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M.A.Sholokhov Meeting with the Actors of the Rostov Drama Theatre

55 years ago, on May 8, 1963, a meeting of Mikhail Alexandrovich Sholokhov and the staff of the Rostov M.Gorky Drama Theatre took place. At that time, the theatre began preparations for staging a new play of “Virgin Soil Upturned”.

Dramatization of the performance based on the second book of the title novel was carried out by playwright Pyotr Dyomin, and the play was staged by theater director Enver Beibutov.

The theatre workers were very glad to talk with Mikhail Alexandrovich, to share with the writer their plan of working over the performance and to listen to his advice and wishes. During the meeting E.Beibutov noted: “All our team is set for creative work, all the troupe works with high inspiration”.

During the meeting Sholokhov underlined how important it is to reflect life truthfully in the works of art, to avoid implausibility, gap between the ramp and the viewer. He asked to pay a special attention to the pronunciation of the personages, not to abuse the Don dialect, but to keep the speech colour.

“Theatre is a great art, said the writer, – but only when it goes from life, from truth, from the great art… A play in the theatre can be good only when it seeks to show life, to comprehend it… On the stage, everything should be the same as in life”.

The premiere of the play “Virgin Soil Upturned” on the stage of the Rostov M.Gorky Drama Theatre took place on July 1963, and on August 1, they began touring in Moscow, on the stage of the Kremlin Theatre.

On returning from Moscow, the theatre troupe showed the play in Vyoshenskaya presenting to the residents, real participants of the events described, the prototypes of the personages, a real holiday of meeting with art.

Lyudmila Kochetova