The premiere in the Moscow Provincial Theater - the play "Merry Soldier" based on the prose of Victor Astafiev Automatic translate

MOSCOW. In the repertoire of the Moscow Provincial Theater, a play appeared that tells about the war, which became the main test in the life of those whose youth passed in the trenches. This is a war seen by a man who voluntarily went to the front, having been seriously wounded three times in hospitals. He met victory in the rank received on the day when he became a soldier - an ordinary.

This soldier was a writer, who during his lifetime became a classic of Russian literature - Victor Astafyev. The events of the war years became the main theme of his work. The writer said that the books he wrote about the war truthfully tell how monstrous a crime it is against humanity. Astafyev wrote cruel prose suffered by him, which only one who was a real participant in the war, and not an office observer, could write.

Such prose cannot be a convenient material for transferring it to the stage. However, Sergei Bezrukov, the artistic director of the Provincial Theater, has long had a ripe desire to include Viktor Astafyev’s prose in the repertoire, using the motifs of the novel “The Merry Soldier” to create it.

The young director Richard Bondarev, to whom the artistic director entrusted the production of the story, helped turn this dream of Sergei Bezrukov into a performance presented on January 28 to the public. Excerpts from interviews received from Astafyev in different years, memories of nurses were added to turn a prose work into a strong drama into a play. As well as an anonymous letter, where there were threats against the writer.

To play the role of Astafyev, the artist Boris Galkin, personally acquainted with the writer, was invited. For many years, the Honored Artist of the Russian Federation did not play in the theater, so this invitation of Bezrukov was a huge joy for him. The great book about the war is now on the stage of the provincial theater.

Ludmila Trautmane © Gallerix.ru