Moscow State Theatre LENCOM

Today, everyone knows this place - and Muscovites, and visitors and inveterate theatergoers, and those who go to performances once or twice a year. Here is placed "Lenkom" (this everyday abbreviation was common even when it was officially called the Moscow Theater named after Lenin Komsomol, and a dozen years ago acquired the rights of full citizenship), a theater that can not be ignored, a theater of actors-stars and superstars, outstanding directors and playwrights, a theater of amazing creative youth, innovation, bold experiments, longevity and constancy of its audience success. The name of the Lenin Komsomol Moscow Theater on the building on Malaya Dmitrovka, house 6, appeared on February 20, 1938. This year, the theater was headed by Ivan Bersenev, who came from the recently dispersed Moscow Art Theater-2, bringing a brilliant team of actors from the Mkhatov school - Sophia Giazintova, Seraphim Birman, Rostislav Plyatt. The new life of the theater and its new rise began in 1963 with the arrival of Anatoly Efros. This rise did not last long, only three years: very soon the theater was cut wings, removing Efros from the post of chief director "as not providing the right direction in the formation of the repertoire" (formulation from the order No. 50 of the Department of Culture of the Executive Committee of the Moscow Council of March 7, 1967). Ideological overseers of art seemed too bold his creative, and most importantly, moral quest. The director did not teach the viewer, did not read him edifying sermons. Together with the actors, he simply suggested that he look into his own soul, think whether everything is safe in it, but it turned out: is everything safe in a society where everything looks so well? The viewer was invited by the artist to participate, co-reflection, co-creativity. Such were the performances on the plays "On the wedding day" by Viktor Rozov, "My poor Marat" by Alexei Arbuzov, "104 pages about love" and "A movie is shot" by Edward Radzinsky, on "Moliere" by Mikhail Bulgakov and "The Seagull" by Anton Chekhov. The director radically updated the repertoire of the theater, made it consonant with the times, full of insecurity, a living nerve of the very life that the audience lived outside the theater walls.