Directed by V. Belyakovich, the performance "At the Bottom" was a revelation to the audience

BELGOROD. Last weekend at the Drama Theater. Shchepkin premieres of the performance on the famous manifesto on the calling of man. Gorky’s play “At the Bottom”, known to every viewer from his school years, staged by Valery Belyakovich, a famous metropolitan director, made a stunning impression on the audience.

In the intermission, sharing their impressions, the audience said that they had the impression that a completely different play was read at school. From the first minute of the performance, when the characters appear on stage accompanied by a solemn music, dressed in white clothes, it seems that the spectators are not tramps from a shelter, but the heroes of an ancient Greek tragedy.

The design of the scene is minimal - two-story bunks similar to cells, where the heroes’ lives are full of tragedies. Using music, choreography, plastic and the work of the actors worthy of admiration, Belyakovich builds before the audience the canvas of life of the characters in the play, against which well-known philosophical questions sound that do not have unambiguous answers.

You can talk about the works of actors who created unusually vivid, memorable characters for a long time. Heroes living on stage deserve sympathy, if only because they are trying to find a way out of the abominations of this life. It’s not their fault that they don’t know how to find a decent way to remain human.

A separate line through the play is Vasilisa’s love story. The audience is presented not only by the cruel mistress of the rooming house, but by a woman in love and suffering, fighting for her happiness. The denouement of the play is as cruel as the life of its characters. Nobody expected a happy ending, usual in books, so beloved by one of the heroines of the play, but many spectators left the room, wiping their tears.

Ludmila Trautmane © Gallerix.ru