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Alexander Pushkin\u2019s Eugene Onegin<\/i> is studied, drilled and parsed stanza by stanza <\/b>at school in Russia. This \u201cpied collection\u201d is unforgettable, which, however, doesn\u00b4t prevent our knowledge of the novel from becoming rusty. That is why we keep rereading it. Here I quote from Charles H. Johnson\u2019s English translation (Penguin 1977). Rimas Tuminas didn\u2019t aim at brushing up the viewers\u2019 memory of the novel. He hasn\u2019t become its illustrator either. The Lithuanian director has wisely presumed that everybody knows \u201cour everything\u201d in Russia. Nobody calls for riding from chapter to chapter, \u201cas horses whirled him through the dust\u201d (ch. 1, st. II) endeavoring to embrace the immense (\u201ca free romance\u2019s far horizon\u201d, ch..8, st. L), to utter the words without having time to think them over. Pushkin has been read here very carefully, and that turned out to be better than any new readings.<\/p>\n The dark stage seems to be endless. The chandelier on the ceiling will meet with thunderous applause from the audience more than once, rivaled only by the music by Fautas Latenas. The performance relies upon the novel. By the same token, the composer is inspired by The Old French Song<\/i>, <\/i>by Pyotr Tchaikovsky in the main theme, giving it unprecedented <\/b>power and melting the audience\u2019s heart. The motif sounding over and over again, completes the set: first there is a snowstorm, then there is a funeral march; sometimes we hear the waltz of a magnificent ball, sometimes it is a silent cry in the corner\u2026 The performance strikes us with its aesthetics. Eugene Onegin <\/i>is a polyphonic work of literature: there isn\u2019t a single word, or a gesture or a step used casually; everything has more to it than meets the eye. \u201cEugene was free\u201d (ch. 1, st. IV): and the performance is free from any patterns or clich\u00e9s. The director doesn\u00b4t treat the novel liberally, he just feels free in it. The language of theatre, music and dance, pantomime and art are the building blocks of this performance. The only special effects at hand are intelligence and talent of the authors.<\/p>\n Pupils \u201cbeat against each other with swift, small feet\u201d (ch.1, st. XX) on orders from their dance-madam in French and to the accompaniment of the Old French Song. The novel starts with the French epigraph, the performance starts with the dance lesson in French. They sing and, according to the pattern of a dance, gather berries, \u201cheedless of the proud world\u2019s enjoyment\u201d (st. XXX). These beautiful damsels with thick braids dressed in sarafans dance at the ballet barre spanning the full length of the stage. \u00abC\u2019est le th\u00e9\u00e2tre, c\u2019est mon public,\u00bb elucidates the dance-madam to the girls and the audience more by a gesture than by a word, making a deep curtsy. Stumbling, she falls down. Lyudmila Maksakova, the black dance-madam, will appear on the stage not once: she will be there in the image of Tatyana\u2019s nurse, she will lead away from the stage those actors who have been fated to appear in front of the audience only for bows (Larin and Lensky).<\/p>\n Wanderer with Domra (Ekaterina Kramzina) and Retired Hussar (Vladimir Vdovichenkov) appeared from the line spacing and became the key characters of the performance. The Wanderer\u2019s character is the brightest page of the play. Silent, but not a God\u2019s fool, she plays her role expressively and the audience guesses the director\u2019s plan only at the end of the performance. Bent, she moves on the stage, running her fingers over the strings. She rushes briskly from one corner to another or shakes her head at Onegin, who is going to Larin\u2019s family, warning him about misfortune. Then, playing the melodies from her wanderings, she tries to raise Lensky from death. She wandered, saw and went through a lot. Following Tatyana relentlessly, she cries with her, when Onegin leaves her, wandering in front of her windows with a legless veteran of 1812, keeping watch over Tatyana\u2019s dreams. Tuminas has changed the gender of the novel, focusing on the female characters. Tatyana, the Wanderer, Moscow, eventually Russia\u2014the performance \u201cset off the ladies like a frame\u201d (ch.8, st.VI).<\/p>\n The retired Hussar, performed by Vladimir Vdovichenkov, is a brilliant role, whose interpretation is equally superb. The Hussar speaks on behalf of the author and characters, sometimes addressing the audience, sometimes the protagonists of the play. Hussar is a storyteller, or, to be more exact, a re-teller of the story, because he can\u2019t improve anything; that is why he drinks. More often out of sorrow than joy. He recites verses and confesses to audience, then he looks out at our time, smiling bitterly, \u201c\u2026about five hundred years for sure our byways will blossom into splendid highway\u201d (ch.7, st. XXXIII). He speaks the truth, and that is hard to do without booze; legless, he goes through the snow-covered stage, using a board on wheels and moving with the help of bottles. Before that, the audience saw his rapier break and his epaulettes fly, but then there, behind the stage, Napoleon\u2019s Russian campaign happened\u2026<\/p>\n The story of Tatyana and Eugene is \u201cwell; the destined hour at last comes for awakening, comes for slumber\u201d (ch.6, st. XXI). The slumber itself, whether it be a mist of memories and visions, or a waking dream, is the atmosphere of the performance. \u201cWho never learnt how dreamers babble\u201d (ch. 8, st. X)? There are two Onegins, one mature (Sergei Makovetskiy), the other young (Victor Dobronravov). These two men in black watch each other, playing the plot they know, or rather performing their own lives according to Tuminas. Pusknin\u2019s Onegin is the addressee of the cherished letter; meanwhile Tuminas\u2019 Onegin is a respondent. Wise and experienced Onegin-Makovetskiy smokes on the stage. He looks at the \u201csalted\u201d Onegin-Dobronravov as if he is trying to decide whether the younger Onegin is \u201ca parodistic raree-show\u201d (ch.7, st. XXIV). Young Onegin is really a caricature in the performance. Dobronravov is such a young vampire, Makovetskiy is a demon, but at the end of the play he feels like a demon downcast from the late 19th<\/sup> century Mikhail Vrubel painting. Onegin seems to be charmed as the protagonist from Evgeny Shvarts\u2019 play, The Ordinary Miracle<\/i> (1956). That is why, feeling love, he runs away: if Tatyana kisses him, he will become a bear. The protagonist needs this \u201cdouble vision\u201d for an outside point of view of himself. Youth is in charge of actions in the performance: etudes on the theme of a visit to Larin\u2019s family, when Onegin steps on a bench higher than the others, above them all, like a demigod.<\/p>\n Mature Onegin, as if he were that \u201cuncle\u2014high ideals inspire him\u201d (ch.1, st. I), who is setting an example for youth. Both actors recite the monologue in the scene of the \u201clesson\u201d to Tatyana on the bench: the \u201cdouble vision\u201d culminates here. Onegin-Makovetskiy turns out to be at a crucial turning point, which could change his life. He runs his eyes over the text, looking for why he is being punished, but finishing the reading, he realizes that everything is right. Only looking at young Onegin from the outside near the same bench, he seems to understand that his words might have been right, but totally out of place. Not even taking the trouble to take off gloves (as if he were a cool-blooded murderer, leaving fingerprints only on the victim\u00b4s heart), he states truths while spitting grape seeds to ground. Watching the cruel scene furtively, some of the girls of the dance-class can\u00b4t take it anymore and faint. The brickwork buildings of the stage near the pillar are like the revived ancient Greek kores<\/i>: they would like to interfere, but it is too late and impossible to replay the scene. As if she were crucified, Tatyana would like to stay to weep on the stage and then, as if she were harnessed to it, would like to dash around the stage with the bench. In the second act, the darkened and broken, but not forgotten, bench would like to stay on the outskirts of the stage. Tatiana learnt her lesson well, and later on she will put on a black cloak and, holding a walking stick, she will teach it to Onegin.<\/p>\n \u201c\u2026[L]ong, long ago\u2026 no, that could be no dream\u201d (ch. 3, st. XXXI), she wrote, lost in reverie. The brilliant Julia Borisova, when performing Tatiana\u00b4s , enters the dialogue with voiceover from Innokenty Smoktunovsky, and charms the audience. Both worrying and recalling, the Tatyanas look at the same small mirror and it seems that Tatyana-Borisova tries to catch her missing reflection. Tatyana tells fortunes with the mirror, a book and a key, but the mirror is too small to see the forthcoming future. She dreams about a bear and the \u201cman she feared and idolized\u201d (ch.3, st. XVII)\u2014Eugene. Everything repeats itself at the end: \u201cbear, blackness, blizzard, bridge and\u2026 snow\u201d (ch. 3, st. XXIV), but there is no fear. Tatyana waltzes with a stuffed bear, rounding and disappearing behind the scenes, in the \u201cbear\u201d corner. Lensky gives her a teddy bear as a present for her name day and it \u201cgrows\u201d with her\u2026<\/p>\n \u201cMeanwhile the news of Eugene coming\u2026 had caused a spout of gossip\u201d (ch. 3, st. VI). There are pages of \u201cthe Russian life encyclopedia\u201d in Rimas Tuminas\u2019 production, but the main part of the play is the second part of Vissarion Belinsky\u2019s quotation about the novel\u2014\u201cthe national artwork of the highest degree\u201d (in Belinsky\u2019s Alexander Pushkin\u2019s Works. Eugene Onegin<\/i>, 1849). The Lithuanian director paradoxically expressed this Russian national identity. Here is Russia in all its images: the one, which spoke French, and the other one, which wore felt-boots and salted \u201cmushrooms in brine, for winter eating\u201d (ch. 2, st. XXXII). The slow-paced performance might lack a \u201cfast trot\u201d (\u201cof reason\u2019s icy intimations,\u201d Ibid., XXX), but the stops are meant to draw your attention, and not only to the stage\u2026<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/10\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/12\/2016\/04\/68a98dce58-8x6.jpg\")
![\"Dancing](\"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/10\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/12\/2016\/04\/16ce745e7c-8x6.jpg\")
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/10\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/12\/2016\/04\/bc6338b58f-8x6.jpg\")
![\"Vladimir](\"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/10\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/12\/2016\/04\/177-8x6.jpg\")
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![\"Tatyana](\"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/10\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/12\/2016\/04\/8x6.jpg\")
(Sergei Makovetskiy).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n![\"Tatyana](\"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/10\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/12\/2016\/04\/DUB3431-8x6.jpg\")
![\"Tatyana](\"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/10\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/12\/2016\/04\/227cf1c756-8x6.jpg\")
![\"Eugene](\"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/10\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/12\/2016\/04\/Onegin-8x6.jpg\")
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