Once upon a time, in the late 80s, the audience’s favorite, the star of the Lenkom Theater, Alexander Abdulov, held a festival called “Backyards”. The festival took place in the theater courtyard. “With what crazy enthusiasm everyone was cutting, brushing, building and cleaning! Everyone tried to join this holiday and do something useful. It was not at all a commercial event or simply the closing of the next theatrical season, but a truly cultural event,” Alexander Abdulov said many years ago.
Years have passed. There has been no festival for a long time, nor have Alexander Abdulov or the great artists of Lenkom. But the idea is alive. The theater decided to revive the tradition. Instead of “Backyard”, he came up with his own name – “Lenkomovsky Yard”. During the summer months, creative evenings and concerts will be held here.
On June 28, the first in this series of musical and poetic evenings “Get me a date!” was held. It was led by artists Anna Yakunina and Maxim Averin. This was Averin’s debut as (now officially) an artist of the Lenkom troupe. He even joked that he was “successfully employed.” He showed the audience his workbook – he had just received it at the Satire Theatre and brought it to Lenkom in the personnel department.
Averin sang a song by Matvey Blanter based on the poems of Vladimir Mass “There is no need to be sad, the time of separation will pass, we will meet again”… He read his poems and the poems of Valentin Gaft. He also sang songs from Mark Zakharov’s films. I read dialogues with my dog. He smiled foolishly and flirted, as he loves, fortunately, mostly women with large bouquets of flowers gathered in the yard – they adore the hazel grouse. He said that the theatre is not a home for him, but a religion. Anna Yakunina, his colleague and friend (they act together and perform on stage) also read poetry. Tsvetaeva. And also a monologue by Inna Churikova, who was very fond of the Italian actress Anna Magnani.
If you do not find any flaws in the content (where can you find actors of the caliber of Churikova, Yankovsky, Evgeny Leonov or Leonid Bronevoy today?), then the form of that evening is quite adequate. A cozy and warm meeting with popular artists in a closed courtyard of the theater, where the actors and the audience are not separated by a ramp, where there is a feeling of trust and sincerity. Why not?
