Oleg Menshikov didn’t play Griboyedov in the favorite, but never produced film of Nikita Mikhalkov. But he made his directing debut in theatre with the play “Woe From Wit”. And he didn’t deprive himself of the pleasure to play Chatsky.
Oleg Menshikov was awarded the “Triumph” Prize with the wording “to the great Russian actor”, which should’ve sounded strange with reference to the actor, who by then hadn’t left yet the official category of “young” one (less than 35 years old), but it sounded naturally.
It also looks natural that Menshikov’s generation, submitted to their position of marginals, silently accepted his right for the national love and receiving of the State (not even mentioning less significant) prizes nearly for his every role; for his not taking part in the collective projects; the right not to live life of a narrow circle of Moscow bohemia and rarely pay attention to intellectual fashion.
All the attempts to describe him usually start with “not”: does not often appear on the stage or screen, does not allow anyone to the information about his private life, for long periods does not live in Moscow and Russia, and does not give interviews.
And there are more significant “nots”.
Menshikov preferred not to replicate what was easier and more profitable to sell – romantic heroes of endless charm, resembling Kostik from “The Pokrovskie Gate”. It turned out, by the way, that it is hard to imitate his charm.
He did not become a national symbol – like, for example, Zbigniew Cybulski for Poland – because he never personified his people’s expectations. And generally Menshikov is hard to identify with the national character, despite all the Dostoyevsky spirit of his roles.
He does not count dozens of roles in his career, and looking at the list of the films, in which he acted, you unwillingly start to think why this career seems so brilliant. He did not acquire a type: he became neither jeune premier, nor just a hero, and played not a single character part.
But he acquired a theme. It can integrate into someone’s directing concept – like in “The Prisoner of the Mountains”, or ruin it – like in “Burnt by the Sun”, or create his own – like in “Nizhinsky”.
Exactly the same theme – of a person in a marginal situation – emerged now, when Menshikov as director has approached “Woe From Wit” and plays Chatsky himself: “He is extremely sensual and open – bare nerves, incredible love for Sofia, for his homeland, for Famusov’s house, in which he lived and which he left… If one understands it, the whole story will be seen in quite a new way. In Portugal, where we were shooting the finale of ‘The Barber’, I had this play with me by chance. I re-read it and suddenly liked it so mush! Everything started to take shape of something unusual for us! Not because it will be an untraditional interpretation. Vice versa, exaggeratedly traditional”.
“Woe From Wit” is the official Oleg Menshikov’s debut as theatre director. Before, there was an informal one – the production “N. Nizhinsky”, the idea of which first appeared also far away from Moscow and also as if by chance.
In London, at one of the dinner parties, an elderly woman came up to Menshikov and said: “You know, I danced with Nizhinsky”. “Why she came up to me?”, he tried to guess later. “And why she spoke about Nizhinsky? Actually, I don’t make an impression of a person who is easy to talk to for a stranger”.
Nevertheless, the old lady’s behavior is not too hard to explain. In London Menshikov played Esenin as partner of the magnificent Vanessa Redgrave, who played Duncan in “When She Danced”, the production of the “Globe” Theatre about the poet and the dancer. Nizhinsky must have remained in the memory of the ex-ballerina of Diaghilev’s troupe as both a poet and a dancer. And this image somehow reminded Menshikov. The fleeting conversation decided the fate of the future performance. And the fate, which usually reveals itself in a row of optional things, as a rule consist of little fortuitousness.
Later spectators thought that the whole “Nizhinsky” was created for the finale’s sake – leap out of the window. In fact, the leap – an almost exact quote from Fokin’s ballet “The Vision of Rose” – was invented by Menshikov at the very last moment, when it was clear that it is time to finish the action.
During several months, almost every evening, he flew out of the window of the mansion in the Prechistenka in Moscow, and after that – of the Beloselsky-Belozersky Palace in St. Petersburg; and even those, who knew perfectly well that there was scaffolding with mats under the window, believed into the irreversibility of this leap. Later the performance was invited to Edinburgh, but among multiple performing places of the famous festival, there was no stage with a window, located rather high above the ground. Menshikov refused to change the finale for a symbolic jump off-stage.
This leap outside, something connecting being and not-being, here and there, presence and absence, attraction to a person and a greater one to solitude, became the metaphor of the marginal state, in which not only his heroes, but the actor himself seems to live constantly. It is this quality, but not cultivated unsociableness, makes Menshikov an invisible man.
He is rarely invited to film, almost never to theatre. “And thank God, I would’ve refused anyway... Not because I have some exaggerated requirements, but because it would interfere with the logic of living that I try to follow. Besides, as an actor, I indeed don’t coincide with modern theatre directors. And probably, I’m not that interesting for them too”.
He is ready to give the simplest explanations to the shocking – for many – demonstrations of detachment, as well as to many other his features: “I really don’t like when someone tries to get into my life. And who does? I don’t like to talk over the phone, especially when one and all start to call – popularity suggests it, right? At a certain moment I stopped answering calls and giving contacts. It is normal; it’s a part of the profession”.
“Are you a capricious person?”
“Probably, not. I have freaks, like everyone. People say I’m egoistic and egocentric…”
“Are you faithful?”
“Well, who would say: “I’m not faithful!” I think I am faithful. Maybe someone thinks different: I’m often blamed for leaving people. I don’t break up, but just step aside. But I surely never forget those who I allow in my heart. But there can’t be many of them”.
“Do you often think about your age?”
“I hope things will be easier after 40: it is the hardest period for a man – from 35 to 40. I think about my age oftener in life’s sense, but not regarding acting career. Not that I was quite sure about it – I’m not sure about it at all – I’m not just fixed on it. But you know, now we rehearse “Woe From Wit” and I think: “I should play Famusov in some 20 years!”
He works a lot. Not less than people who are always in front of everybody’s eyes and about whom people always know what they are doing. During all the record June heat Menshikov was rehearsing “Woe From Wit”, without significant worries about days-off.
He dreamt of playing in Strehler’s production, but doesn’t see an immense injustice in the fact that Strehler never knew about his existence.
He didn’t watch “Titanic” even after the whole world has watched it, but was going to St. Petersburg to see Ulyana Lopatkina, because he missed the visit of Mariinsky Theatre to Moscow.
He wants to stage Shakespeare, but is convinced that all the plays starting with “Hamlet” should be translated anew.
He enjoyed tremendous success in the West (Cannes, “Oscar”, work in London and Paris), but never made a planned career abroad: “There were terribly uninteresting Hollywood offers, even if they implied great star collections. I have the same rule for both Russia and abroad. The fact that there they have Metro Goldwin Mayer doesn’t change anything”.
It is unknown if he often thinks about his rivals or at least thinks that there are any. He states anyhow that he is not curious at all to know how his British coeval Ralph Feinnes will play Onegin. Several modern Russian actors, who traditionally are considered leaders of the generation, think his level unreachable – and confess it to press, thus making the problem of rivalry particularly non-urgent. None’s contract includes paragraph about rivalry with a legend. There is an antagonistic contradiction of Menshikov’s existence in the fact that a legend should eat, drink, wear his jackets, play tennis and at least from time to time talk to people around him. Everyone, who dealt with him, even on the most trifle matters, will probably tell how hard it was. And nevertheless I know people who are ready to endure it and even enjoy it. But, as Menshikov himself noticed, there can’t be many of them.
It may seem strange, but this untypical character was once described in literature quite in full. If take away his outstanding dramatic gift from Menshikov and add him with the English aristocratic origin (by the way, England is the only country, as he says, where he could stay for good), it will make Evelyn Waugh’s favorite character – Sebastian Flyte from the novel “Brideshead Revisited”. A charming, capricious and vulnerable creature, attracting everybody, but allowing few to come near, badly endured by those around him, and, the most important – by the whole motion of the fate directed to his life’s goal, which is not formulated, but only felt. And the achievement of which may seem a deafening defeat to many.
Menshikov has a perfect ear for the sense and balance of life.
“Do you want to play Hamlet?”
“I’ve never wanted. I have never had a role, which I dreamt about, but failed to get”.
“It means you are a fatalist?”
“Probably, yes. I believe life will lead me where I should go, if I’m honest with myself…”
“And do you have some desired, but not realized situations in your life?”
“Maybe I’m a romantic person: I believe in miracles and fairy-tales. And that’s the reason why my private life is not arranged in the common sense. And I can’t understand anyway, why it is impossible: to catch each other’s eye by chance, fall in love and then die the same day. If there’s such love in books, it may happen in life also – literature is based on somebody’s experience…”
“Maybe it’s a female feature in you? Girls usually wait for a miracle and a beautiful prince”.
“Female? No, I don’t think so. And it’s not a miracle after all, but simply life taken in its maximal manifestation. The same is with the profession. There’s a phrase, which already seems to mean nothing – “And he woke up famous”. But it happened to me: in London, after coming out of the morning papers with the reviews of our premiere, I woke up if not Laurence Olivier, but a very famous actor”.
“But the profession is in your power to a great extent. Obviously, things are different with your life”.
“Of course: you are given something, and are you deprived of something. I realize perfectly well that if I assume a happy family, I will loose something in my profession”.
He could hardly not become an actor, but he always keeps some distance regarding profession. “Some say: ‘I live other lives’. Well, you need medical assistance. How can one ‘live’ other lives? I live mine… Besides, sometimes you take a look – Good God, what are we all doing? There’s some untruth in all that… Why our profession is considered sinful? Not because we are clowns. Because it, unfortunately, provokes some mean qualities in a person: envy, vanity, pride. We plunge into the world where these qualities start to cultivate against our will”.
“Do you try to restrain it in you? Try to control it?”
“Well, if I speak about it, it means I do. We are here to struggle a bit.”
“It means you take religion seriously?”
“Yes, I take religion seriously, and that’s the reason why we won’t talk about it”.
When he just started his career, many were inclined to see a great comic gift in him. Now they reproach him for lacking self-irony.
This seemingly fair reproach sounds nevertheless extremely idle – like accusing Ulyana Lopatkina of taking light-mindedness away from “Pachita”, occasional inaccuracy in fuetes and not always high leaps. It has nothing to do with the essence of their art, because the essence is to shock the spectator. Menshikov is praised by the intellectual critics, but at the same time he shares a great part of his fans with Leonardo Di Caprio. And Lopatkina also attracts those, who have a very vague idea about ballet. People are attracted by the chance to experience a shock. Having no other word to define this quality of an actor’s gift, they call it charisma.
“Do you try to cultivate in yourself some qualities that you don’t have? To control you relations with people around you?”
“I do. If I know that a person treats me not very well, I will try to treat him very kind”.
“And the relations improve?”
“Relations? I don’t know… I’m concerned about the process inside of me”.
“Maybe your personal life is not arranged, because only your emotions are important for you?”
“Do I make an impression of such an egocentric? I’m not of that sort. I can be attracted by the person. But from outside it may seem differently. Once in a talk with Petr Naumovich Fomenko I said: ‘I only make an impression of an insolent person’. ‘No, Oleg’, he replied. ‘You don’t make an impression of an insolent person. You simply impress’”.