Going to the theater can be a bright, unforgettable event. It is important to choose the right setting. Before buying tickets, many want to know the reviews, plot and description of the performance. The production of “Ladys Knight”, whose actors have long been known and loved by the audience, will be discussed in the article.
About the play and its authors
The play Ladies Night was written in 1987 by New Zealanders Stefan Sinclair and Anthony McCarthen in collaboration with Jacques Collard, a native of Equatorial Africa. Since then she has successfully performed in many theaters in the world, and in 2002 she was even awarded the highest theater award in France - the Moliere Prize in the nomination for Best Comedy.
During the time elapsed since the writing, the play was staged on different stages more than seven hundred times. In Russia, the premiere of Ladys Knight, whose actors deserve special attention, took place in October 2002 at the Satyricon Theater.
Background
The performance of Ladies Night even before the premiere promised to be a sensation. The head of this project, Elshan Mammadov, relied on the infamous director Victor Shamirov - and did not lose. The plot of the production of “Ladys Knight”, the cast, blew up the audience.
Shamirov had just finished work on the play The Innkeeper, which critics unanimously fought against. However, it was held with constant box office success. They also expected a scandal from the new production of the director. Moreover, at the end of the performance, male striptease was announced in advance. The performance was advertised in Moscow brightly and promisingly. Critics were prepared in advance to write devastating reviews.
Plot
So what is the play about? Six employees of the closed metallurgical enterprise, six unemployed losers, painfully experiencing a midlife crisis, drink the last pennies in a bar. Wives have already left some, others are about to leave.
Of the pleasures of life - disgusting cheap beer and street fights. Behind - years of hard work at a metallurgical plant, from where they were thrown out as unnecessary. Ahead is a miserable hopeless existence. But everything changes when they come across an advertisement in a newspaper about a male strip show. Having seen the price of the admission ticket, the outraged metallurgists are first shocked, and then they are tempted to create their own strip show. From this moment begins their fascinating journey into the country of high body-technology.
In the process of teaching six dilettantes the high art of striptease under the guidance of the choreographer-enthusiast Glenda, the hall will shudder with laughter. To master this art, you have to enroll in a library, get sportswear and shoes, quit smoking and give up carbohydrates. The notorious losers during squabble and scuffle, either gathering together, or scattering from each other, like from a plague, try to solve a difficult creative task. And to rally this team, the least suitable for the erotic field, oh, how difficult.
What can unite the Turkish Wesley and the chauvinist Barry, the exemplary father of Greg and the sissy of Norman, the red-bearded fat man Kevin and, to top it off, the oppositionist Graham, who has longest resisted the idea of participating in a strip show? But they will certainly succeed, and in the end the actors will undress, however, not entirely, but only to tight-fitting flesh-colored swimming trunks. But this does not stop the women in the hall screaming with delight and applaud until exhaustion. Perhaps a certain critic was right, noting that for our women to have a good rest, they needed not so much a complete male nudity as an opportunity to laugh carefree heartily. The performance “Ladys Knight”, the actors of which are laid out on the stage, cope with this task by 100%.
Actors First squad
The performance owes much of its success to the wonderful acting. She was noted by both critics and viewers. The first cast of Ladys Knight includes:
- Gosh Kutsenko.
- Vyacheslav Razbegaev.
- Marat Basharov.
- Dmitry Maryanov.
- Euclid Kurdzidis.
The role of Glenda was brilliantly performed by Lyudmila Artemyeva. At that time they were all well-known and popular artists. The critic called them “star candidates,” but without star stamping.
Director Viktor Shamirov did a great job with the actors - he built the ensemble, thought over the characters' characters and managed to stay in the proposed theme within the framework of good taste. The striptease in the play is not an end in itself, but only a production detail that embodies the hope for a better future, "the great dream of a little man."
Modern staging
The success of the performance on the Moscow stage provided him with a long life. Today, fifteen years after the premiere, the performance continues to delight the audience. Of course, the Ladys Knight actors (photo below) have changed over time. Now Ekaterina Durova, Gosha Kutsenko, Peter Krasilov, Vyacheslav Razbegaev, Mikhail Policeitsimako, Euclid Kyurzidis, Pavel Sbornikov, Valery Yaremenko, Konstantin Yushkevich and George Martirosyan are engaged in the performance.
Over the years of collaboration, the actors have become a close-knit team of talented like-minded people. Updating from time to time, this line-up toured the whole country with tours. Until now, the creative team is convinced that the performance with a purely masculine energy remains in demand and necessary. Staging at the junction of comedy, drama and show allows actors to more fully reveal their creative potential, and to viewers to go beyond the generally accepted theater framework.
The style of the performance
Since the heroes of the play are hardworking losers, at first they obviously do not shine with the sophistication of manners . The performance “Ladys Knight” cast plays in the appropriate style. Their vocabulary is dominated by rather crude expressions, indicating the state of mind, body parts and mutual “compliments” to each other.
Only after a whole act has the manners of former steelworkers, and now creative personalities, become suspiciously pampered, and the speech is correct, like a professor of philology. Actors act out all these nuances very clearly, competently and ridiculously ridiculously.
Reviews
Theater critics met the premiere of the performance ambiguously. Given the scandalous glory of past theatrical productions of Viktor Shamirov, some reviewers advised him to "get out of the theater." Profanity, lingering monologues, too straightforward and too heavy jokes, heroes not like New Zealand steelworkers, but Moscow party-goers, hackneyed, battered morality ...
Among the advantages of the performance was noted the organic work of the creative team. The cast of Ladys Knight is undoubtedly talented. They know how to keep the attention of the audience and, remaining within the framework of good taste, be hilariously funny. The rudeness of jokes, which some reviewers blamed the actors for, was seen by others as deadly humor and the dignity of the performance.
All critics unanimously note that in the final scene the audience is clearly not Apollo, but this does not detract from the merits of the performance. “Ladys Knight” laughs, providing the public with a charge of positive emotions and a good mood.
Viewers reviews
The audience also disagreed about the performance. Those who came to him, for the sake of striptease, in fact, are outraged that they were deceived and something was not shown. Many are dissatisfied with the age of the Ladys Knight actors and their physical form and require either to replace them or completely remove the play from the repertoire.
Another part of the audience is delighted with the performance, they say that the creative team copes well with their roles, and thank the participants of the production for their excellent mood and a great time.
In any case, “Ladys Knight” - a male performance for women - is still in demand and is still considered the most original hooliganism of theatrical Moscow.