The last rehearsals of “The Demon” directed by Kirill Serebrennikov and starring Oleg Menshikov take place at the stage “under roof” of the Mossovet Theatre. Menshikov, the head of the Theatrical Company 814, is also the producer of the performance. Though the idea to put “The Demon” on stage is not his, but Serebrennikov’s.
The news that for the first time in 13 years Menshikov rehearses his theatre role under someone’s direction was a kind of sensation for many. The last director to work with Menshikov in theatre was Petr Fomenko (“Caligula”). 11 years ago, “Nizhinsky” at the “Bogis” Agency was released by Menshikov himself, though the word “director” wasn’t mentioned in the playbill. In the productions of the Theatrical Company 814 “Woe From Wit”, “Kitchen” and “The Gamblers” Menshikov was a competent producer, though he started to rehearse “The Gamblers” with another director. But the project with Kirill Serebrennikov was completed: on April 30 the production will premiere “under roof” of the Mossovet Theatre, and on April 28 and 29 there will be previews.
Kirill Serebrennikov finishes a phenomenally successful year with “The Demon”. His three productions – “Some Explicit Polaroids” at the Pushkin Theatre, “Terrorism” at the Art Theatre and “Sweet Bird of Youth” at the “Sovremennik” – displayed not only his special approach, but his creative strategy too.
“The Demon”’s team is mixed. Some have worked with Menshikov before. Say, Anatoly Beliy acted both in “Woe” and “Kitchen”. Igor Chapurin designed costumes for the previous performances of TT814. But many members of the crew are from “Serebrennikov’s team”: art-director Nikolai Simonov, choreographer Albert Albert, and actress Natalia Shvets (she acted in films “Rostov-papa” and “Murderer’s Diary”). Composer Alexander Bakshi, who created “theatre of sound”, works both with Serebrennikov and Menshikov for the first time, but his participation in the production seriously influences the result. He composed a very complicated score – the music will accompany the entire act. Three musicians came with Bakshi: Mikhail Zhukov (drums), Grant Airapetyan (kemenche), Mikhail Korzin (strings and vocal). Dancers from Gennady Abramov’s “Class of Expressive Plastics” – Konstantin Mishin, Konstantin Grouss and Sergei Arkhipov also remain on the stage almost permanently as full participants of the plot.
The project is supported by the National Reserve Bank.
Kirill Serebrennikov calls this production an experimental work. Expressive solution of the seemingly most non-scenic texts is his strong point. But he doesn’t belong to the directors who accomplish formal tasks to harm the sense. To offer Menshikov playing the Demon is basically a rather daring theatrical provocation.
Before the premiere Oleg Menshikov spoke to the “Vedomosti”:

- Why did you bring yourself to this project as a producer and an actor?
- In October 2002 I saw Kirill’s productions, “Plasticine” and “Some Explicit Polaroids”, and I liked them. All that matters is the initial desire, and then everything is subject to it. For me it was important to work with Kirill. The title was chosen by him, and I think that even if I didn’t like the idea, he was able to talk me in.
Every person is a world, a planet, but sometimes you don’t feel like flying to this planet or knocking on the door of this world. But here I realized that this man transmits and illuminates something. And I want to understand what this person is trying to tell me.

- But he offered a very uncommon title – not a play or a script, but a poem. Did you trust him?
- I trusted him, though I had doubts. But when Kirill came and started to recite the poem, I realized he knew something. Not about poetry, or Lermontov in general, but about this particular story. He knows something and can tell it.

- And you decided to explore this “something” on the basis of the definite material, which is no less than the work about the fallen angel, in other words about…
- Yes, Lord forgive mentioning. But however there’s the part of Mephistopheles after all. Fedor Shalyapin sang it. And we just make a performance, but do not take part in a religious dispute.

- It seemed to me that one of the main ideas of the performance will be love.
- And solitude.