied life outside the window.
From these scraps, funny and tragic stories, a canvas of creative search is sewn.
Children of high officials and half-orphans from boarding schools, sons and daughters of very different parents, with different initial capital and principles of education, they remember their path to the profession with equal clarity.
For Larisa Grebenshchikova, it was about books: living in a boarding school, she could even spend the night in the library so as not to break into compulsive reading. Olga Grishova remembers how all her numerous relatives, gathered during the holidays at her grandmother’s house, sang, danced and performed some skits. It was then that the girl realized: to be happy she had to sing, dance and dress up as different characters all the time. And Yuri Grigoriev, known to many viewers as one of the hosts of the program “Good evening, children!”, Remembers how he loved to go out onto the dark stage after a performance in an empty theater and, looking into the abyss of the auditorium, read out loud his favorite poems… From these scraps, these scraps of autobiographies, funny and tragic stories, the canvas of creative searches is sewn.
However, these stories probably would have remained enjoyable actors’ reunions if it weren’t for the play’s ending.
The covers of the scenery have been removed, before us are bare fragments of the scenery of various performances: towers and stars, crosses and monuments, skyscrapers, Pushkin’s profile, a kind of wheel… And the actors, dressed in costumes scenic scenes, scenes from the performances before us, roles that they wanted so much but did not have the opportunity to play, or the favorites that they once played, or the forgotten ones that have left the repertoire…
And it becomes obvious: children’s dreams and tears, hopes and hopes, and even the soft dust of Alma-Ata under bare feet – everything was not in vain, everything, boiling, fed this sacrament – art .
By the way
Marina Brusnikina’s performance “The House Stood Here” can be seen at the Russian Academic Youth Theater on September 21 and 25.
