«Movie+Theatre». Russian Dramatic Art in Cinema and on Stage

The exhibition «Movie+Theatre. Russian Dramatic Art in Cinema and on Stage» is open from 4 September 2016 in the Eastern facade hall of the A.A. Bakhrushin Theatre Museum Main Building. Celebrating the Year of Russian Cinema, the Bakhrushin Theatre Museum together with the Art Faculty of the All-Russian State Institute of Cinematography with support by the «Mosfilm» film concern and the «Lenfilm» film studio shows the stage and screen history of the most striking works of Russian drama.

Theatre and cinema integrate literature, acting, art, music, plastic, but while a captured film remains unchanged, every theatrical performance is a new unique work. For over a hundred years theatre and cinema are competitors – at the same time they don’t replace, but complement and enrich each other.

The exhibition in the A.A. Bakhrushin Theatre Museum proposes to think about the common and different things in the working process in theatre and cinema in the case of productions and screen adaptations of five great Russian dramatic works: «Boris Godunov» by Alexander Pushkin, «The Masquerade» by Mikhail Lermontov, «The Poor Bride» by Alexander Ostrovsky, «Uncle Vanya» and «Three Sisters» by Anton Chekhov.

Stories of each of these plays on stage and on screen have a lot of episodes. Exhibition represents them in set and costume designs, stage settings, playbills, photos and film footage, texts and manuscripts of parts.

For example, in the section devoted to «The Masquerade» by Mikhail Lermontov you can see pictures from Sergey Gerasimov’s film made in 1941, famous sketches by Alexander Golovin for production at the Alexandrinsky Theatre /1917/ and sketches by Enar Stenberg for the Maly Theatre /1961/… In the section devoted to Chekhov’s «Uncle Vanya» sketches by Boris Kustodiev for the performance at the Moscow Art Theatre /1911/ are located side by side with the works by Andrey Klimov for the production at the Nizhny Novgorod Academic Drama Theatre /2008/ and Oleg Mamayev’s sketches for the film based on Anton Chekhov’s short story «The House with the Mezzanine» /from the VGIK archive/ are together with pictures by Eduard Kochergin for production at the Leningrad State Academic Bolshoi Drama Theatre /1982/.
The exhibition is a unique opportunity to see for the first time found during the analysis of Museum’s archival material footage from the silent film «War and Peace» made by Yakov Protazanov and Vladimir Gardin in 1915. The film hasn’t been preserved, but it is known that it consisted of two series, each with duration about five hours. 33 photos presented at the exhibition are today the only known material that can show this film.

The exhibition hall will host the Creative Laboratory. It is a space where visitors can immerse themselves in the process of creating theatre or cinema production. Unique archival materials will be presented for work and study there. Learn how actors and directors are preparing for work on spectacle or film, looking at the notebook of Alisa Koonen with part of Nina Zarechnaya, part of Evgeny Dorn with remarks by Innokentiy Smoktunovsky or Anatoly Efros’ director’s screenplay based on Anton Chekhov’s «The Seagull», make-up or props designs. You can browse among the works on history and direction of cinema and theatre, learn what is a mounting of plays on the example of the mounting by Alexander Golovin for the play «The Masquerade» at the Alexandrinsky Theatre /1917, directed by Vsevolod Meyerhold/, read the texts of works presented at the exhibition, watch the episodes from the most important historical and contemporary performances and screen adaptations, as well as test your knowledge on the history of cinema, theatre and literature. For example, correlate a name of work with a photo of performance or a picture from film or identify a literary character by a costume design or a text fragment.