“I wanted to convey the nerve of rehearsals and backstage drive”

Tomorrow, November 18, Andrey Zhitinkin, People’s Artist of Russia, director of the Maly Theater celebrates his birthday. In his creative biography there were many adventures: he worked in the theaters. M. Yermolova, at Tabakov, named after the Moscow City Council, the Russian Army, was the chief director on Malaya Bronnaya, staged performances at the Theater of Satire.

Today, his performances at the Maly Theater “The Big Three”, “The Queen of Spades”, “The Idiot” gather full houses. But Zhitinkin knows that, unfortunately, nothing remains of the theater but old posters and yellowed programs. Therefore, he made a gift to his viewers by writing the book “The Adventures of the Director.”

– Andrey, how did the title “The Adventures of a Director” come about?

— Well, my book is not memoirs and not boring reflections on the profession, but short stories arranged in a very strange way – from “Z” to “A”, in reverse alphabetical order! In it I talk about my performances, and about the outstanding actors of our time, with whom I was lucky to stage. These are Georgy Zhzhenov, Lyudmila Kasatkina, Mikhail Kozakov, Elina Bystritskaya, Innokenty Smoktunovsky, Oleg Vavilov, Boris Klyuev, Margarita Terekhova … As Pushkin wrote, “there are no others, and those are far away.” I am happy to work with the new generation of masters Domogarov, Bezrukov, Strakhov… In the book, I wanted to convey the nerve of rehearsals, behind-the-scenes drive, sometimes spontaneous scandals and the paradoxical nature of the artists.

— How have you not been called in all these years! And scandalous, and provocative, and fashionable… Today you work at the Maly Theater, which is famous for its classical school. Does this mean that you as an artist have changed?

— Any artist evolves both externally and internally. I have always been humorous about what labels were stuck to me: “marginal”, “outrageous”, “classic”, but that doesn’t mean anything. The main thing is that the audience goes to my performances!

— Do people go to theaters now? And who do you mostly see in the audience?

– Well, for example, when I staged the Big Three (Yalta-45) at the Maly Theater for the anniversary of the Victory, where wonderful masters are playing today – Vasily Bochkarev (Stalin), Valery Afanasiev (Churchill), Vladimir Nosik (Roosevelt), I even I did not expect that this performance would arouse such a powerful interest among the younger generation. They come to the performance in groups. And not only attentively look, but also listen. And then in the networks they share their impressions about what they learned, about what they understood. For me, as a director, this is, of course, valuable.

– Returning to the book “The Adventures of the Director”, is this your third work? There was a poetry collection “99”, then there was “The Playboy of the Moscow Stage”. And now “The Adventures of the Director.” What is new in this book?

New is life! New performances, new meetings with amazing artists, new sensations from the world, which is changing so rapidly. However, just like me…

The Moskovskaya Pravda newspaper sincerely congratulates you on your birthday and wishes you new creative success!

Elena Bulova.

Photo from the personal archive of Andrei Zhitinkin, provided by the director.