'Marriage' Marks Revival of Playhouse, Actress

Well-wishers, fumbling with cascading bouquets, greeted and jostled each other gaily as they excitedly scurried up and down the backstage halls. The air was definitely laced with the sense that something very unusual had taken place.Just five minutes before, the curtain had dropped on the premier of a wildly comic and profoundly moving production of "The Marriage" at the Stanislavsky Theater. For a playhouse with the reputation of being just about Moscow's deadliest, the sight had been almost shocking. The standing-room-only crowd showered the cast with a prolonged, emotional ovation, refusing to let the actors leave the stage.In the midst of it all, a petite, wiry actress elicited noticeable swells in the cheers each time she tentatively stepped forward and bowed. She looked a bit tired, but mostly she seemed to be in a dazed state of disbelief.Back in her dressing room afterwards, Yelizaveta Nikishchikhina had already donned her street clothes -- a black turtleneck and black jeans -- and was receiving a steady stream of visitors. Shrieks and laughter were heard in the corridor, but Liza, as everyone calls her, was thoughtfully subdued as she gave an on-the-spot radio interview.'It's been 20 years since I had a similar feeling," she said slowly in her rough, gravelly voice. "It's been a very long wait."Nikishchikhina, 52, was one of Moscow's leading young actresses twenty years ago. She first hit the top in the late 1960s, starring in a searing interpretation of Jean Anouilh's "Antigone." But it was her stunning work in the title role of Maxim Gorky's "Vassa Zheleznova" that truly brought her stardom in the mid-1970s.Then it all collapsed.In separate incidents typical of the smoldering struggles between artists and the authorities during the Brezhnev era, the highly respected directors of both "Antigone" and "Vassa" were kicked out of the Stanislavsky Theater. That one-two punch effectively plunged the venue, and its actors, into two decades of mediocrity.For Nikishchikhina, there was relatively steady work, but it wasn't much more than that. Her audience never forgot her, but her draw remained the great early roles.But under the guidance of the recently appointed chief director, Vitaly Lanskoi, the Stanislavsky is again showing signs of life. Nowhere is that more evident than in "The Marriage," Nikolai Gogol's farcical play about the preparations for a wedding that never happens.When the young director Vladimir Mirzoyev told Nikishchikhina this spring that he wanted her in his upcoming production, she thought he had "some old lady" in mind. She was shocked when he offered her the role of the 27-year-old bride-to-be.She wasn't alone.A tangible sense of reticence fell over the opening night spectators when Nikishchikhina first appeared as the dreamy, slightly giddy heroine. But as Mirzoyev's unorthodox approach became clearer -- every female role is played in doubles by two actresses -- the doubts began to fade.And as Nikishchikhina started gaining confidence, she put a lock-grip on the audience that didn't let up until the show was long over. If it wasn't her most subtle performance ever, it may have been her most electric.The actress was back in the spotlight. And her fans, who had waited right along with her for this moment, let her know in no uncertain terms. Rolling peals of laughter greeted her every move.A month later, Nikishchikhina still doesn't trust her renewed success. She talks instead about the 20-year drought when she essentially played "nothing," and of the difficulties of toiling for 36 years in the "theater of socialist realism."But "The Marriage," she says, is really about transitions and new beginnings. Maybe that's why it seems like the perfect thing for her to be playing."The Marriage" closed for the season after a handful of June performances, but it, and Liza Nikishchikhina, will be back when the new season opens in September.