The idea of ​​Mark Zakharov, the patriarch of theater and film directing, is already ten years old. To tell the truth, few people believed that “The Day of the Oprichnik,” Vladimir Sorokin’s darkest parable about the near future of Russia, could actually appear on the stage of the respectable and in recent years opportunistic Lenkom. However, the incredible happened. And this is an event, whatever you say. The performance here is of the master himself, and not of his right and left hands, as often happened before. The cast is filled with the best of the best - from the legendary Leonid Bronevoy (his character Prince Sobakin is artificial and unnecessary, but the actor’s appearance on stage in a wheelchair gives the audience a few minutes of happiness) to the temperamental Anton Shagin (adjutant Fedka). Sovereign Platon Nikolaevich is played in turns by Dmitry Pevtsov and Viktor Verzhbitsky.

True, the action was moved “100 years after the premiere,” but who might be confused by this? Everyone has long been accustomed to Aesopian tricks; no one believes in the future, but the present is here, more than clearly and recognizable. Even the first striking decoration, a gas pipe with Chinese characters, seems to be an attribute of today.

The scenery, while we’re talking about it, in “The Day of the Oprichnik” is expressive, even if Alexey Kondratiev does not have such an individual style as the late Oleg Sheintsis, who passed away exactly ten years ago - at the same time when the idea for this performance was born. Movable giant structures clearly indicate the insignificance of man within the system, clocks go backwards, wolf heads hang on the walls, and a rusty rocket rises in the middle of the stage. In oprichnina Russia, it doesn’t matter what year it is: it’s always here and now. Oprichnik Day is also Groundhog Day, it is the same as other days.

In any case, this was the case with Sorokin, who responded with his day as a cheerful executioner to the textbook 24 hours in the life of a victim - the basis of informal Soviet literature, Solzhenitsyn’s “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich.” For Zakharov, everything is somewhat different: his Komyaga (Viktor Rakov, absolutely organic in the role of a businesslike punisher) wakes up as a guardsman, and greets the sunset as a free man. This is a turning point in his life.

Here is the first and probably the most important complaint about Lenkom's staging. One could immediately assume that the apotheosis of Sorokin’s grotesque, the “oprichnina caterpillar,” Zakharov would not transfer to the stage: no matter what age rating you put, no matter how you quote a ritual homosexual orgy in the circle of secret service killers, they will still be brought under the article (and if there is no such articles will be invented on purpose). However, the artistic director of Lenkom went further. He introduced a love line into the plot, making the main character - who by the end grows into the Virgin Mary - the widow Kunitsyna and, accordingly, his daughter and favorite actress Alexandra Zakharova.

You can criticize Zakharova’s somewhat monotonous manner as much as you like, or even gloatingly recall her age, which is supposedly unsuitable for romantic material. However, in this theater she is an undisputed star, her appearance on stage is greeted with almost an ovation; The very conventional style of directing allows one to accept any assumption in the field of casting. But not in drama. The problem with the widow Kunitsyna is that she takes Sorokin’s narrative to a different plane that is not organic to it. The outstanding murderer Komyaga, even proud of his murder, suddenly appears before us as a shy boy who fell in love with an unfamiliar woman - so much so that he sent his entire career to hell. Within the framework of the most general theatrical abstraction, there is no way, no way, to believe this.

To make it clear, remember “Kill the Dragon,” Zakharov’s last film, where the gentle maiden Elsa was kept as a bride by the Dragon’s right hand, the careerist and scoundrel Heinrich. They were played by the same Zakharova and Rakov. Now imagine the ending of that story, in which Lancelot dies, and Henry reforms, offers Elsa escape - and so the lovers elude the tyrant lizard. Can you imagine this? Even in the hopeful year of 1988, when the film was released, it is unlikely. And today, when the day of the guardsman has really come, and even more so.

Otherwise, as it turned out, the eclectic pop aesthetics of Lenkom are not so contradictory to the eloquent monolith of Sorokin’s filigree satire. The play is full of gags, and often you believe in it without difficulty: if it wasn’t in the book, then it could have been. The number with the clairvoyant Praskovya Mamontovna (Tatyana Kravchenko), pushing around Chinese slaves and heating the stove with collected works of Russian classics, is one of these. As does the duet of the sovereign - Pevtsov superbly plays something like the Dragon with his three different heads, changing intonation registers on the go - with his son-in-law, the perverted Count Urusov (Alexander Sirin). The textured Sergei Stepanchenko turned out to be the ideal Batya, a close security official. The best role of the play, without a doubt, belongs to Ivan Agapov: his character, the mysterious Demyan Zlatoustovich, comes out at the beginning of the first and second acts to expressively read to the audience a sermon from Telluria: “If the sovereign's top manager seeks for the glory of the CPSU and all the saints for happiness of the people and only by the will of God, at the behest of world imperialism, at the will of enlightened Satanism..."

Sorokin’s pasta Volapuk brilliantly conveys the mess in the brain, where a complex interweaving of cliches that have long lost their meaning has killed even a hint of any ideology or faith. But Zakharov contradicts the writer and himself: no, it didn’t kill, and in pitch darkness you can fall in love and be saved, too, and the night will be followed by dawn. It’s hard to say what is more in this catastrophically uneven, but still extraordinary performance, beauty or despair, idealism or cynicism (after all, the public loves happy endings). Only one thing is clear: Sorokin searched and unmistakably found the guardsman in an ordinary person similar to us, and Zakharov still hopes to find the humanity in the guardsman.

Lenkom has prepared a grandiose and truly intriguing ground for thought for its fans and critics. We are, of course, talking about the 2016 premiere, which caused so much speculation and controversy before it even took place. Tickets for the play “The Day of the Oprichnik” in Lenkom, after the announcement of the premiere date for the production, began to be sold out at incredible speed.

A sensational premiere in advance

The play was staged based on the satirical story of the same name by Vladimir Sorokin. This alone aroused the interest of the cultural public and critics. The sensational play, published in 2006, has already been translated into ten languages, and continues its triumphant march around the world.

Lenkom artistic director Mark Zakharov, who directed the play, took almost nine years to stage this dystopia. A huge period of time to comprehend and rethink the essence of the plot!

The director even once tried to rehearse the play with the actors, but later stopped working for a while. He considered that his stage version of this topical work could seriously aggravate Lenkom's relations with the authorities.

When the next decision was made to resume work on the play, the author himself spoke out against the production. Vladimir Sorokin considered that the time for this play had already passed and that it was no longer appropriate to stage it. However, the director was able to persuade the writer, and the play was still destined to see the light of day. The long-awaited premiere of the production is November 30, 2016.

Stage decisions of the director and cast

Mark Zakharov received complete freedom of action from the author. He didn’t just move the play into the future and talk about fantasy events in Russia in 2027. In his ironic interpretation, the production turned out to be completely unique for two reasons:

- firstly, the action in the play does not even take place in 2027, indicated in the novel, but approximately 100 years after the premiere;

- secondly, in the director’s dramatization there was a place not only for “The Day of the Oprichnik” itself, but also for some fragments from “Telluria”, which Vladimir Sorokin insisted on.

According to the director, the game over time relieves everyone of the excessive responsibility that he was previously worried about.

The play will tell about one day in the life of the main character, Andrei Komyaga, who is in public service.

This Monday, which began with a hangover, turned out to be not the easiest, but eventful.

The hero will have time to redo many important and not very important matters, simultaneously showing the viewer the Russia of a distant year. The monarchy was restored, they fenced off from the West, everything went in a certain circle...

In addition to the brilliant and respected director, the play features a strong cast consisting entirely of stage stars. The main role is played by People's Artist of Russia Viktor Rakov. His creative work includes the brilliant embodiment of many images on the stage of Lenkom, more than 80 roles in films and TV series.

The production features such amazing and widely loved actors as Leonid Bronevoy, Dmitry Pevtsov, Alexandra Zakharova, Victor Verzhbitsky. Fans of Lenkom and these undoubted stars of the stage consider it their duty to buy tickets to the “Day of the Oprichnik”.

This unique performance in many respects, without a doubt, has every chance of becoming the most high-profile premiere of the new theater season. Spectators and critics are already preparing to enjoy the work of the legendary Moscow group.

Ticket prices:
Mezzanine 1300-3600 rubles
Amphitheater 2700-3100 rubles
Parterre 1500-4000 rubles

Duration - 2 hours 25 minutes with 1 intermission

PRODUCTION - MARK ZAKHAROV
PRODUCTION DESIGNER - ALEXEY KONDRATIEV
DIRECTOR - IGOR FOKIN
COMPOSER - SERGEY RUDNITSKY
CHOREOGRAPHER - SERGEY GRITSAI
COSTUME DESIGNER - IRENA BELOUSOVA
LIGHTING DESIGNER - EVGENY VINOGRADOV
ARTIST-TECHNOLOGIST - ARTEMY KHARLASHKO
TECHNICAL DIRECTOR - DMITRY KUDRYASHOV
THEATER PROJECT DIRECTOR - MARK WARSHAVER
TEACHER-CHOREMASTER - ANTON LESCHINSKY
CHORUSMaster - IRINA MUSAELYAN
SOUND ENGINEERS - ANDREY KUSHNIKOV, GURGEN SHAHUMYAN
SOUND EDITOR - YURI FEDORKOV
ASSISTANT DIRECTOR - NATALIA KUCHKO
ASSISTANT ARTISTIC DIRECTOR FOR THE TROPE - INNA BOMKO
DEPUTY ARTISTIC DIRECTOR - YULIA KOSAREVA
ADMINISTRATIVE GROUP - SERGEY VOLTER, ARMEN KAIRYAN, DENIS FRANTSEV, CHRISTOPHER CHUSSI

MUSICAL ENSEMBLE under the direction of People's Artist of Russia SERGEY RUDNITSKY, consisting of:
ANATOLY ABRAMOV
NIKOLAY PARFENYUK
ANZHELIKA VOROPAYEVA
SERGEY GORBUNOV
VLADIMIR ZHUCHKOV
OLEG ZARIPOV
ALEXEY POLYAKOV
ALEXANDER SAMSONOV
ZHANNA TEREKHOVA

CHARACTERS AND PERFORMERS:
KOMYAGA, indigenous guardsman - VIKTOR RAKOV
KUNITSYNA, widow - ALEXANDRA ZAKHAROVA
FEDKA, adjutant of Komyagi - ANTON SHAGIN, STANISLAV TIKUNOV
BATYA, head of the oprichnina Prikaz - SERGEY STEPANCHENKO
GOVERNMENT PLATO NIKOLAEVICH - DMITRY PEVTSOV
PRINCE SOBAKIN, retired voivode - LEONID BRONEVOY
PRASKOVYA MAMONTOVNA, clairvoyant - TATYANA KRAVCHENKO
BUTURLIN, Generalissimo, Prince - VLADIMIR YUMATOV
GOSSESS ARINA ABRAMOVNA - ANASTASIA MARCHUK, EKATERINA MIGITSKO
URUSOV, son-in-law of the Sovereign, Count - ALEXANDER SIRIN
DEMYAN ZLATOUSTOVICH - IVAN AGAPOV
AVERYAN, kisser - DMITRY GIZBRECHT
Indigenous guardsmen
STAFF - SERGEY YAKOVLEV, VICTOR LONG
KREPLO - ALEXEY POLYAKOV
KHRUL - ALEXEY SKURATOV
OKHLOP - KIRILL PETROV
SIVOLAY - MAXIM AMELCHENKO
MAJORDOMSHA - POLINA CHEKAN
1ST CHINESE WOMAN - ALICE SAPEGINA
2ND CHINESE - ALEXANDRA VOLKOVA
A group of television workers - DMITRY MALTSEV, DMITRY NIKONOV, ALEXEY KOKORIN, ANDREY SERGIEVSKY, IVAN LESHUK, VITALY BOROVIK
Assistants to the guardsmen - ALEXANDER PODGORNOV, OLEG MATYUTA, ILYA MIKHEREV, ALEXEY SPIRIDONOV, DANIIL MATVEEV, FILIPP MALYSHEV, IGOR BOLDIN, ANTON MARTYANOV, ALEXANDER KARGIN, PETER KAZAKOV

The play “The Day of the Oprichnik” staged by Mark Zakharov at the Lenkom Theater is certainly a big event in the theater world. A kind of dystopia based on the novels by Vladimir Sorokin “Telluria” and “The Day of the Oprichnik”. However, in order to watch it you need to be familiar with at least one of the works, otherwise after watching it you can come out with pursed lips in disgust and majestically say that the performance is ambiguous and there is a lot of swearing. In fact, there is not much swearing there, it’s just that the language the characters speak is the language of foul language. I mean that there’s not much actual swearing there, but there’s more than enough foul language, if not complete.

Sorokin's novel takes place in 2027, and the play takes place a hundred years later. I went to the performance expecting to see a very caustic satire on the current government and... I didn’t see this, which surprised me greatly because I still have memories of the rather caustic “Boris Godunov”. The authors of the play emphasize that the events of the play take place, as it were, a hundred years later than in the novel. On the one hand, this is justified, because the performance differs from the events of the books, and on the other hand, I think that the transfer to 100 years later is such a safety net so that no one has any doubts about the civic loyalty of the theater administration. One can understand how long it will take to deprive them of the theater now (there have been no performances in Satyricon for a long time), and the Moscow authorities do a lot for the theaters to parody them so ungratefully... But this is perhaps the only thing, BUT, that I wanted to note, because in everything else Lenkom is at its best.

Cast: Leonid Bronevoy, Victor Rakov, Alexandra Zakharova, Tatyana Kravchenko, Sergei Stepanchenko, Dmitry Pevtsov, Alexander Sirin, Ivan Agapov, Vladimir Yumatov, Anton Shagin, Ekaterina Migitsko, Anastasia Marchuk, Dmitry Giesbrecht, as well as many supporting and third-rate actors , who look no worse than the leading actors. This is a real performance that sounds like an orchestra - all the voices are heard here and not one is out of tune.

Both acts open with monologues by Ivan Agapov. Dressed up as the highest hierarch of the church, with large gold watches on his wrists, Agapov’s hero looks real. The verbal okroshka, pronounced by him with intonations reminiscent of the patriarch, sounds scary, stupid and funny.
Oprichnik Komyaga, played by Viktor Rakov - according to the book - is an executioner who believes in his just cause, kills and rapes with a sense of national duty, in the play he appears as a restless intellectual in the service of power. He saves the oligarch's widow Kunitsyna from the "circle" and returns her taken away child. Fatigue is visible in him: murder and violence are difficult work for him, which does not cause trembling excitement, like his colleagues.
Alexandra Zakharova, Kunitsyn’s widow, falls in love with Komyaga, who spared her during the massacre. She returns to him the feelings taken away by the sovereign’s service and gives him strength and courage to emerge from the surrounding darkness.
Sovereign Platon Nikolaevich, performed by Dmitry Pevtsov, is a grotesque character, a mixture of Ivan the Terrible and Adolf Hitler. However, there is a lot of grotesque in the play. So much that sometimes the actors themselves cannot contain their malicious smiles.
The head of the oprichnina order, Father, is Sergei Stepanchenko. He plays an experienced, seasoned man who hides a predatory grin and cruelty behind his simple manners.
The role of Leonid Bronevoy is a small episode. The oldest artist of the theater is taken out in a wheelchair; he is Prince Sobakin, guarding Averyan’s orphanage, beyond whose walls even the guardsmen cannot break through. The dog is a symbol of decrepit power, stunning with its former greatness.

Critics agree that Mark Zakharov rewrote Sorokin, removing provocative scenes and choosing laughter as the main weapon against dragons. Perhaps, yes, I agree with this, because this is a theatrical production, not a film. And yet, “The Day of the Oprichnik” is one of the few performances that you want to review, savor, and also re-read Sorokin’s stories in order to understand what remains behind the scenes, and immerse yourself in a hypothetical future, in the hope that it will never come.

In the repertoire of the Moscow Lenkom Theater, the play “The Day of the Oprichnik” always attracts the attention of the audience. This is one of the new productions that received critical acclaim and won the love of theater guests.

If you want to go to the theater to see the play “The Day of the Oprichnik,” you should buy tickets in advance. The production is based on the novels of the Russian writer Vladimir Sorokin, who in his works explores human nature and is not afraid to describe the darkest and most terrible sides of the human soul.

• The premiere of the play “The Day of the Oprichnik” in Lenkom took place on November 30, 2016.
• The performance is based on the novels by V. Sorokin “The Day of the Oprichnik” and “Telluria”. The word “oprichnik” itself is an archaism that means a person who is in the ranks of the oprichnina army or, in other words, a bodyguard.
• Tickets for the play “The Day of the Oprichnik” in Lenkom will be a wonderful gift for those who appreciate high-quality and meaningful productions.

“Day of the Oprichnik” is a phantasmagoric idea of ​​what our country can become and how our compatriots will live if the people do not stop chanting tyrants and erecting monuments to them. A satirical description of a writer can open your eyes to many things and make you think about pressing problems.

By purchasing tickets to “Day of the Oprichnik”, you will be taken to a witty performance that will quite possibly change the course of your thoughts.

Buy tickets for the play “Day of the Oprichnik”

If you decide to visit the Lenkom Theater, then we recommend that you familiarize yourself with the poster on our website and choose the events that appeal to you. One of the most popular performances of this theater is “The Day of the Oprichnik”. We recommend buying tickets for it in advance, because the hall is almost always sold out, such a large number of spectators want to see this interesting production in person.

What sets us apart from other ticket agents in Moscow and why should you buy tickets for “Day of the Oprichnik” from us?

• Our company has about 13 years of experience in the field of ticket sales for various cultural events. During this time, we have gained a well-deserved reputation as a reliable ticketing partner and have become one of the best specialists in our field.
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If you are still thinking about choosing your leisure time, visit one evening of theatrical art and you will get new emotions and vivid impressions. Lenkom performances are waiting for you! The production “The Day of the Oprichnik” will definitely appeal to both experienced theatergoers and newcomers.

Reading Vladimir Sorokin is work and happiness. An abyss of associations, rapturous word creation, a devilish mixture of eras, the absurdity of situations and actions, eerie predictions, eternal turbulence and the complete absence of gravity as an indicating guide.

Staging Sorokin in the theater is an overwhelming task, but so powerfully enticing that Mark Zakharov went towards the realization of “The Day of the Oprichnik” for ten years - hypnotically and hopelessly, like a rabbit in the mouth of a boa constrictor. Or, more precisely, how an entire country hypnotically and hopelessly follows the course laid out by dystopia. The premiere took place, the result is like nothing else and is similar to everything at once - like Sorokin himself.

The first thing Zakharov took away was the diversity of the method. Where everything is possible and everything is organic - from vague parallels to direct clues and simple metaphors like a clock briskly going backwards. Where it is absolutely not necessary to link the action with a single plot core - and here the main, literary, classical parallel comes to the rescue: Gogol’s “Dead Souls”, which also cut through the entire thickness of Russian society, without fear of the surgical sterility of the experiment, and which in any theater becomes a bobsled of bright concert outings.

The action is wisely placed another hundred years further - in the not accidental year 2137. Sorokin’s favorite Chinese theme is announced even before the curtain opens: a pipe with hieroglyphs carries white Russian fuel to China, a curtain made of bamboo rhythmically taps. In the scenography of Alexey Kondratiev, sovereign gold is effectively combined with gloomy, black, terrifying. The beginning of the story has been preserved: the awakening of Komyaga, the main guardsman (the mighty Viktor Rakov), from a sweet dream about a white horse, and then the visit of the guard pack to the enemy of the state Kunitsyn and his destruction. But the violence against the widow will be imitated by Komyaga and replaced by long-standing and secret love, because even Lenko could not stand the darkness of Sorokin’s fantasies - he needed a light at the end of the tunnel. Let it be mystical, divine, with the Mother of God, to whom the widow will become like at the end, with a promising baby in her arms and with an escape to nowhere - just from here. But this is already towards the end of the second act, where notes of Lenkom’s signature romanticism are woven into Orwell’s realities - with rock-opera statuesque poses and a breakthrough, in spite of everything, to the hope of maybe. In the role of the widow Alexandra Zakharov, who has the fantastic task of combining the incompatible: the hopeless with the enlightened.

Zakharov walked towards the implementation of the “Day of the Oprichnik” for ten years - hypnotically and hopelessly, like a rabbit in the mouth of a boa constrictor

And between the start and the finish there is a chain of concert performances, acting benefits, the appearance of key images of the troubled times to the people. From Rasputin in a skirt - the clairvoyant Praskovya Mamontovna (the delightful role of Tatyana Kravchenko), the clever squire Fedka (Anton Shagin) and the retired governor Prince Sobakin (another short but bright concert appearance - or rather, departure - Leonid Bronevoy) to the Sovereign (Dmitry Pevtsov ) - full of sorrow for all the filth of humanity, but unpredictable even for himself. The father-puppeteer of this lethargic kingdom that has fallen out of time, where you cannot understand what century is in the yard - either the class XVIII with whips, clubs and prisons, or the technological XXI with monitors and television crews. The rest of the world has fled somewhere to hell, an impenetrable wall has been erected between it and Russia, all the libelous writers have long been hung up, the rooms are heated with Russian classics, and every weighty word of the sovereign generates shaking in the lower members of society.

Both acts are preceded by monologues taken from Sorokin’s Telluria. They are proclaimed by Demyan Zlatoustovich (Ivan Agapov) - either a priest or a boyar with a golden coat of arms on his chest. His gaze is heavy, his monologues are long and at first seemingly coherent, ideological and categorical, but soon they transpose into the zone of the absurd and become dangerously incoherent. The audience freezes here, because this is too similar to the speeches of television soothsayers: each term is individually clear, and their meanings are varied, from patriotism and Satanism to the seventh generation smartphone, but they all flow into one funnel - into inescapable anger, and towards everything at once . And they are all paradoxical and unbelievable to the ear, like, for example, an Orthodox communist. And all of them, however, reflect a hypothetical reality, including the one that began to dawn after the publication of “The Day of the Oprichnik.” The central image of the play is also taken from Telluria - a sparkling nail-sword with which the stage is studded and with which the brains of the subjects are pierced.

The improvisational performance departed very far from the story, but retained its spirit and its taste for the slyly simple-minded floridity of style and words, for “multi-sided maniacs,” for all these “bzdyk-bzdyk” - meaningless and merciless. A certain God-bearing people walks well in it, rises from the gray ashes with a menacing roar and then cooks soup with a cat in the literal sense of the word.

Performance-dotted line, performance-digest. I want to rewatch it - to catch what was missed in this oversaturated brew, to catch it and savor it. And rereading the story that inspired him is all that remains behind the scenes. And again plunge into a hypothetical future, where monuments to Ivan the Terrible and Malyuta Skuratov are erected. And again think that it will probably never come. It was said - dystopia.