Pygmalion. Theatre royal, bath

Pygmalion (пигмэлион) could be seen as the story of the flower girl who became a flower. But as Peter Hall’s perfectly pitched production reveals (ревиалс), Bernard Shaw’s play is far more complicated than that.

Michelle Dockery’s Eliza (Элайза) is brilliantly contradictory. She is courageous (курэйджес), pathetic, dependent, feisty (файсти) and exquisitely beautiful. And Dockery is a wonderful comic actress, especially in the scene (сиин) where Eliza (Элайза) appears in society (сэсаети) for the first time. Henry Higgins is shrewdly (щудли) interpreted by Tim Pigott-Smith. An intellectual with the emotional (имоущинал) intelligence (интэллэдженс) of a gnat (нэт), he has no manners at all.

The supporting cast is terrific too: Una (Юна) Stubbs charms as Mrs. Pearce. Barry Stanton’s (Стэнтонс) Colonel Pickering is an easy, jovial cove. Tony Haygarth’s Alfred Doolittle is comically quiet. Cressida Trew is an appealing Clara Eynsford Hill.

Text 10.

«Tempest» a harsh storm of comedy.

  Not everyone is a fan (фэн) of the swooning young sweethearts who populate (попьюлэйт) Shakespeare’s plays. But in the Komissarzhevskaya Drama Theatre’s new production of «The Tempest» by Bulgarian (болгариан) director Alexander Morfov, love’s labour (лэйбор) is lost in an endless stream of lowbrow (лёубрау) jokes.

  Morfov has called comedy «The tempest» Shakespeare’s most puzzling (пазалин) play. It is certainly full of all the antics (энтикс) of a jester (джестер), a hapless drunk, a stupid beast and a host of conniving (коннайвин) fairies. In Morfov’s adaptation they are the comic centerpiece (сентэпис).

Gennady Smirnov as Ferdinand and Yevgenia Igumnova as Miranda are wonderfully good sports, even (ивеэн) when the humour goes below the belt.

Flowing along a stream of laughs in Shakespeare’s final (файнал) play is wicked political plots and ill-tempered leading man, Prospero (Vladimir Letenkov). Morfov crams (крамс) most of the chewy (чуи) meat of Prospero’s inner conflict into the play’s last minutes.

Morfov leaves the biggest question mark at the final (файнал). Instead (инстэд) of finishing off with Prospero’s admission that he can no longer control his own fate, Morfov leaves us with Miranda, who retreats back into an imaginary (имаджинари) world.

Text 11.

The birth (бёс) of the «Seven art».

  People saw the first films in 1895. There was no sound (саунд), no color and the films were very short: they lasted from 60 to 90 seconds! Besides, they did not tell a story.

The early films were shown in music halls, theatres, cafes (кэфейс) and even (ивэн) shops. Travelling (травеллинг) projectionists (проджекчонистс) brought the films to smaller cities and country towns. At first, the audience (одиенс) consisted mainly of workers. The rich and intellectual classes ignored it.

Gradually films became longer and started to tell stories. Edwin Porter was one of the first directors (дайректорс) who made such a film in 1903 (найнтиин оу фри). It was «The great train robbery», the first western in the history of the cinema. As soon as films learnt to tell stories, they began to film the classics. Silent films had orchestras or pianists.

The first known special effect was created in 1895 by Alfred Clark in «The execution of Mary, queen of Scots». The camera was stopped and the actress replaced with a doll.

Warner Brothers' «The jazz singer» was the first talking film. It had three songs and a short dialogue. The first color films were made in the 1930s.