Artistic director of “Moderna” Yuri Grymov told “RG” about the play “Animal Farm”

The first premiere of the “Modern” in the new season will be “Animal Farm” in your production. Orwell, to put it mildly, is not the most obvious author for the theater, why did you decide to take on this story?

Yuri Grymov: The Modern Theatre is different in that 96 percent of our repertoire is plays that are not shown anywhere else. We did not plan this on purpose, it just happened that way. For example, we are the first theatre in the world to obtain the rights to Huxley’s Brave New World – this play has been running to full houses for seven years. I have been looking at the dystopian genre for a long time, but Orwell is especially interesting to me because he often spoke about freedom. Although, as a cultural scientist by my first profession, I understand well: freedom is a relative thing, depending on what you put into this concept.

By the way, do you know where the Orwell statue is? At the entrance to the BBC headquarters in London. He wrote Animal Farm there, right at his desk, for which he was reprimanded. But here’s what’s interesting: his name is written on the front of the statue, and Orwell’s quote is inscribed on the wall behind: “If freedom means anything, it is the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.” These words were written for the BBC staff.

At some point, Orwell was suddenly remembered: for several years in a row, his novel “1984” topped all sorts of sales ratings. What do you think is going on?

Yuri Grymov: Just two months ago, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov spoke at a meeting of the UN Security Council. Did you hear his speech? He quoted Animal Farm: “All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others.” By that time, we had already gotten down to the business of putting on a show, announced it – and this coincidence surprised me very much. In general, many political programs have recently begun to frequently recall Orwell. I think this is directly related to the fact that the world has gone mad – the whole world, without exception.

I have long been interested in history, and last season we premiered “We Don’t Need Flowers” – about the Nuremberg Trials and the Spandau prison, where the top SS, the elite close to Hitler, was kept. When we released the play, everyone asked me: why do we need the Nuremberg Trials and Nazi Germany? And then President Vladimir Putin makes a statement that it is necessary to pay special attention to history lessons and increase the number of hours devoted to the fight against Nazi Germany! That is, you need to know the enemy by sight. And immediately all the talk – should we, shouldn’t we – ended.

The play “We Don’t Need Flowers” is about the Nuremberg Trials and the prison where the top SS officers were held. Photo: courtesy of the Modern Theatre

So, the theatre can foresee the future?

Yuri Grymov: It is true – the theatre is always a little ahead of reality. But believe me, I am not sitting in agony – what to stage next? It is just that you live in a certain context, and works come to you that are in tune with what is happening today or will happen tomorrow. With Orwell, we apparently also guessed right: sales opened three and a half months in advance – and all the tickets are already sold.

What is the biggest challenge in working on this premiere and what do you want to talk about with the audience first?

Yuri Grymov: The main characters of “Animal Farm” are animals, and this is a big challenge for the theater and actors, because it is very easy to fall into a children’s matinee. This is the main danger and difficulty.

Orwell has been mentioned a lot lately. I think it’s directly related to the fact that the world has gone mad – the whole world, without exception.

In general, for me this performance is primarily about the fact that I am for evolution and against revolution. I do not share the ideas of 1917, when the coordinate system was broken and a dubious regime came to power. And the very recent events that we have witnessed – the collapse of the Soviet Union and how it happened… In March 1991, in an all-Union referendum, the country voted to preserve the Union, but in December of the same year, contrary to this decision, the USSR ceased to exist. I believe that this is another major catastrophe of the 20th century!

I was amazed when I learned that in the process of staging the play “We Don’t Need Flowers”, you studied all the volumes of the Nuremberg Trials and all the archives associated with it…

Yuri Grymov: Once I decide to stage a play, I never open it again. I read everything that is parallel to it and around it. Yes, I read the entire Nuremberg Trials – and it was a shock. In my opinion, Nuremberg is the main event of the 20th century. There was no fascism for exactly those ten months that the trial of the Nazis lasted, immediately after – everyone was waiting for a renaissance.

While preparing this performance, I found a guard at Spandau – he was a young man when Rudolf Hess, Hitler’s right hand man, was in prison. And this now military historian, Colonel Alexei Stepanov, told me how in the 80s they asked to reinforce the police at Spandau because young men came to the prison shouting Nazi slogans, and elderly women spat in the guards’ faces. The Spandau prisoners were expected to be free! And if, say, Hess were released, it would be easy for him to start this story again. So fascism never went away. We must remember this.

If possible, let’s move on to more mundane issues. Going to the theater in Moscow today is very expensive. And by the way, your tickets are not cheap either…

Yuri Grymov: Theatre is a luxury that you can afford. I don’t want to make excuses, but a performance is, in principle, an expensive story. Our “War and Peace” is about 70 actors, 20 members of the Sveshnikov Choir sing “live”, 423 costumes, 25 people service the performance. How much do you think it costs to dry clean 423 costumes? And not just dry cleaning – this is a historical costume, beads, embroidery…

A person who pays decent money when coming to “Modern” gets not only the performance itself for this amount. He gets live music – and in our foyer not just a pianist plays, we have Tony Karapetyan, one of the best jazz musicians in Russia. If you see tickets for 300-500 rubles, and this happens, ask yourself a question.

The key question

Today, classics are often “packaged” into a format that is convenient and understandable to the public. For example, a three-hour opera by Puccini is shortened to thirty minutes. There are many examples. Do you think this is possible?

Yuri Grymov: This is a disaster. Remember Huxley’s Brave New World: “We don’t need Shakespeare, Shakespeare is old stuff.” I am very much against this, this is the easiest way – to cut back, to squeeze, to follow the audience’s lead. Firstly, I believe that the audience should follow the lead of the theatre. And the state should invest as much as possible in culture and education.

I am sure that everything will change in our country if the main ministries in Russia are the ministries of culture and education. Remember what Churchill said when politicians came to him and said: there is a war now, let’s cut money for culture? He answered: what will we protect then? Today everyone is looking for a concept and an idea of ​​Russia, and I have had one for a long time – Faith, Hope, Love. Just three words. There is no other idea, it simply does not exist. But this is not a slogan, not a call! What slogans have we not heard – who believes in them now? These words should not be thrown around, they should be carried within you, thought about, immersed in their meaning and living, guided by them, like a compass. And yes – the sequence is correct. Faith. Hope. Love.

Reference “RG”

Yuri Grymov is a director, Honored Artist of the Russian Federation, Honored Artist of the City of Moscow, and Artistic Director of the Moscow Drama Theatre “Modern”. He has won over 70 Russian and international awards in theatre, cinema and television, and is a laureate of the Presidential Prize in Education.