The Moscow Academic Theater of Satire hosted the premiere performances of the play “Pygmalion” based on the work of Bernard Shaw.
The name refers to the ancient myth about the sculptor Pygmalion: after sculpting a statue of a woman, he fell in love with her.
The master's sincere love for his creation delighted the goddess Aphrodite.
Seeing Pygmalion's suffering, she decided to help him and breathed life into the stone.
From then on, Pygmalion and Galatea lived happily ever after and died on the same day.
According to the plot of Shaw's play, phonetics professor Higgins accidentally meets the flower girl and scavenger's daughter Eliza Doolittle and makes a bet with Colonel Pickering - in a matter of months he will turn the ugly duckling into a beautiful swan, or rather, into a duchess in whom no one will recognize the flower seller.
The comedy was staged by director and set designer Victor Kramer, who worked on performances at Milan's La Scala, London's Hackney Empire, Paris' Théâtre du Châtelet, Bolshoi Theater, Variety Theater, Sovremennik, Chekhov Moscow Art Theater and many other venues.
When choosing a director, the artistic director of the Satire Theater Sergei Gazarov noted that he proceeded from the professionalism of the director.
Gazarov admitted that he watched Kramer’s performances, and it was important to him that the director’s approach contributed to the development of the theater.
“It was important for me that this thinking, this approach was somehow reflected in the creativity and development of the Satire Theater.
This is such a turnaround in everything - in style, in the way the artists exist on stage, in scenography,” said Gazarov.
“Giving such a director not just carte blanche, but also the opportunity to work in comfort is the theater’s responsibility.”
In a conversation with RT, Gazarov also noted that the theme of the relationship between a man and a woman, reflected in the play, is eternal, and Kramer “locked in himself the meaning and appearance” of the work.
“This story is dramatic, romantic, in love, funny, with tears - it amazingly absorbed almost all genres.
I am very glad that the director chose his own approach, his own convention in its reproduction,” Gazarov emphasized.
Performance "Pygmalion"
RT
Victor Kramer, in turn, explained the choice of Bernard Shaw's play for production by the relevance of the work, which also touches on the theme of human freedom.
“This topic is always relevant.
A person tries to be free, and feeling that love is unfreedom, he intuitively fights this, but at the same time craves it.
This internal tug-of-war is the energy of the performance and this story,” Kramer noted.
Kramer also worked on the scenery of the play.
Unusual solutions convey the ideas laid down by Shaw in an extraordinary way and not only help the viewer get into the story, but also reveal the comedic component of the play.
For example, the living room of the aristocrat Mrs. Higgins, in the form of a huge acoustic cone, is furnished with luxurious armchairs, but getting guests to sit in them is a non-trivial task.
The house of Mr. Higgins, a professor of phonetics, is full of sound devices and best conveys the character of the character: besides his passion for science, the man (a kind of big child who cannot find his own shoes without help) is not interested in absolutely anything.
The authors of the play follow the literary source in everything.
The director noted that 90% of the material is Shaw's text.
However, for the heroine Angelina Strechina - Eliza - her own dictionary was invented, consisting of modern expressions.
For example, when she first finds herself in the circle of noble people, the girl diligently adheres to the instructions of her mentor, but at some point she forgets about manners and talks about the death of her aunt in all the glory of non-literary vocabulary using fire words and swear words: “They killed the old woman, I bet there’s no reason why she should give up on influenza.”
Professor Higgins explains to the stunned guests that Eliza's speech is a new style of small talk, inspired by a fashion trend.
One of the characters finds this style of communication quite acceptable, because it adds spice to concepts that are not particularly witty to begin with, and actively writes down new words in a notebook to show off them at receptions.
Performance "Pygmalion"
RT
The authors made the decision to modernize the heroine’s language based on the fact that a modern viewer would not understand the speech patterns used by Shaw in the play.
“In Shaw, the ironic part of his novel is built on the fact that Eliza Doolittle speaks in a Cockney dialect, but today, I think, even amateurs and native speakers of English are no longer very versed in the nuances of language and pronunciation, which were so interesting and caused so much humor during Shaw’s time,” Kramer said.
“We tried to translate it into the language of today’s slang, which is used colloquially today and is spoken by quite a lot of people.”
According to the director, Eliza’s dictionary was compiled by the entire theater.
The director’s children also helped with this, sharing with him expressions from modern slang.
Many phrases became a revelation not only for Kramer, but also for the actors.
Strechina, in a conversation with RT, emphasized that she was extremely uncomfortable speaking the language of her heroine.
However, when creating the image, it was important for the actress to show changes in the character at a deep level.
Like Shaw, the authors of the dramatization call for the purity of the language that shapes personality, and leave the ending of the story open.