Dina Korzun played her life: communal apartment, overseas career, marriage and return

Dina Korzun, opened to cinema in the late 90s by Valery Todorovsky, who invited her along with Chulpan Khamatova to the “Country of the Deaf”, played an autobiographical solo performance “How I Came to Consciousness” at the Praktika Theater. The name is confusing, so the viewers who are in a certain mood will be disappointed.

For 13 years, Dina lived in the UK and Switzerland, unexpectedly returned to Russia, which seems to her to be perhaps the safest country. To reduce the degree of emotions, it must be said that she did not come to her homeland yesterday, but during the pandemic, when quarantine measures were too strict in the West. The noise and uproar on the eve of the theatrical premiere is due to the fact that Dina gave an interview to actress Olga Budina, where she told how, over the years of her life in the West, she had become an incredible patriot, and by 2017 she realized the inevitability of what is happening today.

In the Western way, she did not accept much, did not accept the fact that the psychologist of her children wears a dress and high-heeled shoes, being a man. As a result, it was decided to move to Russia, which was supported by Dina’s husband Louis Frank. Many of us remember him from the 90s. Surprisingly, he hasn’t changed much. The daughters of Dina and Louis – Itala and Sofia – went to a Russian school, although in London they studied in an English-speaking one. Dina’s eldest son Timur, already a thirty-year-old young man, as far as we know, also lives in Moscow. In the performance, Dean often mentions him. Together with Chulpan Khamatova, she saved children with cancer, together they started working in the foundation. Now their paths seem to have diverged. Chulpan left the country, and Dina returned.

The transparent curtain does not open for a long time, there is a glare of light on it, reminiscent of snow in a circus. In the semi-darkness, a female figure is barely visible. On the stage there is a make-up table, the pedestal of which is crammed with props, shoes, hats. The actress extracts all this wealth, puts on an apron and a cap, becomes like a chocolate girl from a painting by Lyotard, recalling a completely different role in a student play. On the right is a bar counter and at the same time a remote control, behind which is Louis Frank. So the performance is not quite mono.

Louis is a composer, producer, performer of the role of himself and songs in English and French. Born in Zurich, Switzerland, he is considered a Belgian musician and composer. For several years he was a member of the Esthetic Education group, which worked until 2008 in Kyiv. With Dina, then a student at the Moscow Art Theater School, they met 28 years ago in Moscow. This is discussed in detail in the play. Louis recalls how he read an advertisement for an acting recruitment at the Moscow Art Theater School in New York and decided to take a chance, how he studied at the course of Oleg Tabakov as part of an American student group. It was the first foreign experience of its kind. Then he met Dina, and then he left for Canada. After parting, they did not correspond for a year, but thought about each other constantly. Dina adds that she was the first to write that she would like to be together.

She displays the prizes received for the “Country of the Deaf”, holding them like a bunch of flowers, although they are heavy. Here and “Nika”, and “Golden Aries”, which was awarded to her by our Guild of Film Critics and Film Critics as the best actress. It was an incredible film for those times and an unprecedented take-off for an aspiring actress. Dina played with Todorovsky a deaf and mute dancer from a restaurant named Yaya, spoke in sign language, dreamed of leaving for an unknown country of the deaf, where only happiness is possible.

Now a bewildered woman appeared on the stage, already bearing little resemblance to the former Korzun, who remained in her mind as an exotic creature. The actress tried to tell her whole life, her half century, in an hour and a half, being dangerously close to a tiny audience. It is mainly about the pain and trials given to us for the good.

In the 90s, Dina left Moscow without regret – the times were terrible. From the stage she talks about her childhood in Smolensk. Her father named her by the strange name of Dianna – with two “n” – in memory of her beloved who died early. He was always apart, showed no interest in his daughter, and this thorn in her heart remained. The father showed up after the release of “Country of the Deaf”. His boss turned out to be a fan of the film. Another wound. When the father died, pain about the lost and forgiveness crept into the soul. For some reason, it seemed before that he constantly owes you. Memories are not in chronological order, confused, connected mainly with Smolensk childhood and youth, years of study in Moscow, little son Timur. Dina tells how she lived with her mother in a communal apartment near the cemetery. Funeral processions, accompanied by a brass band, without which mournful farewells were indispensable in those years, became the first introduction to the theater. Children ran up to the coffins, peered into the faces of the dead, and then discussed who saw what. It turns out that even the little ones die.

Life in London was good: her husband loved, she loved, the children grew up, there was work, but an inexplicable longing tormented her. A Middle Eastern friend offered to go to Kathmandu to volunteer with children in need. Louis let go. In Nepal, Dina joined a different religion, helping others, saving herself.

She does not talk from the stage about the Royal Theater in London, where she played in the performances of Katie Mitchell, about the now Oscar-winning Pavel Pawlikowski and his Last Resort, where she had the main role. And then there were Hollywood’s “Forty Shades of Sadness” by Ira Sachs, awarded the Grand Prix of the Sundance festival, “Frozen Souls” by Sophie Barthez with Chekhov’s motives about the transplantation of Russian souls. There were a lot of things in her acting life here and there. In Russia, she played in the Moscow Art Theater, starred in Yuri Moroz’s The Brothers Karamazov, but, probably, the main thing was not a career, but life and family.

Now Dina is not only an actress, but also a co-director of the play “How I Came to Consciousness” along with Gleb Cherepanov. She calls herself not a playwright, but a screenwriter, like in a movie, and tries to show by her own example that resentment and pain make us stronger. The therapy turned out more for myself, not for others. The viewer is curious to understand what happened to the actress, who seemed completely different. The performance has not only two directors, but two set designers, there is a lighting designer, but the visual component here is the most vulnerable. The endless flickering of lights, like in a disco, has a distant relation to what everyone has gathered for.