Description of the attraction
There is no curtain or stage in this theater (in the traditional sense). Around the small-sized hall, there are benches on which spectators sit, choosing their own seats. The course of the performance unfolds for you in full, no matter where you choose. And if you like it and want to come again and again, you have the right to choose another place and look at the action from a different angle, as if to see the events from a different point of view. Moreover, the arrangement of the seats changes depending on the performance, thus the space of the stage changes, each time enlivening the production even more. The action takes place in the immediate vicinity of the audience, observing all the subtleties of what is happening.
Such performances are risky and difficult for actors and directors, because in this situation even a slight falsity cannot be allowed. And she's not in the HOUSE. It was DOM that, in the mind of V. A. Malishitsky - is a theater. This is the House for the audience who came to the performance and for the actors involved in the theater. And the light in the hall is extinguished, creating a spiritual, homely atmosphere, in which it is easier to conduct a confessional conversation about what excites minds, hearts and souls. The interlocutors, the citizens of a great country, are worried about the same thing. And the theater's repertoire is dominated by performances in which the theme of Russia sets the main tone.
Theatrical repertoire mainly consists of the classics of drama - Vampilov, Chekhov, Ostrovsky, Pushkin. The repertoire also includes a children's play “Carlson Has Arrived Again”, as well as a play based on the works of F. M. Dostoevsky's "The Dreamer, or Black Comedies of the White Nights."
The events unfolding in front of the viewer captivate him, the lack of scenery on the stage allows the imagination to play out. The talent of the actors creates, for example, the atmosphere of fabulous Russia, using a small number of attributes that can be completely unpredictable be played up and transformed. So, a window can come out of a table, a microscope can turn from a plastic funnel, boxes can turn into an X-ray apparatus, a museum display or tables in a cafe, and even an ordinary rope can become a line of rats walking away. Among these transformations, of course, there are elements of comedy and grotesque, but in the bulk - their serious and logical action.
Asceticism in the scenery does not come from poverty, but from the original artistic intention of the director. On the stage, we see either a complete convention that helps to see the meaning, or absolutely real objects (such as the logs in "The Captain's Daughter").
The theater is faithful to traditions, without changing its style for almost 40 years, being at the dawn of its formation, in 1969, a pioneer in such an organization of stage space. The Leningrad spectators dubbed the theater, which quickly became famous, "Malaya Taganka", comparing it with the Moscow "Taganka". In 1980, the theater became the Youth Theater on the Fontanka, still operating in the Izmailovsky Garden.
It is worth remembering the times in which the innovative theater began to work. Innovation itself was alien not only to the academicism of the Soviet theater with its feigned peace, but also to the political foundations of that period. The theater was dangerous because it made people think about eternal values and ideals, about simple truths. And in 1983, Malyshitsky lost his position as artistic director. But the director did not break down, and four years later he decided to start all over again, opened the Studio-87 theater in Pushkin, and in 1990 - on the street. Bolshaya Konyushennaya - a theater called "Jupiter", later renamed the Theater of Vladimir Malyschitsky. A little later, the theater changed its address, moving to st. Uprising, in house 41. Now, the Malyshchitsky theater is called the Chamber Theater.
Actors work differently from traditional theaters. Here, the actors act as decorators, costume designers, administrators, usheters, and even janitors. In the theater, perhaps, there is not a single person who does not carry an additional load. In addition, the theater has a rather tough rehearsal regime. But the actors don't run away from the theater. Probably because everyone is ready to do everything for a partner. And this concept - a partner - is sacred to everyone in the theater of Vladimir Afanasyevich.
