This actor has been given many names and characteristics. "The face of our generation", "just an attractive appearance", "secretive", "too old for playing young boys" - all these opinions appeared in the press. And nobody can say if these are true. Because there is no one and only answer to that question. Yes, Menshikov is a mystery - due to the fact that every single one of us has a different perception of his works. There is no straightforwardness about him, despite the seemingly plain and clear answers he gives in his interviews.
His theatre and movie careers have developed alongside each other, equally successfully. Still, there is a very strange phenomenon concerning his fame. It becomes obvious when you compare his filmography with the filmographies of many other actors, as well-known as he is. Take, for example, Tatiana Dogileva, who is only 3 years older than Menshikov. Both of them had parts in one of the greatest Soviet hits of all time, "The Pokrovskie Gate", and since then worked together in four more movies. However, she acted in no less than 50 films, while Menshikov took part in only 22. This is a significant difference. The explanation that he devoted more of his time to the theatre wouldn't do - the list of theatre productions he participated in is not that long either. Maybe he is concerned about quality rather than quantity? Not a bad guess, but it doesn't explain everything. For example, he could do no theatrical and movie work for a year or two - is that also about quality? Okay, enough questions. Just some plain statistics.
Oleg Evgenyevich Menshikov was born on October 8, 1960 in Serpukhov. He graduated from Shepkin Higher Drama School, having played his first cinema role on the 3rd year, in 1980. It was a movie by an Armenian director Suren Shakhbazyan, and it was important in the sense that Kozakov noticed Menshikov in it, and understood he was the only possible Kostik for the screening of Leonid Zorin's play "The Pokrovskie Gate". Menshikov's later cinema career was a carefully planned and well-performed chain of successes, with almost no exceptions. Still, the most famous pictures featuring him were shot in the nineties, almost invariably by N. Mikhalkov - "Burnt By The Sun" and "The Barber Of Siberia". There were also no less celebrated "Prisoner Of The Mountains" by S. Bodrov and "East-West" by French director Regis Wargnier. All of these deserve a separate discussion. But the focus of the current work is theatre, so I shall concentrate on Menshikov's theatrical achievements.
He worked for several theatres in course of his career. Starting with the Central Academic Theatre of the Soviet Army (CATSA), where his most outstanding piece of work was the role of Ganya Ivolgin in Dostoevsky's "Idiot". The actor's task was very complicated psychologically. Ganya's basic problem was, if you remember, a yearning to be outstanding, anti-ordinary, while in reality he was just a part of the mass, one of millions and millions similar creatures, with similar values, which, if compared to those of Prince Myshkin, Dostoevsky's ideal hero in a way, would seem vulgar and commonplace. Menshikov was to convey a mix of young desperateness, disappointment, humbleness and baseness - all these using a minimum of expression and direct emotions, to follow the character set by the writer. He succeeded, introducing a lot of his own thought into the role, changing manner freely, from restraint to open passion, even fury.
After leaving the CATSA, he went on to work for the Ermolova Theatre. This period did not leave many highlights to be remembered years after. However, Menshikov's next place of work was to become very significant in his later career - it was the Mossovet Theatre. Still, the only role he played being in the theatre's troupe was "Caligula" after Albert Camus, directed by P. Fomenko - but what a role! The selected lucky ones who had seen it when it was performed on the smaller stage of the Mossovet still remember every gesture, every word of Caligula played by Menshikov - so strong was the impression. There was a very little number of performances until the production was closed - no wonder Menshikov (who can't stand rehearsals, just any kind of pretence) gave all of himself to "Caligula", so that he appeared to be not acting, but actually living his part. The leitmotif of his act, the prevailing emotion was probably frenzy, bordering on madness. Caligula's way was not that of self-exploration, but that of self- destruction. If Menshikov understood his part superficially, he could have shown a struggle between the forces of good and evil inside the character's soul. But he didn't, because there is only darkness, evil, and nothing else. Caligula executes his victims, not feeling sympathy or even hatred, but he doesn't enjoy it either. By destroying others, he destroys himself.
The role that followed Caligula can truly be called a landmark in Menshikov's career. He played Esenin with Vanessa Redgrave in a London production called "When she danced", about the relationship between Isadora Duncan and the Russian poet. For this role Menshikov was awarded the Laurence Olivier Prize, which is considered to be a great honor for any actor. The performance was quite popular in London, many celebrities like Lisa Minelli and Al Pacino were very happy with it, despite the fact that Menshikov played in Russian, and Redgrave - in English. They managed to overcome the language barrier and to find the same pitch, the same tune - they still both have recollections of each other as the greatest partners of their lives because their act was so harmonious, notwithstanding the fact that the main idea of the heroes' relationship was arguments and misunderstanding between the spouses.
The next grand project by Oleg Menshikov was "'N' Nizhinsky". He wasn't officially named the director, but it turned out that it was his first attempt to actually supervise the process (although as an actor he directed his own roles in a sense), and a very successful attempt. "N" was a performance for two - Menshikov himself, as Nizhinsky, the famous dancer, and Alexander Feklistov as all the other characters, including Dyagilev, Nizhinsky's agent and seducer. There was a lot of style about the production, a lot of idealism and lightness. Menshikov did not dance - but his movements were flexible and gracious like a dancer's. The climax was when Nizhinsky performed his famous jump - and Menshikov jumped out of a real window (that's why they had to perform on a special stage so that there would be a window). The idea of the production was totally different from "Caligula", but one concept was similar - both heroes were genial madmen, in the conventional sense of the word, and normal but absolutely alone and miserable within their own worlds they created for themselves. Nizhinsky also destroyed himself… but there still was light for him, else he wouldn't have been able to create anything.
Now I would like to dwell upon two of Menshikov's most recent projects, which involved him immediately as the leading actor and as a director. He carried them out with his "Theatrical Company 814" - an establishment completely set up and inspired by him. It includes young (and more experienced too, but to a smaller extent) actors from different theatres, united by a great feeling of companionship.
The first production to be staged was a version of the classical play by Griboedov, "Gore ot uma"/"Woe From Wit". There were no alterations made to the text, and no obvious updates were to be seen. However, Menshikov presented quite an original point of view. He placed the stress on the love story, making it clear that his Chazky is guided mostly by feelings, similarly to the other characters. And this is what the audience's attention was riveted on. All of the actors played in different styles, however, one thing accompanied all of their acts - vividly expressed emotions.
The second, and the last for the moment being, production by Menshikov and his "Theatrical Company 814" is the "Kitchen". It is still running, on the stage of the afore-mentioned Mossovet Theatre. The idea itself is very interesting. Menshikov and a young playwright, Maxim Kurochkin, took as a basis for their play the medieval masterpiece of German literature, the "Nibelung Saga". Not much, though, remained of it in the final result of their work - only the main characters and the plot outline. The action takes place on a contemporary kitchen, with sudden flashbacks to the medieval past. The play itself is very much like Pelevin's novels - a lot of hypertext, postmodernism as the main principle (i.e. alluding to different sources), a strange, but harmonious mixture of modern humor and characters' meditations over life in general. The story itself is quite tragic, and Menshikov plays the most intricate part of Gunther, the owner of the castle, who defines himself as "not human - less than human". His manner is restrained, well- balanced, but still - very passionate.
So this is a brief enumeration and analysis of Menshikov's most prominent works in theatre. I feel that all of them come together in an integral and impressive picture, in a portrait of an artist - an artist searching and finding, carrying out the ideas he feels he has to convey to us. And he will continue doing it, no matter how much criticism he gets - it will never ruin his confidence, a trait invaluable in our society.