Viktor Shenderovich. Not a word about politics

On October 22, 2011, the Vyacheslav Kaganovich Theatre Studio (Chicago, Illinois) will present the play “Aydont Understend” based on the play by Viktor Shenderovich “The Victim Goldiner”. The director of the play is Sergey Kokovkin. Starring: Vyacheslav Kaganovich and Marina Karmanova. The Author will come to the premiere, and the following day his Creative Evening will take place.

Shenderovich speaks and writes about politics in sufficient detail. Since our conversation took place on the eve of a theatrical premiere, this time I suggested to Viktor Anatolyevich to talk about the Theatre and only about the Theatre. Not a word about politics! There were no objections from the Author.

– How does the author feel before the American premiere?

– Our penetration across the planet, as Vysotsky said, is especially noticeable from afar. ( Laughs. ) Now I can puff out my cheeks and say that my play is being rehearsed in Chicago… I am anxiously awaiting the premiere. The play takes place in America, and it is clear that the audience in America will be especially interested and sensitive. The first production of the play was a great success at the Odessa Russian Theater. At the request of the theater, the hero’s genealogy (this role was wonderfully played by Oleg Shkolnik) was transferred to Odessa. The audience there reacted wonderfully, but these were those who remained, and the play is dedicated to all those who left and those who remained. The play has already been performed for those who stayed, but not yet for those who left. It will be extremely interesting to hear the reaction of the other half. I hope that it will coincide in most places, but I think that some surprises and amazements await me.

– Do you trust director Sergei Kokovkin, or is there some feeling of fear and the thought: “What is he doing there with my play?”

- No, no, there is no fear. I have known Sergei Kokovkin for a long time, I have great sympathy for him and trust him as a person and professionally. It is not that I do not trust the director. The issue is different. The play was written by a person who did not emigrate. Of course, I have been to America and lived among these people, but still, my view of emigration is from the outside. The only worries are related to how the text will sound to a new audience. There is the singer's voice, but there is also the resonance of the room, and a lot depends on the resonance. I am interested in what the resonance will be.

– I read your play and realized that you have a thorough knowledge of the subject called “Emigration”…

– ( Laughs. ) I don’t know. Of course, I’ve been to Brighton, I have many friends in exile, but I’m not sure that I know it thoroughly… Rather, I can assume something, completing the mosaic from my very fragmentary ideas.

– Does your character have a prototype?

– Goldiner is a fictional character, he does not have one prototype. Every artistic character, like a mosaic, is assembled from several pieces. Bertolt Brecht, who in “The Career of Arturo Ui” showed an absolutely recognizable obvious prototype, is rather an exception. My Goldiner consists of four completely different people living in different countries outside of Russia. Four people from whom I assembled my Goldiner. Assembled psychologically, biographically… I was led by the character. I think that I know the character.

– According to the director of the play, Sergei Borisovich Kokovkin, the conflict between two worlds, two worldviews, is important to him in your play…

– Yes, there are two generations of emigration in the play. The main character of the play is an old man, a man from a joke, if we talk about the type. “How do you like America?” – “I don’t know, we don’t go there.” This man emigrated and “cocooned” in a small emigrant, Brighton world. The heroine of the play has lived in America since she was six. She feels like an American, for her Brighton is a “zoo”. The forced meeting and mutual recognition of people of different generations, different cultures, for one of whom the “zoo” is America, and for the other it is emigration, seemed very curious to me. I am not Pushkin, in whose Tatyana married a general, but at some point my heroine also began to act in her own way. The play was partly written to order, but then something happened that Griboyedov calls “I was going into a room, I ended up in another”. After some time, it turned out that the comedy I had started writing gradually moved towards melodrama. I liked the genre, which was new to me. When Slava Kaganovich read the play and wanted to stage it, I went along with it with pleasure, because, I repeat, I am really very curious about how it might look and sound among those about whom it was written.

– How do you feel about the name change?

– A play is thirty-odd pages of text, but a performance is something completely different. A performance is a living story. Unlike a play, it has many parents, and everyone brings something new to it: the director, the actors, the entire creative team. A play is always just a basis for a performance. That’s why I give the director complete carte blanche. Any performance is still a fantasy on the themes of the play. About fifteen thousand Hamlets (someone counted) have appeared on stage. There is no point in arguing who is closer to Shakespeare and who is further from Shakespeare, because every time and every place has its own Hamlet, its own “to be or not to be” and its own intonations. And that’s right. That’s how it should be. The author should not interfere with the performance. The performance is born and lives its own life, and from a certain point on the author has nothing to do with it.

- Viktor Anatolyevich, why did you move from the Tabakov acting studio and teaching stage movement at GITIS to writing? Do you regret leaving acting and stopping teaching?

– I tried to write from an early age. At first it was extremely secondary and awkward, but I always liked writing, and the theater was always there. I was drawn to the theater. I was never an actor – I played in crowd scenes in diploma performances at the Tabakov Theater, nothing more. And Tabakov and the teachers of the “Tabakerka” invited me to teach stage movement in the new course. For me, it was more of a tribute to the love of the Tabakov studio, an attempt to enter the same river for the second time. I was a student of the First Tabakov Studio and a teacher of the Second. A wonderful page in my life! What is called “the smell of the wings” still causes bouts of great nostalgia. But still, I think that everyone should do their own thing. I do not regret at all that twenty years ago I sat down at a desk. I think that I am doing my own thing, and my theatrical past helps me enormously. The theater has given me a lot in terms of literary and television work. If it weren't for the Tabakov studio, I probably wouldn't have decided to write plays. It's logical that the best playwrights were either actors or lived in the theater and wrote for the theater, knew the theater from the inside. The names of Shakespeare, Moliere, Ostrovsky are on the surface. You need to know, understand and feel the theater. A person who went on stage writes differently. He is inside the theater and tests the text on himself. It's a completely different view. In this sense, even that small youthful experience of living inside the theater that I had really pushed and supported me.

– Do you think that Moscow still remains a theatrical Mecca or is it gradually losing its leading position?

– It’s hard to judge. I don’t think that Moscow is a theatrical Mecca. I’m even sure that it’s not. We are different from Muslims in that we don’t have one holy place. Mecca is a nomad, the center of gravity is constantly shifting. During my life, this center has moved many times, it was in London, Berlin, and it can appear anywhere. Moscow was such a city – maybe it will be again. Several luminaries continue to work in Moscow: Pyotr Naumovich Fomenko and his school, his student Zhenovach and his school, and other talented directors. Moscow has an amazing theater school.

– Do you continue to write plays?

- Yes, there is a play from this year that is now starting to travel from hand to hand in Moscow. It is a comedy. I hope it will find its hands. Next year I plan to publish a collection of plays. It will include both plays that are running in theaters and those that have not yet been staged.

- At the premiere of the play in Odessa you appeared on stage as the Author. Are you planning the same in Chicago?

- In Odessa it was done simply for the premiere. No, I will come to Chicago as a spectator and as an author. I will not go on stage... Only if I take a bow... And the next day my evening will take place in Chicago.

- What will we hear this evening?

- Last year I came with Igor Bril's jazz quintet. The performance was called "How the piano was carried". This time I will tell other stories and read other texts. It will be a literary evening of a completely different kind.

– Since the meeting with you will take place the day after the performance, are you ready for a discussion about your play?

– To be honest, I don’t think it’s right. This is not a political debate. I am certainly not Chekhov, but imagine a situation where Anton Pavlovich responds to the content of “The Seagull”. “Clarify the ambiguities in the third act…” There will be a performance, everyone will have their own impression. That’s enough. Let the performance live its own life, and I will come, I will gladly attend the premiere, and the next day I will go on stage to read my texts.

Nota bene! The premiere of the play “Aydont understen” based on the play by Viktor Shenderovich “The Victim Goldiner” will take place on October 22, 2011 at 7 pm in the hall of “Christian Heritage Academy” located at 315 Waukegan Road, Northfield, IL 60093.

On October 23 at 7 pm in the Theater Living Room at 615 Academy Drive, Northbrook, IL 60062 there will be a Creative Evening with writer and playwright Viktor Shenderovich.

Tickets are available at theater box offices in Chicago and the suburbs.

Sergey Elkin,

https://www.eurochicago.com/2011/10/viktor-shenderovitch-ni-slova-o-politike/