Tairov's chamber theater. Chamber theater under the direction of A. Tairov. Chamber theater - lawless comet

Tairov Alexander YakovlevichJuly 6 (June 24) 1885 - September 25, 1950

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Life story

Chamber theater AND I. Tairov Chamber Theater opened in Moscow in 1914 with the play "Sakuntala" by Kalidasa. The theater was located in the premises of the current Moscow Drama Theater. A.S. Pushkin, which is on Tverskoy Boulevard. The founder and director of the theater is Alexander Yakovlevich Tairov (1885-1950). The theater was closed in 1950, a significant part of the troupe entered the newly organized Drama Theater. A.S. Pushkin. AND I. Tairov began working in the theater in 1905 as an actor. The very next year he was invited as an actor to the theater V.F. Komissarzhevskaya. Later he played in theaters in St. Petersburg, Riga, for three years he served in the "Peredvizhnaya Theater" P.P. Gaideburov, where he began his directing career. In 1913 he joined the Free Theater troupe under the direction of K.A. Mardzhanov, where he staged performances "The Yellow Jacket" by Heseltov-Furst and the pantomime "Pierrette's Veil" by Schnitzler. In 1914, together with Alisa Koonen and a group of actors, he opened the Chamber Theater, with which all his further creative life ... Tairov is one of the largest directors-reformers of theatrical art of the 20th century. He called his Chamber Theater "the theater of emotionally saturated forms", thereby opposing it as the principles of "conditional theater" proclaimed by V.E. Meyerhold and naturalistic and realistic theater. Tairov strove for sophisticated acting and directing, for a romantic and tragic repertoire, for legendary and poetic plots, for depicting strong feelings and great passions. With his first performance, "Sakuntala", he announced his creative platform. The programmed performances of this initial period were also Beaumarchais's The Marriage of Figaro, Schnitzler's Veil of Pierrette, Famir Kifared by I. Annensky, and Wilde's Salome. Tairov's chamber theater can be rightfully attributed to aesthetic theater - all the principles of aesthetic theater in its productions were implemented with maximum completeness, and many of them were rethought. Tairov saw the basis of self-sufficient and bright theatrical art in the actor. And his very ideas about the actor were based on the information preserved in the theatrical legend about the actor of the “heyday of the theater”. All means of theatrical expression were subordinated by the director to his idea of this special specific acting art. It was in this that Tairov's theater differed from the “conditional theater” as it took shape at the beginning of the century - in the “conditional theater” the actor was the director's “puppet”, his art was subordinate to the “idea”, music, visual principles of the theater, etc. Tairov proceeded from the fact that the actor and his body are real, and not at all conventional. But it did not follow from this that Tairov was creating a realistic theater - he was talking about “neo-realism,” that is, not about realism in life, but about the realism of art. All the components of the theater - music, decoration, literary work, costume - should, first of all, in his opinion, serve the actor for the greatest disclosure of precisely his skill. Literary drama for Tairov was a source, but not a work of value in itself. It was on its basis that the theater was supposed to create "its own, new, self-valuable work of art." Everyone and everything was to become the servants of the actor. Another reform was carried out in the Chamber Theater, connected with the arrangement of the stage. Tairov believed that in ordinary performances there was a contradiction between the three-dimensional body of the actor and the two-dimensionality of the scenery. That is why the Chamber Theater builds three-dimensional spatial scenery, the purpose of which is to provide the actor with "a real basis for his action." The scenery is based on the geometric principle, since geometric forces create an endless series of all kinds of constructions. The scenery of the theater is always as if "broken", it consists of sharp corners, elevations, various stairs - here great opportunities open up for the actor to demonstrate dexterous control of his body. An artist at the Chamber Theater becomes a builder instead of the usual painter. So, the performances of the Chamber Theater are "theatrical life, with a theatrical setting, with theatrical scenery, with theatrical actors." Naturally, an actor in such a theater is required to have a brilliant mastery of the technique of the role - external and internal. Tairov created his own rhythmic-plastic style of acting. The image created by the actor had to be born during the period of search, it had to be formed in ways "mysterious and miraculous" before being fixed in its final form. The theater actors seemed to be "dancing" their role in accordance with the rhythm of the performance, as if they were singing words. In the play "Princess Brambilla" based on Hoffmann's fairy tale, the text of the play was recreated during rehearsal, it was reworked according to the intentions of the theater. The scenery for the performance did not indicate any specific location, but was bright, colorful and fantastic. A variety of colors fell on the viewer, as did the endless broken line of the stage - it formed either stairs, now balconies, now ledges. There was a bright and festive crowd on the stage, and the actor in the play was an acrobat, a singer, and a dancer. Everything in this performance was in motion, everything was designed for the emotional perception of the viewer. And the plot of the play itself, in fact, receded into the background. The performance was stormy and cheerful, noisy and effective. The theater's struggle "against the philistine in life," Tairov wrote, "narrowed down to a struggle against the philistine only at the theater ... We began to regard the stage area as" the world in itself. " In another production by Tairov, "Phaedre", which is considered to be one of the best, a certain severity and stinginess was noticeable in comparison with the fairy-tale world of Hoffman's fairy tale. Everything was strict, restrained, exciting. The external design of the performance remained dynamic, but it was not a dynamic of fun, but anxiety. The theatrical gesture of the actors conveyed their emotions. The stage itself resembled an antique palace (columns, ledges, relief of decoration), and against this background Phaedrus rushed and tormented with love. Phaedra seemed to be returning the tragic actress of Ancient Greece to the 20th century. Now Tairov is talking about the "theater of aesthetic realism." Both of these performances were staged by Tairov after the revolution he accepted. But his path was, of course, rather difficult, because after the early 1920s, after the experimental and intoxicatingly spontaneous theatrical searches, the Chamber Theater begins to criticize (including A.V. Lunacharsky), accuse of militant aestheticism, incompatible with revolutionary ideals of the era. In the first post-revolutionary years, the theater continues to believe that the actor should take his stage emotions "not from real life, but from the created life of that stage image that calls the actor to his creative existence from the magical land of fantasy." The theater's repertoire was just that - far from any revolutionary reality. The theater did not strive to evoke social emotions in the audience, but to awaken in it “pure” theatrical emotions. In general, at this time, the creation of a realistic or everyday drama and performance seemed impossible for many. It is impossible because the life of the “revolutionary era” was changing rapidly, was in a restless constant movement, did not have complete forms. Practically all major theatrical figures of that time took part in the discussion on this topic. And many believed that a new drama reflecting time would be possible only when everyday life took on "cooled forms", as, in fact, life itself. Tairov also took part in the discussion - he wrote the book "Notes of a Director" (1921). He took an extreme position on the issue of "revolutionary life". He still believed that the theater should take the viewer away from the surrounding reality into the world of fantasy, "to the wonderful land of Urdar." Speaking at one of the disputes that were extremely widespread in those years, Tairov again emphasized his sharply negative attitude towards any attempts to introduce material of today's revolutionary reality onto the stage. “If there should be communists on the stage,” he said from the rostrum, arguing with Meyerhold, “then the result is a merger of theater with life, the transfer of theater into life.” And he concluded: "This is the death of the theater." However, ten years will pass and the same Tairov will stage "The Optimistic Tragedy" by Vs. Vishnevsky. And, of course, in this performance there will be no Hoffmann's fantastic "country of Urdar", but a very real atmosphere of the revolutionary time will arise, and the main artist of the theater Alisa Koonen will change the stylized clothes of her former heroines for a leather jacket of the commissar of the times civil war ... So the thesis about “non-stage and non-theatricality” of revolutionary reality was now perceived as a curiosity. But then, in the early 1920s, many theater workers, including those who defended the principles of realism, treated the “revolutionary reality” in about the same way as the esthete Tairov. For Tairov himself, the issue of “recognizing the revolution” was resolved even by the fact that his Chamber Theater literally perished economically on the eve of the revolution - the fees were extremely small, and there were almost no funds to support the theater. The new (revolutionary) government gave him money, made the theater state-owned, and even for some time he was included in the group of "academic theaters". But, nevertheless, each director had to decide the question of aesthetically permissible for himself - for Tairov, this border was at a very large distance from what was the material of living and real life. In 1917-1920 Tairov staged Lothar's The Harlequin King, Debussy's pantomime The Toy Box, The Exchange and Annunciation by Claudel, and Scribe's Adrienne Lecouvreur. Of these performances, only one has survived in the theater's repertoire for a long time - this is “Andrienne Lecouvreur”, in which A. Koonen played the main soulful role, creating a lyric-tragic image. The most full-blooded artistic images in the performances "Phaedra", "Shaggy Monkey", "Love under the Elms" by O'Neill were also created by the leading actress of the theater - Alisa Koonen. The theater is still "synthetic" in the sense that it puts on performances of a wide variety of styles - here and heroics of high tragedy, here and buffoonery, operettas, here and Hoffmann's fantasy and eccentricity. In the theater in the 1920s, like in many others, the genre of the performance-review was established, which was much closer to modern times than other theater productions. Later, the techniques of operetta and review were combined in the socially-pointed performance "The Beggar's Opera" by Brecht and Weil (1930) - this was the first experience of Brecht's drama on the Soviet stage. The theater, of course, was forced to stage modern Soviet drama as well. The best performance from a number of Soviet plays was "Optimistic Tragedy" by Vs. Vishnevsky. Naturally, here the spirit of tragedy, so familiar to the public, present in the performances of the Chamber Theater, was "rethought" in the direction of saturating it with revolutionary heroics. The theater stages contemporary playwrights, but other productions remain its most interesting performances. Thus, the production of Egyptian Nights (1934) consisted of fragments of the eponymous work by Pushkin, Caesar and Cleopatra by Shaw, Antony and Cleopatra by Shakespeare. One of the best performances of this period was the production of Madame Bovary, based on the novel of the same name by Flaubert, which was welcomed by Soviet critics, for in it the theme of the death of a person in a mercantile bourgeois environment alien to him was highlighted. In 1944 Tairov staged Ostrovsky's Guilty Without Guilt. The performance was strictly sustained in one style, as befits a great master. Tairov's plan was not devoid of novelty. He refused to play Ostrovsky in everyday life, he did not play melodramaticism, as was often done in the theater, acting out the drama of a mother who had lost her son in his early years and regained it. The Chamber Theater did not play Ostrovsky's drama as a purely personal drama of Kruchinina. This role was previously played by great actresses (Ermolova and Strepetova), each of them, the ruler of the thoughts of her time, gave a tragic and deeply individual embodiment of the image of Kruchinina, but both of them played great suffering for everyone who broke life, who also crippled himself spiritually and morally. This play by Ostrovsky was generally the most popular in the theater's repertoire of the 1920s and 1940s. It was put on everywhere and constantly. In the mid-40s, a movie was created with Alla Tarasova in the title role. Tairov set himself the task of freeing Ostrovsky's play from everyday and melodramatic clichés. He put tragedy in the spirit of a kind of neoclassicism. The performance was plastically refined, its mise-en-scènes were strict and coldish, the movements of the performers were stingy. In the center of the performance was Alisa Koonen - she created the image of a Russian actress challenging the hypocritical society, all the smug and pitiful artisans. She was a proud and lonely woman actress. She played impulsively, conveying with fast and nervous movements all her despair, suffering, alienation from the environment. And although critics talked about the realistic image of Kruchinina, here too Kohonen maintained a connection with the heroines she had played before in a conventionally theatrical manner: “For a moment, a decorative gesture, a deliberate sculptural pose, a turn of coinage on medals ”. And yet, critics said, all these interweaving did not violate the realistic outline of the image, but only created a certain romantic uplift in it. Overcoming the “life of Ostrovsky”, the director “too Europeanized the life of the Russian province in the 70s and 80s of the XIX century, giving it an excessive aesthetic attire and pictorial sophistication”. The viewers might well have thought that the action of the play takes place not in the Russian provincial city and not even in Moscow or St. Petersburg of that time, but rather in Paris in the second half of the 19th century. The performance was designed in the spirit of the Impressionist painting style. Tairov seemed to have transferred Ostrovsky's play to another country and to a different social environment. All the other characters in the play underwent some leveling, according to the director's intention "they should be generalized." As a result, the individual shades of characters, the nuances of psychology, which Ostrovsky has always been strong, were erased in the performance of the Chamber Theater. Neznamov turned out to be especially inexpressive - he lost the complex psychological structure, about which Ostrovsky himself also spoke. He, too, has turned into a generalized impersonal figure, although in the play his role is one of the main ones, he is the heroine's son. With Tairov, it turned out that all the characters in the play created only a "decorative background" against which tragic portrait the main character played by Alisa Koonen. And yet in the image of Neznamov so many features were intertwined: outwardly he was quite often rude and even cynical, but his heart was tender, "a wounded heart." Shyness and bravado, a sense of humiliation and pride, a fall to the very bottom of life and a striving for the ideal-romantic were intertwined in him. And all this was "taken out of the brackets" by the director and the theater. The chamber theater has always evoked a cautious attitude towards itself on the part of the authorities that manage the theater and the state. A harsh negative assessment of the farce opera to the music of Borodin Bogatyrs (libretto by D. Bedny), staged in 1936, caused a serious crisis in the life of the theater, because the performance's shortcomings were regarded as “an expression of alien political tendencies,” and the Chamber Theater was again designated as "Bourgeois theater", recalling the assessment of this theater by Stalin, given to him in 1929 (the Chamber Theater staged in 1928 "Crimson Island" by the disgraced M. Bulgakov). It was a verdict. In 1938, an attempt was made to merge the collective of the Chamber Theater with the "Realistic Theater" directed by N. Okhlopkov. But the creative history and the very principles professed in these two groups were so different that Okhlopkov in 1939, along with his actors, left the Chamber Theater. The chamber theater is trying to live and survive - it puts on plays by contemporary authors, puts on classics, good actors play in it, there are some successes, but in general, the theater, of course, lived its best years, and in the history of the theater it remained, first of all, with its early performances , as well as those that were staged in the 1920s, when the theater was not yet forced to “break itself”, socialize and revolutionize, which Tairov and his actors managed to do much worse than playing “Phaedra” or “Andrienne Lecouvreur”. There is a theatrical legend that, leaving the theater, when it was closed, Alisa Koonen "cursed this place", and since then in this renamed theater, a normal and fruitful creative life has never been improved ..

Tairov was a purposeful person, unusually sincere and devoted to his homeland. At times he seemed straightforward in some respects, but in defending his views he remained stubborn and consistent. He did not possess the trait characteristic of other artists - he did not burn what he had previously worshiped. Even revising, changing positions, he retained something very important and valuable for him, which continued to underlie his activities. Therefore, so fundamentally and consistently, in constant search, his artistic, human wealth was accumulated.

A fierce polemicist, he, however, needed followers, defenders. Tairov organized the Society of Friends of the Chamber Theater, the purpose of which was at first to support and promote the young beginning theater, and then to introduce his ideas into wide circles spectators. He published the magazine "Theater Mastery" and the newspaper "7 Days of the Chamber Theater". He founded a certain art club of the Chamber Theater "Eccentrion", in which creative evenings, skits, lectures concerning the Chamber Theater and general theater problems took place. Tairov strove with all his might to create a wide public environment around the theater.

Filled with creative pathos, he carried out his own special theatrical line. At the same time, he very often polemicized with what he later recognized, but already recognized as significantly modified, which arose in him under the influence of independently accumulated creative experience, large personal inner experiences. At each stage he tries to formulate the results of his searches, but sometimes his creative achievements were broader than his theoretical statements.

He was outraged by the wide spread of chatter on most scenes instead of good diction, the lack of body culture, the salutary use of calm techniques available to any actor without professional, deep training.

In an effort to awaken passion and temperament in the actor, he polemically reduced the internal technique only to emotions, but often replaced the emotions of the image with emotions that are inevitable for every actor at the moment of creativity.

He faced a solution to one of the most important problems of acting - the actor's double life, which has not yet been truly investigated and uncovered and which constitutes the secret of acting (“I am grieving, while experiencing great creative joy, and the experience of grief and has the power to stop it at will ”).

He was largely right in rebelling against the dominant repertoire. He saw on most of the stages of Russian theaters in the pre-revolutionary time the triumph of petty feelings, replacing genuine passion, and the shameless abundance of family quarrels, replacing the tragic conflict.

For Tairov, such plays and the corresponding performance were intolerable, and Alisa Georgievna Koonen, as an actress in whom he found the embodiment of his ideas, in turn rejected these plays.

Director Tairov's meeting with actress Koonen was not like Stanislavsky's meeting with young Lilina, with whom he started together, and who became one of his most loyal students, or like Meyerhold's meeting with Zinaida Reich. Here we have a meeting of two equal artists. Alisa Georgievna from the very beginning, already at the Art Theater, occupied her special positions. Young people loved her very much, especially for two roles: Anitra in Peer Gynt and Masha in Living Corpse. Gradually, she began to feel that in the Art Theater, where she was greatly appreciated, she would not find an outlet for her attraction to new expressive scenic means, to the beauty of sound and gesture, to possible decorativeness. But at the same time from Art theater she took the best - the depth of comprehension of the image. Alisa Georgievna has always been distinguished by increased exactingness towards herself. The meeting with Tairov was essential for both her and him. At the Art Theater they shook their heads sadly, and meanwhile, Alisa Georgievna found herself in the Chamber Theater. She became a creative companion of A. Ya. Tairov at long years and often deepened his directorial constructions with her art.

Tairov's career at the Chamber Theater can be divided into several stages. I remember the opening of the theater, which brought together not very many people. The building was not yet ready; damp spots were visible on the walls of the hall. The troupe consisted to a large extent of novice actors, but the very first performance - "Shakuntala" - attracted attention to the new theater.

There was a peculiar, invincible poetic charm in "Sakuntala", covering the entire atmosphere of the performance, subtle, musical. The most delicate tones of Kuznetsov's sets, the light grace of restrained and chaste mise-en-scenes and the touching tenderness of Koonen - Sakuntals spoke of the fullness of life, of its spiritual human strength.

In the years when pessimism prevailed on the stage, Tairov argued the possibility of a different, real wonderful world in which the beauty and wisdom of man dominate. Tairov was guided by these principles of high humanism as a person and an artist, although at first glance it seemed that he was solving purely aesthetic problems.

At a time when the Art Theater did not find a way out for its civic aspirations, at a time when Artsybashev and Ryshkov became dominant in the repertoire of most theaters, a theater emerged that approved the works of high drama of world literature.

Theoretically attributing to the playwright at first only the role of screenwriter for theatrical performance Tairov chose plays that stood the test of time and met the highest not only theatrical, but also literary taste. The Chamber Theater soon had a repertoire that any theater could be proud of. He staged Calderon, Beaumarchais, Goldoni, Shakespeare, Kalidasa.

Tairov himself was then largely under the influence modern painting... He was looking for an artist whose work coincided with his dreams. Artists of various trends and personalities appear on its stage. Tairov saw the assertion of theatricality both in the scenery of Goncharova, and in the unusually transparent, airy, thin canvases of Kuznetsov, and in Sudeikin's intricate bosquets, and in the wastefully bright Lentulov. But cooperation with these artists turned out to be only a preparatory search, approaches to the theater, which he planned to create

The main feature of Tairov's own artistic thinking was the desire for enlargement.

Throughout his life, he affirms the significance of large forms of mystery - tragedy and harlequinade - comedy, he seeks to see outside the framework of the performance some eternal laws, to force the viewer to delve into the essential phenomena of life. He is invariably possessed by the generalization of life and its phenomena. It is important for him not only a concrete manifestation of love, but moreover - love in itself, as something underlying being, not only a concrete manifestation of passion, but moreover - passion in itself. The tragedy of Annensky "Famira-Kifarad" became his first true stage manifesto. From the books of Fuchs, Sergei Volkonsky, who expounded the thoughts of Appia and others, we already knew the theoretical requirements of a three-dimensional stage space as the only one corresponding to the three-dimensional body of an actor. We knew that neither the planar nor the bas-relief solution corresponded to the theoretical postulates of the three-dimensionality of the actor on stage. This idea was embodied in the performance "Famira-Kifarad". In it Tairov solved a number of aesthetic problems. He practically proved the idea of the importance of movement and the beauty of sound on stage.

Cubes and pyramids, a system of inclined platforms along which the actors moved, created a certain image antique greece... These pyramids aroused associations, they became a metaphor of cypresses, a kind of mountains, perceived not just as bare stage platforms, but, creating a certain stage image, a stage metaphor, immersed in the atmosphere of Hellas.

The play "Famira-Kifarad" completed an entire stage of Tairov's work and became the key to his further searches in the field of solving the stage space, as if personifying aesthetic principles, which then Tairov powerfully developed.

By the February Revolution, it seemed that the Chamber Theater was already dying, the newspapers reported about its closure, the patrons, disillusioned with profits, refused its support, demanded a change in the repertoire, but the Chamber Theater unexpectedly reappeared as a semi-studio theater on the very eve of the October Revolution. AV Lunacharsky became interested in him. On Bolshaya Nikitskaya, next to the current Mayakovsky theater, in a small club room, his activities were widely developed. Cold and hungry Moscow provided brilliant examples of theatrical art. In a small but wide hall, the audience sat in a coat. This season finally confirmed the right of the Chamber Theater to exist. The repertoire of the theater consisted of the performances "The Harlequin King", "The Exchange", "Salome", the pantomime "Box with toys", which were by no means of equal value.

Tairov finally abandoned picturesque decorations. The Exchange was played on an almost nude stage.

In "Salome", as you know, Tairov went to the solution of "live" decorations, which were supposed to correspond to the stage events. The silver curtains twitched according to the atmosphere of the action, the black and silver canvas fell like a sword.

Tairov followed the chosen path consistently and with inspiration. If we consider the period ending “Famira-Kifarad” as the introductory one, then now the period of development and consolidation of theatrical, specific, unique methods of creativity began. In addition to those already named, it was marked by such major productions as "Adrienne Lecouvreur", "Annunciation", "Romeo and Juliet", "Princess Brambilla" and ended with the final performances of "Phaedra" and "Girofle-Girofle". Tairov met actors who could rely on, in addition to Alisa Georgievna Koonen - Tsereteli, Sokolov, Eggert, Arkadin, Uvarova, who helped create the theater.

But not everything was convincing here. Of course, the eccentric interpretation of Romeo and Juliet in the form of a harlequinade could not be accepted. In Princess Brambilla, eccentricity and grotesque reigned - a wastefully lavish interweaving of reality, fantasy, richness of color, circus and acrobatic acts, unexpected appearances and disappearances. In "Annunciation" the director entered into a decisive struggle with the author, rightly not accepting his main mystical tendencies.

But already in "Adrienne", forever preserved in the repertoire of the theater, against the background of stylized baroque, curved a few screens and armchairs, among the exquisite stylized images of the court nobility, the tender and tragic fate of Adrienne Lecouvreur was unfolding, for whom Koonen found woundingly exciting intonations. She contrasted the sophistication of the general drawing with humanity and simplicity.

Tairov gave preference to works of "pure" genres - tragedy and comedy ("mysteries" and "harlequinade" in his terminology), and he selected mainly Western plays for the repertoire. Tairov strove to create a synthetic theater, paying great attention to the actor's movement and plastics.

We wanted to have a small chamber audience of our spectators ... We did not at all strive for chamber repertoire, nor for chamber methods of staging and performance - on the contrary, by their very essence they were alien to our intentions and our searches, "wrote Alexander Tairov. called "the theater of emotionally saturated forms" or the theater of neorealism.

The revolution also affected Moscow theatrical life. The nationalized theater was named the Moscow State Chamber Theater. The new government demanded a detachment from everything "old and inert", unworthy, in its understanding, to go into a bright revolutionary future. Obviously, not everything went smoothly and in the Chamber Theater, in any case, Tairov had to make excuses to survive:

In the first years after the revolution, K [amer] t [theater] continued to believe that scenic [eskaya] emotion “... should take its juices not from real life ... his creative being "
Tairov A. Ya. Director's notes. - M., 1921 .-- S. 75.

The excuses had an effect, and the attitude of the authorities towards the Chamber Theater remained positive: when the question of staging the play "Threepenny Opera" was being decided, which was claimed by two Moscow theaters - the Chamber Theater and the Satire Theater - the authorities decided in favor of Tairov's theater. The premiere took place at the Chamber Theater on January 24, 1930. The performance was called The Beggar's Opera. The directors are A. Tairov and L. Lukyanov, the artists are the Stenberg brothers. The roles were played by: Makhita (Mackie-Knife) - Y. Khmelnitsky, Pichema - L. Fenin, Celia Peach - E. Uvarova, Polly - L. Nazarova, Jenny - N. Efron, Lucy - E. Tolubeeva, Brown - I. Arkadin ... However, critics perceived the performance ambiguously: along with positive reviews, the most terrible ideological accusations at that time were voiced - of bringing petty-bourgeois alien tastes to the Soviet stage.

At the Chamber Theater there was a studio ("Experimental Theater Workshops"), which later became the State Theater School. The official head of the studio, and later of the school, was Tairov, but the actual head of the studio was L.L. Lukyanov, then Yu. O. Khmelnitsky.

Despite the audience success, the play was filmed a month after the premiere. An editorial in Pravda entitled “A theater alien to the people” made a point in his short story. The criticism of this performance and the Chamber Theater as a whole was shared by many of Tairov's famous colleagues - Meyerhold, Stanislavsky, and others.

In 1938, the Chamber Theater was merged with the Realist Theater, headed by N. Okhlopkov. However, the creative union turned out to be fragile. Almost under the same roof, under the same name - the Chamber Theater - two different theaters, each of which played their own performances in turn. After the only production of A. Perventsev's play "Kochubei" on the stage of the Chamber Theater in 1938, N. Okhlopkov was appointed chief director at the Theater of the Revolution, and he, together with a group of actors, left the Chamber Theater in 1939.

During the Second World War, the Alexander Tairov Chamber Theater was evacuated to the city of Barnaul, where he was provided with the site of the local drama theater.

In those years, heroic and romantic performances were staged on the theater stage: "The Sky of Moscow" by Georgy Mdivani, 1942; "Until the heart stops" K. Paustovsky, 1943; "At the walls of Leningrad" Vs. Vishnevsky, 1944; performance-review "The sea spreads wide" by Vishnevsky, Krona and Azarov, 1943.

In 1945 the theater celebrated its 30th anniversary. Tairov received the Order of Lenin, a number of actors were awarded the title of "honored". However, after the August () decree of the Central Committee of the CPSU (b) "On the repertoire of dramatic theaters", plays by foreign authors were actually banned, and the Chamber Theater again fell into disgrace.

On January 29, 1949, Pravda published an article "On one anti-patriotic group of theater critics." On May 29, 1949, “Adrienne Lecouvreur” by Eugène Scribe and Gabriel Leguvet, a legendary performance that has endured almost 800 performances over 30 years of stage life, was a great success on the stage of the Chamber Theater and became a farewell for both the audience and the theater. On June 1, 1949, Tairov was relieved of his post as artistic director of the theater he created. In his place was appointed an actor of the Mossovet Theater, better known for his roles in films V.V. Vanin. Most of the troupe entered the Moscow Drama Theater named after A.S. Pushkin, created on August 9, 1950, located in the same building. Tairov and his wife Alisa Koonen, who starred in his performances, remained deprived of their professional activities. After a while they were enrolled in the staff of the theater. E. Vakhtangov, however, they did not start working there.

Troupe

Directors

Actors

A. L. Abrikosov (1937-1938, merging with the Realistic Theater)
S. I. Antimonov (1933-1937)
I. N. Alexandrov
A. Vasilieva
Gorina, Natalia Mikhailovna
A. A. Dubensky (1925-1930)
V.F.Zaichikov (1939-1944)
Yu.P. Kiselev - until 1935
N.P. Komarovskaya (1917-1918)
Miklashevskaya, Augusta Leonidovna (1915-1923, 1943-1950)
L. Nazarova
N.K. Prokopovich (1949-1950)
P.P. Repnin (1938-1940)
V.D.Safonov (1949-1950)
V. A. Sudeikina (1915-1917)
Tolubeeva, Evgeniya Nikolaevna
Yu.O. Khmelnitsky (1924-1947)
Yanikovsky Georgy

Artists

Ferdinandov
V. A. Shchuko ("Children of the Sun",)

Performances

December 12 - "Sakuntala" Kalidasa - opening of the theater.
1915 - "Spirits Day in Toledo" M. Kuzmin
1915 - "Pierrette's Bedspread" by A. Schnitzler
1916 - "Famira Kifared" by I. F. Annensky
1917 - "Salome" by O. Wilde
1917 - "Blue Carpet" by L. N. Capital
1917-1920 - "The Harlequin King" by Lotard, "Box with toys" (pantomime by C. Debussy, "Exchange" and "Annunciation" by P. Claudel, "Adrienne Lecouvreur" by E. Scribe and Leguve, "Princess Brambilla" by E. T. A. Hoffman
1921 - "Romeo and Juliet" by Shakespeare
1922 - "Phaedra" by J. Racine. Artist - Vesnin. As Phaedra - Koonen, Theseus - Eggert, Ippolita - Tseretelli.
1922 - "Signor Formica" after Hoffmann. Hood. Yakulov.
1922 - "Girofle-Girofle" by S. Lecoq. Hood. Yakulov.
1923 - "The Man Who Was Thursday" by GK Chesterton S. D. Krzhizhanovsky. Hood. Vesnin.
1925 - "Kukirol" by Antokolsky, Massa, Globa and Zak.
1926 - "Shaggy Ape" by Y. O'Neill. Dir. Tairov and L. Lukyanov, artist br. V. and G. Stenberg.
1926 - "Love under the Elms" by Y. O'Neill Cast: Abby - Koonen, Cabot - Fenin, Peter - Tsenin.
1926 - "Crimson Island" by M. A. Bulgakov
1926 - "Day and Night" by S. Lecoq with the text by V. Mass.
1926 - "Blue Peace" by A. Sobol.
1926 - "Antigone" by V. Gazenklever, revised by S. Gorodetsky
1927 - Levidov's "Conspiracy of Equals". The performance was considered unsuccessful by the official critics.
1929 - Yu. O'Neill's "Negro". Artists - brothers V. and G. Stenberg. Cast: Ella Downey - Koonen, Jim Harris - Alexandrov, Mickey - Chaplygin.
1930 - "The Beggar's Opera" by B. Brecht and K. Weil. Hood. br. Stenberg. Cast: Peach - Fenin, Polly - Nazarova, Mack - Khmelnitsky, Brown - Arkadin. Brecht's first production in the USSR.
1933 - "Machine" Treadwell. Hood. Ryndin. Cast: Ellen - Koonen, John - Tsenin.
1929 - "Natalia Tarpova" Semenova
1931 - Nikitin's "Line of Fire"
1933 - "Optimistic tragedy" Vs. Vishnevsky. Hood. Ryndin; Commissioner - Koonen, Alexey - Zharov, Leader - Tsenin, Commander - Yanikovsky, Boatswain - Arkadin
1934 - "Egyptian Nights": Fragments of the work of the same name by Alexander Pushkin, "Caesar and Cleopatra" by B. Shaw and "Antony and Cleopatra" by W. Shakespeare, translated by V. Lugovsky. Hood. V. Ryndin, music by S. Prokofiev; Cleopatra - A. Koonen, Caesar - L. Fenin.
1936 - "Alcazar" by G. D. Mdivani
1936 - "Heroes". Farce opera to music by A.P. Borodin; libretto by V.A.Krylov, revised by D. Bedny). Hood. Bazhenov; Vladimir - Red Sun - I. Arkadin, Striga - Fenin, Alyosha Chudila (Popovich) - Yu. Khmelnitsky. Despite the audience's success, the performance was severely criticized for ideological reasons.
1937 - "Duma about Briton" by Y. Yanovsky
1937 - "Children of the Sun" by M. Gorky. Liza - Koonen, Protasov - V. Ganshin
1938 - "Face-to-face confrontation" br. Tour and L. Sheinina. Dir. and isp. the role of Lartsev - M. Zharov
1938 - "Kochubey" by A. Perventsev. Dir. N.P. Okhlopkov. Kochubei - P.M. Arzhanov, Zhurba - Alexandrov
1938 - "Honor" G. Mdivani
1939 - "Consul General" br. Tour and L. Sheinina.
1940 - "Madame Bovary" by G. Flaubert. Hood. Kovalenko and Krivoshein. Staging and Emma - A. Koonen)
1941 - "The battalion goes to the West" G. Mdivani
1940 - "The Seagull" by A. P. Chekhov. Staged "in cloth" as a performance-concert. Dir. Tairov and L. Lukyanov; Nina Zarechnaya - A. Koonen, Trigorin - B. Terentyev, Treplev - V. Ganshin.
1942 - "The Sky of Moscow" by G. D. Mdivani. Production by A. Tairov. Artist E. Kovalenko
1943 - "Until the heart stops" by K. G. Paustovsky. Koonen plays the role of Martynova.
1944 - "At the Walls of Leningrad" Vs. Vishnevsky
1943 - "The Sea Is Spread Wide" by Vishnevsky, Kron and Azarov, Review performance with operetta techniques.
1944 - "Guilty Without Guilt" by A. N. Ostrovsky. Otradina-Kruchinina - A. Koonen, Neznamov - V. Kenigson.
1945 - “Faithful Hearts” by O. Berggolts and Makagonenko. Stage composition Tairov, director N. Sukhotskaya.
1947 - "Life in the Citadel" by A. M. Yakobson
1948 - "Wind from the South" by Green. Dir. Tairov and L. Lukyanov.
1945 - He Came by JB Priestley. Dir. Tairov and L. Lukyanov.
1946 - "The Old Man" by M. Gorky. Cast: Gulya and the Old Man - P. Gaideburov; dir. of both performances by Tairov and Lukyanov.
1949 - "Adrienne Lecouvreur". In the role of Adrienne - A. G. Koonen.

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Literature

Smolina K.A. Chamber Theater // 100 Great Theaters of the World. - M: Veche, 2010 .-- S. 317-321. - 432 p. - ISBN 978-5-9533-4573-6.
Sboeva S. Tairov. Europe and America. Foreign tours of the Moscow Chamber Theater. 1923 - 1930. - M: Artist. Director. Theater, 2010 .-- 688 p. - ISBN 978-5-87334-117-7.
Kolyazin Vladimir. // Mnemosyne. Documents and facts from the history of Russian theater of the twentieth century / Ed.-comp. V.V. Ivanov. M .: GITIS, 1996.S. 242-265.
Ivanov Vladislav. Midnight sun. "Fedra" by Alexander Tairov in Russian culture // Novy Mir, 1989. No. 3. P. 233-244.
Khmelnitsky Yu. O. From the notes of the actor of the Tairovsky theater. - M: "GITIS", 2004. - 212 p. - 1000 copies. - ISBN 5-7196-0291-7.
Lunacharsky A. V. About theater and drama. T. 1. M., 1958. - Articles:,,,,, "On theatrical criticism."
P. Markov M., 1924.S. 37-39.
Apushkin J. Chamber Theater. M.-L., 1927.
Chamber Theater. Articles, notes, memoirs. M., 1934
Derzhavin K. 1914-1934. L., 1934.
... M., 1934.
Moscow Chamber Theater. "The Man Who Was Thursday" in German and Austrian Criticism / Publ., Lit. edition of translations, entry. article and comment. S.G. Failure // Mnemosyne. Documents and facts from the history of Russian theater of the XX century / Ed.-comp. V.V. Ivanov. M .: Indrik, 2014. Issue. 5.P. 176–240.
Arts parade and theater boundaries. G.B. Yakulov. Lecture (1926) / Publ., Entry. article and comment. V.V. Ivanova // Mnemosyne. Documents and facts from the history of Russian theater of the XX century / Ed. S-comp. V.V. Ivanov. M .: Indrik, 2014. Issue. 5, pp. 241–271.

An excerpt characterizing the Tairov Chamber Theater

If the Cossacks had pursued the French, not paying attention to what was behind and around them, they would have taken Murat and everything that was there. The bosses wanted this. But it was impossible to budge the Cossacks when they got to the booty and prisoners. Nobody listened to the commands. Immediately, they took one thousand five hundred prisoners, thirty-eight guns, banners and, most importantly for the Cossacks, horses, saddles, blankets and various items. All this had to be dispensed with, seizing the prisoners, guns, dividing the spoils, shouting, even fighting among themselves: the Cossacks were engaged in all this.
The French, no longer pursued, began to gradually come to their senses, gathered in teams and began to shoot. Orlov Denisov was expecting all the columns and did not advance further.
Meanwhile, according to the disposition: "die erste Colonne marschiert" [the first column is coming (German)], etc., the infantry troops of the late columns, commanded by Bennigsen and controlled by Toll, performed properly and, as always happens, came somewhere , but not where they were assigned. As always happens, people who came out cheerfully began to stop; displeasure was heard, a consciousness of confusion, they moved somewhere back. The adjutants and generals who galloped shouted, got angry, quarreled, said that they were not there at all and were late, they were scolding someone, etc., and finally, everyone gave up and went only to go somewhere. "Let's go somewhere!" And indeed, they came, but not there, and some there, but they were so late that they came without any benefit, only to be shot at. Toll, who in this battle played the role of Weyrother in Austerlitz, diligently galloped from place to place and everywhere found everything inside out. So he galloped onto Baggovut's corps in the forest, when it was already quite light, and this corps should have been there for a long time, with Orlov Denisov. Excited, upset by the failure and believing that someone was to blame for this, Tol galloped up to the corps commander and severely rebuked him, saying that he should be shot for this. Baggovut, an old, fighting, calm general, also worn out by all the stops, confusion, contradictions, to the surprise of everyone, completely disgusting to his character, went into a rage and said unpleasant things to Tolya.
“I don’t want to take lessons from anyone, and I know how to die with my soldiers just as well as anyone else,” he said, and went forward with one division.
Coming out onto the field under French shots, the agitated and brave Baggovut, not realizing whether it was useful or useless to get into action now, and with one division, went straight and led his troops under the shots. The danger, the balls, the bullets were exactly what he needed in his angry mood. One of the first bullets killed him, the next bullets killed many of the soldiers. And his division stood for some time useless under fire.

Meanwhile, another column from the front was supposed to attack the French, but Kutuzov was with this column. He knew well that nothing but confusion would come out of this, against his will, the battle started, and, as far as it was in his power, he kept the troops. He didn't move.
Kutuzov rode silently on his gray horse, lazily responding to offers to attack.
“You’re all on your tongue to attack, but you don’t see that we don’t know how to make difficult maneuvers,” he said to Miloradovich, who asked to go ahead.
- They did not know how to take Murat alive in the morning and come to the place on time: now there is nothing to do! - he answered another.
When Kutuzov was informed that in the rear of the French, where, according to the reports of the Cossacks, there was no one before, there were now two battalions of Poles, he glanced back at Ermolov (he had not spoken to him since yesterday).
“They’re asking for an offensive, offering various projects, but as soon as you get down to business, nothing is ready, and the forewarned enemy takes his own measures.
Yermolov narrowed his eyes and smiled slightly upon hearing these words. He realized that for him the storm had passed and that Kutuzov would limit himself to this hint.
“It’s on my account that he is amusing himself,” Yermolov said quietly, nudging Raevsky, who was standing beside him, with his knee.
Soon after, Yermolov moved forward to Kutuzov and respectfully reported:
- Time is not lost, Your Grace, the enemy has not left. If you order to advance? Otherwise, the guards won't even see the smoke.
Kutuzov said nothing, but when it was reported to him that Murat's troops were retreating, he ordered an offensive; but after every hundred steps he stopped for three-quarters of an hour.
The whole battle consisted only in what the Cossacks of Orlov Denisov did; the rest of the troops only in vain lost several hundred people.
As a result of this battle, Kutuzov received a diamond sign, Bennigsen also received diamonds and one hundred thousand rubles, others, according to ranks, respectively, also received a lot of pleasant things, and after this battle, new movements were made at the headquarters.
"This is how we always do it, everything is reversed!" - Russian officers and generals said after the Battle of Tarutino, - just as they say now, making it feel that someone stupid is doing this, inside out, but we would not have done that. But people who say this either do not know the case they are talking about, or are deliberately deceiving themselves. Every battle - Tarutinskoye, Borodinskoye, Austerlitskoye - every battle is not fought in the way its commanders intended. This is an essential condition.
An innumerable number of free forces (for nowhere is a person freer than during a battle, where it is a matter of life and death) affects the direction of the battle, and this direction can never be known ahead and never coincides with the direction of any one force.
If many, simultaneously and variously directed forces act on any body, then the direction of movement of this body cannot coincide with any of the forces; but there will always be an average, shortest direction, that which in mechanics is expressed by the diagonal of the parallelogram of forces.
If in the descriptions of historians, especially French ones, we find that their wars and battles are carried out according to a certain plan ahead, then the only conclusion that we can draw from this is that these descriptions are not correct.
The Tarutino battle, obviously, did not achieve the goal that Tol had in mind: in order to introduce the troops according to the disposition, and that which Count Orlov could have; to take Murat prisoner, or the goal of instantly annihilating the entire corps, which Bennigsen and other persons could have, or the goal of an officer who wanted to get involved and distinguish himself, or a Cossack who wanted to acquire more booty than he acquired, etc. But , if the goal was what really happened, and what was then a common desire for all Russian people (the expulsion of the French from Russia and the extermination of their army), then it will be quite clear that the Tarutino battle, precisely because of its incongruities, was the same what was needed during that period of the campaign. It is difficult and impossible to come up with some kind of outcome of this battle, more expedient than the one that it had. With the slightest tension, with the greatest confusion and with the most insignificant loss, the greatest results were obtained in the whole campaign, the transition from retreat to the offensive was made, the weakness of the French was exposed, and the impetus was given that the Napoleonic army was just expecting to begin the flight.

Napoleon enters Moscow after a brilliant victory de la Moskowa; there can be no doubt of victory, since the battlefield remains with the French. The Russians retreat and surrender the capital. Moscow, filled with provisions, weapons, shells and untold riches, is in the hands of Napoleon. Russian army, twice the weakest of the French, during the month does not make a single attempt at an attack. Napoleon's position is the most brilliant. In order to pile on the remnants of the Russian army with double forces and exterminate it, in order to pronounce a favorable peace or, in case of refusal, to make a threatening movement to Petersburg, in order even, in case of failure, to return to Smolensk or Vilna , or to stay in Moscow - in a word, in order to maintain the brilliant position in which the French army was at that time, it would seem, no special genius is needed. To do this, it was necessary to do the simplest and easiest thing: to prevent the troops from plundering, prepare winter clothes that would be enough for the whole army in Moscow, and correctly collect the provisions that were in Moscow for more than six months (according to the testimony of French historians) for the entire army. Napoleon, this most brilliant of geniuses and who had the power to control the army, according to historians, did nothing of this.
Not only did he not do any of this, but, on the contrary, used his power to choose from all the paths of activity presented to him that was the stupidest and most pernicious of all. Of all that Napoleon could do: winter in Moscow, go to Petersburg, go to Nizhny Novgorod, go back, north or south, the way that Kutuzov later went - well, whatever you think of is stupider and more pernicious than what he did Napoleon, that is, to remain in Moscow until October, leaving the troops to plunder the city, then, hesitating whether to leave or not leave the garrison, leave Moscow, approach Kutuzov, not start a battle, go to the right, reach Maly Yaroslavets, again without experiencing an accident to break through , to go not along the road that Kutuzov took, but to go back to Mozhaisk and along the devastated Smolensk road - it was more stupid than this, more detrimental to the army, nothing could be invented, as they showed the consequences. Let the most skillful strategists come up with, imagining that Napoleon's goal was to destroy his army, come up with another series of actions that would, with the same certainty and independence from everything that the Russian troops did, would completely destroy the whole the French army, like what Napoleon did.
The genius Napoleon did it. But to say that Napoleon ruined his army because he wanted it, or because he was very stupid, would be just as unfair as to say that Napoleon brought his troops to Moscow because he wanted it, and because that he was very clever and brilliant.
In both cases, his personal activity, which did not have more power than the personal activity of each soldier, only coincided with the laws by which the phenomenon took place.
It is completely false (only because the consequences did not justify Napoleon's activities) that historians present to us Napoleon's strength as weakened in Moscow. He, just as before, as well as after, in the 13th year, used all his skill and strength to do the best for himself and his army. Napoleon's activities during this time are no less amazing than in Egypt, Italy, Austria and Prussia. We do not know for sure about the extent to which Napoleon's genius was real in Egypt, where for forty centuries they looked at his greatness, because all these great deeds are described to us only by the French. We cannot correctly judge his genius in Austria and Prussia, since information about his activities there must be drawn from French and German sources; and the incomprehensible surrender of corps without battles and fortresses without a siege should persuade the Germans to recognize genius as the only explanation for the war that was waged in Germany. But there is no reason for us to recognize his genius in order to hide our shame, thank God. We paid to have the right to simply and directly look at the case, and we will not give up this right.
His activities in Moscow are as amazing and brilliant as elsewhere. Orders after orders and plans after plans come from him from the time of his entry into Moscow until his exit from it. The absence of residents and a deputation and the very fire of Moscow do not bother him. He does not lose sight of neither the good of his army, nor the actions of the enemy, nor the good of the peoples of Russia, nor the management of the valleys of Paris, nor diplomatic considerations about the upcoming conditions of peace.

Militarily, immediately upon entering Moscow, Napoleon strictly orders General Sebastiani to monitor the movements of the Russian army, sends corps along different roads and orders Murat to find Kutuzov. Then he diligently orders the strengthening of the Kremlin; then he makes an ingenious plan for a future campaign across the entire map of Russia. With regard to the diplomatic, Napoleon calls on the robbed and ragged captain Yakovlev, who does not know how to get out of Moscow, expounds to him in detail all his policies and his generosity and, writing a letter to Emperor Alexander, in which he considers it his duty to inform his friend and brother that Rostopchin ordered a bad order in Moscow, he sent Yakovlev to Petersburg. Having set out in the same detail his views and generosity before Tutolmin, he sends this old man to Petersburg for negotiations.
In legal matters, immediately after the fires, it was ordered to find the perpetrators and execute them. And the villain Rostopchin was punished by the order to burn down his houses.
Administratively, Moscow has been granted a constitution, a municipality has been established, and the following has been promulgated:
“Residents of Moscow!
Your misfortunes are cruel, but His Majesty the Emperor and King wants to stop the flow of these. Scary examples have taught you how he punishes disobedience and crime. Stringent measures have been taken to end the confusion and bring general security back. The paternal administration, chosen from among you, will be your municipality or city government. It will care about you, about your needs, about your benefit. Members of this are distinguished by a red ribbon, which will be worn over the shoulder, and the head of the city will have a white belt over it. But, excluding the time of their office, they will only have a red ribbon around their left arm.
The city police were established according to the previous position, and through their activity a better order exists. The government appointed two general commissars, or chiefs of police, and twenty commissars, or private bailiffs, appointed in all parts of the city. You will recognize them by the white ribbon they will wear around their left arm. Some churches of different denominations are open, and divine services are freely performed in them. Your fellow citizens return daily to their homes, and orders have been given to find help and protection in them, followed by misfortune. These are the means that the government has used to restore order and alleviate your situation; but in order to achieve this, you need to combine your efforts with him, so that, if possible, you forget, if possible, your misfortunes, which you endured, surrendered to the hope of a not so cruel fate, were sure that an inevitable and shameful death awaits those who dare to your persons and your remaining property, and in the end they did not doubt that they would be preserved, for this is the will of the greatest and fairest of all monarchs. Soldiers and inhabitants, no matter what nation you are! Restore public trust, the source of happiness for the state, live like brothers, give each other help and patronage, unite to refute the intentions of the evil-minded, obey the military and civilian authorities, and soon your tears will stop flowing. "
With regard to the food supply of the troops, Napoleon ordered all the troops to take turns to go to Moscow a la maraude [looting] to procure food for themselves, so that in this way the army would be provided for the future.
Religiously, Napoleon ordered ramener les popes [to bring back the priests] and resume ministry in the churches.
In commercial terms and for the food of the army, the following was hung everywhere:
The proclamation
“You, calm Moscow residents, artisans and workers, whom misfortune has removed from the city, and you, scattered farmers, who are still holding back in the fields by unfounded fear! Silence returns to this very capital, and order is restored in it. Your fellow countrymen come out boldly from their shelters, seeing that they are respected. Any violence committed against them and their property is immediately punished. His Majesty the Emperor and King protects them and among you he does not regard anyone for his enemies, except for those who disobey his commands. He wants to end your misfortunes and return you to your courts and your families. Conform to his charitable intentions and come to us without any danger. Residents! Return to your homes with confidence: you will soon find ways to meet your needs! Craftsmen and hardworking artisans! Come back to your handicrafts: houses, shops, security guards are waiting for you, and for your work you will receive the payment you deserve! And you, finally, peasants, leave the woods, where you hid from horror, return without fear to your huts, in the exact assurance that you will find protection. The storehouses are established in the city, where the peasants can bring their surplus stocks and land plants. The government took the following measures to ensure their free sale: 1) From this date, peasants, farmers and those living in the vicinity of Moscow can bring their supplies to the city, of whatever kind, in two designated storage facilities, that is, at Mokhovaya and Okhotny Ryad. 2) These foodstuffs will be bought from them at such a price as the buyer and seller agree with each other; but if the seller does not receive the fair price he demanded, then he will be free to take them back to his village, in which no one under any pretext can hinder him. 3) Every Sunday and Wednesday is scheduled weekly for big trading days; why a sufficient number of troops will be stationed on Tuesdays and Saturdays on all the major roads, just such a distance from the city to defend those transports. 4) Such measures will be taken so that the peasants with their carts and horses do not face obstacles on the way back. 5) Immediately the funds will be used to restore ordinary trading. Citizens of cities and villages, and you, workers and artisans, whatever nation you are! You are called upon to fulfill the paternal intentions of His Majesty the Emperor and King and to contribute with him to the general well-being. Bring respect and trust at his feet and do not hesitate to unite with us! "

A year after the closure of his own theater, Alexander Tairov died, and his wife Alisa Koonen never played on stage again.

Brilliant actor, creator of his own system and school Mikhail Chekhov named five great theater directors of the early 20th century: Stanislavsky, Nemirovich-Danchenko, Vakhtangov, Meyerhold and Tairov... Four of them are well known; the fifth - Tairov - is almost forgotten, and his theater, which to this day works in Moscow, like many other things in our country, bears the name Pushkin... The last time the Chamber Theater played for Muscovites was on May 29, 1949.

Thanks to Stanislavsky

Tairov never studied with Stanislavsky, but he owed a lot of good things to him. At least a meeting with Konstantin Mardzhanov m, who fled from Stanislavsky and founded the Free Theater in Moscow. It was there that he allowed Tairov to work, at the same time introducing him to the 24-year-old actress Alice Koonen.

She also ran away from Stanislavsky - because the master "got" her with his nit-picking. It was scary, of course, to leave the Moscow Art Theater (and in 1914 it was a firm!) To an incomprehensible theater, to an unknown Tairov. Moreover, not into a normal play, but into the already disgraced pantomime "Pierrette's Veil". But a miracle happened: Tairov and Koonen fell in love with each other. And when the Free Theater died just a year after its birth, it was they who, by the power of their love, created a new one. Tairov named him Chamber.

Birth of the Chamber

Thanks to the support of Lunacharsky - who was shocked when he saw Tairov's performance with Koonen's participation even before the revolution - the mansion on Tverskoy Boulevard, which had previously attracted the attention of the Tairovites, was handed over to the Chamber Theater.

Until the 17th year, they only held out there for a couple of years, opening on December 25, 1914 with the staging of the Indian epic "Sakuntala", but it was appreciated only by aesthetes. At the beginning of the First World War, only Tairov could have thought of such a thing! It is not surprising that the owners of the building kicked them out, and Lunacharsky was already returning them.

And although the Chamber was not rich (the interior, the chairs - all this was not impressive; cannot be compared with the kindly Moscow Art Theater and the wealth of its leading figures), he had an audience and was a success: Tairov knew how to infect everyone with his enthusiasm. Once, for example, I persuaded an artist Yakulova, who designed the operetta "Zhirofle-Zhiroflya", to move to Kamerny for two weeks in view of the urgency of the work.

At the same time, Alexander Yakovlevich knew how to punish harshly if someone, in his opinion, was not devoted enough to the theater. Prime Minister served in Chamber Nikolay Tseretelli (real name - Said Mir Khudoyar Khan). Once a handsome actor came running to the play after the first call. By that time, a student was already making up for his role. Tairov silently signed Tseretelli's statement, and the fate of the Bukhara Emir's grandson was sad. He was convicted of homosexuality, then he was practically not taken anywhere. On the way to evacuation, Tseretelli fell seriously ill and died.

His goddess

Alisa Koonen - it seems, is not a beauty, albeit with amazing eyes that changed color, and amazing plastic - for Tairov was the only goddess.

The best evidence of Alice's magic is Kamerny's tour in France in 1923. The French specially prepared to boo the Tairovites in advance, because they were carrying the "Phaedra" with some extraordinary tragic Bolshevik actress, and they had this role once played by herself Sarah Bernhardt... Kohonen was even advised to visit the great Frenchwoman and ask for blessings, but it so happened that Bernard died immediately after the arrival of Muscovites. It was terrifying to imagine what the Parisian public could do. But as soon as the curtain opened, the audience burst into applause.

However, while foreign viewers and the world's best playwrights - such as Berthold Brecht and Eugene O'Neill- they applauded Tairov, his colleagues in Moscow treated him much cooler. Yes, and Alexander Yakovlevich lived somehow completely differently from what was customary at that time: he did not lead anything (he only became a member of some theatrical organizations), did not apply to the authorities. And in the repertoire - "Princess Brambilla", "Salome", "Famira-kifared" ... You will break your language.

In December 1914, the Chamber Theater was born on Tverskoy Boulevard. The director and father of the theater was Alexander Yakovlevich Tairov (by this time no one remembered him real surname Kornblith). The place for the theater was chosen by his wife, companion, best actress, like-minded person Alisa Koonen. Once she started at the Moscow Art Theater, where she came as a modest girl from Zamoskvoretsk. Tverskoy Boulevard was ruled by a real queen, a sensual beauty.

A.Ya. Tairov

Both played with early years, both walked to their own theater for a long time, but confidently. The Chamber Theater was formed on the basis of the Free Theater. The name Chamber was given not because the authors "wanted to have a small chamber audience of their spectators ... We did not at all strive for chamber repertoire or chamber methods of staging and performance - on the contrary, by their very essence they were alien to our intentions and our searches" - Tairov recalled. the theater was conceived as a synthesis of theater, ballet, music, painting. The performances were full of dancing, the costumes were bright. It was created in opposition to the naturalistic Moscow Art Theater, and the Meyerhold theater full of conventions.

The repertoire included the most exotic pieces. The theater opened with the drama "Sakuntalla" by the Indian author Kalidasa. Then there was "Famira Kifared" by Innokenty Annensky. It was a fairy tale or "Bacchic drama" about the son of the Thracian king Philammon and the nymph Argiopa Famir, or Famirid, became famous for his playing the cithara, and his arrogance reached the point that he challenged the muses to a competition, but was defeated and was deprived of his eyes as punishment and musical gift.

In the second half of the 30s, a struggle began with the theater. The new building, designed by Goltz, was not allowed to be built. But in 1940 the premiere of the play "Madame Bovary" by G. Flaubert, staged by A. Koonen, music by D. Kabalevsky took place. "Madame Bovary" was called one of the pinnacles of the directorial skills of Alexander Tairov. "It seemed that Tairov and Koonen were able to penetrate into the very essence of the human soul. The subtle psychologism that distinguishes this performance is also characteristic of the director's later productions."

Alisa Koonen later told Evgeny Odintsov: “After the premiere of Madame Bovary, Durylin wrote in Pravda that the“ seagull ”from the curtain of the Moscow Art Theater should be transferred to the Chamber Theater. Khmelev went to the Central Committee: "This is an insult to the Moscow Art Theater!" Then Tairov went to the Central Committee: "Bourgeois society hated Flaubert for Emma - do you want that too ??" - the performance was allowed, although they stopped printing Durylin, he was in poverty, we fed him, but with Bovary we traveled all over the country from Murmansk to Kamchatka, the last pre-war performances were played out already in military Leningrad, the city seemed even more beautiful ... "

The war with the theater continued until 1949, when the theater was closed for formalism in art and for an alien class repertoire. At that time in the Soviet country they were just struggling “with groveling before the West.” Tairov's bright performances did not fit in with plays from Soviet life.

Of course Tairov fought. He argued, defended, went to the authorities, confessed to mistakes. I also hoped to save the theater. He faced a fruitless search for new authors and plays. And yet an empty hall awaited him. And the confusion behind the scenes. And commissions examining the state of affairs in the theater. And on May 19, 1949, by a resolution of the Committee for Arts, Tairov was dismissed from the Chamber Theater.

May 29 at last time gave "Adrienne Lecouvreur". Alisa Koonen played with inspiration, selflessness. “Theater, my heart will no longer beat with the excitement of success. Oh, how I loved theater ... Art! And nothing will remain of me, nothing but memories ... ”Adrienne's last words were the farewell of the founders of the Chamber Theater to the audience.

After the curtain was closed - applause, cries of gratitude, tears. The curtain was played innumerable times, and the audience did not disperse. Finally, by order of Tairov, the iron curtain was lowered. It was all over.

And then outright persecution began. Abramson Khanan Isaakovich in "Meetings on Tverskoy Boulevard" (he himself lived on Tverskoy at number 17) recalls: "A reason was found. Tairov put comic opera Borodin's "Heroes". It was a funny and funny comic tale about stupid, lazy and cowardly pseudo-heroes Avoska, Churila and Kupil, posing as true heroes. V. Krylov's text was given for revision to Demyan Bedny, but Bedny fell out of favor with Stalin at that time. After several performances "Bogatyrs", despite the success with the audience, was criticized and was excluded from the repertoire. This was the reason for the reprisal against Tairov and the closure of the theater. "

The Arts Committee transferred Koonen and Tairov (as another director) to the Vakhtangov Theater. They stayed there for a short time, they were not offered work and did not promise in the future. Soon Tairov and Koonen received a paper in which, on behalf of the government, they expressed gratitude for many years of work and it was proposed to switch to "honorable rest, to a retirement age" (Tairov was then about 65 years old, Koonen - 59). This was the last blow that Alexander Yakovlevich had to endure.

The remarkable actress K.S. Zharkova recalls: “Someone thought, scoundrels, that she (Alisa Koonen) then cursed her theater, and she just never entered it for 25 years out of pride, but when someone from“ chamberlains "was dying - from actors to stage workers - she always went out to the front door: we were all her children."

But this is a very beautiful legend. We should write about it separately.

On August 9, 1950, the Chamber Theater was renamed to the Moscow drama theatre named after A.S. Pushkin and thus virtually liquidated.

In September, Alexander Yakovlevich's health deteriorated markedly. Remembering the loss of the theater was painful: "You've heard of the Inquisition. So it was a moral inquisition!" Tears ran down his cheeks. He sobbed through the sobs heard: "For what? What have I done?" (G. Bakhtiarov, article "Execution", newspaper "Alphabet" No. 8, 2002). Tairov died on September 25, 1950 in the Solovyov psychiatric hospital.

Alisa Koonen outlived her husband and friend by 24 years. "Now they lie dead together, forever, her life was completely given to him tragic fate... I remember when she was buried, Tumanov at the open grave of Tairov said also touchingly: "In a moment, Alisa Georgievna will be in the arms of a man who adored her." - from the memoirs of Evgeny Odintsov.

Tairov's chamber theater. Chamber theater under the direction of A. Tairov. Chamber theater - lawless comet