All the best to the students. Essay “Scene in a variety show”

The Variety Theater is a fictional theater in the novel “The Master and Margarita”, with which an imaginary space is associated in the architectonics of the work. In the early editions of T.V. it was called “Cabaret Theatre”.

Here a session of Woland's black magic takes place, followed by exposure. Exposure in in this case happens literally: the owners of the latest Parisian toilets, received from the devil in exchange for their modest Moscow dresses, after the session, in an instant, against their will, are exposed, as fashionable Parisian dresses disappear to God knows where.

The prototype of T.V. was the Moscow Music Hall, which existed in 1926-1936. and located near the Bad Apartment at the address: Bolshaya Sadovaya, 18. Nowadays the Moscow Theater of Satire is located here. And until 1926, the Nikitin brothers’ circus was located here, and the building was specially built for this circus in 1911 according to the design of the architect Nilus. The Nikitin Circus is mentioned in "Heart of a Dog". By the way, the Variety Theater program contains a number of purely circus acts, such as the “miracles of the Julie family’s bicycle technology,” the prototype of which was the famous circus figure skaters of the Poldi (Podrezov) family, who successfully performed on the stage of the Moscow Music Hall.

The “rain of money” shed on the Variety audience by Woland’s henchmen has a rich literary tradition. In the dramatic poem "Faust" (1808-1832) by Johann Wolfgang Goethe (1749-1832), in the second part, Mephistopheles, finding himself together with Faust at the emperor's court, invents paper money, which turns out to be fiction.

Another possible source is the passage in Travel Pictures (1826) by Heinrich Heine (1797-1856), where the German poet satirically gives an allegorical description of political struggle between liberals and conservatives, presented as the story of a Bedlam patient. The narrator explains the world's evil by saying that “the Lord God created too little money.”

Woland and his assistants, distributing paper chervonets to the crowd, seem to make up for the imaginary shortage of cash. But the devil's chervonets quickly turn into ordinary paper, and thousands of visitors to the Variety Theater become victims of deception. For Woland, imaginary money is only a way to reveal the inner essence of those with whom Satan and his retinue come into contact.

But the episode with the rain of chervonets in T.V. also has a closer date literary source- excerpts from the second part of the novel “Two Worlds” by Vladimir Zazubrin (Zubtsov) (1895-1937), published in 1922 in the magazine “Siberian Lights”. There, the peasants - members of the commune - decide to abolish and destroy money, without waiting for a decree from the Soviet government. However, it soon becomes clear that money has not been abolished in the country, and then the crowd approaches the leaders of the commune, calls them deceivers and swindlers, threatens them with violence and wants to achieve the impossible - to return the already destroyed bills.

In T.V. the situation is mirrored. Those present at the black magic session first receive “supposedly money” (that was the name of one of the chapters of the early edition of the novel), which is mistaken for real money. When the imaginary money turns into worthless pieces of paper, the bartender of the Sokov Theater demands that Woland replace it with full-fledged chervonets.

The daring words of the march, with which Koroviev-Fagot forces the theater orchestra to end the scandalous session, are a parody of couplets from the popular in the 19th century. vaudeville "Lev Gurych Sinichkin, or Provincial Debutante" (1839) by Dmitry Lensky (Vorobyov) (1805-1860):
His Excellency
Calls her his
And even patronage
Gives it to her.

Bulgakov's couplets became even more humorous. They are addressed directly to the chairman of the Acoustic Commission, Arkady Apollonovich Sempleyarov, who demanded the exposure of black magic, but was exposed himself:
His Excellency
Loved poultry
And took under his protection
Pretty girls!!!

It is possible that the image with birds here was suggested to Bulgakov by the “bird name” of both the author, who wrote under the pseudonym Lensky, and the main character of the vaudeville.

T.V. in The Master and Margarita has quite deep aesthetic roots. In 1914, the manifesto of one of the founders of futurism, the Italian writer Filippo Tommaso Marinetti (1876-1944), “Music Hall” (1913), was published in Russian translation in No. 5 of the magazine “Theater and Art” under the title “Praise to the Variety Theater” (probably , such a transformation of the name prompted Bulgakov to replace the real Moscow Music Hall with the fictional T.V.).

Marinetti argued: “The Variety Theater destroys everything solemn, sacred, and serious in art. It contributes to the impending destruction immortal works, changing and parodying them, presenting them somehow, without any setting, without being embarrassed, as the most ordinary thing... It is necessary to absolutely destroy all logic in variety show performances, noticeably exaggerate their extravagance, enhance contrasts and allow everything extravagant to reign on stage. .. Interrupt the singer. Accompany the singing of a romance with abusive and insulting words... Force the spectators of the stalls, boxes and gallery to take part in the action... Systematically profane classical art on stage, depicting, for example, all the Greek, French and Italian tragedies simultaneously in one evening, abbreviated and comically mixed up together... Encourage in every possible way the genre of American eccentrics, their grotesque effects, amazing movements, their clumsy antics, their immense rudeness, their vests filled with all sorts of surprises and pants, deep as ship holds, from which, along with a thousand objects, comes the great futuristic laughter that should renew the physiognomy of the world."

Bulgakov did not favor futurism and other theories of “leftist art”; he had a negative attitude towards the productions of V. E. Meyerhold (1874-1940) and the project of a monument to the Third International by V. E. Tatlin (1885-1953) (see: “Capital in a notebook” ). The story "Fatal Eggs" ironically mentions the "Theater named after the late Vsevolod Meyerhold, who died, as is known, in 1927 during the production of Pushkin's Boris Godunov, when the trapeze with naked boyars collapsed."

The author of "The Master and Margarita" strictly follows all the recommendations of the famous Italian. Theater really destroys everything sacred and serious in art. The programs here are devoid of any logic, which is personified, in particular, by the entertainer Georges Bengalsky, who talks nonsense and is distinguished, like American eccentrics, by clumsiness and rudeness.

Woland and his henchmen really force the stalls, the boxes, and the gallery to participate in the performance, encouraging the audience to determine the fate of the unlucky Bengalsky, and then to catch the chervonets falling like paper rain. Koroviev-Fagot makes sure that the march is accompanied by extravagant daring couplets and takes out from his pockets many objects that generate “great futuristic laughter” in the audience: from the watch of the financial director of the Variety Rimsky and a magic deck of cards to the devil’s chervonets and a store of Parisian fashionable dresses. How much is the cat Behemoth worth, easy drinking water from a glass or tearing off the head of a boring entertainer!

Woland, setting up an experiment with money and the unlucky Georges of Bengal, tests Muscovites, finds out how much they have changed internally, and in his own way strives to “renew the physiognomy of the world.”

And Bulgakov with his hands evil spirits punishes everyone involved in the Variety Theater for vulgarization high art in the spirit of Marinetti’s calls, whose manifesto turns into a session of black magic. Director T.V. Stepan Bogdanovich Likhodeev is thrown out of his apartment by Woland to Yalta, administrator T.V. Varenukha becomes a victim of the vampire Gella and himself turns into a vampire, having difficulty getting rid of this unpleasant position in the finale. The same Varenukha and Gella almost destroyed the financial director Rimsky, who only miraculously escaped the fate that befell the administrator. The public is also punished, having lost both their ghostly Parisian outfits and their real Moscow ones.

The paradox is that Bulgakov, without sympathizing with futurism and other movements of “left” art, in “The Master and Margarita”, as in his other works, made extensive use of the grotesque, fearlessly mixed genres and traditions of different literary trends and styles, willingly or unwillingly following Marinetti’s theory here. And the author of the novel loved eccentric clowns. In "The Capital in a Notebook" the clown Lazarenko is mentioned with admiration, who in the Nikitin circus, a stone's throw from the GITIS theater, where Meyerhold staged his play, stuns the audience with "monstrous salto."

Bulgakov was only against eccentricity replacing high performing arts, but did not mind if both were organically combined. In "The Master and Margarita" high philosophical content quite appropriately adjacent to buffoonery, including in T.V.

The devilish shop of French fashion during a session of black magic is largely taken from a story popular in the early 20th century. writer Alexander Amfitheatrov (1862-1938) “Smugglers of St. Petersburg” (1898), where in the home of one of the famous smugglers there is an underground store of fashionable women’s clothes, illegally imported into Russia.

The episode with Woland's chervonets was one of the sources of the essay "The Legend of Agrippa" by the writer and symbolist poet Valery Bryusov (1873-1924), written for the Russian translation of J. Orsier's book "Agrippa of Nettesheim: The Famous Adventurer of the 16th Century." (1913). It was noted there that the medieval German scientist and theologian Agrippa of Nettesheim (1486-1535), according to his contemporaries, was a sorcerer, as if “often, during his travels... he paid in hotels with money that had all the signs of being genuine. Of course, according to When the philosopher left, the coins turned into manure. Agrippa gave one woman a basket of gold coins; the next day the same thing happened to these coins: the basket turned out to be filled with horse manure.”

Those who have read the novel “The Master and Margarita”, and there are more and more such people in numerous reprints of the book, undoubtedly remember the chapter that tells about a session of black magic in a certain Variety Show on Sadovaya, which was carried out by the foreign professor Woland and his associates with a scandalous ending. These miracles in Variety, thanks to the unbridled imagination of the author, are perhaps the most striking scene in the entire novel.

The events that took place with the employees of this institution - director Likhodeev, his assistants Rimsky and Varenukha, accountant Lastochkin, are described so artistically realistically, tangibly and believably that the question involuntarily arises whether everything happened in reality, whether there was a Variety Show in Moscow where it took place or could a fantastic session of black magic take place? As we already know, in his works Bulgakov almost everywhere used a real historical and topographical background, “settled” his heroes in those places that he himself knew, where he lived or worked, where he visited acquaintances and friends. The places of action of the heroes were no exception to this rule when describing the Variety Show. The writer remained true to himself, showing the Moscow Music Hall that existed in 1926-1935 in a fictional fantasy Variety Show. It was located in the same building where the current Moscow Satire Theater (Bolshaya Sadovaya, 18), in the area of ​​the current Triumfalnaya Square- Old Triumphal Gate).

This old building, now hidden behind a modern facade, has undergone many reconstructions and renamings: Operetta Theater, Theater folk art, Second State Circus, Cinema Circus. And it was built round, like a real circus, in 1911 by the architect B. M. Nilus for the first Russian circus of the Nikitin brothers on the site of the houses and outbuildings of P. V. Sheremetev, a bankrupt descendant of an old noble family.

After the revolution, a few years after the last of the brothers Peter Nikitin in 1921, until his death former director, this circus in pure form ceased to exist. The future novelist nevertheless managed to visit there - a description of his visit can be found in the early story “Fatal Eggs”:

“In the circus of the former Nikitin, in a brown, greasy arena that smelled pleasantly of manure, the deathly pale clown Bom said to Bim, swollen in checkered dropsy:

- I know why you are so sad!

- Ottsivo? - Bim asked squeaky.

“You buried the eggs in the ground, and the police of the fifth precinct found them.”

Ha-ha-ha! - the circus laughed so hard that the blood ran cold joyfully and sadly, and trapezes and cobwebs blew under the old dome.

A-up! - the clowns screamed shrilly, and the fed White horse carried a wonderfully beautiful woman, on slender legs, in crimson tights..."

In 1926, the old circus was significantly rebuilt: the place of the arena was taken by stall seats, and part of the amphitheater and balcony was transformed into big stage, backdrop, backstage.

The building turned into a theater and was first called the Second State Circus - a music hall, and then simply the Moscow Music Hall. The hall was designed for 1,766 seats and had stalls, boxes, a mezzanine, and a balcony-gallery - just like Bulgakov’s Variety Show. Interesting performances of the new variety theater were accompanied by great success. One of the performances was called “Variety Show Artists.” In the guidebook “Theater Moscow” for 1930, the music hall was presented as a theater of variety attractions and reviews, where, in addition to the permanent troupe, “Soviet and foreign touring artists” performed. So the “black magician” Woland and his retinue are a completely natural phenomenon here.

The Moscow music hall existed until 1936. It was at this time that Bulgakov, who apparently often attended his performances, created those chapters of the novel that show an enchanting session of black magic at the Variety Show. And many of his characters and mysterious tricks are based on real artists and their art in the music hall of that time.

The performance at the Bulgakov Variety Show begins with a performance by the “Julli bicycle family”: “ Small man in a holey yellow bowler hat and a pear-shaped crimson nose, in checkered trousers and patent leather boots, he rode onto the Variety stage on an ordinary two-wheeled bicycle. He made a circle to the sounds of a foxtrot, and then let out a triumphant cry, causing the bicycle to rear up. Having ridden on one rear wheel, the little man turned upside down, managed to unscrew the front wheel while moving and let it go behind the scenes, and then continued on one wheel, turning the pedals with his hands. On a tall metal mast with a saddle on top and one wheel, a plump blonde in tights and a skirt dotted with silver stars rode out and began riding in a circle.

When meeting her, the little man uttered greeting cries and kicked the bowler hat off his head. Finally, a little boy of about eight with an old face rolled up and darted between the adults on a tiny two-wheeler, to which was attached a huge car horn...”

This is how detailed, as if from life, Bulgakov described the cyclist figure skaters in a kind of pop prologue to a session of black magic.

What did the so-called “black magic session” consist of in Bulgakov’s novel? From tricks with cards, from a shower of money on ultimately fake pieces of paper, from tearing off and reattaching the head of an entertainer, from dressing up in a “Parisian fashion salon” that ended in a general scandal.

It is worth noting that the genre of magic using the “black cabinet” technique was especially popular in the Moscow music hall of the 30s. The work of the beginner Emil Keogh (E. T. Renard) was accompanied by a humorous commentary about black and white magic by entertainers N. S. Oreshkov and A. A. Grill. Touring Leningraders Dora and Nikolai Ornaldo (N.A. Smirnov) performed with a whole illusion theater, where they used mass hypnosis, tricks with cards (compare with the “acts” of Koroviev and Behemoth), “sawing” a woman (rather than tearing off her head Georges of Bengal?) large programs were given.

Journalist V. Viren spoke about another hypnotic gift of Ornaldo: “Once M. Zoshchenko, together with the writer V. Polyakov, went into the Leningrad Tauride Garden, where circus performers were giving a performance. The poster said that the “famous hypnotist Ornaldo” was performing in the tent. We bought tickets. The “treatment” session began: spectators were called onto the stage, and notes were attached to their outer clothing indicating what exactly was to be healed. With his gaze and bizarre hand movements, Ornaldo subjected them to “treatment”: he forced them to sing songs and dance “Cossack girls”.

In the second part, the hypnotist was engaged in suggestion. The group of spectators was called again. Ornaldo convinced them that they were children on the beach - and adults began to play in the sand, dive into the water, and fish.

After the performance, the writers waited for Ornaldo and left the garden with him. It turned out that he was Russian and real name his - Smirnov.

- What would you like me to do? - asked the hypnotist.

“Let this passerby walking in front of us stop,” Zoshchenko asked.

“He will stop on the count of ten,” said Ornaldo and began to quietly count: “One, two, three...”

And as soon as he said “ten”, the citizen walking in front stopped. All three approached him.

- What's wrong with you? - the hypnotist asked him.

“Yes, there’s something incomprehensible,” said the stranger. “I can’t move.”

- Nonsense. Go. Everything will be OK.

And the citizen, at first timidly, then confidently walked on.”

A special figure in the black magic session is the injured entertainer Georges of Bengal, with whom the devilish gang almost did the same as with Mikhail Berlioz. But they took pity on him and returned his head. Who from the entertainer in the music hall could be a caricatured copy of Georges of Bengal?

(Note that Bulgakov knew the work of an entertainer firsthand and not only as a spectator: at the beginning of his Moscow life he worked as an entertainer in small theater) Of course, Bulgakov's Georges Bengalsky, whose head is torn off for excessive chatter, is a collective image, although there is an obvious similarity between the stage names of Georges Bengalsky and the real-life Moscow entertainer Georges (George) Razdolsky.

Perhaps the novelist wanted to strengthen his more circus (“tiger”) pseudonym comic effect appearance and behavior of your hero. Georgy Razdolsky was relatively little known and popular. And among the recognized stars of the Moscow entertainer, among the famous A. A. Mendelevich, A. A. Glinsky, A. G. Alekseev and others, one should certainly highlight one of the most popular in the Moscow music hall - Alexander Alexandrovich Grill. He was perhaps closest to Bulgakov's Georges of Bengal.

Let us remind you that the incident with Gella and Varenukha who flew away did not end the terrible night for the Variety financial director. Rimsky, gray from the nightmare he had experienced, got out of the building, gasping for breath, and ran to the taxi stand on the corner of the square opposite from the theater, where there was a cinema. On Triumfalnaya (recently Mayakovsky) square opposite the music hall building there was indeed a cinema called “Khanzhonkov”, then “Mezhrabpom”, “Gorn” (now it is the Moscow cinema).

Rimsky caught a taxi near him to rush to the departure of the Leningrad express. (Note that in describing the stay of the financial director driven to the point of insanity in Leningrad, Bulgakov uses autobiographical details. He himself always stayed at the Astoria Hotel, and the 412th room indicated in the novel “with blue-gray furniture with gold and a wonderful bathroom” was one of the constantly busy writers.)

And another character in the novel, victim of black magic, rushes around the Sadovaya area. This is the barman at Variety Sokov, who sold sturgeon of “second freshness.” After a visit to the “bad apartment” and meeting Koroviev and Gella, with a scratched head, “he burst out of the gateway, looked around wildly, as if looking for something... and a minute later he was on the other street at the pharmacy.” Before the construction of a large house with the Beijing Hotel, which occupied an entire block, on the corner of Krasina (formerly Zhivoderka) Street and Bolshaya Sadovaya Street, the pharmacy of the former owner Rubanovsky.

From it, the bandaged barman ended up opposite, across the courtyard, into the mansion of Professor Kuzmin, where a phantasmagoria also took place with the participation of a little sparrow foxtrotting to “Hallelujah.” The “little white mansion” where the doctor “for liver diseases” lived was clearly copied from the house next to the pharmacy (No. 3); where Elena Sergeevna, already familiar to us, lived in apartment 2 shortly before becoming the wife of Mikhail Afanasyevich... It is interesting that Professor V.I. Kuzmin, surgeon and specialist internal medicine, was also very close to this area at the address: Sadovaya-Kudrinskaya, 28, apartment 2. Whether this was a coincidence or written by the author on purpose remains one of the mysteries of the novel.

But Bulgakov quite transparently identified several Moscow addresses associated with the characters of other Variety employees. The city branch of the Commission for light entertainment and entertainment, accountant Lastochkin heard a harmonious choral singing“The Glorious Sea...”, placed by the author in Vagankovsky Lane, in a “mansion peeling away from time to time in the depths of the courtyard” behind a lattice fence. The former Vagankovsky, or Starovagankovsky, lane, where house 17 corresponds to that described in the novel. There have never been any institutions resembling an “entertainment commission” at this address. The author spotted the house when he went to the library Rumyantsev Museum in the famous Pashkov house, on the roof-balustrade of which he deployed one of final scenes novel, and was a correspondent for the magazine “Voice of an Education Worker”; This is where the heroes of the essay “Birds in the Attic” published there live.

The hero, perhaps the only one whom the author sympathizes with, the employee of the Variety Show, the accountant Lastochkin, expects many experiences after a session of black magic. First with a taxi driver who suffered from counterfeit money. Then at the Commission for Shows and Entertainment of a Light Type, recognizable in the same GOMETS on Tsvetna Boulevard. A terrible scene awaited him there with the empty suit of Prokhor Prokhorovich and the sobbing secretary Anna Richardovna. Then in Vagankovsky Lane, already known to us, and finally, in the “financial entertainment sector” (the address of which one can only guess), where the ill-fated accountant was arrested...

The epilogue of the novel determines the fates of not only its main characters - the Master and Margarita. It tells what happened to other characters, including a Variety employee. Varenukha stayed, but Rimsky went to work! Children's Puppet Theater in Zamoskvorechye. A similar theater actually existed in that area of ​​the capital. Of course, without Rimsky. Under the name "Moscow Mobile puppet show“It was located near Ordynka, in 2nd Cossack Lane, building 11.

Styopa Likhodeev was transferred from Moscow's Sadovaya to Rostov as the manager of a large grocery store. It seems that Bulgakov chose the southern city for a reason. He visited there several times. And the largest Rostov grocery store was also located on Sadovaya Street (now Friedrich Engels is the main street of the city). Today's Rostovites know this old and well-equipped store (like the Moscow "Eliseevsky") in the same place, but under a different name...

Learn new things from books, look for answers to all your most intricate questions. Your Gordey Metky

Myagkov B. S.

Bulgakov on the Patriarchal / B. S. Myagkov. - M.: Algorithm, 2008

Photo source: komodda.com, www.bulgakov.ru, varlamov.me, nnm.me.

The image of the devil is a frequent occurrence in the works of world classics. Goethe, Lesage, Gogol and others gave him their understanding. Traditionally, the devil performs two missions: tempts and punishes a person. In M. Bulgakov’s novel “The Master and Margarita,” the devil appears to check whether the townspeople have “changed internally.” The scene in a variety show is of great importance for answering this question. Woland's retinue demonstrates various miracles, and the encounter with fantasy reveals many human vices. To begin with, Fagot demonstrates a trick with a deck of cards. Having delighted the audience, he publicly announces that the cards are “in the seventh row of citizen Parchevsky, just between the three-ruble note and the summons to appear in court in the case of paying alimony to citizen Zelkova.” Parchevsky becomes “all crimson with amazement,” because his true nature was previously hidden under the mask of decency. Bassoon does not rest on this and brings to the attention of the public that Parchevsky is a big fan of the game of poker. One of the climaxes of the episode is the rain of money. Suddenly, money begins to fly into the hall from under the dome. The author’s description of the public’s reaction to such “precipitations” is full of irony. Someone crawls in the aisle, someone climbs onto a chair with their feet and begins to catch pieces of paper. People begin to rush at each other, each trying to collect as much money as possible. After all, you don’t need to earn them, they appeared unexpectedly, on their own, you can spend them on anything and be completely happy about it. Next, Wolandov's retinue decides to surprise the audience by tearing off the head of the entertainer Bengalsky. It is here that the audience shows pity and sympathy, still characteristic of them, begging the artists to forgive the hapless entertainer. Woland concludes about them: “People are like people. They love money, but this has always been the case... Humanity loves money, no matter what it is made of, whether leather, paper, bronze or gold. Well, they are frivolous... well... and mercy sometimes knocks on their hearts... ordinary people... in general, they resemble the old ones... the housing issue has only spoiled them...” The public's temptation does not end there: a ladies' shop opens on the stage of the variety show. At first, timid, and then seized by passion, women begin to grab everything in a fantastic store, without any trying on, regardless of their size and taste. There is even a man who is afraid of missing out on a chance and, due to the absence of a wife, also begins to stock up on women's clothing. Unfortunately, all successful acquisitions later melt away on the ladies, and this has a symbolic meaning. The nakedness of bodies here is tantamount to the nakedness of the soul, demonstrating greed, materialism, greed. People are controlled by selfish, momentary desires. The “guest of honor” of the evening, chairman of the acoustic commission of Moscow theaters Arkady Apollonovich Sempleyarov, comes out with a demand to immediately expose the tricks. But they expose him himself. He turns out to be not at all as honorable a person as he imagined himself to be to others. Instead of meetings of the acoustic commission, Sempleyarov, as it turns out, visits the artist of the traveling regional theater, Militsa Andreevna Pokobatko, who, thanks to Sempleyarov’s disposition, gets her roles. In honor of Arkady Apollonovich, a march sounds at the end of the episode: His Excellency Loved poultry And took Pretty girls under his protection. Woland takes the position of a spectator studying the moral state of society and comes to disappointing conclusions: vices such as greed, cruelty, greed, deceit, hypocrisy are eternal.