Zhivokini Ignat'evich Basil (1808 – 1874). In the Maly Theatre in 1825 with the mighty magician, who with his extraordinary cheerfulness and wonderful talent as a magic wand, instantly transforms the tedious boredom of laughter, it raises what is no sign of life, and because nothing is doing something – this is about Zhivokini watching him play from behind the scenes director Soloviev. Those who saw him from the audience believed that "at the first sound of his voice resounded sometimes behind the scenes, the audience has already come to a pleasant emotion, I felt good mood. When he appeared, that with him burst of merriment and laughter filled the whole scene, not giving room for anything else … Everything about it was comical: facial expression, gestures, diction. He could do without speeches, moving only the eyes, or trying to play something with your hands, and cause loud applause "(Halacha). Those who knew him in life recalled that he "attracted its extraordinary cheerfulness, its funny, skillfully telling jokes and special, it just typical of familiarity."
He was on the scene as I was in life – not without reason, when he became a lecturer in drama school, he said: "teaching, I have argued that there is nothing easier than to be an actor or actress, you have to do is to know how to live on stage as we live in this life. " And inherent in the life of this descendant of Italian descent gaiety, cheerfulness and briskness easy to transfer them to the stage where he had no idea, but was himself. But he was so bright peculiar that, playing 50 years himself, "and in half a century, not boring the audience, and even strict Belinsky wrote:" I was about five times on farce "right and wrong" and not give up yet to be twenty times all for the city Zhivokini. "
Playing in the "theatrical trifles" He admires her directness comic figures, those votes, inexhaustible cheerfulness to their nature, amazed by her ability to present a verse, say "appeal to the public", s'improvizirovat text. But "all of the added never seem superfluous, but rather all are needed" – a contemporary, adds: "These changes and additions he did not invent and do not prepare, and playing, he suddenly understood the artistic flair that this phrase is not clever – and he its variables, that this idea is not clearly expressed – and it adds to it a few words from myself. " It is not lack of knowledge of text causes him gag – "a role he was sure" – and the desire to live on every play.
When he played the classics, he, with rare exceptions, did not allow himself to change the text. But in the literary and valuable works he performed more than once: so "with this art," he played Moliere gave original interpretation of Shakespeare (Grumo – "The Taming of the Shrew," PINE – "Much Ado About Nothing"), he played and Griboyedov (his Repetilov "did not concede, according Boborykin, Sosnitsky particularly bright shade could wantonly-club and soundly-master's Life"), and Gogol (Kochkarev and PODKOLYOSIN) and Ostrovsky (eg, Deposition of the Robe – His people, we'll settle, mayor – " Passionate Heart, "etc.), but not in these roles has been his greatest asset: vaudeville (be it" Az and Firth, "The lawyer is under the table" or "The Lion Gurych Sinichkin) – this is his area, and not his fault that this genre could not have artistic and literary values of equal talent Zhivokini.
And the biggest comic buff found out that he laughed "no role, and on the role, justifying thus the audience's head", his laughter "is not casual, it's too ob'ektiven and not far from mockery." In modern terminology, we could say that Zhivokini did not play "image" and "attitude to the image.
When Zhivokini died Rodislavsky, this time at his theater connoisseur, wrote: "The only two names – Mochalov and Zhivokini – were so popular in Russia, so loved, so dostolyubezny …" And this comparison is striking at first glance its a surprise, right : both of them, no matter how different their roles, – the same actor's nature.He and the other had a bright personality, a tremendous temperament, the two will not reveal the image, and themselves through it, both were infected with the audience: one of his tragic emotion, another comic inspiration.
Zhivokini – one of the brilliant figures of the Maly Theatre, unique pieces thanks to the extraordinary brightness of its natural qualities are brought to a large and, moreover, a truly theatrical expressiveness.