Joseph Leonidovich Raikhelgauz (born June 12, 1947, Odessa) - Soviet and Russian theater director, teacher; National artist Russian Federation(1999), professor Russian Institute theatrical arts(GITIS), creator and artistic director of the Moscow theater "School modern play" Member of the Public Council of the Russian Jewish Congress. Photo: Wikipedia / Dmitry Rozhkov
If he had not become a director, he would undoubtedly have had his own say in literature
Matvey GEYSER
ShSP is a recently emerged, and today very famous Moscow theater - the “School of Modern Play”, which announced its birth on March 27, 1989 with the performance of the modern playwright Semyon Zlotnikov “A Man Came to a Woman.” The director of the play was Joseph Leonidovich Raikhelgauz, a director at that time already famous in Moscow theatrical circles. Today I. Raikhelgauz is a Master, recognized not only by the media (how much, alas, depends on this), not only strongmen of the world this, but, above all, the audience. The path to this recognition was not simple and easy - I. Raikhelgauz did not ascend Parnassus with an easy step.
Before the School of Modern Play, he studied at various theater institutes in Kharkov and Leningrad; and was expelled from everywhere for professional incompetence. I was a student at the Faculty of Journalism at Leningrad State University and right at the finish line, before defending my diploma, I learned that Anatoly Vasilyevich Efros was recruiting for his group at GITIS. Entered. When I was in my fourth year, I staged “And I Didn’t Say a Single Word” based on Heinrich Behl at the Soviet Army Theater. The performance was noticed. After Galina Volchek and Oleg Tabakov saw him, they invited the aspiring director (Raikhelgauz was 25 years old at the time) to become a full-time director at the Sovremennik Theater - something that can’t always be dreamed of even in good sleep. But it has long been known that good lives side by side with evil. The performance at the Soviet Army Theater was filmed.
Very soon the same failure befell Raikhelgauz in other theaters. He staged the play “Self-Portrait” based on the play by A. Remez at the Stanislavsky Theater, but this performance was banned. The Taganka Theater did not produce the prepared play “Scenes at the Fountain” based on the play by Zlotnikov,” an author whose plays are based on many performances at the “School of Modern Play”. At the Stanislavsky Theater, where the play “Self-Portrait” was recently removed from the repertoire, soon after the first show, the play “Adult Daughter” was banned young man", staged by Raikhelgauz based on Slavkin's play. It seemed that so many tangible blows in a short period of time could, should have stopped the zeal of the novice director or, at least, reasoned with him - after all, there were plays with a hint of “liberty” (say, “Prize” based on the play by A. Gelman), which allowed put.
Here it is appropriate to ask the question: what is theater for Raikhelgauz? It seems to me that, to a large extent, it is the department, as N.V. noted. Gogol, with whom you can say a lot of good to the world. Having attended Reichelgauz's performances, I think that he adheres to the principle of the great Voltaire:
“The theater teaches in a way that a thick book cannot.”
But Raikhelgauz teaches the audience gradually, skillfully. He is a true teacher. If we talk about what theater is, then the closest thing to me is the idea expressed by Joseph Raikhelgauz:
“The best thing people have come up with is theater. Theater is another life. But not only. Maybe this the only place, which has retained its uniqueness. What is happening here today will not happen again. And the audience feels and understands that as it is today, it was not yesterday, and will not be tomorrow... Therefore, it is no coincidence that for most, from childhood, the theater seems to be a place where another, wonderful, fantastic life is happening.”...
For Raikhelgauz, theater began in childhood.
ETERNAL MUSIC OF CHILDHOOD
“I was very lucky with the city where I was born and lived the first part of my life. This is a city-theater, a city-music, a city-literature. I'm talking about Odessa. Now it seems that in childhood everything was different, better...
We lived then near Privoz on the street with funny name Chizhikov, in the old courtyard, which is a theater in itself. In the middle of the courtyard a huge acacia grew... And around this acacia there were open galleries of balconies, just like in Shakespeare's Globe. Only, unlike the Shakespearean theatre, the actions in our yard took place mainly in the audience seats...”
It was an ordinary Odessa courtyard, where performances took place every day, and especially in the evenings. The inhabitants of the courtyard loudly and enthusiastically discussed the events of the day that had passed in Odessa in general, and in the courtyard on Chizhikova-99 in particular. They talked, of course, about events of international significance, but this worried them much less than the menu for that evening. And in general, the inhabitants of Odessa courtyards knew more about each other than each of them knew about themselves. That is why Raikhelgauz aptly called Odessa a theater city.
Joseph Raikhelgauz was born in post-war Odessa in 1947. Remembering early childhood, he tells:
“We lived very hungry, in a communal apartment, in a walk-through room, in the middle of which there was a stove-stove. My father was a tanker, a motorcycle race driver. Mom worked as a secretary-typist in the Odessa energy system. My mother took me to kindergarten. Later she told me that from kindergarten I often brought her a piece of bread and demanded that she eat it.”
And here once again I ask myself the question: why in this city, which experienced many troubles, Jewish pogroms, so many high talents were born. Odessa is a city of paradoxes. Having given the world the first racketeers (Benya Krik, Froim Grach), she presented humanity with much more high talents in the field of art and science. The list of such would be quite impressive: academician Filatov and artist Utesov; Babel, Olesha, Bagritsky are great writers; Oistrakh, Gilels, Nezhdanova are outstanding musicians... Odessa raised them, and then generously gave their children to the whole world. And in fact, all the famous residents of Odessa in their youth, in their youth, left their hometown, lived and died anywhere: in Moscow and St. Petersburg, New York and Tel Aviv, in Paris and Vienna - just not in Odessa. They probably loved their city so much that they don’t want to upset it with their funeral. Scattered all over the world, Odessa residents are united by a common destiny, origin and ineradicable love for hometown, today, in my opinion, constitute a kind of new, unknown even to scientists, but a really existing cosmopolitan ethnic group.
In this ethnic group there is and will forever remain the name of the wonderful Odessa resident Joseph Raikhelgauz, the grandson of Meir Hanonovich Raikhelgauz, who came to Little Russia in the 19th century from Lapland long before the revolution. He was a hardworking and honest man who never renounced the Torah and Talmud. For many years he was the chairman of the leading Jewish collective farm in the Odessa region, which bore the name of the prominent fighter for Soviet power A.F. Ivanova.
In his short story “Apples,” created in 1967, Joseph Raikhelgauz writes:
“My grandfather is ninety-three years old. He lives in a small village near Odessa, in a blue house with a red tiled roof.
There is a huge apple orchard around the house...
Having begged my grandfather, I stay with him to sleep right in the garden on the hay, and when it becomes so dark that you can’t hear either the garden or the house, when it seems that the earth is completely empty, and you are now alone on it, when everything falls silent except hearing the distant barking of dogs and the rustling of leaves somewhere right next to my face, I cuddle up to my grandfather and ask him to tell me about the war...”
It is appropriate here to talk about the father of Joseph Raikhelgauz. This was a man of true courage, a full holder of the Order of Glory, a man who went through the entire Great Patriotic War, awarded with high awards. Returning from the front, he worked as a driver, auto mechanic, and motorcycle racer. To improve the family’s financial situation, my father enlisted in the far North, and when he returned, he bought an old Emka with the money he earned. “When our whole family was solemnly leaving the gates of our house, ... my father’s Emka, stumbling on those very slabs of Italian volcanic lava (as you know, Odessa was largely built by the Italians - M.G.), made a ringing or rumble, or another sound that can only be compared to the performance of a giant jazz band. All daddy's spanners and rims for wheels... they sang in different voices, and it was music - the music of my childhood..."
I quote Joseph Raikhelgauz so often because I am sure that if he had not become a director, he would undoubtedly have had his own say in literature. I told him about this more than once, and maybe someday we will witness the appearance of the writer Joseph Raikhelgauz. I want to believe…
In the meantime, let's return to his Odessa childhood. It was somewhat reminiscent of the childhood of Kataev’s heroes Gavrik and Petya Bachey from the book “The Lonely Sail Whitens”... Joseph studied at a school where escaping from class to the beach was considered a special valor. “The sea is always a competition and struggle: who will swim faster, who will dive deeper, who will catch more fish... We, of course, tried to immediately fry or dry the caught fish and sell it to the first resort guests, and this also had a special competitive spirit...” And, Of course, here in Odessa, the boy Joseph Raikhelgauz knew his first love. Of course, he was in love with his classmate. “I started writing very early, in second grade. I kept a diary, it wasn’t even a diary, but scattered notes about the events of my life: today a new girl came to our class. I really liked her, she has beautiful curly hair and an iron wire on the teeth. How nice it would be to sit at the same desk with her!..” This was the first, but not the only school love Joseph. There was also a girl with a very beautiful name Zhanna. Joseph recalls her in his short story “Tragifarce in Backlight”: “I had a friend, Shurik Efremov. During one of his trips to the sea, Shurik drowned. I remember how, before my eyes, in a few hours, Shurik’s father turned from young to old...
When we walked behind the car with the coffin at Shurik’s funeral, they gave me a wreath to carry. I held him on one side, and Zhanna on the other. I was choked by a feeling of grief, loss and the incomprehensibility of the fact that one of us was still here yesterday, but today he is no longer there, and at the same time I felt awe and joy because I was walking next to the girl I liked. I then grasped the tragic or comic compatibility of happiness and great misfortune...”
MY FAVORITE THEATER GENRE IS TRAGIFARSE
I want to warn readers right away that my essay will not even attempt to study, much less comment on, the art of theater created by Joseph Raikhelgauz. The purpose of my story is different - I want to talk about that notable theatrical phenomenon, whose name is “The School of Modern Play”. In today's Moscow, where there are not dozens, but hundreds of theaters, creating your own theater, not only unlike others, but having its own special identity, is given to very few directors. Raikhelgauz certainly succeeded. To create such a theater, not only talent was needed, but also courage and courage. Once in a conversation with Joseph Leonidovich, jokingly, I noticed that only the son of a full Knight of the Order of Glory could have committed such an act. Not everyone can believe that modern drama exists, and perhaps only Joseph Raikhelgauz.
I could confirm this hypothesis with the posters of most Moscow theaters. Let's be fair - before Raikhelgauz, few, very few directors took on the task of staging performances based on plays by modern playwrights. However, probably, everything has its time - performances based on the plays of Rozov, Shatrov, Gelman (Vampilov and Volodin are a special case) at the end of the 80s had already clearly “matured”. But no one dared to stage plays based on the plays of Petrushevskaya, Slavkin, Zlotnikov. Grishkovets appeared later. Once Anatoly Vasilyevich Efros burst out with the phrase: “It’s not about the plays, it’s about us, so when I say to myself: “That’s it, no modern dramaturgy, - this means that I am finished...” But, nevertheless, Efros did not stage a single performance based on the plays of young playwrights of the late 80s.
Raikhelgauz, in addition to Chekhov’s “The Seagull,” stages performances only based on plays by modern playwrights. However, he clearly explained this in one of his interviews: “ Art Theater at the time of its birth it was also a theater of modern plays. After all, only later did it become clear that Chekhov, Ibsen, Maeterlinck, Gorky are classics...
I love contemporary play. You can, of course, spoil “The Seagull” for the hundredth time and it won’t make any difference. But to stage (and spoil or not spoil!) a play without a story is a big responsibility! “School of Contemporary Play” is the program of our theater.”
I once asked Joseph Leonidovich: “Is it obligatory for a director to remain an actor?” And in continuation of this: “If the actor is a performer, then the director is a performer above actors?”
- No, not at all necessary. There are many examples when very good directors never played on stage, or played in youth, in early youth. I won't give examples. I will only say that if we compare the director with some other profession, then it is most likely a composer. This is the conductor. This is most likely not an actor, but an architect. These are the components, in my opinion, that make up the profession of a director.
Let it not seem offensive, but, in my opinion, an artist is a performer, and a director is a writer. More than once, even during rehearsals and classes, I expressed the idea that an artist exists only in time. Everything that happens after him will turn into a legend, a tale.
And more on the topic “director - actor”. I always thought that talented actor will not look for the reason for his failures in the director, just as a director who loves his job will find in the actor something that he does not always see in himself or does not see at all.
Raikhelgauz has a reputation as a despot director, a sort of ferocious Karabas-Barabas. I won’t lie, I “overheard” several of his rehearsals and didn’t see all this, didn’t even suspect it. Or maybe despotism is necessary for the director? In today's Moscow there is no such “star” group as in the “School of Modern Play”. I won’t name a single name to confirm this - I’m afraid I’ll miss someone. And yet, I asked Joseph Leonidovich about the director’s despotism. He answered me:
— Let me start by saying that I am a cynic. I'm sure the director needs this. When I work with actors, most of all I think about their capabilities, their talent, what can be achieved from them in this or that performance. And everything else, say, beauty, age, character, if they interest me, it is much less. Once upon a time, Anatoly Vasilyevich Efros gave a definition to us, his students. So about me, do you know how he responded? Raikhelgauz is a naive impudent person. I think that after what has been said, the conversation about my despotism already loses its meaning.
However, it is quite clear that to create your own theater, a theater with your own repertoire, with your own face; theater, recognized not only in Russia, but throughout the world, could be created by a person with character.
LET GO OF DESTINY
As a child, Joseph Raikhelgauz dreamed of becoming an actor or writer. And sometimes, like all Odessa residents, he became a sailor. Remember how Babel accurately said: “In Odessa, every young man - until he gets married, wants to be a cabin boy on an ocean-going ship... And we have one problem - in Odessa we get married with extraordinary tenacity...” Joseph Raikhelgauz’s fate, thank God, has passed – he got married in a timely manner, once and, it seems, forever. But there were many adventures in his life. He had not yet turned 16 when he accidentally ended up in the Odessa Youth Theater, a popular theater in the city. His first role on stage was that of a Petliurist in the play “How the Steel Was Tempered.” That's where he played lyrical heroes. Two years earlier, at the age of fourteen, he loudly announced to his family that he no longer wanted to go to school. “Then my father brought me to his motor depot and registered me as an electric and gas welder. In the heat, lying on the asphalt, I welded pieces of iron. So my father established a coordinate system and a starting point...”
Then, after the Odessa Youth Theater, there was a theater institute in Kharkov, from where young Raikhelgauz was soon expelled for incompetence. A little later he left for Leningrad and entered the theater institute. And from here he was excluded with the same wording. Mom came to Leningrad to carry out her father’s instructions: bring Joseph to Odessa, let him return to the motor depot. On this occasion, Joseph Leonidovich recalls: “Imagine what it was like to return to Odessa and tell all my relatives and friends that I had been kicked out... My mother and I were sitting in a room at the Oktyabrskaya Hotel, she was thinking about what to do, and was crying all the time. Just then I composed a small literary sketch “Raindrops” ...” And here again I want to demonstrate with a small quote the great literary talent inherent in the poet Raikhelgauz.
"Night. Quiet. The drops are knocking on the tin of the window - they are knocking into the room. Lights in the horses opposite. Why are they, because people should sleep? Somewhere far, far away, the surviving train beats latest songs their. Laughing at him and not allowing him to look at himself, the plane sang.
Night. Quiet. The drops are knocking on the tin of the window - they are knocking into the room. Suddenly a call. I pick up the phone and there’s a mistake on the other end.
Night. Quiet. The drops are crying on the tin windows - asking to come into the room... Hey, on the other end! Wrong again! I’ll read poetry to you.”
These lines were written in Leningrad, at the Oktyabrskaya Hotel in 1964. From the memoirs of Joseph Leonidovich:
“I persuaded my mother to leave me in Leningrad, but she already had two tickets to Odessa. Imagine how difficult it was to change something. But my mother, who took me as a child to music school I probably understood in my heart that it was impossible, I shouldn’t be taken away from Leningrad. If it weren’t for my mother’s determination in those days, I wouldn’t be who I am today.”
In one of his conversations with me, Joseph Leonidovich said: “My motto is “let go of fate,” and then you will turn exactly where you need to go. Most often I do just that. After all, I ended up at the Sovremennik Theater by chance, also by chance, by the will of fate. Galina Volchek and Oleg Tabakov, having watched the play “And Didn’t Say a Word” staged by me at the Soviet Army Theater, decidedly invited me to join them at Sovremennik as a full-time director. That day I was the happiest person in the world...
But let's return to our Odessa. I was a fourth-year student at GITIS, when the director of the Odessa Theater October revolution Vladimir Pakhomov allowed me to stage Arbuzov’s play “My Poor Marat” in his theater. By that time, it had already gone around almost all the theaters of the USSR, and in Odessa it was staged for the first time and, of course, created such a sensation that can only be produced in Odessa. Among the “comments” I remember one: “Some student from Moscow with an impossible last name Raikhelgauz graduated in our Odessa Theater named after the October Revolution, a terrible performance “My Poor Marat”. And there was this comment in the main Odessa newspaper “Banner of Communism”. Believe it or not, it was after the production of “Poor Marat” in Odessa that I first had the idea of creating a theater for a modern play.”
This story by Joseph Leonidovich provoked me to ask: does the surname Raikhelgauz bother him in his position? This is what he answered me: “If I changed my last name, I would consider it a betrayal of both my father and grandfather. He sincerely considered the Talmud not only the main, but also the only book in life. That is, the issue of a theatrical pseudonym has never existed for me. You're not the first person to ask me about this. Dmitry Dibrov once asked me a similar question. And do you know how I answered? Raikhelgauz is my nickname. I took it a long time ago, my real last name is Aleseev (as you know, this is Stanislavsky’s last name). This Hokhma has become widespread, but I repeat: I have not renounced my surname, my ancestors, and will not renounce.”
This answer prompted me to ask the following question: did Joseph Leonidovich feel anti-Semitism?
“I’d be lying if I said I didn’t feel it. More than once in previous years, especially in my youth, I felt overt anti-Semitism. Until 1989, I was not allowed to travel abroad, although my work was carried out all over the world. I hated and still hate the communists for the hypocritical regime that existed under them, for their games of friendship among peoples. Do I care about the Jewish issue? As you already understand, I do not renounce my people, my surname, but I am a person of Russian culture, Russian art. And I always say this out loud.
Do I feel anti-Semitism today? Maybe yes. But in my creativity this does not interfere with me. I even think it’s a good counterpoint, a counterpoint that makes it possible to stay in shape.”
When asked how Joseph Leonidovich relates to those who previously hid their Jewishness, abandoned their own surnames, taking the surnames of their wives or pseudonyms, and today have become “outstanding” Jews of Russia, actively participating in “public Jewish life,” Joseph Leonidovich did not even consider necessary to answer - he grinned, and that said it all. However, it was in vain that I asked this question to a person who is completely immersed in, is in, belongs to Russian culture, Russian art; to a man who, in one of his interviews, expressed the following thought:
"IN last decade I began to understand what the world is, what my profession is, I realized the place of OUR RUSSIAN THEATER and OUR RUSSIAN CULTURE in the world...
I can do what I think is necessary and interesting.”
GENIUS LIVE BY THEIR OWN LAWS
One day I invited Joseph Leonidovich to meet with students of the Marshak Pedagogical College, of which I am the director. He readily agreed. The large assembly hall was overcrowded. Of course, the most interesting episode of this meeting, which lasted almost two hours, was Raikhelgauz’s reading of poems by Pushkin, Tyutchev, Bagritsky, Okudzhava.
And although Joseph Leonidovich himself does not consider himself an actor, in reality only a true, born artist can feel poetry and read poetry this way. I believe that someday the disc “Iosif Raikhelgauz Reads” will be released. The maestro answered dozens of questions from students, and in each of the answers there was an idea about the similarity of the professions of teacher and director. The question of genius and villainy arose. Joseph Leonidovich answered unequivocally:
“Unfortunately, I don’t even agree with Pushkin. In my opinion, genius and villainy go together. I could give you a lot historical examples in confirmation of this. I’ll say this: villainy begins when people forget the Ten Commandments.”
Someone asked, can an artist be a bad person? To which, again without hesitation, Joseph Leonidovich replied: “Yes. But in this case the phrase “ bad person"requires special clarification. A true artist withdraws so deeply into himself, goes deep into his work, that he becomes extremely and openly intolerant of everything and everyone that interferes with his work, and therefore may seem like a bad, unbearable person.”
Probably, the dedicatory inscriptions that Joseph Raikhelgauz made on his book “I Don’t Believe” speak volumes: “Everything depends on you,” “Excerpts from life,” “If you don’t believe it, read it,” “Come to our theater.” And he wrote to one student: “Let go of fate!”
I have talked with Joseph Raikhelgauz more than once, I often visit his theater, and I fell in love with the troupe. When I watch ShSP performances and listen to Joseph Leonidovich, the words he said most often come to mind: “Genius lives by a different law. Whether you accept it or not, he’s not interested.”
I would like to end this publication with this thought: I cannot imagine today’s Moscow without this theater on the corner of Neglinka and Trubnaya; without a person, who with his whole being creates that atmosphere in art, whose name is Joseph Raikhelgauz.
Once in an interview with Joseph Leonidovich the following words came out:
“Every artist deserves the role he plays, and every director deserves the theater he leads. If I could start over now - and there were a lot of things in my life: when I was fired, performances were closed - I still wouldn’t change anything...”
Such words could be uttered by a truly happy person, a person who, perhaps, without knowing it, would contradict Michel Montaigne himself: “you cannot judge whether someone is happy until he dies...” Joseph Leonidovich, thank God, realizes his happiness during his lifetime and generously gives his art to people...
We would like to express our gratitude to Matvey Geyser’s daughter Marina for providing our editors with the archives famous writer and a journalist, one of the leading experts on Jewish history.
Source - Wikipedia
Raikhelgauz, Joseph Leonidovich (born June 12, 1947, Odessa) - Soviet and Russian theater director, teacher; People's Artist of Russia (2000), professor at the Russian University of Theater Arts (GITIS), Creator and artistic director of the Moscow theater "School of Modern Play".
Joseph Raikhelgauz was born and raised in Odessa; in 1962-1964 he worked as an electric and gas welder at a motor depot. In 1964, he entered the Kharkov Theater Institute at the directing department, but a week later he was expelled with the wording: “Professional unsuitability.”
In 1965, Raikhelgauz became an artist in the supporting cast of the Odessa Youth Theater. In 1966 he came to Leningrad and entered the directing department of LGITMiK. And again, in the same year, he was expelled for incompetence. In 1965-1966 he was a stagehand at the Leningrad Bolshoi Drama Theater named after. Gorky. In 1966, he entered the Faculty of Journalism at Leningrad State University, where he was finally able to take up directing: he became the head of the student theater of Leningrad State University.
In 1968, Joseph Raikhelgauz left the university and entered the directing department of GITIS, in the workshop of M. O. Knebel and A. A. Popov. At the same time, he worked as a director in the famous student theater of Moscow State University, and in 1970 he led concert student teams serving the builders of Siberian hydroelectric power stations. In 1971, he completed his directing internship at Central Theater
Soviet army, but the play “And He Didn’t Say a Single Word” based on the story by G. Böll was not allowed to be shown. He staged his pre-graduation performance, “My Poor Marat” based on the play by A. Arbuzov, in his native Odessa in 1972.
After graduating from GITIS in 1973, Raikhelgauz was hired as a production director at the Moscow Sovremennik Theater. The first success was the production of the play “Weather for Tomorrow”, for which Joseph Raikhelgauz was awarded the “Moscow Theater Spring” prize; Among the performances staged in the theater are “From Lopatin’s Notes” by K. Simonov, “And in the Morning They Woke Up...” by V. Shukshina, “1945” (the author of the play is I. Raikhelgauz), “Ghosts” by G. Ibsen. Since 1974, he taught acting in the first studio of Oleg Tabakov.
Since 1975, Raikhelgauz, together with Anatoly Vasiliev, directed the Theater on Mytnaya; in 1977 he was accepted as a production director at the Theater. Stanislavsky, was a member of the theater's director's board, produced the play "Self-Portrait", began rehearsing "The Adult Daughter of a Young Man", but in 1978 he was relieved of his position due to lack of Moscow registration.
Since 1979 - director of the Moscow Theater. A. S. Pushkin; since 1980 he also worked at the Moscow Miniature Theater (now the Hermitage Theater). During 1980-1982, he staged plays in different cities: Lipetsk, Omsk, Minsk, Khabarovsk, etc. In 1983-1985, he was a production director at the Taganka Drama and Comedy Theater and staged the play “Scenes at the Fountain.” In 1985 he returned to Sovremennik, where he worked until 1989.
In 1988, Joseph Raikhelgauz initiated the creation of the Moscow Theater "School of Modern Play", which opened on March 27, 1989 with his play "A Man Came to a Woman" based on the play by Semyon Zlotnikov. Since 1989, he has been the artistic director of the theater, where he has staged more than 20 performances.
At the same time, Reichelgauz staged performances in other theaters, including abroad: in the theaters "Koruzh" (Switzerland), "Kenter" (Turkey), "La Mama" (USA), the national theater "Habima" (Israel); He works a lot on television, where he directed, in particular, “Echelon” by M. Roshchin and “The Picture” by V. Slavkin.
Reichelgauz is the author of the books “I Don’t Believe”, “We Are Trapped”, “Walks on the Off-Road”, “The Odessa Book”, and a member of the editorial board of the journal “Modern Drama”.
In 1993, the director was awarded the title “Honored Artist of the Russian Federation”; since 2000 - People's Artist of Russia.
Since 1976, Joseph Raikhelgauz taught acting at GITIS. Lunacharsky, since 2003 he has been heading the directing and acting workshop at the directing department at GITIS. Since 2004 - professor.
Performances
1977 - “Self-portrait” by A. Remiz (Stanislavsky Theater)
1984 - “Scenes at the Fountain” (Moscow Taganka Drama and Comedy Theater)
Theater "Contemporary"
1973 - “Weather for Tomorrow” by M. Shatrov (together with G. Volchek and V. Fokin)
1975 - “From Lopatin’s Notes” by K. Simonov
1977 - “And in the morning they woke up” by V. Shukshin
1985 - “1945”, composition by Raikhelgauz
1986 - “Amateurs”
1986 - “Two Plots for Men” by V. Slavkin after F. Dürrenmatt
"School of Modern Drama"
1989 - “A man came to a woman” by Semyon Zlotnikov
1990 - “Everything will be fine, as you wanted” by S. Zlotnikov
1992 - “Whose tailcoat are you wearing?” according to A.P. Chekhov
1994 - “The old man left the old woman” by S. Zlotnikov
1994 - “Without Mirrors” by N. Klimontovich
1996 - “About the promised oil” based on the songs of Sergei Nikitin
1997 - “...Greetings, Don Quixote!”, composition for the stage by Victor Korkiya, Alexander Lavrin, Joseph Raikhelgauz, Valery Berezin
1998 - “Anton Chekhov. Gull"
1998 - “Karlovna’s Love” by O. Mukhina
1999 - “Notes of a Russian Traveler” by E. Grishkovets
2001 - “A wonderful cure for melancholy” by S. Zlotnikov
2001 - “Boris Akunin. Gull"
2002 - “City” by E. Grishkovets
2004 - “The Seagull. A real operetta" based on the play by A. P. Chekhov
2006 - “In Your Own Words”
2007 - “Russian jam” by L. Ulitskaya
2008 - “A man came to a woman. New version" by S. Zlotnikov
2009 - “House” by E. Grishkovets
2009 - “Star sickness”
2010 - “Russian grief” based on the comedy by A. S. Griboedov “Woe from Wit”
2011 - “Bear” by Dmitry Bykov
2012 - “Overheard, Spied, Unrecorded” by E. Grishkovets, I. Raikhelgauz
Awards and prizes
2004 - Moscow City Prize in the field of literature and art for the play “City” based on the play by Evgeny Grishkovets
Moscow Theater Spring Award
1973 - “Weather for Tomorrow” (“Contemporary”)
1975 - “From Lopatin’s notes” (“Contemporary”)
1976 - “And in the morning they woke up” (“Contemporary”)
Moscow Komsomol Prize
1975 - “From Lopatin’s Notes”
A very informative episode occurred on evening show Vladimir Solovyov dated February 21. Director Joseph Raikhelgauz, protesting against the obvious, decided to prove to political scientist Dmitry Kulikov on his fists that Odessa Alexey Goncharenko, affectionately called Lyoshik Skotobaza, - worthy man and never a corpse eater.
Goncharenko and Raikhelgauz: shame of Odessa
Despite the fact that millions of people carefully watched the video filmed by Bandera’s gopota, immediately, in the wake of the massacre of the “Kulikovites”, in the Odessa House of Trade Unions. Among the group of killers in balaclavas was a big-lipped steam a niche with a point-and-shoot camera, joyfully photographing burnt bodies while listening to his own enthusiastic chatter. In this little-lipped ghoul, any dog was able to identify the former “burp” Goncharenko, who a couple of months ago caught a fofan under a video camera at the very peak of the Crimean Spring on a Simferopol street.
And so, director Raikhelgauz from the blue screen convinces you not to believe your eyes. In Solovyov’s studio, Donetsk political scientist Vladimir Kornilov and his Russian colleague Dmitry Kulikov tried to enter into a debate with the director. The conversation went something like this: Goncharenko is a murderer or an accomplice!
Y'all!.. This is fake!
It's a lie! He wasn't there!
Yes, but Goncharenko filmed the stream in the House of Trade Unions... Vyvsevretii!..
He got there later!
But there is a video where he says “we burned the separatists”...
Lies! I don't believe a single word! We have all the moves recorded!
Y'all! You lie here every Sunday! You are propagandists!
Right now I'll punch you in the face!
During the entire debate, director Raikhelgauz filled himself with black blood, then splashed boiling saliva into the studio, and at the very end of the verbal sparring, jumping out of his underpants in a rage, ran out from behind the counter with a distorted face and began spewing curses, waving his fist over the head of the person who stood up to him on Solovyov’s path, to the ironic smiles of his opponents.
There are no other liberals for you, dear citizens. The time of Herzen and Chernyshevsky is gone forever.
Now this is the only thing in use.
Why would a Russian director have such love for the corrupt creature and neo-Nazi collaborator Skotobaz Goncharenko?
It's a long time ago. As the Internet resource “Dumskaya.net” suggests, in September 2012, Joseph Raikhelgauz came to Odessa to personally present the young “rygianal” and deputy chairman of the Odessa regional council Goncharenko with a certificate of honor from the Union theatrical figures Russia, signed by Alexander Kalyagin, also known as “Auntie Charlie from Brazil.”
“Dumskaya” cites interesting speeches delivered during the presentation of the diploma, from which bright tears of tenderness welled up in the eyes: Goncharenko: “I am convinced: the main thing that we must do today is to interact more closely with our fraternal Russian people, and the cultural sphere is the main thing for this. Because all those relationship problems that may arise must be solved through culture.”
The Ukrayinska Pravda resource reports something even more stunning: Goncharenko: “Odessa was not a Ukrainian city.
Odessa was created as the center of New Russia, in which there were Russians, Greeks, Ukrainians, Jews, Bulgarians and others. The Russian language has always been in Odessa, it was not brought there from somewhere.”
Hey, right-wingers! Would you like to give your share of fofans to the unscrupulous creature?
Truly, “to betray in time is not to betray, but to foresee!”, as one haberdashery character from Ryazanov’s film “Garage” used to say, since the apogee of the miserable life of the opportunist Goncharenko was self-PR on charred corpses while muttering - “We went to the separatist camp on Kulikovo Field, we took it, the camp was destroyed.” We recommend:
It would seem, what does Raikhelgauz have to do with it?
Yes, despite the fact that his “Theater of Modern Play” is a pitiful and unprofitable institution.
And if you quarrel with Goncharenko, then the tap of the meager trickle of pennies the theater receives from seasonal travel in Odessa, or other cities and villages of Ukraine, can be turned off at any time.
In Ukraine, they don’t know that the audience does not go to Reichelgauz’s performances, but is guided by the fact that “here is a director from Odessa, who runs a theater in Moscow - we must go!”...
And you can also get on the “cotton” list - and this is a complete waste for a director with a persistent, crazy worldview: “Oh, forgive us Bandera, ISIS and that’s all!” Once upon a time, in the most democratic state of the Federal Republic of Germany, in which a crowd of yesterday's Nazis found themselves in power, the government adopted the provision of “Berufsverbot” - a ban on the profession.
And for dessert, a little about what kind of genius this most Bandera-loving director Joseph Raikhelgauz is, whose masterpieces are unlikely to be remembered even by an amateur theatergoer without the help of Google.
As Wikipedia tells us with reference to the Lyceum newspaper, “Joseph Raikhelgauz was born and raised in Odessa. In 1962–1964 he worked as an electric and gas welder at a motor depot. In 1964, he entered the Kharkov Theater Institute at the directing department, but a week later he was expelled with the wording: “Professional unsuitability.” In 1965, Raikhelgauz became an artist in the supporting cast of the Odessa Youth Theater.
In 1966 he came to Leningrad and entered the directing department of LGITMiK. And again, in the same year, he was expelled for incompetence. In 1965–1966 he was a stagehand at the Leningrad Bolshoi Drama Theater named after. Gorky. In 1966 he entered the Faculty of Journalism of Leningradsky state university, where he was finally able to take up directing: he became the head of the student theater of Leningrad State University. In 1968, Joseph Raikhelgauz left the university and entered the directing department of GITIS, the workshop of M.O. Knebel and A.A. Popova.
At the same time, he worked as a director in the famous student theater of Moscow State University, and in 1970 he led concert student teams serving the builders of Siberian hydroelectric power stations. In 1971, he underwent directing practice at the Central Theater of the Soviet Army, but the play “And He Didn’t Say a Single Word,” based on the story by G. Böll, was not allowed to be shown. He staged his pre-graduation performance, “My Poor Marat” based on the play by A. Arbuzov, in his native Odessa in 1972.”
Hug and cry. The luminary was kicked out of theater universities twice, and the first time - from a provincial one.
But Melpomene did not let me go back to the electric and gas welders.
He went into amateur performances, hitting William, you know, ours, Shakespeare.
As a result of amateur performances, I grew some serious calluses on my buttocks and starved out GITIS.
But he didn’t give up amateur activities - he worked in the north, among harsh and well-earning people who yearned for culture, even in the form of amateur cultural education - this is sacred.
The actor's Christmas trees feed him all year long, yes!
The very first performance at CTSA was rejected.
I was able to get out with my hack work only in my native Odessa.
Until 1993, he was widely known in narrow circles.
He became a laureate and luminary only under Yolkin, when the titles of honored and national were given out for a party card burned in front of witnesses.
In short, a typical representative of the society “Down with routine from the opera stage!”
Is it any wonder that the Pinocchios from his theater are ready to work for food?
Alexander Rostovtsev
— Joseph Leonidovich, you have amazing biography. You, who dreamed of becoming a director from your youth, were expelled from theater universities with the mark “Unfit for the profession.” But you didn't stop trying. How strong was your self-confidence?
“For some reason, all my life I’ve been sure that there’s nothing I can’t do.” And this faith was unshakable even when I was expelled. It’s a funny story about how I became an artist in the first place. Dreaming of theater, I entered the directing department of Kharkov theater institute. A week later I was expelled, and my theatrical future was in jeopardy. I returned to Odessa and accidentally came across a funny advertisement: “The Youth Theater urgently needs an artist. Size 48". I wore 46, but went to the theater right away. I thought that they would ask me to read something, but the director said, “We’ll check now,” and took me straight to the costume shop. All the suits that were tried on me turned out to be too big. And yet I was accepted into the troupe, because the artist they were looking for unexpectedly entered VGIK and left for Moscow, and the season had to be completed. His name was Kolya Gubenko. As you know, Nikolai Nikolaevich Gubenko later became an outstanding director and Minister of Culture of the USSR.
I worked at the Youth Theater for a short time, a year later I went to Leningrad and entered LGITMiK. I was kicked out of there after a couple of months. Having learned about the expulsion, my mother immediately came from Odessa to Leningrad and rushed to Boris Vulfovich Zone, the famous teacher and director, whose students were Kadochnikov, Freundlich, Tenyakova and, for a short time, me. “Why did you kick out my talented son?” (Mom always believed in me!) - “In addition to your talented boy, I have twenty more students. Yours cannot study with them, so either he must be left alone on the course, or the rest.” Now I laugh at this story, but then my mother and I cried.
— Upon learning that I was expelled, my mother immediately came from Odessa to Leningrad... With my mother Faina Iosifovna
- Why couldn’t you study with everyone else? Were you so conflicted?
“I didn’t like the way this Zon taught, and I didn’t hide it. He was then about 70 - a very old man by my standards. All his stories seemed banal, he talked about Stanislavsky, but I wanted to listen about Meyerhold. I hoped to learn something new, and he retold what was written in books. Of course, I behaved wrongly, impudently...
But you know, now that I, the head of acting and directing workshops, have to expel students myself, I remember Zon. And I tell them the following: “It is possible that leaving our educational institution will turn your life around better side. In any case, everything that was bad happened to me ended up being good.”
After LGITMiK, I became a student at GITIS, from which I graduated. In our fourth year, we underwent so-called contemplative practice at the Theater of the Soviet Army. Future directors should just sit and watch others stage plays. I found it terribly boring. I invited two good artists, staged a sharp performance with them based on Heinrich Böll’s novel “And Didn’t Say a Single Word” and showed it to the main director of the theater, my teacher Andrei Alekseevich Popov. He was a noble, intelligent man, but... tremblingly afraid of power. Therefore, before deciding whether to put the play on stage, I invited a commission from the army’s political department. During intermission, they, full of anger, left the theater as a whole. But by a happy circumstance, the head of the Sovremennik troupe, Tonya Kheifets, the wife of Leonid Efimovich Kheifets, was in the hall. And she told her friend, Galina Volchek, that a young guy had staged an interesting performance. She invited me to a conversation.
To our shame, at that time we had a cool attitude towards Sovremennik, considering it a theater without direction: actors gathered and played for themselves. Then everyone was completely carried away by the great Efros, Tovstonogov. In short, I, 25 years old, appeared before Volchek and Oleg Tabakov without timidity. They offered to show them the performance, which the artists and I did that same night.
- Those were happy times - we lived easily, joyfully, cheerfully. With Galina Volchek and Ivan Bortnik
Those were happy times - we lived easily, joyfully, cheerfully. They quickly set up the scenery, brought costumes and props, and performed the play in front of the artistic council, which already included the famous theater critic Vitaly Yakovlevich Wulf.
He always reminded me of this. He said, grazing: “Do you remember, Joseph, why you became a director at Sovremennik?” I was the first to say: “Galya, we need to take this boy!”
A year before the events described, Oleg Efremov left Sovremennik, and Galina Borisovna Volchek, we must give her credit as an outstanding artistic director, decided to rely on the young. And I dialed no one to the theater famous actors: Yura Bogatyreva, Stanislav Sadalsky, Elena Koreneva, Kostya Raikin, Marina Neelova, as well as two directors - Valery Fokin and me. I remember how Valery and I thought through the concept of Galina Borisovna’s anniversary. She was turning 40 years old. It seems that very little time has passed, and recently I congratulated Galina Borisovna on her 80th birthday...
— Your first performance, “From Lopatin’s Notes” based on Konstantin Simonov, created a sensation in the Moscow theater scene; the best actors of Sovremennik shone on stage. You were not even 30 years old at that time. I wonder if you found it right away mutual language with the masters of the stage?
“With Lopatin’s Notes, I was going to “save” the entire Soviet theater. Being young and stupid, I thought that I would teach them all to play here. In the episodes he occupied no more or less than Oleg Pavlovich Tabakov, the same Galina Borisovna Volchek, Lyubov Ivanovna Dobrzhanskaya, Andrei Vasilyevich Myagkov, Pyotr Sergeevich Velyaminov, and in leading role— . Moreover, when handing out copies of the play, he signed, like Stanislavsky: “I entrust such and such a role to such and such. Joseph Raikhelgauz." Gaft, having read the “instruction,” asked, piercing me with his gaze: “Where is your copy?” And having received it from me, he wrote to title page: “To Raikhelgauz. A note from Lopatin to you.
Don’t come close to Gaft!”
— For Gaft, being in conflict is a normal form of communication. Valentin Iosifovich - an amazing guy (2008)
And Oleg Ivanovich Dal refused to rehearse with me at all. He angrily said that my directing was complete nonsense and left. I gave his role to my peer and comrade Kostya Raikin, and he played wonderfully. The premiere took place in the winter of 1975 and caused a stir; people asked for an extra ticket from the metro. Half an hour before the first bell, I notice how Konstantin Mikhailovich Simonov, who had all the possible credentials as a writer, rushes into the snowstorm and takes out from an approaching car something small, twisted, wrapped in fox fur. When he unwrapped all this in the reception room, I saw a wizened old woman who immediately went to the mirror to straighten her hair. "This !" - he whispers in my ear. And I was convinced that she had died long ago... After the performance, Konstantin Mikhailovich brought her back and, wrapping her in furs, shouted in her ear: “Lilya Yuryevna, this boy is a director. It was he who staged the play!” To which she also shouted, looking at me: “Baby! I liked the performance, but I see almost nothing and hear nothing at all!”
- And with Gaft, it means there was a conflict right away?!
- Well, you see, conflict with Gaft is his normal form of communication. I consider Valentin Iosifovich my senior comrade, I love him very much. He is an outstanding artist, poet, thinker and overall an amazing guy. In the spring, being invited to our theater’s anniversary, he responded and even wrote poetic congratulations, which he read to me from the car on the phone. But for some reason I didn’t get there... He’s so unpredictable... I need to write a separate article about him. I’ll tell you how he once “comforted” me.
After Sovremennik, I worked at the Stanislavsky Theater until a bad situation developed there: I was deprived of my Moscow registration, fired and, as a result, banned from working in Moscow at all. For several years I staged plays in the provinces - in Elista, Khabarovsk, Minsk, Odessa...
— Why was your registration deprived?
- Oh, that's all Soviet authority and the damned Bolsheviks. So, my friends sympathized with me, tried to encourage me, to inspire me that somehow, everything would work out. And then one day I met Gaft, and he said that he knew about my ordeals, strongly sympathized, and even composed an epigram on this topic: “Having abandoned the Odessa beach for a while, Joseph came to Moscow, but there was a pause in Raikhelgauz’s career. Shouldn’t you go back to your Odessa out of interest?” Good Gaft...
“For interest” is, by the way, an Odessa expression. They say, for example, “Let’s drink tea just for fun” or “Let’s take a walk for fun.”
— I was surprised to learn that Valentin Gaft’s epigrams saw the light of day thanks to your light hand.
— When we started rehearsing “From Lopatin’s Notes,” Valentin Iosifovich’s writing of epigrams was in full swing, he began to read them in public for the first time. Sometimes he called me late at night to the Sovremennik hostel, woke up the neighbors, demanding to call me to the phone. And the neighbors were then unknown Yura Bogatyrev and Stas Sadalsky. I picked up the phone and in my sleep I heard: “Old man, it’s good that you’re not sleeping! Remember, I have an epigram for so-and-so, I want to read it, but I forgot.” But I had a good memory, and I remembered these epigrams of his perfectly. And one day I came up with the idea of writing an article about Gaft, inserting his quatrains, for the newspaper “Youth of Estonia”. Thus, for the first time, two dozen of his epigrams saw the light of day.
Actually, I was very lucky: life gave me meetings with a huge number of wonderful people Russian culture. Here through the fence is the house of Albert Filozov. We have been friends for a long time, work and drink together. Lived nearby. For many years we met old man together New Year at his house in Peredelkino.
The “School of Modern Play” employs wonderful actors - all of them are either my friends or students. We met at the Theater of Miniatures, the current Hermitage Theater, when no one knew her. At first she, without having drama education, worked in her native Omsk, then moved to Moscow, becoming a music hall artist. Lyuba was, in a good way, crazy, diverse, uncontrollable, it was immediately clear that she was very talented. For some time I even prepared her for admission to GITIS, she became a student in Oleg Tabakov’s workshop. When the “School of Modern Play” opened in 1989, the premiere, “A Man Came to a Woman,” was performed by Albert Filozov and Lyuba. After her death, the role went to Ira Alferova, my former classmate.
Another star of our theater is Tanya Vasilyeva... I saw her play in graduation performances when I was a student. That is, Tanya and I are also connected by a lifelong acquaintance. The School of Contemporary Play gave me a unique opportunity to gather my favorite artists. I was lucky enough to work with both Mikhail Andreevich Gluzsky. I remember a wonderful incident.
Once we were on tour in Riga and lived in a sanatorium on the shores of the Baltic Sea. Early in the morning I went for a walk and met Gluzsky in funny ridiculous shorts. “Mikhail Andreevich, what “serious” shorts you have!” - I told him. “What do you think, I’m not a boy anymore either. Not Romeo! And then Maria Vladimirovna appeared on the balcony with her hair down and in a long white nightgown. I joked: “Don’t be modest! Here is your Juliet! He immediately reacted, ran to the balcony, picking a twig from some flowering bush along the way, and shouted to Maria Vladimirovna: “Juliet!” And they started playing. There was no age or years lived, there was only youth and passion... They remembered the text, played not without humor, but without going into parody. It’s a pity that the only spectator who saw this miracle was me. And then a motorcycle rumbled and a handsome young man appeared with a huge bouquet of red roses: “Maria Vladimirovna, on behalf of the Minister of Culture of Latvia...” She gasped and blurted out: “Artist Gluzsky, you are withdrawing from the role!” Here is my Romeo!
— In stagnant times, artists lived well, went on tours around different countries. Perhaps your first time abroad was a shock for you?
“They didn’t let me leave the country for a very long time.” You most likely don’t remember that in order to travel abroad, even to Bulgaria, a reference, recommendation and permission from the district party committee were required? And I, fortunately, have never been either a Komsomol member or a communist. I tried to pass these stupid interviews a couple of times, but they turned me down. They asked, for example: “How do you feel about the fact that Solzhenitsyn is denigrating our Soviet reality?” And I began: “You see, in Solzhenitsyn’s work...” At this point the conversation stopped, because calling Alexander Isaevich’s works creativity was already dissent. Therefore, until I was forty, I traveled only around the country. Once we were with Sovremennik in Irkutsk. Five in the morning, a hundred artists gathered in the lobby of the hotel, where they will not be accommodated until everyone fills out a long form. At six o'clock a newsstand opened in the same hall. Artists began to flock to him and buy press. Suddenly, someone noticed a portrait of Igor Kvasha from the popular series “Soviet Cinema Actors” in the window and told Kvasha about it. “Excuse me, but do you have a portrait of Volchek?” - Igor Vladimirovich asked the kiosk woman. "No!" - “And Gafta?” - "No". - “What about Tabakova?” “And Tabakov is not there,” the lady answers dryly. Kvasha looked triumphantly at his comrades and asked the last question: “Who do you have?” - “Some kind of Kvasha... Others were sold out, but everyone doesn’t buy it.”
The first time I was released to Poland. At that time I was already heading the “School of Contemporary Play” and was invited to serve on the jury of some festival. When our train stopped at night in Brest - the carriages were being transferred to a narrow gauge railway - I woke up in incredible excitement in anticipation of the fact that I was about to cross the border Soviet Union. It seemed to me that everything should be different THERE. And I was very surprised when, already on the territory of Poland, a cat was walking at the station - a foreign one! But it looks just like ours. In general, the very thought that I was in a mysterious, alluring “abroad” turned my mind upside down. I was absolutely delighted. Six months later I flew to Israel, then somewhere else, and trips abroad became commonplace.
In general, I consider those “terrible, dashing” 1990s to be the best years of my life, and the life of the country as a whole. Because every person became the author of his own destiny. It was no longer possible to rely either on the CPSU or on the Lord God, but only on oneself. Then, for the first time, the word “business” entered our vocabulary. Some wanted to make films, some wanted to pump oil and gas, some wanted to open theaters, and some just wanted to see the world, and everyone had the opportunity to fulfill their desires.
- When my little son heard your last name on TV, he asked: “I wonder how he remembered it himself?” Has such a difficult surname ever bothered you?
— When I graduated from GITIS and started working at Sovremennik, I was repeatedly offered to change it, they say, for a Russian theater this is a very wrong surname. Even Oleg Pavlovich Tabakov, being the director of Sovremennik, once said in an interview: “This season we took a very promising director to the theater - Joseph Leonidovich Leonidov.” He hoped that I would come to my senses and make the right decision. But I'm proud of my ancestors. Why should I change their last name? At one time I collected notes in which my last name was distorted, making three or four mistakes. As soon as they didn’t call me! And “REkhIlgauz” and “REkhNgauz” and even “ReicheRGRUZ”.
— Joseph Leonidovich, you were born and raised in Odessa. There have always been many tales and jokes about this city. Does all this look like what really happened?
— Odessa — great city with 220 years of history. All stories, legends, anecdotes have a historical explanation. Pushkin from Odessa exile wrote: “The golden language of Italy sounds along the cheerful street, where a proud Slav, a Frenchman, a Spaniard, an Armenian, and a Greek, and a heavy Moldavian, and a son of the Egyptian land walk ...” and so on. Note that there are no Ukrainians or Jews there yet. In such Babylon, of course, there was a great mixture of world cultures, as a result of which a special Odessa humor and language was born. You can come to Odessa just for good jokes.
- I know that you collect them. Show off your latest trophies.
- Please. In May I am going with my friend, the head of a large Russian corporation, to Privoz. There are a huge number of sellers. There are strawberries on every counter. “The juiciest in the world...”, “The freshest...”, but simply - “The most-most.” We stop at the one designated as “the sweetest on Privoz.” My friend tries the berry and sadly says: “No, not the sweetest.” The saleswoman looks at me: “This man must have a very hard life.”
Or here's another one. I buy vegetables near my Odessa house, and next to the stall there is a woman selling sausages. "Man! (In Odessa they only address this: man or woman.) Buy wonderful fresh sausages from me.” I answer: “With pleasure, but in the morning I’ll go to Privoz and buy everything there.” And I hear in response: “What’s the point, they will deceive you even more!” I laughed and bought it.
When I was little, we had a ton of unique neighbors. I remember such a case. Early in the summer morning a cry is heard: “Sofya Moiseevna! Are you sleeping now?" Silence. “Sofya Moiseevna!” And again: “Are you sleeping?” Neighbor Uncle Savva looks out of the window and shouts: “Yes, yes, yes!!! Sofya Moiseevna is sleeping, but no one else!”
When I already lived in Moscow, but came to Odessa to relax at my parents’ dacha, Yura Bogatyrev kept me company. In the evenings, neighbors and relatives gathered, and Yura organized readings. We sat on the second floor on the veranda, the warm sea splashed below, and Yura enthusiastically read “The Master and Margarita.” His neighbor Fanya Naumovna, a typical Odessa resident, such a huge woman, also came to listen to him. When Yura explained something to her in correct Russian, she replied: “Oh, don’t fool me with one place!”
I lived in Odessa until I was 17 years old and love this city with all my heart. In the summer I was a guest of the Odessa Film Festival. I once came to watch movies an hour early. I think: well, what to do? And I set off along the route that I remember from childhood. Here is my kindergarten, and here is the bakery, where to this day the divine smell of bread... You know, I am absolutely sure that everything is formed in youth, and in adulthood it is only adjusted.
My parents - simple people, but like I said, I was always proud of them. Dad fought, went through the war from the first day to the last, was a real hero, a tank driver, he wrote his name on the Reichstag, and I found that inscription when I was in Berlin. He has so many awards that they couldn’t all fit on one jacket.
After the war, dad worked as a driver, for several years in the Far North, that is, he was engaged in a real man’s job. I even feel embarrassed and ashamed that I chose such an easy profession. When I was 14, I declared that I no longer wanted to study, I would rather become a ship captain or a conductor (even though I didn’t know a single note). And then my dad brought me to the car depot and got me an apprenticeship as a gas-electric welder. In the heat, I lay on the asphalt and welded pieces of iron. Thus, my father established a coordinate system in my fragile child’s psyche. My father is no longer alive, but I still focus on her. Mom worked as a stenographer, although she dreamed of becoming a doctor. She sings very well and has excellent hearing. All my sister and I’s childhood she took us to Odessa Opera theatre. But she didn’t drive it just like that, but after preparing it by reading the libretto. Therefore, I always went there with great joy.
At the age of thirteen I met a wonderful family, wonderful Odessa artists Mikhail Borisovich and Zoya Aleksandrovna Ivnitsky, from whom I first heard unfamiliar names: Pasternak, ... I was ashamed that I didn’t know who it was, I asked to let me read their books.
Anyone who has achieved something, well done - they trained, they wanted it badly, they made mistakes and moved on. When I hear from friends the phrase: “I didn’t do it because they didn’t give it to me, they interfered with it, they forbade me,” I don’t believe it: you only have yourself to blame for what didn’t work out.
— Have your daughters connected their lives with the theater? Surely they grew up behind the scenes...
— The girls grew up in normal conditions, at home. The eldest, Masha Tregubova, became an outstanding world-class stage designer. In her early thirties, she received every professional award possible. To work with her, I have to stand in a long line, I can’t get through to her.
- My eldest daughter, Masha, became an outstanding set designer. To work with her, you have to stand in a long line, I can’t get through to her
I really didn't want her to become an artist. And, fortunately, this did not happen. Acting is a harmful, bad profession that is contrary to human nature. Usually, good actors V personal life unhappy. It is difficult for a person who constantly composes something, reinterprets it, gets used to the images, to fit into everyday life. Of course, I have always been inconvenient for those close to me. Perhaps I am not the most correct father... You could and should have done much more with children than I did. Luckily, their mother took care of them. Everything that is good in them comes from Marina (Marina Khazova is an Honored Artist of the Russian Federation, an actress at the Sovremennik Theater, a former student of Joseph Raikhelgauz. - TN note).
Our youngest daughter, Sasha, is a graduate of the Faculty of Philology of Moscow State University. I tried to persuade her to get it for a long time a good education, and she obeyed, but, I think, only because she wanted to please me and my mother. Since Sasha studied well at school and carefully prepared for the exams, she easily passed them and graduated from the university. But for two years now he has been working as an ordinary administrator at the School of Dramatic Art theater. In addition, for some reason, not so long ago I graduated from a hairdressing course.
“Perhaps I’m not the most correct father... But I’m very proud of my children, very much.” With daughter Sasha
- Why don’t you take her to your theater?
- What do you mean “you don’t take it”? She categorically refuses to come to me. Moreover, he refuses any help from me. And I could call wonderful magazines, where I have many editor friends, or radio stations, television channels... But Sasha doesn’t want to hear about it.
I am very proud of my children, very...
— How old is your youngest daughter?
- 23... Or not, 24. To remember how old my daughters are, I first have to remember how old I am.
Years are a terrible thing. My mother never says how old she is. He answers evasively: “I don’t remember exactly.” Today the biggest disappointment in life is age. The great Marlen Martynovich Khutsiev has an amazing film “Infinity” - about a man who suddenly realizes that life is finite. By the way, in one of the main female roles Marina Khazova starred in this film.
Twenty years ago, when I watched it, I didn’t get the point. Understanding came recently, when in everyday trifles I suddenly began to feel the finitude of existence. For example, I have a library where, in addition to books by Ulitskaya, Akunin, Bykov, signed by the authors, until recently there were books by some graphomaniacs... So let them forgive me, but I began to get rid of their “creations”, because I realized that I would never I’ll read it and won’t even open it. I don't want to waste precious time.
— Time has become incredibly dense. Every day is a long time! But I have a lot of plans. In the end, I have not yet passed on my last name to anyone, all the daughters were born... But life is not over, and who knows how it will turn out. With a pet - Labrador Bill
When they calmly tell me: “Why are you nervous, your theater will be rebuilt in three or four years,” I ask in shock: “Three years?!” What are you talking about?! I need it now!” (“The School of Contemporary Play” survived a fire in November 2013, the theater temporarily moved to the Theater Club on Tishinka. — TN note.) Time has become incredibly dense. Every day is a long time! Before, I never counted these days. I am no longer young, but it is difficult to realize this. After all, I'm in good shape. I like to work, I love my profession, but even more I like to do something not related to the theater. Build, go somewhere... I have a lot of plans. In the end, I have not yet passed on my last name to anyone, all the daughters were born... But life is not over, and who knows how it will turn out.
Family: mother - Faina Iosifovna; daughters - Maria Tregubova, artist, Alexandra Khazova, theater administrator
Education: graduated from the directing department of GITIS
Career: was a production director at the Sovremennik Theater. He worked as a director at the Moscow Theater. Pushkin, Moscow Theater of Miniatures (now the Hermitage Theater). Since 1989 - artistic director of the School of Modern Play theater. Heads the directing and acting workshop at the department of drama directing at RUTI-GITIS. He staged plays in Turkey, America, Switzerland, Israel, etc. He wrote the books “I Don’t Believe”, “The Odessa Book”, “We Got into a Climb”, “Walks on the Off-Road”. People's Artist of Russia
RAIKHELGAUS, JOSEPH LEONIDOVICH(b. 1947), Russian director, teacher. People's Artist of the Russian Federation (1999). Born June 12, 1947 in Odessa. In 1964, he entered the Odessa Youth Theater through a competition as an auxiliary artist. From 1965 to 1968 he lived in Leningrad, studied at various universities and worked as a stagehand at the Bolshoi Drama Theater. Raikhelgauz staged his first directorial works on the stage of the Student Theater of Leningrad University.
In 1973 he graduated from GITIS named after. A.V. Lunacharsky (course of A.A. Popov and M.O. Knebel). At the same time, together with A. Vasiliev, he directed the studio theater on Mytnaya Street (2nd Arbuzovskaya Studio). He was one of the first in Moscow to stage plays by S. Zlotnikov, L. Petrushevskaya, V. Slavkin, A. Remez.
From 1973 to 1979 and from 1985 to 1989 director of the Sovremennik Theater. Among the productions: From Lopatin's notes(1975, based on his own adaptation of the story by K. Simonov), Echelon M. Roshchina (1976, together with G. Volchek), And in the morning they woke up(based on the stories of V. Shukshin, 1977), Ghost H. Ibsen (1989). In 1977–1978, production director of the Moscow Drama Theater named after. K.S.Stanislavsky. I put one of them here best performances – Self-portrait Remeza, banned after the first show. In 1981–1982 - at the Moscow Miniature Theater (Hermitage Theatre): Triptych for two Zlotnikova and composition Offer. Wedding. Love based on the works of A. Chekhov, M. Zoshchenko, L. Petrushevskaya (1982). In 1983–1985 - at the Taganka Theater ( Scenes at the fountain Zlotnikova, 1985).
In 1989, Raikhelgauz founded the Moscow Theater “School of Modern Play” and is his artistic director. “In this theater, it is economically and artistically reasonable to combine a small permanent troupe and invite contract stars” (E. Streltsova). I put it here: A man came to a woman (1989), (1993), The old man left the old woman (1995), An excellent cure for boredom(2000) - all based on plays by Zlotnikov, Without mirrors(1994) N. Klimontovich, Who are you in tailcoat? By Offer Chekhov (1992), Gull Chekhov (1998), Greetings, Don Quixote! (composition by Raikhelgauz after M. Cervantes, L. Minkus, M. A. Bulgakov and others, 1997), Notes of a Russian traveler E. Grishkovets (1999), Gull B. Akunina.
Works in theaters around the country: My poor Marat A. Arbuzova (Odessa Academic theater October Revolution, 1973); And didn't say a single word G. Böll (CATSA, 1973); A man came to a woman Zlotnikov (Moscow Theater named after A.S. Pushkin, 1981); Proletarian mill of happiness V. Merezhko (theater-studio under the direction of O. Tabakov, 1982); Madam Minister based on the play by B. Nushich (Omsk Academic Drama Theater, 1984); Late autumn evening Fr. Dürrenmatt (Lipetsk Academic Theatre of Drama them. L. Tolstoy, 1986); A time to love and a time to hate(opera performance based on his own libretto, music by A. Vasilyev; ibid., 1987), etc.
Staged in foreign theaters: National Theater "Habima" (Israel, A man came to a woman), "La Mama" (New York, Gull Chekhov), Rochester Theater (USA), Kenter (Turkey), etc.
On television he made more than ten television films, incl. Two plot for men, From Lopatin's notes, Echelon according to M. Roshchin (1985), 1945 according to Reichelgauz (1986), Painting according to Slavkin (1987), A man came to woman, Everything will be fine, just as you wanted and etc.
Author literary material many of his performances. His plays based on works modern writers were staged in theaters former USSR and abroad. Author and presenter of the series television programs"Theater Shop" (1997).
Raikhelgauz's teaching career began at GITIS (1974–1989). In 1994 he taught a special course “Chekhov's Dramaturgy” at the University of Rochester (USA). Since 1990 he has directed the “Workshop of Theater and Film Actors” at VGIK. Since 2000, he has been giving a course of lectures on “History and Theory of Directing” at the Russian State University for the Humanities (RGGU). Professor at the University of Rochester (USA), professor at the All-Russian State Institute of Cinematography. S.A. Gerasimova (1998).
