Sevastopol Academic Russian Dramatic A.Lunacharsky Theatre

Now I try to realize my very old idea: to create series of materials about the very details of theater life. This behind-the-scene stories will came from the source: from our theater personalities. So, let me introduce Dovgan' Tatyana Alexandrovna.

Since year 2000 she is a manager of the literature department in our Sevastopol Academic Russian Dramatic A. Lunacharsky Theatre. What is the work of the manager of literature department consisting of? On the official web-page of the Theater you can read: "…she is responsible for preparing of historical and culturological materials for Theater's performances, makes press-conferences and communicates with mass-media. Together with the art-director she determines the repertoire and keep contacts with contemporary playwrights". But what does "preparing of historical and culturological materials" mean?

Tatyana Alexandrovna told me about it shortly and I try to write here this story. Theatre has a new premiere in a 2 days, everything and everyone is in a hurry now, so we couldn't make a normal interview.

When coming to the performance we are used to see spectacle for 1,5-2 hours, not longer. But have you ever think, that original plays are 4 or even 6 hours long!!! Tatyana Alexandrovna makes a huge work over the texts in order to get into the performance's timetable and keep for us all cause-and-effect relations, all intrigue and let's say the very heart and soul of the original.

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Tatyana Alexandrovna has her own bibliotheca where she makes her historical and culture researches, studies lifestyle and customs of the performed period and author's time. She needs to do it in order to make the spectacle as much realistic as possible, to show us the author's environment, to help us understand better his thoughts and ideas, which he try to bring us through his play. Everything that has even a little importance for the play's creation - is a sophisticated mosaic of small lifestyle elements on the background of historical events and sometimes even global cosmic occasions. For example when Gogol' N.V. wrote his "The Marriage" a comet approached to the Earth. This comet was well seen at the sky and took a big place in the news and thoughts of the contemporaries. People try to predict the future, falling into mystic; a lot of esoteric schools had appeared at that period.

Next part of literature manager's work includes in finding an authentic lifestyle picture of the described period. This is not only architecture, interiors and costumes, but also songs and dances, language and dialects, habits, anecdotes, popular amusement. In such research, for example, had been discovered the fact that famous mariners' dance "Yablochko" (The Apple) was not created at the decks of rebel cruiser "The Aurora" but appeared much more earlier in the middle age Moldavia culture!

If we take the performance as a kind of time-machine, literature manager should be the navigator of this magic device. It is hard to imagine, what should be the erudition level of such person! What knowledge desire must she have! What teaching abilities she needs to pass her knowledge to stage director and actors, to costume-makers and decorators in order to merge all this talents together and cast from this alloy a completely new creation moving its spectators through the time end epochs. Really, theater is an alliance of very peculiar persons and this alliance creates a real magic for our pleasure.