Mask to speak at the Echo-2011

This year theaters from 10 countries will show their mastery at the Echo forum. They will perform on two stages: the Kut Theater (chamber productions) and Khmelnytsky-based Starytsky Theater of Music and Drama (large dramas). The festival’s debutant will be a young team from Germany. Confessions of a Mask is the title of the performance the theater Russkaja Szena [Russian Stage. – Ed.] from Berlin will show on August 30. Before the Ukrainian tour, the head of the Russian Stage Ilya Gordon told The Day over the phone about the company and the production they were going to present for the Ukrainian audience.

“Our theater is the only professional repertoire company beyond the former USSR, which operates in Germany. The Russian Stage Theater has a permanent stage in Berlin founded in 2006, and it continues to be one of the centers of dramatic art in Germany. The company of actors is international, but the performances are in Russian. On August 30, the stage of the Kut One-Man Show Theater will present a one-man show Confessions of a Mask. It was staged by director Inna Sokolova-Gordon based on the novel of famous Yukio Mishima [translation by Grigory Chkhartishvili. – Author]. It will be recalled that in 1949 this scandalous book brought world fame to its 24-year-old author.

The plot of Confessions of a Mask turned out to be prophetic: at the age of 45 Yukio Mishima, whose life resembled a legend, and who succeeded a lot in many spheres, committed suicide by performing a public act of seppuku. The hero of our performance returns from a long stay in Europe. In his memories he seems to live through his life anew, recalling its main episodes, starting from his childhood. This is a single combat between the past and the present, a confession of the non-committed sin. The struggle exhausts the hero so much that he commits a suicide – seppuku.”

One of the critics wrote that the leitmotif of Confessions of a Mask may be the phrase: “West or East, the same sorrow is present everywhere. The wind is equally cold.” Do you agree with it?

“It is important that our production does not leave the audiences indifferent, both during the show, and after the actor finishes to play. In this production everything – a word, gesture, look, plasticity, music – entangles in a tight ball. The choreographer Morihiro Iwata has managed to find an original plastic decision to support the hero’s monologue [this role is performed by Andre Moshoi. – Author]. For one and a half hours the attention of the audience is stuck to the actor’s movements, his body and hands are extremely expressive and musical. And Yukio Mishima’s pure literature gave an impetus to the director and actor to create a confession performance. I think that music from different cultures, both Western and Eastern, was chosen in a very refined manner [Toru Takemitsu, Alfred Schnittke, Giya Kancheli, Hector Berlioz. – Author]. When a person from the audience after watching the play wrote on the Internet that not only did he enjoy Moshoi’s performance, but he already came up with a desire to learn more about Yukio Mishima’s creative work, that was the best compliment for us.”

Have Confessions of a Mask appeared in your repertoire long ago? Will it be shown abroad for the first time at Echo?

“Confessions of a Mask was premiered on April 23, 2010. We have shown this production at several dramatic forums, specifically it won a grand prix of the International Festival of one-man shows in Bitola, Macedonia. It is also a winner of the 15th festival White Tower in Brest (Belarus) ‘For preserving Russian dramatic culture abroad,’ a winner of the Monocle International Festival of One Man Shows in Saint Petersburg (Russia). And Ukrainian audience does not know our theater yet, so the production will make a debut here.”

You have said that your company is international. How did the troupe assemble? How many performances does your repertoire include?

“The performance was created by Inna Sokolova-Gordon, she has also adapted the work for stage, directed it and designed the set. She graduated from the Moscow University of Culture and Art, a student of Malkovsky. Since 2004 she has been residing in Berlin. In 2006, she founded the Russian Stage Theater. Currently our repertoire includes 15 plays [for adults and children. – Author]. We stage classical and contemporary works. The core of our company consists of the graduates of the former USSR’s higher educational establishments [20 people. – Author], who found themselves in Germany for different reasons; all of them have a good command of Russian. Our audience does not consist only of emigrants, but also Germans who learn Russian. We debuted as a professional theater with the production Jewish Wife. At first we performed in a Berlin restaurant (its owners are Lebanese emigrants), and in 2008, started to rent a storehouse of a grocery shop, readjusting it for theater; our Moscow relatives provided financial support. It was fully my wife Iryna’s idea to found the theater, and I helped her with everything possible. After I graduated the Moscow Oil Institute I was offered a job in Berlin – that was how my wife and I came to Berlin. Already the first performances of Russian Stage proved that we had our audience. Currently, on the base of the theater we have announced that we will admit students to a creative studio without any age limitations; the Debut Studio is operating there, as well as actor’s courses.”

Please tell about the actor Andre Moshoi who will perform at the festival Echo-2011.

“He is one of the leading actors of our theater. He graduated from the Shchukin Institute in Moscow, worked in theaters in Moldova and Italy. Incidentally, it was at the Russian Stage Theater that he started to perform in Russian. I am sure that his debut at the festival Echo-2011 will not leave the audience and theater critics indifferent.”