Oleg Menshikov

THEATRE

"When She Danced"

The play by Martin Sherman
The Globe Theatre, London. 1991

Directed by Robert Allan Ackerman
Decor: Bob Crawley
Lighting: Arden Fingerhut
Choreography: Graham Lustig
Sound: Matt McKinzie

Cast:
Isadora Duncan - Vanessa Redgrave
Sergey Esenin - Oleg Menshikov
Jeanne - Sheila Kieth
Mary Desti - Alison Fiske
Miss Belzer - Frances de la Tour
Alexandros Eliopolos - Michael Sheen
Luciano Zavani - Kevin Elyot
Christine - Jodie Scott

Awards

1992 - The Laurence Olivier Prize of the British Academy of Dramatic Arts (for the outstanding performance in the play "When She Danced")

Once Vanessa Redgrave played Isadora in the film with the same name and 23 years later she had another go at playing the great dancer, but this time on stage, in the play by Martin Sherman "When She Danced".
Sherman chose the local material: one day in the life of the incredible couple - Duncan and Esenin.
Sergey Alexandrovich spoke only Russian, knew no other languages and didn't take any efforts to master them. Isadora spoke no Russian, though had lived in Russia, established there her own studio, trusted in socialism and called herself "the first communist". Communicating, the husband and wife resorted to the help of… an interpreter. As both of them possessed hard tempers and their life went on quite uneasily, interpreters never stayed for long: sometimes they left the unusual family after a day's work.
This is the situation displayed in Sherman's play:
Paris, Isadora, Esenin, young interpreter, the house invaded by a crowd of multi-language guests. Quarrels and making up of Isadora and Sergey…The air of the coming final breakup.
Working on the performance, the creators decided to invite a Russian actor for the part of Esenin. In May of 1991 Vanessa Redgrave came to Moscow with the producer to find the actor. On May 23 they go to the Mossovet Theatre and watch "Caligula". On May 24 they have a meeting with Oleg Menshikov and find him the right actor for the part. On May 25 (by the way, it's the birthday of Oleg's mother, Elena Innokentiyevna) they sign the contract with Menshikov.
In the middle of June, on the 16th exactly, the actor takes a plane to London. There he starts rehearsals and at the same time studies English with private teacher, though he was to play in Russian according to the playwright's concept.
In the West, unlike in Russia, the rehearsal period is short, and the performance acquires the final shape on stage guided by the public's reaction. The same was with the staging of Martin Sherman's play. Seven weeks of tight and rich rehearsals, and after that in the first decade of August - the first night in the Globe Theatre.
The performance was on for six months, eight times a week (seven evening performances and a matinee). It was a success. Before Christmas everything was over - the contract period expired. On December 24, 1991 Oleg Menshikov returns home.
We will never see this performance.
Oleg told me, that starting his work in Britain, he reread Esenin. He also reread all that was written about him, opening an absolutely different person from the one we were told about during our school years. Tragically contradictive, affectionate and impetuously harsh, weak, vulnerable and able to crush everything around him, when his strength and emotions break loose… Longing for a true intimacy with the woman he loved, with his friends and loosing them often through his own fault. Lonely, as any talented artist. Restless, rejected by the one who, on many testimonies, he loved hopelessly and always, the beauty Zinaida Raikh…
All that could hardly be expressed and personified in an English play, written for the prime-actress who was to lead on stage. Esenin was a bit moved aside from the shine of the great woman.
...The production was performed and went away having left a memory on the pages of newspapers and magazines - rather delicate and laconic. As British press reported, the audience died down, when Menshikov recited Esenin's poems and sang and old Russian romance accompanying himself on a guitar, to plead for pardon from his beloved… And that very, in many ways unusual, production according to the result of polls among critics was considered the best, and that was confirmed by the highest assessments of Peter Brooke, Al Pachino, Liza Minnelli.
And in the end, the view of our compatriot, poet Andrey Voznesensky:
"There's a style of the highest grade professional in Menshikov. I saw his performance in London, in "Esenin and Isadora". The play was the hit of the season. The drama of non-communication of two great lovers (one was strangled by hempstring, the other - by a chiffon scarf) is solved mercilessly straight. At the English stage the Poet (Oleg Menshikov) speaks only Russian, Isadora (Vanessa Redgrave) responds in English. What magnetism and something besides technique, you must have to make the audience hold its breath and listen to poems and confessions in a foreign language! "The Song about a Dog" - the poetry is untranslatable not only due to language barrier: as if in Russia the poet found understanding! Without make-up, brown-eyed, dark-haired contemporary actor, foolishly rocking on a chandelier over the whole stage like a pendulum, understood and revealed the irresistible essence of every poet's earthly destiny - Misunderstanding and Superunderstanding. That strangled the poet. I came to the performance invited by Vanessa and left it staggered by Menshikov".

(from the book by Elga Lyndina "Oleg Menshikov", Moscow - Panorama, 1999)

About the performance

Photo album

The play by Martin Sherman "When She Danced"