Based on THE LOWER DEPTHS by Maxim Gorky

Directed by People's Artist of Russia, Yuri Ivanovich Yeremin.

"SHELTER is an amazing show."

~Muzikalnaya Pravda

"Their performance of the play SHELTER made an immense impression on the Moscow public ..."

~The Moscow Times

"... the most expressive figure of SHELTER is the Wanderer (Luka in the original script) played by Stephen Wilde...In the role of the Wanderer he is exposed as a powerful, extraordinary person having experienced bad and good in his life. Just his appearance - a shabby military coat, a fur hat that was given to prisoners in the gulags, an army backpack - all this says much more than uttered words. His sight reflects a caress, his voice sounds tender, luring a listener to open his soul and pour out all the bitterness accumulated in his heart. His appearance brings dawn to the gloomy walls of the shelter like a ray of light, fresh air and the warmth of home. Not with lying and wiliness…the Wanderer gains the trust of the tenants. He is sincere in everything he says and does, but he probably has substantial reasons to keep silent about his past, it doesn't matter what it was. Probably, we have never had such a Wanderer (Luka) before. At least I haven't seen anything like that. "

~Muzikalnaya Pravda

"The artistic director of Moscow's Pushkin Theater Yuri Yeremin directs the production SHELTER with actors from the American Studio of the Moscow Art Theater. The plot of the piece: unfortunate people who live in a dirty shelter with dirty owners. There are a woman who is sick and then dying, her husband nicknamed Keys, an actor-drunkard, a fallen aristocrat, a brutal man Ash who is obviously making a criminal living, and others. Ash has an affair with the hostess of the shelter, she incites him to kill her husband and free her. Ash himself is in love with the hostess' sister Natalie and persuades her to run away. One day an old man comes to the shelter and tells all of them about a beautiful country, that is waiting for all lost and unfortunate people.

Certainly, we are talking about Maxim Gorky's play The Lower Depths. That is what Yuri Yeremin has staged with the Americans, and the famous words from the play "A Man - it sounds glorious!" are uttered in English in the finale by sad Satin. Though, here, the phrase does not have the cliché we used to learn about in our elementary school. In school, we never heard the optimism of that life-proving monologue when some bookworm stood before the class and declared it in a programmed way. Most probably, at that time, you would hear the despair of sinking in a swamp: only fairytale baron Munchausen could drag himself out of that dirt, pulling himself by his own hair. The others were destined to get stuck in it and sink.

It may sound strange but the translation of the play into English has given Gorky's text a fresh breath. The clichés, previously implanted in our consciousness, did not irritate our ears. All those phrases that were pulled out for quotes and stuck to our teeth over the years, have stopped being flat and single meaning in this production. It has allowed Yuri Yeremin to create completely stunning action on stage...appealing...not a bit boring, not programmed. The characters from the textbook become real people, and very temperamental people. There are American curses (so familiar to us from action movies), sexuality, hatred, passion, tenderness, bitterness, wild splashes of hope to be followed by a dull hang-over.

In the finale, this hang-over has come. The wanderer Luka has vanished. Ash, in an explosion of wrath, kills Crutch. The Actor will hang himself. Satin will say the textbook's words about that fool who spoiled the song. However he will say them in such a manner that it becomes clear: in fact there was never a song at all. The Actor simply demonstrated it to everyone in a very rough way. The point is not about how glorious "a man" sounds.  Only the words can sound, but a man must live in the vile, dark and miserable shelter."

by Valentina Lvova

Komsomolskaya Pravda

Images

"The author's original title, later changed by (Moscow Art Theater co-founder) Nemirovich-Danchenko, despite the differences in this production, is still clearly expressed through the scenography. Shelter is an "out stage" show, as (famed Russian director) Meyerhold put it. Scarce properties come down from above: a barrel filled with light - sometimes blue, sometimes yellow - creates a sense of the bottom, some kind of miraculous aquarium. The barrel's light brings the feel of close-ups to the show, giving it a cinematic quality. The action is dynamic, and evolving - and, like with films, has no pauses between scenes. Fate doesn't spare anybody - neither the pure-souled actor (Peter Tedeschi) nor caustic intellectual Satin (Jay O’Berski), neither  explosive Ash (Carlos Orizondo), nor Bessy-Vasilisa (Liisa Yonker), neither unsinkable Red (Chloe Keller), nor young Mute (Nicole Ricciardi). However the show doesn't fill you with a sense of aggravation. It is actually cheerful - it is alive, sparkling in many senses because of the Americanized concept of the play, which refuses to allow fruitless wordiness and depression.

The problem of the "consoling lie," which the author himself at times said was the play's key point and which provoked endless discussions while studying Gorky, could hardly attract an audience today on either side of the ocean. No one has consoled us for quite awhile - they hang noodles on our ears and intimidate us with catastrophes. The intimidation has turned out to be more profitable for the mass media than consolation. In such a way, the problem of the character Wanderer (called Luka in the original) appears to be a problem of simple humanity; that is, that there is such a lack of humanity in the world nowadays. It should be said that performers of this role, beginning with the first and truly great one, incomparable to today's measures - (the original Moscow Art Theater actor) Moskvin, pretty often disapproved of the author. They all had reasons for that because of the sophistry or irrationality Gorky put in place for the character. But that doesn't matter now, Luka has been written this way. He is the only one who was created to be actively kind. While the other characters talk, he does: he sweeps the floor, helps sick Ann walk to her bed, listens to and consoles Nasty and so on. Active kindness is a very American feature and director Yuri Yeremin places the Wanderer (Stephen Wilde) in the solar plexus of the show. Either an escaping convict or a soldier (he wears a Soviet military coat and fur hat), he is cozy, kind without being wily, and he is probably a little strange with an ecstasy that helps create the sense of a human community among tenants of the bottom, and takes out to the edge of common life. Completing the portrait of this contemporary guru is a pleasant singer's voice, something they have a lot of in America. Even if the invasion of this human UFO could not really change destiny or prevent the end of the shelter's hosts in a bloody fight, it obviously changes the tenants in some ways.

The disappearance of Luka at the moment of the fight can be read as  cowardice if not betrayal. But in this show he disappears naturally like any illegal comet. And after being left without the owner of the shelter, without Bessie and Ash, the tenants are united-- not by bloody memories but by memories about the wanderer, about his words and acts. 

The play, as we remember, ends with the song  "...the sun is shining brightly," Actor's death, Satin's cynical phrase. In this very new show, the characters find it hard to remain mournful during the sad Russian song. They turn the shelter into a carnival and neither Actor's death nor Satin's words can stop it - the living want to live. In a Russian show, such a finale could seem like a consoling lie, but Americans, even the homeless, are not living their lives waiting for Apocalypses.

It is truly interesting to watch, as a piece so well-known from textbooks turns into a melting pot of another culture, as it transforms it creates something new. I think that the American Studio of the Moscow Art Theater was a fruitful new idea, as the Great Combiner would say..."

Maya Turovskaya

Obshaya Gazeta