The play "Bad habits" in the theater is not going on all the time, this is a reprise. As in every such production, there is everything to keep the viewer's attention - the star cast, dynamic plot and brilliant directing.
The plot is not easy, there is something to laugh and think about, and the combination of light design with classic dramatic techniques fills the action with dynamism, holding the attention of the audience for two hours.
Who is the author?
Philippe Lelouch - our contemporary, he was born in 1966 in Israel, in the family of a French financier. Philip grew up among the "white-collar workers" and the "golden youth", taking advantage of his own position without hesitation as he understood it. And he understood it corny, that is, endlessly got involved in adventures, threw parties and often woke up in police stations.
This lasted until a movie entered Philippe's life. The first role "boy major" received in 1996 in the film "Woman of Honor." Since then a lot of water has flowed, and now Monsieur Lelouch is a respectable director, screenwriter and sought-after drama actor. The last film with his participation, “Twelve Love Melodies”, was released in 2017, and the 51-year-old star of European theater and cinema is already in the new project.
Lelouch’s plays are permeated with subtle, but rude, everyday humor and filled with deep meaning. This is not surprising, because the ideas of each of them are taken from the author’s own life experience, namely, from the times of his turbulent and eventful youth.
What is the performance about?
The plot of “Bad habits” F. Lelouch takes the viewer into circulation immediately, without introductions - on the stage are three impressive men in tuxedos. They wake up ... and after a few remarks the first laugh is heard in the darkness of the hall - the men in tuxedos woke up in the bullpen, besides on Christmas night.
The original name of the play - Boir, fumer et conduire vite - literally means “Drink, smoke and exceed speed” - the most important bad habits of men around the world.
It was precisely because of them that the heroes of the play were forced to spend Christmas in the cell - one of them drank too much, the other violated the ban on smoking in a public place, and the third simply hurried to the party.
Men really want to get out and are ready for anything. But for some reason there are no policemen in the station, but there is a lawyer, of course, this is a woman - young, beautiful and not very well versed in laws.
Who is the director?
The performance about bad habits reviews collects around the world, because it was staged in New York, Munich, Vienna, Paris and in many other cities. The play is addressed not only in metropolitan, but also in provincial theaters, although the play survives far from everywhere.
In Russia, the most successful production was the entreprise of Timofei Sopolev, a figure in the theater environment known and very ambiguous. On the one hand, this is a recognized artist, not only staging performances, making films and television projects, but also occupying a prestigious post. Sopolev - Dean of the Faculty of Musical Theater of the Russian Academy of Theater Arts (GITIS), Associate Professor of the Directing Department of the Russian Academy of Theater Arts (GITIS). On the other hand, a party-goer, a nihilist and a lover of reasoning about the morals of contemporaries.
As a teacher, he is adored by students, and as a director by actors. The performances by Solepiev are always more colorful than the plays underlying them. He emphasizes, exaggerates and absurd storylines, complementing them with music, choreography, quotes from Russian classics and lighting design, while not spoiling the original content and without changing the idea of ​​the author of the text.
The performance about bad habits was no exception, the audience’s reviews about him are extremely opposite: from openly indignant to enthusiastic. There are many of them, they are on every regional site that sells tickets to events and covers cultural events. This is the best evidence that the performance was a success: it offends some, makes others laugh, but leaves no one indifferent.
Who is on stage?
The disadvantage of all entreprise performances is the lack of a stable cast. “Bad habits” were lucky in this, only the performer of the role of a lawyer changed - the role was shared by Anna Terekhova and Albina Dzhanabaeva, the trinity resting in the bullpen is almost stable, on the stage are Sergey Shakurov, Daniil Spivakovsky, Igor Ugolnikov.
Which composition is more successful cannot be said. For example, after the premiere of the play “Bad Habits” in Moscow, the reviews were negative, and the reviews on the theater shown on Malaya Bronnaya were devastating.
The most rejection goes to the female character, regardless of who goes on the stage. In Sochi, the game of Terekhova was criticized, and in St. Petersburg, Dzhanabaeva got it.
The cast, which presented the play "Bad Habits" in St. Petersburg, received a completely opposite response from both viewers and critics.
It is not so important what they write, the main thing - they say, it means that artists hurt, “offend feelings”, give rise to a desire to discuss, think, experience emotions, and this is precisely their work.
How does the performance look?
It is impossible to say that “Bad habits” look at one go, because this performance requires two. The first is needed before the intermission, the second is needed for the second act.
First act
The first act is comedy. The heroes show off in front of each other, in front of the lawyer, flaunt their own image and find out which one is cooler. Artists not only joke on “everyday” topics, but also dance, find a microphone under the mattress, immediately put it into action, and Sergei Shakurov’s character quotes hilariously serious quotes from the school curriculum literature, diluting them with popular songs in feasts .
Everything that happens on stage is incredibly funny and, in principle, familiar to each viewer to one degree or another. They go to intermission, as they say now, on the positive.
Second act
The second act completely turns inside out everything that happened in the first. It is the second part of the play “Bad Habits” that makes the audience want to leave reviews, scold or praise, throwing them at a loss at first, and then making them think.
It turns out that each of the characters ended up in a cell for insulting a policeman, and offenses became only an excuse for attracting the attention of the servants of the law. As soon as the viewer has time to digest the turn of the storyline, what is happening on the stage casts doubt on the heroine's belonging not only to the legal path, but also to human nature.
Preventing the people sitting in the hall from digesting new details, the characters of the play make public that one of them drank “to hell” and fell, injuring his head, the other smoked up to a cardiac arrest, and the third loved speed so much that he lost control and crashed.
It becomes obvious that everything is not what it seems. The walls of the bullpen, the lack of police, a strange girl whom the heroes mistook for a lawyer ...
In the second act there is no room for laughter. Not only humor “below the belt”, in which the performance “Bad habits” is often accused of reviews, there is no reason to smile at all. What is happening on the stage is thinking about a “second chance”, about reassessing values, about priorities and about how stupid and wasted we all live, spending precious moments.
How long does it take?
The performance does not at all consist of two fragments, as it might seem at first glance. The second act reveals the first, and the beginning explains what is happening in the conclusion. The action lasts with an intermission for 2 hours 20 minutes.
In which genre?
The performance is complex, it is impossible to attribute it unambiguously to any genre. This is not pure drama, much less comedy. To call staging a farce is also wrong. The most accurate definition will be the mixing of several genres in one with the complete absence of specific “black and white tones”, the exact “good and bad”. Here everything is mixed in shades, for the funny, the bitter is hidden, for the good - the bad, for the funny - the tragic, just like in real life.
That is why almost everyone who watched the play "Bad habits", and in a hurry to leave a review about it.
What do they say?
“Bad habits” - a performance that collects different, bad and good reviews, but always emotional.
Interesting opinions expressed on social networks immediately after viewing, "in hot pursuit." They write a lot - "whether it is necessary to change the habit of drinking and smoking for life - it will be boring", "a set of nonsense", "scattered sketches" and so on.
This performance is not the case when you can rely on someone else's opinion. The production is quite ironic and appeals directly to the person, it is worth watching with your own eyes.
Summarizing, it should be noted that the negative and perplexing responses of the audience are often caused by what is not happening on stage and not by the poor work of the artists, and not by the announcement corresponding to the content. This happens especially often in the provinces - “comedy” is written on posters, people see the names of their favorite artists and come to spend an easy and fun evening. And instead of the expected easy-to-perceive, funny spectacle, they find themselves in a complex, allegorical, serious performance in which humor is specific and limited to the first act.