This conversation with Oleg Menshikov took place over the phone. It was even good that it was a phone conversation. Not diverting attention to Menshikov's personality, I could hear the only true intonation of his. What was the conversation about? First, about his production "Kitchen" that will be shown in Riga on June 8, 9 and 10, 2001 (some tickets for June, 10 are still on sale now). Second, simply about kitchen.

- Oleg Evgenyevich, the first tour of "Kitchen" after the premiere will take place in Riga. Three years ago you showed here the premiere of Griboedov's "Woe From Wit". Why is it Riga again?
- I love Riga. And I am always happy to return here, because I have… friends there. Yes, the rehearsals and the premiere of Griboedov took place in your city. I have always treated Riga spectators with love and respect; they are brought up on good theatre traditions and are gourmets, in a certain sense. I like their elegant deep restraint. (After a pause.) Besides, I love the sea very much, as well as everything I mentioned above.

- So it's not a pure accident that you'll stay somewhere in Yurmala instead of some luxurious Riga hotel, is it?
- No, it's not an accident.

- Why do you think all the tickets to your performance were sold out in a blink of an eye? Is Menshikov the last word in fashion?
- Fashion? I can just say that in Moscow we STOPPED selling tickets to "Kitchen" a month ago. We won't act till the end of the season, although the performance is very much in demand. Because it's not fashion for me, it's a very personal and a very complicated performance. It's impossible to play it infinitely. I hope, "Kitchen" will become a revelation for many people… I am glad your spectators haven't changed and haven't betrayed, that there will even be an extra performance in Riga. But I have to warn you: there will be no fourth performance! Even if you sell out all the tickets within two days.

- Can I ask a simple thing: what does your kitchen look like?
- It's a very good, but too personal question. I would not like to talk about it.

- I am sorry…
- It's just that my PERSONAL life is a tiny thing that I still can afford. My profession is too public, and that's enough. All the rest belongs only to me.

- I know many people - Scorpios - and they are reserved because they were born under this very sign. Are you reserved because you are a Scorpio?
- You better ask those who around me about it.

- "Kitchen" strikes by grandiouse effects, costumes. What do you think about Stanislavsky's words that a rug and two actors are enough - that's the theatre already; that…
- (Interrupts.) You know, those "rug and two actors" are being exploited so vastly in the entreprise now, that they don't have anything in common with the Theatre, being just a synonym of pot-boiler. In "Kitchen" everything is the way it is because I am sure: today the theatre should be first of all a Spectacle. First, it's important to honestly entice the audience and only then try to somehow… convince them of something. It is undoubtedly harder to work just on a "rug" in an empty space . That's what I am thinking about now. Moreover, I am ready for that. And I am going to try.

- Do any other directors influence your art? In the sense that…
- There is just one sense: Giorgio Strehler. The talent of a talented work is in giving an impulse not just to art, but to the life, in general.

- What gives an impulse to Oleg Menshikov?
- Life itself.

- Do you like critique's reviews of "Kitchen"?
- The performance is complicated. Many people find its structure intentionally TANGLED. It's not so. And the story of how the performance was created proves my words. At first, there was an IDEA - to stage a play, the events of which would take place in a real kitchen. But the concept "kitchen" gives different associations to different people…

- That's what I am asking about: where should I put "kitchen" in brackets? Should we always have in mind your artistic kitchen?
- This is a whole philosophy; let us not go into details. But when we told this Idea to Maxim Kurochkin, the author of the play, he got inflamed straight away and, with radicalism that resides in his nature, he gave us the first variant. It was something straight opposite to the conception, but it was an absolutely new POINT OF VIEW. We agreed on keeping just this POINT OF VIEW and the IDEA. And we started from the very beginning again.
Therefore, the play was being created in the process of rehearsing. You should just understand that the whole performance of ours is nothing but an experiment. In other words, at some point of the performance (do you understand?) we all lose interest in the plot itself. And an absolutely free flight of fancy begins. What's complicated in it? I think it couldn't be any simpler.

- It's not a performance, it's life. Thank you!