(Nika Strizhak says a few words about her guest. A small study, a table at the window, two armchairs near the table. Oleg Menshikov is on the left, Nika Strizhak is on the right)

Nika Strizhak: Oleg, thank you very much for coming. I feel that it is a great honour for me! But I recall the words you once said about yourself. You said you were "reserved, patient and cheerful". The first one worries me a bit, but the latter two give me some hope. I really hope we'll have the latter. First of all I want to say this: I like this name very much, I like your name. Whose brilliant idea was it to give you this name? Do you know?
Oleg Menshikov: No.

NS: Did you ever want to find out?
OM: You know, I… No! I never did! Well… Now I realize that names mean something in our life. They name us, and with the names we receive some certain information. But the point is that I was never interested in this before. And it was like this: parents decided - let it be Oleg, OK, Oleg.

NS: Wasn't it because of some great-grandfather? Weren't you named after someone?
OM: No. Actually, we don't know much about our family tree. Mum and Dad were in Kiev not long ago and there they got to know their real surname. Well, because all that stuff, counter- revolutionaries… It turned out that my grandfather was a white guard, and he fought.

NS: Do you know his surname?
OM: I do now. It's Kirsanov.

NS: Kirsanov? Where did Menshikov come from then?
OM: No, that's Mum's father. And Menshikov is Dad's father. Well, so about great-grandfather… Grandfathers finished our family tree. And only now we find out what it really was, who it was.

NS: They say, the older a person gets, the more interested he becomes in his family tree. Do you feel it?
OM: Well, the older, maybe, and also the whole situation. Because no matter how badly I wanted to find any information before, I could have never found anything.

NS: Outstanding - Kirsanov! What a beautiful surname it is! Oh my God! What a beautiful surname!

***

The episode "Cheers for the honour!" from the film "Captain Frakass"

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NS: You know, I couldn't… I tried to get ready, yes… I couldn't find an answer to this question. Maybe it is obvious, but still, what attracted you to the direction? Why did you want to explain your point of view all of a sudden? To gather people and stage a performance? It is… How did you come to it?
OM: Well, you know, I always wanted to do it. It wasn't even a wish, but…

NS: How did all the direction thing began?
OM: I'm telling you the truth, I'm not showing off: I don't consider myself a director. Because as Anatoly Basiljev said, to become a director one should stage 10 performances. And only after that you can consider yourself a bit of a director. That's one thing. Then, it's a certain profession, a certain psychology, and I don't always agree with it. I mean, as a person. That a direction should be very cruel towards actors. Being an actor, I can be cruel to some point, but then there's a line I can't cross. Many nuances. And many other things. It is a completely different profession. It is close, it grows out of ours. Maybe, maybe I'll continue directing. I wanted… Like with "Wit From Woe", a play everyone knows by heart. I suggest we call it composing. We gather - people I like and who like me, who like each other - and we decide: "Guys, why not to spend a year and a half together? Let's compose, concoct, laugh, sing, rehearse, research…" Everything. We are not obliged, we are not under pressure like "when?", "where?", "what?". Only financial obligations, but they…

NS: …and disciplinary.
OM: But there are people who understand us. Although you know, many people don't… Yes, a leader is absolutely necessary here. And I can call myself a leader. Well, because every good actor (laughs, says "Sorry!") is a co-director of his role. I don't want to offend any great director, but every actor co-directs his role. Well, maybe, not every, but a lot of them. Therefore, I had the right of, so to speak, the last voice, or the first voice, whatever. I…

NS: The right of the final word.
OM: Of the final word, yes. I took upon myself some things, so to speak…

NS: Do you agree that leadership is a character strain?
OM: Yes, probably. But I think that a leader - I already said that once, and I liked the phrase a lot, so I'll repeat it again. It's mine.

NS: Be my guest.
OM: Leader is not a person who runs ahead of all with this alight thing - "look at him!" runs so fast that no one can catch up with him. Leader is the one who makes others run. Actually, he should run behind and urge others to run. That is the leadership.

NS: Yeah. Nevertheless, as far as I understand because of your leadership you have to give up one of your favourite habits. I'm talking about your dislike for rehearsals. Now you can't do without them!
OM: No, I'll tell you this: I like rehearsals when I stand offstage. I don't like walking onstage.

NS: And do actors like rehearsals?
OM: There are so few of them!

NS: "Oh, there are few of us, and no one likes rehearsing!"
OM: No, all of them want to rehearse so much! Sometimes it makes me…

NS: …wonder.
OM: Wonder - is not the right word. Why is that so? What is it? I believe that if a rehearsal goes bad, I never arrange it at all. It's not that in this case we all leave. We sit down - we have a great terrace there, we made it ourselves. We can talk. We can stay offstage till the end of the day. Three hours, four, five, six. There are people for whom only practice exists, the only thing they need is rehearsing. I am not like that. One should understand, one should talk, and only then, only then… Anatoly Alexandrovich Vasiljev says, the play should be discussed; one should play it right on the chairs - to put the chairs in a circle and play. It's not necessary to stand up, jump, run anywhere.

NS: And were you pleased when Vasiljev said very nice fair words about your "Woe From Wit"?
OM: Of course. Of course, because first, Vasiljev is… you'll swim and swim but you'll never ever reach him. Then, he is an enormous chapter in the history of Russian culture. Moreover, he has his own theatre, and it is not a traditional theatre. So of course, when he said those nice words, I was pleased. And they were really nice because they weren't said straight to me, but to someone somewhere.

NS: And without any hope they'd reach you.
OM: Absolutely.

***

The episode "Who are the judges?" from the performance "Woe From Wit"

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NS: On the playbill I see the title "Kitchen", I see the cast, and I see you among the actors, and I want to watch it, I want to get surprised. In a positive way. By the way, do you like to surprise people?
OM: You know, I'd be very happy if you were surprised. I don't know how this can define the significance of a performance, but I guess it's great anyway. Frankly speaking, I like it when people surprise me, but it's not important.

NS: They surprise you?
OM: Yes.

NS: Right.
OM: Well, when you know a person is like this, and then suddenly you realize that there are much more there - that's interesting, of course. And as for theatre and cinema, I am pleased, when it happens, but I never make it my aim.

NS: Of course, it can't be an art category.
OM: Yes. If it happens - that's fine. I guess the more you want to surprise people, the more successful the performance is. I guess it's like this, if you try to find out what success is. And to surprise… I realized that announcing my work on the modern play… It's obvious that the thing Maxim Kurochkin made up after all is hard to be called a modern play, because the story becomes timeless at some point. I realized that it would not be normal, so to speak. So in any case we expected some excitement in the audience, not necessarily surprise, but some interest.

NS: Some special attention. I recall now, that when you brought "Woe From Wit" (to St. Petersburg), it was rather strange to watch the reaction of the audience. When people laughed, I realized that they heard the line for the first time.
OM: Yes, that's right…

NS: As for as I understand, "Kitchen" is also based on some serious piece of literature, right? "Nibelungenlied". Does the audience need to know it?
OM: I'll tell you this: we have no right to demand the knowledge of the source from the audience. First, because you'll never read it unless you are a specialist and have some special interest, study this field. Second, after all people come to the performance, not some centre eliminating illiteracy. Theatre should be theatre, and there should be performance there. It is great if someone knows "Nibelingenlied". That's great. But…

NS: It'll be great if they read the book after the performance.
OM: It'll be even better. But of course, there is much odd there. Look, we began to work; Maxim and I worked on the play for a year and a half. Of course, it was he who wrote.

NS: I guess one can get to hate the co-writer after such a long period!
OM: Surely the things, we thought were normal and clear, were not necessarily clear to others. But as we were totally absorbed in this work, all the characters are like our relatives now. Of course we might have made some mistakes, but after all, we started all this to make mistakes.

NS: After all, the creator has all the rights, right?
OM: Well, of course. We do not disturb anybody, we don't offend anybody, we don't frighten anybody with anything. We do what we think is right. If it's interesting for you - you are welcome, if it's not - well, go somewhere else.

***

The episode "Well, listen for my version then. Twenty years ago…" from the performance "Kitchen"

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NS: And what makes a play worth staging?
OM: You know, now I'll repeat myself again, the situation was rather unusual, I didn't get the play. I got…

NS: You began to construct it.
OM: That's it. I wanted this: for some reason everything should happen in a kitchen. And the kitchen should be in a castle. So that's…

NS: And the castle is on the island, and the island is in the ocean.
OM: No, we didn't go that far. No-no. We had a story, that a new waiter comes, and a very interesting - in my opinion - situation starts happening there. But when Maxim came, he didn't know. I asked him to bring his plays, because I'd read a couple of them, but I asked him to bring the others. He came. I said, "Maxim, the situation is like this - there is no such thing in our country. I have an offer: I place you an order, I give you a theme, and you write a play." Well, he said: "Give me three days." I said to him: "OK, go. You have three days."

NS: I remember Mikhalkov's film "The Slave Of Love"…
OM: It's true… And then he came and said, that I could have given him three days or thirty minutes. No one declines such offers. And we began to concoct, so to speak. Thus, there was no play. It was being born. He brought Nibelungs there, for I didn't intend to.

NS: So you want to say you can pretend that "we also write plays"?
OM: No, not we.

NS: "We just supervise", right?
OM: "We compose music with our boss" is a phrase of the same kind.

***

The episode "So it's easier to fulfill a dream of the whole mankind, than a dream of one person" from the performance "Kitchen"

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OM: Because of my theatre experience I can just… Of course, Maxim is a young man. I can advise some things. Character features, some scenes. Playwrights used to come to the theatre. I don't mean, they visited it. They worked in the theatre, they wrote there. They were artists, they knew all the artistic stuff. It is necessary, because life spreads all of us. And it does the same with playwrights, but they must know the theatre rules. There are lots of them. There can't be ten people onstage, when only two of them talk. What will the rest eight do? And playwrights should know certain rules. They should know how to do it. I think that Maxim… One should talk to him about it of course, it is a serious experience for him. I don't mean myself but the whole process of making a play. We have so many people - a designer, a costume designer, a composer, 15 actors, our theatrical organization. I guess the making of the play was all that, when the actors… He came to all the rehearsals, he rewrote my final monologue. We had a first night of the play in Kiev, and before the Moscow first night he brought me a page and a half of my monologue, which was completely re-written. It was like this. We still re-write.

NS: That's what I think, it's interesting. Dear viewers, please, come to the theatre often, because the performances are different.

***

The episode "We should kill him" from the performance "Kitchen"

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NS: I think if a person wants to make a film, he watches other directors' films, which are great. And he has some favourite style. I guess it's the same with the theatre. Can you say that there is such a director, whose style you want to embody onstage?
OM: You know, I don't have, of course I can't name one person… I think now I calmed down about this name, I am talking about Fellini, but I… There was a period of five or six years when I was, as they say, addicted. I was absolutely crazy about Fellini, there was only one director for me, only one cinematograph, Fellini's cinematograph, nothing else interested me at all. Maybe it is somewhere… On the other hand, what excites me is, for example, a really tough story, calculated and brilliantly performed like, let's say, "The Deer Hunter". The cinematograph, the genre, the language seem to be absolutely incompatible, but nevertheless… I don't know, no… I don't have one… And Chaplin - he is simply mind- blowing, one can just go crazy.

***

The episode "You love Chaplin that much!" from the performance "'N' Nizhinsky"

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OM: No, I'm telling you, I'll start to recall now…

NS: It's strange that all your examples are from the film-industry.
OM: From the film-industry, and the theatre…

NS: Why didn't you go in for film-making then?
OM: Oh, noooo, I won't do that.

NS: Is it scary?
OM: No, it's not scary. It's not… Well, why won't I? If I realize that I can be a film-director… One should think cinematographically.

NS: How is that?
OM: With frames… Well, I don't know. Yup, with frames. You know, I acted more in films than in a theatre, but somehow nature pushes me there. They even offered me something concerning film- making. In my opinion, they had no grounds for that. They did it for no particular reason, to be able to say later: oh, look, now he makes a film! But it doesn't interests me very much. I don't even have any secret wishes I don't tell anyone like "I really want to make a film". No. Absolutely not. To act, yes, with good directors. I kinda miss it already, it's time, but…

NS: You miss it?
OM: Yes, why not? Last time I acted two years ago.

NS: How time flies! But I understand, I think as a viewer, the film is rather new for us.
OM: Yes, yes.

***

The episode "Cheers, Marie" from the film "East-West"

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NS: We'll stop here. Watch the next part in a week.

"At Random". Part 2.