Moscow is a good place for the Third International Theatre Olympiad. Carnival processions no longer look out of place on the post-Soviet streets; after a slump in the 1990s, there is new life in theatre, as in all the arts in Moscow.
The classics continue to rule the stage-they provide support for an otherwise shaky sense of identity in Russia today. But they are served with a twist. Mikhail Zakharov, a leading director and veteran of Soviet theatre, has learnt that people want to be entertained. His production of Mistifikatsiya, adapted from Gogol's Dead Souls, is more like a circus than a staging of a tragic tale; the audience gasp with delight as set upon elaborate set is wheeled on to the stage, and clap when a white dog bounds on, barking. Disapproving babushkas leave when a witch flies over the stage with breasts bared. The show is a success: touts sell tickets for as much as 750 roubles-a month's pay for an actor.
"The theatre-space has to vibrate more powerfully than the atmosphere on the street... In Russia reality itself is dramatic, and therefore most texts seem limp and unremarkable on the stage," says Vladimir Mirzoev, a younger director. He often chooses to direct classics and his production of Twelfth Night at the Stanislavskii Theatre, where he is artistic director, resonates with the almost hysterical energy of his troupe.
Mirzoev has a permanent company, but he is also beginning to work as an independent director, producing "enterprises." In Soviet times, the theatrical system reflected the hierarchies of the Soviet system: each theatre had its own permanent company and artistic director who, traditionally, ruled supreme over his actor-minions. This system was established by Stanislavskii's troupe at the turn of the last century and is only now beginning to crumble. Now there is a mutation towards western models, as seen in the new "enterprises," which are collaborations between actors and directors from different theatres. Mirzoev spent several years living in Canada, which helped to liberate him from the role of director as tyrant which has always dominated the Russian theatre.
For Mirzoev the change is positive, because, "it is incredibly boring to rehearse with people who are awed by you; they are therefore spiritually and mentally undeveloped. I find an actor's initiative and personality interesting." One of his actresses, Irina Grinyova, stars in British director, Declan Donnellan's, production of Boris Godunov, which is about to tour Britain. She was amazed when Donnellan provided her with her own dressing room and the best hotel suites. A new sort of western style celebrity is emerging.
Alexei Konyshev, a young director, is riding the wave of the new theatrical democracy. He has just put on a production of Gorky Park, by Vadim Levanov, beautifully performed by a troupe gathered from various theatres and colleges. He would like to make a career as an independent director, without affiliation to one particular theatre, "but money is a problem. People don't want to invest in young directors as they don't know what they're capable of." Mirzoev agrees that the possibilities are limited for cutting edge theatre in private "enterprises," because producers are not prepared to take risks, and "avant-garde and commercialism have not found a way to live together in the theatre yet."
These changes have barely penetrated Anatolii Vasiliev's basement theatre, the School of Dramatic Art. Vasiliev was taught by a pupil of Stanislavskii's and continues the tradition of serious Russian theatre. A charismatic intellectual with a long peasant beard, he wears a leather belt buckled around his untucked shirt in Tolstoyan style, and is revered as a guru in the theatre world. His "laboratory of theatre" has the atmosphere of a religious institution. He uses Plato's dialogues simultaneously to train his pupils to act and imbue them with the ideology of his school. A scene from The Meno, in which Socrates proves that the soul is immortal through prompting a slave to solve a complicated mathematical equation, is one of Vasiliev's favourite tools with which to shape his actor's art and soul. They learn what may seem impossible-to make the solving of an equation a riveting spectacle and also that the soul is immortal. Students from deepest Siberia and, indeed, from all over the world flock to become part of the guru's stern regime.
His work on Pushkin has been particularly admired. Every Russian watching The Stone Guest and other poems knows Pushkin's verse by heart. But Vasiliev's actors recite the poems as they have never been heard before. Poems become conversations through emphasis on certain words and a studied division of the text between two or more people.
Vasilev sees the art of theatre as a way towards self-knowledge, rather than the means of putting on a diverting show. His style may seem to run counter to the new trend, but nevertheless a huge new theatre, complete with staircase shaped like Breughel's The Tower of Babel, and mosaic of the Last Judgement, is being completed for him, paid for by state funds for the Olympiad.
Russia has regained its place as a theatrical heavyweight; still disciplined, but benefiting from the flexibility of the free market.
