Russian theater director
to spend fortnight at NIU

by Mark McGowan

Adolf Shapiro, among Russia’s leading directors of the legitimate theater and most-esteemed teachers of actors, will unveil this summer his production of Anton Chekhov’s “The Cherry Orchard.”

The play – Chekhov’s last – debuted 100 years ago on the stage of the legendary Moscow Art Theater, where it will live again for its centennial celebration. Shapiro’s selection to helm the play confirms the depth of his abilities and his regard.

Yet rehearsals for “The Cherry Orchard” will halt for two weeks next month. Shapiro has another group of actors with whom he’d like to work: Students in the NIU School of Theatre and Dance.

Shapiro will visit NIU from Feb. 17 through March 4, when he will lead a graduate colloquium, deliver a school-wide address, observe classes and, most importantly, spend considerable time with the 15 or so students he and his colleagues will take under their wings in Russia this summer.

Alexander Gelman, director of the NIU School of Theatre and Dance and a native of St. Petersburg, will serve as translator.

“What he and I thought when we were there last June was that it would be useful to get a little head start this year, and he was curious about the training our students receive here,” Gelman said. “It will enhance the Moscow experience for those going. As Adolf gets to know more about what we do here, he will have a better knowledge of the students.”

Gelman said much of the first two weeks of last year’s month-long trip – the first step in NIU’s relationship with the Moscow Art Theater School, founded a century ago by Stanislavsky – was consumed in the familiarization process. This year’s group, only one of whom made the journey last year, will enjoy that preparation months before they leave the United States.

They will bring a still-to-be-determined play to Moscow to perform at least twice on the school’s student stage. The actors will speak in English: Many in the audience understand the language, Gelman said, and a translator will help the rest.

NIU’s students also will attend “The Cherry Orchard,” he added.

Last summer’s Russian experience immersed 15 NIU students in the teachings of Stanislavsky, considered the father of actor training in the Western world. Stanislavsky spent several weeks in 1925 working with American actress Stella Adler, his only American student, who later would impart his teachings to such screen legends as Marlon Brando, James Coburn and Robert DeNiro.

Stanislavsky’s work also deeply influenced Sanford Meisner, whose technique for training actors is used at NIU. It’s no coincidence that the month in Russia offered an affirmation to the U.S. students, who could see reflections of the Moscow Art curriculum in their theater classes back home.

The Muscovite teachers similarly pushed the NIU students, sometimes through interpreters and often through wordless gestures, to harness everything their bodies could do with acting, singing, movement and dancing.

They analyzed material through the actions of the characters and worked to think, act and react as the characters would. They released tension through stretching. They came to realize it is acceptable for a director to “show” an actor how to play a part, an occasional taboo with U.S. actors but a more common practice elsewhere.

For each scene the students played, they first conducted “etudes,” or improvisations based on their early analysis of the script. Many etudes later, pausing between each to discuss as actors and audience what worked and what failed, they might discover the key to proceed.

Students worked on performing proper cartwheels, leaping over ropes into a tumbling position and jumping across tables. They also acted like animals, bouncing like frogs or slithering like alligators.

“I was impressed with how excited they were watching people learn, and how excited that got us,” graduate student Chris Hibbard said. “I walked into the room and wanted to grasp that knowledge. They brought such a sense of the unknown that we wanted to attack it.”

Shapiro has stirred those feelings in actors for decades.

For 30 years, he was the director of the Riga Youth Theatre in the Republic of Latvia. When the collapse of the Soviet Union turned Latvia into a country, however, state leaders closed the theater in a move to separate themselves from anything Russian. Shapiro moved to Russia and became the country’s preeminent freelance director.

He also is a former president of the international association of theater for youth – the organization’s official name is not in English – which has chapters in almost every country in the world.

“He is a major, major figure,” Gelman said. “Our students all fell in love with Adolf, and they all wanted him here.”

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