- Michael, they say you are a master of theatrical skits, everyone loves your humorous ideas... – Yes, I have been holding theatrical skits and all sorts of events like the Old New Year for five years. And, unfortunately, apparently, I do it, so no matter what anniversary someone or somewhere has, I have to come up with congratulations. This is my "honorable duty" in the theater. Although now I'm trying to move away from it a little bit, because it takes a lot of energy, effort and time.
– What do you want to direct your energy to? – I want to do the material that can be embodied on stage, which excites me, which is interesting to me.
– This season you have released the play "Merry Times" based on the 1939 film "Ninochka". It's not the first time I've come across the fact that performances are staged based on films, is this a trend? – I do not know if this is a trend or not, but in a sense you are right. It seems to me that there is a certain shortage of drama. It is clear that the classics are always good, but, on the other hand, as soon as and by whom it was put, and this often turns into a kind of exercise: how to put it in a way that has not yet been put.
"And there is not so much sensible modern drama, in fact. For example, I participate in readings in Lyubimovka almost every year, but the bulk of the works still merge into some kind of one long play." - Michael.
Sometimes there are curious ones, but, unfortunately, they are for a very narrow audience, mainly in the Theater format.doc, the Praktika Theater, maybe some very small stage, but in the Moscow Art Theater such things are still difficult to get used to. We have laboratories where this "takes place" as an experiment, but it is unlikely that it will enter the repertoire. There is another spectator in the Moscow Art Theater. The commercial component is very important for the big and small stage. Something modern could be done on the New Stage, but there are few young people going there, mostly very grown–up people.
And as for the play "Merry Times", when I watched the movie "Ninochka", I just really liked this story. It seems to me that she "gets" into today!
Of course, there is a historical context that we all know perfectly well and can assume the worst outcome of this story, but it's a kind of fairy tale, an exit to another reality.
– How did you choose the actors for your production? Have you consulted with someone? – Of course, we have a wonderful head of the group Olga Semenovna Henkina – Oleg Pavlovich Tabakov's assistant, she has an "iron" flair. She usually helps with casting. You can always contact her, discuss everything.
For example, how did we get Kostya Kryukov, who previously had nothing to do with the theater at all? I understood that I needed a "Hollywood" hero, a handsome European, some Ryan Gosling or a young George Clooney, and there was a big problem with such artists, and we decided to take a chance, try to work with Konstantin, because he is just such a "bourgeois", and the role suits him very well. At first, of course, it was not easy, because he really had no theatrical experience either in terms of speech or in terms of existence in the space of the stage. But he really wanted to work, it was interesting to him, and he overcame everything and fit in very organically. And in general, I must say that I have not met such a person as Kostya for a very long time: firstly, intelligent, secondly, ready to work and, thirdly, very decent. I am sure that if he wants to continue doing theater, then he should succeed.
And the heroine – Sveta Kolpakova – is generally our everything! This is a man of mega-energy. She does a lot of acting and plays a lot in the theater. She is a great dancer, sings, that is, a truly versatile actress!
– Do you have an acting education or a director's education? – Actually, my first education was economics, and my second one was directing, but the course at the Moscow Art Theater Studio School was experimental - acting and directing. This was the last joint course of Roman Kozak and Dmitry Brusnikin. Unfortunately, when we were in our third year, Roman Yefimovich died. We were then "picked up" by Viktor Anatolyevich Ryzhakov, he was directing with us. But I did everything in double volume. I did everything not only with the directors, but also with the actors: I prepared excerpts, and engaged in dancing, and stage movement, and even fencing, although not for long.
– Did you get into the Moscow Art Theater right after the Studio School? – It so happened that one of our teachers was Evgeny Pisarev. When we were in our second year, he produced the play "The Pickwick Club" at the Moscow Art Theater and took on small roles for me and another classmate of mine. So we plunged into the world of the Moscow Art Theater, and in the end I stayed here. By the way, thanks in large part to the skits, because when we had a skit at the Studio School, the management of the Moscow Art Theater liked it, and we, as students, were invited to do some numbers in the theater.
– Why have you decided to think about something serious now? – Now that all the holidays and anniversaries have finally died down, I have actively started reading, I get tremendous pleasure from it.
"I probably have such a period that I need some kind of reboot, I need to get a new drink, read a lot. I feel that a new stage is coming for me. Therefore, a "recharge" is needed, including a literary one." - Michael.
Now, for example, we have a Laboratory in the theater on texts from 1920-1930, I took a play by Viktor Gusev (by the way, this is the great-grandfather of the commentator Viktor Gusev), who was at one time a famous poet, screenwriter and playwright. It was he who wrote the scripts of the films "The Pig and the Shepherd", "At 6 o'clock in the evening after the war". And now he has a 1935 play "Glory", which, apparently, was once very popular. Of course, she has such a Soviet pathos, but the most interesting thing about her is that she is completely in verse. Now we are trying to work with this text somehow, I don't know what will happen yet…
"Besides that, I'm looking for some other material. Now I am reading Hesse's Narcissus and Goldmund for the second time, I read it in the original for the first time, now I decided to reread it in Russian. Although this is absolutely not a theatrical thing, but wonderful literature, it would be very interesting to do it.". - Michael.
– Do you know German so well? – After all, I lived in Germany for two years and during that time I learned, but not as well as English, which I know from school. In the 10th grade, I went on an exchange trip to America for a year and graduated from school there. Then he returned, studied economics at the university in Perm, and after graduation went to Germany. Then, one might say, he accidentally entered St. Petersburg in St. Petersburg to direct a variety show, and then left St. Petersburg for Moscow – to a studio school.
– Yes, the path is winding. Are you also busy as an actor at the Moscow Art Theater? – Yes, now I have two names left. Now I'm playing in Sasha Molochnikov's play "1914" on the small stage and with Adolf Yakovlevich Shapiro on the big stage in "Mephisto". There used to be the Pickwick Club, Amadeus, and Ryzhakov's Cursed and Killed.
– From which of the directors with whom you worked as an actor, did you learn something in terms of directing? – Everyone has a little. In fact, it seems to me that it is very useful for directors to have acting experience in order to understand all this really from the inside. Adolf Yakovlevich Shapiro is a master of text parsing, he knows how to do it professionally! Sasha Molochnikov, although he is younger than me, but he also has a lot to learn. How much energy there is in it! How he knows how to get everyone to do something! Evgeny Alexandrovich Pisarev is a real school of subtle humor. I really think that, no matter how banal it may sound, you have to study all your life, and it's great when such an opportunity arises. Right now I was helping, for example, Oleg Glushkov, at the Theater of Nations we produced The Blue Blue Bird, I was his second director, and I can also borrow a lot from Oleg. And Evgeny Mironov came to us for some rehearsals, for me it was a real master class, because he is really a great artist. And when he starts showing something, it's great!