They say that money cannot buy happiness, and no matter how rich a person is, he still cannot simply get rid of inner torment and find spiritual harmony. The protagonist of the comedy Tout paye, or Everything is paid for, decided to test this truth for himself. What he did, every guest of the theater can appreciate. The performance is based on the play "Monsieur Amilcar", written by the famous French playwright Yves Jamiac. In Russia, this work enjoys considerable popularity among directors. A new version of the black sitcom featuring famous Russian actors once again promises to please the public.

The protagonist of the play Tout paye, or Everything is paid for, is a financially secure and respectable gentleman named Alexander. He has a lot of money, but no family or loyal friends with whom he could share the most intimate. This problem begins to worry him greatly, and he makes an attempt to solve it in a business way. He decides to create for himself an artificial family corner in which he could feel happy. To do this, he finds and invites into his luxurious apartment a homeless artist ("friend"), a poor actress ("wife") and a prostitute ("daughter"). Using them, the rich monsieur is trying to create the illusion of a friendly atmosphere and mutual understanding.

Gradually, a strange company begins to get used to the given roles, and those circumstances that were fictitious become quite real for them. They no longer play a role, but sincerely experience all the events that happen to their "family". Feelings and relationships, love and betrayal become real, not simulated. By ordering a ticket for the performance Tout paye, or Everything is paid for, you can see unusual story, which will once again prove the simple truth that every person needs a beloved family and devoted friends.

The play "Monsieur Amilcar, or the Man Who Pays" was written in the 50s of the last century by the French playwright Yves Jamiac and brought extraordinary popularity to its author. The staging of this work was sold out, tickets for the performance were sold out in two days. In 1963, Yves Jamiac won the prize at the Cannes Film Festival for best script.

Performance All Paid, first staged at the Lenkom Theater in 2004, raises one of the most pressing issues: can money help find friendship and love? The main character needs a true friend, loving daughter and his wife, and all he decides to buy right on the street. A friend is in fact a kind artist, his wife is a professional actress, and his daughter is a street prostitute. However, over time, an amazing thing happens: all the hired people become really closer to each other, and real life replaces acting.
The play was directed by the Estonian Elmo Nyuganen, whom Mark Zakharov entrusted with staging the play. This decision of the chief director of Lenkom turned out to be successful: tickets for the performance Everything is paid are still in high demand. The glory of the production is ensured, among other things, by the magnificent cast: Andrey Sokolov plays the role of the main character, Inna Churikova - the wife-actress, Alexander Zbruev - the hired friend.
The scenery of the performance in this case is not only the backdrop for a series of events, but also makes the viewer think about what is happening on the stage. The attention of the public is attracted by a huge umbrella, suggestive: can a “money umbrella” save you from serious life problems?

Tickets for the performance Everything is paid for in Lenkom

Buy performance tickets All paid You can not only at the Lenkom theater box office, but also at our agency by filling out an application or calling the number indicated. For our customers - affordable prices and the ability to purchase tickets for any place

"Lenkom" has served the public

At the heart of the play "Everything is Paid", a product of the joint production of the Lenkom Theater and the production group NWJC (USA), is the play by Yves Zhamiak, better known by its original name - "Monsieur Amilcar pays." This is a traditional hit - a rare producer does not try to collect cash with his help. But compared to the usual entreprise, the performance is like a super-all-inclusive in the Hilton next to half board in a three-star hotel. This is a luxury vacation.

You can judge the level of service without even entering the hall. From behind the closed doors in the foyer, every two minutes, just like clockwork, comes a friendly burst of laughter. The smorgasbord of acting antics is striking in its diversity. portions serves his heroine - a middle-aged loser actress, hired by a lonely rich man to play the role of his wife. In the first act, she gestures in best traditions"Comédie Francaise", laughs with a wooden laugh and wears creepy dresses. In the second act, a good woman peeps out from under the mask of a bad actress - not very young, not very happy, capable of endless devotion.

(the lonely rich man, Monsieur Amilcar) jumps gracefully, elegantly crosses his legs and inimitably represents loneliness, incomprehension and tenderness in close-up. His hero hires people for money to portray his wife, daughter and friend, and in the finale he discovers that true friendship and love cannot be bought. But they can be received as a gift.

In an unexpected role of an intellectual out of this world, he appears - a poor artist hired to play the role of an old friend of Monsieur Amilcar. A juicy, unforgettable image of the mother-in-law creates. This is a classic, eternal mother-in-law from a joke, slightly ennobled by a suit from Bosco di Ciliegi.

By the end of the performance, the audience is seized by a sweet sadness, akin to the one that visits the guest of the Hilton on the eve of checkout time. And here the director of the play reminds of himself -. The young Estonian director has a reputation as a refined intellectual, a lover of the classics, and a favorite of critics. The experience gained in the production of Chekhov and Stoppard helps him to create the atmosphere of an expensive hotel in Tout paye. Such harmony reigns on the stage that it seems that a fourth wall separates it from the real world, no less solid than iron curtain. Here people are well-groomed, intonations are well-mannered, costumes are impeccable, there are no tears, no sighs, only endless life.

The atmosphere of the last act is especially good: plein air, a picnic, an ex-prostitute in the role of a daughter rides a bicycle with her boyfriend. Light sadness seizes the heroes, captivating nostalgia. The sophisticated Churikova in this scene cannot be overshadowed even by her dress - a masterpiece in Renoir tones from Christina Pasternak. A compliment from the chef is a black umbrella plowing the air over the stage. In the finale, the heroes, huddled together, hide under it and look into the future with trademark Slavic melancholy, worthy of three sisters.

This VIP-theater provides the viewer with a full range of positive emotions. You feel serenely rich and at the same time you understand that happiness is not in money. You feel involved in the culture and at the same time you can relax and have fun. The highest level theater service, complete comfort for all five senses and exclusive rest for the mind - that's what Tout paye is in Lenkom.

Performance " Tout paye, or Everything is paid”is a joint work of the Lenkom Theater and the well-known production group MK-YAN. It was staged based on the play by Yves Zhamiak, a French playwright. To understand what the play “Tout paye, or Everything is paid for” directed by Elmo Nyuganen, read small review about the play "Tout paye, or Everything is paid for" at the Lenkom Theater.

The performance is very interesting and exciting. Its plot is based on a story of love and betrayal. Monsieur Amilard, who is cheating on his wife, uses stolen money to hire an actress, an artist and a prostitute who play the roles of friend, wife and daughter. Hired personalities have entered their roles so much that it is no longer clear where is reality and where is fiction. In the end, it is the actress who plays the role of the wife who saves Amilar from suicide.
The play “Tout paye, or Everything is paid for” at the Lenkom Theater is an impeccable game of great actors: Inna Churikova, Alexander Zbruev, Andrey Sokolov, Irina Serova. They fully beat all the elements, create juicy unforgettable images.

The play “Tout paye, or Everything is paid for” directed by Elmo Nyuganen at the Lenkom Theater is an elegant stage design, strict costumes of the characters, an excellent plot, which together makes the play popular.

The play "Tout paye, or Everything is paid for" offers a sea of ​​positive emotions to every viewer. Everything is combined here - irony, joy, vitality, sadness. If you think to buy tickets, then we are ready to offer you the best places at low prices

Reviews of the play "Tout paye, or Everything is paid for" allow you to understand the mood of the production. And as practice shows, reviews of the play “Tout paye, or Everything is paid for” staged by Elmo Nyuganen at the Lenkom Theater allow each viewer to rest their souls, rejoice and be sad along with the heroes of the production.

The schedule of the play "Tout paye, or Everything is paid for" can be viewed here. This will allow you to plan a trip to the theater, choose the most suitable day and time for this.

In addition to this comedy, you can visit other productions of the Lenkom Theater, which are also bright, interesting, exciting and unforgettable. The performances of this theater are offered in different genres.

I. Zhamiak

Translation by E. Babenko

Wealthy, elegant and charming Monsieur Alexander Amilcar decides, with the help of the tidy sum he has, to create for himself the illusion of what, it turns out, a man cannot live without at the very dawn of his strength - without a single friend, without a loving wife and without an adored child. To fulfill his fantasies, Monsieur Chudak invites a bum named Masha, an unemployed actress Eleanor and a young priestess of love Virginia to his brand new apartment.

Tout Paye, or Everything is Paid. Lenkom. Press about the play

Newspaper, January 29, 2004

Gleb Sitkovsky

Tu-pee, or Everyone is crying

Yankovsky, Churikova and Zbruev played a real French comedy

The Estonian director Elmo Nyuganen is known and loved in Russia: he came to us with tour performances, and worked at the Bolshoi Theater as a guest director. Apparently, Mark Zakharov also liked his handwriting. As a result, Elmo Nyuganen's play "Tout Paye, or Everything is Paid" appeared in the Lenkom's repertoire.

Why it was necessary to drive both the French name and its Russian translation into the title of the performance at the same time is a mystery. It's the same as writing on a poster "Hamlet, or Hamlet", "Twelfth Night, or Twelfth Night" ... However, the explanation for the tautological incident in "Lenkom" is most likely simple: it is enough for a passer-by to throw only a cursory glance at the poster stand to understand - the play is French.

The phrase "French play" for theater directors sounds like the sweetest music in the world. This, of course, is not about Sartre and Camus, but about those conscientious French drama makers who know how in their experiments to combine energetic bonmo with gallant shuffling around the living room, and then, having amused the audience, touch it at the right time. Theater directors know for sure: for this most “touched fun”, the viewer will always pay a generous amount for a ticket. It is for this reason that the play Monsieur Amilcar Pays by the Frenchman Yves Jamiac has been so wildly popular with our theaters since the 80s of the last century.

For staging at Lenkom, the director slightly updated and modernized the old play - the notorious Monsieur Amilcar, brilliantly performed by Oleg Yankovsky, now pays not in francs, but in euros, but representatives younger generation(Polo - Stanislav Ryadinsky) wear a bandanna on their heads.

Monsieur Amilcar, like a bourgeois spectator who comes to the plays of Monsieur Jamiac, is ready to fork any money for "feelings." Lonely and having lost faith in life, he, not being burdened by a lack of cash, decides for money to acquire a daughter's caress, the affection of an old friend and the love of a faithful wife. He conducts a casting right on the street and overnight distributes all these roles between the first comers - a young prostitute (Natalya Shchukina), an experienced actress (Inna Churikova) and a kind-hearted artist (Alexander Zbruev). The performance, as conceived by the homegrown director, will be played right in the apartment of Monsieur Amilcar. Seven days a week non-stop. After all, everything is paid.

Zbruev kindly squints his eyes and stretches his mouth in a wide smile, demonstrating the “natural gaiety” invented for him in the script, Churikova gets used to the role with all the antics expected of a real actress, and Yankovsky, that is your Stanislavsky, harasses everyone with cries of “I don’t believe it! » But little by little (who would have doubted?) Living feelings are crowding out the paid ones. And now the heroine Churikova, confessing her love for her “like a husband”, cries real tears, and Zbruev utters a heartfelt monologue about friendship, during which, according to director Nyuganen, the audience should be completely moved. We went to the play "Everything is paid for", but it turned out that they were playing a performance called "Everyone is crying" in front of us.

The director, however, decided to change the gloomy ending of Zhamiak's play. But he did it, unfortunately, in one of the most vulgar ways imaginable. The heroine Churikova stops the collapsed hero, who is already ready to shoot himself, with the words from the film by Mark Zakharov: “Why do you have such a serious face, my friend? All the stupid things in the world are done with that face.” Zakharov, as you know, Yankovsky cannot disobey. That is why, apparently, it does not shoot.

To imagine such an ending in Zakharovsky's performance, by the way, is rather difficult. Mark Anatolyevich never thought to hide the fact that he was building the Lenkom as a bourgeois theater, but it is always noticeable from his performances that he slightly teases the overdressed audience and flavors his productions with a good dose of irony. The misfortune of director Elmo Nyuganen, who came to the bourgeois "Lenkom" to stage a bourgeois play, is that he staged his play with a completely blue eye. So, as it is written. I conscientiously read the French "Tout Paye" in Russian: "Tu-pee". From inexperience, it can be seen. The merits of Elmo Nyuganen, who, as you know, studied in Tallinn specifically as an actor, include his undoubted ability to work with actors. Churikov, Yankovsky, Zbruev get such a visible pleasure from their game that they can be forgiven a lot for this.

Kommersant, January 29, 2004

For love, but for money

In "Lenkom" - "Everything is paid"

A joint project of Moscow's Lenkom Theater and the American production group NWJC based on the French play "Tout paye" was staged by Estonian director Elmo Nyuganen and set by Latvian artist Andris Freibergs. But the main names in this super-international project are Inna Churikova and Oleg Yankovsky. ROMAN DOLZHANSKY looked at the great Russian actors of the era of gloss and glamour.

Here's a funny story for you: Parisian Alexander Amilcar, middle-aged and wealthy, but very lonely, decides to buy himself family happiness. That is, for a lot of money to arrange a home performance in which he is both a producer, and a director, and the only spectator. For the role of his wife, with whom he allegedly lived all his life, he invites a professional actress. A street prostitute is offered the role of a daughter. Accidentally met a ragamuffin appoints the only true friend, a widower living in the neighborhood. Participation in home performances, of course, is generously paid by Amilcar. And at first, he meticulously rehearses their roles with the hired "relatives", achieving maximum authenticity of feelings and intonations.

Sometime in late Soviet times, the work of the French playwright Yves Jamiac was already played in Moscow under the name "Monsieur Amilcar pays." This play then, obviously, passed through the department of "their morals" - there were heaps of free family happiness in our country, and the very idea that it might cost money seemed an absurd comic fiction of a bourgeois author. A lot of water has flowed under the bridge, everything has become a commodity, the book profession of a psychoanalyst has materialized, rich people have appeared, and happiness, both in the gross national and selectively private dimensions, seems to have diminished. So the idea of ​​dusting off the half-forgotten play of Mr. Zhamiak and looking at it with the eyes of a wise new life experience was not so senseless as it might seem.

If the idea failed, the above could be presented to the creators of the performance as an excuse. But no excuses are needed. When so many talented professionals are involved, failures are still unlikely. Yves Jamiac knows the craft of a well-made play. On the stage - Oleg Yankovsky (Amilkar), Inna Churikova (surrogate wife), Alexander Zbruev (pseudo-friend), Margarita Strunova (unforeseen at first mother-in-law), Natalia Shchukina ("daughter"). Andris Freibergs came up with an elegant design: high white walls with streets overturned in puddles, washed-out Parisian views, white leather furniture and a huge black umbrella.

Director Elmo Nyuganen took refuge under this umbrella, made it, the analogue and symbol of the roof over an artificial hearth, fly over the stage, adjust the rhythm, mood and divide the performance into episodes. True, the director still got confused with the finale. Yves Jamiac turns out that Amilcar is not a millionaire at all, but just a modest accountant and he bought feelings with stolen money. At the end of the play main character, caught stealing and stopping a failed theatrical experiment, shoots himself. Mr. Nyuganen decided not to arrange a drama from a box office comedy, so the hero of Oleg Yankovsky was given life, and with it a happy chance to take advantage of the real love of Churikov's heroine, not on purpose. This happy ending looks somewhat hasty and crumpled. Moreover, the director himself betrays his uncertainty, grabs one trick, then another. As a last resort, she even refers to the glorious past - Inna Churikova calls on Oleg Yankovsky to smile and reminds that "it is with this facial expression that all stupid things on earth are committed," that is, she addresses her partner with a replica of his Munchausen from the finale of Zakharovsky's TV movie. Who knows - claps.

In essence, the creators of the play "Everything is paid for" are fussing and hurrying in vain. If Mr. Amilcar, in accordance with the original source, nevertheless shot himself, one could rightfully take out a moral from the audience: you can’t buy human feelings, not everything in this world is sold for money. The conclusion is so banal that it is quite worthy of a theatrical shot. And the performance in "Lenkom" unexpectedly turned out that sincere feelings in life are very easy to confuse with fake ones. Because it is precisely this disturbing and bitter discovery that makes one feel new taste to life.

It is necessary, of course, to say something about the features acting. But there is almost nothing to say. Have you ever seen Inna Churikova and Oleg Yankovsky play poorly? Or, to put it simply, to make them uninteresting to look at? I don’t remember such a case, at least on the stage. Although, when applied to these great actors, the ambiguous word "play" usually means something more complex, voluminous, ambiguous. In the play "Everything is paid for" they carefully and somehow silently glide through the roles, half-heartedly, so that, God forbid, they don’t get caught on anything, they don’t linger on anything, they don’t pay too much attention to anything. As if they themselves establish: on the tablets theater history the play "Tout paye" has nothing to do. For them, these roles are like seeds. They play from now to now, exactly as much as paid; exactly so as not to be ashamed. In general, they are here, it would be more correct to say, not so much playing as simply endowing the audience with their skill, their presence, their participation. Who argues that in their case, unlike many hacky entrepreneurial crafts, there is something to give. But personally, after such gifts, for some reason, I feel deprived.

Izvestia, January 29, 2004

Marina Davydova

In "Lenkom" ordered feelings

Inna Churikova, Alexander Zbruev and Oleg Yankovsky played the play "Monsieur Amilcar pays"

The premiere, which has just been released at Lenkom, is unique in that it was directed not by Mark Zakharov or some student of Mark Zakharov, indistinguishable from his teacher, but by a completely foreign director, the Estonian Elmo Nyuganen. Oleg Yankovsky, the performer of the title role, is listed on the poster as a co-director of the play.

Putting on a performance at Lenkom is a tricky business, because it is Lenkom that is a rare theater today, in which everything and everything is determined by a single creative will. There are fewer and fewer such theaters of one director, and soon, it seems, there will be none at all, simply because there will be no people capable of taking on the fullness, and with it, the whole burden of an alien-seemingly tempting autocracy. In the same Moscow Art Theater, they have not dreamed of having a single creative will for a long time. Disorder and vacillation - from the impressionistic "Kabala of the Saints" to the brutal "Terrorism" - are elevated here to an artistic principle. And I personally have no doubts: behind the Moscow Art Theater model (a kind of Noah's Ark, where every creature is in pairs) is the future of our theater, behind the Lenkom model is the past. Note in brackets - the great past. The Tovstonogov Theatre, the Lyubimov Theatre, the Dodin Theatre, all of them were made according to this model.

Coming to Lenkom means inevitably becoming a hostage to the aesthetic circumstances that had developed long before you, and Elmo Nyuganen definitely did not fit into these circumstances. The Estonian director, extremely popular in his homeland and dearly loved by Russian critics, made intelligent and low-profile performances. Often according to Russian classics. Muscovites remember his "Pianola", staged according to an unfinished Chekhov's play"Platonov". Meanwhile, the play Monsieur Amilcar pays, popular in Russian latitudes, by the Frenchman Yves Jamiac, is a well-made commercial concoction that is customarily played on a grand scale, favorably, to the fullest extent of one's talent, that is, the way they love and know how in Lenkom.

"Tout paye, or Everything is paid for" - so tautologically ("everything is paid for" - this is, after all, a direct translation of "tout paye") this play is called in the theater version. It is about a certain mysterious gentleman, whom - even before the beginning stage action- Betrayed by loved ones. After experiencing a personal drama, Monsieur Amilcar decides that it is much easier and more reliable to buy feelings for money. He hires people who are supposed to portray his friend and loving household, and for a very good fee, he demands from them a convincing imitation of love and devotion. Along the way, the employer and employees are imbued with real feelings that are not provided for in the contract, but it turns out that Amilcar is a malicious embezzler. He took money for a beautiful life and purchased feelings at the cash desk of the company in which he worked as an accountant. In the finale, the main character puts a bullet in his forehead.

Weaving a delicate psychological lace around Zhamiak's play (namely, Nyuganen is famous for this skill) is difficult, and, to tell the truth, it is not necessary. Nevertheless, the Estonian director tried to somehow disguise the entrepreneurial spirit of the chosen (and chosen not by him, but by the Lenkom stars themselves) work. Give the whole story an enveloping charm of lyrical comedy with a slight nostalgic touch. The play, on the one hand, is somewhat modernized (money here is counted not in francs, but in euros, which Zhamiak, who died in the early 80s, would not have dreamed of nightmare), on the other hand, is riddled with memories of the past. The action takes place in the pastel scenery of Andris Freiberg. A large black umbrella moving back and forth under the grate shelters the heroes from rain and adversity, and the outlines of the city, blurred in the water surface, painted on large white panels, create the feeling of something long gone and vaguely glimmering in memories. It is a city drowned in the river of oblivion. Closer to the end, when the heroine (Inna Churikova), addressing the hero (Oleg Yankovsky), suddenly inserts a textbook quote from Grigory Gorin into Zhamiak’s text (“All the biggest stupid things are done with just such facial expression"), it becomes clear that the actors of "Lenkom" are dreaming here not about some abstract past, but about their own.

Behind the dreams somehow sags the plot. Impressionistic veil gives what is happening a mysterious significance, but does not give any meaning. Replacing the tragic ending with a happy end that does not follow from the previous development of events in the spirit of Pyotr Fomenko - we will all love each other, sing, sing, make good - cancels even the meaning contained in the play itself. The inimitable power of Inna Churikova, revealed to us (albeit sometimes revealed with overkill and overlap, but still revealed) in other productions of Lenkom, in soft pastel colors this performance is somehow lost, and Yankovsky-Amilcar himself cannot stand any comparison with Yankovsky-Peter I from Balakirev's Jester. Charming and youthful Alexander Zbruev (the third Lenkom star) also plays at full speed. All look decent, but none are great.

Nyuganen's directing style, so charming in other productions, in this one seems not intelligent, but somehow scatterbrained. A real, serious performance does not come out of Zhamiak's play, but an entrepreneurial product in all its glory also does not come out. It turns out neither a candle to God nor a poker to hell. As if young attractive woman, deciding to go to the panel, put on a modest white dress with ruffles and ruffles. It’s not good, you know, somehow: a serious artist, I put on Chekhov, and suddenly you have “Monsieur Amilcar” on you.

You involuntarily recall Zakharovsky's style, which immediately fills the auditorium. I know that many of my colleagues do not like this style, but I still prefer it to Nyuganen's shy directing. Because in the case of Zakharov, aggression is declared as a technique and done with high endearing professionalism. We take "Filumena Marturano" and turn it into a Broadway comedy "City of Millionaires". The experiment may be risky, but it was done honestly and brought to the end. Nyuganen has the opposite: we take a non-repertory play and turn it into something so airy, light and indefinite ...

I think this: either you, like Anatoly Vasiliev, must have the talent of a magician who can turn mediocre plays into great performances (Vasiliev had at least three such transformations - "Solo for a clock with a fight", "Adult daughter of a young man", " Serso"), or fight for genre purity.

Entreprise so entreprise. Zhamiak so Zhamiak. Laughter so laughter. A shot is a shot. Everything is paid - so everything is paid. It happens. It happens with everyone. What is there to be ashamed of. Here you have to work.

www.russ.ru, January 28, 2004

Dina Goder

Not all paid

To be honest, it was scary to go to the next premiere of Lenkom with the somewhat pretentious bilingual title "Tout paye", or Everything is paid for. , which took the box office throughout the domestic province and even in the capitals. So, the current "Tout paye" "is the same" Amilcar ", which has only changed its name.

Lenkom was no stranger to commercial drama, but it was not clear why Estonian director Elmo Nyuganen, previously unnoticed in addiction to commerce, was called to stage it (the same one who received the State Prize for the intellectual "Arcadia" by Stoppard at the BDT and brought to Russian festivals Dostoevsky and Chekhov). But as soon as we saw the stage - the European-style laconic and elegant pavilion of the Latvian Andris Freiberg (on the walls - a trembling reflection in the water of the Arc de Triomphe, white sofas on wheels, a lamp in the form of a huge black umbrella), it became clear that the Baltic team was called upon to to ennoble the old faithful whore "Amilcar", to make her plastic surgery and get married. As it turned out, the calculation was correct: the whore became a college student and successfully married. And the fact that it turned out to be impossible to return her virginity and add intelligence, so well - no one has power over this. In short: everything worked out.

Monsieur Amilcar is a mixture of sitcom and melodrama. The plot is about how well-to-do Alexander Amilcar hires family members and a friend for big money (10 thousand euros a week, as it sounds in Lenkom), so that they, in return for the real ones, whom he is deprived of, depict love from evening to morning and on weekends and affection. An unsuccessful actress becomes a wife, a young prostitute becomes a daughter, an unemployed artist becomes a friend, each of whom Amilcar invents a previous life. Of course, in the end, all the bought feelings turn into real ones, and even if in the final it turns out that the accountant Amilcar robbed the company where he worked in order to arrange such an idyll for himself, they don’t leave him. Actually, the plot about hiring a family is a running one, it seems that Anui had something similar, and not only him, but Zhamiak definitely surpassed everyone in the sentimental edification of the finale.

So, believe it or not, but when Oleg Yankovsky plays the role of Amilcar on stage, his "wife" is Inna Churikova, and his "friend" is Alexander Zbruev (the audience applauds everyone's exit), it's all very pleasant to watch. Apparently, the play was thoroughly thinned out, throwing out everything that was very vulgar, it seems that they even retold it in their own words, and the result was a mildly ironic, subtly sentimental and light spectacle (not counting the heartbreaking finale, which, apparently, was completely impossible to cope with) . Churikova changes her wigs and the impossibly elegant dress created by the Latvian artist Kristina Pasternak, hardly resorts to her trademark "armor-piercing" comedy, which the audience loves so much, and all the time balances on the verge between ... not that sincerity, but rather a game in sincerity - and playing the game. Particularly good, in my opinion, is Yankovsky, who for a long time has not played the roles of sweet and easy, not pretending to be significant. He remembered his television Wizard and Munchausen - the heroes who directed reality - their ironic and triumphant smiles when she succumbed. He remembered Balayan's carelessness - tomfoolery, antics, instant mood swings. When Amilcar, discovering that his "wife" is really jealous, in jubilation writes circles around the stage on a wheeled chair, you even forget about the qualities of the play.

Unfortunately, by the end, when the heroes of Zhamiak flooded "the real human feeling", when the hero, forgetting all his lightness and irony, has to fill with melodrama, and the heroine, putting aside the games, shout out:" You must live, you hear! "and" I have been looking for you for too long to leave! It only saves a little that Nyuganen, despising Zhamiak, gives the heroine the last word and it turns out to be a quote: "Well, smile, Monsieur Amilcar, all the biggest stupidities on earth are done with just such an expression on his face. "Here, of course, remembering his beloved Munchausen from Zakharovsky's film, the viewer again falls into tenderness.

Also, you know what's funny? Sorry if this is a bit off topic. When you open Lenkom's program, on which "Everything is paid" is written in large letters, you see an insert of the "Tram" restaurant with even larger letters: "FULL DINNER for 2 persons ONLY for 20 USD". That is, it means that not everything is paid for.

NG

Grigory Zaslavsky

The principle of reasonable sufficiency

"Tout paye, or Everything is paid" on the stage of the Lenkom Theater

“Comedy of Senses”, “Love by Contract”, “The Man Who Pays”, “Cuckold”: mistaken, we can assume that we are talking about four different stories, although the same play by the French playwright Yves Jamiac is hidden under different names. Most famous under the name "Monsieur Amilcar pays." This week, Lenkom added its own version to the already existing variety: “Tout paye, or Everything is paid for.”

There is no particular originality in this choice: the plays of this playwright and screenwriter were staged in the USSR from the beginning of the 60s (by the way, in the 63rd Zhamiak even received the prize of the Cannes Film Festival for the best script), and to this day (primarily “Monsieur Amilcar ...") are in many Russian theaters.

In a newspaper article preceding the premiere either in Stavropol or in Yelets, I happened to read the following: “Performances based on the plays by Ptushkina, Zhamiak, Vallejo, on the one hand, require special skill from the actors (you can’t play them “on a scream”, on the other hand, the other - are especially popular with viewers who miss real passions and high feelings". With the last statement - about passions and feelings - I want to agree.

As it is now fashionable, “Tout paye, or Everything is paid for” is a joint production of Lenkom and the production group, partner state theater became the American company NWJC. Although all the other foreign participants in the performance came to Moscow from the Baltic states: the performance was staged by the Estonian director Elmo Nyuganen, the production designer and costume designer are representatives of Latvia (Andris Freiberg and Kristina Pasternak, respectively).

So, the rich “cuckold” (by his own definition) Monsieur Amilcar (he is played by Oleg Yankovsky, also indicated in the program as a director) hires the actress Eleonora (she says about herself: “I am a deep dramatic actress. Very deep”, and plays her Inna Churikova), the prostitute Virginia (in “my” performance her role was played by Ekaterina Migitsko, in a different cast by Natalya Shchukina), the artist Masha (Alexander Zbruev), so that they play love and friendship for a decent fee, so that under the contract they agree for a while to play his wife, daughter and closest old friend. And then, as expected, "theatrical" feelings grow into life. Such is the Pirandell story.

In the process of rehearsals, it seems that the play has undergone cuts, but the main difference between the Lenkom premiere and the well-known interpretations of this well-known story is that the local Amilcar never pays for his passion for the game. The pistol he keeps in his jacket pocket remains a theatrical prop, no longer needed after a single shot in the air.

It should probably be said that those who have long considered themselves a fan of Inna Churikova, Oleg Yankovsky and Alexander Zbruev will like this performance. They play everything and in the way they like in these actors: confusion of thoughts, confusion of feelings, play of the mind, spectacular breaks in mood. The unique look of Yankovsky, in which there is the sadness of irrevocable and the simultaneous irony over himself, the famous medieval curve of the figure of Inna Churikova and all her enchanting transitions from laughter to laughter through tears and to tears that her heroine hides in the "residual" fun. Margarita Strunova's appearance as Melia, Eleonora's real mother, was added to their wonderful trio: her performance cannot be ignored, since she played the short scene simply enchantingly.

But if love for actors is not limited to the desire to see familiar features, if you love Churikova, Yankovsky and Zbruev with an active love, believing that in each new role they must add something new to the already existing and well-known set of techniques, then in a new performance you will always something will be missing. And you won't like it.

There is no story in it, the plot is divided into separate scenes-fragments, longer and shorter, similar to reprises, not much bound friend with a friend. The brightness of individual reprises does not atone for the lack of a coherent narrative. In the performance, it seems that a lot has been collected from what has always been strong in Lenkom: bright, beautiful, actors, each of whom honestly plays the role assigned to him (it is also curious that, for example, the final monologue of Masha - Zbruev about friendship is almost a mirror repeats and refutes the final anthem of hatred performed by Alexander Abdulov from the recent premiere of Zakharov's Lament of the Executioner). But… Zakharov is not on them.

Nyuganen, who was appreciated for his attention to Chekhov and his ability to convey Chekhov's detail and continuity on the stage, did not cope with what - for the sake of brevity and delicacy - we will call Lenkom's genre.

But there is no doubt about the success of the performance. Surely the touring fate of the new Russian-American theater project. And if someone says that so much effort was not spent for this, I will not argue: probably not only for this.

A critic is bad, who did not notice the tenderness of the audience, who recognizes “greetings from Munchausen” when Eleanor tries to convince Amelkar that a serious face is not yet a sign of intelligence. And not touched along with everyone. "Munchausen", well, as the first love, the heart will not forget Russia ...

Novye Izvestia, January 29, 2004

Olga Egoshina

Everything is paid

In the new premiere of Lenkom, Yankovsky, Churikova and Zbruev became a happy family

The famous Estonian director Elmo Nyuganen's capital debut on the Lenkom stage was crowned with an impressive box office success. The stars of the theater turned the overused tabloid play "Tout paye, or Everything is paid for" into a hit of the season.

Once Kachalov and Moskvin turned to the leadership of the Moscow Art Theater with a request to let them play a play about Sherlock Holmes and Professor Moriarty. The leadership of the Artistic Theater did not support the initiative of their luminaries, apparently not being too satisfied with the quality of the proposed literature. Why all of a sudden artists spoiled by roles are drawn to second-rate literature - a question from the series “why does the wind spin in a ravine, raise a leaf and sweep dust?”. Maybe after roles-accomplishments, pulling all the blood out of them. After the roles that they play with their nerves and soul, they really want to get something like a papier-mâché doll, which they will dispose of as they please.

Be that as it may, the play by Yves Jamiac “Tout paye, or Everything is paid for” (it used to be in theaters under the heading “Monsieur Amilcar pays”, then “The gentleman who pays”, then “Monsieur Amilcar’s games”) makes it possible for such freedom of play. The story of a middle-aged monsieur who was disillusioned with people, who hired actors who would create the illusion of a family for him (played his wife, daughter and old friend for him), has been widely on the stages of Russian theaters since the 60s and has become very worn out. At Lenkom, they limited themselves to small cosmetic procedures (for example, they increased the fee of the heroes of Zhamiak's play from 1,000 francs to 10,000 euros a week), but otherwise they treated the author with reverence that seemed superfluous.

It is clear that for the stars of "Lenkom" - Inna Churikova, Oleg Yankovsky, Alexander Zbruev - Zhamiak's play is a great occasion to relax a little, play tricks and fool around on stage. Allow yourself to play with your characters, as you play with some kind of Roly-Poly: no matter how you throw it, he always returns to his previous position. It is clear why Elmo Nyuganen, head of the Tallinn City Theater, was invited to the production. Elmo Nyuganen, himself a good actor, better than anyone else, can understand the attraction and joy of an actor from a play that is obviously “second-rate”, into which you fit like slippers that do not conceal any abysses, or ups, or high voltage classics. However, in his theater he prefers to stage Chekhov and Dostoevsky, Shakespeare and Brecht, Gozzi and Turgenev. In BDT them. Tovstonogov staged Stoppard's Arkadia six years ago with Alisa Freindlich and Pyotr Semak.

Zhamiak Nyuganen staged the play with elegance and grace (grace is, first of all, the ability to spend no more effort than necessary on action), creating an elegant, entertaining, eye-pleasing spectacle. Latvian stage designer Andris Freiberg hung smoky gray backdrops, reminiscent of impressionistic sketches of a “city in rainy weather”, a huge black umbrella circling above the stage, either diving right on the heads of the characters, or soaring up. He arranged several armchairs, a sofa and a serving table. Artist Kristina Pasternak has designed tailored suits for the men and dazzling outfits for the women, who appear in more and more outfits in literally every scene. Strange and enticing styles for a “young girl: a la “street prostitute” with bare thighs, red boots and red leather panties; or cycling trousers with bustle. Dresses for a real lady: homemade, picnic suits, coats for going out ... Not dresses - a dream! I won’t be surprised if they start copying styles in the hall (to serve as a model and a fashion magazine is a long-standing function of the theater).

Taking an overplayed boulevard play, Lenkom made an exemplary box-office performance of today, ennobling Zhamiak's play almost to the limits of what is possible. Any more or less successful dialogue of the playwright turns into an entertaining fencing of masters. There are many episodes in the play that can be played as separate pop numbers. Mashu-Zbruev's first visit to Amilcar-Yankovsky, Eleonora-Churikova measures Amilcar's temperature by putting a thermometer in his mouth, Amilcar's dialogue with his mother-in-law Melia (Margarita Strunova). The list goes on.

This is probably the best production of Zhamiak's play, at times really funny, moderately vulgar (pre-final - monstrous in sugariness - monologues about the need for real feelings really cut the ear, and I would like to hope that the theater will go through them with ruthless scissors).

One way or another, Elmo Nyuganen's debut on the Moscow stage was crowned with an impressive box office success. According to the stories, after the premiere, the horse dealers inflated the already high prices twice for tickets. As for the hopes for an artistic breakthrough: one can only believe that next time he will take on Tolstoy or Stoppard, Dostoevsky or Vampilov.

Newstime, January 30, 2004

Alexander Sokolyansky

Triumph of half-truth

Lenkom showed everyone what French comedy is

Elmo Nyuganen, head of the Tallinn City Theater (who came to us in November with the excellent "Fathers and Sons"), staged a play by Yves Zhamiak (1918-1987) in Lenkom. In the original, it is called "Monsieur Amilcar pays", in the theater - "Tout paye, or Everything is paid for." The crossroads of theatrical destinies are truly unpredictable. How did Lenkom's alliance with the production group NWJC (USA) come about? Why on earth did it occur to Mark Zakharov to invite Nyuganen to the production? What prompted the director, famous for performances based on Dostoevsky and Stoppard (for Arcadia, staged at the BDT, he received the Russian State Prize), to take up Zhamiak's comedy?

"Monsieur Amilcar Pays" is a standard entertaining play that has been rolling on the Russian stage for thirty years already - from Moscow to the outskirts. Once she was famous: in 1947, it was after Amilcar that Zhamiak was recognized as the best comedian in France. French wit is combined in this play with sentimentality: in the first act it is supposed to laugh heartily, in the second - to be moved and even shed a tear. All this is nice, but Nyuganen, a student of Kalyu Komissarov, has never been interested in the tasks of entertainment theater: he works at a higher level. The “theater of big ideas” is dear to him, as the great Estonian director Voldemar Panso, Komissarov’s teacher, said in the mid-60s. For Nyuganen, the heir in a straight line, these words are of paramount importance. But something, but Zhamiak does not have big ideas, that's for sure.

To retell the plot, the whole charm of which lies in the unexpected somersaults of the action and the metamorphoses of the characters (you thought he was like that - but what an Avon he is!), Means to spoil the pleasure of the potential viewer. We confine ourselves to the plot, adding a few details.

So, a certain Alexander Amilcar, a seemingly successful businessman, but in general - the devil knows (Oleg Yankovsky), hires three people and offers big money for a very strange job - to provide him with the illusion of spiritual comfort (love, friendship, family comfort). That is, from six in the evening until nine in the morning, a hungry ragamuffin (Alexander Zbruev) will have to portray his friend (“What is your name? No, that’s not good. They will call you Leon: you are an antiquarian, a widower, we have been friends for thirty years, okay?” ). Troubled, at first glance even panel, the girl (Natalya Schukina) will become her beloved daughter, a law student. Professional actress Eleonora Duroc (Inna Churikova) is a faithful and loving wife. The beggar and the girl, of course, agree without thinking, the actress - after long hesitation. More precisely, after Amilcar-Yankovsky, embracing her, utters a bunch of tender words about love, trust, family happiness. He's playing, that's clear. His sincerity, however, is genuine: this is also clear. Monsieur Amilcar's crazy undertaking is for some reason mentally necessary.

The master Zhamiak, confusing the contours of play and non-play, immediately hooks the viewer. Who is this Amilcar, what is he up to - a vaudeville dress-up or a dangerous provocation (the play was written in the first post-war years)? Fun with a touch of anxiety - Lenkom's actors know how to play this wonderfully. What is the meaning here, it is not clear (however, we knew in advance - shallow), but then - what a class! It is pure pleasure to watch how powerfully and cheerfully Amilcar disposes of his living toys (the cunning Nyuganen knew what he was doing when he offered Yankovsky to become the second director). How crumpled, fiddling in the hands business card an unpredictable employer, Masha-Leon-Zbruev: he is ready for anything or almost everything - now to understand what is required of him! How the heroine Churikova, who came to seduce another producer and burst into divinely stupid laughter (“Actually, I am a deep dramatic actress - ah-ha-ha-ha-ha! - very deep”), suddenly realizes that she is being drawn into something extremely suspicious. Plus - those things that only a critic is obliged to notice: how detailed outwardly unsophisticated mise-en-scenes are thought out; how meaningfully and fully the simplest objects are played out (for example, how differently the characters of Churikova, Zbrueva and Shchukina accept an envelope with a contract from Amilcar); how clearly and subtly Nyuganen controls the mood of the hall, calculating the audience's reactions several moves ahead. “Everything is paid for” is a performance that pleases not only with brilliance, but also with a rare conscientiousness of theatrical work. Of course, this is a bourgeois theater to the core - and long live such bourgeoisness.

I said about the "taste of anxiety" - of course, this is a very slight flavor, and the anxiety itself here has little to do with genuine existential experiences. She is playful, which is good. Seriously about the theater that is played out in life, about the passionate desire of the characters to fall out of the prescribed plot, about the torment of the author, to whom the action ceases to obey, was written by a completely different person - Luigi Pirandello (it is easy to see that Zhamiak cheerfully turns the great play “Six Characters in Search of an Author” inside out "). The viewer is offered a frivolous story, a witty half-truth, the viewer is skillfully and qualitatively amused. It's something to be thankful for, but my personal gratitude is tinged with nostalgia. There is nothing unusual in the tasks that Nyuganen sets for himself and the actors. To disassemble and build a role in detail, to establish a stage partnership (action - assessment, "hook" - "loop") - these skills were once included in the category of prerequisites for professionalism. Why do so few own them now?

To say that the performance was a complete success would be a lie. Nyuganen managed to obscure the difference in the quality of acting (Churikova, Yankovsky and Zbruev work much finer than the rest of the actors); he gave the characters of the second plan a caricature - and this, apparently, was the only right decision. What the director did not succeed in was to cope with Zhamiak, who suddenly stops amusing the audience and tries to touch it.

Quite a lot in the second act, in my opinion, cannot be fully played on the stage today. For example, Leon-Masha's monologue about the goals of art (this character will turn out to be a talented artist). Or Eleanor's love confession. Or the repentance of Amilcar. I'm afraid that for the public, Zhamiak's pathetic sentimentality is hopelessly false - only 10 million viewers and the continuation in the 179th episode could justify it. “Don’t be so serious, the biggest stupid things in the world are done with just such a facial expression,” Churikova says in the finale: this phrase, of course, does not belong to Zhamiak, but to Grigory Gorin (“The Same Munchausen”). However, the second act of the play is precisely one of these stupidities, alas, irreparable.

And yet this is no reason to neglect the Lenkom performance. This season there were premieres more meaningful, more significant - but there were no more pleasant ones.

Vedomosti, January 30, 2004

Victoria Nikiforova

All inclusive

"Lenkom" has served the public

At the heart of the play "Everything is Paid", a product of the joint production of the Lenkom Theater and the production group NWJC (USA), is the play by Yves Zhamiak, better known by its original name - "Monsieur Amilcar pays." This is a traditional hit - a rare producer does not try to collect cash with his help. But compared to the usual entreprise, the performance of "Lenkom" is like a super-all-inclusive in the "Hilton" next to half board in a three-star hotel. This is a luxury vacation.

You can judge the level of service without even entering the hall. From behind the closed doors in the foyer, every two minutes, just like clockwork, comes a friendly burst of laughter. The smorgasbord of acting antics is striking in its diversity. Inna Churikova portions out her heroine - a middle-aged loser actress hired by a lonely rich man to play the role of his wife. In the first act, she gesticulates in the best traditions of the Comédie Francaise, laughs with a wooden laugh and wears terrible dresses. In the second act, a good woman peeps out from under the mask of a bad actress - not very young, not very happy, capable of endless devotion.

Oleg Yankovsky (the lonely rich man, Monsieur Amilcar) gracefully bounces, elegantly crosses his legs and inimitably represents loneliness, incomprehensibility and tenderness in close-up. His hero hires people for money to portray his wife, daughter and friend, and in the finale he discovers that true friendship and love cannot be bought. But they can be received as a gift.

In an unexpected role of an intellectual out of this world, Alexander Zbruev is a poor artist hired to play the role of an old friend of Monsieur Amilcar. A juicy, unforgettable image of the mother-in-law is created by Margarita Strunova. This is a classic, eternal mother-in-law from a joke, slightly ennobled by a suit from Bosco di Ciliegi.

By the end of the performance, the audience is seized by a sweet sadness, akin to the one that visits the guest of the Hilton on the eve of checkout time. And here the director of the play, Elmo Nyuganen, reminds himself of himself. The young Estonian director has a reputation as a refined intellectual, a lover of the classics, and a favorite of critics. The experience gained in the production of Chekhov and Stoppard helps him to create the atmosphere of an expensive hotel in Tout paye. Such harmony reigns on the stage that it seems that a fourth wall separates it from the real world, no less solid than the iron curtain. Here people are well-groomed, intonations are well-mannered, costumes are impeccable, there are no tears, no sighs, only endless life.

The atmosphere of the last act is especially good: plein air, a picnic, an ex-prostitute in the role of a daughter rides a bicycle with her boyfriend. Light sadness seizes the heroes, captivating nostalgia. The sophisticated Churikova in this scene cannot be overshadowed even by her dress - a masterpiece in Renoir tones from Christina Pasternak. A compliment from the chef is a black umbrella plowing the air over the stage. In the finale, the heroes, huddled together, hide under it and look into the future with trademark Slavic melancholy, worthy of three sisters.

This VIP-theater provides the viewer with a full range of positive emotions. You feel serenely rich and at the same time you understand that happiness is not in money. You feel involved in the culture and at the same time you can relax and have fun. The highest level of theatrical service, complete comfort for all five senses and exclusive rest for the mind - this is what Tout paye is at Lenkom.

Russian courier, January 31, 2004

Elena Yampolskaya

Love for Hire

At first you think that this is how theater should be. Tickets from the hands of four thousand re, a sense of celebration, a full house, overfull and stalls, completely packed with stars. The first actor enters the stage - a standing ovation. Because it's Jankowski. The second one comes out - friendly applause. Because Zbruev. The third surge of audience delight - in about ten minutes - at the appearance of Inna Churikova.

However, leaving Lenkom's celebration of life, you understand that the theater should still be somewhat different. It should, if not shock, then at least be remembered for a long time. The entourage is quite consistent with the real, big Zakharov premiere. The resulting pleasure - did not lie nearby.

"Everything is paid for" to the effect of deja vu resembles a play by Nadezhda Ptushkina, notorious for several titles. In the original - "While she was dying", a private version - "The Old Maid", on the Small Stage of the Chekhov Moscow Art Theater - "Christmas Dreams", in the TV version - "Come See Me". She is Lyudmila Ogurenkova, she is also Valentina Poniyad... Considering that Monsieur Zhamiak sculpted his creation much earlier than Ptushkina, it is not difficult to guess who borrowed from whom (the author's name, of course, was borrowed from Faulkner).

Of course, you already keep on the tip of your tongue that, they say, "Come see me" was just Yankovsky filming. And at the same time he played the main and only male role there. I'll tell you more: Inna Churikova was an old maid in The Old Maid. She was then accompanied by Zinaida Sharko and Valentin Gaft. Thus, the theme of hired relatives in recent years has become literally defining in the work of these wonderful masters of the Lenkom and all-Russian scene.

"Monsieur Amilcar ...", of course, is a little thinner, a little more original and more psychological than Ptushkina. This play has at least two bottoms, although both are not too deep, and such material can hardly be considered a dream for the director or for the actors. However, people love such implausible stories to a puppy squeal.

A rich gentleman (hereinafter referred to as the "Master Who Pays") hires three people - a professional actress, a street girl and an unemployed artist - to portray his wife, daughter and family friend every evening, and on weekends around the clock. They created the illusion of human warmth. With real warmth, the Lord Who Pays flaked to colic. Real relationships brought him a lot of pain, now he only wants to play. Without using the heart.

The Master Who Pays leaves the house with an umbrella, even if there is not a cloud in the sky. AT figuratively this means that he takes people under suspicion before they begin to deceive him, and, all the while expecting a trick, wants to organize a trick for himself under the contract. Mr. Alexander is afraid of surprises. And love is afraid, like rain. Therefore, rain and love will start on the stage at the same time.

It is much more difficult to imitate family ties in real life than on stage. The Master Who Pays is dissatisfied with his workers. They falsely lie and ineptly pretend. And he needs to lie sincerely. But they lied. Under the nostalgic tenderness of the Sun Valley Serenade, Monsieur Amilcar himself demonstrates to his "wife" how to meet the man with whom she has lived for twenty years, but with whom she is still in love. In the theater, this is called "director's show". Life is a crazy house.

The performance is modestly directed and, to put it mildly, strangely designed: leather furniture, apparently, is designed to create a feeling of office discomfort, but this is not new for Moscow, and the stage is empty, boring, bare, and there are problems with acoustics. As for the actors, in terms of their scale, this is not a play, but seeds. No one is overworked, but everyone is charming and nice. A real pleasure is just to look at Churikova. Jankowski, handsome, slender, and strikingly young, is invariably admired. Will he turn sixty on the twenty-third of February?! Fantastic... The Gentleman Who Pays, smokes stinky cigars, puts a dry, thoroughbred left ankle on his right knee, rolls it around the stage in an office chair with ballet grace, and at first it’s somehow hard to believe that such a playboy might need a perverted relationship, contractual affection, purchasable love. There is so much to love about him. Very much.

Thinking about this discrepancy, I looked around, and my soul became wounded by sad pictures from nature. Around - next to me, in front, behind, on the side - sat entirely female stars. Young and legendary actresses, serial Amazons, pop divas. And none of them, I emphasize, none of them came to the premiere accompanied by a man. All with friends. This does not mean that they are lesbians, and, most likely, does not mean that all men are goats. However, the fact remains: successful person more difficult to establish a personal life. A successful woman, for sure. Probably the man too.

However, the Master Who Pays is not exactly who he claims to be. He acquired a friend and a loving woman, in addition, along the way turned Miss Torn Stockings into an innocent schoolgirl, but he is in very serious trouble, and it is not clear how Monsieur Amilcar intends to get out of them. That is, Zhamiak understands how. Bullet in the forehead. But "Lenkom" merged Zhamiak with Ptushkina, and they never expected logic from her. "Everything is paid for", as they say, a good performance. Why all the good performances on the Russian stage look stupid, God forbid, I don't know. Maybe because all the good things in Russia are done with a stupid expression on their faces?..

Results, February 3, 2004

Marina Zayonts

Smile, gentlemen!

From the boulevard French comedy by I. Zhamiak in the Moscow "Lenkom" they managed to make an amazingly beautiful and touching performance "Tout paye", or Everything is paid"

"Lenkom" presented the prime minister unusually modestly. No noisy announcements, interviews and other promotional winning gestures. The secular party traditional for this theater (a well-known set of popular faces flashing at all important events) for some reason ignored the performance, and except for theater critics who came together to fulfill their professional duty, we can responsibly say: the hall was filled with the so-called ordinary audience. In a word, everything turned out - not an event.

After all, not so long ago, Lenkom was almost the only high-status theater in Moscow, everything was with him - the stars, one brighter than the other, the love and tangible caress of the authorities, applause, camera flashes, celebrities in almost all the seats, hit-and-run performances. But the competitors, as it turned out, did not yawn, and now the Moscow Art Theater. A.P. Chekhov, led by the firm hand of Oleg Tabakov, who did not doubt the success, began to bypass the slowed down theater both in terms of hits and in relations with the authorities (a recent visit by President Putin to the performance " Last victim" was colorfully reflected by all news agencies), with the press and other important people. I don’t know if the theater is saddened by such a development of events, but the premiere of the quiet, non-ceremonial and, at first glance, passing performance “Everything is paid for” showed that the victorious gloss slowly slipping from the face of the theater reveals something very unexpected - a gentle lightness of gestures instead of the usual assertiveness, a rare sense of proportion , miraculously preserved subtlety of feelings and even some kind of defenseless trepidation of the actors, it would seem that they have already achieved everything in this life.

The performance turned out to be a joint project with some American production group. It was like this: our former compatriots, cunning administrators, chose for a lively "chess" among Russian-speaking Americans a proven play, played long ago in the USSR under the name "Monsieur Amilcar pays", and offered it Inna Churikova, rightly believing that her name will make them cashier. Churikova became interested in the play, but resolutely refused to participate in the dubious enterprise. The far-sighted director of the theater also liked the play, and as a result, everyone won. I don’t know how they will react in America, but our audience was not only pleased, it was touched, which happens not so often these days.

At the same time, Zhamiak's play is one of those that critics condescendingly say: "tabloid thing", meaning its entertainment, slightly diluted with a kind of pseudo-philosophical edification. It is clear why such plays are loved by entreprises. No such directing is required, the types are recognizable, invite the stars and go ahead - how to play this has long been known to everyone. The plot is really funny and makes it possible to present simple comic tricks, which entrepreneurial stars are well-known masters of. Lonely Mr. Amilcar hired an actress, a hungry unemployed man and a young prostitute in order to find a wife, daughter and reliable friend all at once. All of them, as in a theater, should play for him a story about family happiness. Toward the end, it turned out that he stole the money for this fun, and so on, rather to the finale, to the final and thunderous applause.

In which strange dream American producers dreamed that this play should be staged by the Estonian director Elmo Nyuganen, I can’t guess, but this choice is paradoxical simply by definition. Nyuganen, one of the most famous directors of the new generation in Estonia, has never been seen in anything so frivolous. He put on serious classics, in the St. Petersburg BDT he was noted for the bulky "Arcadia" by T. Stoppard, and here - pure water comedy, joke. The unexpected connection of the director of the traditional psychological school with such a play could turn the play anywhere. In an unequal struggle, he could easily defeat the genre, the desire to make the public both beautiful and funny. It is just as easy to imagine an attempt to load the spectacle with the psychological experiences of lonely, unsettled, unhappy (easily supplemented by the same stereotyped definitions) heroes. Nothing predictable, fortunately, did not happen. The beauty of the new Lenkom performance is in the sense of proportion. There they invested exactly as much as the fragile construction of the play could withstand, which, at the same time, was pretty much reduced and rewritten. It will seem to someone that Inna Churikova (Eleanor, an actress hired to play the role of his wife), Oleg Yankovsky (the same Monsieur Alexander, who paid for everything), Alexander Zbruev (unemployed Masha, who for some time became a friend of Leon for money) yes and Elmo Nyganen himself hammer nails here with a microscope. Maybe they really are, but how gracefully, smartly and talentedly they do it.

In a funny story about how a hero rents his wife’s love, friendship and affection for offspring for 10 thousand euros a week (from 6 pm to 9 am plus weekends and holidays), in Lenkom, as a spicy seasoning, they added a game that always confuses familiar cards. Monsieur Amilcar demands believable performance for his money, but he is afraid of real feelings like fire. His actors at first timidly, and then more and more confidently enter the role, and it is already difficult to understand where is the truth and where is a successful fiction. The ever-hungry Masha composes a biography of the artist for himself, and then it turns out that he really draws, so much so that everyone is stupefied looking at his picture. Or is Eleanor talking about how she spent time with her mother, and she soon appears - go now, figure it out, is this Melia (gamy and accurately played by Margarita Strunova) really a mother or is she also an actress who plays the role so impeccably? And so they, you know, in this game got confused that in the end they fell in love with each other for real. Masha, who suddenly ceased to be unhappy, was the first to say this. Alexander Zbruev came to the forefront and, looking the audience straight in the eyes, made a speech in the spirit of Grishkovets. About the fact that there are no strangers among us, and therefore urged not to hide true feelings. And Churikova stood nearby and sang something tender in French. And the hushed hall clapped gratefully, deeply moved, but that was not quite the end. The game ended, and Alexander Amilcar, as we remember, who stole the money, decided to shoot himself. But while Yankovsky, turning away, was loading his pistol, Eleanor appeared. And you'll never guess what she said. Well, yes, first, words about love and readiness to be around in everything. And then Churikova uttered a phrase that actually demonstrated that there were no strangers among us: "Smile, Monsieur Amilcar. All the biggest stupid things on earth are done with such a facial expression. Well, smile!" Everyone recognized the famous phrase from Zakharovsky's "Munchausen" and laughed happily. God knows why you suddenly become so sentimental. What is it for?

Evening Moscow, February 3, 2004

Olga Fuchs

Contract for Feeling

On the stage of "Lenkom" the premiere of the play "Tout paye, or Everything is paid"

This performance was staged by the Estonian director Elmo Nyuganen, who is eagerly invited by Russian theaters, but it seems that Mark Zakharov could well have staged it, or, let's say, he could have appeared in Lenkom. Because it contains one of the main generic features of this theater: getting (or at least aiming) at the nerve of time, gradually observing yourself, sometimes being surprised and fixing what metamorphoses this very time is doing with you personally. In addition, the collective work, the existence of which was mentioned by Mark Zakharov in our last interview, is indicated here on the poster: Oleg Yankovsky is listed as the director with the director Nyuganen. Unless the rhythms here are not Zakharovsky at all, but “hot Estonian”.

So, a virtuoso accountant (Oleg Yankovsky), who knows how to make up for any shortages, decided to buy some feelings that he lacks in life with his “earned” money: love, friendship, paternal tenderness.

To reduce, so to speak, the debit of feelings with the credit of possibilities. To work as a “wife”, he hires a retired actress in the role of romantic heroines, but only in the distant past (Inna Churikova), a “friend” of an unemployed man with a sick stomach, a talent as an artist and an absurd name (Alexander Zbruev), and a “daughter” night butterfly(Natalia Schukina). For a round sum c.u. (Lenkom, literate in financial matters, switched to the euro in time) they must play these roles in front of him so that he does not doubt their sincerity. Monsieur Amilcar is glad to be deceived, but it is very difficult to deceive him - like a meticulous director, he harasses his hired relatives with demands for plausible improvisations, he does not believe exactly what Stanislavsky is. And as a result, he receives “gifts of the Magi” from them, which cannot be paid with any euros and cannot be included in any list of services: the true love of a hired wife and a brilliant picture of a hired friend who understood everything about him, or rather, more than Amilcar himself wanted.

Actually, love and creativity - this is what we have from His image and likeness and that you will not include in any price list marked “all inclusive”.

The play by Yves Zhamiak translated by E. Babenko “Monsieur Amilcar pays”, from which, as a result of the same collective work on the text, “Everything is paid for” turned out, cannot be attributed to great dramaturgy. And although there are a lot of witty passages in it, sometimes it seems that the actors lack the dramatic “gunpowder” for forward movement. It is all the more interesting to watch how Inna Churikova and Oleg Yankovsky, who have almost nowhere to play, if not a tragedy, then at least a real drama, are able to unfold to the fullest extent of their acting skills even on the “patch” of this play allotted to them.

Artists Adris Freiberg and Christina Pasternak created the image of dolce vita on stage - photo wallpapers with cloudy Paris, leather furniture, Renoir silhouettes in costumes. And in the midst of this "flood of feelings" a successful accountant - like a man in a case, with an unchanging umbrella in dry weather, with a carefully written contract for the supply of feelings - is still afraid to believe that happiness is possible for him. He convulsively pulls on the mask of a successful businessman who is able to buy everything, huddles in a corner with a shabby briefcase, tastelessly lights an expensive cigar from a lighter - he dies of thirst over a stream. And almost ready to walk past a woman with a lunatic and charm who dreams of saving him "overtime".

“Smile. All the biggest stupid things are done with the most serious look, ”she will throw him a phrase from the cult film, and the aged“ same Munchausen ”will again believe that love, like May 32, is possible. Or at least remember how wonderful it was to believe it.

Culture, February 5, 2004

Natalia Kaminskaya

And the rest - with an umbrella

In "Lenkom" everything is paid for

We still, with a tenacity worthy of a better application, scold the entreprise and rely on the hospital. And in the meantime, the generic signs were finally mixed up. Invitations of stars, betting on stars, self-playing plays for stars, non-exhausting work for stars... Tell me, is this all about the entreprise? And here it is not.

Strong, not devoid of intrigue and sentiment, quite a commercial piece by I. Zhamiak "Monsieur Amilcar pays" with the participation of I. Churikova, O. Yankovsky and A. Zbruev is a stationary performance of Lenkom. Only Estonian director Elmo Nyuganen and Latvian artists Andris Freibergs and Kristina Pasternak are invited. A good, serious director and no less good, serious artists. The performance was well staged. They play well.

This review could have ended. Moreover, it would be extremely strange even to suspect the named authors and participants in this performance of a bad result. In the current context of Lenkom, especially in the light of Zakharov's "Jester Balakirev" and "The executioner's lament", last premiere looks a bit alien. According to the purpose of the statement, it is closer to the "City of Millionaires" - a glorious, well-made melodrama. "City of Millionaires", perhaps, will be more colorful. But that's not the point. And the fact that Lenkom's corporate style, with all its undisguised focus on entertainment, democratic tastes of the public, and even with an honestly positive attitude towards the commercial component, is a style of bright invention and sharp utterance. The resources of the performance "All paid for" in this sense are poor.

The play by I. Zhamiak was still in great demand ten or fifteen years ago in the theaters of our former large country. It looked especially good in the then Baltic republics: French charm multiplied by the western Baltic gloss, and all together looked like Europe. The story of how one monsieur, tired of loneliness and the surrounding falsehood, hires "actors" for big money, playing scenes of love and friendship in front of him, according to the contract, was then perceived as a kind of exotic. We didn't have paid services of any kind back then. And the very construction of the play, where in addition to people of the middle generation, an eccentric old woman and a reckless young couple are necessarily given, had not yet passed into the category of anachronisms in those years.

Today, in such a play, much more than before, it remains to rely only on the level of the actors involved in it. It is enough to look at the Lenkom poster to understand what quality these hopes are supported here.

Is it worth it to say that the "friend" (A. Zbruev) and "wife" (I. Churikova) paid by Amilcar go beyond the scope of the services indicated in the price list, which triumphs in the final real life and true love, if even those who do not know the play can easily calculate this? It's not worth talking about this, but about how all this is done in the soft and completely unobtrusive direction of E. Nyuganen (the director, who revealed himself much more energetically in serious plays), Lenkom's actors, including the "old woman" (M. Strunova) and the "couple" (N. Shchukina and S. Ryadinsky). Churikova and here is the queen. Feminine and sly. Ironic and touching. Beautiful and young. As her heroine Eleonora, an actress by profession, breaks Amilcar's script and organizes an initially artificial life according to the laws of her own heart, so Churikova "builds" brilliant partners - Yankovsky and Zbruev - around her fantastic aura. The first is obstinate and helpless, the second is modest and dignified, and both are vassals of the all-conquering Churikov artistry.

Like a gigantic umbrella, whose frivolous dome tries to shelter the heroes from bad weather and adversity, the play "Everything is paid for" guarantees the viewer a short rest with sentiment. And for something more, this joint project of Lenkom with a production group from the USA NWJC (didn't the local Mr. Amilcar pay for the idea?), Probably, did not wave.

Rodnaya gazeta, February 13, 2004

Vera Maksimova

Kings can do a lot, but not all

After the new performance of "Lenkom" with a bilingual, in French and Russian, title "Tout paye, or Everything is paid for" it seems that our wonderful artists can do anything. In particular, such talents as Inna Churikova, Oleg Yankovsky, Alexander Zbruev - premieres and celebrities in the troupe of Mark Zakharov.

In an elegant scenographic frame (artist Andris Freiberg, Latvia) - graceful and easy game, the tone and mood of which is, of course, set by Churikova. Incomparable. Free. Young. Recognizable, but also one that, due to her tragic and dramatic roles recent years we almost forgot. Churikov of the era of "Til" and "Baron Munchausen" is an outstanding eccentric and tragicomic actress.

Against the backdrop of huge photographs around the perimeter of the stage (the Parisian Arc de Triomphe, in fog and rain, reflections in the waters of the Seine, greenish like algae), the elegant clothes of the actress flutter; noticed by the hidden hall her light wide step, the harmony of her postures and gestures. AT free space a voice of the purest musicality sounds; and as a gift of fate in the stream of rudeness, exasperation, simplifications of today's our theater, the play of intonations, clever and subtle ironic overtones are gratefully received.

The scenography is given upside down, as are the stories of the characters from the old French play by I. Zhomiak, which once ran in Moscow at the Theater. A.S. Pushkin entitled "Monsieur Amilcar pays ...".

The play belongs to commercial, entertainment, semi-detective theatre, which is legal and legal; in all theatrical times, it had its own niche, because rest and fun for the soul are necessary for both actors and spectators.

In "Lenkom" the composition of the French author changed, reduced, redone so much that you don’t recognize it right away. It may not be worth it to get angry about this. The play is not so valuable and precious in itself as to claim immunity. But still, still... The closer to the finale, the more often it comes, intensifies, does not let go of the thought of the number of alterations, deletions from the text, their cardinality, their significance.

The second act, with a completely prosperous ending, different from that in the play (instead of the suicide of the hero, the American happy end) is no longer altered, but rewritten, while being confused and crumpled, because the correspondence of the text, as you know, is not an easy task and requires special skills, another, than acting or directing professions.

About the “enticing” plot of Zhomiak, in which the hero, lonely and deceived by life, an “accountant of the highest qualification”, hires a beggar artist, a street girl and an aging actress with money hidden from the company, so that for a huge fee they portray his loving loved ones within one week - wife, daughter and friend - you forget almost immediately. The relationship of the characters, the vicissitudes of their destinies, the discovery of each other and self-discovery, the meaning of the play generally lose all meaning.

The view of the performance is mainly aesthetic. You don't follow what's going on actors, that is, with people on the stage, but behind the way the actors play and how the performance was “made” by the famous Estonian director Elmo Nyuganen.

Here a huge black umbrella glided along an inclined string, smoothly descended over the heads of the heroes, and from its stretched dome, rare and transparent, streams of rain flowed. Here in the hands of the heroine, then in the hands of a lovely young girl, a summer, airy, white umbrella spun. After the big mourning black - the second "material element" of the performance, which forms the color and mood. Here, in a mother-of-pearl pastoral, a slow bicycle ride of young lovers around the stage appeared. And he uttered his quiet, long monologue, heard to the last word in the last row, the artist Masha - Alexander Zbruev. And, casually stretched out in armchairs, skillfully and gracefully led a verbal duel between Churikov - Eleanor and Alexander - Oleg Yankovsky. Everything is done, almost perfect.

The performance is short. A little over two hours. But the action gradually stops and freezes. Almost boredom comes. (This is also facilitated by the "Baltic", northern tendency of the director to slow rhythms.)

I remember that in the author's version there was a lot of love, the transformation of people with love. There is no time or words here to express love. They are almost taken away from Alexander-Yankovsky, who can only portray bitterness and bitterness. Young lovers Virginia - Natalya Schukina and Polo - Stanislav Ryadinsky have been turned into wordless. The vacuum of love is left to be filled by Churikova with a lengthy piece of text stating that she will save her chosen one Alexander, replenish the amount stolen by the hero from the famous woman’s own funds. Hollywood actress and not the aging loser he thought she was.

Is it possible even for great actors to play “about nothing” and “about nothing”? And can even the kings of our theater do everything?

It is known that the initiators of the project were Russian Americans - a kind of "NWJC production group". They, especially for Churikova, this year's hero of the day, offered a play. As a result, the project became mixed, American and Russian, represented by the Moscow State Theater "Lenkom". It is also known that the performance will be staged both in a hospital setting and as a private show in cities and countries. In favor of the "hybrid project" we can say that it is cultural, aesthetically attractive. For the current Russian, mostly hacky, enterprise, this is even flattering. For a team of such rank and glory as "Lenkom" - not enough.

If you didn’t like the play so much that you had to rewrite it, shovel it, shorten it (without achieving the desired improvement), wouldn’t it be easier to take for wonderful actress and her talented partners another, more worthy of themselves and their theater?