"We actually wrote" The Cruiser "on stage"

The play was written by the main theater director Yefim Zvenyatsky and director Yuri Chernyshov. The premiere of the play was sold out in December 2014. This year, tickets are sold for the whole season.

On the eve of Defender of the Fatherland Day, the artistic director of the theater, People's Artist of Russia and honorary resident of Vladivostok, Efim Zvenyatsky, told EastRussia.ru correspondent Alena Timofeeva about patriotism, respect for history and why it was difficult to transfer the Cruiser to the stage.

- Efim Samuilovich, who was the author of the idea of ​​the play? How did the Cruiser start?

- What was the most difficult thing in preparing this performance?

- To write a play - to translate Pikul's language into the language of the stage. The whole work took 5 months. For a repertory theater, which must earn money and put out at least one performance in 2-3 months, this is a lot. I even had to interrupt the rehearsal process. We actually wrote The Cruiser on stage. Gathered, read not only Pikul, but also a lot of additional historical literature on the Russian-Japanese war. We needed somewhere to supplement the production with historical details, and somewhere to reduce what the writer wrote. For example, Pikul speaks very reservedly about the church, but for me the religious motives in the play are extremely important. It was useless to write about the tsar at the time when the novel was being written, but on the contrary, I am very interested in his fate and the fate of the imperial family. Pikul had to make a lot of censorship remarks, since the novel was written in the Soviet years. We needed to reveal these remarks.

- Who helped prepare the play?

- For the first time in the history of the theater, the federal Ministry of Culture allocated money for the production of the performance. Alexander Galushka became the "translator" of this whole story for the department. We couldn't have done it ourselves. These sets, which I made in St. Petersburg, this is a movie that we shot in Moscow, these costumes (about 200 costumes were made only for sailors - Russian and Japanese). We were able to cover all these costs.

The former Rector of FESTU Gennady Turmov, a highly educated man and a military theoretician, and Captain First Rank Vladimir Piskaykin helped prepare the performance. Turmov historically explored the motifs, cruisers, the sea, Japan. A Piskaykin taught to build, give commands, correctly give signals with the help of flags and so on.

- What is the main thing for you, as a director and a person, in “Cruisers”?

“I’m probably a conservative person, and for me, the mood of people who are trying to return Vladivostok to its dignity, which at some point was lost, is still very important. Pride, officer's honor and love are important to me. It seems to me that these qualities were lost then by the cruisers in the metal and grinding.

We don't know our history. No one knows what Vladivostok was like in the XNUMXth - early XNUMXth centuries, who are Kunst and Albers, Yul and Rock Brynners, what the names of the streets mean - Svetlanskaya, Aleutskaya. For me, these are very expensive things. Therefore, along with the return of names, the return of memory is also important. I sincerely think that after watching "Cruisers" on the stage of the theater, the attitude of Vladivostok residents to their past and to the city is changing. I believe that the hearts of people in the auditorium are filled with patriotism.