A Muscovite on the Banks of the Charles

Russian director Yuri Yeremin makes his American Repertory Theatre debut this season with a production of Ivanov by Anton Chekhov. Currently Mr. Yeremin is Artistic Director of the Moscow Pushkin Theatre and a professor of acting and directing at the ART/MXAT Institute for Advanced Theatre Training. He was Artistic Director of the Central Soviet Army Theatre for seven years and has directed in Russia, Europe, and the United States, winning many national and international awards for artistic excellence including the title of People’s Artist of Russia. He has toured extensively in Europe, Canada and the United States with his award-winning production of Ward No. 6, based on Chekhov’s short story. As a director, Mr. Yeremin often transcends from realism to heighten the emotional power of the text.

Jennifer Roberts: Why did you choose a career in the theatre?

Yuri Yeremin: It was such a long time ago, I don’t remember the real cause. I was born in a very small, old Russian town and we didn’t have any theatre there. The biggest event of our lives was when a theatre would come to our little town. I always went to those performances and thought about them long afterward. When I graduated from high school, I knew I had to go to theatre school, so I went to the GITITS in Moscow to study acting. After a year I went into the military and spent three years in the army in Siberia. When I came back, I had the feeling that what I was doing wasn’t too serious, that being an actor was interesting, but not serious enough. At that point I looked at directing.

JR: Do you take a different approach when you are directing American actors?

YY: Ten years ago I had a good experience working with American actors at the Hartford Stage Company with Paper Gramophone, a Russian play by Alexander Chervinsky. It was such a pleasure working with American actors because of their belief in the director and their openness to new methods of directing, learning, and rehearsing. This openness is something Russian actors don’t have. Maybe that’s just the American mentality in general.

JR: Your acting classes are based on Stanislavsky. Is that the way you were trained?

YY: Stanislavsky’s system is the basis for all Russian teachers, but every good teacher has his own artistic approach. The audience can hear and see immediately when an actor is not alive on stage. The only way the theatre can survive is if it’s alive, if the audience believes what the actors are doing. The most exciting moment is when the audience forgets it’s in a theatre. It doesn’t matter if the production is realistic or metaphoric; if the audience believes, that’s real theatre.

JR: How do you, as director, work with actors so they are alive and believable?

YY: First, the director is someone who interprets the text. The director brings the concept. Why are we doing this play? The production must correspond to some thought but the director cannot do it on his own. A director works with people – smart and talented people. You can’t just press and push them, you have to make them believe in what you do. The most important gift a director needs is the talent to inspire actors to use their imaginations. I use one of Stanislavsky’s last discoveries – the action analysis of the character. To work on any part, the actor has to know everything about his character. Whatever you know about yourself, that’s what you need to know about this character. Second, there has to be some action on the stage. It’s not simply words; anyone can say lines. You can pick people off the street and ask them to memorize a line, then block them on stage, and it will do. But the dialogue of theatre starts with an actor who can perform the action inside himself in such a way that it affects his partner.

JR: What is your concept of Ivanov?

YY: Art deals only with unresolved problems. When the problem is resolved, it’s no longer art. The problem of serfdom was resolved, so now you don’t see any plays in Russia about serfs. The problem of “to be or not to be” is not resolved; we want to see Hamlet because everyone asks that question. The question of Ivanov: What does it mean to become disillusioned? How does it feel not to have a goal in life? That’s Ivanov’s problem, and that’s our problem. That’s why the play lives.

JR: What do you like most about directing?

YY: Rehearsals. Rehearsals. My favorite thing ever.

JR: Not dramaturgs?

YY: (laughs) Now you are provoking me! How can I say my favorite thing is working with dramaturgs? The actors would kill me! The truth is I love rehearsals because in rehearsals you work with everyone. Theatre is a human profession.

Jennifer Roberts is a first-year dramaturgy student at the A.R.T./MXAT Institute for Advanced Theatre Training.