Roman Malay, director
The theater literally begins with a coat rack: the audience entering the foyer is greeted by masked actors Truffaldino, Brighella, Tartaglia and Pantalone. They talk to them, asking if they want to become active participants in the performance, or just spectators. During the performance Turandot asks the audience riddles, which, according to the plot of the fiaba, must guess the applicants for her hand. They receive paper and pens, and are given time to think (of course, you can’t look for answers on your phone – the masks are watching). The one who solves all the riddles gets a prize.
The masked actors communicate with the audience, so the artists break the “fourth wall” that traditionally separates them from the public.
By the way, there are few plays in Moldova without the “fourth wall”. This is not a new invention, but it is still interesting and modern.
The performance turned out to be funny and cheerful. From the reviews: “Improvisation, agility, flexibility, plasticity combined with the expression of the masks – this is how I saw the performance”.
“I was amazed by the performance of the actors. Reincarnation is very hard. From reality to jokes, from tragedy to love. We immersed ourselves in it and felt all the emotions!”.
– At the time of theater reforms in the early 20th century, Evgeny Vakhtangov, one of Stanislavsky’s disciples, turned his gaze to “Turandot”, staging a very controversial but legendary play,” says Roman Malay. – Vakhtangov sought to break the stereotypes of the psychological school. And it is not only about the Italian masks that are in the play itself, but also about the new genre that Carlo Gozzi invented – fiabe. This is a tragicomic tale in the style of commedia dell’arte. Today is a time of new theatrical reforms. As one of my masters used to say: “If you want to stage modern plays, go back to the roots, look back”. Our “Turandot” is modern in that it has long been forgotten….. This is today’s look at ancient theatrical traditions.
Masks are the key to the art of theater, the director is sure. After all, every actor pulls on an invisible mask during the performance. “Actors play situations alien to themselves, in which most often they have not been. In life, each person also plays a role: father, mother, colleague, teacher, and so on. But plays it closed. In “Turandot” we openly show that we have put on masks. And we are not shy about it, that is, we open ourselves up to the audience. It’s magic. I adore masks on stage and will always be in favor of them with both hands. I love this fantastic realism, theater in theater. And when I play an actor on stage myself, I enjoy it.”
According to Malai, the Italian mask with the help of the actor’s plasticity is able to express a huge number of emotions. Not to mention its ability to change the artist beyond recognition. These are comedy masks of not particularly attractive characters. Or rather, not even characters, and characters. But they’re the ones who are supposed to make the audience laugh. They ridicule everything and everyone. If in Vakhtangov’s show they mocked some of their historical stages through which they were passing, in ours they are jokes taking into account our realities.
This is not Stanislavsky’s psychological theater, Roman concretizes. “We don’t relive these roles. We play them, we present them the way we want to. This is our vision.” In the play, everything is pathos, exaggerated, grotesque. You could call it a caricature.
The mask actors in “Turandot” improvise, they have no prescribed text. The author gives them a situation in which the masks must exist. In one situation, let’s say there are twenty lines. Of these, ten are staged, ten are not. They improvise within the given situation. So the performances will be different one from the other. The situations are the same. The lines are different.
Roman Malay was born in Chisinau. In 2017, he graduated from the Academy of Music, Theater and Fine Arts of Moldova, specializing in Theater and Film Actor (course of Silvia Berova, Maestru in arta RM, and Vlad Ciobanu). In 2020 he graduated from the University Babe?-Bolyai (Cluj-Napoca, Romania), specializing in “Theater Director”. Now he is an actor at the National Theater “Satiricus I. L. Caragiale”, actor and assistant director at the Chekhov State Drama Theater.
The two male roles in Turandot are played by women.
Timur, King of Astrakhan – Maria Batyrmurzaeva. Since childhood she dreamed of becoming an actress, graduated from the theater department of the Slavic University. Not every young actress will dare to play a male role, but Maria bravely accepted the challenge and coped admirably with the role.
Truffaldino, the chief of the eunuchs of the seraglio Turandot – Alina Grinevich. She fell in love with the theater in the school theater circle. Grinevich’s acting experience is almost ten years. In the troupe of the Chekhov Theater, she since 2020. In the professional biography of more than 30 roles in three theaters.
With the play “Turandot” the Chekhov Theater opened the Small Hall named after Nelly Kameneva, which had been closed for three years due to repairs.
