"Maximilian the Pole Sitter" at the Chekhov Art Theater got off to a rough start. It was supposed to open last season, but after director Mikhail Yefremov got into a scandalous physical altercation with the theater's deputy director, the project was halted. It finally opened in the fall of 1998, but before it was performed a half-dozen times, lead actor Sergei Shkalikov was found dead in his apartment of a drug overdose. Now the show has been brought out again with a new actor, Dmitry Brusnikin, in the title role.
I did not see Shkalikov's performance, so I cannot compare, but Brusnikin definitely brings something of value to this production. His interpretation of the sad Maximilian, a strange, self-destructive loner
who is visited by a stream of people who increasingly come to view him as something of a saint, has the weight of experience in it. I suspect that the death of Shkalikov, a young man who burned himself out mercilessly, had a major impact on Brusnikin's performance. If it was a tragic price to pay, that makes Brusnikin's achievement no less impressive.
The play by Ivan Okhlobystin is a significant step up from the writer's previous dramatic outing, "The Evil Woman, or the Cry of the Dolphin," a self-indulgent ramble about a good whore's adventures with a pair of drug addicts. "Maximilian" may show us a character who survived the vortex of that earlier play - he is still a drunk and a sarcastic scapegrace, but his inner struggle is of interest. There is, in both the play and Yefremov's direction, a good deal of genuflecting before the god of fashion. Pop stars, movie stars, Hari Krishna followers and Afghanistan war veterans flash through quickly and lightly, leaving behind few traces of substance. But something of importance happens when Maximilian's old friend Alik Gaziev (Sergei Veksler) - once a comrade in Afghanistan and now a Chechen rebel - is killed by Russian mortar fire. Maximilian's refusal to take sides, for the Russians or against the Chechens, is a moment of truth. The second act, especially, has some effective moments.
Brusnikin's portrayal of Maximilian's attempt to find grace within himself while the world surrounding him grows increasingly alien is moving and convincing. Yevgeny Mitta's effective set - an Oriental abode that comes apart to create various environments - is washed beautifully in Damir Ismagilov's lighting and backed by huge film images of nature scenes.
- John Freedman
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