Moscow Performances

The New Russian Theater 1991-1996

John Freedman

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2005
• ISBN:
  9781135298913
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Performing Arts

The reviews and features collected in John Freedman's Moscow Performances bring to life the diversity, energy, and imagination of Russian theater as few books have done before. While focusing on the work of Moscow's leading directors - Pyotr Fomenko, Kama Ginkas, Valery Fokin, Anatoly Vasilyev, Konstantin Raikin, Sergei Zhenovach, Yury Lyubimov, and many others - also included in its review are key productions by many of the renowned guests who bring their art to the Russian capital. Essays on St. Petersburg's Lev Dodin (of the Maly Drama Theatre), Lithuania's Eimuntas Nekrosius, Georgia's Robert Sturua, and Germany's Peter Stein confirm that Moscow's position as a "theatrical mecca" has not diminished since Anatoly Lunacharsky coined the phrase in the 1920s.
In addition to recording Freedman's immediate and opinionated responses to Moscow stage developments in the 1990s, Moscow Performances contains a wealth of information about the struggles and occasional triumphs of a new generation of talented but as yet unknown playwrights, the successes of the best actors, and the social and financial trends which have had such an impact on Russian theatre in the post-Soviet period.

PERFORMANCES

1991/1992 SEASON

The Nose, Lithuanian State Youth Theater

The appearance of Eimuntas Nekrosius’s The Nose in Moscow, performed by the Lithuanian State Youth Theater in collaboration with the Moscow Friendship of Nationalities Theater, was timely, indeed. Opening September 21, 1991, exactly a month after the unraveling of the coup and a few weeks after Lithuania regained independence, it created one of Moscow’s biggest theatrical sensations since the advent of perestroika. The opening night audience was a genuine who’s who of Moscow society while the crowds hoping to find a stray ticket outside the dowdy Pushkin Theater reminded one of the Taganka or Lenkom in the “old days.”

Responses broke down predictably. The full houses applauded enthusiastically while critics and “people in the know” whispered quietly that the production was “nothing new”: “If he had done this five years ago, it would really have been something,” one well-connected person told me, “but now…” Nekrosius himself seemed to anticipate such a reaction in an interview printed in a booklet sold with the program where he called the notion of creating art for the elite “a nice cliché,” but “otherwise, nonsense.”

Perhaps I was fortunate never to have seen a Nekrosius production, but I couldn’t help but feel that—with the removal of one set of political obstacles to art—the dual response was merely a case of politics once again taking precedence over art.

Certainly, Nekrosius himself did not shy from making political allusions. Instead of losing his nose, this Kovalyov (Vladas Bagdonas) attempts to relieve himself of a troublesome attraction to the opposite sex by voluntarily submitting to castration (whimsically achieved by the vicious swing of an ax, followed by the appearance of a dangling pink ribbon to indicate flowing blood). However, shortly after the madcap doctor (played with engaging deviltry by Povilas Budris) tosses Kovalyov’s member in a trash can, the still bloody “nose” emerges in a pink shirt and something resembling a pink yarmulke to pursue its own life and troubles in a new-found state of “freedom.” This presents plenty of opportunities for Nekrosius to echo the dismemberment of the Soviet Union, as well as the devastating problems that has engendered.

In one of several such touches, the “nose” attempts to marry a beautiful maiden, eliciting the jealous wrath of Kovalyov who enters in a fascist goose-step and attempts to steal the bride. A comic scuffle ensues, the result being that both of them become her groom. In such ways, Nekrosius teases his audience with the irresolvable paradoxes of a desire for independence and the necessity of interdependence. In any case, Kovalyov’s subsequent efforts to coerce the “nose” to return to its proper place are in vain. Standing erect with a new-found sense of potency, and echoing Kovalyov’s “fascist” tendencies, the “nose” eventually goes on a rampage and has everyone locked up in trash-bin prisons.

These scenes are far from being programmatic allegories; on one level they may hint at familiar historical and political events, but they neither attempt to represent or resolve them. The “confusing element”—that is, the artistic image that ultimately leads away from politics into the realm of art or philosophy—is the figure of the beautiful maiden who appears in several scenes, perhaps representing a concept similar to “truth,” “beauty,” or “justice.” Naturally, the intent is not to illustrate the complex relationship between Russia and Lithuania, but to grapple with those inherently irreconcilable problems of which the Russia/Lithuania or Kovalyov/ Nose pairings are merely metaphors.

Performed by Kostas Smoriginas with a marvelous sense of naive humor owing much to Harpo Marx, the “nose” triumphantly prances about the stage, humming, squeaking, whistling and spitting water skyward in mock ejaculations (which, thanks to the excellent lighting and a solid black backdrop, form beautiful cascades that gracefully hang in the air). There is never a hint of naturalism in the sexual theme, ever performed in the lightest of farcical tones. And if Harpo served as a starting point for Smoriginas’s “nose,” the overall atmosphere of a Marx Brothers’ film provides the basis for one rowdy café scene replete with fast-paced chases, up-endings and reversals.

Ultimately, The Nose is a fantasy that derives only its broadest outline from Gogol’s story. Also included are themes faintly reminiscent of other Petersburg stories, excerpts from Selected Passages from Correspondence with Friends and quotes from works about Gogol by Dmitry Merezhkovsky and Vasily Rozanov. This provides the basis for one of the play’s sub-plots: the role of the artist in society.

The performance begins as Gogol (Remigius Vilkaitis) stands proudly, a statue high on a pedestal in the midst of a wide semi-circle of trash-bins (which, as we see later, are inhabited by socialites, somewhat as in Beckett’s End Game). A washer-woman bustles around him, cleaning him up to keep him “presentable.” When she climbs on a ladder to toss a bucket of water over his head, he pulls out an umbrella just in the nick of time to avoid being drenched. Subsequently, he is hounded continually by an elongated barber (Gediminas Girdvainis) who may represent a censor or, perhaps, “good taste”: his intent is to make Gogol remain a cold statue on a pedestal. He forces Gogol to lug his pedestalturned-trunk about on his back and repeatedly clips off the quills that grow on his hands (thereby, both “clipping his wings” of freedom and destroying his ability to write).

From time to time, Gogol breaks loose of his tormentor, seeking release in mad, confessional ravings that invariably offend the barber’s—and, occasionally, the audience’s—civilized sense of propriety. (During intermission, one talented Moscow set designer told me with dissatisfaction that Nekrosius had no right to “make” Gogol talk at such length about Russia resembling a bog.) In the finale, the writer is captured in an enormous straight-jacket with flowing arms, thus reviving for an instant the motif of Gogol as a bird seeking freedom in flight. Soon enough, however, the arms are wrapped tightly around him and he is returned, mute, to his pedestal.

With the exception of Gogol’s philosophical ravings, language plays an insignificant role in this vividly visual production where the set and the mises en scene carry the burden of explication, and the simultaneous translation was nearly superfluous. Nekrosius has clearly found a unique and expressive theatrical language that is readily accessible to all. Whether or not one is prepared to hear or understand what he has to say is a different question altogether.

Whatever the case, I found nothing in The Nose that could cast doubt on the sincerity of Nekrosius’s statements made on opening night and later carried on Soviet television. He said that he was equally as proud to be the first cultural ambassador of a free Lithuania in Moscow as he was to have the opportunity to interpret one of the greatest writers of Russian literature. “It is a heritage,” he said, “for which I have an abiding love and affinity.”

(Spring 1992, Slavic and East European Performance)

We Play “Crime,” Young Spectator Theater

We Play “Crime” is the production’s title and you can understand it as you like. Maybe it means the actors are playing only the “crime” half of Dostoevsky’s novel Crime and Punishment, or maybe it means they are only “playing” at criminal games. In any case, director Kama Ginkas eventually lets us know what he thinks about Raskolnikov’s murderous ideas: They’re not worth chopped salad.

This is a production that puts the fifty spectators at the Young Spectator Theater on the hot seat along with the characters. The tiny, converted rehearsal room that serves as stage and hall is just big enough to handle the action. It is also small enough to make you feel that you and your neighbor—like Dostoevsky’s notorious flies on the wall—are the only ones witnessing it.

When the frantic Raskolnikov methodically prepares to behead a fluttering, live chicken to prove a point, you don’t merely understand an abstract philosophical notion, you feel it and you fear it. When he releases his victim, the tiny hall heaves a sigh of relief in unison. Later, when a murder does take place—cleverly represented by splitting open a head of cabbage with an ax—it evokes laughter in the hall. This is theater doing what it is supposed to do: appealing to our understanding through all the means available to it.

Since language obscures understanding as often as it facilitates it, Ginkas has another effective trick up his sleeve. His Raskolnikov (Marcus Grott) is performed by a Finnish Swede who speaks half his lines in Swedish. There is a good reason, then, why the inspector trying to solve the murder of a pawn-broker and her sister doesn’t understand much of what the suspect has to say. What he does understand, like the audience, is what is essential.

The idea for a dual-language production arose when Ginkas staged We Play “Crime” in Finland, taking with him the Moscow actress Irina Yuryevich to play the prostitute Sonya (she plays the same role here). She performed in Russian amidst the Finnish actors. Grott played the lead role there as well, and his manic, introspective style was so impressive that Ginkas resolved to attempt something like a mirror-image of that staging in Moscow.

“The result,” he says, “was a totally different show. The Finnish production was basically a normal story about a man who overstepped his boundaries. The Russian version, however, took on very different tones, both artistically as well as philosophically.”

The shift also owes much to the actor performing the role of the police inspector. Viktor Gvozditsky is sublime as the finicky, effeminate Porfiry Petrovich who clings to Raskolnikov as tightly as his own creme-colored silk suit clings to him. He cajoles and caresses the tormented student with an odd, nervous charm, drawing him ever closer to the fire of confession.

Gvozditsky began working with Ginkas long ago, in another time and another place.

In Leningrad in the 1960s and 1970s, Ginkas was what he himself calls an “unem ployed dissident.” Unable to work in established theaters, he staged plays at home. In 1979, he hooked up with Gvozditsky and they have often been together since.

With no hopes of a future in Leningrad, Ginkas relocated to Moscow in 1984 where, by the end of the decade, he became recognized as one of Russian theater’s best directors. Many of his stagings have toured the world, and he is often invited to direct in Europe.

One recent trip, however, may have been sweeter than most. In mid-October, Ginkas traveled to Petersburg to attend a festival entitled “The Productions of Kama Ginkas in Leningrad.”

“The word ‘Leningrad,’” explains Ginkas, “remained in the title mostly because the literature was printed up long ago. But it only seems natural to me. That town has a long way to go before it can justify calling itself ‘Petersburg’ again.”

The director clearly took pleasure in his triumphant return to the town that once had “kicked him out.”

Meanwhile, encouraged by the results of his two experiments with We Play “Crime” Ginkas plans more dual-language productions.

“Russian and Western sources need to be mixed,” he says. “Their cultures and mentalities fill each other out.”

It is a natural mix for Ginkas. As he puts it, he is a “100% Jew,” raised in the Russian culture with a strong affinity for the culture of his Lithuanian homeland, although he also calls himself a “typical ‘Sov’.”

What he is, by any standard, is a fine director. We Play “Crime” is witness to that.

(Moscow Guardian, October 1991)

Sovereign, Our Father, Vakhtangov Theater

In Sovereign, Our Father, the newest production at the Vakhtangov Theater not counting the most recent revival of Princess Turandot, Peter the Great considers his attitude towards Europe.

“Give us 20 or 30 years and we’ll catch up with them,” he says, before adding to healthy laughter on stage and in the hall: “And then we’ll turn our backsides on them!”

Plays about tsars proliferated in Moscow in recent years, but this staging by Pyotr Fomenko stakes out its own niche. The portrayal of an arbitrary and, occasionally, repentant tsar is not what is new. Nor does the picture of a sensitive but spineless heir to the throne add anything unexpected. What is interesting in these days of Russia’s most recent turn to the West is Fomenko’s and playwright Fridrikh Gorenshtein’s interpretation of Russia’s first genuine infatuation with Europe.

Following Fomenko’s wish to explore the play’s theme “theatrically rather than philosophically,” Maxim Sukhanov’s bawdy Peter the Great stalks the huge stage at the Vakhtangov with a pronounced limp, lugging his throne on his back or sporting a roughcut bearskin coat. He hardly corresponds to the usual image of Russia’s first “European” tsar. Furthermore, the court intrigues, conspiracies and the ruthless manner of quashing them are clearly throwbacks to the medieval Russia of Ivan the Terrible and not harbingers of a modern civilization.

The Christian church, perhaps western society’s most prominent manifestation in the production (aside from mannequins dressed in European style and a few other props pushed symbolically to the extreme edges of the stage), is no less atavistic. Priests both encourage assassinating the “anti-Christ” tsar and absolve him of sin when he executes his impetuous son Alexei (performed busily but sincerely by Sergei Makovetsky).

A few select moments clearly, if predictably, indicate that the debunking of the myth of Peter’s European principles is not only intended in a historical sense. The first comes immediately in a Taganka Theater-inspired opening where a motley band of jesters stares into the audience calling for reactions from the “people” who, naturally, do not respond. Another comes at performance’s end as a “common citizen” plies the troubled tsar with pressing questions. Among them: “Tell us sovereign, our father, where do we obtain oats?”

With its cast of 40 and its frequent changes in place of action, the acting and the multilayered plot do not always hold one’s attention. Indeed, there are times when this three and a half hour marathon seems as long and confusing as Russian history itself.

But, Sovereign, Our Father is a grand visual spectacle on a Russian scale. Maria Danilova’s expansive set, Pavel Kaplevich’s costumes and Fomenko’s use of every inch of the stage from the proscenium to the rafters, are a feast for the eyes.

Hanging from the ceiling are several enormous wood tables high above which hang something resembling white cloth stars. From time to time they drop earthward gracefully to form bed linens or, as in the finale, to suggest, perhaps, the souls of executed prisoners and imply the pagan, rather than the Christian, roots of the Russian culture. The dangling tables dance in the air as actors move about them, creating a captivating vision of a world trapped between heaven and earth.

Playwright Gorenshtein has had plenty of opportunity to contemplate the peculiarities of the Russian condition, both as an unpublished Moscow writer who participated in the publication of the scandalous almanac Metropole in 1979, and as an emigrant living in Germany since 1980. Director Fomenko himself is no stranger to the Russian enigma. He first made a name for himself in the 1960s, working on several controversial productions at the Taganka Theater.

Said Fomenko, “I long wanted to stage a dramatization of Dmitry Merezhkovsky’s novel Peter and Alexei. But when I came upon Gorenshtein’s play Infanticide, I saw that this gave me a more modern source to work with.”

Gorenshtein’s bulky play, he noted, was written more to be read than staged, and he had to make large cuts in it, while adding snippets from other works of Russian literature to facilitate transitions.

“My main task was to explore the relationship between culture and civilization in Russia,” the director said, pointing out that this dichotomy is largely a battle between Russian and European influences.

“The paradoxes and disharmonies of this mix are especially obvious now,” he concluded.

Sovereign, Our Father may not be for everyone. But it is an intriguing look at the sources of a culture which prompted Rudyard Kipling to observe acidly, “the Russian is a delightful person till he tucks in his shirt.”

(Moscow Guardian, December 1991)

From the Life of Rain Worms and Women’s Games, Chekhov Art Theater

For many years, the Moscow Art Theater has occupied an odd place in this city of great theaters. On one hand, it maintains the reputation of being the house that Stanislavsky built, Stalin’s favorite theater, and the “showcase of the Soviet regime.” On the other, it is often the butt of jokes and the most common example of the crisis that, not always justly, many feel has stricken Russian theater.

A few years ago, the theater broke in two. One half, now called the “New” or the Gorky Art Theater, moved to Tverskoi Boulevard. The other half remained in the stylish art nouveau building on Art Theater Lane and is now called the “Old” or the Chekhov Art Theater.

A...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• INTRODUCTION TO THE SERIES
• LIST OF PLATES
• PREFACE
• PERFORMANCES
• PEOPLE, THEATERS AND EVENTS