Title of the article:

A PLAY BY GREGORY GORIN “FAREWELL, ENTERTAINER!” AND ITS PERFORMANCE ON CRIMEAN STAGE

Author(s):

Victor I. Humeniuk

Information about the author/authors

Victor I. Humeniuk — DSс in Philology, Professor, Senior Researcher in Research Institute of Crimean Tatar Philology, History and Culture of Crimean Ethnoses, Fevzi Yakubov Pedagogical and Engineering University, Uchebny Lane, 8, 295015 Simferopol, Crimea. ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7636-7445. E-mail: olvimy@mail.ru

Section

History of Arts

Year

2021

Volume

Vol. 60

Pages

pp. 249–260

Received

March 09, 2020

Date of publication

June 28, 2021

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.37816/2073-9567-2021-60-249-260

Index UDK

821.161.1.0 + 7.091.5

Index BBK

83.3(2Рос=Рус)7 + 85.334.3(2)7

Abstract

The paper aims to investigate the figurative specificity, particularly genre and style peculiarities, image system, compositional structure of the play “Farewell, Entertainer!” by Gregory Gorin, one of the leading representatives of Russian dramaturgy in the second half of 20th century. It points out common superficiality concerning this play as not deeply dramatic and sketched one. However one can see a conceptual structure behind its postmodern inlaying of composition, which first of all shows through an original system of characters. The figure of a protagonist is in the centre of this system, which is rather traditional. Yet the lead character is not just the leading one — he, in part due to his profession, dominates the events on stage which creates the illusion of immediate telling about them to spectators, the hero’s contemporaries, including us, sitting in theatrical hall. Such two-dimensionality demands the ability of quick and spontaneous switching from the system of experience to the system of Brecht’s playful alienation or even of combining them. Along with the main character and other leads, taking an essential part in dramatic collisions, we meet a whole range of secondary and episodic figures. There are no sharp edges between different categories of characters. In the event of such compositional flickering the image of people destined to overcome the hardest adversities in war and in the post-war times obtains a special life credibility and stereoscopic quality. Author’s genre definition as “play-concert” emphasizes singularity of the play’s structure. At the same time this play involves genre features of social and psychological, lyrical and epic drama, with a pronounced tragic sound.

Keywords

Gregory Gorin, “Farewell, Entertainer!”, drama, theatre, poetics, system of persons, composition.

References

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