Taganka - 10 Days that Shook the World

Ten Days That Shook the World
Performed by the Taganka Theater. Director, Yuri Lyubimov , Moscow, 1974
Video tape by Dimitri Devyatkin

In 1974, it was extremely difficult for ordinary mortals to obtain tickets for the Taganka, by-far Moscow's most popular and outspoken theater. Located in Taganka Square, an old working class neighborhood, it became the hippest, most fashionable theater in the city. As a repertoire theatre, actors performed a different play every night plus Saturday matinees, keeping it more interesting but more difficult. This play was their flagship presentation.

"Ten Days That Shook the World" was one of their longest running plays. It is a song and dance parody, based on the famous his eyewitness account of the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917 written by American journalist John Reed. As a staff writer for "The Masses," a left-leaning US magazine, Reed also wrote for a JP Morgan-sponsored mass market tabloid. After spreading a generally positive view of the events happening in Russia, Reed faced severe legal harassment when he returned to the US. The scene in the play set in a Court of Law was based on actual legal procedure Reed encountered. A funny dance routine, "The Cigarette Girl's Song," satirizes the US media's bias for light entertainment over substance. The birth and death of the Kerensky "Provisional Government" is dealt with humorously.

"Ten Days" was one of the Taganka's earliest (1965) and longest running spectacles. Many of the actors in this video went on to become famous stars in cinema, TV and other theaters. The level of singing is superb, the songs witty and biting, the spirit infectious. 1974 was a time of pride and good feeling about the Revolution and life in the USSR, despite being openly irony and ridiculing, and there was widespread involvement and agreement with Soviet society's goals and ideals.

For more information -- write Dimitri at info@devyatkin.org

Видео Taganka - 10 Days that Shook the World канала Dimitri Devyatkin