Last night I had the fortunate opportunity to see "Shukshin Short Stories" as staged by The Theater of Nations (Рассказы Шукшина/Театр Наций). This is quite the show to begin my blog with, and there's a lot to say about it! I'll try and be concise and informative. It has met with almost universal praise from everyone I know who has seen it, won three Golden Mask awards this year (Russia's theater version of the oscars), including best show, and it stars (among others) Yevgeniy Mironov (also artistic director of the company) and Chulpan Khamatova. The director is Alvis Hermanis.The show is a collection of short stories by Vassiliy Shukshin, a soviet writer and director from the Altay region of Siberia, and the themes of the stories selected for this piece deal with love, betrayal, the interaction of the old with the young, and urban versus rural life, all set against the background of rural Russia; literally. Hermanis' direction places the actors in front of giant photographs taken by the company of real people from Altay; the modern-day equivalents of those same soviet village archetypes from 30 years ago. The stories and the show itself are effectively painted with the seemingly eternal atmosphere and mentality of the Russian village.
The show runs over two and a half hours long, and is well worth it, but we'll come back to that in a bit. The first thing that caught my attention was the fact that when I asked an usher how long the show was going to be, the response was "You'll be getting out at around 10:30. It used to be even longer. They cut one of the stories from last time. And there were cuts before that too." To a masters student in theater, words like those are enough to make your ears prick up with curiousity and optimism. It sends a very clear signal that as the audience member I have walked into a living, breathing process, where things are very much changing from night to night, and even after being awarded the prestigious Golden Mask award for 'Best Show of 2010', the company is not resting on its laurels and still paying meticulous attention to detail. The show is not static; it is alive. In short, they have a love for this piece that is felt in the house very clearly.
Now onto the breakdown...There are three components to this show I found interesting...
First, the genre. This show belongs to a particular genre of drama in Russia; the staged short story. Not an adapted short story, a staged one. Not a single word of the author's text has been omitted, and the narratives in their entirety are preserved. This genre has its merits, as it opens up entire new worlds of literature for the stage, but I have almost always found it to be problematic and risky as well. It becomes increasingly difficult to apply physical action to text that on the surface does not lend itself to a physically expressive performance. Oftentimes the result is a drop-off or hole in dramatic development, where the audience is told what is happening via the authors text as opposed to being shown via the physical expression of the actor's inner psychological state (this approach happened to be one of Stanislavsky's later and greatest contributions to his system, calling it rather aptly his 'Method of Physical Action/Метод физического действия). The latter is, to my taste, more visually and dramatically appealing. Compounding the issue is that this particular production is not one narrative, but a combination of 6 or more separate narratives, essentially making the audience hit a reset button of sorts at the end of every story. Dramatic development must be restarted from scratch every 15-20 minutes, and it can be jarring to the audience. Now, with all of the above said, let me state that this show overcomes all of the above problems not only admirably, but with flair and great ease owing in large part to what seems to be a brilliant relationship between a very talented director, and one of the greatest actors of our time.
Which leads me to the other two components of this production that bear noting, the director and the acting ensemble. Hermanis devises many interesting and clever ways to avoid the pitfalls of static development onstage with some very clever physical expression, whether its a characterized walk, or the way the narrators eat sunflower seeds, the relationship to the action is constantly changing and clearly defined in moments when the actors aren't acting out the story itself. The pitfalls of the 'reset button' are done away with as well, as the stories selected have common themes that lend themselves to the creation of a certain atmosphere around the performance and the posing of a certain, elusive Russian question that becomes clearer with each story, and yet at same time cannot be fully articulated at the end (although perhaps that's because I'm an American!).
The third (and perhaps main reason why this show is so successful) is the acting work. The ensemble is no company of small fries, with Chulpan Khamatova also giving stellar performances alongside a very powerful cast (I was pleasantly surprised to see an acquaintence of mine in the cast!), but Yevgeniy Mironov rules this show. He is the king of перевоплощения (a Russian acting term for a character actor who can easily and seemingly at will create a sharp, concrete role. I'll think about a better way to translate it in the future. It comes from the same root word for 'Incarnate'). Michael Chekhov comes to mind. Legends about the way he could apparently radiate energy from the stage and no one could understand how he was able to achieve such distinct and yet different characters bear a resemblance to Mironov in this performance, and how he is able to exit the stage and almost immediately re-enter in a different role. So different in fact, the audience might as well not even recognize him. It is, in a word, magic.
There are times in this performance where I caught myself realizing what I was watching; a brilliant performance resembling those legends of old by one of the greatest artists of our era at the peak of his career. The kind of performance and career that will be written and spoken about 50 years if not more from now, the same way Markov wrote about the greats of old. The realization of what I was bearing witness to was enough to send shivers down my spine. There is a purity and graceful simplicity about the work being done on this piece. This is one show I'll be telling the kids about for sure. If you're in town, see it.
I've pulled these photos from the Театр наций website. I don't take pictures during a show, I think it's sacreligious. I think I've said enough nice things, I hope they don't sue....
-A
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