class="">Yuri Kordonsky: “Theatre means desire, strong emotion”

The show of “Uncle Vanya” by A.P. Chekhov, staged by Russian director Yuri Kordonsky, premiered at the Bulandra Theatre in 2001. On Monday, the 27^th of October 2014, at 8.00 PM (part I) and 11.10 PM (part II), the show will be aired on TVR2, TVR HD, and online on TVR+.

Part of the cast are actors Victor Rebengiuc, Ana Ioana Macaria, Mariana Mihuţ, Coca Bloos, Horaţiu Mălăele, Andreea Bibiri, Cornel Scripcaru, Ionel Mihăilescu, András Demeter.

The show is being made by the Production House of the Romanian Television, in collaboration with the Bulandra Theatre and will be aired, in premier, within the National Theatre Festival.

An interview by Mirela Sandu

You’ve staged Uncle Vanya thirteen years ago. What did that moment mean to you?

For me, as a director, it was one of the most important moments. That’s when the road I would later take opened up to me. From a certain point of view, this show changed my life.

I don’t know how it would have been without it, but it happened and my life took the course it did. It was an important moment and an important step in my professional career. I was the third show I staged. The first was my bachelor’s degree show, which I staged in a professional theatre, with professional actors. It was a nightmare! The second one, a show of which I’m very proud, I staged it at the Mall Theatre, Lev Dodin’s Theatre. I felt safe there.

It was as if I were in a nest. They were my family, I was working with actors that had been partners for many years. I had Dodin, the technical crew. All the people who were by my side for eleven years.

All this made me feel defended, guarded. Uncle Vanya was the first risk I truly took. It was in another theatre, in another country, in a language I didn’t know and with people I was about to meet for the first time. It was an adventure.

You had courage…

Only now do I see it. When you’re younger, you throw yourself with greater ease. You’re thrown into the water, and must swim.

Looking back, what would you change in the performance back then?

There are changes and then there are changes. I don’t mean the set design, the costumes, movement or this sort of thing. That’s not what makes a show. What we did at the Romanian Television, if you look at it from a certain distance, is the same show visually and musically.

In this sense, there’s no change. But if you were to get closer and closer, then you can see change in its depth. We are not the ones who make these changes, life itself changes.

Thirteen years have passed and it would be naïve and laughable to walk into the same water twice. We must be aware of the passing of time, of the fact that we’ve changed, a great deal at that, that the life of those around us changed, the world did.

And if we perceive these changes and don’t pretend they don’t exist, then the show will also suffer transformation, at a nearly unnoticeable level. They can’t be seen, but they are there. In the brain, the heart, the body. In the way people look at you, in the things they understand of life, love, age, separation, death…

Now we understand all these things differently. Changes occur and enter the show unfelt, within us. The script, the situation, the relations gain a different intensity. The same script, the same mise-en-scene, the same set, the same costumes, the same movement, but it’s all on such a different intensity.

The show begins with Astrov, who asks Nanny: “Have I changed a great deal, Nanny?”. It’s interesting to see how Cornel Scripcaru asks Mariana Mihuţ. She looks at him for what seems an infinity…

Her thoughts in that moment, and his thoughts, they all gain a different depth. This is the way the story changed. Not externally, but within.

What does the strong show offer the you of right now?

At this time I am preoccupied primarily by the matter of time. What is time? What’s it making of us? How it passes, though it’s not linear. It’s like a train that’s begun it’s journey, but is at the same time suspended in time. This mad, absolutely raving train, which stays still. Theoretically, I’ve always been aware that the theme of the play is time.

But I perceived everything theoretically. Now, nothing is ever theoretical, I am thirteen years older and I see how the years passed with the others. This feeling contains the disappearance of Irina Petrescu. She lives now in this show, she’s there, many years of her life are there. I remember Irina, I feel her.

I touch the set, and that’s precisely where she touched it. When you realise that, you can’t touch it the same way again, you can’t ignore the story. It’s our experience, and the pains of loss are held there. The theme of time, of age, ring truer to me today, as opposed to when I was younger and I thought we’d all get old, eventually. Now it has become reality.

How did you end up making this project with the Production House of the Romanian Television Network?

They found me, they wrote to me. They said they wanted to produce Uncle Vanya and asked if I wanted to.I think that’s it. Both the Romanian Television Network and my project team took enormous risks. My first reaction was to say no.

Why?

Firstly because they hadn’t played in three years. There’s a lapse in time. Even when they played, I hadn’t the time to come see them very often, I didn’t know what condition it was in. I asked myself if it’s still a living organism or if it ended up like the mummies of Ancient Greece. What’s it for then? The Museum? And since I was across the ocean, I found it very hard to realise if it made sense to involve myself in this project or not.

At first I opposed it, then I spoke to Mariana Mihut and Victor Rebengiuc and they said “let’s do it”. What could go wrong? It fails. Ok. That’s not the first, nor the last time it happened. It’s not the worst thing to happen. I thank the people from the TVR team from putting this pressure on me and insisting so enthusiastically. They really wanted it.

Without them, nothing could’ve been made. I saw this every minute I spent on set. It was beautiful because, gradually, the energy of the actors caught on to everyone. After a week, the tech crew was already working differently. Each of them was like an artist. There was unity between all those involved.

We were all a team, alongside the TV director, the stage director, the light department people, sound engineers, cameramen, the girls from make-up. This was a very pleasant feeling.

How did the experience of working of a TV set seem to you?

I think it’s only after some time that I’ll realise. I’ll wake up and remember. While we were working, it was ecstatic, euphoric. The time to understand hasn’t yet come. It’s my first experience with television.

When I had five minutes, while waiting for someone or something, I’d look around a bit and, as a child, would wonder at the cameras, the way they release the smoke, the lights… it was like a fairy-tale.

Visually, what do you think is won in the actors’ performance on the small screens and what is lost?

In theatre, the spectator has the freedom to choose where to look. On the screen, you’re pointed to where you should be looking, now the gros-plan, now the actor. The viewer is less independent. Then again, in theatres, you feel the show much strongly.

The ones in the audience don’t live on their own, but with 500 others. Then, the energy and stimuli are completely different. At the theatre, the spectator perceives, albeit unconsciously, that he’s part of a group and that they’re all living the same unique moment. Theatre has a colossal power. The story is happening here, now, in this very room, right in front of the viewer.

It’s a wonder that only happens here and now and will never occur again. The ones in the hall feel and, at some point, consciously realise that they’re taking part in a historic event. This is the force of theatre. It offers a different way of viewing things, it has a different level and different emotion. But we win the gros-plan, the close-up, you can see from the actor’s perspectives in a way in which you’ll never be able to with theatre. You see the nuances.

You can read the eye for things theatre can never show. This is a very important thing, and a very powerful one. I would sometimes look on the monitor during rehearsals and see things I never noticed before. How a character looks at another, how one ponders things, how one reacts. Also a win are the technical aspects.

With theatre we would have never been able to put a water basin on stage, or make it rain. At the Television, all of the sudden, water was pouring from above…

You mentioned Lev Dodin at one point… many years have passed of you knowing each other. How has the relationship developed?

He was, is and always will be the Professor. The Mentor. We’ve met in June and talked for so long. It was a different kind of discussion, much more free. When I was a student I was afraid and I used to shake in his presence. He has a very strong personality, he doesn’t accept compromise and is very demanding of his actors.

Time passed and now we talk differently, as friends. Of course, the older friend with the younger one. Now there’s a different openness. He respects and he likes what I do very much, and he’s proud at the same time. I think that, for a time, he was saddened by my leaving. Theatre is his family and it hurts when someone leaves.

He is akin to a father who’s sad when his child grows up and must leave home. My feeling is he’s moved past this moment, and now it’s just the joy of seeing each other again.

In America you’re an university professor. What do you like sowing with your students?

We should first ask them. Theatre isn’t about technique. It’s theatre, not just technique. If you want to do theatre, you must place your life on a tray, if not, it’s best to give it up forever.

If it becomes part of your life, in that moment technique will also be born, as well as expression, you will learn to talk, to dance, to enunciate. If you’re motivated all of these will come in due course. That’s when you find the answer to all the questions. Theatre means desire, strong emotion. Without these, you can’t amount to anything on the stage.

What do you want for the future?

Beautiful, interesting adventures, new encounters. To not walk the paths I already know. To be scared. When you manage to overcome your fear, and, in spite of it, to act, that’s when things happen.

Translated by Taisia Orjehovschi

Photos: TVR