"Gifted outcast" Pyotr Fomenko: Why the legendary teacher and director was called the defiler of Russian classics

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

8 years ago, on August 9, 2012, the famous director, legendary teacher who brought up more than one generation of actors, People's Artist of Russia Pyotr Fomenko, passed away. Even during his studies he was called a "gifted outcast", and later he only consolidated this status for himself, being known as a "master of theatrical hooliganism." For this "hooliganism" he was expelled, and tried to call to account, and even proclaimed "the defiler of the dust of Russian classics."

Petr Fomenko was born and raised in Moscow. As a child, his main hobbies were football and music. He studied violin and graduated from the Music Pedagogical Institute. Gnesins and the school of M. Ippolitov-Ivanov. Later he admitted that he came to the theater precisely because of the music. Just as bizarrely as from childhood he combined love for music and playing football, intelligence and "hooliganism" were combined in his character. And it played a cruel joke on him during his studies.

After school, Pyotr Fomenko entered the acting department of the Moscow Art Theater School, where he immediately earned the fame of a gifted outcast. His progressive views on theatrical art were often the subject of bitter controversy with educators. From the third year he was expelled with the wording "for hooliganism." Later he said: "".

He was an ingenious hooligan. Together with a friend, they often went to the "Aragvi" restaurant, chose "victims" and played a heartbreaking scene in front of them. Seeing a couple leaving the restaurant - an imposing man and his spectacular companion, Fomenko, standing aside by the tree, began to sob, and his friend turned to the man: they say, we need help, they took away all our documents, and the police are demanding a large sum for their return - 100 rubles! In order not to lose face in front of his lady, the gallant gentleman, as a rule, dutifully forked out his money. And friends satisfied with their prank, having waited until the couple was out of sight, immediately went to drink cocktails in the same restaurant. Another time they saw a staircase at the monument to Yuri Dolgoruky, climbed it and tied balloons to the horse from behind. And the stairs were hidden nearby in the park. There they themselves "sat in ambush" and watched as the policemen tried to rip the balls off the horse and, without reaching them, fired at them from their service weapons. Seeing how the balls hung with rags, the "villains" could not help laughing.

This hooliganism was for Fomenko a kind of protest in the profession - protest against the Soviet officialdom and the established framework in creativity. After graduating from the philological faculty of Moscow State Pedagogical Institute and the directing faculty of GITIS, in the late 1950s. Pyotr Fomenko began to stage performances. And from the very first works of his theatrical criticism for aesthetic unreliability called the director "the defiler of the dust of Russian classics." He himself spoke about it like this: "".

In 1981, Pyotr Fomenko began teaching at GITIS, while continuing to stage performances in various theaters in Moscow. He devoted more than 20 years of his life to theatrical pedagogy, having raised more than one generation of talented directors and actors, among whom were Sergei Zhenovach, Vladimir Epifantsev, Sergei Puskepalis, sisters Ksenia and Polina Kutepov, Polina Agureeva, and others.

In 1993 g.the acting and directing course of Pyotr Fomenko received the status of a theater under the name “Workshop of Pyotr Fomenko”. Both colleagues and students of the director called him a provocateur on stage with paradoxical thinking. His student, director Sergei Zhenovach, said about him: "".

Pyotr Fomenko never complained about his health, and none of his entourage knew that in recent years he was sick a lot. But at the same time he continued to work - this was the best medicine for him. Despite his venerable age, he remained energetic and full of creative plans. Therefore, his departure was a surprise to many. A month after his 80th birthday, on August 9, 2012, Pyotr Fomenko passed away.

Alexander Kalyagin, after Fomenko died, said: "".

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