Classic literature in reception of contemporary theatre

The article deals with the analysis of classical literature reception by contemporary Russian theatre on the basis of the case study of the play “The Golovlev Family” produced by Sergey Fedotov at the Perm theatre “U Mosta”. The author of the article emphasizes that an acute interest of humanitaristics and art to the problem of family decay is determined by the fact that this topic is actual in contemporary culture. Taking into account the integrative character of the culturological approach, the author uses the methodological grounds of the following allied humanitarian fields of knowledge in her research: philosophy, aesthetics and semiotics. In this study the plausible methodology is premised on logic symbol and sense structure analyses (R. Barthes, Yu. Lotman). A special role in the theatre text interpretation and its semantic depth understanding is played by the hermeneutic tradition (H.-G. Hadamer, М. Heidegger). M. Kagan's view on art as a form of manifestation of essential shifts in the anthropological paradigm also forms the basis of the methodology. All this allows the author to form her own innovative approach to the analysis of the artistic method in the interpretation of Saltykov-Shchedrin's novel staged at the theatre “U Mosta”. The research proves that the repertoire policy implemented at the Perm theatre “U Mosta” and creative traditions which Fedotov followed - resembling the cultural tradition of Menippean satire - have been developing within the framework of all-Russian sociocultural processes and the mainstream of contemporary theatre culture. Fedotov's author theatre is striving for renewal of traditional psychological realism not only due to magnified synthetic means of theatre expression (actor's sense of movement, a variety of emotions, communication with a spectator, a kind of chronotopos, positioning, set design, and background music), but also due to inclusion of artistic semantics and symbols in the polyphonic context of cultural semiosis.