Theatre. My going to the theatre

What a good idea it is to go to the theatre! I always feel like going out and I’m a great theatre-goer, you know. I try to see the most interesting performances that are on at the theatres of this city. I am fond of Drama theatre and the Opera and Ballet theatre, but I also try not to miss the performances of other Ekaterinburg theatres like the Theatre for Young Spectators, the Puppet Show, the Comedy theatre and the Philharmonic Society. These theatres are well-known for their excellent companies and wonderful acting. I usually go to the evening performances and try to buy tickets in advance. I like to have good seats in the stalls, in the dress-circle or in the box. The gallery keeps me indifferent, I think it is not worth taking. From its seats one cannot get a good view of the stage.

I’m fond of ballet. My favorite ballet is “The Swan Lake” by Tchaikovsky. Have an ear for music? I haven’t to my regret but I can tell the tuneful and appealing music and hear when it is richly colored. I like when the music is sweet and deep and goes to the heart. I admire the works which are known as a monument of genius and whose sonatas astonish by their originality and depth. I appreciate the classical music as well as pop, rock, jazz and blues. Rock is certainly more popular than classical music. “The Swan Lake” has a long run and is always a great success with the public. Everything is magnificent there: the music and the dancing. The leading part dancers are brilliant beyond all doubts, and when the final curtain falls, they receive many curtain calls. It’s really a fine cast. I look forward to the next going out every time as I leave the theatre, and sure I like the first nights very much. I never miss them if I’m in cash. Practically all plays always have a full house in the Opera and Ballet theatre.

Actually theatre is a place where you can see a play staged. It is also one of entertainments. Any theatre consists of two parts: the stage and the hall. They are separated by a curtain and the orchestra. Seats to the theatre can be reserved beforehand in the box-office. The last performance I saw was the “Nut Cracker” by Tchaikovsky. Now great it was! The main pats were performed by the talented dancers. But I also was impressed by very young ballet-dancers who performed the secondary parts. I guess they also deserve respect of the audience because they did their best and looked great for their young age. I had a great time there that night.

But we are to admit that theatre is not popular now as it used to be. There are many people who prefer to seat comfortably before the TV set and enjoy themselves without leaving their homes. I don’t belong to that company. The Drama theatre is sometimes rather thin and it is seldom crammed. I don’t ask the cloak-room attendant for opera-glasses in the Opera and Ballet theatre cause I have my own ones, but I always take off my things. I have got a slight idea what a complementary ticket might be for I’ve never had it. But if the house Is sold out long in advance, I at times try to pick up a ticket at the entrance. You can’t imagine how difficult sometimes it is to get a ticket to leading Russian or foreign performers and musicians.

The attendant shows you the seats, the last bell rings and the curtain goes up. Nobody is allowed to enter after the last bell has gone. The lights go down and the system of lights is rather intricate. The stage is fitted up with all sorts of devices, they have a revolving stage there. No, I haven’t been behind the wings yet or in the dressing-room but I’d love to. The sketches are drawn nicely and they change the sets in no time. The scenery is really beautiful. And making-up an actor calls for talent and artistic ingenuity. They have wonderful dresses. Artists play their parts with conviction and passion. The critics often praise their acting. The performers portray their characters with great subtlety and really attract the attention of the public with their play. The latter makes one forget that she is looking at a picture giving her the impression it is life itself. One enjoys every minute of the play. It is splendid and sometimes it’s too lovely for words. The artists are strewn with flowers, the spectator clap and cheer. Curtain call follows curtain call.

But at times the play is a failure, and people walk out in droves. It turns out strangely flat and lifeless that one can’t stand it to the end. A deathly thing that can’t be worse. Rather cheap stuff and one feels like walking out. Happily it is not always but it is. More often the new performance of the play is quite a sensation and is as popular as ever with the Ekaterinburg goers. It’s often a superb performance.

Cinema

Cinema plays an important and exciting part in the life of any society. It is an available popular form of art if are in cash, of course. Lots of people find going to the cinema one of the best way of spending their leisure time. The movie audience is predominantly a young one. Due to numerous video facilities, cinema attendances have declined sharply. But there is no denying the fact the cinema-going habit is still a strong one. No matter how large the place you live in is (whether it’s a big city or a small provincial town, or even a settlement) there’s most likely to be a cinema there.

There are such genres of feature films as the western, the thriller, the musical, the drama and the comedy. There is no doubt that a god cinema show is an excellent entertainment and quite cheap. Of late cinema screens in this country have been dominated by films produced in the USA and this tendency is growing. Movies, or the cinema, have been an integral part of American and the world culture throughout the twentieth century. The 1920’s was the great era of the silent film with stars like Rudolph Valentino, Greta Garbo, Clara Bow, Charlie Chaplin and the Marx Brothers. Some famous movies of the 20’s were “The Gold Rush”, “City Lights”. With the production of Al Jolson’s “The Jazz Singer”, the era of taking pictures arrived. During the 1920’s and 30’s entrepreneurs formed in America in Hollywood large film companies: “Twentieth-Century-Fox“, “Metro-Golden Mayer” , “Paramount”. The studios worked on a star system and a contract system. Major American writers like F. Scott Fitzgerald and William Faulkner did screen plays. During its golden age Hollywood was responsible for some great pictures.

The Eisenstein tradition is acknowledged by the world as one of the greatest in film making. It is actually felt in almost all the works of resent-day film producers, many of whom studied under Eisenstein. Producers like Gerasimov, Alexandrov, Yutkevich and others are the custodians of this tradition of realism. The first prize-winning film at the Moscow festival, “And Quiet Flows the Don”, based on Michail Sholokhov’s famous novel, is a striking example of this tradition. It was produced by Gerasimov, who was awarded the festival’s first prize for personal work. The Russian producers in selecting their stars for a film make it a point of looking for people who are really like their literary prototypes, not only in external appearance, but inwardly, spiritually. The film had a successful run.

It’s an open secret that we live in a very difficult time now. But people do need something amusing and pleasant, or something laugh at. That’s why I give my preference to comedies, especially the French ones, and I even take notes of apt remarks and witty jokes to broaden my outlook and make my vocabulary richer. A happy end is an essential feature of American films. The characters fall in lave with each other in the end of each film.

I also enjoy animated cartoons and popular science films. To see a good detective film is a very pleasant way of spending free time as well. When I want to go to the cinema I usually see in the programme what film is on. Then I phone my friends and we discuss what film to see. There are many talented actors and actresses not only in Russia but also abroad. You can also find the film you like among horror films that are neither for nervous persons nor for those with the mental breakdown. I am not a regular cinema-goer, but if there is a film which is a hit with the public, I do my best to watch it and I remember the good film for a long time.

As you know, the 3-hour-14-minutes film “Titanic” is no mere disaster movie. It’s an epic love story about a 17-year-old American aristocrat who is betrothed to a rich and hateful suitor but falls in love with a free-spirited artist, who won his third-class passage in a card game. It’s “Romeo and Juliet” on a sinking ship and has become an international sensation. “Titanic” is also a movie about money and its evils. With fine irony, Cameron has spent more dollars than any other filmmaker to make a film that denounced the rich. The $8,4 million costume budget alone would finance several independent movies. Production designer Peter Lamont copied real Titanic down to the exact shade of green on the chairs in smoking lounge. The sumptuous sets have made-to-order replicas of the china, the stained-glass windows – and since all of it was going to be destroyed, nothing could be rented. “To the best of our knowledge, there was no violation of historical truth”, says Cameron, – “We have a great responsibility. Whatever we make, will become the truth, the visual reality that generation will accept”. The special effects are in the service of the story. In the 80-minutes sinking of the ship, you don’t wonder what’s real and what’s computer-generated. What you feel is the horror of experience, the depths of the folly that left this “unsinkable” ship so vulnerable to the iceberg. Cameron’s lovers are an odd match: next to DiCaprio’s boyish beauty, Kate Winslet looks womanly. Cameron makes terrifying poetry of chaos with images of the ship breaking in half, the deck rising perpendicular to the water as passengers bounce off the ship’s giant propellers into the freezing ocean. The filmmaker says that if he had known what it would take to bring his vision to the screen, he would have stopped before he started. But “regret” is not in the guy’s vocabulary.

During the film I love to drink “Pepsy” and crunch with pop corn.