Director of the Lenkom Theater Mark Varshaver.
Photo: Viktor GUSEYNOV
The performance of the show “Memorial Prayer” was scheduled for October. On the stage of the oldest Habima Theater in Israel. However, protests began in the Promised Land against the arrival of artists from Moscow…
Actor Anatoly Bely, who left for Israel last year, vowed to stop the tour. He posted several posts on social media urging him to sign a letter against his Moscow colleagues’ tour: “They want to take the Lenkom Theater – read Z-com – on tour and stage the performance of the Memorial Prayer (read speculation on a Jewish theme ) on the stage of the Habima Theater. Blasphemy … And most importantly – how to make this shame does not occur?
I am really waiting for constructive answers and appropriate actions … “… The tour was canceled, although tickets for the performance were already being sold in full force. What is the theater’s reaction to this cancellation? We asked your Director Mark Warsawer.
– Unfortunately, there are elements – the language does not dare to call them people – who do not want one of the best theaters in Moscow to come to Israel. When we negotiated with the producer, they told us that the audience dreamed of seeing our performance. And sure enough, the sale of tickets for the “Memorial Prayer” went on for three days, the interest was enormous. But through social networks we began to receive threats. Bringing 100 people to Israel (artists plus a stage role) became too risky. There may be provocations. Therefore, we will postpone the tour until better times. Although 30 years ago “Lenkom” came to Israel, it was always very well received. Also, at one time, the director Mark Zakharov staged the “Memorial Prayer” at the Tel Aviv Chamber Theater. A very successful performance.
We hope that the situation in the world will change. We will go on tour, but a little later.
– Actor Anatoly Bely, who until recently worked at the Moscow Art Theater named after MV Chekhov: a theater located a few blocks from Lenkom …
– Bely’s position is, to put it mildly, strange. This attitude towards us and Russia comes from an artist who studied in Moscow (at the Shchepkin Theater School), did military service at the Theater of the Russian Army, and worked at the Moscow Art Theater, where he played the main roles. Our country gave him everything: education, a profession, a job… he fled (I can’t say otherwise) from Russia to Israel and hid there hoping to earn a lot of money. What else is there to comment?
– Were the artists of “Lenkom” upset by the cancellation of the tour?
– Our artists understood everything correctly: why take risks when there are threats of … pogroms? You can imagine: in Israel we were threatened with pogroms. This is absurd! By the way, in the performance “Memorial Prayer” one of the most powerful and touching scenes is the scene of the Jewish pogrom in the city. To what extent are both our performance and the work of Grigory Gorin relevant, if the topic of pogroms is still alive today? But the problem is not nationality. The main idea of Mark Zakharov’s performance is that there are good and bad people, as the interruption of our tour showed.
