They moved through their entire lives holding hands. Literally and figuratively. Mikhail and Raisa Gorbachev were called a couple from the Middle Ages, where she always remained a beautiful lady, and he was a knight who performed feats to win her heart. It is to these two lovers looking into each other's eyes that Alvis Hermanis, the Latvian director, artistic director of the New Riga Theater, dedicated his new performance. Hermanis' dramatic and operatic works are multiple laureates of international theater festivals, and one of his most iconic productions - Shukshin's Stories at the Theater of Nations - won three Golden Masks awards, has been on our stage for 12 years and tours the world with to a full house.
Thinking of the second co-production with the Theater of Nations - Gorbachev - Alvis Hermanis understood that the audience would react ambiguously to the figure of the last president of the USSR, but the director had his own purpose:
“If there is such a person in the twentieth century who influenced the lives of hundreds of millions on such a large scale, it is Gorbachev,” says Hermanis. - It was he who redrawn the map of all Eurasia, he found the key to the prison in which we had been stayeing, taking a step towards publicity. Personally, I used to think that the USSR collapsed due to economic reasons. Now I am sure that one person was responsible for it. And the goal of the performance is to understand what qualities of this person, what ingredients of his soul led to the fact that he became that grain of sand that stopped the huge mechanism."
Hermanis' new production consists of poignant little stories about the life of the Gorbachevs. There are only two charactes on stage: Mikhail Sergeevich - Evgeny Mironov and Raisa Maksimovna - Chulpan Khamatova.
“We do not have the task of making doubles, achieving portrait resemblance,” admits Evgeny Mironov, “we are trying to understand the way they think, the reason for their actions. After all, come to think of it: a tractor driver from Stavropol and an excellent student from Siberia met in Moscow. Just like Romeo and Juliet! How he loved her, how he admired her!"
In the production, the politics is not the main focus, it is only the historical background against which the relationship of the married couple develops. And the period from 1985 to 1991, when Gorbachev was in power, was deliberately excluded from the play. According to Alvis Hermanis, this play is not a solemn eulogy at the anniversary meeting. This is a story about the feelings that turned the course of history.
“I think, Mikhail Gorbachev has an XXL heart, just like the characters of Shukshin's Stories. He is of the same chemical composition as Shukshin's characters. He is a very decent person, and this is his tragedy,” - says the director.
Before starting rehearsals, the members of the prosuction team made a serious study: they studied the memories, documents, memoirs of politicians, looked through interviews, personally met with Mikhail Gorbachev. This performance on the stage of the Theater of Nations is a very honest first-hand story, which should provoke the audience to discuss and make their own decision: who this person was for Russia, and how his love influenced the lives of future generations.
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