Play "Vladimir Vysotsky" at Taganka Theatre as a Memory About the Poet and His Time

The research is dedicated to the staging “Vladimir Vysotsly” at Taganka Theatre which is known as an act of memory about one of the most recognizable people of USSR who contributed to bard music, cinema and theatre. The art director Yuri Lyubimov, unlike the theatre troupe, treated Vysotsky not only as an actor but as an outstanding poet believing that difficulties in communication with actors could be compensated by Vysotsky’s genius. After his death Lyubimov gathered the members Khudozhestvenny Sovet consisting of Taganka actors and friends of the theatre and aimed them at creation of a play committed to Vysotsky’s memory considering poetry as a principal part of his image. Actors familiarized themselves with Vysotsky’s texts and reinterpreted their views on him. Khudozhestvenny Sovet constructed a play representing Vysotsky as a living person. After long debates with USSR censorship, the premiere show the play was taken out of the theatre’s repertoire by censorship. However, people who saw the first version of the staging formed their own opinions based on memories about Vysotsky’s public image. The paper speculates on analyzing the play which represented controversial views on Vysotsky’s life. I will show variety of interpretations of this play based on the emotional perception of Vysotsky as a symbol of the epoque. The research is aimed at describing the structure of the play and at standing out the treats of Vysotsky’s image which were principal for the working group, for censorship and at outlining the differences between colleagues’ and audience’s perceptions of the play in context of Soviet reality.