The comedy “Woe from Wit” by A. S. Griboyedov occupies an exceptional place in the literature of its time and in Russian literature in general. She reflected the main political conflict of the era - the clash of the conservative forces of society with new people and new trends, and reflected it with all the passion and satirical force.
The noble figure of Chatsky - caring, active, fighting - represents, in essence, the type of Decembrist or a person who was ready to join the ranks of the Decembrists. But he is alone in the play and fights alone for now. Chatsky is contrasted with Molchalin - as a different type of behavior of a young man: outwardly decent, modest, but essentially vile. Famusov is depicted as a militant representative and “pillar” of the regime. In the image of Skalozub, Arakcheevism is branded - a disgusting product of the military-bureaucratic state. Famusov's daughter, Sophia, is not a completely clear character, causing different interpretations. She is also a product, but also a victim of the reactionary environment. The collective image of the Moscow reactionary gentry consists not only of these and other main characters of the comedy brought to the stage, but also of numerous fleeting images mentioned in monologues and remarks: the empty-headed “writer” Foma Fomich, the lordly Tatyana Yuryevna, the owner of the serf theater, who sold out “ one by one" his serf troupe
History of productions of "Woe from Wit"
The merits of the Russian drama theater are enormous in the development of the ideological and artistic merits of “Woe from Wit” by successive generations of society. Here the dramatic work receives an interpreter and propagandist, which the novel does not have. A. S. Griboyedov dreamed of publishing a comedy and staging it on stage. But the play is filled with echoes of Decembrism: it was unthinkable to bring it to the stage in 1825 - it would have been a political demonstration. Even an amateur performance by students of the Theater School, prepared with the participation of the author, was not allowed. Only in 1829, the year of Griboedov’s death, five years after it was written, “Woe from Wit” appeared on the St. Petersburg stage. The entertaining nature of the passage helped him soon appear on the Moscow stage. “Woe from Wit” had difficulty making its way onto the stage.
From the 1830s to the present day, comedy has been included in the repertoire of both capital and provincial theaters. Many artists became famous for playing roles in this play: M. S. Shchepkin, P. S. Mochalov, I. I. Sosnitsky, I. V. Samarin, V. N. Davydov, A. A. Yablochkina, O. O. Sadovskaya , V. N. Ryzhova, A. P. Lensky, A. I. Yuzhin, K. S. Stanislavsky, I. M. Moskvin, V. I. Kachalov, etc.
In January 1941, at the Leningrad Pushkin Theater, directors N. S. Rashevskaya and L. S. Vivien attracted such outstanding artists as E. P. Korchagina-Alexandrovskaya, V. A. Michurina-Samoilova to participate in the play, and nominated young performers: T. Aleshina (Sofya), V. Merkuryeva (Famusov). The performance was refreshed with some new mise-en-scenes. The production contains many episodes designed to approximate the high realistic style in which Griboyedov’s work itself was created. In the anniversary year of 1945, about forty theaters responded with productions of Griboyedov’s comedy. The unique feature of the anniversary was the inclusion of a number of national theaters in this work.
In the first years of Woe from Wit's stage life, the production of the play was of little concern to directors and critics; the play was still “modern”, and there was no question about costumes, makeup, setting, etc. The actors created their roles according to fresh legend, which came partly from the author himself, through Sosnitsky and Shchepkin. In their game they could directly copy one or another living typical Muscovites. The reviewers assessed only the degree of talent of the performers. Later, when the life depicted by Griboyedov began to recede into the historical past, the question of the tasks of staging a comedy came to the fore; it was inevitably associated with new revaluations of the entire comedy and its individual heroes. The entry of Woe from Wit on the stage marked a revolution in the history of Russian theater. That high realism for which the Russian theater became famous and entered the world history of art begins with the productions of “Woe from Wit.” Through the power of its realism, “Woe from Wit” re-educated the actors. Mochalov, who initially interpreted Chatsky in the style of a Molierean misanthrope, later became softer, more lyrical, and simpler. The realistic performance of Famusov by Shchepkin had its own meaningful and long history. A huge victory for psychological realism was the performance of the role of Chatsky in the 40s by the famous Moscow actor I.V. Samarin. Samarin's creative achievements, which influenced Chatsky's St. Petersburg performers, were also received by theater critics.
The creation of A. S. Griboyedov, with its high merits, enriched the Russian stage and contributed to the theater’s turn towards the path of realism. However, it was difficult for the theater to master the aesthetic and ideological riches of the play, and they were mastered gradually. There were also certain ambiguities, difficulties, and even partial contradictions in the text of the comedy that made it difficult to translate on stage. When it first appeared on stage, “Woe from Wit” encountered old traditions that were alien or hostile to the playwright’s bold innovation. I had to overcome backwardness and inertia in staging techniques and acting. But the high talents of the best performers and directors revealed the treasures of the work of genius and gradually created a rich tradition of stagecraft.
The love for “Woe from Wit” in Russian society became a beneficial factor in stage history; in the fight against censorship and the administration for the production of “Woe from Wit,” theater workers have always relied on society, on spectators and readers.
Famusov’s famous monologue “That’s why you are all proud!” - one of the foundations of the social and ethical characteristics of Famusov and at the same time - the “noble” nobility of Catherine’s time. Needless to say, how difficult this made the actor’s task, how many rich opportunities were lost for artistic embodiment in intonation, facial expressions, and in the entire performance of the actor. From Famusov’s remarks, theater censorship removed many other important and weighty words, for example:
Sergey Sergeich, no! Once evil is stopped:
They would take all the books and burn them.
Large exceptions were made in Chatsky's remarks and monologues. The entire theatrical text of the comedy was mutilated. Not only was socio-political satire softened or erased, but even psychological and everyday features were erased. Thus, the following self-characterization of Famusov was not allowed:
Look at me: I don’t boast about my build;
However, he was vigorous and fresh, and lived to see his gray hairs,
Free, widows, I am my own master.
Known for his monastic behavior!
And the actor, who knew the original, complete Griboyedov text, was forced to choke on his words in front of the audience.
The literary and stage history of the image of Sophia turned out to be complex. For many years and even decades, no actress was nominated to play the role of Sophia, and this was not an accident. Seventeen-year-old Sophia must be played by a young actress, but skills, artistic maturity and thoughtfulness are required from the most experienced, elderly actress. According to legend, some actresses at first refused to play Sophia. The image of Sophia, which many authoritative connoisseurs of literature found unclear, contains a complex and difficult combination of three mental series: deep, strong, hot nature, external bookish sentimentality and corrupting public education. This combination made it very difficult to criticize both the directors and the performers.
The role of Lisa is akin to the traditional classical role of the French soubrette. The stage embodiment of the bright typical characters of Griboyedov's comedy was extremely difficult. It was immeasurably easier to replace the creative task of stage typification with mechanical copying of living persons, prototypes, originals, searching for those who were then carried away, or to equate Griboedov’s images with stencil “roles.” “Woe from Wit” contributed to a change in the methods of stage creativity. The characters in the play were so artistically developed that the gifted actor was given the opportunity to highlight a “minor” or “third-rate” role. Thus, in the first performances, the performers of the Gorich spouses, Repetilov - I. I. Sosnitsky, Skalozub - P. V. Orlov, and later - the countess-grandmother - O. O. Sadovskaya came to the fore.
A thorough reading of a truly Griboyedov text provides, in itself, both the director and the actor with everything basic necessary for the stage embodiment of the play. The theater also has well-developed biographical, historical, historical, everyday, historical and theatrical materials. Special theater literature on “Woe from Wit” is as rich as any other special literature on productions of masterpieces of Russian drama. Now, each new performer of the role of Famusov, Chatsky, Sophia, Molchalin, Liza, Skalozub has a great heritage of theatrical experience and theatrical thought.
"Woe from Wit" on the modern stage
In 2000, the play was staged at the Moscow Maly Theater by director Sergei Zhenovach. Deliberate asceticism on stage, the desire to hold on to the author's material by all means rather than to reveal an attitude towards it, inconspicuous, non-aggressive direction are signs of a new performance. “Woe from Wit” by Zhenovich in the repertoire of Maly “Woe from Wit” looks like “a piece of the avant-garde”. If only because the theater had never seen such poverty on stage: no elegant interiors, no everyday life; in the foreground there is a tall stove as a symbol of the house and a couch, in the background there are three or four chairs from the same set. The rest of the space is filled with wide, monochromatic planes, sometimes moving towards the wings, sometimes forming the geometry of conventional doors and walls.
The first act belongs entirely to Yuri Solomin in the role of Famusov. Not a dad, not a fat idiot, not a Moscow nobleman - in the firm gait of this Famusov, in the speed of his movements, the bearing of a retired officer of the “Suvorov” origin is noticeable. The fit, slender widower Famusov likes to be the master of his own home. In his sleek hand with a ring is a white lace scarf - and he twirls it like an officer’s glove, giving orders, encouraging, pardoning and punishing. In no way a martinet or a warrior, he is rather a “father to soldiers”, accustomed to being easily obeyed and even loved.
The morning bustle annoys him, just as his daughter Sophia (Irina Leonova) sometimes annoys him. He is trying to replace her mother (and in this desire, probably, is the necessary touching “little man” performed by Solomin), but he doesn’t know how, doesn’t know how. And he gets angry that it doesn’t work out. Famusov pronounces a monologue about “Kuznetsky Most and the Eternal French,” hating this whole world of coquetry and affectation; for him these are women's tricks. He writes out his life together with Petrushka in his calendar in the same way as schoolchildren line their notebooks - tedious, boring, but necessary. Famusov feels the same about his daughter - she needs to be constantly taken care of; "motherhood" is very tiring for him. He treats Chatsky like a clot of dust - although it’s disgusting to touch, he has to bend down and remove it, throw it under the bed. And therefore, the final reprisal of both is a real joy for Famusov; He deals with the servants in a fatherly way - he hits them on the head with his fist, makes them kneel, and whips them with a handkerchief. Wearily shouts to Sophia: “Into the wilderness! To Sa-ra-tov!” - and with his index finger he pokes somewhere down, deeper and deeper into the ground.
Famusov does not notice the complexity of life, he is ready to reproach his daughter for a love adventure in the manner of a French novel, although almost an ancient tragedy is playing out in Sophia’s soul. Exile to Saratov is a real joy for her, a monastery where it will be easier to survive a fatal mistake. She herself wants to punish herself for blindness and slow-wittedness.
The tragic tension in the relationship between the main characters of the play is so great and exciting that the ball scene is needed here only as an emotional respite, a comic interlude. Pavlov in the role of Zagoretsky, Pankov and Kayurov - Tugoukhovsky, Eremeeva - Countess Khryumina. The main person at the ball - Khlestova - Elina Bystritskaya - floats out from behind the scenes as a winner-queen with soft, silk feathers woven into her hair. Her behavior, body turns, hand movements, changes in facial expressions - a refined style of “carrying yourself”, inherent in both the character and the actress.
Chatsky was played by Gleb Podgorodinsky. His Chatsky is quiet, almost inconspicuous - dressed all in black, he looks like a dark spot, a shadow against the monochromatic background of the stage frames. They don’t listen to him, they avoid him, he has no chance of success. Thanks to this ineffectiveness and dullness, Podgorodinsky’s Chatsky seems, despite all theories, smart: he speaks his mind. Chatsky is out of this world. The most powerful monologue performed by Podgorodinsky will unexpectedly sound: “A Frenchman from Bordeaux, pushing his chest.” Sitting on a chair and looking straight into the audience, he says with deep, almost suicidal despair: “Moscow and St. Petersburg - in all of Russia that / That a man from the city Bordeaux, / As soon as he opens his mouth, has the happiness / To inspire sympathy in all princesses."
The statist Chatsky (similar here to the statist Griboyedov), who thinks and knows more about the foreign and domestic policies of Russia than about the laws of behavior in society, does not recognize Moscow in Moscow, just as he does not see his former love in Sophia. He sees a loose, sluggish, insignificant piece of land, where everything is someone else’s, not ours.
At the Taganka Theater, Yu. Lyubimov staged “Woe from Wit” for his 90th birthday (2008). “If you miss Russian classics, but want to feel a breath of fresh air and be surprised by the unexpected novelty of what has already been traveled far and wide, then this is the place for you,” writes Dmitry Romendik. The critic notes the freshness, lightness, airiness and grace of what is happening on stage. The director reminds us that, despite all the seriousness and longevity of the questions posed, Griboyedov’s masterpiece is still, and probably first of all, a comedy. He is not afraid of laughter and encourages us to laugh, because laughter is a powerful cleansing element in which everything inauthentic, inert and outdated must perish, and the viable, having passed through laughter, on the contrary, will come to life and sparkle with new colors.
The characters are presented precisely as shadows, as silhouettes. Famusov, Skalozub, Molchalin, the guests at the ball are so recognizable, “shaped” by many years of theatrical history and built into our consciousness from childhood, that it is no longer possible to portray them as living people without ironic distance. We see in front of us “Famusov”, “Skalozub”, “Prince Tugoukhovsky”, “Countess Khryumina”, and it seems that in another minute - and all of them, as if by magic, will lose volume, weight, and become flat. Of course, Chatsky stands out against this inanimate background, who, as a person who thinks independently, does not merge with the environment. Artist Timur Badalbeyli plays him with psychological motivation. It is no coincidence that the artist’s appearance is given features of similarity to Alexander Sergeevich Griboyedov. Sofia, whose soul Chatsky is trying to win back from the Famusovs and Mollins, palpably balances on the edge between their shadow-likeness and his animation, that is, between two worlds. Like the other female characters in the play, the cunning director put Sofia (Elizaveta Levashova) on pointe shoes and gave her image an intricate choreographic design. There is a lot of music in this performance (in addition to the music of A. S. Griboyedov himself, works by I. Stravinsky, F. Chopin, G. Mahler, V. Martynov are heard).
The sense of relevance that made Lyubimov famous in the 80s does not betray him even now: his “Woe from Wit” is a brilliant satirical illustration of modernity. Here, rumors about Chatsky's madness are spread according to the laws of black PR: this is how it turns out that even friends find in him the traits of an idiot. In this modern reality, the ability to think sharply and instantly analyze the situation is incredibly in demand. Chatsky no longer looks like a victim of his own causticism, but a hero of our century - a creative or manager for whom a scandal is an effective way to promote himself. Reveling in his intellectual superiority, he behaves so confidently that one wonders whether, in his three-year wanderings, he managed to work as an excise broker somewhere on the New York stock exchange. And when in the finale Chatsky is offered a carriage, it seems that he will be given at least a Porsche, and even a Ferrari.
The play “Woe from Wit” is also staged at the Sovremennik Theater. The fact that this work is staged in Sovremennik tells us that “Woe from Wit” remains relevant, modern today. The production of the famous Lithuanian director Rimas Tuminas caused great controversy and was not received unambiguously. The leading roles are played by famous artists Sergei Garmash (Famusov), Marina Aleksandrovna (Sofya), Daria Belousova (Liza), Vladislav Vetrov (Molchalin), Ivan Stebunov (Chatsky) and others.
Grigory Zaslavsky writes in Nezavisimaya Gazeta on December 13, 2007: “The director has decisively reduced, one might even say, brutally dealt with the textbook text.” The critic presents the performance quite harshly: “What is definitely impossible is for there to be neither Sophia nor Chatsky in Woe from Wit. In the meantime, at the premiere, both of them remained in the shadow of the brightly portrayed Famusov (Sergei Garmash). Famusov, of course, is the main character, but Chatsky and Sophia are not episodic characters. And here, in fact, you can’t tell anything special about them. Nothing good. Sofia (Marina Alexandrova) is, of course, a beauty, but as soon as she begins to speak, her charm disappears somewhere and soon fades away. In plastic she is almost perfect, in words - alas. Chatsky (Ivan Stebunov) shouts a lot, and although his role accounts for a good half of all the director’s fantasies, behind them one can still see some kind of acting inexperience or immaturity. Maybe the immaturity of the role. However, one of the main premises of Tuminas’s play is that to Famusov both Sophia and Sasha (Alexander Andreich Chatsky) are both like their own children, and he is sad that Chatsky is such a lame, a klutz, and most likely unhealthy.”
However, no matter how critics accept the new production of Sovremennik, almost everyone notes that Rimas Tuminas’ production does not leave anyone indifferent.
Marina Zayonts in “Itogi” dated December 24, 2007 writes: “Recently, most of the performances seen, bad and average, decent and not so, are instantly forgotten. They don't cling to anything. There is no living life in them, everything is familiar, familiar, erased and boring to the point of despair. But a contemporary performance, so-and-so, awkward, you can’t get out of your head, it really hurt. Even if he outraged someone, forced him to be angry - these are living feelings, exciting, born here and now. From time immemorial the theater has been based on them, but we have begun to lose the habit. “Woe from Wit,” a dramatic essay in verse by the writer Griboedov, instantly forms standard pictures for all of us. They took place at school and memorized accusatory monologues by heart. We all know about “a million torments” and about Famusov’s Moscow, alarmed by “what Princess Marya Aleksevna will say!” Rimas Tuminas also studied in a Soviet school, and he knows about the Decembrist Chatsky, and about the stagnant serf owner Famusov. It seems that since then he has been sick of all this carrion. At the very least, his performance actively conflicts with tradition (read, cliches), fighting to the point of skin and blood. So much so that the well-known work, disseminated into proverbs and sayings, is now unrecognizable. And it’s not worth trying.”
Vladimir Putin visited the Sovremennik Theater and behind the scenes was indignant at the “weakness” of Chatsky in the interpretation of Rimas Tuminas and the performance of actor Ivan Stebunov. According to the head of the Russian state, Chatsky is a “strong man” and should not cry.
The interpretation of “Chatsky the truth-fighter and Chatsky the enlightener” was criticized by Griboyedov’s contemporaries, including Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin, who wrote in a letter to Bestuzhev: “The first sign of an intelligent person is to know at first glance who you are dealing with and not throw pearls in front of the Repetilovs and the like. »
Vladimir Putin remarked: “I’m not afraid to seem unprofessional here, because I’m not a professional, but why did you show him, Chatsky, crying from the very beginning? One immediately gets the impression of him as a weak person.” The director, speaking about his interpretation, recalled that Chatsky was an orphan left without relatives. However, this argument did not satisfy the president: “I’m afraid to make a mistake, but Alexander Matrosov was also an orphan, but he covered the embrasure with himself. He's a strong man."
Putin’s interpretation of the image of Chatsky as a strong fighter for truth, going against the inert world, is taken straight from Soviet school textbooks. In this incarnation, “Chatsky is undoubtedly a representative of an advanced society, people who do not want to put up with remnants, reactionary orders and are actively fighting against them.”
The director of the previous production of “Woe from Wit” on the Sovremennik stage, Oleg Efremov, considered this vision naive and weak.
Pyotr Weil and Alexander Genis agree with this: “If Chatsky is stupid, everything is fine. This is how it should be: it is not appropriate for a person full of depth and strength to now and then psychopathically burst into long speeches, constantly make puns and make fun of subjects unworthy of attention.”
Conclusion.
You can agree or disagree with the interpretation of modern directors of the famous play. One thing is certain: A. S. Griboyedov’s comedy “Woe from Wit” is immortal if it makes our contemporaries, representatives of the 21st century, think, suffer, argue
LESSON – DIRECTING
BY A.S. COMEDY GRIBOEDOVA
"WOE FROM MIND"
Goals:
characterization of the images of the main characters of the comedy “Woe from Wit” based on what they read; acquaintance with the stage history of the play and contemporary actors;
developing the skills to express one’s point of view in a reasoned manner, based on the text of a work of art, and to embody one’s creative ideas;
development of critical thinking of students;
nurturing interest in Russian literature, modern culture, stage history of literary masterpieces.
Methods: conversation, story, dramatization
PROGRESS OF THE LESSON
We continue to work on Griboyedov’s comedy “Woe from Wit.” What type of work does this work belong to? What dramatic works have you already studied?
- “The Inspector General” N.V. Gogol, “The Minor” by D.I. Fonvizin.
Call stage
Among the enormous riches of Russian classical literature, Alexander Sergeevich Griboedov’s comedy “Woe from Wit,” completed by him in 1824, occupies a special place. Created in the era of preparation for the knightly feat of the Decembrists - people “forged from pure steel” (Herzen), the comedy “Woe from Wit” spoke about the conflicts and moods of that tense time, caused controversy that has continued to this day, for almost two centuries, and thus gained eternal life.
Comedy has played a major role in the history of literature and theater. For a century, comedy served not only as an adornment of the Russian stage, but also as a school of acting.
Slide 2 P.A. Katenin wrote: “...Griboyedov, writing his comedy, could really hope that Russian censorship would allow it to be played and published.”
A.P. Bestuzhev: “The future will appreciate this comedy and place it among the first folk creations.”
Let us, living in the 20th century, in the 90s, try to imagine that we are now in a small theater, you are actors who are participating in the discussion of roles, heroes, and I am the director. On stage we have to play the comedy “Woe from Wit”. I’m not saying specifically who will play what role.
OUR GOAL imagine these characters, their appearance and internal content, actively participate in this discussion, try to stage some fragments, remembering the idea and problems of comedy. Any questions?
So, let's get to work. Comedy, from the first days of its appearance in print, has not left the theater stage. Let's contact the historical fund of our theater to find out more.
about the stage history of comedy.
Stage of comprehension. Working with text. Technique “Notes in the margins” (Insert). When reading the text, put notes in the margins:
Slides 4 -7
"V" - what is known;
"-" something that contradicts the ideas of the readers;
"+" - what is new;
"?" - there was a desire to learn about what was described in more detail.
The first attempt to stage “Woe from Wit” was made on their school stage by students of the St. Petersburg Theater School. The school inspector initially objected, but then agreed. Everyone was looking forward to the premiere, but the military governor, Count Miloradovich, banned it, warning the authorities and students that “a comedy not approved by the censorship cannot be allowed to play at the theater school.”
In 1906, the play was staged by V. I. Nemirovich-Danchenko at the Moscow Art Theater. Chatsky was played by V.I. Kachalov. The production at the Moscow Maly Theater in 1910 was called a “great joyful event.” Famusov was played by Rybakov, Repetilov by Yuzhin. Even small roles were performed by leading theater actors: Ermolova, Nikulina, Yablochkina. The Maly Theater focused on criticizing the morals prevailing in noble society, and the comedy became a satire of tremendous power
A.I.Yuzhin A.A. Yablochkina as Sophia
The first resumption of comedy on the Soviet stage was a performance at the Maly Theater in 1921.
From the 19th century to the present day, the most visited and famous productions of “Woe from Wit” are those at the Maly Theater.
One of the outstanding performers of the role of Chatsky was M. I. Tsarev. In the early 60s, M.I. Tsarev staged the comedy in the Griboedov style, as they had previously played at the Maly Theater. This time Tsarev played Famusov. Chatsky was also played by V. Solomin.
M. Tsarev - Chatsky, I. Likso - Sophia.
M. Klimov as Famusov 
Vitaly Solomin as Chatsky
In the 90s, the Moscow Art Theater director O. Efremov introduced a new word into the theatrical history of “Woe from Wit”. The audience saw a light, cheerful and at the same time comedy that did not lose Griboyedov’s brightness.
In 1998, the comedy was directed by O. Menshikov. Griboyedov's text has been preserved in its entirety, but the viewer does not hear a single familiar intonation. This brilliant game is hard to describe. It is not for nothing that the performance is constantly sold out. O. Menshikov (Chatsky) masterfully conveys the drama of a man who finds himself a stranger in a place where until recently he was loved by everyone.
Analytical conversation based on the text (selectively). What was new for you? What would you like to know more about?
Now let's remember the problems posed in the comedy.
Slide 8 Reception "Wheel of Problems".
(students identify problems and then rank them in order of importance (if possible)). On the board we draw a wheel, divided into several parts, and write down the problems.
1.The problem of true and false patriotism
2. The problem of spiritual impoverishment of a person under the influence of society
3. The problem of choosing between feelings and principles.
4.The problem of the relationship between serf owners and serfs.
5. The problem of rejection of a person due to opposing values
So, based on the leading problems of comedy, we will try to figure out how actors should play the roles of the main characters.
Slide 9 Before us is a Famusov house: its furnishings and everyday details are not highlighted, not emphasized. The first phenomena pass in the rhythm of familiar everyday life.
And suddenly the rhythm immediately changes - one of the main characters, Alexander Andreevich Chatsky, appears in Famusov’s house.
How should an actor show Chatsky?
There is a conversation about how an actor should show Chatsky? In the image: 25-30 years old, handsome, serious, well-built, honest, does not tolerate lies, is not afraid to tell the truth. Sharp, smart, eloquent.
This is how the nobles entered life on December 14, 1825. Who, by the way, was the prototype of Chatsky ? (Chaadaev and Kuchelbecker - Decembrists)
Teacher: In the first act, the word “happiness” is on my lips. How does Chatsky understand happiness?
(serve the cause, but “I would be glad to serve, it’s sickening to be served”). Chatsky is not like everyone else, he is smarter, more noble, has his own views on life, they contradict the views of Famusov and his circle
Slide 10 (photo of O. Menshikov in the role of Chatsky).
Creating a cluster Slide 11 (blank)
Slide 12
We are selecting an actor for the role of Famusov.
Famusov is old, he is 60 years old, he flirts with Lizonka, he is moderately well-fed, with a paunch.
Teacher: What's the best way to show it? Think about how he spent his time. How does he spend his time mostly? (Read action 2, phenomenon 1).
We conclude: imprint on his appearance: he must be overweight, Famusov is rude (addressing Petrushka - although close in age), speaks unceremoniously with a man of his age. This rudeness is confirmed by the appeal to Filka (act 4, phenomenon 14). We read: “I made a lazy grouse into a doorman...”
How does Famusov understand “happiness”? “Yes, it’s lucky to have a son like that (like Skalozub). There seems to be an order in his buttonhole?(D 2.Yavl5)
Slide 12 (photo by I. Okhlupin as Famusov)
Creating a cluster
Slide 13
Teacher: What should Molchalin be like?
(suggested answers) He is pleasant-looking (Sophia loves him). But Sophia herself did not see Molchalin’s shallow requests or inner emptiness. It must be shown in such a way that it will appeal to the influential representatives of the old world. His hair is probably neatly styled. He is young, but fit to sit all evening with the influential old woman Khlestova playing cards.
Teacher: What is Molchalin’s credo?
Achieve a career, please, value the opinions of influential people. He will never express his opinion, he says this: “At my age” I should not dare to have my own opinion.”(action 3, phenomenon 3).
Be obedient, quiet, or at least appear so:
“My father bequeathed to me:
First, please all people without exception -
The owner, where he will live,
To his servant, who cleans the dress,
Doorman, janitor, to avoid harm.
To the janitor's dog, to be more affectionate..."
(action 4, phenomenon 12)
Teacher: how should he move around the stage?
Insinuatingly, because he is obsequious, that’s why his figure is special.And be sure to show his meanness. He deceives Sophia. In the last scene he says to Lisa:
"And now I take the form of a lover
To please the daughter of such a man..."
(action 4, phenomenon 12)
Teacher: Or maybe he cannot do otherwise, because if he refuses Sophia’s reciprocation, he will be denied his place.
(suggested answers)
You can’t humiliate yourself like that because of money and a career. And in relations with women, Molchalin shows dishonesty, gossiping with Lisa about Sophia. The emptiness of his heart helps him pretend and deceive; he is extremely cynical, and therefore does not evoke feelings of sympathy.
During the dialogue, the teacher tries to listen to all the answers, expressing his opinion as an equal opinion or as an assumption. Draws attention to respect for other people's opinions
Teacher: And then, when he sees that Sophia finds out about his feelings, he crawls on his knees in front of her. This is how he crawls on his knees into this world towards his career. He sees happiness in “looting and having fun.”
Slide 13 (photo by A. Zavyalov-Molchalin).
Compiling a syncwine
Technique “Writing a syncwine”.
The rules for writing syncwine are as follows.
The first line contains one word - a noun. This is the theme of syncwine.
On the second line you need to write two adjectives that reveal the theme of syncwine.
On the third line they write three verbs describing actions related to the topic of syncwine. The fourth line contains a whole phrase, a sentence consisting of several words, with the help of which the student expresses his attitude to the topic. This could be a catchphrase, a quote, or a phrase composed by the student in the context of the topic.
The last line is a summary word that gives a new interpretation of the topic and allows you to express a personal attitude towards it.
Molchalin
Mean, selfish.
Assents, pleases, looks after.
Has gained a good reputation.
Teacher: Molchalin is crawling towards the goal, and Skalozub? Slide
This one will pass through. He rejoices when:
“Vacancies are just open:
Then the elders will turn off others,
The others, you see, have been killed..."
(action 2, phenomenon 5
Slide 15
This hero must be shown as a tall, martinet without any intelligent thought in his face, since Sophia is right:
“He never said a smart word.”
“He’s a gold bag and aims to be a general.”
How should we show Sophia?
It is better to show the beautiful, but spiritually poor, if she did not see the scoundrel in Molchalin, she preferred Molchalin to Chatsky, he was according to her narrow-minded requests:
“Compliant, modest, quiet,
Not a shadow of worry in his face,
He doesn’t cut strangers at random, -
That's why I love him."
Teacher: The words of M. Zabolotsky fit it:
“And if so, then what is beauty,
And why do people deify her?
She is a vessel in which there is emptiness
Or a fire flickering in a vessel?
In my opinion, Sophia is this vessel in which there is emptiness.
Suggested answers: I believe that Sophia is thissacrifice the system in which she lives. After Chatsky left, there was no one nearby who could influence her. There were no those who were an example for her.
And I think that Sophia cannot be shown as stupid. She is naturally smart, she has a rich imagination, she composes fascinating dreams on the go, loves music, and reads.Sophia is a victim of the world around her. According to her ideas, Molchalin is a worthy couple.
Teacher: Think about how to leave Chatsky and Sophia? Will Sofya forgive Molchalin? Or maybe he’ll bow his head on Chatsky’s chest? Therefore, your homework will be write a mini-story “The further fate of the heroes of the comedy “Woe from Wit”
Now I bring to your attention a fragment of the performance staged by Oleg Menshikov. Let's look at the fragment.
Tell me, did the actors manage to convey the personal qualities of the characters? Which?
(suggested answers) Famusov is arrogant and tactless.
Chatsky is energetic, does not try to please Famusov, says what he thinks.
Now that we have figured out which actors should play the heroes, let's try what would happen to you if you played these roles.
Dramatization of dialogue Molchalin and Chatsky “We are Alexey Stepanych, with you... to the point of words... There are a ton of artists, I am not one of them.”
Question to the class: how did the guys perform?
Now let's get acquainted with the actors, our contemporaries, who play the main roles in Oleg Menshikov's production.
Slide 16 Oleg Menshikov's production of "Woe from Wit" is a theatrical bestseller in recent years. A performance that has been awaited for a long time and which the audience truly loved. Evidence of this is the continuous sold out crowds. ... The directorial debut of one of the brightest actors in Russian theater and cinema, despite some skeptical forecasts, turned out to be more than successful, and at the end of the 2000 theater season, Oleg Menshikov presented the audience with another surprise .
Demonstration of photos with the names of the actors on slides 17-23
| Pavel Afanasyevich Famusov | Igor Okhlupin |
| Sofya Pavlovna | Olga Kuzina |
| Lizanka, maid | Polina Agureeva |
| Alexey Stepanovich Molchalin | Alexey Zavyalov |
| Alexander Andreevich Chatsky | Oleg Menshikov |
| Colonel Skalozub, Sergei Sergeevich | Sergey Pinchuk |
| Anfisa Nilovna Khlestova | Ekaterina Vasilyeva |
Conclusion: The comedy “Woe from Wit” does not leave the stage these days and is a great success among viewers. I think that you will demonstrate your acting skills more successfully in the next lesson.
Reflection stage. Technique “Thin and thick questions”
Now let's split into two groups.
Group 1 comes up with questions that require a clear answer regarding the topic of the lesson.
Group 2 – questions requiring a detailed answer.
Start of questions in the table.
| give an explanation why... |
|
| why do you think... |
|
| why do you think... |
|
| what's the difference... |
|
| guess what will happen if... |
|
| what if... |
|
| what was the name... | |
| was it... | |
| do you agree... | |
Reading questions by students.
Teacher: Prepare answers for these questions for the test lesson.
What do you think the purpose of today's lesson was?
Has the goal been achieved?
How do you evaluate your performance in achieving the lesson goal?
While these new works were being prepared, the 1906/07 season was opened with a performance that seemed to be of a completely different, “old” direction. Griboyedov's "Woe from Wit" was again staged together by Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko, and it was still designed by Simov with the help of N. Kolupaev. The performance was intended specifically “for a large public, which ceases to be completely interested in the theater when there is no play in it that is understandable to them *.” This is what Stanislavsky wrote, referring to the “hatred” of the conservative part of the public for the plays of the “new direction” and the need to make repertoire “compromises”.
* (From a letter from K. S. Stanislavsky to A. M. Gorky, July 1905 - Collection. soch., vol. 7, p. 323.)
Indeed, “Woe from Wit” seemed to completely return the theater to the line of museum-accurate reproduction of life, history, and the atmosphere of the 20s of the last century. Although Stanislavsky, during the days of the armed uprising, “tried to prove that Woe from Wit is the only play suitable for the revolution,” the producers did not at all strive for such a modern interpretation of the play, in tune with the political events in the country. It is characteristic that in the same entry there follows a later crossed out phrase: “Why “Woe from Wit” is such a suitable play for the revolution, I, of course, did not know.” And this was true - in the sense, of course, that the directors then did not consider it necessary to sharpen the accusatory socio-political line of the play.
The very concept of “revolutionism” lived in their minds in the abstract form of humanity’s eternal desire for “freedom of spirit.” It is characteristic that, seeing in “Woe from Wit” those “battle notes that ring our modern life *,” Nemirovich-Danchenko still believed that “the ideal opening [of the season] would be “Brand.” Because this is the most revolutionary the play that I only know is revolutionary in the best and deepest sense of the word.” 6. It is clear that “Brand,” in which the idea of transforming society appeared in an abstract form, fully corresponded to the directors’ ideas about revolutionism at that time. “Woe from Wit” is interpreted in accordance with this.
* (Vl. I. Nemirovich-Danchenko. Selected letters. M., “Iskusstvo”, 1954, p. 273. 8 From a letter to Stanislavsky. Moscow Art Theater Museum, archive N. -D., No. 1622.)
The director's plan, written almost entirely in 1905 by Nemirovich-Danchenko in his usual literary-narrative manner (with small notes from Stanislavsky in the third act), primarily reflects the intention of the directors to move away from the established theatrical traditions of performing comedy: from the usual manner of “reading” famous monologues , from banal stage images. So that Griboyedov's heroes appear not as they were played, but as they lived under Griboyedov. For this reason, it is necessary to restore the living life of that time, so that the actors could play not a “pamphlet”, but “an everyday comedy, live in images.” For this purpose, the monologues of Chatsky and Famusov should take a secondary place, and the deep plot of the play should come to the fore.
In this regard, it is necessary first of all to return to the pre-censorship museum manuscript, restore those beautiful poems that were previously erased, and approve the new text of the comedy (which was done with the help of a special commission consisting of V.V. Kallash, P.D. Boborykin , A. N. Veselovsky and V. V. Yakushkin). Then you need to clear your ideas about the heroes: Liza can no longer be played as a “Moliere soubrette,” Molchalin as a “lack,” Famusov as a “serf-owner,” and Chatsky as a “revealer of morals.” “First of all, we need to free ourselves from those shackles that the fame of “Woe from Wit” imposes on performers,” writes Nemirovich-Danchenko. “For us, for example, Chatsky is no longer primarily an exposer of social vices and Famusov with his serfdom views is not primarily an object Chatsky's denunciations * ". In each role it is necessary to unearth its vital basis.
The image of Chatsky was subjected to the greatest revision. Instead of a “tell-all”, “ardent reasoner”, “tragic hero”, a fully established political “figure”, the directors offered the actor to play in Chatsky an ardent, “free-spirited” young man of about 23 years old. “Chatsky is just an ardent young man, talented and smart, but young, just an emerging future figure,” they asserted. There is no need to look for Chaadaev in him - “the similarities between them are the most fleeting and insignificant.”
Insisting on such a characterization of Chatsky, fully arguing for it, Nemirovich-Danchenko touches on both the modern and eternal meaning of the image. He expresses an idea that is perhaps the most important and decisive for the entire director’s plan for the production. “The modern age has bred a countless number of Molchalins in Russian society. Of all the types of “Woe from Wit,” this is hardly the strongest, the most tenacious, the most sticky, the most productive. And precisely because Griboyedov did not give Chatsky a major figure, but only the sprouts of a future figure, precisely because the persecutor of the Molchalins is depicted not as some Chaadaev, Nordov, Pestel, Odoevsky, Bestuzhev and the like... a political figure, but as still young, only promising, talented and witty, but not yet mature man, that is why Molchalin remained on his feet for a whole ¾ of a century. Chatsky could not destroy him. Yes, a real Russian man of the 19th century always had the distinctive feature of not killing a nonentity, but passing by him with contempt. Such are all our poets, and Pushkin, and. Gogol, and L. Tolstoy, and Turgenev, and Chekhov... They all teach the same thing.”
This is the director's position. Logically brought to the end, it concerns the very essence of the worldview, the decisive issues of the humanism of artists. So the point is not even that Chatsky is still young, but that a “real Russian man” is not inclined to “kill a nonentity.” That is why such a “universal” plan for the performance was chosen, which does not affect the full severity of the modern political situation. Without entering into an open struggle with meanness, the performance seemed to have to “pass by” it with contempt towards eternal questions, drawing a thread from the everyday life of history to a generalization that rises above “politics”, above time.
The directors put the general meaning of the comedy into the broad theme of slander as a theme of eternal insignificance that the hero is unable to destroy. In this regard, the entire third act receives special development, where, gradually increasing, slander is fabricated and, like a boulder from the mountains, falls on Chatsky - “a harmful and empty rumor from a Moscow factory.” For this purpose, Chatsky’s monologue in the fourth act, where he depicts the birth of slander, was restored from the museum manuscript:
O idle, pitiful, petty light! There is no need for food - a fairy tale, nonsense A liar will let them go to please them, A fool will repeat it, pass it on, Old women who will sound the alarm - and here is public opinion! And here is Moscow!.. etc.
It is important that it is “from the appearance on stage of Mr. N and D that the play begins to boil with a real scenic upsurge... Slander finds excellent soil... - it creeps, expands, captures all corners, and when Chatsky, enveloped in it and unsuspectingly reappears on stage, she creates a truly dramatic, beautiful stage moment. The art of the theater should be aimed at depicting the growth of this slander in relief and with exciting gradualism.
"Woe from Wit" (1906), scene from Act 3
* (Sergei Glagol (S. S. Goloushev). Art Theater and "Woe from Wit". - "Moscow Weekly", 1906, No. 21, p. 44.)
"Woe from Wit" (1906). Chatsky - V. Kachalov
It is clear that the Chatsky played by V.I. Kachalov is “young, naturally cheerful and gentle, talkative and playful, boldly witty, passionate, madly in love... lyrical, “emotional” Chatsky *”, that lonely , “the free-spirited “enfant terrible” was powerless to enter into the “struggle” against the “mad world”, where “the meanest traits of a past life” are always teeming. Where is Famusov - Stanislavsky, in whom the “quiet animal voluptuousness” of a hypocrite and a hypocrite “constantly splashes” , “gloatingly inflates gossip” and “suddenly becomes pale and scary, like a ghost **.” In this world, Chatsky cannot be a winner, gradually “he becomes bilious and caustic... offended, offended and completely broken ***.” in the finale. “In the final remark: “A carriage for me, a carriage,” spoken in a fallen and as if torn voice, one could hear... the exhaustion of a completely tormented soul, and not a challenge to those from whom Chatsky is running... **** "
*** (Sergey Glagol. Quote above article, page 46.)
**** (Exter [Al. I. Vvedensky]. "Woe from Wit" on the stage of the Art Theater. - "Moskovskie Vedomosti", September 29, 1906)
This decision, which sharply broke with all traditional ideas about the play, was understood by few of his contemporaries. With the exception of the critics quoted above, the press quite unanimously accused the theater of distorting the author, that “Moliere was taken away from Griboedov,” that they showed us “prosaic nonsense, the Flemish school’s motley dirty linen,” - and it will be, - exclaimed Yuri Belyaev. - And that’s enough! * “But the main accusation was the belittling, “simplification” of Chatsky’s image. Oddly enough, the Novoye Vremya camp tried harder than anyone else: “Poor Chatsky! Yesterday he was humiliated and destitute to the extreme.” This point of view of Yu. Belyaev was solidly supported by A. Suvorin himself. “I am of the opinion,” he taught, “that Chatsky is a heroic personality, a romantic, a Byronist, a great and original mind.” Kachalov turned him “into a very ordinary mortal... The monologues disappeared... **” Another, equally “liberal” critic, N. Roslavlev, reproached the director for the fact that “his Chatsky is not the Russia of the future, but the Russia of the present “, and drew a direct analogy between this Chatsky and “our revolution ***” (interpreted, of course, in the spirit of the famous “Manifesto of October 17th”). His conclusion sounded quite sad: “...It began to seem that Chatsky had never been in Russia, but that he “always will be,” that is, that we will always wait for him...” And this conclusion was not so far from the truth.
*** ("...Isn’t our revolution the same Chatsky? Throw away the scum of socialists, anarchists, Jews... Stop only on the wave driven by the successive liberal current of Russian thought: didn’t it roll to us, like Chatsky to Famusov, "from the ship to the ball," full of hope, faith, love... and didn’t she meet in us, in the ruling stratum, the false and corrupted Sophia? Didn’t we act with the act of October 17 as badly as Moscow did with Chatsky? Black Hundreds, Octobrists , Cadets, Socialists and above all of them - the smug face of the Prime Minister... Well, isn’t there a similarity here with the Skalozubs, Famusovs, Molchalins, Repetilovs and Zagoretskys?” (N. Roslavlev. Thoughts. - "St. Petersburg Gazette", May 3, 1907).)
Thus, the new performance of the Moscow Art Theater involuntarily came into close contact with reality. It revealed in its own way the artists’ own life position, their understanding of revolutionism and heroism, their attitude to the decisive problems of humanism. This is probably why “Griboedov’s old comedy turned out to be the most sensational performance in the two capitals during the entire theater season of this year *.”
* (F. Batyushkov. Moscow Art Theater tour. From everyday life to symbol. - "Modern World", 1907, May, p. 61.)
For Stanislavsky, although he worked less actively here as a director than Nemirovich-Danchenko, this production was also far from accidental. Having initially conceived “Woe from Wit” as a kind of “respite” from his quest, as a well-known “compromise” for the “large public,” the director could not help but feel that this brilliant work gave him the opportunity to express both his attitude to life and his artistic position. It is not without reason that his brilliant staging of the third act revealed not only his previous mastery of solving “folk scenes”, not only the ability to weave a sparkling living background out of thousands of scenic splashes, but also the desire to give it a generalized symbolic sound. Thus, “Woe from Wit” was organically included in the orbit of the director’s creative searches.
But, of course, now he was most occupied with the ongoing work on The Drama of Life. After “Woe from Wit,” the directorial paths of Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko diverged again for some time. They will meet again only on the more “conservative” “Inspector General”. The quests of both directors in 1906, 1907, 1908 go in parallel, sometimes touching each other. Nemirovich-Danchenko independently stages "Brand", "Walls" by S. Naydenov, "Boris Godunov" and "Rosmersholm", everywhere trying - sometimes unsuccessfully - to overcome the usual everyday life of the theater and find the way to a spare, ascetically strict, philosophically rich work of the stage. Stanislavsky continues his quest in "The Drama of Life", "The Life of a Man" and "The Blue Bird".
17 -
L. A. STEPANOV
ACTION,PLAN AND COMPOSITION
„WORN FROM MIND”Griboyedov had the good fortune of recognition and admiration, but he also had to listen to a lot of reproaches. It was annoying that both “zoils” and friends - true experts - found shortcomings in the dramaturgy itself, in the construction of the comedy, in its “plan”. It seems that he answered all of them, and not just P. A. Katenin, explaining his “piitik” in a lengthy letter from St. Petersburg in January-February 1825. For a long time then, critics, people, the theater audience, enthusiastically appreciating the satirical pathos, civic courage , portraiture and the accuracy of the author’s words, repeated reproaches for the low liveliness of the action. It took organic plasticity of perception, thoughtful thoroughness, “secret heat” and the creative experience of the artist I. A. Goncharov in order to give a worthy interpretation of it with the critical sketch “A Million Torments” half a century after the birth of the classical comedy. “Woe from wisdom,” Goncharov emphasized, “there is a picture of morals, and a gallery of living types, and an ever-sharp, burning satire, and at the same time a comedy and, let’s say for ourselves, - most of all a comedy - which is unlikely to be found in other literatures, if we accept the totality of all other stated conditions.”
In literary criticism, comedy was most often considered as a “picture of morals”, “a gallery of living types”, “scorching satire”. “Griboyedov’s art of living images is such that his study pushed aside all other aspects,” wrote Yu. N. Tynyanov. - Much less research was done into the plot of “Woe from Wit.” But the strength and novelty of “Woe from Wit” lay precisely in the fact that the plot itself was of enormous vital, social, and historical significance.” Interest in the plot led to the study of the mechanism of action, to an understanding of the dramatic “laws” accepted and discovered by Griboedov, to the determination of the genre specificity of the play.
The observation is correct: Chatsky’s opposition to the society surrounding him has long been the basis of the analysis of the work; this contrast was, as it were, taken for the plot
18 -
the play, and its course was associated only with the line of the main character. M.V. Nechkina demonstrated this approach most energetically and steadily. She explained everything, including the composition, by the antagonism of the two camps, which “is the first engine of the entire movement,” understood as a connection between replicas of consciously opposing camps. “The collision of two worlds, old and new, is both the basis and the compositional core of comedy, without which the idea collapses, and the criterion for creating images.” This approach, of course, has given a lot for understanding the ideological premises and ideological content of the play, but does not solve the problem of analyzing “Woe from Wit” as a dramatic work.
As it turned out, the view of one or another researcher on the play as a whole and its construction depends on the attitude to what is happening on the stage before Chatsky appears (I, 1-5, 6). (In what follows in the text of the article, Roman numerals mean action, Arabic numerals mean phenomena). To N.K. Piksanov, the first five phenomena seemed to be a flaw in the “scenario”, because he connected the action only with the appearance of the main character. I. N. Medvedeva, understanding the play primarily as a psychological drama, considers the initial phenomena to be necessary, but “introductory”: in them “the characters of the main characters are determined and the necessary information about their lives is given”; “psychological knots that determine the course of the play” are tied here, but they are needed as “a kind of introduction” that precedes the “main plot” with “characteristics of psychologies.” Hence the understanding of the “main plot” as “the suffering of a wise man in love, who within one day loses faith in the girl he loves and his connection with the environment to which he belongs by birth.” It can be seen how the genre definition of a play is connected with an understanding of its plot. It also brings to the fore in the sphere of conflicts “Woe from Wit” the antithesis “Chatsky - Molchalin”. For I. N. Medvedeva, this is the main confrontation in the play - historical (two social types of its time) and psychological (two characters), the whole play “is built on the rivalry between Chatsky and Molchalin,” which constitutes the originality of the comedy “Woe from Wit.” I. N. Medvedeva revealed important points in the socio-historical content of the work, in the field of characterology and psychology, the “literary monument” is close to our days, in its own way updating the ideological and psychological
19 -
confrontation between Chatsky and Molchalin. At the same time, the “psychological” aspect of the study obscures the real mechanism, which seems insignificant, and sometimes as if absent: in the play “there is no intriguing movement from the beginning, springily leading to the denouement.”
It is impossible to unequivocally answer the question about the driving forces of comedy. This concept is broader than intrigue in both the narrow and broader sense of the word.
Without a doubt, the movement is based on ideological opposition and contrasting characters. But what actually drives a comedy is not the “given” opposites themselves, but the mechanisms that transform ideological and psychological motives into actions - for example, not Chatsky, Sophia, Molchalin themselves, but Chatsky’s passion for Sophia, Sophia for Molchalin, and then , which Molchalin himself defined with the words: “and now I take the form of a lover...”, and Liza in her own way: “She comes to him, and he comes to me.” Key event moments are called upon to play their role in the dramatic movement: the appearance of Chatsky, Molchalin’s fall from his horse and Sophia’s fainting, the spread of the “Moscow factory” rumor and associated stage movements, the last “love” meeting of Sophia and Molchalin, exit from behind Chatsky’s column and the appearance of Famusov with a crowd of servants. But that’s not all. The energy of movement of the play is given by dialogues and monologues, the connection of replicas, because not only the emergence and disintegration of collisions occurs on stage, but also the internal properties of the characters unfold throughout the entire action: as O. Somov wrote, “here are the characters are recognized” .
The ascent to the author’s ideology and the “dramatic laws” of the play can begin with any figure. The play can be read as a confrontation between Chatsky and Famusov’s world, “two camps”; like the dramatic interaction of Chatsky and Sophia, Chatsky and Molchalin. It can be understood in terms of reflecting the author’s consciousness, expressing aesthetic principles and features of the poetics of classicism, romanticism, and realism. Maybe,
20 -
a synthesizing study of the role of individual compositional techniques, for example, the action that unfolded in connection with Chatsky’s arrival can be traced in detail as the process of revealing the “secret” of Sophia’s dream. But no matter how universal and conceptual a certain unique way to enter the artistic world of a work may seem, it will not cover “Woe from Wit” as an artistic system. The multiplicity of aspects of the study is rooted in the structure itself, in the dramaturgy of “Woe from Wit”, which attracts ever closer attention.
At the same time, it seems to us, the opportunity suggested by the entire history of study is missed - to look at “Woe from Wit” not as a finished text, but as a work in progress, and the work of a playwright. This is not about “creative history,” as developed by N.K. Piksanov, and not about comparing editions and lists, but about analyzing the structure of the text, as if from the point of view of the playwright himself, to the defining principles - and therefore to the results of creative process.
This consideration turns us to the key issues of the dramaturgy of “Woe from Wit” - about the action, plan and composition of the comedy, in which, in the exact words of the same O. Somov, “nothing is prepared” from the point of view of the reader and viewer, but by the author “everything thought out and balanced, with amazing calculation...” .
Conflicts and action in “Woe from Wit” receive a “impetus” from the moment Chatsky appears on the stage. The first thing we know about the hero in general, the first word is a sign by which he is introduced into the world of the work, this is the word about the traveling, and therefore absent, Chatsky. Lisa's word-memory immediately unfolds into Sophia's version of the traveler, and his appearance immediately follows. Chatsky is the first of the off-stage characters to become an actor; then Skalozub, named in the conversation between Lisa and Sofia, will appear, much later - Sofia Khlestova’s aunt, and so some of the characters will be introduced onto the stage, although not all of those mentioned will appear (Monsieur Kok, Foma Fomich, etc.). In general, the “exits” of the characters are preceded by their “summoning”. So, at the beginning of the play, Liza directly calls Sophia, Molchalin and... Famusov onto the stage, without wanting to do so.
The initial off-stage existence of the main character uniquely highlights the plot plan of “Woe from Wit”. Half of the first act (I, 1-5) may seem only to be an explanation of the conditions of place and time, necessary to describe the life and customs of “Famusov’s Moscow,” if one does not see deep compositional thoughtfulness here. The motive of the hero's journey is correlated with the plot - with the cause-and-effect and temporal motivation of the events taking place on stage. The characters of the first half of the act do not appear on stage immediately, but one after another:
21 -
Lisa - Famusov - Sofya - Molchalin - Famusov, etc., caused by the reasons and concerns of their own circle of events, not connected with Chatsky and even suggesting his absence. An essential feature of the comedy is that this absence has its own existential form - “journey”, “wandering”, its temporal certainty - three years, initial and final, spatially coinciding coordinates - Famusov’s house.
Where did Chatsky go, why did he leave Famusov’s house, and why did he return so unexpectedly? The opinion that Chatsky returned from abroad, from Europe, is instilled, as a matter of course, in many generations of readers even in school. This is a very old misconception, mechanically repeated. The school cliche has turned into the inertia of thinking, into a common place that essentially contradicts the meaning of comedy. However, S. A. Fomichev, commenting on the moment of Chatsky’s appearance on stage, connected it with the question: “Where did Chatsky come to Moscow from?” In his opinion, from St. Petersburg: he rushed along the Moscow-Petersburg highway, violating the legal driving order, and in 45 hours covered a distance of 720 miles, possibly skipping some stations, overpaying the coachmen, etc. What is important here is not the coincidence of the length of the route , but a fundamental departure from the usual statement.
The question: where was Chatsky, where did he come from - is not idle: it worries, first of all, the characters of the comedy. In scene 5 of the first act, Lisa, remembering how Chatsky parted with Sophia, sighs: “Where are you running around?” in what areas? He was treated, they say, in sour waters...” Here, for the first time, according to rumors, a certain point on the route of the wandering hero is named; but something else is no less significant: Lisa understands that Chatsky is “rushing” (in the first edition it was: rushing “from end to end”). This is not a deliberate travel route, and this is not travel abroad. In the first edition, Chatsky told (I, 7) a funny story about Doctor Facius, whom he met in Vyazma. There he frightened the doctor with a plague that allegedly devastated Smolensk, and the German, heading along the Smolensk road to his homeland in Breslau, turned back to Moscow. The doctor told Sophia about this meeting. This means that from time to time she had some information about Chatsky, was interested, followed his movements:
Whoever flashes by will open the door,
While passing through, by chance, from afar, from afar -
I have a question, even if I’m a sailor:
Did I meet you somewhere in the mail carriage? (I, 7)Sophia (if she’s not making it up, like how she just made up a dream) asked about Chatsky even from the sailors, even from
22 -
those who returned from abroad, probably also from foreigners. But it is extremely significant that Chatsky himself did not utter a word about his journey abroad. Others think or may think so. Apart from Sophia’s vague, internally ironic and not very convincing phrase, a hint of staying abroad can only be seen in the Countess-granddaughter’s question whether Chatsky “married in foreign lands.” But this assumption about “foreign lands” belongs to the “evil girl”, past whom the suitors sail away. Chatsky sharply retorts her sharpness about the “experts of fashionable shops” and is not going to discuss with her either the goals or the routes of his movements.
Famusov is interested in the same question: “Where have you been?” I've been wandering for so many years! Where from now?” And again, Chatsky gives the answer only in the most general words: “I wanted to travel around the whole world, but I didn’t travel a hundredth part” (I, 9), promising to dedicate Famusov to the smallest details. Famusov knows that at present Chatsky “does not serve, that is, he does not find any benefit in that” (I, 5). However, Chatsky is not idle: Famusov notes that he “writes and translates well,” probably not from memories of his youth, but from fresh impressions from magazine publications or translations of dramatic works staged by the Moscow theater.
Molchalin also knows something: “Tatyana Yuryevna told something, returning from St. Petersburg,” about Chatsky’s “connection, then break” with the ministers. This message and then a personal meeting with Chatsky lead Molchalin to the conclusion that Chatsky “was not given ranks” (III, 3); he even advises the loser to go to Tatyana Yuryevna for patronage. As recently as the end of last year, Chatsky was friends in the regiment with Platon Mikhailovich Gorich. He prefers the village or the cheerful life of a cavalry officer to “Moscow and the city.” In the first edition, Chatsky said: “I was in the region, Where the wind would roll a lump of snow from the high mountains...” These details resemble the biographical features of Griboedov himself: his “connection with ministers,” life in a cavalry regiment in Brest-Litovsk, in the village - both for himself and for Begichev, his stay on acidic waters in the Caucasus mountains.
Famusov’s guests also show interest in this topic: the Countess-granddaughter, and Princess Tugoukhovskaya, and Chatsky’s longtime acquaintance Natalya Dmitrievna (“I thought you were far from Moscow” (III, 5)). Finally, the travel motif is included in the flow of gossip about madness, transforming into an incredible mixture of aimless fabrications and vindictive slander. The fantastic version of Zagoretsky, who instantly came up with a “rogue uncle”, a yellow house and chains, and then wrote that Chatsky “was wounded in the forehead in the mountains, went crazy from the wound,” gives way to the fears of a somewhat deaf grandmother, who sees farmazons, “pusurmans” everywhere. , Voltaireans, lawbreakers who belong in prison. Khlestova
23 -
brings madness out of everyday causes: “I drank tea beyond my years.” And Famusov jumps from the influence of heredity (“I followed my mother, after Anna Aleksevna...”) to the influence of “learning,” and this explanation seems to Famusov’s circle the most convincing - it is willingly developed, adding irrefutable arguments against the “madness” of enlightenment.
So, mixing reality and fiction, rumors and gossip, the inhabitants of Famusov’s house and his guests create a fantastic biography of Chatsky, invent, speculate what he was doing these three years, lay out travel routes for him, taking the hero to “foreign lands.”
Meanwhile, the whole complex of Chatsky’s ideas and moods leads him not abroad, but into the depths of Russia. The words “homeland”, “fatherland” are taken not in their difference from “foreign lands”, Europe, but designate Moscow itself. There is Moscow, “that homeland where I used to be...”; outside Moscow - the entire “map” of Chatsky’s travels. Chatsky’s avoidance of questions related to his three-year absence, as we see, was deliberately emphasized by Griboedov. Chatsky does not tell everyone who is curious what he has been doing these three years, both because he cannot count on understanding, sympathy, agreement (he felt hostility from the first minutes), and because in this case he must reveal the reason for his departure and the reason current return. And this constitutes the secret of Chatsky and the “secret” of the playwright. The mystery of Chatsky for the people of Famusov’s living room is a dramatically strong condition for comedic construction. From the very beginning and throughout the entire action, it determines the intensity of conflicts, the possibility of new and new situations that reveal contradictions of interests, aspirations, assessments of Chatsky and each of the other characters.
In the appearance of Chatsky there is something catastrophic, incomprehensible, unforeseen, unwanted for everyone: he is truly an “uninvited guest.” Meanwhile, Chatsky has an internal logic that is unknown to other characters, but quite natural for himself. From the moment he appeared on stage, Griboyedov was able to start a conflict between Chatsky and “25 Fools” precisely because there is this famous three-year period during which the hero of the comedy becomes a half-forgotten and unclear person. The entire action of “Woe from Wit” is located between two “points” - the arrival and departure of Chatsky (“get out of Moscow! I don’t go here anymore”). But there is also a prehistory of the action associated with Chatsky’s first departure, with the period of time that preceded this departure. It is indicated in several places in the text. The playwright moved away from the well-known, widespread technique of concentrating information about the situation preceding the actual stage action in one monologue or in a memory dialogue. Moments of previous states and relationships between Chatsky and Sophia,
24 -
Molchalin and Famusov are “restored” gradually, during the course of the action, primarily from the memories of the hero himself, as well as from the replicas of other characters. The first mention of Chatsky by Lisa's maid, Sophia's version (about what happened three years ago) is as close as possible to Chatsky's appearance on stage, directly preceding it.
The event plan of the comedy is thus built in a slightly different order than the compositional sequence of the “crazy day” phenomenon. The backstory is a muted, but very important part of a large whole: Chatsky’s life in Famusov’s house, his relationship with Sophia - departure from Moscow, travel - return to Famusov’s house, which caused all the well-known vicissitudes - departure from Moscow, already final.
The main points of the background story first become known from the conversation between Sophia and Lisa “five minutes” before the hero appears on stage. The characterization that Sophia gives creates a certain “shift of focus” in the portrait of the hero: the features will be recognizable, but not true; This is rather a light caricature, indicating that Sofia also does not fully understand Chatsky. Chatsky's feelings and his behavior, dictated by love, are hidden from Sophia. There is no sympathy, because over the past three years, which completed the formation of young lady Famusova, she developed the needs of her heart and the understanding of her mind, completely opposite to the mental needs and love feelings of Chatsky. What Sophia calls childhood friendship was already love for Chatsky. This is understood by Lisa, who sympathizes with Chatsky’s love “boredom”, for which, in her understanding, he was “treated” in sour waters. If we correct Sophia’s “observations” with Chatsky’s love confessions, including those relating to their “childhood” years, then we will see that Chatsky left the Famusovs’ house, realizing a strong feeling for the teenage Sophia. According to Sophia, he “moved out” because that he “seemed bored” in the Famusovs’ house, that “he thought highly of himself.” This is how she explains the sudden attack - “the desire to wander.” Let us note, by the way, that Sophia asks not one, but two questions: “why search for intelligence” and why “travel so far.” She has no love for Chatsky - the “childish” vague feeling is supplanted by a genuine, ideologically and psychologically meaningful feeling for Molchalin. But she doesn’t believe in Chatsky’s love either: that’s why there are two questions rhetorically addressed to him. Sophia’s disbelief in Chatsky’s love in the “pre-action” is just as much a “masterful trait” of Griboyedov the playwright as Chatsky’s “distrust in Sophia’s love for Molchalin” in the action of the comedy.
These contradictions have their source in the pre-stage prehistory of the relationship between Chatsky and Sophia. The severity of the action, its swiftness are due to the internal contradictions of their previous relationships, which now, with the advent of Chatsky,
25 -
unfold outward, revealed in the course of events. The action itself becomes a catastrophic denouement of the pre-action, those parts of a large whole that themselves appear as the beginning, development, culmination of Chatsky’s relationship with other persons - Sofia, Famusov, Molchalin. Sophia was accustomed to “sharing laughter”, childish fun with Chatsky, and love settles in his heart - after all, this is the beginning of a relationship that has an open and hidden course. Departure, “flight” from love, which due to Sophia’s age cannot be reciprocated, and the hero’s wanderings give their relationship a dramatic development that Chatsky could not foresee. Chatsky is absent, life in the Famusovs’ house goes on as usual, he himself changes, develops, first of all, as a citizen, remaining unchanged in one thing - his love for Sophia. But Chatsky could not allow Sophia’s “infidelity” - an imaginary betrayal, for what the returning hero-lover discovers at first sight (“not a hair of love”) is a simple consequence of Sophia’s natural transition from “childhood friendship” with Chatsky to her love interest with Molchalin , who “under the priest already three years serves." Her confession to her confidant servant: “I may have acted very carelessly, and I know, and I’m guilty” - refers to a secret relationship with Molchalin. Question: “but where did it change?” To whom? so that they could reproach with infidelity” - mentally refers to Chatsky. Chatsky’s feeling of love is so strong that he “loans” the object of his love with this feeling. Thus, the comic contradiction of the love affair lies very deep in the background of the stage action.
Chatsky’s return to Moscow, the frantic rush “through the icy desert,” the explosive appearance in the early morning in the Famusovs’ house, the delight and love sparkling in his first word addressed to Sophia, mark the culmination of the relationship in the prehistory. This climactic moment in the prehistory of the stage action is prepared not only by Liza’s “memory by the way” of Chatsky, evoking Sophia’s version of the past, but also by the scene of a night meeting, where Sophia is given the reality of her present-day relationship - with Molchalin and, consequently, with Chatsky. With the advent of Chatsky, the contradictions of their interests become so acute that the conflict situation that developed in the pre-stage period, which has now reached its culmination, must certainly lead to a catastrophic outcome: in essence, this is what we see on stage. This is precisely the meaning contained in the insightful assessment of Griboedov’s dramatic innovation in the diary of V. K. Kuchelbecker: “In “Woe from Wit,” exactly, the whole plot consists of Chatsky in opposition to other persons... Dan Chatsky, other characters are given, they are brought together, and it is shown what should the meeting be like?(emphasis added - L.S.) of these antipodes, - and nothing more. It is very simple, but it is precisely this simplicity that is news,
26 -
the courage, the greatness of that poetic consideration, which neither Griboyedov’s opponents nor his awkward defenders understood.” Kuchelbecker (and is there really only Kuchelbecker?) did not see, however, what the action and intrigue were in “Woe from Wit.” He wrote that “here, for sure, there are no intentions that some want to achieve, which others oppose, there is no struggle of benefits, there is no what in drama is called intrigue.” The critic contrasted the organization of action in Griboyedov’s comedy with the methods of developing the “struggle of benefits” in classical drama - and in this respect he was right; but it is impossible to say that Famusov, Sophia, Molchalin are not pursuing any benefits without distracting from the text of the comedy. Chatsky is not pursuing benefits, and that is why the play is not built according to the old rules, which presuppose that each participant in the intrigue has them.
But Chatsky’s love exists, and it is this that draws him to Sophia and returns him to Moscow, which he abandoned three years ago. The “new” for which Chatsky returns is Sophia the bride, not Moscow. The motif of the bride, the girl of marriageable age and the troubles associated with her runs through the entire comedy. This explains Famusov’s philippics against the Kuznetsky Most, his annoyance at the introduced custom of “teaching daughters everything, everything... as if we were preparing them to be buffoons’ wives”, his doxology for daughters”, “Moscow girls” with reference to the authority of the Prussian king, a parody image Chatsky “patriotic” passion for the uniform “in wives, daughters.” The same motive brings onto the stage the six Tugoukhovsky princesses and their elderly parents, scouring the balls, from house to house in search of profitable suitors, and the countess-granddaughter, jealous of “ours” for the milliners. There are a number of details indicating that the ball in the Famusovs’ house is dedicated to Sophia’s seventeenth birthday. It is no coincidence that the first act ends with Famusov’s comic complaint about the “commission,” i.e., the order of the “creator” to “be adult daughters father”: here the new “quality” of Sophia, the new social state of her and Famusov are emphasized. This maxim arises as an emotional result of reflections on the sudden appearance of possible suitors - Molchalin and Chatsky ("Which of the two?.. and half a mile out of the fire..."), who could interfere with his strategic actions around Skalozub. In the third act, the author’s remark to the 9th scene is indicative: “Sophia leaves herself, everything to her towards." The countess-granddaughter greets Sophia with a kind French phrase that hides her irritation: “Oh, good evening!” Finally, you!...” Zagoretsky immediately gives Sophia a ticket to the performance, telling how he rushed around Moscow to “serve” her today. That the reason for the congress of guests is Sophia becomes even clearer from the very first words of Khlestova, who had barely entered: “Is it easy to drag yourself at sixty-five years old?”
27 -
to me to you, niece?...” And the senior servant, seeing the first guests, sends Lisa to tell the young lady about this. It is also noteworthy that no one invites Chatsky (unlike Skalozub) to the ball: he, “from home,” knows about the holiday and himself came to celebrate the long-awaited event.
Thus, the text of the comedy itself (according to Griboyedov’s principle: “in an excellent poem much must be guessed”) contains the internal motivation of the plot due to its background, scattered in the conversations of the characters throughout the space of the text, right up to the final phenomena: and here the offended feeling blames itself themselves, returning to the happy illusions and ardent hopes of former times. “Dreaming out of sight - and the veil fell” - this just happened and is experienced as a living process: “I was in a hurry!... I was flying!” trembled! Here’s happiness, I thought, close...” Chatsky returns to the beginning, to the pure source of such a dramatically resolved situation:
The memory even hates you
Those feelings, in both of us the movements of those hearts,
Which have never cooled in me,
No entertainment, no change of place.
I breathed and lived by them, was constantly busy! (IV, 14)In the background of the stage action, constantly revived in the speeches of the characters, Chatsky’s love for Sophia explains both his departure and return three years later, and the change revealed in Sophia is subjectively, for Chatsky, unexpected, objectively natural and logical in its very essence. The invariability of the hero’s feelings, faced with the changed Sophia, who appeared in a new state, a new quality, and the invasion of chance, this, in the words of Pushkin, “the legislator god,” give rise to the stage development of the conflict, its outcome.
The motive for travel is connected not only with Chatsky’s love experiences. “Who travels, who lives in the village, who serves the cause, not individuals...” - this is a single series of manifestations of civil, political, ethical opposition, and the connection between Chatsky’s wanderings and the whole complex of his ideas is fully realized by people in Famus’s circle. It is their gaze when they hear the word “travel” that is focused on foreign countries. At the same time, an ambivalent attitude towards travel is revealed: it is desirable - it is “tears and nausea on the foreign side,” and at the same time it is a reason for reproaches and threats to those who “scour the world, throw their thumbs,” who “think highly of themselves.” : Do not expect “order” from them either in “service” or in “love”. Travel, wandering is thus included in the plot motivation of the “love intrigue” and in the ideological composition of the social conflict, linking them together even in the pre-action.
The originality of stage conflicts, and hence the actions in
28 -
“Woe from Wit” is determined by the uniqueness of revealing the personal intentions of the participants in the intrigue. Each of them plays a more or less active plot-forming role, each presupposes its own course of events, lays out its own path, leading it from pre-stage time and space. By the time Chatsky appeared, the individual lines of behavior of Famusov, Sophia, and Molchalin had already been determined. The father, who fulfills his “commission” with dignity, is gradually preparing his daughter’s matchmaking - Famusov’s whole concern now is to implement the plan, that is, to turn the young and rich colonel into Sophia’s groom. “The “well done two fathoms” has already been brought into the house and presented to the future bride, he has been “talked about” and his sister-in-law - all this before the start of the stage action. However, the intelligent Sophia does not at all share her father’s enthusiasm; she has internal resistance to her parent’s plan, a readiness at the decisive moment to abandon the marriage he has planned (“I don’t care what’s in it for him”). But the main thing is that Sophia has matured her own plan of action, which she is already implementing. Nightly dates with her lover developed Sophia’s feelings, and now she is secretly and purposefully preparing her decision for her own fate, trying to instill in Famusov the idea of the possibility of happiness with a “nice man” who is “both insinuating and smart, But timid... You know who born in poverty...” The contrast between the intentions of the father and daughter is obvious, and the prospects for their actions have emerged. Molchalin’s role in this situation, his attitude to the plans of the owner and the owner’s daughter are not yet clear. He is “silent” in the main things, playing along with Sophia on the flute and serving Famusov with modest zeal. Whether this is duplicity or a cunning tactic in favor of Sophia’s plan is something that the viewer has not yet been able to solve, but the riddle has been given.
And so Chatsky suddenly finds himself in this half-openly-half-secretly developing intrigue with his love, with views that are unsuitable in this environment, with the intention of declaring Sophia his bride. It is difficult to guess how the struggle between the interests of father and daughter would have unfolded without Chatsky. It is absolutely clear that his appearance decisively transforms the intrigue and starts a new struggle, much more acute and complex. Creative, dramatic in the proper sense of the word, the will of the author sets high tension in the emerging struggle of interests, bringing the edge of the struggle to Chatsky, who interferes with both Sofya and Famusov. “Why did God bring Chatsky here!” - Sophia thinks with annoyance. For Famusov, the appearance of a half-forgotten “dandy friend” is the waking embodiment of a “damned dream.” Chatsky’s rejection is first recognized as a desire, as an internal need, and almost simultaneously as a task. The implementation of this task is a common goal for Sophia and Famusov, and therefore they are naturally, without agreement, united in the fight against Chatsky. Individual interests are those that
29 -
emerged before Chatsky appeared on the stage, they are different, and therefore each leads his own line of intrigue, trying to tilt the course of affairs in his direction. It is this duality and internal inconsistency of the interaction between Sophia and Famusov that determine the development of the comedic action and its outcome in the part that is the expression and consequence of the plot activity of these characters.
However, the overall result of the comedy is formed not only by the plot activity of Sophia and Famusov, their word and deed. In the struggle that unfolded with the advent of Chatsky, chance played an extraordinary role. After all, Chatsky’s appearance is the most important event, transforming a pre-stage situation into stage action and changing the development of an already established intrigue. The increased role of chance in “Woe from Wit” caused a critical remark from the “classic” Katenin: “The scenes are connected arbitrarily.” “The same,” Griboyedov objected, “as in the nature of all events, small and important...” (509) The freedom of the accidental in the dramatic concatenation of phenomena was for him also a means of achieving entertaining, effective, lively play, maintaining audience interest until the very end stage performance. Griboyedov undoubtedly shared the point of view of Beaumarchais, who defended the playwright's right to chance: one morning chance brought Count Almaviva and the barber Figaro to Rosina's windows. “Yeah, chance!” - my critic will say. “And if chance had not brought the barber on the same day and to the same place, what would have happened to the play?” - “It would have begun at some other time, my brother... Does an event become implausible only because it could have happened differently? Really, you’re finding fault...” In “Woe from Wit,” chance determines the most significant moments of the action, chance ties the “nerve knots” of rapid intrigue. By chance, Molchalin, released by Sophia, runs into Famusov, who has returned to the living room, at the door: “ What an opportunity! Molchalin, are you brother? “I, sir... And how did God bring you together at the wrong time?” - a chance meeting gives rise to Famusov’s suspicion about Molchalin, who may be an obstacle to his plan to marry Sophia to Skalozub. The incident is Molchalin's fall from a horse - and the situation that arose in connection with this sharply aggravates the relationship between Chatsky and Sophia. An occasion (ball) brings Chatsky together with old acquaintances and new faces. From the phrase said in irritation: “He’s out of his mind,” accidentally picked up by a random gentleman without a name (G.N.) in its literal sense, Sophia’s evil intent is born on the occasion and plague slander spreads. Behind the scenes, an “insignificant meeting” with a “Frenchman from Bordeaux” (“here’s the case with me, he’s not new” (108)), motivates one of the hero’s fiery monologues, as
30 -
unfolding of which Chatsky’s loneliness increases both in the plot of the story and in the stage situation (“He looks around, everyone is spinning in the waltz with the greatest zeal...”). By chance, “at the end of the curtain” Repetilov ends up at the ball - he stops Chatsky for a long time in the entryway; hiding from him, Chatsky enters the Swiss and hears “absurdity” about madness, which “everyone repeats out loud,” and then deliberately hides behind a column. For Sophia, his exit from behind the column is the same unforeseen event as his morning appearance in the house.
The words “by chance”, “by chance”, “in case”, “by chance”, “accidental”, “happened” literally ring out the house of Pavel Afanasyevich Famusov on this day. The case is understood as a “game of fate” and is included in the general system of artistic motivation, which in Griboyedov covers not only the event plan, but also static situations - even such, for example, as Famusov’s monologue that opens the second act in the silent presence of Petrushka.
Chance, aesthetically realized as a pattern of a dramatic kind and accepted by the playwright as a “law recognized by him above himself,” thus dominates the plot activity of the characters, developing it or restraining it, speeding up or slowing down the action. However, entering the space of the plan and spontaneously ruling over the participants in the action, chance is completely subdued, “tamed” by the creative will of the playwright. It is put at the service of harmony - the artistic world created by the author. Griboyedov achieved such integrity through free artistic courage, long-term improvement of compositional organization, and persistent work on the comedy verse.
From all that has been said, it is clear that the plan of “Woe from Wit” is incorrect to represent as a sequence of events and motives developing on stage, phenomena connected into an organized whole “according to the law of artistic symmetry.” The concept of “plan,” often used in criticism and creative correspondence of that time, had the meaning of a kind of category of aesthetics and poetics. This concept summed up a holistic idea of the constructive fusion of eventfulness, ideology and the general principles of the architectonics of the work. The plan was thought of as an aesthetic problem of the correlation between artistic design and life reality; as a stage of the creative process; as a concretely found general solution to the problem of embodying the thought of a work of art - in the meaning that, for example, is contained in Gogol’s well-known admission that the idea of “Dead Souls” belongs to Pushkin. Therefore, the plan is not equivalent to the plan, nor the composition, nor the event dynamics, nor the system of images,
31 -
taken separately, but in each of these aspects of the creative process and the completed whole is expressed.
The plan is the most important, “aesthetic part of creation” (Griboyedov) - correlates with its other “parts”. “Creation”, understood as a process, means the embodiment of a plan, the transition of the aesthetics of drama into the poetics of a given dramatic work, the implementation of a plan in composition - the whole in parts, the general in the specific. When Griboyedov explained to Katenin: “You find the main error in the plan: it seems to me that it is simple and clear in purpose and execution...”, then the author of this letter could continue with the words of Diderot: “How difficult it is to draw up a plan that does not raise any objections.” ! And is there such a plan? The more complex it is, the less truthful it will be...” When Griboedov writes about typical portraits and declares: “I hate caricatures, you won’t find a single one in my painting,” it seems that he is convincingly quoting Diderot: “I can’t stand caricatures at all.” in bad, nor in good, for both kindness and evil can be portrayed exaggeratedly...”
The closeness of the aesthetic views of Griboyedov and Diderot is a special topic, and it is no coincidence that theorists and artists pay extraordinary attention to the problem of plan. This problem was relevant and acute in the literary polemics of the 1820-1830s. The predominance of “planning” over artistic freedom, which always presupposes the unexpectedness of creative imagination, the predetermined nature of the creative process, rigidly leading the author’s thought and fettering the artist’s will, give rise to Pushkin’s reproach to the “planner” Ryleev. On the contrary, the depth of space free for creativity, the free organization of artistic time, which makes it possible to develop the conceptual unity of ideas and artistic imagery in the thoughtful, majestically clear architectonics of Dante’s “Divine Comedy,” evoke Pushkin’s admiration (the plan is “the fruit of a great genius”). On this fundamental issue of aesthetics and poetics, Griboyedov agrees with Pushkin. In the process of creative work - the birth of a thought, pondering a plan, its final implementation (this process, by the way, took about the same time as Pushkin’s work on “Eugene Onegin”) - Griboedov, perhaps, thought most of all about the “form of the plan” . This is evidenced by everything that we know about the creation of “Woe from Wit”, everything that has been revealed by the study of the creative history of the work, the study of its public perception. The plan continued to be the subject of the playwright’s special concern, and it is significant that many of Griboedov’s plans (“1812”, “Rodamist and Zenobia”, “Georgian Night”, etc.) remained on
32 -
stages of deep elaboration of plans or individual, more or less completed fragments.
Pushkin’s words about the artist’s “supreme courage” are quite applicable to Griboyedov and “Woe from Wit.” The highest artistic courage was also manifested in how mercilessly and decisively the author threw out ready-made, written scenes, and how persistently he searched for new solutions. In this process, the plan of creation was also improved, the very idea of the work was refined and developed in the mind of the artist, which exists and is viable only when through the “form of the plan” it is embodied in the entire structure of the work, i.e. makes it capable of “carrying” the ideological, problematic and thematic content, expressing the author's pathos. What did it mean, for example, that Sophia’s mother was excluded from the list of acting ones? Shifting the “center of gravity” to the father, i.e. strengthening the plot role of Famusov, preoccupied with his “commission,” and illuminating his portrait with new comic colors. What did the complete reworking of the scene of the night meeting between Sofia and Molchalin lead to? To remove the farce, deepen the dramatic and psychological motivations in the interaction of these most important characters in the play, and increase the viewer’s attention to their role in the development of the action. Having almost written a comedy, Griboyedov came up with the idea in June-July 1824 to “hide” Chatsky behind a column, to make him a witness to the second night meeting of Sophia and Molchalin - this gave deeper motivation to the revealing pathos of the hero, who was entrusted with solving the “common knot” of conflicts and actions plays.
When we talk about the plan of “Woe from Wit,” we mean, first of all, that Griboyedov “embraces with creative thought” pre-stage and stage time and space, that the main character and other characters “live” in both dimensions . But at the same time, creative thought embraces something even greater, which I. A. Goncharov wrote wonderfully about. The “canvas” of the comedy “captures a long period of Russian life - from Catherine to Emperor Nicholas. The group of twenty faces reflected, like a ray of light in a drop of water, the entire former Moscow, its design, its spirit at that time, its historical moment and morals. And this with such artistic, objective completeness and certainty that only Pushkin and Gogol were given in our country.” This is indisputable proof of the creative viability of the “plan of creation” and its compositional capacity, which is revealed in the structural principles and elements of the organization of the artistic whole.
The internal structure of each act in “Woe from Wit” is based on the interaction of event-stage fragments, plot movement and static positions filled with monologues, dialogues, “ensembles” (the term of N. K. Piksanov);
33 -
Moreover, static phenomena, performing primarily a characterological function, revealing the ideological and moral positions of characters, often motivate close or distant dynamic processes both in a love affair and in a “social drama,” making the inevitability of their common outcome ideologically and psychologically justified.
Among the dialogues and monologues of comedy, there are also those that directly accelerate events, give impetus to the deepening of the conflict, to the polarization of relations between the characters, and involve them in the dynamics of events. This is the short dialogue between Chatsky and Sophia in Act 3 (scene 13), from which Sophia makes the most dangerous “reflection” for Chatsky’s future reputation in the Famusovs’ house: “He’s out of his mind,” very subtly, through “barely noticeable intensifications,” transformed into a slanderous allusion to madness. In a similar way, the conversation between Sophia and Lisa in scene 5 of the first act, in which the lively servant discusses with the young lady the advantages and disadvantages of possible suitors, including Chatsky, is interrupted by the servant’s message about Chatsky’s arrival and his instant appearance. The verse flow of one quatrain, the lines of which belong to three different persons, connects three (!) phenomena with fantastic speed.
A different kind of function is performed by the dialogue between Sophia and Chatsky that follows, or the dialogue between Famusov and Chatsky in scenes 2-3 of the second act. They have thematic integrity, but do not strive to become a complete plot collision. The purpose of such dialogues is to identify, compare different points of view, and expose characters and conflicts. At the same time, they prepare, motivate and make artistically appropriate such stage fragments that represent a compositionally complete stage episode - for example, the episode of Molchalin’s fall, which begins with Sophia’s cry: “Ah!” My God! fell, killed himself!” and ending with Chatsky’s address to her: “I don’t know for whom, but I resurrected you” and his departure (II, 7-9). Here the stage is filled with events, movement of faces, and turmoil. Sophia faints, Chatsky rushes to her aid, together with Liza he unsolders her, sprinkles her with water, and is about to run, on the orders of the awakened Sophia, down to Molchalin, “to help him try”; even the imperturbable Skalozub goes “to see how he cracked - in the chest or in the side?” The episode is important as a moment of deepening Chatsky’s quarrel with Sophia and for conducting a love affair: Molchalin first appears here in front of Chatsky, Sophia for the first time, in front of Chatsky’s eyes, reveals her attitude towards him, Chatsky, in love, has a slight
34 -
suspicion and wariness regarding Molchalin: “Not a word with Molchalin!”
This stage episode has its comedy-parody continuation in the following 11-13 phenomena of the second act, also event-wise combined into one episode, with an internally completed development of the action, climax and denouement. Its leading ideological motive is Molchalin's hypocrisy and meanness, which stand out especially clearly against the backdrop of Sophia's sincere, almost sacrificial feelings. The essence of the situation in its external manifestations is precisely defined by Lisa: “She comes to him, and he comes to me.” The parodic mirroring of feelings, words, internal movements and actions combines these phenomena into one, relatively independent episode within the act. Ready to do anything for the sake of love, Sophia not only pours out her feelings in front of Molchalin, not only shows touching concern for his health, but is ready to “be nice through tears” with witnesses of her fainting in order to remove suspicion and protect love from gossip and ridicule. Molchalin is most afraid of Sophia’s sincerity and frankness; Now that Sophia has found herself in a suspiciously awkward situation, Molchalin does not want to help her either with deeds or with advice. A contrast that is obvious to Lisa and the viewer (but not to Sophia) arises between Sophia’s behavior when Molchalin falls and Molchalin’s behavior when the Moscow young lady’s reputation threatens to fall. This contrast develops into a direct betrayal of Molchalin, into his seductive proposals to his mistress’s maid. The comedic outcome of two related stage episodes (II, 7-9; II, 11-14) consists of the parody-like final phrases of Molchalin and Sophia addressed to Lisa (“Come at lunch, stay with me...” - “Tell Molchalin and call him to come and see me”), and the maid’s exclamations to the masters: “Well!” people around here!”
Between the two episodes, the playwright places an invitation to the ball (dialogue between Sophia and Skalozub - phenomenon 10), a kind of hint to the viewer about the stage conditions of the third act. Thus, the entire second half of the act is occupied by two stage episodes, more or less rich in event dynamics and generally mirrored in the parody aspect. The first half of it is occupied by two conversations, also differing in their tone, nature of flow and tempo-rhythm. The dialogue between Famusov and Chatsky (phenomenon 2-3), starting relatively calmly, very quickly turns into a verbal battle. By referring to the example of the “elders” (monologue “That’s it, you are all proud!”) Famusov provokes Chatsky’s response (“And the world has definitely begun to grow stupid...”). Frightened by the freethinking of the guest, Famusov interrupts Chatsky’s monologue with desperate remarks, constructed in an ascending gradation. This leads to a double conduct of the comedic “dialogue of the deaf.” At first, Chatsky is in the grip of inertia and does not react to the first
35 -
Famusov’s remarks (“Oh! My God! He’s a Carbonari!”, “Dangerous man!”, etc.), but then somewhat cools his ardor; meanwhile, Famusov’s indignation and blind hatred, on the contrary, increases to exclamations and orders: “Bring to justice!” on trial!” Through the clash of monologues, the dialogue sharply picks up speed in short, stratified remarks and is interrupted only by the message of Skalozub’s arrival.
Famusov's conversation with Skalozub proceeds differently - in the manner of small talk, skillfully directed by the old master in the right direction with the help of subtextual meanings of words. The participants in the conversation agree with each other, Famusov is especially concerned about this, eliminating the slightest obstacles on the path to unity. But he involuntarily undermines such a carefully organized atmosphere of harmony, throwing a remark of condemnation on behalf of “everyone” to the non-service Chatsky. The monologue prompted by this condemnation, “Who are the judges?” forces Famusov to retreat to the office just at the moment when Chatsky spoke in the presence of a colonel aiming to become a general about an embroidered uniform covering “weakness, poverty of reason,” and about his renunciation of the military uniform. Famusov's departure forces Skalozub to enter into a conversation with Chatsky, and his response to the monologue completely confirms Chatsky's assessment. It is precisely the external, uniform signs put forward by Skalozub as evidence of the injustice of preferring guards ranks to army ones. This comic interpretation of the meaning of Chatsky’s statement puts a comedic end after two dialogues preceding further eventful episodes caused by the fall of Molchalin.
Between two dialogues, Griboedov makes his hero think about Skalozub as Sophia’s possible fiancé: “The father is very delusional about him, And maybe not just the father...” (II, 4); and between the two episodes suspicion arises regarding Molchalin (II, 9).
Such is the brilliant dramaturgy of the second act, in which dynamic and static fragments balance and replace each other according to the law of artistic expediency. The same thoughtfulness of phenomena, their connections and the whole marks each act. In the first two acts, all the main characters involved in the love affair are exhibited as characters, as social types and as participants in the plot action; Chatsky’s conflict with Famusov and with Sophia is outlined and partially embodied. But it cannot be resolved in a direct confrontation, because “Woe from Wit” is a traditional comedy of love intrigue. Pushkin’s famous response to “Woe from Wit” contains the idea that “Chatsky’s incredulity in Sophia’s love for Molchalin... the whole comedy should have revolved around.” Such a comedy would only need six characters: Chatsky, Sophia, Molchalin, Skalozub, Famusov
36 -
But in “Woe from Wit” there are deep and ramified courses of through-comic action, built on the well-known dramatic motif of deception. Its importance is rightly emphasized by B. O. Kostelants. Classical comedy used it all the more readily because in the rationalistic system of cognition, lies and deceit were represented as the realm of the eternal, abstractly understood low in man, and therefore were subject to the “department” of comedy. The field of comedic deception is extremely wide and varied - here there is pretense, and indulgence, and a mask, and disguise, and imaginary patients, and cuckolds in the imagination.
Griboyedov experienced the effects of comedic deception in his one-act comedies. In “Feigned Infidelity” a conflict is played out, which can be considered a weak prototype of the slander scene in “Woe from Wit”. Lisa avoids Roslavlev, like Sophia avoids Chatsky. The deceptive idea of Eledina, who decided to mix up all the cards of Roslavlev, Lensky, Blestov, is similar to the slander organized by Sophia, only its scale and level are lower. Roslavlev, like Chatsky, is tormented by the question: “Who is this lucky one that you prefer?” Blestov throws Eledina:
40 -
“...your Lensky always laughed at the misfortunes of others!” Well, laugh at him.” Roslavlev, like Chatsky, hides unnoticed and witnesses Lensky's exposure of Eledina and Lisa's deception. The comedic game of infidelity was also tried by the young Griboyedov. But, unlike Chatsky, Roslavlev and Arist (“Young Spouses”) completely believe their suspicions.
In “Woe from Wit” these comedic moves are decisively transformed. Nobody deceives Chatsky, and if he is deceived, it is because of the passion of his feelings. “The ideal image of his beloved,” notes Yu. P. Fesenko, “which he kept in his soul throughout his three-year wanderings, was somewhat shaken even at the first meeting with Sophia after separation, and now Chatsky is steadily looking for an explanation for this contradiction.” He is torn between faith in his old love and distrust of the changed Sophia. He doubts. Chatsky’s “distrust” is a masterful comedic trait also because it takes the hero out of the “system” of deceptions. Thus, in the love affair, Chatsky plays a role that is different from the roles of his antipodes. The comedy of deception was chosen by Griboyedov as a form of exposing alien views and morals (the same meaning was later given to it by Gogol in “The Government Inspector” and Ostrovsky in the play “Simplicity is Enough for Every Wise Man”).
The main characters of “Woe from Wit” are deeply and completely drawn into the comedy of deception. A number of private episodes are based on deception. Among the figures involved in comedic deception, the most comical is Skalozub. Sophia can't stand him; Chatsky, for some time suspecting him as a rival, is coldly polite and mocking; Skalozub scares Khlestova; Lisa makes fun of him; Famusov is trying to lure him into his network. Entangled in intrigue and the struggle of opinions, Skalozub himself is absolutely not involved in what is happening and remains in complete ignorance, even being in the center of all this chaos. But there is also a through line of deception. Intrigue moves along this line. Sophia, through Lisa, creates a number of situations designed to lull Famusov’s vigilance, and lulls him to such an extent that the caring guardian of his daughter’s happiness rushes between arranging matchmaking and solving the riddle of Sophia’s “dream”, and finally falls on the wrong trail when he finds Sophia with Chatsky at night. Here it seems to Famusov that he has exposed the deception: “Brother, don’t be a trick, I won’t give in to the deception, Even if you fight, I won’t believe it” (IV, 14). But he is destined to meet the morning of a new day in the deplorable “commission” of his father, whom his adult daughter “killed” with her deception.
Deception (pretense) becomes such a powerful mechanism for the development of action because it most fully realizes the vitality and relevance of its plot motives in the comedy composition.
41 -
The mechanism of comedic deception is focused not so much on the tradition of this “technique” developed in dramaturgy, but on the semantic ambiguity of various kinds of “transformations”, “changes” of reality, subject to the author’s judgment and the hero’s judgment. Yu. N. Tynyanov pointed out that Chatsky’s detailed remark in a conversation with Sophia (III, 1): “There are such transformations of governments, climates, morals, and minds on earth...” - provides the key to understanding the various transformations, occurring in comedy, and the meaning of the very motive of life transformations (political, social-hierarchical, moral, etc.) for the author of “Woe from Wit.” It is important to affirm this position in the interpretation of not only the characters and circumstances, which was done by Tynyanov, but also the composition of the work, its plan and its actions, which Tynyanov only hinted at.
Those who set the networks of deception themselves fall into them: the trap slams shut first for Molchalin, almost immediately for Sophia, and then Famusov fights in the networks of deception, like in a spider’s web. For him, the deception continues, going beyond the boundaries of the comedy. This is a fundamentally important point both in the plot and in the characterology of comedy, and for understanding the author’s position. Griboyedov outlined in perspective what then began to grow in imitations - the dramatic “consequences” of “Woe from Wit.”
The Famus society successfully coped with the main, unanimously realized task: friendly participation in a slanderous conspiracy became, as Beaumarchais said, “a way to get rid of a person” - superfluous and alien; “Public opinion” played simultaneously in the personal interests of both Sophia and Famusov. The play here seems to return again to the original situation - Famusov's house without Chatsky. With this ingenious feature, the playwright creates the possibility not so much of “doubling” the comedy, which has returned “to normal,” as of its intended development in the given conditions of the initial half-secret, half-overt confrontation between Sophia and Famusov: the “creator’s commission” has not yet been completed, and the changed situation is unknown to the adult’s father daughters. Meanwhile, the new situation (after Molchalin’s exposure) may again turn into the old, original one that existed before Chatsky’s return. It would seem that Sophia’s demonstrative rejection of Molchalin opens up a vacancy for Skalozub, that is, the possibility of carrying out the instructions of the “creator” on the path outlined by Famusov. But Griboyedov here again equalizes the chances of Sofia and Famusov. The remark thrown by Chatsky, whose excitement of an offended feeling sharpens the insight of the mind - “You will make peace with him, after mature reflection...”, etc. - indicates the possibility of continuing
42 -
the old comedy of Sofia and Famusov with the participation of Molchalin and the resolution of their conflict by mutual agreement, in the common interest, converging on Molchalin. “The high ideal of all Moscow men” coincides with the prospects of the Molchalin type that Famusov has not yet realized (“In virtues, finally, He is equal to his future father-in-law”). But this collision will no longer be able to develop without the trace left by Chatsky, the troublemaker. That’s why, after the hero’s final monologue, after his departure, Famusov, in depressed feelings, confusion of mind and comic bewilderment caused by the chromatic range of Chatsky’s caustic invective, reflects not only on what happened, but also on what is to come. The nonsense of the madman who accused both him and Moscow itself is worthy of condescending contempt. You can reproach Sophia and complain about fate, which is unmerciful to her father’s efforts. Another thing is scary - “what Princess Marya Aleksevna will say,” because even for Famusov there is no salvation from “indomitable storytellers” and “sinister old women.” Now the slander, sung by “the whole choir,” will become attached not to Chatsky, but to Famus’s house. She will be drawn to Tatyana Yuryevna and to Pokrovka, to the barracks and to the English club; after all, it turned out that not only Zagoretsky, but everyone “endured a lot.” And already as the guests were leaving, an ominous premonition sounded: “Well, the ball!” Well, Famusov!...” - that’s what will happen when Marya Alekseevna rings the alarm! Now it will come back to Sophia like a boomerang: “Would you like to try it on yourself?” In Famusov’s imagination, the entire future picture of this new “social collision” instantly flies by. And although he does not yet understand the meaning of the poisonous exclamations about “the sycophant” and “the test”, they have already sounded - not so much for the comically sinister “almost old man”, but for the public, a hint at the inexhaustibility of the conflicts of Famus’s house, at the permanent comedy of Famus’s world .
This polyphonic Famus code after action replaces the moralistic maxims usual for previous comedy, acting as an analogue of open epic endings. Her appearance after the falling “curtain” of the action and “at the end” of the play is important, since such a finale is included in general plan the play, completing its general “consideration”. What remains open here is not only the conventional plot-compositional perspective, not only the large “common node” of personal and socio-political conflicts, but also the satirical pathos, the lyrical element of an “excellent poem” organized by dramatic form. Spontaneously or consciously, this principle of the finale found for the first time for a comedy will be picked up by Gogol. An official who has appeared on a personal order will indicate the possibility of “this very hour” a new audit of both the city of N and the entire bureaucratic empire with an unpredictable and at the same time predictable course of events,
43 -
defined for the viewer by Khlestakov’s revision, which took place before his eyes in the same way as Chatsky’s revision of Famus’s Moscow.
Drama theorists (including playwrights themselves) see the development of dramatic literature in the fact that at first dramatic excellence was determined primarily, and sometimes exclusively, by effectiveness, plot activity, the predominance of proactive actions of characters, event-based conflict over monologue or dialogic statics, over episodes that inhibit the action . Hegel’s understanding of drama as a process, which confirmed the results of the development of dramatic literature by the beginning of the 19th century, is then corrected and gives way (if not completely, then predominantly) to such an organization of a dramatic work, in which “not only actions are naturally emphasized, but also the dynamics of thoughts and feelings of the characters,” and then the dramaturgy affirms the type of play “based not on the vicissitudes of external action, but on discussions between characters, and ultimately on the conflicts arising from the clash of different ideals.”
“Woe from Wit” occupies a very special place in the ideological and artistic progress of dramatic art. It truly "rises"<...>“pillars of Hercules” at the solution of the flows of “effective” and “discussive” dramaturgy, holding and developing the tradition of the first and opening freedom for the other trend. The organization of action in a comedy is determined by a deliberate desire for intense conflict dynamics, carrying the main theme of the work in a single direction and in the smallest plot capillaries. The discussion, based on the clash of various socio-political, philosophical and ethical ideals, unfolds a picture of social satire as the action moves. The plan of “Woe from Wit” embraces this unity, and the composition ensures its implementation. Approaching from any side, we will always find a unique trinity in the holistic fusion of Griboyedov’s masterpiece: a canvas of social satire, superbly organized, lively action, free, transparent facets of lyricism. The motley world kaleidoscopically develops into scenic patterns. The figures cast shadows: they either shrink into a ball, or crawl onto the walls, while Sofya Pavlovna extinguishes in the first act and lights her secret candles in the last. In the house they are preparing for the holiday, weaving intrigues, cursing enlightenment. Women “kiss loudly, sit down, look each other from head to toe,” “men appear, shuffle, step aside, wander from room to room.” Here every now and then
Moskvicheva G.V. Drama “Woe from Wit” // Neva. 1970. No. 1. P. 185-186.
Khalizev V. E. Drama as a type of literature (poetics, genesis, functioning). M., 1986. S. 122-126 et seq.
Belinsky V. G. Full collection op. M., 1955. T. 7. P. 442.
WORTH FROM MIND
In the fall of 1924, K. S. Stanislavsky and Vl. I. Nemirovich-Danchenko decided to resume “Woe from Wit” by A. S. Griboyedov, a play first staged by the theater in 1906.
We, the theater's youth, were very pleased with this decision, since a number of roles in this performance were supposed to be entrusted to the young actors of the troupe. They named M. I. Prudkin, Yu. A. Zavadsky, B. N. Livanov, A. O. Stepanova, K. N. Elanskaya, O. N. Androvskaya, V. D. Bendina, V. Ya. Stanitsyn as future performers Chatsky, Sophia, Lisa, Molchalin.
In mid-October, V.V. Luzhsky informed I.Ya. Sudakov and me that K.S. Stanislavsky was taking both of us as his assistants in reviving “Woe from Wit” and asking us to get acquainted with the play in detail, since he wants to talk about it one of these days. the work ahead of us.
A week later we were summoned to Konstantin Sergeevich in Leontyevsky Lane. As usual, V.V. Luzhsky also came. The conversation took place in the evening, K. S. Stanislavsky’s office was illuminated by a large chandelier. The table lamp near the sofa, K. S. Stanislavsky’s usual place, was also lit.
It was not by chance that we chose you, young directors,” K. S. Stanislavsky addressed I. Ya. Sudakov and me, opening one of his large black notebooks with a familiar gesture. Some of them served as his notebook, in which he wrote down his notes for upcoming conversations and rehearsals, others were drafts of his future books.
We would like not only to resume our previous performance, but also to convey to you, the young directors, and your young fellow actors in the troupe, the thoughts that formed the basis of our work on “Woe from Wit” in 1906.
You probably read much of what I will say in Vladimir Ivanovich’s book, when Vasily Vasilyevich told you about your appointment as directors for the revival of “Woe from Wit.” But I would like to add something else of my own. Have you read the book by Vladimir Ivanovich?
We confirmed that we had carefully read Vl.’s book. I. Nemirovich-Danchenko “Woe from Wit” staged by the Moscow Art Theater and a number of other materials on the play and on Griboyedov’s time.
“Very good,” Konstantin Sergeevich answered us. - You need to know all this. The history of society, the ideas of the century, the life and customs of the era are the foundation of any realistic work of art. Many mistakes in old productions of “Woe from Wit” stemmed from the absurd belief of actors and directors that any play written in verse is a conventional, purely “theatrical” work. In part, this is the root of the usual failures when staging Pushkin’s “Boris Godunov”... In the theater they generally believe that poetry is a legitimate reason for recitation. Even a good actor, having received a role in poetry, allows himself to stand on the stilts of an unexperienced feeling, in an elevated tone, pronounce thoughts that he does not fully understand, covering both with emphasis on an effective rhyme and rhythmically minting each line.
We will fight with all these cliches, but now I want to talk about the most important side of Griboyedov’s wonderful comedy.
From the book by Valentin Gaft: ...I am gradually learning... author Groysman Yakov Iosifovich From the book Cream [Portraits of outstanding contemporaries by Alexander Nikonov] author Nikonov Alexander PetrovichWoe from Wit - Do you write your own books or like Yeltsin? - I write books myself. I even write my speeches myself. Usually speechwriters write to bosses. This makes the bosses become dumber and degrade. Others think for them! And they, like dolls, voice other people’s texts. After retiring,
From the book Before Sunrise author Zoshchenko Mikhail MikhailovichX. Woe to the Mind He who stands high knows thunderstorms And, falling, breaks into pieces... 1 What makes me write this book? Why, in the difficult and menacing days of the war, do I mutter about my own and other people’s ailments that happened during it? Why talk about wounds received not in the fields?
From the book...I gradually learn... author Gaft Valentin Iosifovich“Woe from Wit” For a performance at the Satire Theater Why waste “A Million Torments” on a trifle in a dispute? Lack of intelligence is not a problem - the director himself was
From the book of Spendiaries author Spendiarova Maria AlexandrovnaGrief The state exams were successful this time. Having passed “very satisfactorily” in almost all subjects, Sasha received a first-degree diploma. He arrived in Simferopol in an excellent mood. In the house on Sevastopolskaya, the wallpaper was changed and the floors were painted. IN
From the book Directing Lessons by K. S. Stanislavsky author Gorchakov Nikolay MikhailovichWORTH FROM MIND In the autumn of 1924, K. S. Stanislavsky and Vl. I. Nemirovich-Danchenko decided to resume “Woe from Wit” by A. S. Griboyedov, a play first staged by the theater in 1906. We, the theater’s youth, were very pleased with this decision, since a number of roles in this play
From the book Hohmo sapiens. Notes of a drinking provincial author Glazer VladimirWOE FROM MIND Unlike men, all women who drink are alcoholics, and their names are legion. Accounting is powerless: Soviet women, especially mothers, drank alone. With a hangover, having rinsed his swollen face with tap water, the poor fellow drew eyes and lips with children's pencils and ran
From the book Memories author Avilova Lidiya AlekseevnaGrief We spent the summer of 1875, as always, in Klekotki. On July 9, 1875, we went for a walk after the rain, and when we returned, it turned out that Elizaveta Petrovna had left a blanket somewhere, which for some reason she took with her. They ran to look for him but did not find him. Father, just recovered
From the book Voices of the Silver Age. Poet about poets author Mochalova Olga AlekseevnaGrief They crowded shoulder to shoulder, Treasuring the misfortune of others, - Look at the horse parts torn out by the Train. The little girl looked in amazement at the puddle of red paint. The big woman sighed heavily to her husband. A guy passed by with a girl, lingering a little
From the book Notes of a Russian Exile author Belyaev Ivan Timofeevich From the book Selected Works. Volume 1 author Ivanov Vsevolod VyacheslavovichGrief - Yes, happiness is jealous! This means that, like all jealousy, it is characterized by shame. And shame is silence. And it turns out that we keep quiet about real happiness, and the definition of happiness that rolls off our tongues is incorrect, inaccurate... - It turns out, in your opinion, Alexander,
From the book Medical Secrets. Vices and illnesses of the great author Razzakov FedorWoe from Wit Brain cancer is a large group of oncological diseases of brain tissue. Develop as a result of a violation of cell division and formation, the location of which determines the type of tumor (for example, a tumor of the brain substance is called a glioma, a tumor
From the book Serving the Motherland. Pilot's stories author Kozhedub Ivan Nikitovich3. GRIEF From the very first days of studying at the technical school, I saw that I had to study a lot and persistently. It took a lot of time to get home to the village, so I decided to move into a hostel. My father agreed to this right away, and my mother cried when I left the house with a basket. “What are you, mom, I
From the book What the Messiah Was Silent About... Autobiographical Story author Saidov GolibGrief “You can’t understand Russia with your mind, you can’t measure it with a common arshin...” (V. Tyutchev) One day, “Beaver” comes to see his sister, with the goal of checking in. He finds his brother-in-law in the kitchen. On the table is an open bottle of vodka, more than three-quarters empty. Volodya: “What’s the matter, Sash?” What
From the book From memory and from nature 1 author Alfeevsky Valery SergeevichGrief In early childhood I had a teddy bear, its hard, hard nose was shiny from my kisses. He always slept with me in my strong arms, we loved each other very much and rarely parted. One unhappy winter evening, my mother and I went out for a walk, I
From the book The Tale of My Life author Kudryavtsev Fedor GrigorievichGrief Another week or two passed. Real winter has come. There was a lot of snow. Frost has begun. Father, like all the other peasants, had already piled up the rubble, that is, he lined the entire hut all around from the ground to the roof with straw, and to keep the straw in place, there were poles and stakes along the walls