Maly Theatre

The Maly Theatre is a drama theatre in the center of Moscow, on Theatre Square, and one of the oldest working theatres in Russia. The first performance on its present stage took place in October 1824, and for nearly two centuries since then the building has remained one of the main centers of Russian dramatic art; the plays of Alexander Ostrovsky, which form the core of its repertoire, gave the stage its unofficial name — the “House of Ostrovsky.”

The theatre’s roots go back to 1756, when a decree of Empress Elizabeth Petrovna established a troupe at Moscow University to perform comedies and tragedies; it was headed by the poet Mikhail Kheraskov. The troupe changed composition and patrons several times until the impresario Michael Maddox built the Petrovsky Theatre for it, which later became a state institution. In 1824 the architects Osip Bove and Alexander Elkinsky converted merchant Vargin’s house on what was then Petrovskaya Square for theatrical use — this gave rise to the building that became home to the drama troupe. Because of the width of the adjacent thoroughfare, the building was initially rather narrow.

In 1838–1840 the architect Konstantin Ton expanded the building to its present size by buying up adjoining plots, and reworked the internal layout of the premises. In 1856, for the coronation of Emperor Alexander II, the façade facing Theatre Square was renewed by the architect Albert Cavos. Later, in 1946, a reconstruction of the theatre was carried out by the architect Alexei Velikanov. Today the building is classified as an especially valuable object of cultural heritage of federal significance.

The theatre’s stage saw premieres of great significance for Russian culture: in 1831 Griboyedov’s comedy Woe from Wit was performed here in full for the first time in Moscow, and in 1836 Gogol’s The Government Inspector. All forty-eight of Ostrovsky’s plays were staged here during the playwright’s lifetime, and he personally took part in rehearsals and wrote roles for specific actors of the troupe. This stage revealed the talent of the tragedian Pavel Mochalov, of the former serf actor Mikhail Shchepkin, and of the tragic actress Maria Yermolova. In 1929 a monument to Ostrovsky by the sculptor Nikolai Andreyev and the architect Fyodor Shekhtel was erected at the theatre’s entrance, and in 1941, during the evacuation to Chelyabinsk, the troupe continued its work through a front-line branch.

Today the repertoire of the Maly Theatre includes, alongside Ostrovsky’s plays, works by Chekhov, Tolstoy, Fonvizin, Gogol, and Griboyedov, as well as foreign classics. The theatre regularly holds the “Ostrovsky in the House of Ostrovsky” festival, bringing together provincial troupes, as well as a forum of foreign companies — a festival of national theatres. The theatre runs the Shchepkin Higher Theatre School, which trains actors for the Maly’s stage and for other Russian theatres.

The Maly Theatre remains a living monument to Russian dramatic art: its troupe preserves the traditions of stage realism laid down by Shchepkin and developed in productions of Ostrovsky’s plays, and continues to present them to new generations of audiences on the historic stage of Theatre Square.