“At the end of his life, Efremov did not want to leave the theater at all”

Oleg Efremov was born on the first day of October. He is one of the most significant figures of the national theater. If not for him, we did not know much and would have been deprived of many things. Efremov is Sovremennik, which he created in the middle of the last century, and which determined the vector of development of the Soviet and Russian theater for decades. These are his students, who became great artists and builders of theater houses – Volchek, Tabakov, Kvasha, Pokrovskaya, Mayorova and many others. Finally, he is an example of service to the theater in the highest sense of the word, his last romantic. On the first day of October, he would have turned 95 years old.

About the Master and the Teacher, about his method, indestructible romanticism, the last days of his life, “MK” is told by his student, the wonderful director Nikolai Skorik, who released all of his great Chekhov productions with his teacher.

Oath and blood. In fact, it was a sheet of plain paper on which Oleg Efremov and his classmates at the Moscow Art Theater School in 1947 signed the Oath of Allegiance to the Theater with blood. Years later, he told me how each of them made an incision on his arm and signed it with blood. In the oath, on the one hand, seemingly simple things were indicated – to study, not to miss classes, and along with this, something was formulated that would become a principle and method for him for life. That they are not just a creative team, but above all a friendly one, and that they set high goals for themselves and are ready to achieve them together and fight for them. “Burn, burn, burn” – there was even such a phrase.

I must say that all the signatories then had different relations with the theater: for example, Irina Skobtseva, a beauty, a super star of our cinema, did not work in the theater and Alexey Adzhubey, Nikita Khrushchev’s son-in-law, went into journalism, his newspaper Izvestia then thundered . Only Oleg Nikolaevich, not only signed the oath with blood, but until the end of his life was faithful to both the oath and every word written there. It is no coincidence that his first role in the Moscow Art Theater was the role of the incorrigible romantic Don Quixote.

Convince with artistry. He has already created Sovremennik, all of Moscow is going crazy for this young theater, and he is preparing a speech for young actors. He tells them about the play “Forever Alive”, based on the play by Viktor Rozov, which for them was like “The Seagull” for the Moscow Art Theater. And in this speech there is this: “This play attracted us by suffering. Suffering is the main word of our profession.” He somehow confessed to us that his strongest impression in the theatrical life of Moscow was the play “Three Sisters” staged by Nemirovich-Danchenko. “This is a performance from which it is impossible to leave,” he said.

And so he begins to rehearse his “Three Sisters”, I help him. It was an interesting process, as a result of which he makes a performance with a sense of conflict and dispute with Nemirovich. He was such a person: he flourished in conflicts, became an active person. And the conflict is Stanislavsky, who proclaimed for the Moscow Art Theater: “The life of the human spirit.” Efremov, having gathered students and made “Contemporary”, proclaimed his slogan: “The living life of the human spirit” – again in conflict with the Art Theater, which in the 50s was imperial, but dead, the audience did not rush there.

So, in Sovremennik there was such a term – “to convince with artistry.” When a commission from the district committee of the party came to take their next performance, they played so coolly that the authorities did not raise their hand to close the performance.

idols. Efremov had three idols – Pushkin, Chekhov and Stanislavsky. And if “Eugene Onegin” was called “an encyclopedia of Russian life”, then Oleg Nikolayevich considered Chekhov’s plays an encyclopedia of the Russian soul. So, in his famous play “Uncle Vanya”, the artist Valery Levental, who worked a lot with Efremov, makes a horizontal line of life, and suddenly it splits and a vertical of the spirit appears – golden autumn right up to the ceiling, 14 meters high. Efremov always insisted – the horizontal of life and the vertical of the spirit. I remember how he insisted that in the finale, a flame burn high, and that it was necessary to find adequate music for this. But what? And he found: “Cranes must fly, hum,” he said. Here is the vertical.

Chekhov. Oleg Nikolayevich not only stages Chekhov’s plays, but also his own life style is similar to Chekhov’s… After all, Chekhov, being not a very healthy person, travels across the country to Sakhalin to do a population census. And Efremov and a friend walk over the Volga along Russia on foot. And when he had two days left to live, which he did not know about, but perhaps he felt his imminent departure, he wanted to go to Melikhovo – to Chekhov. And he could take the medicine and live a day longer, and he would say goodbye to Anton Pavlovich. This move was necessary for him. Or he suddenly calls a car to the theater and drives around Moscow for two hours. He forbids returning his ticket to Taiwan, where the Moscow Art Theater goes on tour. He hopes to overcome the disease. To live on overcoming is his principle, he told me that even in his youth he specially created difficulties for himself in order to learn to overcome them.

Efremov’s method. At the Moscow Art Theater School, he scored the only directing course in the history of the school. Getting to him was impossible. He took – 14 people, and a very interesting course turned out. One was an artist (he now has 60 paintings in the Russian Museum), I am a musician, and another from the Theological Academy. How did he teach? As his idol Stanislavsky said: “Direction cannot be taught. But you can create the conditions in which the director will be born. And Efremov created these conditions. He went to directing through practice. His method can be formulated as follows – “we are all together. We are infected with one idea.” What he considered important in Stanislavsky’s teachings was not so much the creation of his famous System, but rather the most important task. That is, for what? The ability to lead oneself – in a play, in creating a tetra – was the main thing for him. He led, infected with the idea – for what? Everyone believed him and followed him.

Children’s Efremov. Somehow, on New Year’s Eve, I call him and ask: “Oleg Nikolaevich, do you have a Christmas tree?” “No,” he replies. He is alone in the house with his father. I buy a Christmas tree, a garland, toys and ring his doorbell. I remember his eyes for the rest of my life – happy, childish eyes. And this is the chief director of the Art Theatre, essentially a world theater where foreigners fall to their knees before going on stage.

Pushkin. In the Moscow Art Theater they rehearsed the play “Copper Grandmother” based on the play by Zorin. Minister of Culture Ekaterina Furtseva came, watched the run-through and half-jokingly, half-seriously said that Rollan Bykov, who had a wild success in the role of Barmaley in the film Aibolit 66, had no right to play Pushkin, and everyone understood that the performance could not come out in this form. And then Efremov, realizing that this will be the case, says: “I will play.” They tell him that Pushkin is short, then they began to select taller partners for him, so that the tall Efremov looked smaller next to them. And he played Pushkin brilliantly. This was his theme – the poet and the state, the artist and power. She excited him, turned him on, warmed him. It was powerful, a truly Moscow Art Theater performance.

I once asked him: “Why did you leave Sovremennik and went to the Moscow Art Theater?” – “Do not you understand? he replied. – The Moscow Art Theater is a theater that has influenced the entire world theatrical process. The event at the Moscow Art Theater is a resonance all over the world.” He thought about the fate of the world theater and the place of the Russian theater in it.

Theater-house. At the end of his life, he did not want to leave the theater at all. He wanted his rooms to be in the theater. And in the Moscow Art Theater he was already equipped with everything for life, so that he could stay there overnight, wake up and go to the hall to rehearse. That is, in the truest sense of the theater-house. I went early to the rehearsal – Efremov’s car was already standing. You leave late at night after the performance – Efremov’s car is still standing. This is the very ministry, the very traditional Russian approach to the theater.

Prayer. The last days of his life … I looked into the hall one late at night. Empty, gray light, one duty lamp on. And in this huge, poorly lit space, a man is sitting, and I understand from his back – how much weight is on his shoulders, how much responsibility … I could not move.

Oddly enough, but his last days at the Moscow Art Theater passed to the music of “Lord, we ask you.” This was the last thing he heard in the Moscow Art Theater during rehearsals. There was a fragment from the music for his last performance, Cyrano de Bergerac, which he never managed to finish. And although he was not an atheist, and called himself a materialist, it was fate that this music and the words of prayer sounded.

Today, on his birthday, the Sovremennik created by him will open an exhibition dedicated to its founder. And the Moscow Art Theater. Chekhov in Kamergersky will show a performance specially prepared by Nikolai Skorik – with three artists based on the diaries of the last romantic of our theater, Oleg Efremov.