Notes on Lev Dodin, Maly Theatre

Here are some of my notes from 2004 that I wrote regarding Lev Dodin, Maly Theatre. Enjoy.
-David

I finally got my hands on “Dodin and the Maly Drama Theatre: Process to Perfomance.”Some of my favorite stuff...-The Introduction by Simon Callow. It alone is incredible and almost single handedly gives or restores faith in theatrical possibilities.-For The Devils, the actors rehearsed three years and read 240 books as part of their immersion. -Many of the descriptions of the productions sound almost impossible – “Platonov” for example, with its behavioral combinations of music and dance would require everything we just are not “prepared” to do here in America as actors, individually or collectively. See below.-Quote from the book – “The Russian notion of the “life of a production” is particularly relevant for Dodin’s theatre where organic development and maturation are understood to be paramount.” (Their understanding and experience of “organic development and maturation” is not the same as ours! See the above – 3 years rehearsal and 240 books preparation, then three more years in production before the actors “felt relatively ready,” then three more for it to settle.). Overall it makes you question everything, and I mean everything, we think and do with our theatre in America. Dodin and his company did something we hardly know of or can fathom. Read the book if you get a chance. I can’t wait to read “Journey Without End.”

Inspired by reading the stuff on Dodin, I finally got around to watching “An Unfinished Piece for the Player Piano,” the 1977 film by Nikita Mikhalkov based largely on “Plantanov.” All I can think is that Russian actors must read the words of a script (or story), then imagine the circumstances and events from which those words might have arisen, construct a series of actions based on those events and circumstances, which the words then in turn can become part of. Whereas American actors, read the words and then construct a series of actions based on the literal meaning of those words and then use events and circumstances to make it “natural.”
As for the film itself – Among other things, I thought it was great how cinematically the setting, the environment, gradually, as the action progressed and the characters do what they do, drink, tell stories, play, touch, dance, went from being this literal place with overgrown shrubbery, insects, heat, and rain, to being a surreal and poetic place, serving as both hindrance and facilitator for the characters, right down to the final shot on the river with the fabulous morning light reflecting in the ripples. The light, the physical space, the views, the objects, played out symbiotically with the actors. Kind of like the descriptions of Dodin’s or Nekrosious’ sets, which have an immediate and tangible affect on the actors besides simply being a “setting” for the audience to understand something, i.e. place, time, metaphor, etc