"Philistines" by M. Gorky. Stage Readings by K. Stanislavsky (1902) and K. Serebrennikov (2004)

The graduation paper is devoted to the play by Maksim Gorky "Philistines" in the director's reading of Konstantin Sergeyevič Stanislavsky and Kirill Semyonovič Serebrennikov. In 1900 in Yalta at the dacha of Anton Pavlovič Chekhov Gorky met the troupe of the Moscow Art Theater. The actors of the young promising theater were charmed by the charisma of the writer, who by that time had already become a famous prose writer, and with special enthusiasm accepted his idea to write a play. In early 1902 the publishing house "Znaniye" published Gorky's dramatic debut "Philistines", and on March 26 the premiere of the play was staged by Stanislavsky and Vasiliy Vasil’yevič Luzhsky. The directors made a difficult decision to refuse to read the play as acutely social, and in their production they focused on everyday details and the theme of home and the pull of leaving it. The production was considered unsuccessful and existed in the theater's repertoire for less than a year. One hundred and two years later the Moscow Art Theater returned to the first Gorky’s play. Director Serebrennikov referring to the experience of Stanislavsky tells the story of a typical family experiencing a change of era after the collapse of the USSR. Constant looking back at the past, unwillingness to live in a new world, a split within the family – these themes are present in both productions of the Moscow Art Theater. This study is aimed at identifying the features of the director's interpretation of the play and comparing them with each other and with the original author's idea.