Oleg Tabakov Theater turns 35. The history of the famous Tabakerka

Today, it is one of the most famous theaters in Moscow. This is where legendary performances were born and A-list actors started their careers. The official birthday of Oleg Tabakov Theater is March 1, 1987, but its history began much earlier. Read of this and today’s life of the theater in the article by mos.ru.

Tabakerka. How it started

The year 1976 was a turning point for Oleg Tabakov — a famous actor, teacher, director and one of the founders of the Sovremennik theater. He started teaching his own course of 26 students at GITIS, where he worked as a teacher. Igor Nefedov, Aleksey Yakubov, Elena Mayorova and other actors were among those students. Fresh out of school, they had been attending classes in his drama club at Nadezhda Krupskaya Palace of Pioneers in Stopani Pereulok (now Ogorodnaya Sloboda Pereulok) for two years.

Tabakov had big plans for young actors; he wanted to involve them in the profession as much as possible, stage performances with them. It became clear that he required his own stage. The very next year, he had a former coal storage on Chaplygin Street at his disposal. A small room, which was meant to be his studio, needed renovating. The students eagerly tidied up the storage together with the master.

On October 29, 1978, theater-goers were invited to see the premiere performance “...In the spring I will come back to you...” based on the play by Aleksey Kazantsev. The guests were seated on simple wooden backed benches. The interior in the studio was generally very simple, they had to be economical. Both Tabakov and the students were nervous about how the audience was going to respond. They needn’t have worried, the performance was a success. During further performances, the small hall was packed. The audience called the new studio “Tabakerka”. Soon, all of Moscow learned this unofficial name.

Official birthday

In 1980, unexpectedly, Tabakov was banned from teaching for a year, performances could not be staged in the studio. The master helped his students to get a job in other theaters and left the city for a while. After returning to Moscow in 1982, Tabakov started a new acting course. Some of his previous students also returned to him and all together they formed the backbone of the new troop. It included Marina Zudina, Evdokia Germanova, Aleksey Serebryakov, Nadezhda Timokhina, Sergey Gazarov, Igor Nefedov, Andrey Smolyakov and others.

In 1986, the Ministry of Culture of the USSR issued an order authorizing the emergence of a new youth studio theater directed by People's Artist of the RSFSR Oleg Tabakov. The total number of employees could not exceed 25 people. But it was still a big victory. Soon, on March 1, 1987, the official opening ceremony took place. The audience was shown the play “Chair” based on “Emergency Incident of a Regional Scale”, one of the most popular stories by Yuri Polyakov.

Then they went on their first official tour as a theater. “Crazy Jourdain”, “The Lark”, “Roof”, “Pinched” were shown abroad. They were shown in Latvia, Germany, Hungary, France.

December 1987 saw a high-profile premiere of “Biloxi Blues” based on the play by the American playwright Neil Simon and directed by Tabakov. Sergey Gazarov, Igor Nefedov, Andrey Smolyakov played in the legendary performance, which remained on the list of productions for 25 years. That same year was marked by the production of an equally popular performance — “The Lark” — based on the play by Jean Marie Anouilh. Evdokia Germanova played Joan of Arc.

Sold-out shows and young stars

In February 1990, the theater premiered one of the most successful performances in its history — “An Ordinary Story”– based on Ivan Goncharov’s novel of the same name, starring  Igor Nefedov. Tabakov, who was a director in 1967, was playing Aleksandr Aduev, and received the State Prize for this work. A year later, Sergey Gazarov, a troop member, told Oleg Tabakov that he would like to stage “The Inspector General” by Nikolai Gogol. Tabakov approved the idea. The audience liked “The Inspector General” by Gazarov a lot. The Union of Theater Workers of Russia named it the best performance of the year.

The year 1990 was full of milestone premiers. The legendary "Matrosskaya Tishina" directed by Oleg Tabakov was released that year. He had dreamt about staging a dramatic story of a father and a son since the late 1950s, when he had started working in Sovremennik. Gradually, the performance made it to the list of productions becoming the theater’s calling card.

In the early 1990s, Vladimir Mashkov and Evgeny Mironov, who had recently completed Tabakov's course at the Moscow Art Theater School, joined the theater. One of the most prominent parts of Vladimir Mashkov in his early career was Abram in “Matrosskaya Tishina”.

Mashkov soon made his debut as a director. The first performance he directed was "Hour of Finest Local Time" starring Mironov. Critics unanimously asserted that both Mashkov and Mironov were future superstars. Vladimir Mashkov staged two more very famous performances shortly after: "Death Magnet" featuring Vitaly Egorov, Andrey Smolyakov and Sergey Belyaev, and "Passion for Bumbarash" starring Evgeny Mironov, again. Sergey Bezrukov was also involved in the performance, it was his third play.

In March 1992, the word "studio" was omitted from the official name of the theater. Now it is called Moscow Theater directed by Oleg Tabakov.

New building

The basement was gradually becoming too crowded — it was good for students, but not for big actors. By 1997, it became clear that they needed to expand. In February, a decree authorized the construction of a multi-purpose complex with premises for a theater in Furmanny Pereulok, but it was never started.

Nevertheless, the troop produced brilliant performances: "Art" directed by Evgeny Kamenkovich, "Enough Stupidity in Every Wise Man" by Oleg Tabakov and others.

The new building issue was raised again in 2001. Initially, it was supposed to be built on Triumfalnaya Square, but this idea was abandoned. It was decided to build a multi-purpose complex on Malaya Sukharevskaya Square to house both a theater and production workshops. The construction began in 2007. In the same year, Konstantin Bogomolov joined the theater. He had previously worked at the Moscow Nikolai Gogol Drama Theatre. In Tabakerka he staged performances such as “Wolves and Sheep”, “The Seagull”, “Elder Son” and others.

Oleg Tabakov soon became the art director of the Chekhov Moscow Art Theatre, and his former artists got the opportunity to perform on the big stage — he began to actively engage them in the Moscow Art Theater performances. His productions include “Tartuffe”, “The Last Victim”, “The Dragon”.

The construction of the new Tabakerka building finished in 2016. In 2018, Oleg Tabakov passed away. Vladimir Mashkov, one of the founder's favorite students, became the art director of his theater. The name of the theater changed to Oleg Tabakov Theater.

Today, there is a unique space there — the foyer with several thousand various mirrors: a mirror waterfall, a transforming mirror, columns of mirrors. This was the idea of Vladimir Mashkov. “People come to the theater to face themselves, their passions, fears, and joys,” he believes. Employees can control the light, change its color and adjust its brightness. The facade of the building is decorated with stained-glass windows.

Legends are back

The new art director brought the performances that were once sold out back to the list of productions: “Passion for Bumbarash”, “The Inspector General”. Almost the same team worked on the new version of “The Inspector General”: director Sergey Gazarov, actors Aleksandr Marin and Sergey Belyaev, as well as Vladimir Mashkov, who played the town governor again.

But the first performance to be back was “Matrosskaya Tishina”. The protagonist Abram Schwartz was played by Mashkov again. Together with Aleksandr Marin, who had played David many years ago, he became the director of the revival of Oleg Tabakov's production. This performance is extremely important for the theatre: it was the one the founder of Tabakerka dreamt about the most.

To this day, Vladimir Mashkov keeps the traditions laid down by his famous teacher.

Photo by Oleg Tabakov Theater