Theater manager Daria Werner about favorite books
IN BACKGROUND "BOOK SHELF" we ask journalists, writers, scholars, curators, and anyone else not about their literary preferences and publications, which occupy an important place in their bookcase. Today, theater manager Daria Werner shares her stories about favorite books.
My reading habit was shaped by my parents. In the library, which they collected and transported from town to town, there were a lot of classics, I loved to sort out books, but I read for a long time. One can say that my first book was Alexey Tolstoy’s novel Going Through the Corn, which my mother read while pregnant. She named me after the main character, Darya Dmitrievna Bulavina. I was born as a younger sister in a family with the same middle name, just like in a novel. At twenty years old I was terribly pleased to find similarities with Dasha, falling in love with poets, like my heroine.
As a child I was a very restless child. Reading fascinated me, but not for long. But, for as long as I can remember, I was always lucky with the teachers, who opened the world into which I wanted to plunge urgently. At fourteen years old, having moved to Moscow, I first came to such a teacher in literature. The best summer I spent in the tenth grade, every day absorbing everything that was asked to read. So I fell in love with Turgenev and memorized the whole of Bunin.
The only book that turned my 20-year-old consciousness, which has not yet become stronger, is The Brothers Karamazov. After Dostoevsky there were a lot of books that changed, opened, forced to think and do, but nothing can compare with the effect that I felt after I finished reading The Karamazovs. It suddenly became clear to me, according to what laws people exist and what to do next, the whole world turned out to be decomposed into my own shelves, extremely clear and whole. There are bible books to which you can return every five years to discover something new. This is probably one of them.
In many ways, my taste is shaped by those with whom I work. Because I work with people in whom and whom I infinitely believe. After all, the theater can not be otherwise done. So I discovered Babel’s “Con-Army”, which I once read in school, and last year I had the opportunity to release a play based on this book. It seems to me absolutely contraindicated to include it in the school curriculum. Understanding of this terrible twisted beauty of language and meaning can not come at the age of carefree and joyful.
I must confess that I have an unexplained relationship with Tolstoy. In the school "War and Peace" I read with sincere misunderstanding, where I should be hooked, I sharply rejected Natasha Rostov as a bright and pure character. Such feminine stupidity always annoyed me. At the university, “Anna Karenina,” I understood twenty percent. Only now for the first time comes the realization of the depth of the texts, obviously, the questions to this author I formulate only now. For me, there is still nothing stronger than the language of Platonov and the language of Vvedensky.
At university I learned German and fought with it. Therefore, from now on I like to read in German, mostly classics - Schiller, Goethe. To remember the language before the trip, always open the Remark. Going to the bookstore is a special pleasure, long time choosing and imagining how and when I will read these books. Unfortunately, recently it turns out that many of the purchased books continue to wait in the wings to make me better. In order to "stay in the stream", I try to read the plays of modern authors. Quite fresh and already classic in these ten years. And I must say, it is often much more interesting than watching new performances.
My way of life involves a late return home after the performances, constant communication with a huge number of people and a lot of energy. So calm and meaningful reading before bed is my dream. I like to immerse myself in a book completely, because the most amazing effect that books give is a complete disconnection from the daily routine of the present. This can be done best and purely only when traveling or at home on the Black Sea.
Marina Davydova
"The end of the theatrical era"
The first book, which opened to me the world of modern theater from a scientific point of view, and not from the auditorium, - "The End of the Theatrical Era" of the famous theatrical critic Marina Davydova. From here I learned what a “new drama” is, why our theater is so much divorced from reality and who is Lev Dodin, for example. It is symbolic that the book was published by Edward Boyakov to the decade of the main theater festival "Golden Mask", the director of which he was then. Did I know that after some time I would go to him for an internship at the Praktika Theater, where I would later learn everything I can do?
Vitaly Aksyonov, Sergey Kuryokhin
"Music Games"
I found this brochure with the script of the film by Sergey Kuryokhin by chance in the St. Petersburg Subscriptions on the far shelf during the period of total immersion in the era of Pop Mechanics and the Leningrad Rock Club. Kuryokhin is a very important person for me. Not just a great musician, but a brilliant producer. In addition, the text of a play or script that has never been staged or filmed, always has a special effect.
Isaac Babel
"Conarm"
"Conarm" is a small collection of stories based on a real diary, which led Babel, sent to serve in the 1st Cavalry Army during the Soviet-Polish war at the beginning of the last century. I do not really want to talk about the relevance of the topic, because it is not important. It is more important to say that two pages of text can lead you into a stupor - a true genuine emotion of fear, not for yourself, but for all of humanity. The themes will be gone, the reds will change with the whites, but the power of the word will remain.
Jean-Paul Sartre
"Nausea"
In the third year I was seriously ill with existentialists and their philosophy. “Nausea” is still for me one of those bible books that can be re-read every five years and discover new meanings for myself.
Andrey Rodionov
"Animal Style"
Theater "Practice" I owe another important discovery - there I learned to listen and hear modern poetry. So I met with Andrei Rodionov. His poems are distinguished by a special tenderness and brokenness, which I can compare with the language of Platonov. I am absolutely sure that every self-respecting person should not just read, but also hear Rodionov. On top of that, this is almost the only modern poet who writes plays in verse - in collaboration with his wife Catherine Troepolskaya. This collection of "Animal Style" includes their first play "Nurofen Squadron."
Vladimir Gilyarovsky
"People Theater"
The most unexpected gift from girlfriend Nina Dymshits. Not everyone knows that Gilyarovsky, in addition to “Moscow and Muscovites,” has an extremely fascinating, lively book about life in the theater. "People of the theater are people who live in the theater, from famous actors to theater carpenters and even copyists of plays who have been housed in the Khitrovka night shelters," it turns out that the essence of being in the theater has not changed at all from the times of Gilyarovsky.
Timur Novikov, works of 1980-1990s
"Timur"
The book is collectible and got to me miraculously as a gift from the Art Mark.ru Museum of Actual Art by Igor Markin. It was released in very small editions especially for the exhibition of a cult artist and contains not only photographs of his works, but also his letters and essays. This is a real treasure, because the work of Novikov is still little understood.
Vladimir Martynov
"Autoarchaeology at the turn of the millennia"
With the creative work of a living genius, composer and philosopher Vladimir Ivanovich Martynov, I was introduced by the artistic director of the Praktika Theater, Eduard Boyakov, whom I can definitely call my teacher. In "Practice," I did not just work for three years, but in a sense I received a second degree. Books Martynov were the main educational material. I chose “Autoarchaeology” as the first material that became clear - this is a whole encyclopedia, filed as a set of memories from the personal life of the composer.
Florian Illies
"1913. Summer of the whole century"
The most fascinating non-fiction in my life. The book is about the rapid events of the last century, and in fact - about the birth of modernism. In the center of events - my favorite cities: Vienna, Berlin and Munich. And the best characters: Freud, Klimt, Schiele, Kokoschka, Schönberg, Proust and even young Stalin. It is impossible to break away, as if this is an adventure novel, and not a simple chronicle of historical facts.
Dmitry Prigov
"Citizens! Do not forget, please!"
Dear to heart gift from fellow architects. A large collection of works on paper, sketches of installations and texts of the main Moscow conceptualist. The language of Prigov has yet to be mastered by current generations. Because today, it seems, without him anywhere. In general, what to say when everything is already said: "Citizens! I would not bother you if I did not believe in you!"