Theatre in Taganka

Premiere

«MAS and SOUL»

Performance-elegy

Ne performance of Yuri Lyubimov «Mask and Soul» is dedicated to a personality, life, and creative work of Anton Pavlovich Chekhov. The early stories of the writer, novel «Steppe», the Chekhov’s correspondence, reminiscences of contemporaries about him, fragments of George Byron’s poem «Cain», pages from Fyodor Chaliapin’s book «Mask and Soul» are there in the basis of the show.

«Chekhov makes a diagnosis for a country, society, and, which is the most important thing, diagnosticates the state of the human’s soul, Yury Lyubimov says regarding his new work. – Each of us can address him, and to see the disease of one’s soul. To see, if there is any soul left under those masks, which we have to wear practically constantly. What is happening to it, is it alive?»

Production and Set design

Yuri Lyubimov

Music

Vladimir Martynov

Fragments of compositions by Edison Denisov, Fyodor Chaliapin’s records, the Orthodox canticles and prays sound in the performance.

Plastique

Andrew Melanyin

Chapel-master

Tatyana Zhanova

The artists engaged in the production are as follows: L. Selyutina, A. Smirenkov, A. Grabbe, D. Mezhevich, R. Staburov, V. Semenov, V. Shulyakovsky, L. Maslova, M. Radtsig, A. Silaev, A. Frolov, S. Trifonov, A. Margolin, M. Koltsova, S. Ushakov, V. Karpenko, M. Lukin, S. Podkolzin, I. Zosin, and others.

Duration of the performance is 1 hour 30 minutes