Aleksandra Zakharova: ‘You Can Never Lie in Theatre’

Dmitriy Desiaterik,

This Russian actress needs no extra promo hassle; even those who don't quite remember their last going to the play will easily recall her vivid characters in Criminal Talent, The House Swift Has Built, The Formula of Love, and To Kill a Dragon. Still, there are many more no less interesting roles of her, both comic and dramatic, played both on the theatrical stage and in cinema. Both her admirers and simply connoisseurs of a good theatre will appreciate hew facets of Aleksandra's talent in the Va Bank performance which will be staged for the first time in Kyiv during Lenkom Theatre tour arranged by the Viktor Pinchuk Fund. In the meantime, we offer our readers an exclusive interview with the actress.

- Do you remember your very first stage experience?

- After graduation from the SITA, my parents worked for some time in the Theatre of Miniatures under the direction of Vladimir Poliakov. The theatre was wonderful in itself: there were many famous actors -- Vysotskyi, Enigbarov etc. - playing there... I was all too young then, about 5 or 6 years old - a stage child no one to be left with. I would go to the rehearsal with my mom in the morning; then my mom would ask me: ‘What shall we do now: go back home, or live the high life?' ‘The high life,' I would reply and we would go to a small restaurant The Mermaid to eat out something - some Russian salad which I have been loving since then. In the evening I would see the performance, or run on my chores: I assisted the property men! One of the miniatures featured a jealousy scene: one of the actors performed the role of the husband who, having discovered his wife in lover's arms, threw the bunch of flowers behind the scene. I would take the bunch and bring it back to the property room feeling myself in great demand there. Once upon a time the actor failed to throw the bunch behind the curtains. I appeared on the scene to the chuckle of the public. I took the flowers, bowed the audience to its acclaim and immediately came up with the idea: Here's my vocation! How easy it is!

The directors were mad about me, actors laughed, my mom had a hard time over it - but I was plain happy.

- In other words, your entry to the Shchukin Supreme College was just a matter of time...

- There in the Shchukin Supreme College I was extremely lucky to enter the course of Yuriy Katin-Yartsev - his last training course, actually. He was an amazing professor; his looks, those immense blue eyes... He was a tell-tale character... He managed to involve some other people: we had Anatoliy Efros, Gaft coming to us. He tried to use everything within his reach to teach us, to impart to us, among other things, also some fighter qualities to make us fit to withstand this life. I had a chance to study under Vadim Shlezinger - I do not know if this name rings some bell for you - he was the Master of the Chair of Actor Art... There were self-made runs arranged in the gymnastics hall on the fifth floor -- all of the Supreme College flocked in, students sitting and hanging on the wall like monkeys chatting, noise everywhere with apparently no chance of playing it down - and then Vadim Gueorguiyevich appears in his black suit and the butterfly tie, he speaks a couple of words in a soft voice - and a deadly silence comes down! It was entirely another spirit; it was another, Vakhtangov's, air... I entered the Theatrical Institute to work in Lenkom. I received offers from a number of other theatres; say, Goncharov wanted me to join the Mayakovskiy Theatre... But it was here where I wanted to go. I did come here and worked as an extra player for God knows how many years. Everyone has a destiny of his own, thought to steal that much age from a woman, it's... It's horrible! Anyway, everyone has a destiny of his own.

- From what I understood, your first serious role was that of Ophelia.

- Right. With Gleb Panfilov.

- Was it scary?

- You bet. First of all, it was poetry. If something slips out of your mind, there is no chance for you to invent it in your own words. Then it was also a strain because of such tremendous actors around: Mikhail Kazakov, Oleg Yankovskiy, Inna Churikova, Aleksandr Zbruev, Aleksandr Abdulov - and me, a meek sparrow. But it was decided that Ophelia is a little girl that had lost her mind because of maternity. I didn't know whether I performed to it, but the idea behind it was marvellous. There was a puppet of Yorick, almost a man size one, and Ophelia would think she was pregnant with him and was giving birth to that Yorick... To me, it was interesting - the director's work, I mean, and those who worked with and around me, the actors. Nothing about myself, I didn't know how I fared.

- How does it feel to be directed by your own father?

- No ‘father' for me at work. For me, he is Mark Anatoliyevich Zakharov. I filmed in his movie, The House Swift Has Built, and didn't know how to address him as it was the first time for us to be in such a situation. I was a third-year student then and had never referred to him as ‘Mark Anatoliyevich' before. I thought that to call him ‘Pa' would be improper before my whole group standing around, and it was so unusual to think of him as Mark Anatoliyevich. Then I did it like this (claps her hands): ‘Hey you, come here! Give me some cash!' A Rouble bill to buy some coffee... But I refer to him as Mark Anatolievich there, no rehearsals at home. We rehearse only here, so there finally was a clear distinction shaped from the outset. Sure, there are moments... In Hamlet there is a scene where Yankovskiy slaps my cheek - and when Mark Anatoliyevich saw that, he reacted as if it had been him who had been slapped... No way out here, blood talks. Otherwise, there is a strict divide. Ah, one other thing: it is impossible to squeeze a role out of him. I dreamt to perform the role of Blanche in the Barbarian and the Heretic; but Maria Mironova was invited and brilliantly played the role... It is absolutely naïve to try to press on him - you can easily see it with me sitting without any engagement for quite long...

- Whatever the family, children always have to live through the riot phase in their growth. Did you have one?

- Oh, sure. Not in my professional work, though. I generally tend not to mess with the director. Not to believe in Zakharov - a foolish thing, tick it among your negatives. Mark Anatoliyevich is a genius of the director; he erected such a building, he educated generations of actors - no one else able to do that much. I totally believe in him: 200, 300, 400, 500 per cent, whatever. I can possibly think otherwise when it comes to everyday life or situations. Here I can put on that much air to say: No, this is wrong.

But he is never wrong in his work. He has this impossible gut feeling, the intuition: ‘Here, you felt for yourself'; ‘Here, you lied'; ‘Here... Ok'. How comes he's able to grasp it that way? One other thing is that, to my belief, every actor does know everything about himself.

- What is ‘Lenkom' anyway?

- When I was a little girl, the Theatre of Miniatures performed here, in the Lenkom's house; then I thought to myself: ‘What an uncomfortable, cold building! Even the elevator sits behind bars.' Then Mark Anatoliyevich came here... Naturally, the whole building has been imbued from the beginning with that noble merchant air, with the spirit of those who had built it and then flocked to here. Those directors who had worked here: take Efros, for example...Oleg Sheintsis, the heart and the soul of the theatre, contributed much to it. He did not simply painted decorations or made suits, he was always there, like a good kobold. He would come in the afternoon and stay in the theatre all night long to check the walls match the desired colour, modern elements go here, that step looks like it should, and that cloth looks like this... He had an eye of a true artist. It seems to me, we have another smell, another walls, steps, actors... The house with a different blood type. I'm biased here for sure...

- A theatre which is also a house - there are few of them remaining now.

- Practically none of them, I think. Besides, a theatre is, first of all, a personification of its leader, the director. You could be a truly great actor who, having skipped a couple of years out of service, will have to sleep in a folding bed under the stairs - like Smoktunovskiy - unnoticed by everyone until Tovstonogov arrives. A theatre is a director. Whenever this leader leaves the theatre, vanishes for any reason, leaves the jo, everything disintegrates. Mark Anatoliyevich might have some traits of a dictator, but to me this is the only possible way to have it.

- The range of your roles is rather wide from very characteristic to comic to intrinsically tragic ones. What are inclined to the most?

- Most of all, I'm inclined to a good director's work... I still think of myself as changing and growing, and I still hope in some roles to come. This life is such a hullabaloo: a tragedy lives side by side with a comedy, a comedy neighbours with some drama. Leonov was a great tragic and comic actor... Fortunately - or is it? -- everything is so close... I really believe in that I'm different, though I don't know what I am in reality. It is rather hard for a man to clearly see himself for what he is. Even when watching yourself in a mirror, you go mimicking, right? Though I would be really eager to see myself from aside.

- How do you warm up to your role?

- No actor will tell you the truth here. As Anatoliy Papanov, the greatest, the most amazing actor in his own right whose play I would never tire of seeing, put it after asked about his warming-up secret: "How? Well, I just check my zipper and - off I go!" Not a single actor will reveal it, seriously.

- Do you have your favourite play writers and dramatists?

- I'm a bit timid about it... See, I'm happy playing Ostrovskiy now. He's a great dramatist. Time ago, I let out a horrible thing, a phrase I was severely criticised afterwards - about how unthankful the role of Ophelia was. Everything was behind the curtain there: she appeared when a girl; then ran away, met with Hamlet, came back, told everything to escape behind the curtain again. Then something happens again there, she comes back, tells something again. The vanishes behind the curtain, goes mad, comes back... That's it. Full stop. Ostrovskiy makes these things develop right in front of you.

- There is something to perform.

- Exactly. When a heart is torn apart, and you witness every moment of it... This is interesting. What tools and instruments you use for that; what are the ways for it; how the director shows it; would someone care to notice your tears - everyone knows how to cry on the scene but whether it will be of interest... It's another matter already. I like Chekhov very much, his Seagull - we have a brilliant performance which I'm going to leave because I think Nina Zarechnaya must remain young... It hurts to the deep of my heart! (Laughs.) Ok, I understand everything. It's inside every actress. I'm happy to work over Marriage by Gogol. The roles are wonderful, particularly, the male ones. The cast is wonderful: Bronevoy, Yankovskiy, Zrbuev, Abdulov, you saw the names yourself. Yet I would also avoid talking about it. Scary a bit - and very interesting.

- Cinema and theatre different greatly as genres by their attitude towards time, space, and an actor. You work a lot in both domains; do you feel that difference? Do you have to overcome it?

- It is wonderful when an actor is able to film and to perform on stage. It brings in a new air and certain publicity. Still, the theatre is a living art, it's already thousands years old, and, with God's help, it will live further and outlive everything that will come. It's about the moment when you become one whole with your spectator, with that space, and we live through it together... You can never lie in the theatre - if you are worth something yourself. Well, Mark Anatoliyevich may cheat; he can build a role in a way that the performing actor will be cheated himself and a performer who's far from the best will perform brilliantly... But that's another story yet. In cinema, a close-up can cheat you; in theatre, never. If you lack certain stamina, if your soul is not aching, if you are devoid of any clear-cut stance in the life - you will never be interesting. Theatre is about the now; right now. There has never been such performance before - and will never be afterwards. And when it is not very good, it hurts and you start thinking: ‘What if it stays that way, heh?'

- What of your characters draws the most sympathy in you?

- I could say I've never felt ashamed of my appearances in The Formula of Love, Criminal Talents, or the Hostage. I would've reworked a lot, maybe, not in cinema for there it's like ‘Cut! Stop!' - and that's it. The theatre, you permanently live in it, you breathe it, it digests you...

- What is the theatre then?

- It's our world, our lives... Borys Yeltsin would possibly say that the theatre ‘is everything that's ours.' Yes, it's everything that's mine.

- You have already toured Ukraine before. What are your impressions of it?

- I'm so glad we are going to Kyiv. A nice, wonderful city. We were invited by Viktor Pinchuk; he has been helping us so much... And it was so unbelievable the other time: in Dnipropetrovsk, students eager to get to our Figaro's Marriage, were breaking doors, sneaking through windows and lavatories. You could imagine that feeling of happiness the actors had helping them get into the hall. And when you dance and singe on the scene and the audience echoes, you feel as if some crazy US rock band has been invited! That feeling of unity was incredible! The tour went wonderful. Walking that time with my dad when in Kyiv we decided to see the Bulgakov's house. Having reached there we found it closed. ‘Let's go round from the back side', he said. ‘But they've said it's closed', I replied. Still, we headed for the backdoor - and saw a cat. The black one. ‘See, they've been waiting for us!', my dad said. Then the doors opened and a woman came out: ‘Good to see you! We have been waiting you for quite some time!' I felt goose bumps all over me... And generally: those saint cathedrals, the catacombs where you wander lighting the way with a candle, vow!..

- Do you have any hobby?

- I have a dog. She's a year and such. A wire-haired fox terrier. An amazing dog, audacious beyond all limits, and fun, and very kind. She never growls or bites - actually, I've even suspected she doesn't know how to. Now she's listed among the dangerous fighting breed list. Together with Labradors and Airedales... I wonder how would they slip past Yorkshire poodles with it... Now I have to bother about medical certificate to prove I'm psychically sane and safe and have to walk my dog muzzled. Ah, here my dangerous breed comes! I call her Lushka.

- I'm about cats....

- I generally feel it is not possible to live without some living thing beside. And I wish all the minors dreaming of their pets that their parents hear these dreams and bring them some

LENKOM IN UKRAINE

Below we remind to all Kyiv theatregoers the Lenkom's touring schedule in Ukraine. The Ukrainian spectators will be able to attend three performances never staged in Ukraine before:

The City of Millionaires (A stage fantasy adapted from the play by Eduardo de Fillippo Filumena Marturano) - 27 and 28 February, 1 March in the Lesya Ukrainka National Russian Drama Theatre (5 Bohdana Khmelnitskoho St.). Director: Roman Samgin; Artistic Director: Mark Zakharov. Protagonists: Inna Churikova, Guennadiy Khazanov, Serghei Stepanchenko.

Va Bank - 3,4, and 5 March in the International Culture and Arts Centre (1 Institutskaya St.). Staged by: Mark Zakharov, Protagonists: Aleksandra Zakharova, Aleksandr Zbruev, Viktor Rakov, Serghei Stepanchenko

A Flight Over the Cuckoo Nest (Eclipse) - 8, 9, and 10 March, in International Culture and Arts Centre (1 Institutskaya St.). Staged by: Aleksandr Morphov. onists: Aleksandr Abdulov, Aleksandr Lazarev, Aliona Shanina, Serghei Stepanchenko, Anna YAkunina.

Den's Information:

Aleksandra Markovna Zakharova. Graduated from the B. V. Shchukin Supreme Theatrical College with Yevg. Vakhtangov Theatre (Yuriy Katin-Yartsev's course). Enrolled the Lenkom company in 1983 and played a number of secondary roles. The acclaim came to her after the role of Aleksandra Rukoyatkina in the Criminal Talent TV movie. The first serious role in the theatre was the one of Ophelia in the Hamlet (directed by Gleb Panfilov; 1986). It was followed by the roles in: the Memorial Service by G. Gorin (adapted from Sholom Aleihem) (Hava); the Seagull by A. Chekhov (Nina Zarechnaya); ,the Marriage of Figaro by Beaumarchais (Duchess Almaviva), the Barbarian and the Heretic (Polina), Buffoon Balakirev (Katherine the 1^st), Va Bank (Tugina). A. Zakharova successfully filmed in many movies: The House Swift Has Built, The Formula of Love, To Kill a Dragon, The Hostage, Grey Wolves, A Bride from Paris, The Downfall, The Verdict, A Ghost From My Home etc.

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