Alyona Yakovleva: "Theater is forever, because it's a living history"

Christmas and New Year holidays is the period of premieres and tours for theaters. The actress of the Moscow Academic Theater of Satire, Honored Artist of Russia, People's Artist of the Russian Federation Alena Yakovleva told Vestnik Kavkaza about her New Year's plans and shared her vision of the development of the Russian theater.

- What are your plans for New Year's Eve?

- I will spend the New Year's Eve at work - I will have two performances in the beautiful city of St. Petersburg. I could fly back to Moscow at night, but I would not want to be struck by the fate of the character of the film 'The Irony of Fate'. So I'll stay there, take a stroll through Palace Square, and came back on January 1, because I will perform in Moscow on January 2, 3 and 5. We do not have a vacation, we work.

- You mentioned the 'Irony of Fate'. Do you think such films should be streaming for the New Year to continue the tradition?

- There are no films better than these ones. I grew up on that quality of humor. I came to the Satire Theater when there were a lot of people there who really knew about it - Andrei Mironov, Anatoly Papanov, Olga Aroseva, Vera Vasilyeva, Spartak Mishulin, our great art director Alexander Shirvindt, Mikhail Derzhavin.

The film 'Grandads-Robbers' can not be imagined without Evstigneev, Nikulin, 'Ivan Vasilievich changes profession' - without Yuri Yakovlev. This is a comedy of the highest class, so I think children should watch it today, although they have a different source of information, gadgets. My 25 year old daughter grew up on these films. I'm not retrograde, I love modern things, the only thing I cannot stand is vulgarity in theater and cinema.

-  In your opinion, what is the historical era for Russian theater now?

- As long as I can remember, they have said that theater will disappear soon. The theater is forever. Because it's a living history. Movies are math after all. They can be more interesting in something, they have more extensive means of expressiveness, but the theater took a great step forward. Now there is a trend towards the western theater, but it is cold. Our theater is soul and nerves. Nobody in the world knows how to do it. American and European actors have a wonderful technique, but we put our soul.

For many years I was in the play 'Katerina Ivanovna' at the 'Modern' theater. The foreigners said: "We do not understand how you work, you just have to die after that. You are tearing yourself up so much, turning yourself inside out for three or four hours, which is even scary. "

I do not really like to solve puzzles in the theater. I want to have a living emotion in the theater, so that they make me cry, laugh, empathize. Now they try to combine the European theater and ours. Some people succeed in it, some do not. When they succeed - it's great, like in the play 'Quay' in the Vakhtangov Theater, where my dad [Yuri Yakovlev], Yulia Konstantinova, Maksakova and Etush played. They combined acting skills and a soul of the Russian actor, everything was united there. And when a performance has no internal reinforcement, it's boring for me. I can watch it, but it does not touch me. I do not like naked bodies on the stage, I do not understand turning the classics upside down, because Dostoevsky or Gogol cannot be asked how they would react to this, and their writings contain an author's worldview. Why it is necessary to get into the psychology and ideology of the author? I think this is wrong.

- Can you name contemporary directors and actors, who in your opinion determine the face of the Russian theater?

- Of the known ones - Zhenya Mironov, Yulia Peresild, Chulpan Khamatova. Olya Prokofieva and Tanya Augshkap, my friends, great actresses. Of the young actresses - Olya Lerman, who worked for us. The Maly Theater is famous for its classics, now I'm going to see 'The Visit of the Old Lady' with Lyudmila Titova. It's always interesting when you see good acting. For me, the theater is interesting not only for directing, because a stage direction can be extremely diverse, I'm really interested in acting.