The Malyshchitsky Chamber Theater is a drama theater located in the city of St. Petersburg. It is a small cozy room where the action takes place directly in front of the viewer, which creates the effect of presence, causing a lot of feelings and emotions. We’ll talk more about this unusual theater in this article.
Geographical position
The address of the Malyshchitsky Chamber Theater is 41 Vosstaniya Street. It is located in the central district of St. Petersburg, 650 meters from Chernyshevskaya metro station. For owners of personal vehicles there is a parking nearby.
History tour
Russian theater director Vladimir Afanasevich Malyshitsky founded his first theater in the second half of the 20th century. Initially, it was called Studio. Then, it was renamed the Youth Theater on Fontanka, which has been successfully operating to this day, and is located in the oldest garden in St. Petersburg - the Izmailovsky Garden.
During the Soviet era, the theater’s activity was disagreeable to the government, so V. A. Malyshitsky was removed from his post. After the above events, the famous director makes another attempt to open a theater that matches his vision of art. Thus, the Jupiter Theater appeared in the semi-basement on Bolshaya Konyushennaya Street, which later became known as the Malyshitsky Chamber Theater.
In 2008, Vladimir Afanasevich Malyshitsky died, and all the worries about the theater fell on the shoulders of Svetlana Evgenievna Balykhina-Malyshitskaya, until in 2015 the talented playwright Pyotr Yurevich Shereshevsky took the place of the main director. With his arrival, the little drama temple shone with new colors.
Theater concept
The theater room is a small square-shaped platform with benches arranged around the perimeter. All the usual attributes in the form of a curtain and a scene are completely absent. Each viewer is free to choose a place on his own.
The scenery in the chamber theater of Vladimir Malyshitsky is rather arbitrary, which requires the audience to constantly work on the imagination. In addition, some elements of the scenery can transform depending on the needs of the production. For example, a microscope can be obtained from a funnel, a table turns into a window, and a rope into a string of rats. All this became possible thanks to the plan of a talented director. The theater has not changed its traditions for more than 40 years.
Theater repertoire
The theater’s repertoire is based on classical productions, but there are also modern performances. The most popular are:
- Hamlet. Existenz is a one-act play based on the play of William Shakespeare.
- William Shakespeare "Twelfth Night.
- Franz Kafka "Castle.
- Maria Levitskaya "Apartment".
- Alberto Moravia "Conformist".
- Peter Shereshevsky "Iron Doors".
- Kazuo Ishiguro "Don't Let Me Go."
- Traci Letts "Killer Joe".
- Elena Gremina "Eyes of the Day (Mata Hari)" and others.
Currently, the Malyshchitsky Chamber Theater in St. Petersburg offers two children's performances:
- Samuel Yakovlevich Marshak "Cat House".
- Gianni Rodari "The Journey of the Blue Arrow".
Theater troupe
The popularity of the Chamber Theater has increased over the past few years due to the efforts of the main director - Pyotr Yuryevich Shereshevsky. He was awarded the prestigious Golden Spotlight Prize for the 2014/2015 season. Most of the well-known and discussed theater productions were created by him.
The artistic director of the temple of art is a talented theater and film actress - Svetlana Evgenievna Balykhina-Malyshitskaya. She also holds the post of director of the theater.
Artists perform complex work, since the whole performance takes place directly in front of the audience, they have no right to make mistakes and falsehood. Therefore, they have to endure a huge number of rehearsals every day. In addition, caring for the scenery and costumes also lies with them.
Among the actors of the theater, such professionals as Tatyana Kaulio, Lidia Markovskikh, Svetlana Tsiklauri, Alexey Fomin, Oleg Popkov, Anton Ksenev, Andrey Zarubin, Victor Gakhov, Olga Bogdanova, Andrey Shimko, Vadim Prokhorov, Ilanna Nekrasova, Roman Weber, Niele Meilute , Sergey Solovyov, Roman Ushakov, Alexander Khudyakov, Dmitry Chupakhin and many others.
There is no buffet in the room where the theater is located, therefore guests are offered free refreshments in the form of hot tea and cookies.
Chamber Theater Malyshitsky: reviews
Reviews about the theater as a whole are positive. Viewers really like to watch professional actors play close by, empathize with the heroes and experience many feelings and emotions. However, the theater is very specific and requires a lot of imagination from the audience in order to fully understand the plot of the production. Therefore, some viewers do not understand the conditional scenery that can transform, depending on the situation on the stage. Despite all this, the Malyshchitsky Chamber Theater has a large staff of fans of such an original and modern format of theatrical art.
Currently, the theater director, Pyotr Yuryevich Shereshevsky, is actively expanding its target audience. Thanks to his diligence, as well as the assistance of Svetlana Evgenievna Balykhina-Malyshchitskaya, several productions for family viewing were released. The repertoire of this temple of art is constantly being updated, creative experiments are being conducted, which helps to attract viewers, most of whom speak of the theater as a warm and comfortable place where you can have a great time and experience a lot of emotions on cold evenings.