The young gifted soul is characterized by original impulses. The cultural capital of Russia, St. Petersburg, is known for numerous cases of creating creative associations that are eager to express ordinary things in a non-standard way. Such a collective is the Saturday Theater.
The idea of creating the theater "Saturday"
1969 year. Leningrad. The city, known for the first salvo of the cruiser Aurora, remained true to revolutionary thoughts in the future. Creative youth became a special inspiration of the city. Having once gathered at the theater club of the Vyborg Palace of Culture, a team of young Melpomene lovers was inspired by the idea of creating their own theater. On one March morning of 1969 a theater club was born.
Why does the theater have such a name
The theater club created on Saturday March morning did not remain untitled for long. The craving for everything original and at the same time simple prompted the founders to name their brainchild plainly - “Saturday”.
The founders of the troupe
The theater critic and artistic director of the amateur theater studio, Yuri Smirnov-Nesvitsky, has stood and still stands at the origins of the theater-club. Subsequently, his associates were Alexander Volodin, Victor Sosnora, Mikhail Zhvanetsky.
Over time, the theater began to collaborate with such authors as Vladimir Abramov, Peter Smirnov. Young stage directors also appeared, in particular, Andrei Korionov and Tatyana Voronina, who struck the public with an acute social outlook on life. We can say that the modernist theater of St. Petersburg is a figment of the imagination of the whole collective.
Short biography of the director
Yuri Alexandrovich Smirnov-Nevitsky, the permanent artistic director and ideological inspirer of the Saturday theater, celebrated another anniversary this year. Despite its 85 years, the founder of "Saturday" to this day manages a large creative team. It seems that without his beloved work he cannot imagine his life.
Yuri Alexandrovich was born back in 1932 (February 23) in the city of Leningrad. Despite the difficult military childhood, the boy from an early age strove for the beautiful and the sublime. As a result of this, in 1956, the young man graduated from the A.N. Ostrovsky Leningrad State Theater Institute. The knowledge gained at the theater department, was useful to a young man in a future profession. Active participation in the established workshop of directing and acting at the same faculty already inspired Yuri Alexandrovich to create an unusual reading of world classics. However, the young enthusiast did not have enough experience to translate bold ideas into reality.
According to the state distribution of young specialists, in 1956 Smirnov-Nesvitsky went to the city of Chelyabinsk, where he holds the post of teacher of the specialty "Fundamentals of Directing" at the city school of culture. After serving a year, Yuri Alexandrovich creates the City Amateur Theater and begins to work as a literary employee in the editorial office of the newspaper Chelyabinsk Worker.
In 1960, Smirnov-Nesvitsky returned to his native Leningrad, where he immediately enters the graduate school of LGITMiK. As an object of the dissertation research on the topic “Style searches of modern Soviet direction”, the personal experience of the author of the production of the play by A. N. Arbuzov “Irkutsk History” was chosen. Work protection occurred in 1965. Seventeen years later, a doctorate on the topic “V. V. Mayakovsky and Soviet Theater. ”
For more than twenty years, Yuri Alexandrovich worked as a senior researcher at the Research Institute of the Leningrad Institute of Theater, Music and Cinematography, and in 1985 he became the head of the same university.
Yuri A. Smirnov-Nevitsky successfully combined his scientific activity with creativity. In the eighties of the last century, he was an active participant in all the workshops directed by Pyotr Fomenko and Anatoly Efros.
Since 1990, the professor has held the post of deputy director for research at the RIIII (Russian Institute of the History of Arts).
From 2006 to this day, Smirnov-Nevitsky has been working as the chief scientific associate of the RIIII theater sector.
Throughout his scientific career, Yuri Alexandrovich studied the history of Russian theater and was engaged in theatrical criticism. Among other scientific interests, one can single out a passion for the work of V. Mayakovsky, E. Vakhtangov, I. Bunin.
Yuri Alexandrovich Smirnov-Nevitsky was lucky to learn from such masters of Russian drama as Vsevolod Uspensky, Lydia Levbarg, Mikhail Portugalov, Leonid Vivien, Rebekka Averbukh. It was they who instilled in the future professor a thirst for a deep knowledge of the subject of history and theory of theater. Many scholarly works have come out from the pen of the scientist, among which are On the Variety of Stage Decisions, Another Life, Vakhtangov, Ivan Bunin, and Cultural Paradigms.
Statuses of the Saturday Theater
Being once a small group of theater lovers, in 1969 the collective began to be called the theater club "Saturday." The first productions presented by the young troupe brought her the popularity of an innovative theater.
In 1987, the Saturday Theater in St. Petersburg became known as the studio theater. Work on the search for his style continued.
By the twenty-fifth anniversary of the collective, the theater received the status of a state. Now on the billboard of the Saturday theater there is a proud name: State Drama Theater.
Main repertoire
Formed in the early seventies, the Saturday Theater in St. Petersburg immediately gained fame as a non-standard collective. The plays, seemingly familiar from childhood, look radically different in the interpretation of modernist productions. All this could not but arouse the keen interest of the creative intelligentsia.
However, the main repertoire of Saturday is plays that are still unknown to the general public. The productions are based on the theater team’s own experience, presented in an original manner.
Even classic literary works are embodied in scenic life in addition to the personal fantasies of the scriptwriter. Many classical works are redone by the artistic director himself - Yuri Alexandrovich Smirnov-Nevitsky. The scriptwriter often puts his thoughts and views into the mouths of heroes. Performances are accompanied by unusual songs and melodies, also created by a brilliant leader.
Author's theatrical plays sometimes do not have clearly stated dialogues. But all of them consist of allegorical compositions that each viewer can interpret in accordance with their experiences. Often during the scene there is a dialogue between the hero-actor and the spectator-accomplice. Visitors, sometimes against their will, are drawn into the game. Improvisation not only does not interfere with the production, but also helps her to become special, tailored specifically for this audience.
Famous natives of the innovative theater of St. Petersburg
The staff of the theater "Saturday" consists mainly of young actors. Creating his brainchild, Smirnov-Nevitsky strove to select people with new, non-polluted looks who would not be afraid to follow the path of trial and error. The first performances were staged in the spirit of an art-social experiment.
Theater “Saturday” gave a start to life for many famous people today. Actors who have come from there are now popular not only in Russia, but also abroad. Among the stars it is worth recalling Konstantin Khabensky, Semyon Spivak, Grigory Gladkov. At different times, Angelica Nevolin, Alexander Yakovlev, Mikhail Razumovsky, Tatyana Abramova served in the theater.
The art director of “Saturday” invited actors from other creative groups to collaborate. Andrey Mironov, Oleg Efremov, Olga Volkova, Mikhail Zhvanetsky, Pavel Kadochnikov - this is an incomplete list of famous partners of the former theater club. The posters of the Saturday Theater have always struck a constellation of famous actors.
Where is Saturday
The theater “Saturday” in St. Petersburg held its first rehearsals on the stage of the Vyborg House of Culture at 15. Smirnova St. 15. However, the collective was soon forced to change their “residence permit”. Now it is located in its own room on 30 Zvenigorodskaya street.
Theater “Saturday” can be immediately noticed thanks to the non-standard design of the entrance. The main stage shares the building with the Social Hotel for minor children. The theater occupies the first floor of the building. The address of the theater "Saturday" is known to a wide circle of theatergoers.
Reviews about the theater "Saturday"
At different times, well-known critics and art critics spoke about the collective's activities. A person who has once visited the production of the Saturday theater in St. Petersburg cannot refrain from expressing feelings and emotions caused by the performance. The most memorable reviews belong to the theater expert Mikhail Shvydky, director of the Moscow Theater Evgeny Tabachnikov, critic Lyudmila Klimova. All of them noted the originality and uniqueness of the theater's productions. Evgeny Tabachnikov proposed to come up with a special term that would describe the essence of the brainchild of Smirnov-Nevitsky. Lyudmila Klimova noted the ability of actors to "feel the theater in themselves."
And the playwright Alexander Volodin noted the unique ability of the team to make friends and interact with each other on the stage and outside the theater. “Stay that way both in creativity and in life,” wished an old friend and admirer of the Saturday theater.