“The theater allows us to think about those whom we love, but whom we forget to tell about it”

Psychologies: Is an actor different from a person of another profession? Is it true that actors are people with a special psychotype?

Yuri Grymov: A person who is able to pretend and grimace is not an actor. The actor has a completely different psyche. Of course, professional skills are necessary, but without internal content they are useless. A good actor is a diagnosis.

Do you believe in the therapeutic function of theater? Does art heal?

The therapeutic effect of the theater, of course, exists. Theater heals. The relationship between the viewer and the performance and the actor with the character is very personal and intimate, each has its own. They are rarely spoken about. There, a few centimeters between the edge of the stage and the auditorium, magic happens. At each performance of Matryoshka on the Roundness of the Earth at the Modern Theater, both the audience and the actors cry. Each about something different, but I believe that these are tears of purification.

Pushkin writes: “I will shed tears over fiction” — it seems to me that this is the very idea of ​​cleansing tears, which the ancient Greeks called catharsis. This emotional shake-up helps to stop in the frantic pace of the metropolis and think about something more important than endlessly making money. Think about those whom we love, but whom we forget to tell about it.

It is believed that in the era of gadgets, the theater remains that rare place where the viewer can be alone with his thoughts, experience real emotions. What is the magic? Is it possible to understand what makes people come to dark halls in the evenings and empathize with invented stories?

Spectators come, firstly, to look at people like themselves. Although I met people in the hall who can hardly take their eyes off the phone: during the performance, they still periodically glance there, check instant messengers. I think it’s a symptom of ill health.

Secondly, people come to see the miracle that is happening here and now. This is direct emotional contact, akin to contact between parents and children. The extent or strength of this contact is difficult to measure. But these relationships exist.

Theater is able to give emotional contact, cinema — not always. Cinema is still closer to entertainment, especially today. Theater is the older brother of cinema. And sometimes it seems to me that the audience does not fully understand that there are living people on the stage. Of course, they are aware of this, but they do not always remember this during the performance. This is what allows you to feel like a child again and believe in a miracle.

Shakespeare created the metaphor «the whole world is a theater», which we still use today. Do you consider it dangerous to treat yourself as an actor on stage?

I don’t think theater is fiction or antics. Theater is a reflection of life, so a good performance may not look like life at all, but the emotions you experience will be very strong.

In the theatre, there is another kind of truth—the stage truth. An actor who is killed on stage gets up and bows five minutes later. Death is not always imitated by murder and blood. It can be shown through seemingly strange decisions. But, woven into the fabric of the performance, these stage techniques affect the viewer’s feelings more strongly. In my stage version of The Lower Depths, the «clochards» turn into «nouveau riche», although we did not change a single word of Gorky’s.

And when a person who has everything says: “But why was I born?” — the meaning invested by the author is enhanced and revealed in a new way. After all, the realities in which we live have also changed. For me, the original text is sacred and inviolable, but it is not only possible, but necessary, to adapt it to the present.