Joseph Reichelgauz is a Soviet and Russian director, playwright, writer, and teacher. In 1989, he founded the School of Modern Play Theater in Moscow, and to this day holds the post of artistic director in it. During his creative career, he staged over 70 performances in Russia and abroad, and shot more than 10 television films. Since 1976 he has been engaged in teaching activities at GITIS.
Biography and study
Joseph Leonidovich Raichelgauz was born on June 12, 1947 in Odessa. In an interview with one famous magazine, the director said that he was named after his grandfather. During the war, his mother Faina Iosifovna worked as a nurse in a hospital in Orenburg, and his father Leonid Mironovich fought in the tank forces and reached Berlin. Joseph Reichelgauz also has a sister, Olga.
In peacetime, the director’s mother worked as a typist secretary, and his father was engaged in cargo transportation. At the school where Iosif Leonidovich studied, teaching was conducted in Ukrainian. After graduating from eight classes, he decided to continue his studies at the school of working youth, since he was hard given exact sciences. He began his career with the profession of an electric gas welder in a motor depot, where his father arranged for young Joseph.
However, the future director continued to beckon creative activity. He did not miss the opportunity to participate in the crowd at the Odessa film studio. And after graduation, he decided to enter the Kharkov Theater Institute with a degree in "director of Ukrainian drama." Joseph Reichelgauz successfully passed the entrance tests, teachers noticed his talent. However, the Ministry of Culture of the Ukrainian SSR annulled the results of examinations due to a national question. Indeed, among those enrolled were three Russians, three Jews and only one Ukrainian.
Returning to his native Odessa, Joseph Reichelgauz went to work as an actor in Odessa Youth Theater. A year later, he went to conquer Moscow, thanks to mutual acquaintances, the writer Julius Daniel sheltered him. But he was soon arrested for creative activity defaming the Soviet system.
Then Joseph Raychelgauz again changed his place of residence, having moved to Leningrad. In 1966 he entered the faculty of directing at the LGITMiK, but due to disagreements with the teacher, Boris Vulfovich, Zon was again expelled. He got a job as a stage worker in the famous Tovstonogov BDT and at the same time studied at the Leningrad State University at the Faculty of Journalism. At Leningrad State University, Joseph Reichelgauz began to stage performances in the student theater.
Creative activity
In 1968, he again went to Moscow to enroll in GITIS on the course of Anatoly Efros, but as a result he studied with Andrei Alekseevich Popov. The graduation performance "My poor Marat" in 1972, Reichelgauz staged at the Odessa Academic Theater.
In the fourth year, Joseph Leonidovich did practice at the Theater of the Soviet Army, where he began setting up the play “And He Did Not Say a Single Word” based on the novel by G. Belle. He was noticed by Galina Volchek and offered to become a full-time director of the Sovremennik Theater.
The first project in a new place was a production based on the story of K. Simonov “Twenty days without a war”. The main role Reichelgauz invited Valentine Gaft. For the play “Weather for Tomorrow” in 1973 he was awarded the prize “Moscow Theater Spring”.
In 1977, following his teacher, Popov resigned as a stage director at the Stanislavsky Theater. He staged the performance "Self-portrait", which was not to the taste of the authorities. As a result, Rayhelgauz was fired from the theater, he lost his Moscow residence permit and could not get a job anywhere. Health problems began, the director suffered a heart attack.
He was saved by an invitation to work in the Khabarovsk Drama Theater. In the early 80s, Joseph Raichelgauz began to stage performances in various cities of the Soviet Union - Odessa, Vladimir, Minsk, Omsk, Lipetsk.
In 1983-1985 he worked at the Taganka Theater, but his performance “Scenes at the Fountain” was never released due to the departure of Yuri Lyubimov. Then Reichelgauz again returned to Sovremennik.
March 27, 1989 presented to the public the play "A man came to a woman." The main roles were played by Albert Filozov and Lyubov Polishchuk. This premiere marked the opening of the School of Modern Play Theater, in which Joseph Reichelgauz took over as artistic director. Over the thirty-year history of the theater, he put on the stage about 30 performances, here are some of them:
- “Are you in a tailcoat?” according to A.P. Chekhov (1992);
- “The old man left the old woman” S. Zlotnikova (1994);
- “Notes of a Russian traveler” by E. Grishkovets (1999);
- “Boris Akunin. The Seagull "(2001);
- “Russian jam” by L. Ulitskaya (2007);
- The Bear by D. Bykov (2011);
- The Last Aztec by V. Shenderovich (2014);
- “Watchmaker” I. Zubkov (2015).
Joseph Reichelgauz also staged performances in the USA, Israel, and Turkey.
Based on many of his performances, the director made television films: Echelon, Picture, 1945, A Man Came to a Woman, From Lopatin's Notes, Two Stories for Men. In 1997 he released a series of programs "Theater Shop".
He began to engage in pedagogical activity in 1974 in GITIS, since 2003 he has been directing the director's workshop there. Since 2000, Reichelgauz has been giving lectures on the history and theory of directing at the Russian State Humanitarian University. In 1994, at the University of Rochester (USA), he taught the course “Chekhov's Drama”.
Personal life
Joseph Reichelgauz is married to actress of the Sovremennik Theater Marina Khazova. The future wife was his student. The director admits that he really appreciated her when he got to the hospital after a scandalous dismissal from the Stanislavsky Theater. Unlike many, Marina did not turn away from him and strongly supported her. Reichelgauz dedicated a book to his wife, “I Don't Believe.”
The spouses have two adult daughters - Maria and Alexandra. The eldest, Maria, works as a set designer. For the first independent work she received the Golden Mask Award. The second daughter, Alexandra, graduated from the philological faculty of Moscow State University, and performs administrative functions at the School of Dramatic Art.
The eldest daughter gave the director a granddaughter, Sonya. In a conversation with a journalist, Raichelgauz admitted that he would like to spend more time with her, but even in the eighth decade she still disappears in the theater.
