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Washington Post
International Trade-Off
By Dan Via
Friday, October 6, 2000; Page N32
The Maly Theatre of St. Petersburg, Russia, is one of the leading companies in all of Europe.
Classika Theatre of Arlington, though well-respected, only recently expanded its season beyond
children's productions. So just how did Classika Artistic Director Inna Shapiro talk Maly resident
director Yuri Kordonski into directing two Dostoevsky short story adaptations in a Shirlington
Village storefront?
What's Russian for "cojones"!
Actually, the more appropriate word would be "connections." As a young actress, Shapiro
trained alongside another up-and-coming actor-director, Lev Dodin, now artistic director of the
Maly Theatre. Looking to further Classika's cultural exchange program, Shapiro phoned Dodin
when the Maly troupe came to New York. "He said 'Let's think about something,'" she
remembers, "and that's how Mr. Kordonski's name came up."
During a recent call from St. Petersburg, where he returned following the opening of
Dostoyevsky's farcical takes on infidelity, Kordonski hints at the challenges that accompanied
the successes of the exchange. "T met four actors who are very very creative and full of energy,"
he says of his lively cast: Raquel Arradondo, Dave Baxter, Richard Kirkwood and Stephen
Shetler. At the same time, he expresses misgivings about the structure of American theater
training
"In Russia we have one teacher who leads the class during four or five years, so this person
creates the style of the class," he observes. "In America, [acting students] change professors
every three or four months and lake something from everybody." Kordonski found that the
Classika actors, who had not worked together before, lacked a common theatrical vocabulary.
This kind of obstacle could have been especially troublesome given the production's short
rehearsal period, but Kordonski found himself oddly liberated by the pressure and energized by
the spirit of his cast. "It made us be more precise in the work; every minute was precious. In
Russia, we used to rehearse half of a year, a year, sometimes two years but we'd spend a lot of
time just talking. It seems to be a lot of deep work but it's just an illusion," he chuckles.
Kordonski's experience in Arlington seems to have exemplified cultural exchange in its truest
form, affording him perspective on his own background in the tight-knit world of Russian theater
while giving him firsthand insight into the itinerant lifestyle of most American actors and the
concept of the 'day job." "[The American actor] works maybe all day as a waiter. So what makes
him come to the theater to rehearse?” he muses. "There could be just one explanation: the love
tor the profession." That's a passion that knows no cultural bounds.
Nadezjda Tarshis «The Jokes That Make Theatre»
Neva time, October, 9 1998
The Arlington Connection, September 13:19, 2000
Visiting Russian Director Stages Comedy
By BRAD HATHAWAY
'The roots of Shirlington's Classika Theatre are showing ... and it is a very good thing, too. This company,
formed by devotees of Russian theatrical traditions, originally specialized in children's shows. It has
expanded the repertoire to appeal to an adult audience while keeping some of the childlike simplicity that
makes its shows unique.
The company's latest, which opens the new season of its Adult Series, is a broad comedy built on such
stock situations as a man hiding under a woman's bed to avoid discovery by her husband.
Appropriately titled "Someone Else's Wife and the Husband Under the Bed," the evening is really two
short one-act versions of two short stories by Fyodor Dostoevsky. This is the same Dostoevsky who
produced the novels "Crime and Punishment" and "The Brothers Karamazov" which have been
successfully transferred to the stage.
In these two short stories, however, he isn't in the heavy morality mode of his major works. Instead, he is
using comedy and confusion while taking a fleeting glance at such less funny human emotions as
jealousy and pride.
The adaptation of these stories to the stage is by Yuri Kordonski, who traveled here from Russia where
he is a member of one of that country's most prestigious theater companies, the Maly Theatre of St.
Petersburg. Kordonski directs his own script as the first effort of a cultural exchange program between
Classika and the Maly Theatre that will see artists from each company traveling to the other's venue to
work, to teach and to learn.
What is on the stage in the newly redesigned Classika Main Stage on South 28th Street is somewhat
more intriguing in its first act than its second, but the two link together nicely into a single story. Two
gentlemen, played by Dave Baxter and Stephen Shetler with the broad-brush approach found at Classika,
attempt to gain access to an apartment house. Are they pursuing the same lady? In the second act they
are both in the same apartment, but are they both in the wrong one?
The comedy starts out under fairly tight control for Classika, where emotions are more openly displayed
and subtlety is avoided. The dark street setting, by Classika's Ksenya Litvak and lighted to great impact
by Cherie Siebert, imposes something of a hush on the antics of Baxter and Shetler.
By the second half, however, the lights are full up and the action is inside Raquel Arradondo's apartment
where the two suitors arc unwittingly trapped by a humbling husband, played as broadly as possible by
Richard Kirkwood.
Underlying much successful comedy from circus clown to mime, from Laurel and Hardy to "Saturday
Night Live" or from Jack Benny to Chris Rock, is the very human trait of denial — denying the reality of,
one's own inadequacies or the consequences of one's own actions. Kordonski builds the complications
on this trait in three of his four characters, the males. It is the woman whose character seems unburdened
by inadequacies and, thus, is the least developed. This gives Arradondo very little to work with other than
hysteria as the complications expand.
The cultural exchange program and the redesign of the Main Stage are not the only new features for
Classika this season. It also adds an experimental second stage for local young directors and actors and
a puppet theater. The first offering in the new Green Parrot Puppet Theatre, "The Princess and the Pea,"
will come at the end of this month and the first production in the experimental "Backstage Theatre" is
stated for December.
The Journal Newspaper
Classika's odd Dostoevsky
By CHERYL KENNY Special to The Journal
You figure the title of "Someone Else's Wife and the Husband Under the Bed" tells the tale - a comedy, a
bedroom farce. Then you read the fine print: adapted from short stories by Fyodor Dostoevsky. As in
"Crime and Punishment." Hmmm There are two stories, both set in 1850s Russia, and are linked by a
common character: A middle-aged man tormented by the suspicion his wife is having an affair. In the first
act, he is simply "the man in the coat," driven to skulking in the shadows of the St. Petersburg apartment
where he suspects his wife will join her lover. He meets a younger man there on a similar mission, and as
the men engage in a verbal pas de deux with questions, deceits and misunderstandings, we discover
their misgivings are true and, worse, they're connected.
In the second act, the cuckold is Ivan Andreyevich, in search of the apartment where he believes his wife
has arranged a tryst. The bumbling Andreyevich ends up in the wrong apartment to the distress of the
woman living there. When the woman's elderly husband returns unexpectedly, to avoid the disastrous
misunderstanding he is sure will ensue. Andreyevich hides under the bed - and finds he is not the only
one there.
There are some wonderful exchanges. At one point, Andreyevich, distressed by the lack of respect from a
younger man, demands, 'Do you know with whom you are speaking?" "Yes," the young man intones.
"With a man hiding under a bed." At another, the humiliated husband whines, "I may not deserve great
respect. But I am educated."
There's the inanity of the desperate husband worrying about getting his shoes wet as he prepares to hang
himself. And in Act Two is the scene, with the phlegmy, hemorrhoidal old man taking his potions,
splendidly played by Richard Kirkwood, which is laugh-'til-you-cry funny.
But there are times the hilarity becomes tiresome. Classika accurately describes the production as
"bringing ridiculousness to fever pitch" and, unfortunately, this level of madcap can wear thin. One
theatre-goer loudly complained during intermission that the first act 'has no plot and is so loud I have to
put my hands over my ears." While that criticism is overly harsh, in fact, there are times, especially in the
first act. when points are belabored and things start to drag.
Still, some scenes are wonderfully poignant. The end of the second act, when the humiliated Andreyevich
sings to an opera then takes his bows before a non-existent audience over and over again, is powerful,
even haunting. Kirkwood, who gives a hilarious performance as the disgusting old man in the second
story, also does a great job with the smaller role of the adulterous Bobynitsyn in the first. Kirkwood is
skilled at nonverbal expression - his derisive laughter in the face of the betrayed husband tells us more
than dialogue ever could.
Stephen Shetler plays the jealous husband with sometimes gut-wrenching self-belittlement. He gives a
convincing portrayal of each of us stripped to our weakest, most fearful selves.
The handsome young man in both stories is Dave Baxter, whose long scenes with Shetler in Act One are
particularly well-played. Raquel Arradondo is the first story's cheating wife, as well as the second act's
lady with two men under her bed. Both roles rely heavily upon wild eye-rolling and loud histrionics
Classika's play is directed by Yuri Kordonski, an actor and director with the world-renowned Maly Theatre
of St Petersburg. It is Kordonski who adapted the Dostoevsky stories for the stage.
''Someone Else's Wife..." marks the start of Classika's season in its newly configured auditorium, which
offers a larger stage and better visibility for its audience.