Hamlet by Yuri Butusov at the Lensoviet theatre: Composition and artistic content

Abstract

The article is devoted to identifying the composition and artistic content of Yuri Butusov's performance "Hamlet", staged at the Lensoviet Theatre. The research method, developed by the author and tested in three monographs, consists in the reconstruction and analysis of the performance. The performance was reconstructed with parallel identification of cross-cutting themes. One of them is the theme of Hamlet, the other is the theme of the world around him. In addition to them, a subtheme of open theatrical game or a theme of the theater was discovered, which in the course of the performance adjoins one or another theme. It was established that when correlating the named themes, the dramatic action of the performance is formed, in the process of which the artistic content of the performance is formed. It is shown that the composition of the performance consists of associatively connected episodes, that is, Butusov's "Hamlet", according to the typology proposed by Markov, is a performance of the poetic type of theater. It is revealed that the artistic content of the stage whole consists, first of all, in the disproportion of the forces of dramatic action: the vulnerable, sensitive Hamlet-boy, as he is presented in the performance; and the surrounding reality, permeated with lies, treachery and violence.