Perpetual doubt and search: if he says “yes”, it is always followed by the “but”. Head of the famous actors’ workshop, Pyotr Fomenko thinks outside the box, loves to blow up the situation and set it off in an unpredictable direction. Once expelled from the studio of MAAT (Moscow Academic Art Theatre) for “hooliganism”, he is now a living vindication of Stanislavsky’s system and custodian of a theatre whose repertoire pivots on Russian classics, yet which does not abolish hooliganism. One of the most influential figures in modern Russian drama art celebrates his 80th birthday, abstaining from interviews or altiloquent, though.
Unpredictable, full of paradoxes, he says neither “yes” nor “no”, prefers suspension points to a full stop, and hides a smile in his formidable mustache. Petr Fomenko is a master of indirect ways. He came to the theatre from the music world: before graduating from GITIS and MAAT studio school, he also got music diplomas from Gnesina Institute and Ippolitov-Ivanov Music School, majoring in violin. Now his performances are described as lyrical symphonies. Critics admit he stages pieces as though conducting a big orchestra, following the laws of musical dramaturgy.
His orchestra is called “Fomenkoes”. They are like champagne spray or air-balloons – apples that do not fall far from the tree. As loyal disciples of their teacher, they took on airiness, archness and magic from him – sheer theatrical energy which he himself self-critically calls “the energy of error”. Yet it is capable of working miracles.
“At some moments you may suddenly fly with him,” says Honored Actress of Russia, Ksenia Kutepova.
Fomenko’s trademark airiness is based on meticulous work on the text: here they read and recite it for years groping for the right intonation.
“We pay great attention to every letter, every word,” explains Honored Actress of Russia Madlen Jabrailova.
Based on these reviews, Pyotr Fomenko creates his own director’s blend. Being a live substance like the yeast, it has been used by actors to bake their bread for decades.
“Fomenko sees something more in the theatre than just a majestically exquisite amusement, though the latter is always present in his performances,” says theater historian Aleksey Bartoshevich.
Only by the age of 60 did Fomenko finally get his workshop where performances are played and staged by his disciples, while prior to that he went for an unsteady genius. His Tarelkin’s Death staged in Mayakovsky Theatre was closed for censorship reasons: 10 years in Leningrad, a couple of seasons in Tbilisi. Intense psychology, close-up views and actor’s work with the author’s text – Fomenko refined that technique at TV where he produced performances after Pushkin and Tolstoy. Here Oleg Yankovsky and Leonid Filatov, Alexander Kalyagin and Margarita Terekhova got into his orbit.
“He once gave me a piece of advice I was pondering for quite a long time, ‘Do it more sentimentally, don’t be afraid of sentiments’,” recalls People’s Artiste of the USSR Mark Zakharov.
Pyotr himself is fearless in this sense, because each remembers his early years and his or her first love at his performances. People love, weep and melt in the movies of filmmaker Fomenko as well. Alas, he made only three films: For the Rest of My Life, Travel in an Old Car and Almost a Funny Story.
In any work of Pyotr Fomenko one can find a beautiful “she-goat”. He never forgets that theatrical performance is actually a frivolity.
“He gives the following assignment: this has to be played tenderly with a light flair of idiotism. He is dead earnest saying that. Theatre does not exist without idiotism,” says People’s Artiste of RSFSR, Lyudmila Maksakova.
Ms Maksakova complains about the fact that Pyotr communicated his yearning for theatrical perfection to her. In 1993 he staged in the buffer zone of Vakhtangov Theatre his hooligan version of Guilty without Fault, won the State Award, was granted the title of People’s Artiste, and opened his own theatre in the same year. This is when everybody recognized stage director Fomenko as genius. During the recent decade his theatre has had a house-warming party, the fourth generation of “Fomenkoes’ has been bred, while their master has become skilled at the art of shunning irksome fame in order to have enough time to nurture disciples and to remain loyal to the beloved authors: Pushkin and Tolstoy, Ostrovsky and Chekhov, Yuli Kim and Boris Vakhtin. He stages with passion as always and believes in what he teaches.
Source: TV Channel “Kultura”
