The first National Theater of Turkmenistan has turned eighty years old. The Turkmen State Academic Drama Theater named after Mollanepes is deservedly considered as the ancestor of other state theaters, because its creation served as the basis for the emergence of a network of theater groups not only in the capital, but also in all regions of the country.
And it all began with the fact that once back in 1926, a group of Ashgabat students, having come from a performance of the Russian drama student circle, also decided to put on some play. So, it was organized theater club, which included Murad Kazakov, Bazar Amanov, Galpak Herraev and Gulluk Khojaev.
For a staging, they chose the translated Uzbek one-act play about the fight against illiteracy.They rehearsed in their free time.There were no girls in the team, and the female roles were played by men.
A month later, on the small stage of the party school club, this play was played, which opened the first chapter of the theatrical art of Turkmenistan.Soon the circle gained such popularity that students of other metropolitan universities, including girls, were attracted to it.
Quite quickly, the student theater group became a noticeable phenomenon in the cultural life of the capital, and in the fall of 1926, by decision of the government, a theater school-studio was opened on the basis of the circle. It served as the foundation for the Turkmen National Theater creation in 1929.
Then they will be called luminaries of dramatic arts, Founding Fathers of the country’s main theatre, they will be crowned with laurels, honored with various government regalia, will become popular and honored holders of the orders, etc.
But at that time, they were common boys and girls, who decided against all the laws of prudence to choose the “obscure” profession of actor.
Why?What for?Another matter is an engineer, a doctor, a lawyer, a musician everything is clear and understandable here, there is material well-being, respect, honor, but to entertain people for free this was beyond the admass understanding.
But some of these guys really came to the theater from prestigious educational institutions at that time: Aman Kulmamedov from a mechanical technical school, Bazar Amanov from a party school, Klych Berdyev graduated from a pedagogical technical school.
Predictably a good career, prosperity and other advantages of a stable, measured life waited them ahead. However, they recklessly made their choice, deciding to take their crack at a new business hitherto unknown, but beckoning to the bright future. And they were not mistaken.
The theater was recognized.Soon, the audience was fighting for the front seats.Of course, at first there was no experience, no knowledge, the young actors did not hear about the Stanislavsky system, about tasks, super-tasks and other theatrical tricks, they played as they felt.
Almost immediately, along with plays of Western European and Russian classics, the theater began to stage plays by young Turkmen playwrights Karaja Burunov, Berdy Kerbabayev, Ata Kaushutov, Toushan Esenova.
They also tried themselves as scriptwriters Bazar Amanov, Alty Karliev.
To play for young artists was a pleasure.Thereto, youth, enthusiasm, talent, incomparable magic of reincarnation called them.The very first production carried out on the stage of the theater was Without Kalym performance, based on the play by Aitjan Khaldurdyev.
Klych Berdyev played one of its main roles.In 2019, People’s Artist of Turkmenistan Klych Berdyev would have turned 100 years old.
Klych Berdyev’s appearance was remarkable tall, stately, tousled, with a white smile and radiant eyes. He was rightly called one of the most charming actors of the Turkmen theater and cinema. The beautiful appearance initially prepared the actor for the role of the amaranthine prom-trotter.
Having nothing against this image, Klych Berdyev still did not lock himself into one role. He was equally magnificent in character, comic and tragic roles. The audience of several generations remember Klych Berdyev in the role of Varryk-Batyr in Keimir Kyor production.
The image is certainly comic, but the artist has significantly expanded and complicated the character of his hero, making him the tragicomic character.He portrayed Varryk as a liar and a coward so voluminously that the sketchness of the image disappeared, and such a person appeared over whom anyone not only wants to laugh, but also feel sorry for him, reflect on the ambiguous vicissitudes of his life.
Perhaps, the role of Varryk is the top in the list of theatrical images of Klych Berdyev.
During the Great Patriotic War, Klych Berdyev was assigned to lead the first Turkmen front-line brigade of the country’s masters of arts. At the end of 1942, they were already near Moscow. Dozens of concerts and scenes from performances were staged by the artists during the trip, which lengthened for almost six months and on several fronts.
The brigade consisted of bakhshi of Sakhi Jepbarov, gijak player Oraz Saryev, poet Kara Seiitliev, singer Lyalya Muradova, actress Sona Muradova. At the end of the war, Klych Berdyev was awarded the title of People’s Artist of Turkmenistan. He was not yet 35 years old.
Having come to the studio, in general, inquisitively, Klych Berdyev remained in art forever, having given more than half a century to the stage. During his long stage life, Klych Berdyev played dozens of roles. The roles were different the main and not the main ones, but there were never any passing ones.
The Turkmen theater history comprised his Karl Moor in The Robbers and Ferdinand in Intrigue and Love by Schiller, Varryk in Keimir Kyor play by K.Burunov and B.Amanov, Stepanov in Juma by A.Kaushutov, Cassio in Othello by Shakespeare, Aman in Silver Cigarette-case by G.
Mukhtarova and K.Seitliev, Lyapkin-Tyapkin in The Inspector General by Gogol, Bekmurad bai in Destiny by H.Deryaev, Terekhov in The Lost Jigit by K.Kurbansakhatov, Begli in the play In the Karakum Desert by playwrights Sh.Kekilov, Kh.Charyev and M.
Klychev and other works of the master, which can be listed for a long time.
None of the roles did not go unnoticed and was not marked by the critics. Together with the theatrical roles, Klych Berdyev created many memorable film roles in such films as The Decisive Step, Aina, Makhtumkuli.
In the same way as his companions, Klych Berdyev had a shot at directing.On the theater stage, together with Bairam Annanurov and Alty Karliev, he staged The Tricks of Scapin play by Moliere, and after that Klych Berdyev independently staged Honor play based on the play by the Georgian playwright G.
Mdivani, having discovered outstanding directing abilities. “The performance came out colorful, bright, exciting, impressive,” noted critics.
Klych Berdyev also had the other passion translations. He had translated from Russian into Turkmen the novel Magellan by S. Zweig, the play Poverty is Not a Vice by A. Ostrovsky, Egor Bulychov and Others by M. Gorky, the novel The Gadfly by E. Voynich and other literary works.
In one of the theatrical characteristics of Klych Berdyev, which lists his human qualities, such as integrity, honesty, responsibility for the assigned task and impeccable performance, there is such a phrase: “Klych Berdyev has a good stage appearance, a pleasant timbre of voice and stage excitability.” These last words struck me most of all stage excitability!
How surprisingly accurate it was said!
Let the reader not be misled by this term, which was adopted in circulation in those years.Today it could be replaced by stage passion, devotion, emotionality, inspiration.
These words are united by one meaning a state of special emotional excitement, feelings that capture the whole person.Translated from the theatrical language, it means that for a real actor, the stage is not just a stage made of boards, on which he spends several hours while the performance lasts, it is the arena of the life and fate of his hero, in which the artist puts his heart, it is the life and fate of himself.
Stage excitability is an invaluable actor’s gift.
“The man with a thousand faces” so sometimes actors are called, meaning (of course with a certain degree of exaggeration) the number of masks that he puts on during his stage life.
But masks, no matter how many of them there are, will remain frozen if the person who wears them does not have his own face, will not touch anyone, if the artist’s living eyes do not look at the viewer through the slots.
The first building of the Turkmen Academic Drama Theater named after Mollanepes was destroyed by the 1948 Ashgabat earthquake.Soon after the disaster, a new theater house was built in its place.
And, such magnificent one it was!One of the most beautiful buildings in Ashgabat has become an architectural landmark of the city.The appearance of the theater majestic, monumental, already bore a charge of reassuring power and the triumph of beauty in spite of all the destruction.
Over the past eight decades, dozens of plays have been performed on the stage of the theater, where more than one generation of Turkmen citizens has grown up.Here, on these stages, there have been played stars of the first magnitude, legendary actors and actresses Aman Kulmamedov, Bazar Amanov, Alty Karliev, Klych Berdyev, Kulkishi Kulmuradov, Sona Muradova and Suray Muradova, Ogulkurban Durdyeva, Ogulbeg Cherkezova, Sary Karryev, Ata Durdyev, Muhammed Cherkezov, Nazar Bekmiev and others a scattering of brilliant talents, People’s Artists Turkmenistan.
Today, this building is given to their young successors it houses the Student Theater named after Mollanapes, where aspiring directors and actors from the appropriate faculties of the Turkmen State Institute of Culture bear rule. But the spirit of the luminaries of theatrical art still lives on the stage and behind the scene of this theater.
Today, magnificent theaters have been constructed not only in Ashgabat, but also in all velayats of the country.There, a new generation of artists sacredly performs, they will have to preserve the continuity of theatrical traditions laid down by great predecessors who stood at the origins of the national stage art, people whom for the theater was a temple, and the stage was fate.