The premiere of the musical pamphlet "The Coach" took place at the Yanka Kupala National Theatre.
The play was staged by Yury Kulikovsky, the author of "Psychoanalyst for Psychoanalyst" and "To Live Until the Premiere", which are performed on the Kolas stage. But if the director chose the previous plays himself, then "The Diligence", according to him, is a proposal from the theater. As, incidentally, is the choice of actors for the roles. One of the conditions was their ability to sing. As it turned out, there are quite a few such people in the troupe, as the audience saw during the premiere.
The music for "The Diligence" was written by Vladimir Kondrusevich. The story of its creation is interesting. The Belarusian composer, who once worked in Moscow, was approached by the famous Russian actor and writer Leonid Filatov, who made a poetic adaptation of Guy de Maupassant's novella "Boule de Suif". It was assumed that the musical would be staged at the theater "On Nikitsky Gates". But soon Filatov died, the premiere did not happen, and the musical play lay for more than 10 years. The composer told the artistic director of the Kolas Theater, Valery Anisenko, about this, who expressed his desire to see the musical on the Vitebsk stage.
A prostitute, a woman of easy virtue, finds herself in the same stagecoach with people from respectable society: the fashionable newspaper reporter Cornudet, the wine merchant Monsieur Loiseau and his wife, the industrialist couple Lamadon, as well as a Count and Countess. The virtuous citizens initially express disdain for the "princess of all Rouen's taverns", but when they realize their well-being depends on her, they change their attitude. It is this noble society that pushes the prostitute to a very immoral act, for which she is then condemned.
In the play, the director emphasizes a person's ability to commit conscious betrayal. This is especially evident in the relationship between the prostitute and Cornudet. A democrat by conviction, who denounces enemies, he turned out to be more cowardly and immoral than the "prostitute" girl.
It is no coincidence that the genre of the production is defined as a pamphlet, implying exposure and ridicule. Filatov's verse play, brilliantly translated into Belarusian by Vladimir Skorinko, is full of barbs and humor. Here, as they say, there is something to play, and the actors do it with pleasure. The role of the prostitute is performed by Natalia Aladko and Yulia Tsiviki.
The work of set designer and costume designer Svetlana Makarenko should be noted, who modernized the play's action and gave it glamour. The musical also involves dances, which, as always, were masterfully staged by Diana Yurchenko. The result is a beautiful, lighthearted performance where the audience can relax and enjoy the good material and the actors' performances.
Tatyana Pasternak, "Vitebskiye Vesti"