Apple of Zeal: Mark Rozovsky staged a play about Steve Jobs
A black turtleneck sweater, blue Levi's jeans, New Balance sneakers and round glasses — even 30 years ago, these things became the signature image of Steve Jobs. In this form, he conducted the famous presentations of Apple products, and in the same image, the actor of the Nikitsky Gate Theater, Bogdan Khanin, appeared in front of the audience in a new musical show by his artistic director Mark Rozovsky. About why the director dedicated an entire performance to the American visionary and why he decided to tell his story in the format of a jazz musical, — in the material "Izvestia
The singing visionary and the dancing dictator
Mark Rozovsky set himself a deliberately provocative task: not to retell the biography of Steve Jobs once again, but to translate his myth into the language of a musical and poetic show - a jazz poem with a live chamber orchestra, dancing and truly Broadway scenes.
Mark Rozovsky, Artistic Director of the Nikitsky Gate Theater, before the premiere of the play Jobs
— Steve Jobs really changed people's lives. He reshaped them, touched human nature itself. How to get past such a figure? This is a subject for separate study. But in a theatrical performance, especially in the genre I have chosen, it is impossible to embrace the vast — and I do not pretend to do so. This is not a biography. I chose a fundamentally different, one might say, stunning form — the show. It all started with my poem "Dedication to Jobs," published a year ago in Yunost magazine. Even then, I understood: It will be a piece of music," Rozovsky told Izvestia before the performance.
This position becomes the key to understanding the statement. In form, it resembles a kaleidoscope of key episodes from the life of a man whom some considered a genius and a visionary, while others considered a dictator and a manipulator.
Paradoxically, for all the apparent distance between Jobs and the theater, there is a lot of staginess in his image. His presentations have become an independent cultural phenomenon, and his oratorical talent and gift of persuasion make him akin to a dramatic actor. Jobs insisted that Apple does not create products, but meanings — and here he is surprisingly close to the theater. It is this aura of Jobs that Rozovsky uses most freely. On stage, the hero becomes not so much a specific person as a force of influence: light, voice, pause work for the effect of almost hypnotic attraction.
The viewer is invited to walk through the iconic points of Jobs' biography. To a light dance tune, we learn who the parents of the man who changed the world were — a German mother, a Syrian father and American adoptive parents — Paul and Clara Jobs. The next scene is the legendary garage, where in 1976 two Steve Jobs and Wozniak assembled the first Apple computers. And after that, fateful meetings with John Sculley, lured away from Pepsi, passionate affairs, future wife Lauren Powell, iconic presentations, dismissal from his own company and a triumphant return.
Rozovsky is gradually adding flesh to the already canonical image of Steve Jobs, dressed as always in a black turtleneck sweater by Japanese designer Issey Miyake, blue Levi's jeans and New Balance sneakers. Interestingly, the program states that actor Bogdan Khanin does not play Steve Jobs, but on behalf of Steve Jobs. With this trick, the director once again emphasizes that the audience is not watching a biopic. After all, Rozovsky's Jobs also sings.
From the Life of Jobs to the Aria of Jesus
Despite all the conventions, Rozovsky does not abandon the chronological principle. The performance consists of separate numbers — each has a name, the author of the music is Dmitry Tolpegov, the text is Mark Rozovsky. Together they consistently create a portrait of the hero. At the same time, the narration is constantly interrupted by quotes from famous musicals: the Gethsemane aria from the rock opera "Jesus Christ is a Superstar" unexpectedly performed by Maxim Yakimov, the iconic Big Spender number from the Broadway hit "Sweet Charity" and the piercing Je t'aime by Lara Fabian.
It is worth noting the excellent vocal and dance form of the troupe of the Nikitsky Gate Theater: the artists easily switch between Bob Foss's broken plastic, technical step and the most complex vocal numbers.
On the other hand, the format of the show does not allow to delve into the tragic and ethically difficult episodes of his life — mass cuts, expulsion from Apple, illness, rejection of traditional treatment and death. There just isn't enough time for everything. After all, the drama needs to be squeezed into 15 vocal and dance numbers in less than two hours without intermission.
This deficit is partially compensated by the video art of the brothers Veniamin and Ilya Flarkovsky, collected from historical photographs and documentary chronicles. It gives the viewer the necessary support and a sense of reality behind the scenic abstraction.
Improvisation, digitalization, abstraction
The music here is not a background, but a full participant in the action. Jazz becomes not only a method, but also a separate hero of the performance. Rozovsky invited five musicians, including the jazz trio "Round Bend". They are constantly on stage, capturing the attention of no less than the actors. What is the solo of Alexey Kruglov on two saxophones at the same time worth?
Jazz, as you know, is based on a theme and variations — and Jobs himself was a master of variation. He could present the same ideas either as a "revolution" or as a "necessary step," depending on the audience and the moment. Therefore, the musical metaphor turns out to be not just appropriate, but deeply accurate.
The climax is the improvisational fusion of the hero with the musicians. Jobs, played by Khanin, as a jazz soloist, leads the ensemble, sets the theme, provokes interaction, but requires absolute fidelity to the idea. This metaphor is ambiguous and modern. After all, technological creativity is really like a collective session, where the leader sets the tone, but the value is born in teamwork.
At the same time, the issue of ethics and responsibility in the performance remains open. Rozovsky shows a genius creator, but hardly questions the consequences of his revolution: mass digitalization, corporate culture, privacy and labor issues - these topics are touched upon in passing, if at all.
The play "Jobs" is not a copy of a prototype, but a musical abstraction in which the real master of presentations turns into an improvisational leader and, as if on a Stairway to Heaven, goes to heaven. But he does it, as befits the creator of a revolutionary technological product, not on a ladder, but on a red elevator.
Переведено сервисом «Яндекс Переводчик»
