Lviv theater director reconciles Tovstonogov and Efros

Lviv — Books are a hobby for Alla Babenko, the noted director of the Maria Zankovetska Theater in Lviv. Her collection will please any book gourmet. All of the books in the collection show some wear and tear, which means that they have not been bought simply to collect dust on the shelf. Babenko has a collection of book singed by their authors.

Babenko began showing me her collection with a book of Dmytro Pavlychko’s poems, which the poet gave to her as a present and wrote, “To dear Alla Babenko – for good luck. Dmytro, April 29, 1956.”

“Above all, this book is very dear to me as memory, because Dmytro, in a sense, has helped me to enter the university,” Babenko told. “I had tried to enter the Journalism Department twice, and each time I gained the minimum number of points needed, but for some reason I was not enrolled. When I was passing entry exams for the third time, Pavlychko was on the board of examiners in all of my exams. I got ‘excellent’ for all of them, except for the oral exam in Ukrainian – I got ‘good’ for that – and again, I failed to enter. Then Pavlychko went to the rector, who had invited Pavlychko to lecture at the university, and only then was I put on an additional list and accepted. By the way, I was not the only one whom Pavlychko helped – he helped many people.”

Afterwards Alla showed Roksolana and the following inscription: “To Alla Babenko, who is the Ali Baba of my dramaturgic life, with heartfelt gratitude. P. Zahrebelny. Kyiv. 02.15.1983.” (“I staged his Acceleration,” Alla recalled.)

“To dear Alla in memory of those wonderful years, when we met each other, in memory of everything good, nice, and warm that has stayed with two of us for more than 20 years,” says the inscription written by the art director of the Lesia Ukrainka Russian Drama Theater Mykhailo Rieznikovich, whose several plays were staged by Babenko in Kyiv.

“To dear Alla Babenko for adorning Lviv on par with the Bernardian Monastery. My book will be of no use to the Bernardians, so I am giving it to you,” says the inscription penned by Mykola Akimov, a theater and cinema director and artist, who headed the Leningrad Theater of Comedy for a long time. Babenko and Akimov were friends, and exchanged letters for a long while; he helped her enter the Boris Shchukin Theater School in Moscow.

For a long time Babenko remained friends with Georgii Tolstonogov, chief director of the Gorky Grand Drama Theater. The older and middle generations of ­thea­ter-goers might remember that every play staged by him became a noteworthy cultural event, not only in Leningrad, but also in the entire USSR. People stood in kilometer-long lines to get a ticket to Tolstonogov’s premieres and were ready to stand for the whole day in order to see the play. “To Alla Babenko, whom I wish to forever preserve her obsession and ineradicable love for theater without which it is impossible to live in the arts. With friendly regards, the author,” says the inscription Tolstonogov wrote for Babenko in his book Zerkalo stseny (Mirror of the Stage). She knew him for over 13 years.

“Tolstonogov introduced me to his family, and I stayed at his place on my trips to Leningrad,” Babenko said. “I was a frequent guest, as I studied in his artistic studio. Communication with people of his level, and not only with them, but also their milieu greatly stimulates professional growth. I receive regular invitations from Tovstonogov’s sister, but I have no time to go.”

Another treasure is a four-volume book by Anatolii Efros, an outstanding director of the Moscow Theater on Malaya Bronnaya, later the Taganka Theater of Drama and Comedy. The book was published posthumously and was transferred to Babenko by Efros’ wife, Natalia Krymova, who wrote: “Dear Alla! I feel immensely grateful to you, not simply for the memory of Anatolii Vasilievich, but also for your effective help with what I was left as my duty, a very heavy and almost unbearable one. January 1994, Moscow.”

Babenko explained, “Natalia thanked me for recording Efros’ rehearsals that Roman Viktiuk and I did once. They were published in one volume in Moscow.”

Babenko also showed the book by Stanislav Rassadin Istoria akterov moego pokolenia (The History of the Actors of My Generation), which was presented to her by Mikhail Kozakov. “It is terrible to think that 40 years have already passed since we met each other here, in Lviv. Now I see you again. I wish God would give us even more time. Love and kisses,” Babenko received the book as a present in 1997, when the noted Russian actor and director came to Lviv with a theater enterprise.

And the last and the newest book that bears an autograph is Anton Chekhov: A Life by Donald Rayfield. Viktiuk sent it from Moscow and wrote: “To my classmate at Anatolii Efros’ School. To a faithful student from loving Viktiuk.”

“This is a scandalous book,” Babenko says, “It presents Chekhov in a role that is unknown to us (a niggard, foul-mouthed, and even vulgar man), so I don’t lend this book to anyone to read.”

Ms. Babenko, which of inscriptions did you like the most?

“Of course, that of Tolstonogov, because Georgii has taught me the most in my profession. However, I was not his student; I was in Efros’ class. And I am very pleased by the fact that in my house I have in a way reconciled these great stage directors, who hated each other in their lifetime. I can also boast of having a book that nobody has – Taras Hryhorovych Shevchenko published in 1940. It was given as a present to my sister Zina after she finished the eighth grade. It contains Kobzar’s works that were not published for many years later.”